Same Same But Different

ONE

ONE ➳ Mickey is at a huge-ass party and wants to disappear.

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Mickey needed to hide. Pronto.

The party was starting to get way too crazy and those people were suffocating him. He really needed a place away from everyone where he could just... Breathe.

Yeah, sure, he could leave, that was an option. Still, this occasion was sort of a work thing. You get invited to parties, you get to know people, people get to know you, and possibly invite you to more parties with more people. And that's how you do it in Hollywood.

"Come on, Mickey!" Tony, the owner of the house and an old friend of Mickey's, slammed a hand against his back. "Why are you brooding in a corner, huh?" He put an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. "It's my birthday, dude! You own it to me to have fun!"

"I'm just not in the mood, today, man." Mickey winced.

"Oh, come on! A little party never killed nobody, come have fun!" And just like that, Tony disappeared among the crowd.

Mickey just wanted to clear his head for a while, though. Alone.

A brilliant thought came to his mind as he climbed the stairs to the attic. The house was immense, and there were people making out, drinking, passed out and doing who-knows-what else everywhere. Mickey tiptoed past a girl who was stretched over the stairs staring at the ceiling with foggy eyes and reached the second floor. From there, he found the way to the attic, and out the window he went, onto the rooftop.

Mickey nestled himself over the roof, one leg dangling from the edge, and looked at the LA landscape. He didn't know if he loved or hated the view. The fucking City of Angels. The City of Angles.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, Mickey checked Instagram first, then, when it became boring, Twitter. He sighed heavily. Fake people. More each day.

An add appeared on the screen, for an app called MeetCute. It read "Find me somebody to love".

Mickey's finger swept it aside, not giving it a second glance, but it sorta sticked to the back of his mind. Maybe it was the reference to the song from Queen, so although he scrolled past it, the name and logo of MeetCute stayed on his brain. It could be a way to get to know some real people... Someone to share real things with.

Who would think that the internet, a place where it's most easy to be fake, could also be a place where one can be real, where you don't really have to hide.

God, Mickey was desperate to stop hiding! Or feeling the need to hide, to better phrase it.

The sun set as Mickey downloaded the app and filled in the information on his profile. He tried to keep as much true as he could, without revealing who exactly he was. Not that it was hard, the real stuff he always kept beneath the surface, so it's not like anyone would recognize him. As for his profile picture, he took one right there on the roof, with the sunset behind him, it only showed his silhouette and no detail of his face just a vague impression of how he looked.

When he first started filling in the profile, he didn't care much for the idea that he was actually going to find someone on the app, but as he kept on writing about himself and what he was looking for, his heart rate increased, and his palms started to sweat. It was like he was fourteen again, going out on his first date. He didn't remember feeling this nervous about anything for the last couple of years. Lately, he had been feeling just... Numb.