Raphael /BoyxBoy/

||One||

I needed to get my own apartment soon.

Dan's latest girlfriend was giggling beneath his bed covers and I heard him laugh back, voice low as he spoke back seductively.

I pressed on the volume button, willing the music to boom louder in my ears but I soon realized it wasn't the volume of my music that I should be worried about it. It was the kind of music I was listening to. Alex Turner's deep, soft drawls did nothing to conceal any exterior sounds.

Frustrated, I flung my earphones aside, grabbed my coat and shoes, and left the dorm room without a second glance.

I walked down the hall with only one purpose: to get as far away from my room as possible.

It didn't take long for me to remember that I had no where to go, and my footsteps faltered accordingly.

I didn't make many friends when I moved away. I was the tall, loner guy who never attended any parties, kept to himself, and always seemed to be elsewhere.

Except I wasn't. I was just there like the rest of them, aware of their curious glances, the way their eyes never seemed to bore from my wallowing figure.

In my head it felt like everything around me was from a movie. I was seeing myself move around, seeing myself study, watching as I swiftly avoided any kind of friendly conversation.

My footsteps slowed and I contemplated turning around, but just the image of Dan's cocky grin as a girl straddled him put me off instantly.

I glanced at my surroundings. A dark hallway with barely any source of light.

The library was an option, but I wasn't sure what time it closed, if it ever did. Besides, I never found the seats comfortable enough.

I wasn't tired, I just needed an escape.

I walked to the university's exit and began walking.

I lived in a small town, isolated from the city, where everyone knew everyone.

It was a lot different from where I lived months ago.

Everything was different.

I breathed in the fresh night air, something I was starting to get used to.

Sometimes I walked around the block a few times, memorizing the steps I took as I thought of home.

That night, I felt a little adventurous.

I walked away from the college building instead of around it like I usually did.

I walked past the local bakery, lights long turned off. I walked past the bookstore, the grocery store, the tiny vintage bar by the corner. Past the coffee shop that I couldn't look at without feeling a twinge in my heartstrings.

Before I knew it, I was leaving the small town behind me, and walking right past an invisible borderline that separated it from the city.

Lights.

They were everywhere.

It brought back so much memories that it hurt. My chest felt tight, every step I took inside the city brought me physical pain.

He was everywhere.

People walked past me, unfazed by the fact that it was late into the night. They bumped into my shoulder, they brushed past me, they touched my arm lightly, walking their own way.

While I walked the opposite direction.

Cars zipped past me. Cars slowed down. People hopped out, people hopped in.