Not Today | ✔️

Chapter Forty Four.

"I don't know anything
But I know I miss you
Standing in your cardigan..."

✧✧✧

Tristan had hit a new low.

He was officially fucking pathetic. More pathetic than he'd always been, which was a feat in its fucking self, but yes, he was even more pathetic.

He was listening to Taylor fucking Swift.

His father had gotten really bad about shaming him for anything that reminded him of his mom, starting with his features, especially his hair, which somehow transformed into him spitting words of acid at Tristan whenever he said or did anything he saw as feminine. Any part of his existence that was feminine, was wrong.

And so, he'd never even tried listening to pop music, especially ones made by female artists, but holy shit, his dad was the fucking pussy for never listening to Taylor Swift, because somehow, listening to one song he remembered Evelyn liked turned into him having a fucking listening party in his room, listening to her albums from beginning to end.

Not even the regular albums. The deluxe albums.

Tristan, though, felt the truth in her voice as she sang each word in the same way he felt the truth in each click of his camera. Too often, he felt himself drawing comparisons between the lyrics and his relationship with Evelyn. The music made him feel understood in a way only Evelyn ever had and suddenly he realized why she read so often, how real a story is, even when it's fictional.

And the melodies of the songs were pretty fucking catchy, too.

As he went to reach for his mom's dog tags, he came into contact with nothing and sighed in frustration. It wasn't that he regretted giving it to Evelyn, but it was the first time in years that he didn't have it on at every waking moment and it induced a sort of anxiety in him. He'd lived without his mother for years and yet, taking that chain off felt like the moment he took the training wheels off. Still, it brought him comfort knowing Evelyn--his Evelyn--had it.

Despite that comfort, though, there was still an anxiety within him, like he was never fully settled, but he'd felt that feeling before and it was specific to Evelyn. The edge of anxiety would always be there, in the back of his mind and bottom of his heart, until Evelyn was in his arms again.

The nervous energy, though, pushed him to leave the dark stillness of his room and instead leave, giving his Aunt Georgia a kiss on the cheek before he headed down the street, where he knew Jerome's house wasn't very far.

Once he arrived, he hesitated before knocking, Jerome looking half-dead as he swung the door open.

Tristan furrowed his eyebrows. "Are you okay?"

"I wonder if this is how girls feel on their period," he said, simply. "But my brain is being destroyed, not my uterus."

Tristan whistled. "I'll take that as an absolute no, then."

"I need juice," Jerome said, turning from the door and leaving Tristan standing there, but he was used to that and easily closed the door before walking towards his kitchen. He frowned when he saw the papers strung across Jerome's counter, next to his open laptop.

"What subject?" Tristan asked, automatically recognizing the look in Jerome's eyes as one he'd felt many times before. School was overwhelming him.

"English," he said with a sigh. "I didn't do well on the final, but she gave me the opportunity to get extra credit if I chose a classic that we haven't read in class to dissect the different elements of the text, focusing mainly on characterization and symbolism and how they relate."