Work Text:
You’re lying on the floor at the back of the band room.
You can hear the faint sounds of basketball coming from the direction of the gym. Your friends are somewhere out there too - free admission for being in pep band - and you let the guilt for missing out on a chance to have fun settle into your stomach alongside everything else. Your trombone is sitting on the chairs a few feet away. Once it’s almost halftime, you’ll pick yourself up and join them, because you have to, and you do what you have to do.
Until then, you’re going to lie here.
It would be easier if there was a reason for it - heartbreak, bad grades, trouble at home, whatever. You’ve got friends who are dealing with actual problems. Probably, anyway. You wouldn’t presume to ask. But no. You just wake up every morning and wish that you didn’t, for some dumb reason, and then you go to school and pretend like there’s a point to it, and then you go home and lie on your bed and try to not exist.
Except when you have pep band. Then you go to the back of the band room and lie on the floor and try to not exist there instead, apparently.
You hear footsteps. It’s just one person, probably headed to the lockers. You should really get up and be with your friends. There are only two more pep band days this year, and then it’s over, and you won’t get another chance until you’re a junior.
You can get up. You’re going to get up. You envision yourself getting up, piloting your body zombie-like down the hall. You can totally just get up.
You don’t get up.
The footsteps are back, then a voice:
“Hey! It’s my favorite Grace!”
You open your eyes and look up.
Zoe.
You should probably feel excited or nervous or something. Instead, the gaping hole where your chest should be just swirls on, oblivious. You lay your head back down.
“What are you doing?”
“Lying on the floor,” you say.
She laughs. “Ok, but like. Why?”
“Because that’s where I am.”
“You’re funny.”
You don’t think you’re all that funny. You close your eyes again and don’t respond.
“I’m going to chill back here for a while,” she tells you. “Is that alright?”
“Sure,” you say, and go back to trying not to exist.
——
“You still doing okay down there?”
She’s still here. You don’t know how to answer her question honestly, and you don’t have the energy to lie. Instead, you imagine your consciousness shrinking to a pinprick, your body swelling up and away like a rubber glove filling with water, time stretching out and congealing around you. Maybe she’ll go away on her own. That would probably be for the best.
You hear her chair scrape as she gets up, but instead of leaving, she walks over to you and lies down.
“Today’s not a talking day, huh? Don’t worry about it, I can talk enough for both of us. I figure if you’re enjoying the floor so much, I should see what’s so nice about it, you know?” She stretches extravagantly and yawns. “It’s a nice floor. Very solid. Good call picking a spot back here that’s not covered in valve oil and spit.”
Your consciousness has glued itself back into your body. This is fine, probably.
“Are you going to the winter dance next week? Right, no talking. I think you should. It’ll be fun. I’m going to smuggle in a pack of cards and some of us who aren’t so good at dancing are going to people watch and play card games in the back.”
That last bit’s a lie, you’re sure of it - cards, sure, you believe she’ll bring the cards, that sounds like something she’d do, but she loves dancing. You’re almost certain she loves dancing.
“Oh, I didn’t tell you! You know Ethan, right? Yesterday when I was headed out to wait for the bus, I asked him ‘what’s up?’ and he said ‘my bladder level.’ He’s such a weird guy. I love him.”
You can’t help it. Despite yourself, and despite the vacant ache, you laugh.
“Ha! I knew that’d do it!”
She rolls over onto her side, and, before you can process what’s happening, drapes an arm across your chest and lays her head on your shoulder. She’s wearing a massive green flannel jacket over her band t-shirt, and it’s warm, so much warmer than the cold tile. She’s warm, too, and all the things you hadn’t been feeling come flooding back in, a melange of adrenaline and endorphins and despair.
“I know it’s not a talking day today, but like. If it’s a talking day later, you can talk to me about it, ok?”
She sits up, then slips off her jacket and lays it over you. You’ve got a good six inches on her, and it still manages to feel oversized. It’s not quite as warm or as heavy against you as she was, but it’s the next best thing. It smells just like her - you didn’t realize you knew that smell, but you know it now. You’d know it anywhere, now.
“Stay comfy, alright? I’ll see you at halftime.” And then, barely a whisper, so close you can feel her breath against your ear: “I love you.”
She says that to everyone. You know she does. You’ve heard her say it so many times.
Still, your heart is racing.
She says that to everyone. But this time, she said it to you.