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“All my friends think you’re vicious and they say you’re suspicious.”
“I feel like I’m drowning. You’re holding me down and you’re killing me slow.”
It’s a metaphor of course, but Eli does sort of feel like he’s drowning and it is all Victor’s fault.
Victor Vale. Tall, dark, mysterious, and handsome – and sure, probably not as handsome as Eli. But everyone has their different tastes. Eli thought of himself as more generic, easier for more people to find attractive, not that it meant much. Victor, on the other hand, was a dangerous kind of handsome. Or maybe a different word would be more apt. He was magnetic. To Eli at least.
Eli was extremely popular, but no one knew him well. That’s how he kept people liking him, keeping them at arm’s length and only allowing them to see what he wanted them to see. Victor somehow broke through Eli’s armour the first time they crossed paths. Like Victor’s eyes cut right through him, exposing everything inside. Eli had actually looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. They hadn’t. Victor’s eyes had stayed on him as Eli walked passed.
Eli was new, just moving to this town as he was apt to do, never staying anywhere too long, never risking exposure. Eli asked his small core group of friends about the mysterious boy with shocking blond hair who wore only black. They’d said he was a loner and that there were always a number of rumours circulating about him at any time. He was a criminal, a thief, even a murderer apparently. Eli brushed it off. People saw what they wanted. Afterall, they had no idea who Eli truly was. Why would they know who Victor was?
The first time he talked to Victor, he was thrown through even more of a loop. He thought he’d prepared himself, but he hadn’t just imagined the look Victor had given him the day before. Victor’s knowing smile spoke volumes, and it made Eli’s façade slip even more. He didn’t know how to act so he didn’t know who he should be, and so the person that came out was possibly the most real version of himself. Eli considered this many times as he and Victor got to know each other over the following weeks. Eli always thought people would be scared if they saw under his masks, and he still thought most people would, but also learned Victor wasn’t most people.
Eli wondered what would happen if he spent time with both Victor and his other friends? Would he be able to keep up his armour around Victor if there was more at stake? Being with Victor had felt like drowning before, like panic and desperation. It had been so long for anyone to see through him. But now… now it was freedom. It felt like a relief to be himself around Victor, and to have Victor accept him rather than reject him for it. And that was somehow even more dangerous…