Wonderlust

This Could Very Likely Be The Last Night of Our Lives

I stared at the spiral bound pack of paper in his hands, finding myself completely frozen. I couldn't budge. Dylan seemed to notice this and tilted his heads to the side awkwardly.

"Uh...this is yours... right? It says Atticus on the inside of the cover."

I snapped out of it, and snatched it back from him a little rougher than I intended. I just felt so, exposed, venerable. Dylan opened his mouth as I flicked the pages offhandedly, mostly because the thought of him looking through this stressed me out.

"Um... I would like to apologize." Dylan rubbed the back of his head nervously. "I might have uh... skimmed through it a bit."

It was like being impaled with a stake. The edges of the paper dugs into my fingers I clutched onto my sketchbook. I didn't want to look him in the face but one glance up told me that he knew. He knew.

We know you're only doing this because you're still mad dad left us. Grow up and get over it.

"God, Att. I'm sorry I didn't mean to pry. At first I was just trying to figure out who it belonged and then... I just, I got a little carried away."

He called me Att. We'd been friend for like three minutes and we were already on nickname level? That wasn't even relevant because he reached out a hand for my shoulder. I didn't see it coming, or wanted it for that matter, so I flinched heavily. He must have thought he startled me because he withdrew his hand slightly. It hovered awkwardly in the air between us.

"If it's any consolation, I won't judge for any of the stuff in there. I mean it's my fault I pried."

"You-You won't?" I was a little less scared now, still it was just a horrible situation I found myself in. "I'm...I'm going to go...now."

It came out broken and uncomfortable, and when I stood up, so did Dylan. It starters me and I stood there like a deer in headlight until he talked.

"Can I walk you home? It's the least I can do." He offered, pulling his bag around his shoulder and picking up his ukulele.

"I guess..." I shut my eyes tight, wishing I could just be alone instead of suffering through this conversation.

This was going all wrong, just like this morning (or yesterday when I looked at the time) with Mom and Janet. Tears were holding knives to my amygdala and threatening the spill. I couldn't cry in front of him, I just couldn't. I'd already cried to much today, I wasn't allowed to humiliate myself anymore.

"You know." Dylan started as we stumbled down the mountain with our phones as flashlights. "Um... if it makes you feel any better. I understand where you're coming from."

The statement took me off guard and I stared at him for a bit. What had we been talking about before hand? I had been to preoccupied with staring at my feet and every step they took as a method of distracting myself from breaking down in front of him. I had no idea what he was talking about. The anxiety? Depression? It seemed unlikely that another queer kids went to my school and he seemed way too cis anyway.

"Wh-what?" I forced out.

"I can relate, to you. On a lot of levels actually. Since it's just the two of us, walking through the woods in the middle of the night, where we could both still very likely be attacked by a high old man who's also a murderer, I think I'm going to tell you about it. This could very likely be the last night of our lives, you know?" He rambled on.

I noticed he was picking as his ukulele strings again. His left hand was clamped down over the neck, dampening the strings. His right hands strummed up and down, making no noise.