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'i am such a fool to keep on chasing after you'
___________
january 19th, 2020
my first kiss was at our seventh-grade dance, with dazai watching from behind the punch bowl to make sure i didn't chicken out.
i was quick to figure out i didn't like girls after that night. the kiss i shared with the taller eighth grade girl, who i didn't even like was barren and left me feeling confused.
i wanted to be sure i didnt like girls at all. i would borrow dazais playboy magazines and flirt with the girls in my gym classes, yet none of them made my heart pound the same way it did when i saw beck from victorious on my tv screen.
dazai was the first person i went to when i finally understood i liked boys.
he didnt seem surprised when i told him. he only laughed and told me he would start lending me his dads male fitness magazines. yet even after he had fallen asleep i could still feel my hands shaking, even though i knew he didn't care whether i liked boys or girls.
maybe that's why i felt so used after he kissed me. because he knew i could have liked him, and he needed to relieve stress.
i never brought it up and neither did he. and he was so good at acting like nothing ever happened. and i was good at digging myself into a hole and covering the top.
my grandma died later that december. it wasn't quite like when my grandfather died. it hurt more.
she had lung cancer and dementia that was worsening, and when she died i should have felt relieved like everyone else did, that she finally wasn't suffering anymore, but instead i just felt even more miserable.
she was always quick to cheer me up on my hard days. she would never forget to scold my grandfather when something offensive slipped from his tongue.
she would always get me a birthday card with a twenty-dollar bill and a note reminding me how much she loved me, and how i was her favorite person on the planet.
i couldn't get myself to leave my room, much less go to school or even eat. so after a week of saltines and netflix dazai finally convinced me to let him into my house.
he started by stripping the sheets of my beds all while fake vomiting at the smell.
"you don't have to do this you know. i'll wash them eventually."
he puffed out his cheeks while shaking the pillows out of the pillowcase.
"yes well i can smell them from my house." he paused before balling up all the fabric and picking it up.
"plus school is getting boring without you. if i have to listen to one more gin and tachihara date story ill start banging my head against the cafeteria tables." he yelled the last part as he took of down the hall to my moms room where our washing machine was.
