loving someone / matty healy

𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙢𝙚

"You're telling me that neither of you even initiated a kiss?" Zahra shouted exaggeratedly, my head quickly looking around our philosophy classroom to see all of the bemused faces that glanced in our direction at the sound.
"Z, shut the fuck up," I whisper-shouted, she only giggled. "And, no. It wasn't like that. It wasn't even a date, I don't think. And I still don't even bloody know what's going on with Armaan."

"Oh, bugger Armaan. He's a twat." She spoke too loudly again.
"Girls, watch your language, and your volume, please." My face reddened after being reprimanded by the teacher, but Zahra was just shaking her head at me amusedly.
"I can't believe you didn't kiss, it was the perfect moment, Eva."

I thought back to last night, something my mind had inconveniently been doing all morning, realising that the thought of how perfect a moment it would have been to share a first proper kiss hadn't evaded me. But, it was too late. The moment had now passed.

"Has anyone seen Mr. Healy?" Our teacher, Mr Pattinson, asked the class. Something else that hadn't evaded me was Matty's absence. If there was one class he never missed, it was philosophy, most likely because it's the only subject that even begins to challenge his acute mind.

"Probably just running late." I quietly spoke up, Mr Pattinson just nodded and returned his gaze to the computer screen in front of him. And, as if on cue, a familiar head of curls bounced into the room, but the rest of his manner didn't match. He looked as if he'd rolled out of bed just moments ago with dark bags that sunk visibly underneath his eyes, his usual cheeky grin set in a tight frown, and the stain on his shirt too noticeable.

After sparing a small wave to the teacher at his desk and uttering a glum, but solemn, "Sorry I'm late", Matty took his seat next to me and facing Zahra. Without speaking a word, he retrieved the work needed for the lesson from his bag, and began copying down notes from the board. Zahra looked up at me questioningly, discreetly pointing to his unusual demeanour, eyebrows furrowed in a display of confusion. 'I thought you said last night went well' she mouthed, or, at least I think it was, and with a shrug of my shoulders, I mouthed back, 'I thought so too.'

Figuring that if he didn't even deliver a simple 'Hi', then he most likely wouldn't be in the mood for answering any questions I had, and so I decided to attempt communication using a piece of paper.

'What's bothering you?'

He peered at it, tracing his fingers over the ink, and then sighing heavily.

'Nothing. Just woke up late.'

I shook my head at his reply, he wasn't fooling anyone. Especially not me.

'Wanna come over to mine tonight?'

His eyes remained trained on the ink of this note longer than the last, and I thought I may have finally gotten somewhere.

'No point.'

My eyebrows scrunched together, having never expected 'no point' to be his response to an invitation to my house. Brushing it off, I placed his odd behaviour down to the note I wrote next:

'You don't seem like yourself.'

I observed the boy next to me as he rolled his eyes in what appeared to be annoyance, abruptly sliding the paper towards him and scribbling on the page with a speed I could only put down to vexation.

'How the hell would you know?'

Sitting back in my chair, I glared furiously at Matty. For all the years I had been his best friend, passive aggressiveness had never suited him. Stubborn and complex, it had never been easy for anyone else to tease the truth out of him. I always liked to think that I was the only one who could, that I was the only person in the world that could truly understand him, but it became apparent that some people don't want to be understood. They want to wallow in self-pity. They want to drown in doubt. They want to have a reason to hate the world and everything existing within it. And Matty Healy was no exception to this behaviour.