Sunburn 🌞 Dominic Fike

1.

I stretched as I made sense of my surroundings. I had left the window open last night and the breeze blew as the sun shined upon my stationary body. I refused to get up, it was the first day of summer, exactly what I'd been waiting for all year. I had made it through another year without anything terribly wrong going down, now I was waiting for a summer full of sleeping. But something that rushed to my head, as soon as I had adjusted to the new day, was isolation. My best friend phoebe had moved about a month ago, that made the summer daunting. No one to lay restlessly and laugh stupidly with. "Ok it's fine, i'll find a new friend" I told my self with hesitation. This wouldn't be that hard. "hey who even needs friends eileen" I thought, but the last month of school without her had made it apparent how much I depended on her and when she left the anxiety and depression picked up right where they left off and left me a spiraling mess. I groaned, but remembered that I had an entire summer ahead of me before I began my junior year. I sat up and decided to take my lazy mood elsewhere, I would go to my local vinyl/ coffee shop. I quickly made my bed and walked to my closet. I threw on some plaid patchwork pants and an oversized black sweater with my everyday jewelry, not bothering to brush my hair or do makeup. I left the house, I didn't have to worry about my mom because she was at work. I locked the door and stumbled out of the house and to the shop on the corner. Matt greeted me when the bells rang as I walked through the door, "Morning eileen" "morning matt" I responded already searching for music. "hey, don't get looking for music to fast i bet you haven't had breakfast yet. "yeah yeah whatever" I said as I sat at the bar in the back of the shop. "will it be your usual" "yep" i said smiling as he placed coffee in front of me. "So how are you" matt asked as I sipped my coffee. He was the dad I needed, my mom had raised me alone and I loved her with my whole heart but I needed my dose of Matt for the manly father figure I was deprived of. He was always there for me and sometimes was like an older brother, giving me advice and protecting me always. "I'm doing good, getting ready to enjoy my summer... how about you" I continued as I quickly finished my coffee and wandered to the racks of vinyls. "Doing fine, new guy moved in across the street. I saw him carrying an electric guitar , probably will try to recruit him to work here because we're understaffed." 

"hmm" I said as i wandered back to the bar interested  in this new guy. "what model guitar" I asked "eileen i couldn't have spotted the model from in here" matt spoke

"ok ok..was he hot" I quickly pressured 

"exactly the type of guy you'd be interested in, buttt i haven't spoken to him and unfortunately a lot of the type of guys you'd been interested in would skrew you over so who am I to tell if he is a boyfriend contender." 

"well I hope I meet him" I said smiling 

"be careful" 

"always am... anyways i'm out of here I have things to do" i said as i walked to the door 

"always a pleasure matt" i said smiling 

"same to you eileen" he said warmly as I walked down the street. 

Last night I had smoked when I'd gotten off of school, just a bit of weed to celebrate the summer and i could feel the effects as I started getting a migraine from the midday sun glaring down on me. Weed was about all I did now, after I'd gone through a shitty breakup all I had was drugs but as I went through the recovering process I realized drugs wouldn't get me where I wanted in life so I went through the painful process of cleansing my system. 

It was about 10:30 and I needed to find somewhere to relax.  I walked back towards my house, planning on spending the rest of the day there. That's when I ran into Jacob. Jacob was the classic dick in my grade at school and I immediately looked away hoping he wouldn't notice me. 

"Eileeeennn... brooo where are you headed" he said stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to talk to me. 

i sighed "headed home" i said trying to walk past him. "hey so I was thinking..." he said as he got in my way "Your into parties, wanna come to mine tomorrow night at 7?"

he was right i had been to my fair share of parties but that was back when I allowed myself to do copious amounts of drugs with dumb fucks who were higher then the sky, the new me wouldn't allow myself to go to a party that was just setting myself up for relapse. "sure see you there" I said as I walked towards my house, the only way I would make it home was if i lied and agreed to his stupid party. 

I spent the rest of my first day of summer In my house doing god knows what. My mom wouldn't be home until 10 tonight and It was 6 so that meant i needed to fend for myself and attempt to find food that would suffice. 

Normally on nights like this I would eat at Matt's place but tonight I just wanted to be home alone. I headed out of the house to get some random food from the local gas station. I walked below the darkening sky, and the bright street lights as I made my way to the gas station. I knew that I was craving frozen pizza so I went to the back and headed towards the exact pizza I always go for. As I prepared to reach for It there was a guy at the door. And I noticed he was taking the last one. "um excuse me, I like really really like that pizza, and uh I'm  really tough so I suggest you hand it over" I said leaning against the glass door beside the one he opened, attempting to look intimidating as the guy turned around. 

The first thing I noticed was he was hot. 

As fuck. 

He was my age and he had curly brown hair and a tattoo beneath his eye. Beautiful eyes too. unlike any human I'd seen before, he was the most beautiful human I'd ever seen. 

He looked into my eyes and paused for a minute. It felt like that second lasted forever. 

"normally I'd hand it over but because of how special this pizza seems to be to you, I think Im good"  he said 

"fuck" I mumbled pulling my hand through my hair and looking at my feet

"what we're you gonna do with it anyway" he asked me continuing the conversation 

"um eat it" I said obviously 

"well yeah, but what's so important about this pizza that you'd fight an innocent stranger for it" he said smiling 

"I'd hardly call you an innocent stranger.... buttt for your information I planned on enjoying that delicious pizza to a good horror movie and possibly smoking a blunt during that process" I described to this random hot guy. 

I played with my necklaces as he laughed at me. His laugh was holy. god. 

"then it seems like the only way to solve this problem is for us to share the pizza while watching a movie and smoking a blunt." he said as if it was obvious. 

"damn well I guess" i said taken aback

Then he started walking with the pizza to the register to pay

"you coming" he said looking at me still standing there in awe of him

"uh yea" i said jogging to the register 

i was excited at the prospect of this strange human, he was exactly what I'd been waiting for, what I'd been missing.