Mess You Made

34.

Miguel.

I cup a hand over the flame as I light the cigarette. Hang my arm off the open window of my car. A couple guys from the team were out fucking around at this bar — Bemelmans. St Carlyle's hotel, nice bar, upscale. We get free drinks because one of the guys' dad owns the hotel. They called once I left the gym and I thought fuck it because I knew if I was alone in my room, I'd have one of the bad nights. Wherever I was headed, the feeling was bad. I can't have another bad night.

I graze my hand over my steering wheel. Boring company. I don't really fuck with these guys much. I was young when I realised who were just using you for your name, for your reputation, for your family everyone wants gossip about - and these, like most of the friends I've had on this side of the city, it's not a friendship at all. It's as shallow as can be.

I was always fine with shallow. I never really wanted anything except shallow, and you get accustomed to shallow anyways in the Upper East. As long as they were an alright distraction and a bit of fun, I never cared about the meaninglessness.

A couple of them lean on the hood of my car, their own cars parked around us. It's getting late. My head feels a bit dazed and there's an arrogance I feel sometimes that reminds me too much of my brothers, but I feel it in my veins. I don't want to go home, I don't want to sit here with these guys I don't give a fuck about, I don't care anymore, I want something that'll incite a thrill.

Like the same night with that molotov cocktail with Rome all that time ago, everything feels like a good idea. An ache for wrong, a sliver of trouble. I clench my fists because it's such an overwhelming need that it feels like a physical thing attempting to crawl out of my body. Sate it.

Nothing inside me wants to stop myself from sating it, anymore.

"Hernandez, not drinking?"

I shake my head as one of them lower down to my window, blowing out the cigarette smoke to my mirror, "Driving home."

He nods, slaps his hand down on my shoulder, "Cap needs to stay healthy, get ready for the Knicks, anyways." And I hear a couple drunken cheers and rounds of encouragement from around, raising their bottles. I let my lips turn up passively, pretending as if it isn't harder than ever to strain a smile when they all mean little to nothing to me.

Fucking boring.

Everyone's boring.

Nobody can be her. That's the newfound issue. I found thrill anywhere I could. Basketball tended to sate it but not when that's now lacking challenge too. Then Malibu Adams was dropped in front of me and every craving I've had for years, she quells it without trying. Scandal on her bronzed skin, danger on her tongue. I can't sleep unless I think about her eyes.

Everything pales in the face of her. Nothing can compare, and nothing can hold a match to her and I've been alone for so long. Everything, for a long time, has been an attempt to evade ever having to look into myself. To ever notice the depth of my aloneness because even if I'm distracting myself, the hollowness still exists. No matter who I'm around, it's all only a farce.

I feel it for the first time with her - there isn't an aloneness biting at my skin. The hollowness fades and it's an addicting thing, feeling it for the first time. Maybe it's because she's real fucking good at giving you a hard time, she makes it impossible to think about anything else when she's stood there, she rarely gives you a calm moment - but her fire, the flame to her that repels so many people, it feels like the opposite. It feels like cold water against my own burning.

I'm lost in her.

I don't want to be found either.

I pick up my phone and try, for just a moment, to not think about that girl because she makes me lose my fucking mind and it can't be good for me. All the plethora of emotions she incites, just the thought of her, that's all it takes and my body has a visceral reaction each time. I hold the phone to my ear, hope he picks up.