The Stargazer

Chapter Seven

Yeah, well. It's Friday again. 

I guess things just roll on and on in tides. Things just keep passing me by. It's pretty messed up.

Things went better at school, I guess. High school meant new people. And that's always a plus? Apparently Marcelline also got an application form, as well as half the middle school tech team. It's funny because some of us were doing calculus at lunch, and nobody really gave a crap until now. 

Recognition? An Amendment? Hell, I don't know. 

The creaky gears of the elevator churned, and I stepped off and pressed the bell. 

There was a Christmas wreath around the eyepiece on the door, and a warm glow shone out from the bottom of the door. It's not like one of those classic cases of Christmas, I mean, neither me or his family were that cheesy. There was a Christmas tree, there were ornaments, but the flashy lights that screech carols are maybe too over the top. 

We never go to each other's houses. At least, not that much anymore. I remember watching gory dinosaur documentaries with him, because he was the only one with a VCR. We'd be just sitting there with a bowl of Cheetos, watching them tear each other to shreds. But that was when I was still in my single digits. And now this whole "growing up" and being mature thing is just screwed up and screwed over. So when Marcus's mother opened the mahogany door, groggy with her bedhead and bloodshot eyes, I wasn't too surprised.

At least we'ld always have her to look forward to.

And so I'd fake a smile, and push right pass her, and head down the hall. 

I'd haven't seen this place in it's full glory for a while. I've known this place for so long, but they never seemed to know me back. The family pictures of Marcus and his family were taped all over the white walls, all of them lopsided, trying their best to create a carefree and happy aura. I used to stop and stare at them. Their ski trips to Japan, them being just bulks of cloth with goggles and lips for faces, the trips to Hawaii, with the sun and coconuts and his mom looking young and pretty in a bikini. Walk a little more, and then the Man in the picture disappeared.

And so would the crinkles around Marcus' eyes. In some pictures, he's stopped smiling altogether.

Pushing past the collages, I moved to the last door on the right- A plain door without a single poster or sticker. I'd knocked, twisted and let myself in. 

He was scrunched up in his bed, plugged into gargantuan headphones, his eyes closed. 

His room smelled like him, with his cluttered desk, wardrobe full of hoodies and T-shirts, his evergreen beanbag chair. It was almost spartan. 

It felt rude to disturb him, and yet I felt like staying.

So I plumped down on the beanbag chair, and dozed off.

More or less, I had a flashback.

...

School, third grade.

I was eight. 

"I'm sorry, I can't make it." I'd looked at my shoes, and said to the green pebble that stood out on the ground. 

"Oh, it's fine. I'll go with Margo then." Audrey flashed me a smile, with one of her canine teeth gone. 

And so she went with the girl in pigtails, scurried with her posse, blending right in. And I turned around, and kicked the pretty green pebble all the way home, where an inevitable piano lesson awaits me. 

...

I sputtered awake, and blinked at the white celing of his room. The flashback was caught in a haze, the voices dragged on and on like muted piano chords, eating me right to the bone.