Intersect. [MH] (Editing in Process)

For Arthur It All Came Too Easily, To Learn The Scale In Every Key.

Archer.

We were sat on the floor, comfortably leaning against the very end of my wooden bed frame – and each other –carefully sipping the steaming liquid in our mugs little by little.

As much as I hated to admit it, I was homesick, which had a habit of confusing me, since I didn't have an ideal home situation. I felt a bit foreign in my own bedroom, nothing felt like it was mine except for the only thing that wasn't; Matty.

"What are you thinking?" He asked, unoccupied hand fiddling with the loose strands of hair that had fallen out of my attempted bun. "I feel out of place here," I sighed and leaned my head against his shoulder. "Tell me all of the things that make you feel at ease."

And I so badly wanted to scream 'you,' but I stared down at my coffee cup instead and asked: "Why?" I suppose I knew why and stalled in order to avoid lying to him, but when his melodic voice played a symphony in my ears; I wanted to tell him everything. "My mum used to make me list all of the things that make me feel safe and comfortable whenever I felt the opposite, it helps." I nodded, searching my brain for something I could say, "That thing you do when you rub the center of my palm, it calms me down."

Matty smiled at me and set his tea down beside him on my carpeted floor, "Do you want me to do it right now?" I wanted to say something witty and sarcastic, but I nodded instead.

"You're leaving soon," I whispered, uncertain of his thoughts on the matter, he nodded, "London is a long way from Manchester and so is the rest of the world." I avoided his glance, focusing on the feather-light circles he was creating. I wasn't sure why I brought it up, at least that's what I attempted to convince myself of. In reality, I knew the exact mechanism my mind went through to force myself to speak of the situation I would give anything to make disappear.

The truth; I was afraid that he'd leave and I wouldn't know what to do with myself, he'd forget about me just like a novel; once upon a time, basking in the glory of new beginnings and exploration beyond the confinements of a subpar life, but the ending was abrupt and selfish, heart-wrenching. No shock factor, because every appreciative reader knows that a prose is nothing without a tragic end.

I wanted him to say something but at the same time, I didn't want to know what he'd tell me out of dismay, dread.

"Anathema," he whispered into the air surrounding us, "I hate this- this situation I'm in – we're in. I so badly want to stay with you, here, together. I feel trapped, and not at all because of you." He sighed softly, taking a moment to ponder. "I'm not entirely sure of what I need to be doing, I long for your presence already and I've yet to leave." I didn't know what I wanted him to say, and I didn't know why I was letting tepid tears stream down my bare face. Maybe they were out of anguish, poignancy, hopelessness – but maybe they stemmed from commuovere: an Italian word directly referring to a heartwarming story, literacy, that managed to bring a person to tears.

"Is this where it ends? This is just ironic, isn't it? We met when we were supposed to be bettering ourselves, fixing our broken pieces, figuring ourselves out, but now look at us-" I gestured to the space between the two of us, "-we are worse off now than we were three and a half months ago."

His eyes met mine for a moment, only to avert his listless gaze undeviatingly back to the ground. I removed my hand from his finally, bringing my knees to my chest and staring ahead of myself, perilously trying to focus on numbering each individual blemish the shut door held. "Sometimes," I began, "when dismal things happen, I wish that one of the overdoses had done its job and permanently erased me from the grasp of the universe."

"Archer..." He trailed off, once idle hands bustling restlessly against the fabric of his shirt, "You didn't do it on purpose did you? All those times?" I shook my head, "I don't think so, not consciously at least, perhaps I did but it's all so unclear in my mind, everything in the past has become extremely fuzzy." I admitted to him. "I've convinced myself that they were accidents, it's far simpler to accept that way." A hand ran through his nappy hair in what I'd assumed was an attempt to comprehend the weight of the words that had slipped cleanly from my barren, pale lips.

The thing about all of this, the whole conversation; I was being emotionally manipulative with my poetic phrases and sad tone, an unhealthy defence mechanism I'd carefully crafted, slowly, throughout the years of constant pain and anguish.

He didn't know how to fix me, himself, so instead he said: "I love you." Though I was perplexed, though I wasn't sure of my scrambled thoughts, I paused and breathed inwardly anyway, because I didn't know how to fix us either, "I love you too."

***Short chapter but probably one of my favourites. Dude, something I wrote has over 1K reads and I'm ecstatic, thank you SO much for taking the time and effort to read this.
-Ven<3

Songs I suggest listening to:
- She Lays Down//The 1975
- The Plan (Fuck Jobs)//The Front Bottoms
- Cold Coffee//Ed Sheeran
- first day of my life//Gnash
- She's the Prettiest girl at the Party, and She Can Prove It with a Solid Right Hook//Frank Iero And The Patience