polaroids | awsten knight

polaroid eight

The eighth polaroid was taken the week after. You arrived at my house to pick me up, though left a lasting impression on my parents.

I had gotten dressed at eight in the morning and waited for the bell to ring while I listened to music in my room. The time we agreed on was eleven, yet somehow you didn't understand that. When it hit ten, the bell rang.

At first, I didn't think anything of it. After all, it would be another hour until you were supposed to be there. Then I heard steps coming toward my door, again, I thought it was just my parents. When you stepped in, I still had no idea it was you.

"Can't talk. Tell me when Awsten's here."

It took you a while to respond. Was it because you were so in shock that I thought of you even when you weren't around? "Hey..."

My head shot up at your voice, closing my book. I leapt off my bed and tackled you into a hug, as you backed up to the wall for support.

"Hey," you repeated, holding me up by the bottom so I wouldn't fall. You'd think that with your very limited muscles that you would drop me right away.

I jumped onto the ground and saw that you sort of dressed up today. Instead of the t-shirts, you would usually wear, today you had a really nice sweater on. It was really fluffy and I liked how you looked even cuter with the beige sweater.

"You look really good," I had the courage to say, shakily running my finger along the sleeve of your sweater. It was the middle of April, so wearing sweaters wasn't exactly my choice of clothing, but hey, to each their own. You smiled and said thank you, a tint of pink brushing over your cheeks.

You sat on the edge of my bed while I put away my book. The music from my stereo was still playing, loud enough to be bearable for reading. "You like Good Charlotte?"

I had bought one of their albums because Otto told me you liked them. So, when I told you that, your eyes softened and your mouth opened just enough for a fly to go in.

I sat next to you, both our legs dangling off the side of the bed. The mixtape you gave me was sitting on top of my stereo, and your eyes kept scanning over it, not being able to believe that I kept it.

"What do you have planned, "I interrupted your trance. "We could stay in here and do whatever, I don't know."

"Do you have a skateboard?"

You brought me out to the park near my house. I had skateboard gripped tightly in my hand, and you did too.

The only time I tried to skateboard was when I was eight and thought that it would make me cooler. Of course, I never did learn to do it. I gave up after falling straight on my ass, crying and aching.

"It's not scary," you said. "I promise." We were now walking on solid concrete, getting closer to an even spot of ground so I wouldn't trip on uneven terrain.

As you walked ahead of me, just only a little bit, I pulled my camera out from the backpack I'm constantly wearing. I held the skateboard between my torso and arm, adjusting it so the picture wouldn't be too blurry. I coughed over the sound of the picture coming out, making you mock me, coughing along for no reason.

You laid down your board and rolled around. I tried following, shakily standing on top of my six-year-old skateboard. When you noticed I wasn't close beside you, you turned around, witnessing me biting my lip in fear that I'll fall.

"Here, I'll help." You kicked your board over to me and held one of my hands as a source of balance. "Put a foot closer to the top of the board." That's what I did. "Good, now bend your knees." I bent my knees. "Push off the ground."

You held on barely to my hand, wanting me to try myself. I held my arms out like a T to stay balanced without you.

I kept doing the same thing until I was at half the speed you were at, rolling through the park. "This is awesome!" I laughed as I'd never laugh before. Of course, I wouldn't have been going as fast as you, but it was nice to see you turn back to make sure I was still going.

Wherever you went, I followed, so I followed you to the grassy park in the park. This was the same place where I took our second polaroid. This time, we found a tree to lean upon. To be honest with you, I'm glad you were done skateboarding. If I went any longer I think I might have injured myself.

I wanted to kiss you.

We walked back to my house, again, I'm thankful you didn't want to skate back. My parents left, leaving us to be the only people in the house. I opened the door with my key, kicking off my shoes and waited for you.

"We could watch a movie?" I asked, leaning again the wall as you untied your shoes. "I have a Netflix account we could use."

Finally, you managed to only have socks on your feet. "Yeah, that's all right." We stomped up the stairs to my room, closing the door even though there's no one else in the house.

I logged into my family's Netflix account, passing my laptop onto you so you could choose a movie. After some arguing, you finally chose a movie, even though you wanted so desperately for me to pick one.

You put on The Breakfast Club and put the laptop down in front of us. I'd already watched that movie over a thousand times, but that didn't mean I would turn it off.

As the movie progressed, you found yourself getting bored. It wasn't because of the movie, it was because we weren't talking. I know a lot of you craving to hang out with me was wanting to know who exactly I was.

I sensed that and closed my laptop. "Hey, I have a few CDs if you wanna look through them." Anything was better than sitting in silence with a movie playing in front of you. You quickly nodded and followed me to my shelf of albums.

Nothing felt more like home besides my continuing collection of albums. With you wanting to be a musician, I absolutely couldn't wait to see what kind of music you'd come up with. Would you have a book of lyrics about me?

"You have a lot of older stuff." You picked up a pile of Joy Division cases. I'd say about 70 per cent of the music I have is before the 2000s.

"That's because my dad gave me some of his," he explained. "He's more into jazz these days, but that doesn't mean he won't listen to these." Sometimes when we're driving someone I make sure to bring one of his old albums and pop it into the stereo.

You loved Good Charlotte a lot. You also couldn't believe that I wanted to learn about your interests. If my friend loves something so dearly, I won't hesitate to try it out.

"Can I ask you something," you said as you went through my limited amount of Fall Out Boy CDs. After I nodded, you continued, "What do you think we are?"

Oh, I knew we're weren't just friends, but that's what I'd tell everybody. "What do you want us to be?" I was never good at starting a relationship or even getting into one, so this was all foreign to me.

"Anything. As long as I can kiss you again."

There we sat, on the cold wooden floor of my room. With only a foot in between us, I looked up at you. I had never realized how cute you looked. I loved your two different coloured eyes and your unique hairstyle.

I crawled over to you, going around the pile of albums between us. Putting my hand on your neck, I grazed our lips against each other. You came closer and put our lips together. You tasted like strawberries and your lips were soft.

"Caroline, I think-"

"Can you be my boyfriend?"

The rest of our time together we were cuddled up next to each other watching a random movie. Maybe watching movies with someone is better when that person is the boy you confessed your love to.

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