❝"I don't do straight guys," Art said with the kind of confidence Brady had always wanted.
"I am not asking you to do me." He scoffed defensively crossing his arms over his chest.
"Then why are you looking at me like you want me to?"❝
Playing...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
(Unedited)
The newest issue of Star Trek had been sitting on my pillow waiting for me to read it before I put it in my ever-growing collection of comic books. I didn't even get a chance to see any of it before my girlfriend Sarah Donavan walked in.
"You ditched me, AGAIN, for this?!" Sarah asks as she points at my new prized possession and the comic book in question. Her outrage showing in her ocean blue eyes as they meet my confused hazel ones.
"I didn't ditch you. I told you I would see you later." I interjected, "Besides, I got us two tickets to the movies tonight." I explain to Sarah as I leaned in to kiss her. Attempting to fix the damage that I had caused by cancelling on her when the guy on craigslist finally got back to me about the mint condition first edition Strange New Worlds A Klingon in Starfleet Years Before Worf comic. A comic that was starting a post-Spock revolution! How could he be held responsible when a mint condition STAR TREK comic hung in the balance?
HOW?
"I don't wanna go on a goddamned date, especially after you bailed on me," Sarah tells me coldly. Her eyes never leaving mine, as she shows me that she meant it. My argument was not as logical as I thought it was. Trying to figure out another way to get me out of this sticky situation. A way to sweep her off of her feet, a way to make it all up to her. Like the proverbial Superman sweeping her off of her feet.
"I'm sorry if I upset you, that was not my intention!" I tell Sarah not knowing what else to say. I reach out in an attempt to grab her hand but she moves away.
"It is never your intention is it?" Sarah half yells as she folds her arms across each other and looks out the window to the other apartments we're facing. Realising at that moment just how small my bedroom suddenly feels. I should tell her something else, but my brain seems to freeze as my anxiety takes control. What if I just made it worse? I always made it worse!
"I said sorry, what more can I say? You being a bit of a bitch right now!" I blurted out as I started to pace the small space of my room; as I realize what I had just said can't be taken back at any time. Once you say things like that, you can't take them back. I pick at my lower lip as I walk up behind her, wondering what I should do.
"You know just because your parents are getting a divorce does not mean you can take it out on me!" Sarah tells me as she just keeps staring out the window. I imagine she's wishing she was anywhere but here.
"I'm not taking it out on you! I just wanted to get my Star Trek Comic book is all, we can still go on our date, I bought the tickets already." I watch as my words slowly but surely lose all interest to her.
"You sound like such a child right now!" Sarah tells trying to justify why she was being so rude to me right now.
"If I'm so childish why are you dating me?!" I tell her as my anxiety kicks in gear, taking control of my words as I tried desperately not to say anything that I would end up regretting. But it was very hard when I felt so defensive like nothing I could do was right. "I've always liked comic books, ever since we met and you used to like them too! What's changed, because it is not me?!" I keep pacing as I try to remember when this relationship had taken a turn for the worst. But my memory came out blank
."You pace too much, I don't like it! It makes me anxious like just fucken standstill." Sarah blurted out making me stop dead in my tracks. Which did nothing to help my piling up anxiety.
I felt overwhelmed, unsure and frankly, I just wanted to be left alone. I didn't want to do this anymore, fight anymore and yet it was the only thing we did anymore. Stuffing my hands in my pockets as a compromise to the pacing.
"I can't help it. It's something I do." I tell Sarah, as I lost track about what we're even arguing about in the first place. Making me wonder if it was even worth coming back from.
But instead of voicing my opinions I stayed silent in fear of angering her further. Looking at the girl that used to geek out with me, that unironically wore big oversized glasses and had never missed a single episode of Thunderbirds. The person that stood in her place was someone I didn't even recognise. The glasses swapped out for contact lenses, her normal band tee's subtracted for a summer dress and clogs.
The Sarah I knew was long gone and I felt as though I was holding onto the remnants of what she used to be.She was outgrowing me, I knew it and there was nothing I could do about it.
"Maybe you should work on it," Sarah tells me as I can tell she's bound to leave sooner than later, as our argument wasn't going anywhere at this point. She would storm out like she usually did and in about two hours call me so that I could apologise to her.
"I can't stop something I can't control," I tell her as I'm suddenly not so sure I wanted her there anymore. I was sure I shouldn't think about my girlfriend as someone I didn't want around. She was someone I should have around or more so want around.
"I never said you had to," Sarah tells me as she finally moves away from the window. It was still a horrible view of the fire escape belonging to the flat across the way. A flat that belonged to an Italian couple that I would occasionally run into on the sidewalk. They were nice enough, we had even had them over for dinner ones but that was as far as the niceties went.
The bedroom across the way empty to my knowledge, so I did not bother checking what she was looking at.
"You kind of did though. I don't tell you that you should quit dancing or stop talking to your friends, do I?" I tell her as she brushes some hair out of her eyes. Not even knowing what this argument was about anymore. What were we doing?
"I'm so sick of arguing about this. I have homework to do, and a test to study for tomorrow so I'm heading home. I'll call you tomorrow until you find something else you want to ditch me for," Sarah tells me as she walks right past me without another word. Leaving me standing in front of the balcony view in my bedroom where she had been before she slammed the door.
Maybe she was right, maybe I should stop pacing and then realised how stupid that sounded even in my head. My eyes landing on the Indiana Jones poster that sat on the wall beside my bed before staring out the window.
That's when I saw him.
A boy leaning against the window frame of the flat next door, wearing nothing but boxers and the cigarette between his fingers which he slowly puffed on as he stared back at me. The street lights catching the silver of the piercing on his left eyebrow, illuminating the ink which crawled all over his body. Tiny little tattoos everywhere, on his collar bones, across his chest, down his arms and by his hip. He not too skinny nor too lean, living in an in-between that I as a merely just skinny person would have liked to achieve.
His dark gaze never leaving me.
It was clear he had been following the conversation between Sarah and I. His face expressionless as he took another drag. But the main question was; why was I still staring at him and why was he staring back?
It wasn't nice to stare, I wanted to blurt out but could not find it in me to say. So instead I went to my window, aggressively closed it before giving him a sassy glare and shutting my curtains.
"That is that," I thought. So why was my heart, unbeknownst to me, beating a mile a minute?
Wondering if this would be a problem in the future, would he be a problem? Having gotten so used to my privacy it was really hard to ignore the fact that there was a person just outside my window. He was just outside my window.
"Have you done your homework?" My mother startled me as she walked into my room, once again, not knocking. A habit that one of these days would lead her to see something she did not want to see. Looking away from my white curtain to address her.
Not knowing what to say; I just nod as she closes the door again heading back to the living room with her tea in hand. I look back at my curtain in wonder, wondering who exactly the boy was and if he had any intentions of listening in on any of my future conversation.
