#can you tell i read an unhealthy amount of gay fanfic in middle school

[aquiloneblu-000]

Agatha's Grandpa

Some things in life are fucking dark. Just like this bathroom. Couldn't find the light switch, don't even know why the lights were off in the first place; someone else was in there just before me. 

I lean back facing away from the mirror, I'm already getting reflected by the floor tiles anyway. I think they're pink. Dark pink maybe.

I've cleaned myself up, i should be getting out of here. Wonder if he's still there.

These walls ain't shit, i can hear every single thing happening outside. I remember a couple of years back YouTube was full of music edits meant to sound like you were locked in a bathroom in the midst of a party. What kind of party would play arctic monkeys? You only want to listen to them when you're alone, thinking of someone, or when you are actually fucking them.

Sex is such a funny thing. One minute you're enjoying it, the next you think back to what had happened and it is not fun anymore. Are you ok what happened did i do something. You didn't do anything wrong stop worrying. Stop looking at me like that. Can't have pity for what you've never known. 

It's just that some things in life are fucking dark. Maybe I should just tell him that. I think he could understand. He looked confused. Shouldn't have done this.

Someone's knocking at the door.

I get up, straighten my clothes, my hair.

I get out of that god awful dark pink bathroom and into the party. I don't know the songs they are playing. Something about sex for sure. God it is always there. Sex sex sex and sex again. We should have just kissed. Just a kiss and then pretend that nothing happened. That's what friends do i think. Never had a friend like him.

I try my best to walk in a straight line, anything to seem composed. It shouldn't be so hot. It's fucking december. January now. God I'm drunk.

Down the wooden stairs there's the door, open, the air of a new year filling out the crowded room in all of its twirls, twisting upon itself.

I grab a coat; just now it got cooler. I should go outside. I look for my cigarettes, open a new package. It's so goddamn cold the lighter won't start, it's almost frustrating really.

"Do you want me to light it for you?" Said this girl. "Your hands are shaking. Mine shake all the time too, it's a real bummer, you know? Well i suppose you do."

I let her do her thing. Thank you.

She's still talking to me. Are you okay do you need some water.

"I'm good" i say. "You don't look too good yourself" after i have actually looked at her. She was right, her hands were pretty shaky. She had long bony fingers. Veiny.

She laughs a bit. "Yeah i did something kinda dumb".

"No shit, me too." I confess. "Do you want one?" I ask shaking the package.

"Was about to ask."

She lights a cigarette and her eyelids slowly meet each other as she exhales.

She asks me what I've done. I tell her i slept with one of my best friends.

"Was she good at it?" She asked

"He's a man." I say

"Oh that's cool. I slept with a woman."

"Tonight?" i ask.

"Yeah." She doesn't say anything else. 

We sit on the porch, smoking rather slowly. There's no hurry in going back in there. I wonder what he's doing.

We're not the only ones out, a bunch of people in small groups, some talking annoyingly loud, waving their hands with their cigarettes attached; in the dead of night they look like little lighthouses gone mad: waving erratically and signaling the ships lost in the endless blanket of mist that will cover us all up until march. 

Me and the girl are lighthouses too except we're sitting still. I wonder what she's thinking about. 

"Are you thinking about that girl?" I ask.

I'm not looking at her but i can feel the fresh breath of her gaze.

"Who? The one i fucked in the bathroom?" She gets a bit cocky, a bitter smile.

"The bathroom with the pink tiles?"

"Why? And also yes".

"No shit. I just used it."

"Well isn't this a small world."

"Is she a friend?"

She seems amused. "Why do you care?"

I don't think I do, I just want to be reassured that someone is having a worse night than I am.

"No, i met her tonight for the first time"

Damn her.

"It seems ideal really. That's what i prefer, at least".

"Oh wow. So cool" i think she's teasing rather than straight up insulting me. I'm just being honest why would she be insulting? It's less embarrassing if you don't care about their opinion.

I tell her just that, she makes a humming sound.

"I'm not really good at that." She says. "My attention span is devastatingly short, it takes a lot for a stranger to entertain me enough to hook up with them". She's wearing a sly smile.

"Wow."

"Yeah i know how pretentious it sounds" she huffs, looking a little embarrassed. There's no need for that though, i think i get it.

I'm the exact opposite. My attention span is so mortifyingly short that anybody can get between my legs. Or let me in theirs, though it only happens on rare occasions. 

