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when the world collapses around them, matty wants to capture it in his memory, leave it as one of the cliché plots that starts in a stuffy club and ends among crumpled bed sheets and awkwardness.
matty feels sick, empty, body a shell with aching bones and fatigue—not something ephemeral but a heavy burden on his shoulders and a desire to fall.
to search for a stranger, to find each other in the intersection of eyes and fingers, desperate and sad, winds like a red thread between their little fingers, inevitably attracting.
matty suggests it, and dan agrees. surprise throbs beneath his skin, the slow motion of a shipwreck or catastrophic fall of planets from their orbits, the chaos of outer space. do not think, do not reflect.
matty tells the taxi driver his address, blurry and quick, touches dan’s forearm. slams the door.
his lungs are made of smoke, and he closes his eyes against the flickering brightness of ads against his eyelids. something’s playing on the radio about how someone “lights up the world,” about “what makes you beautiful.” the driver turns up the volume. dan’s fingers tap along to the rhythm on his knee, the keys invisible, one, two, three, the blurry touch of chords.
dan says quietly,
“i thought they would win the x-factor.”
matty shrugs, attention locked on the dial of his wristwatch, lost in the short vibration of a phone in his pocket, the usual background hum of the car engine.
“that would be too predictable,” matty finally says.
he answers a text from ross, sends several emojis to adam, and leans his head against dan’s shoulder, denim, dense fabric against his cheek and the faint smell of cologne. the taxi driver, barely audible, sings along to the last verse, changes the station to breaking news.
he wants to doze off, but the sharp lines of cheekbones and the latest summary of market exchange rates are distracting.
he pays the driver.
from the center street, into the side streets and drizzling rain, the city plunges into silence, into the drops running down the collar of a hoodie and into the curve of a neck. sneakers get dirty in a kaleidoscope of dirty water on asphalt.
there are apartments on the outskirts of london, a key that does not get into the lock the first time, and muffled, warm yellow light from the stairwells. dan breathes unevenly, heavily, stopped five steps back, kissed stupidly and quietly, a little drunk. slam the door, and a jacket is dropped on the back of the chair.
snuggle up to his neck and clasp your hands together. there is a deep, worried look, a soft “i’m not sure.”
matty says,
“good.”
good, because he himself is not sure. the excitement rolls in slow, soft waves, washing away the feverish rush, the flame of impatience. good, because he needs to break away from dan’s mouth by sheer force of will, every action distorted by surrealism.
he does not want to think, because otherwise, too much will come up: how it will hurt your future career and how you won’t write anymore lines about falling in love with other people.
matty stumbles over shoes in the hallway, clings to dan’s shoulder, sudden and painful, says something about the mess.
dan looks at him and smiles, just the corner of his mouth, intimate and warm, as if they’ve known each other for a thousand years, his shirt a little damp, his hair an even bigger mess than before, and says,
“i like the decor.”
the light is off, and matty pays one and a half thousand pounds a month, and he would gladly change the wallpaper along with the furniture and and the color scheme, but he finds himself being polite.
“thanks.”
the walls are spreading with black and blue reflections, melting in the faded street lighting, and the alleys are drowning in rainwater. he has a guitar leaning against the back of the sofa, coffee cups left out, and the night is sparkling with a melody that strings won’t ever play.
“this is my most awkward no strings attached sex,” matty says when he pulls off his hoodie and throws it to the side.
dan laughs softly. they freeze in the darkness of the room, inevitably and unobtrusively.
“no strings attached?”
matty does not know how to answer, wrinkles the edge of dan’s t-shirt with his fingers, without touching the skin.
“apparently.”
what obligations do they have? sleep with each other and forget, write a few lines, mention in a song.
but he‘ll be lying if he admits this is about to happen, and he takes one step back, and this is honest:
“i’m not ready for sex.”
for dan’s sake, for his own sake, for the sake of tomorrow morning without shame and remorse, for the sake of a soft touch on a forearm.
dan says,
“good. me either, to be honest.” he laughs a little quietly and a little awkwardly, and matty takes his palm in his.
matty smiles uncertainly. details that have never been important suddenly take new form. the world is blurring in corners, lost in twilight and obscure shadows, blurred like the uncertain movement of a brush in watercolor.
matty runs a hand through his hair.
“i have wine somewhere.”
matty leads.
leaning on a kitchen counter, he makes notes in his head, and his hands open a bottle and dump a full ashtray into the trash.
on the windowsill, a forgotten, half-empty carton of marlboros is found. matty opens the window, clicks the lighter.
after a few puffs, he changes the cigarette for the bottle. dan takes a drag, too unpracticed, too quick, coughs, and matty takes it back with a laugh. shakes the ashes off into a cup.
matty wants to ask what to do next, wants to ask, because everything is going wrong. where the boundaries between them now lie, crystal calm shimmers with shades of blue on skin, the taste of spice on the tongue. matty decides for himself.
he puts out the cigarette in one motion.
he takes another sip.
matty does not turn on the light. he kisses gently and slowly, brushing the harshness of tobacco smoke and wine on his lips, draws with coolness and dampness, the smell of wet leaves of late spring.
it should be about casual sex, but there’s too much that’s personal, here. capote’s novel and an antidepressant bottle opened, notes on the table next to the dark rim of glasses, the fatal defenselessness of a look and soft touch of lips. too much that’s personal, life in a desperate grip, less and less space between. is it possible to become whole from this?
a text notification dings loudly, disgusting, and taking a step back, shoulders shivering in a draft, matty brushes off the notice, thinks, “why not?” and quickly searches for the song he needs, and the gaze opposite his is heartfelt, warm, and matty takes his hand and draws him closer in the narrow kitchen doorway.
is it possible, with some slow-moving indie-pop song playing, dancing leisurely, more in the spirit of swaying to the music at a high school dance (which he never went to, went to a festival, instead, damn it), as he doesn’t lead, with the difference in height, and matty’s clumsy, and dan is, too—
dan says,
“i could fall in love with you.”
it’s so simple, simple as breathing, like a poem without a beautiful ending on a white sheet, and it’s too complicated, like a string of relationships and your own mistakes. matty swallows, squeezes his fingers too tightly on the edge his t-shirt, touches his lips to dan’s chin.
they have no future, and the present is washed away by rainwater and alcohol, loneliness, and need. this cannot be changed.
he closes his eyes at the refrain, lyrical and desperate, and kisses like it’s some cinematic moment of a tv show with a perfect soundtrack.
could be—where he doesn’t have to share one music scene, one capital city, one country, polar opposite lifestyles, and one society and too many desires, too many touches—
could be—where matty does not step back and blurt out some excessive, inappropriate sentimentalisms, the story of the night closed by the clock—
he studies dan’s face, a scattering of barely-noticeable freckles and the brightness of the iris, so very close.
almost three songs later, dan casts a short look at his watch and stops, and matty finishes the wine, leads him by the wrist to the bedroom.
“i can sleep on the couch?” dan says in this mix between a statement and a question, and matty snorts.
“only if you kick.”
hugs among sheets and silence, where one can imagine the whole world does not exist except for: the warm breathing, palms on waists, eyelashes stroking cheeks.
vulnerability, which scares you to shivers, small cracks in the frame of your ribs from the beating from inside.
matty says,
“i could fall in love with you, too.”
it’s a wall: music and poetry, ambiguous dreams, and a desire to change the world, to tell the world your story, your feelings.
in a world where there is no group of four and a bad synthesizer in a closet, piercing lyrics and drugs, the culmination of a soul torn to pieces, they have a chance.
he hugs dan too tightly, closes his eyes.
in this world they don’t.