Random Short Stories

(( Eyeliner Take A Look At This ))

*purely fictional*

I, of course, was raised on Fall Out Boy. I was raised on the fact that it's okay to be different; you could be yourself, you could show your feelings, and you could be in a band with crazily-tattooed people and be the odd innocent one out, if you know what I mean. I took these lessons and followed them closely. Yet, I didn't exactly want to be the odd innocent one out. I wanted to stand out, yes, but well...not in that way.

So I wore eyeliner.

I thought Pete Wentz was the coolest person ever. I'm sure if you were to ask little Dalton who his hero was, he would reply "Pete Wentz" without a second to spare. He wore eyeliner. He was in a band. He had tattoos. He was everything little Dalton aspired to be. So little me went into my mother's makeup drawer, searching for the one pencil you don't write essays with. An eyeliner pencil. When I found the precious gem of synthetic emo-ness, I, naturally, hid it from my mom. She would not be happy if her only son wore eyeliner before her two daughters.

Now, I was thirteen at the time. At school, I would put about ten pounds of eyeliner on in the morning and then struggle to quickly take it off after school before I went home. No one asked questions and no one really wondered (or cared) what I was doing. Well, most of the time. There were sometimes those little short-skirted volleyball girls who passed and wondered what little lonely Dalton was doing. I ignored them, mostly. Notice the word "mostly." You see, there was this one girl who's name was Jenny. She thought I was hot, but didn't like my eyeliner. What a little trot she was. She seemed nice at first, but began to be jerky. I took revenge on her at the lock-in by taking my precious "guyliner" and drawing allllll over her concealer caked face. It was totally worth the detentions I got for a week.

A year later, I figured out that wearing ten pounds of synthetic material on my eyes was not very healthy. So I cut it down to five pounds. This is when my whole plan went out the window, along with my eyeliner pencil and Fall Out Boy CDs.

My mother was not very happy when she found out I had been wearing her eyeliner for the past year and a half. She, you know, asked me some questions about myself after I had retrieved my precious Fall Out Boy merchandise and pencil from the backyard. I answered truthfully, and she just shrugged and said I could continue wearing "guyliner", as long as I didn't begin wearing "manscara." I told her I wouldn't, and you could see the tsunami of relief wash over her.

Then...the tragedy happened.

I had been enjoying my life, you know, as much as an eyeliner-clad, sorta-emo teenager could, when Fall Out Boy decided to call a hiatus. I was not what you would call "sad." It was more like "devastated", "crushed", "destroyed", and "I can't believe Fall Out Boy would do this after everything they've done for this dark, dark world." Those might be able to describe how I was feeling.

Anyways, I was pretty sad. But, as I learned quickly, the eyeliner pencil does not move itself. No, it must be assisted to get that perfect "I'm pretty emo yo" look. Okay, wait, that doesn't make sense. I had to move on. I had to be the eyeliner pencil and move across the eye of life.

Moving on.

So when I got to high school, people judged harsher, but more people were interested in the backstory of my eyeliner, as I was the only guy to wear guyliner at school. I simply looked them straight in the eyes and said, "Sometimes, people are born emo. And sometimes, people have to adjust their faces to look emo." Some of them would laugh, while the others would just walk away, wondering what sorta drugs I must of been on.

When I graduated, I probably should have stopped wearing eyeliner but, you know, with Fall Out Boy still on their hiatus, I wasn't going to just give up my emoness just yet.

That's when I began doing my eyeliner differently- I began Rapattoni-style eyeliner. It could be achieved by putting on eyeliner at night, sleeping in it, and, well, that's it. It's quite magical.

Now here comes the fun part. When I got to Hollywood Round in American Idol, I learned that I would be rooming with the nerdy-in-a-good-way, MacKenzie Bourg. I, of course, decided to look him up on Spotify. He was absolutely amazing. I immediately knew we would be good friends, just by his personality in his songs. But then I remembered...we were at a singing competition. We couldn't exactly be friends. But, whatever, we would totally be friends after the show ended.

MacKenzie obviously didn't agree.

When I first walked into the lobby, MacKenzie was frantically looking around.
"Anyone know who my roommate is? Or where my blue sparkly guitar picks went?"
I walked up to him and held my hand out, smiling. He literally analyzed me, and when he reached my eyes, a look of digust washed over his face.
"And you are?" He said, his voice laced with distaste.
"Dalton. Dalton Rapattoni. Pleased to meet you." I replied, trying desperately to ignore what I heard evident in his voice.  He didn't return the kindness.
"Yeah, um, I don't have time for people like you. I have to find my roommate." He said, lifting his chin as if I was a nasty burrito on the street. I smirked.
"Well, that's funny, as I am your roommate." He stared me straight in the eyes. The disgust was still present. But there was a hint of...what was that? Determination?
"Well, then, to the room?" He asked, the disgust-determination mix continuing. When we opened the door to the room, we saw the two beds; the blue one and the black one.
"I suppose you'd like the black one?" MacKenzie said, his eyes lingering on my eyes. Or...my eyeliner?
"Sure! That'd be sweet!" I replied, continuing to smirk. He wouldn't get to me that easily.

Now he became nicer as the days went on. I'm sure he had a very good reason to dislike me at first. But what he continued to dislike was me putting on loads of eyeliner at night, and keeping him awake doing it. However, despite his pleas, I continued wearing my Rapattoni-style eyeliner. Hah.

Even though MacKenzie got friendlier (and probably better at hiding his emotions- heh), he didn't halt his efforts to get me to stop putting so much makeup on; on my eyes and the mirror.
"Dalton, is there one day where you will not wear eyeliner?"
"Yeah, probably. I dunno." I stood by the window, fogging up the glass and drawing smiley faces.
MacKenzie stood behind me, watching me. I heard him stifle a laugh. I don't turn, afraid of what I was going to see.
"You...", he laughs, "You use Maybelline Unstoppable?"
I turn around and snatch my pencil out of his hands.
"Yes, but that's not important." I replied, beginning to blush.
"Mhm. Could you tell me why you started wearing eyeliner? My school counselor used to tell me to stop something, you must go to the root of the problem." He smirked, proud of his little joke. I rolled my eyes.
"You know, that sounds like a really good story to put down on paper." I replied, suddenly inspired. His eyes widened, as he hadn't been expecting that response.
"Now, Dalton, let's not get any ideas..." He said cautiously.
"I think I'll write it now, actually." It was my turn to smirk.

And thus, this story was born.