Apparently we agreed upon mutual silence that we would stay outside a little longer. I go for another cigarette, mostly to keep myself occupied. She wants to be occupied as well and starts talking. I don't mind, really. She's being nice. Maybe she gets it.

I'm actually starting to feel better. Maybe i never felt bad in the first place. Yeah that seems right. Overreacting as usual. I just liked him. I like him. I think he liked it. Who the hell knows what he thinks now. Where is he anyway? He said there was a girl hitting on him. He said that when he came looking for me. That's got to mean something.

Yeah that's it. It didn't happen because of all of that. I freaked out because i liked him. Think i was in love with him up until an hour ago. Crazy what a pair of unzipped pants can do…

I ask the girl her name, guilty of not paying attention. Has she already told me? 

"Agatha" she says. "It's a good name. It's great. But it makes me feel old." Chuckles.

I like that name. "There's nothing wrong with being old" i point out. "My grandad is one of my best friends". I say 

"My grandad has dementia i think. Poor guy, i truly love him. I do."

"Oh. I'm sorry" i start dating something else but I'm not really sure what.

She just shrugs. I guess it happens. Yeah it does. 

Sometimes i lose my memory as well. All of those moments i had lost coming back in dreams rolling through roundabouts and back alleys. Dirty dirty dreams. I remember now. It's not that bad. I'm not that dirty. How much filth doeas Agatha have under her skin, i wonder.

"What's a young person name then?" i ask her instead. She looks at me for a while and then i notice her stare is actually blank. She is really thinking about it, playing with a strand of hair and biting her left cheek.

"Probably Anna. It still starts with an A and it is a palyndrome, which is funny. "

"It's not that funny" i point out

"Well it doesn't have to be hilarious!" She says back, amused, her voice slightly higher.

I don't remember how we got to walking around the garden. I'm sobering up slowly, a courtain opening up to shame. 

The place is nice though. Green. Blue. It got easier to see the stars once the air cleaned up a little. Stars and lots of hills, hills up until the end of the world. They are green just like this one. Earthly sibilings i guess. They are green with loads of orange: houses, lights. So many people awake. I won't ever meet them. Maybe some. I probably will never meet the ones Agatha will.

Down this hill lies our city. There's my mom somewhere asleep, i hope she's with dad. Who knows where my sister is. Should i call her? 

We get to the top, a small wooden fence guarding the area, making sure nobody rolls down. Behind us there's woods. 

Agatha has told me lots of stuff. She knows a lot of gossip about the people here but she only tells me about the people she doesn't like. Serves them right. There's this guy fucking the best friend of the girl he's going out with; this other chick is cheating on her boyfriend; one 'fucking asshole piece of shit' almost molested one of her friends. Fucking asshole piece of shit. And then she says the girl she slept with (even though they weren't in a bed or even horizontal for all that matters) tried to touch her even when she kept saying no. Agatha slapped her so hard her glasses flew out of her face. 

Yeah, she gets it.

I tell her about him. I tend to do that a lot. Talk about him, that is. I truly hope he doesn't mind. 

I was the one who started it, but he kissed me first, he'd been a real fucking gentleman about it. Really, he was. He looked at me with smiling eyes. His eyes are blue. Of course they are, and his hair is blond. He looked at me like that and he leaned in gently, asking for permission with the time it took for his lips to place onto mine. I was smiling as well. 

Should have kept it like that. 

At least among all the orange around me there's gotta be someone that did the same thing as me tonight. Or tomorrow or ten years ago. I truly don't believe in originality anyway. He's the only one who's different.

"Why is he?" She asks.

"He just is. You'd see it if you met him. It's all in his eyes. I think he knows something nobody else does."

"I think everybody does. But you only see it in him because it's him. Or maybe it's him because you see it."

"That's not true. Think of how many bland people there are in the world"

"Thanks. I'm pretty fucking bland but i know that i have something nobody else does. Just like everybody else." She says "I watched Fight Club in eighth grade, maybe that's why I don't believe in individuality. But I'm still a big individualist. Oh yes, damn right i am. I am the only real person in my life just like you are the only real person in yours. We don't really exist to each other. I'm glad i met you and all of that but how can i be sure you are real? It takes enough strength to convince myself that i am. Don't you ever just want to go to sleep?"

She stops for a second.

"Stop saying that" i plead. "Just don't. I can't hear this shit I'm sorry." 

"No man, I'm sorry. Really. It's dumb. I said some dumb shit. Sorry."

"That's okay" i mumble. "It's okay," i repeat.