Mess You Made

19.

Miguel.

What a mindfuck of a girl, man.

A living walking mindfuck, that's what she is. Definitively. To everyone.

But the recurring issue is that I'll happily be mindfucked by her, by the way. I think we've all concluded by that now. I'm setting it into stone. I'm not going to attempt to convince myself otherwise. Her mind works so specifically, she has all these stubborn niches that she holds tight to her chest like this strange line of defence. I want to know it all. Want to know her.

We fucked ourselves over in that parking lot, I think. In a bit of an undoable way. I realised it over the night when Benji eventually fell asleep next to me, and I vowed to stay awake for him so I did. The monsters that he think could come for him might not be real, but they feel real enough to him. I'll protect him from them either way, illusion or not. All I did was think about her.

I can't ever think about one thing for long. It's basketball, and then girls, and then the next sneakers I want (Nike Giannis in white, for the court— Jordan 1's maybe), cars, and the next NBA game. Or some stupid shit always going on in my head like molotov cocktails — my mind has never stayed still on one person for so many hours. Absolutely still and stuck on her. I didn't even know my brain could do that. I never even realised you can be capable of thinking about one sole person, for so many hours on end and not really get sick of it.

But there's so much to one person, if you think about it. Their scent, and their eyes and what they look like when they look at you. Sitting in someone's presence can tell you so much — or maybe fucking non-stop thinking about them for twelve hours after the fact does that. All the things they aren't telling you, all these stories they could have that nobody knows — especially this one girl than nobody knows. The whole town seems to understand well that you'd have an easier time cracking Fort Knox than getting close to the Adams sister.

I'm willing to do what it takes to be near her.

Even if she's arguing with me. Even if she's pretending like she hates me, even if she's fucking around with other boys — I don't care for any of it. I just want to be selfish, I want to be the one near her in a way they aren't. It's insane. How she had an innate ability to make you crave her presence once it's gone.

All I've ever had to do with girls is shake off commitment. They want it. They want me to be a boyfriend and to care for them eventually and so it's been a long game of trying, as politely as I can, to be rid of it — and then to get Malibu Adams to stop shoving me away and run and avoid me — the only thing that stops the panic in her eyes, is me promising her that I won't do any of that? That I couldn't give a shit about her, and that I won't ever? That I don't care, that I'm using her, that it's all shallow.

What the ever living fuck.

You ever seen a girl's eyes calm at the thought of not being tied to you? Yeah, me neither, man. I could fight a laugh as I think about it. The dysfunction is like a comfortable second skin to her. Unfortunately, literally, undeniably, the hottest girl too. She feels like a double edged sword and I seem to have very little apprehension about being stabbed here by Harlem's hottest, just keep her by my side.

I'm lying through my fucking teeth about the whole no strings thing here. I don't want it to last. I want her to want strings, want her to want me, want her to eventually like me more than she can bear to be honest. But she won't let me. Not like that. Her indifference towards everyone is too strong.

So keep it a secret, but this shitty friendship's going to be my saving grace. I'm not in it for no strings, fuck that — I want her in a way that nobody else has had her. And nobody gets to say they know her truly, or are friends with her. She can mess around as much as she likes, but I'm the only one around here with a no-strings friendship with her right now.