Chapter Text
Fall reminded me of my favorite feelings. The air that formed goosebumps on my skin in the early morning never failed to bring a wave of fond memories to the forefront of my mind. If anything, it wasn’t the feelings that I remember so tenderly, but the memories that came with them. Really, I tried not to think too hard about the memories. I like to preserve them, to keep them in their natural state without the meddling of falsified details. But the feeling? It never changes
One of the feelings I remember fondly is when I have to race next door in the early-morning chill to wait for my best friend, and next-door neighbor, Benny, to get ready for school so we could walk to the bus together. Today was the first of those mornings, as every other one had been warm and unwelcoming, with the desperate attempts from keeping my armpits from sweating as soon as I left the safety of my air conditioned home.
Benny was in the middle of picking out an outfit when I walked upstairs to find him. When I opened his front door, I was welcomed by the lukewarm air and his dog, Mazie. She’s the sweetest thing, four years old and still energized like a puppy. She followed me up the stairs to where I found Benny’s room, door wide open as usual, with clothes scattered all over the floor.
“Fuck. I hate when the weather gets like this, I never know how to dress for it and I wake up freezing.”
“Maybe that’s because you throw all your blankets on the floor while you sleep,” I say as I sit down on his bed, leaning against the headboard. I can't help but be reminded of him pelting blankets onto the floor where I sleep over during the night.
“Okay, true. You got me there, but, I still can’t choose an outfit.” I rubbed my eyes then looked at his options; a plain black sweater, or a Star Wars T-shirt with his green zip-up hoodie.
“Go with the zip-up. You’ll be able to take it off when it gets hot later.”
He contemplates my response for a moment. “Yeah. You’re right.” He switches from his sleep shirt to the second option, then pulls his jeans over his boxers. When he leaves for the bathroom, I don’t even pay him any mind by taking out my phone. I know his hair will take him awhile.
On the bus ride to school, Benny fills me in on his studies by showing me the notes he writes in his journal. He’s been studying witchcraft for weeks now, but he likes to refer to himself as a warlock.
“Okay, so I had to write down what each different color of wax is supposed to do for spells, and like, why it matters. I think I’ve already showed you all the stuff about the different herbs. Well, at least the ones my grandma keeps in the kitchen. I still don’t know where I can get the weird ones.”
I skimmed over his notes, scribbled in green ink. “Do you want to go get candles later?” I ask.
“Sure. I just need sticks.”
“Okay, cool. Also, Sarah texted me this morning and told me to tell you that Erica and her want us to come over for a “kick back” tomorrow night. You wanna go?”
His face lights up even more than before. “Yes! Wow, I never thought people like them would want to invite me- Well, us, to kickbacks.”
“You sure you didn’t perform any spell on them?” I tease.
“Shut up,” he laughs.
Ever since Sarah and Erica got paired up with us for a group project in a juniors class Benny and I were taking, they’ve sort of accepted us into their friend group of what Benny would call “cool cats”. Really, they’re stoners and they’re laidback. Pretty much the opposite of everything we use to think about them. Benny tells me he thinks Sarah and Erica are the hottest girls he’s ever seen in all his years, but I don’t think he believes that. Not that they aren’t beautiful, I just don’t think Benny knows what to do with female attention.
A week or so ago, Sarah and Erica came over Benny’s to get us high for the first time. His grandma is an older hippie woman who didn’t mind at all when Benny told her the truth about the girls intentions for coming over. “Rather you do it at the house,” is what he quoted her saying. We did it in his backyard, surrounded by the sunflowers his grandma plants. Benny just talked about The Riddler comics the whole time so I sort of doubted the girls were finding him to be any sort of ladies man material.
The day came and went and before I knew it, it was tomorrow night. Benny and I were in my bedroom, playing smash on the Xbox while we waited for it to be time to leave. The house that was hosting was only a couple streets away, but Benny couldn’t stop complaining over the walk.
“It’s going to be cold on the way back, can’t we just ask Erica to pick us up?” he whined.
“Why would we make her go out of her way for that? It’s literally a fifteen minute walk dude, you’ll be fine.”
“But it would be a five minute drive.”
“If you get cold, you can walk faster to make it take less time.”
He was winning in the game despite my best effort to beat him. “Awwww, fuck!”
“Better luck next time.”
I set down the controller on my TV stand. “Okay, are you ready to go?” I asked, turning to look at him.
“Yeah.”
I stood up, put my keys in my pocket, and threw on my favorite Bob Ross christmas sweatshirt. Yeah, it wasn’t anywhere near Christmas yet, but it’s warm and one of my favorites. We began the walk to the house in the street lights.
“Do you think they’ll be more girls there?” Benny asked.
“I don’t know, maybe.”
“I think Sarah likes you.”
I shrugged. “I really doubt that. She could get with any older dude with a car and who isn’t the same size as her.”
“Oh, you are so not the same size as her. You’re like, small, but she’s tiny.”
Laughing, I said,”Gee, that makes me feel better.”
“No, I’m just saying she makes you look tall!” He back peddles.
“Eh, don’t worry about it. I think she just sees me as a friend.”
“Doesn’t have to be that way forever.”
“We’ll see.”
