by: buttcheeksonthepavement (PAVE) 11-11-24
Work of fiction. This takes place before the main story, still narrated by the same narrator.
I was fifteen, if I'm recalling correctly, when I had my first boyfriend and girlfriend. The first snowfall had occurred the day before our class welcomed an exchange student. I was the same then as I am now: introverted. I didn't dare talk to anyone. But there was something about him that made me want to be friends. So I came up to him and asked if he wanted to have lunch together. He replied, but I didn't quite understand him. Forgive me, but to this day I still have trouble identifying accents. I would guess that his accent was Spanish. Although I didn't understand his verbal reply, I understood his agreement to the suggestion, for he sat with me during lunch for the rest of winter. When spring came and there was a sudden downpour, he oh-so conveniently had twice the amount of umbrellas as himself, so he lent me one. Once we were dismissed from school, we walked side by side in the rain. He grabbed my hand, please note that I understood him through his accent by this time, and he said that his hands were cold. I only smiled and squeezed his hand tighter to provide him with more warmth. I must have misinterpreted our friendship this entire time, because the next moment he pushed me against the wall and put his lips on mine. I did not feel anything, only the obligation to reciprocate the action. For the next few weeks we put our lips together in the same manner. I heard him whisper among the boys and girls: "That's my partner. We're in love." I was indifferent about the whole situation and simply continued my studies.
One day, while I was studying integers and linear graphs in the empty classroom, he knocked, as if the classroom were my personal boudoir. I answered, "come in." He grabbed a chair and dragged it ever so silently beside me and sat down. He was wordless beside me, and I didn't know that I was supposed to ask "what's wrong?" until he verbally said, "aren't you going to ask me what's wrong?" So I repeated: "what's wrong?" with a false tone of caring. He croaked, "I like being a girl." I misheard and thought that he had said 'I like girls,' so I asked if he didn't want to date me anymore (I was unsure of what gender he thought I was). He was silent for a few beats before he said "no, I think I identify as a girl." I wasn't sure how to respond, as I myself never felt aligned with a binary gender identity. So I only kissed her and told her that it would be okay with me if she identified as a girl, or a lizard or a carp. She cried on my chest as I played with her hair, which I realised at that moment that she was growing it for her transition.
Over the course of a year she adopted more feminine mannerisms and started wearing skirts and tight cardigans. The cardigans would turn into tank tops that revealed her waist during the summer time. Once the summer came, we completely stopped talking. I wondered at that time, if transitioning made you stray further away from the people you once loved. Anyway, the whole matter did not bother me in the slightest. I did not find it particularly great that we were dating, nor did I find it particularly devastating when she stopped contacting me every night. A part of me briefly wondered if she only started avoiding me because I knew that behind her feminine front was nothing but an ordinary boy. Another part of me thought that she had simply grown bored of me. But I would brush off all the events of the school year only a day later, and I continued on with studying.
I met her again the other day. Years and years have passed, yet she still recognized me. Like a broken record, she apologised about leaving me that summer as if everything happened yesterday or last week. I, in fact, forgot about her and our relationship until she mentioned it.
Anyway, she looks really good now, and I asked if I could paint her. She gasped deeply at this, as if I had won the lottery and said I was giving half of it to her. On our way to the studio, I told her about how I sold my soul to painting and was briefly famous. Throughout the storytelling she squealed like some fan seeing their favourite celebrity in real life for the first time. She offered me a cigarette and I gladly accepted the offer. We stepped inside and I told her to wear the flip-flops that were tossed at the corner of my studio. It was only because the studio floor was so dirty and her shoes were dazzling. My studio-mate was lounging on the couch, but quickly scurried away like a cockroach saying, "This needs to be the last time you smoke, I can't take it anymore," before leaving and shutting the studio door behind him. I told her to sit still for no longer than forty minutes, and she did while we chatted and told each other about our careers. But only ten minutes in, she asked in a seductive tone, "want my clothes on or off?" in which I nonchalantly replied "on." I think she got embarrassed after that and then said she needed to leave early because something came up. I was left with an unfinished painting and her dazzling shoes. The whole matter was deeply entertaining to me--the girl I dated in highschool was flirting with me several years later!
I tried to finish the painting from memory, but just as she had come and gone so quickly, the memory faded too. I relit the rest of my cigarette and drifted to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment