Chapter 7 Romantic Tom Foolery: Is this different?

"She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her.”  Zora Neale Hurston

I received a message at approximately 2330 asking if I would enjoy partaking in some romantic tom foolery, star gazing, guitar playing and possibly a sleepover. I’d been staying with Grace and Scarlette, piecing back together the broken bits of out relationship caused by my selfishness. We’d been watching a terrible soap opera together, I missed their company dreadfully. Now. my heart called me away. These meetings were always so late.. I told the girls about my plans, it was always very awkward and I felt like I had to leave right away. 

I brought with me my little leather satchel, stumbling gracelessly into the room I threw it on the bed, my toothbrush and a couple tampons spilling out. Immediately regretting that decision and scrambled to gather my unmentionables before I thought he could notice and then set my bag onto the ground beside his bed. We were mumbling conversation and when I looked up at him, he motioned towards the bed and coughed pointedly. Low and behold a tampon I had laid on his bed, glaring at me. I swiftly moved to rejoin it with my bag.

“I am the most awkward person ever”

“You’re a lot of things” I hugged him, and he pulled my arms up around his shoulders and kissed the top of my head, subsequently looking down at my face. My embarrassed smirk betrayed me and he moved some hair obscuring my cheek. 

“So are we going to go on the roof or not?”

“I guess we are.” My jacket was hanging in his closet. He put on the one sweater he’d lent me while we walked Leo, what felt like months ago. He turned his back to me as we walked out of his room and down the hallway. 

“So when you mentioned Manifest Destiny earlier, were you alluding to the prerogative of the people of the Western world, namely the United States to assimilate all those around them such a long time ago. If so, you must explain the context to me.”

“I was talking about the Carl Marx original,” He laughed. I was slightly puzzled. The Communist Manifesto had a Manifest Destiny clause? Firstly, that was a lot of manifestation and secondly this boy definitely kept me on my academic toes. Except he was wrong, in this instance. He walked outside and I followed, tripping over the mat of the front door. He began teasing me, joking about my inability to walk. He started to say something which boasted of his intelligence, though I cannot remember what now, something pretentious and I would have none of it. At the first natural break in his speech I pulled his face down and kissed him with earnest. Finally releasing him, he seemed puzzled but not at all displeased. 

“Was that to keep me in my niche as the dumb athlete, or because the dumb athlete said something smart and that makes you happy?”

“Neither. Sometimes I just like it when you don’t talk” In hindsight, that didn’t come out exactly desired. I’d mean’t to say that sometimes I preferred it when he didn't talk because he was always trying to be something, or perhaps always just trying to not be something that people expected. Wilfully contrary. I didn’t care about that part of him. I wanted him to be whatever he was and like whatever he liked, whether or not anyone expected it from him. I made him get up onto the roof first, even though he had been drinking earlier in the night. We sat there, braving the wind, him leaning against one of the many roof thing that I don’t know the name of. He was cold, the kind of person that rarely dressed for the weather, choosing fashion over function. 

“Are you cold?”

“Freezing”

“Do you wanna get down?”

‘I’ll live”

I cannot recall exactly what we talked of, a little that much drama was centred around him, serial monogamy and the ownership qualities contemporary relationships have recently adopted. But mostly we were laughing, as always, about nothing.  

“How drunk are you?”

“Drunk enough that I could do a cartwheel and still be sober enough to stop you before you accidentally walked yourself off the roof” He laughed and then the roof was silent for a few minutes. “I have a question.”

“Alright”

“Is this different?” And in that moment I wanted to turn and kiss him and say “YES, and I have no idea why you like me because I’m totally not as good looking, arguably cooler but…”

But instead I was cripplingly unreadable.

“Like is sitting on your roof different? Or is this, what we have, you and me, different?”

“Yes, you and I”

“Well, I don’t believe in fate or destiny or any of that. I believe we make choices and I guess I’m here, so thats something. I don’t know what you want me to say. What about for you, is this different for you?”

“Yes.” He paused. “I’ve never ha… No, had isn't the right word. I’ve never met someone like you before. Someone who thinks about life in your way. So many people are just living, and you stop to think about things. It’s different.”

“So my waxing philosophical is whats keeping you here? You can thank my father, he totally the reason I’m like this”

“No. I can thank you.” I could feel him kiss my hair. We both stood, and made our way down the roof. I almost slipped getting down at the bottom. I hugged him at the top of the stairs on the front porch in the powdered out starlight. We returned to the house and brushed our teeth, settling down for the night. He told me of his grandfather, who's read so many books it makes me ashamed of myself -including  and not limited to, The Little Prince, and apparently even the encyclopedia, my guess can only be Britannica, and whatever come out every year. His father was a fire fighter and his mother a brilliant physiotherapist. His older brother, apparently the coolest person ever, which probably explained his inferiority complex, the younger a super athlete who played University volleyball before deciding that he’d play basketball instead and who deigns to be attired in a kilt for all formal occasions. They sounded very interesting, there was something however, in the tone of his voice and his description that made me think he had some contempt for his father. Who was I to guess? I sat there thinking, my eyebrows furrowed.

“You know, you're a little hard to read.” He laughed but was a little frustrated on the inside it seemed. 

“Hum…Pot, kettle, black.” I responded, he seemed a little outraged at my accusation, but then joined me with a giggle. 

“See, that, what is that? Are you mad?”

“I’m never mad”

“Everyone gets mad.”

“Why do I need to get angry? Who does that help? It is what it is and being angry won’t change it.”

“What do you do when someone absolutely makes you angry?”

“I leave and then I stop being angry.”

“Sometimes you seem like you're angry when we’re together.”

“You just drive me crazy, don’t confuse intensity with anger, you and my father are the only men that can get any type of reaction out of me.”

“I guess I’ll take that.” It was silent for a few minutes. I glanced at the clock. 2:47AM. “We should probably go to bed.”

“We’re in bed” I half smiled without teeth just up to the left, eyes crinkled: my crooked smile. He switched off his lamp and I settled my head down on his chest. He kissed me in the darkness and I whispered out:

“I have a question”

“Do you always preface questions with that?” So smug.

“Tell me something real. You’ve got this stupid facade, now tell me something true about you.”

He paused and I paused. The wheels of his head turning it seemed. Buying some time he absentmindedly began playing with my hair. I giggled and he glanced at me in the darkness, eyes finally adjusting. Sitting up I faced him:  “Is there anything real? Do you even know? It is like a scavenger hunt in there?” I nodded towards his head and then settled back down. He paused again, maybe I was spot on. He didn’t know. He said he loved his family, which is more than some people can. We didn't say anything else and then we fell asleep.