In all honesty, I wasn’t interested in Sarah like that. Maybe I could be, but it’s too early in the friendship to know if she’s even a good friend, much less if she’s the type to be a good girlfriend. We’ve never had girlfriends before, besides those silly middle-school things where you hold hands at lunch and the relationship peaks after you peck them on the lips. Because of my lack of, well, experience, I don’t even know if I’d make a good boyfriend.
When we were walking up to the house, I texted Sarah that we were there so by the time we reached the door, she was there to greet us. “Hi guys!” she exclaimed.
“Hi, Sarah,” Benny said with a huge smile. He looked like an eager puppy.
“Come in, I want to introduce you to Danielle. She thinks you’re cute,” Sarah says to Benny, whispering the second half.
Danielle is the girl who lives here, hosting the get-together. Benny turned a bright shade of pink when Sarah brought the two together. The second she touched his arm he was infatuated, and I but all ceased to exist in Bennys world anymore.
“Ethan, have you ever had a White claw before?” Erica asked casually. She held out a black cherry flavored can to me.
“No, actually, but I’ll drink it just for you.”
We were in Danielle’s basement now, with the LED lights that lined the door frame set to blue. I was on my second white claw, while sitting on the floor beneath Erica on the couch while she played with my hair from above. Danielle and Sarah had a couple other girl friends here with us, along with one of their boyfriend’s, but he didn’t pay me or Benny too much attention. His girl seemed kind of clingy and needed his undivided attention.
We had smoked outside on the back porch, so I was feeling calm and relaxed while Erica did what I assumed to be braiding on my scalp. Dance Moms was playing on the TV and I couldn’t help but wonder if this is what all the excitement around high school parties were about. If so, this was a scene I could tolerate and even grow to love.
Sarah sat cuddled up to Erica, eating chips and salsa from the bag and the jar. After looking at Sarah, I wonder where Benny went. Glancing around the room, I spot him in a corner on a loveseat. Danielle sits in his lap, running her fingers through her hair, down the side of his face, which reflect the intense glow of the blue light across the room. If I had kept facing forward, I couldn’t have even seen them in my peripheral. But there I was, looking right at them.
I tried to be discreet by resting my head on my knees. Benny was giggling and Danielle was smiling. He pushed her dark hair behind her ear. I had never seen him act so gentle, so soft, or so different from the clumsy, wreckless boy I know. The way his fingertips glide across her face and behind her ear look so foreign- so out of place, yet completely natural simultaneously.
She took his face in her small hands, then was leaning down to meet her lips to Benny’s. The sinking in my chest to my stomach felt like a weight of ten bricks entered my body. I think I forgot how to breathe. Watching their lips move together effortlessly brought a tightness into my stomach. Suddenly, I was up on my feet and was racing to the room I vaguely remembered as the bathroom.
After shutting the door behind me, I dropped to my knees and began a coughing fit. My body began to shake, and next thing I remembered was vomiting into the toilet. It only lasted about thirty seconds, but the sweating and shaking I experienced afterwards felt like a thousand years.
I flushed the toilet. I sat back against the wall. Why the hell did I just get so sick? Man, it would suck if drinking didn’t agree with me. Or maybe I did what Sarah warned me of, called “greening out”.
“Ethan, are you okay?” Sarah’s voice asked from outside the door.
“Uh, yeah. I think I greened out.”
“Okay, hold on, I’ll be right back. Open the door, though.” I did as she said and cracked it open. A moment later, she appeared with a water bottle and a towel.
“Sorry, god, this is pretty embarrassing.” I took the water bottle and began drinking from it.
“Oh, no, don’t worry. It has happened to every one of us. Sometimes it still does if we didn’t eat or something before getting high. Don’t feel bad,” she reassured me with a smile, then wiped the sweat off my forehead and neck. The towel was cold against my skin and soothed the heat flash I felt like I was in.
“Does Danielle actually like Benny or does she just wanna fuck him?”
“Um, I think both. She’s not the type to hook up only based on looks. Like, she likes funny guys and nice guys and thinks that’s important before she fucks them.”
“Oh, well that’s good. I just hope she knows he’s never done that before.” I realized after that left my mouth that i probably should’ve kept that piece of truth to myself.
“Wait, what? Benny’s a virgin?”
“Ah, fuck. Sorry, I shouldn’t have told you that. But yeah.”
“I mean, I don’t care I just figured he’s at least had a girlfriend before.” She joined me sitting on the floor.
“Nope. Barely even kissed girls.”
“Wow. They went up to her room, so I hope Danielle is having fun with that,” she laughs. I smirk and shake my head.
“God, that’s gonna be a funny story in the morning.”
After a while, Sarah took me back downstairs. Everyone else had cleared out, except Erica was just asleep, curled up under a blanket. I thought she looked beautiful and peaceful there, so out of her element of being lively. I couldn’t help but wonder what Benny and Danielle were doing upstairs; were they having sex? Was I in the same house while Benny was losing his virginity. I cringed at the thought.
Somehow this seemed right; I was the one who embarrassed themselves and Benny was the one getting laid. He has this thing about him that gives him the best luck in the world. I, however, had the worst. Maybe that’s why we made such a good team.