It's Not A Side Effect Of The Cocaine, I Am Thinking It Must Be Love

chapter thirteen- alone together

I'd decided I hated Halloween. Not because of the holiday itself, but because Pancho was so damn sad about not doing anything to celebrate that he was making everyone else miserable, too. He'd been sulking all day, complaining that we should've at least bought more candy, if not decorated the whole house. It was exhausting. I mean, sure, I felt terrible at first. Seeing him sad always made me sad, too, but it got old after listening to him whine all day. We were both bored out of our minds, sitting at the table for a few minutes after we finished a late dinner. "What do you wanna do?" I asked.

"I dunno, man, what do you wanna do?" It was about the fiftieth time I'd heard Pancho say that that day.

I sighed. "Really? Come on, don't do that. Just tell me what you wanna do. You've been moping around the house all day."

"Ugh, I don't fucking know, man,"Pancho groaned, "There's nothing to do. We already ate dinner."

I hated to admit it, but he was right."Yeah. We could go see what Bad Twin's watching?" He'd had the TV turned to various obnoxious Halloween movies all day, but there might've been some kind of miracle that caused him to switch.

"We should do that, yeah! I saw an ad for a Ghostbusters marathon earlier this week. I wanna see if I can get him to let me watch it."

"Good luck with that," I muttered under my breath, getting up out of my chair. Pancho was following me, as always, and I was happy to see him at least a little bit excited at the prospect of a Ghostbusters marathon. I knew Bad Twin wouldn't turn the TV, and I figured Pancho knew that too, but he was desperate enough to ask.

We'd spent a considerable portion of the day lying in bed, Pancho shifting around and turning me down every time I offered to make breakfast. Eventually, though, I got hungry, and he sighed but finally agreed to get up so I could fix some lunch. After lunch we watched part of some Halloween movie with Bad Twin but ended up going on a walk. Once we got back, though, there wasn't much else to do, and it didn't take Pancho long to get bored of everything. He ate more of his Halloween candy, sorting out the M&M's in the Fun Size bags by color and dividing them evenly between us, occasionally asking me to help him pull caramel out of his hair. I don't know how he managed to get caramel in his hair, but it happened more than once before it was time to start dinner.

Bad Twin was glued to another one of his weird movies when we walked into the living room. Pancho studied the TV for a second, glanced at me with his eyebrows raised, and turned to my brother. "Hey, Bad Twin," he began, raising his voice a little to be heard over the soundtrack. When he didn't get a response, he tried again, louder. I sighed and leaned against the wall. Getting Bad Twin to change the channel would be a miracle. Pancho had to repeat himself multiple times before my brother even looked up from his movie.

"What the fuck, man," Bad Twin complained, "What's so important you gotta interrupt Strictly Ballroom, huh?" When Pancho took a second to answer him, he kept talking. "Nothing, that's what. Leave me the fuck alone, this movie is a goddamn masterpiece."

Watching one of Bad Twin's obnoxious movies didn't sound appealing at all. Sighing, I headed for my bedroom, not even bothering to wait for Pancho. I should have known he was following me like he always did, but I almost closed the door on him. He stuck his foot through the frame just in time, pushing the door open to let himself in.

I collapsed onto the bed, wishing not for the first time that he would leave me alone so I could knit, or at least kiss me to distract me from how boring everything was. He looked just about as bored as I felt, if not downright depressed. I was tired of doing nothing, and tired of him being sad. "Look, man,"I said, "I don't know what's up, but you're obviously sad or something. I'm sorry about Halloween, but is there some way I can make this up to you? 'Cause I don't want you to be sad."