Free Fall

:Chapter 11: "That went well. My aunt thinks we're dating,"

Chapter 11
(Unedited)

On the contrary of belief, most people freeze and reach the instant level of anxiety as they babble in their mind what will happen next as they stay in a cat vs. mouse situation of octane awkwardness. With the knock at the door, we both separate quickly with enough force to portray Newton's third law.

The lacklustre moment led to me being uncomfortable and awkward. The jealousy and chemical erosion in my veins of how jealous I am of Christian is a new formation for me to endure as the heat of my cheeks start to die down.

"I was just getting ready to take Luke home," Christian announced proudly as his aunt opened the door. Once again, apprehending the factor, they wouldn't knock first. Linda throws on a knowing and accepting smile as though she was okay with this decision, whether it was true or not.

"No worries, Christian. I just called into work. I door dashed dinner for later," Linda tells us. "Luke dear, you look astonishing with your makeup on," she adds happily as she smiles and then shuts the door, presumably to get ready for work. Her telling me that I looked astonishing in makeup makes me fantasise that my parents wouldn't notice or ask me to take it off. In reality, I know that they would tell me just the opposite.

"That went well. My aunt thinks we're dating," Christian tells me as he walks towards me. "She also complimented your makeup," he adds happily as he places his hand on my shoulders.

"I take it; she doesn't compliment you on your makeup," I mention as I slide my school blazer on as I completely ignore anything related to the last thing that he had said. How could he even think that in the first place? I had no intention of dating or thereof until college. Here it was; Christian was feeling it.

"She fully supports it, and she even wants me to do her makeup sometime," Christian tells me happily. The statement of his aunt thinking we're dating seems to have seized from his thoughts. A slight relief I found as we got closer to the jeep.

***

With the setting of the amber sunset in the background and the ground littered with the hues of autumn, I pull out my phone to take a selfie. The serenity of my parents being at church or shopping, giving me a chance to splice the depressing tone up a notch. Leaving the makeup, Christian had applied along with astronomical glow in dark facial stickers blended with the glitter Christian blemished on my face setting the mood. A slight breeze plays with hair, bringing a chill as geese fly overhead, depriving me of taking a more vibrant photo as I toss the autumn coloured leaves above my head like a child at play as I take the picture. It had seemed like a different version of myself.

The emotional moment ends when Dryden arrives at the house. The new version of me; now shattered as I turn my phone off. It became something I did so often I now started doing it around Dryden. A butterfly effect of the activities between Christian and myself. A small scoff comes from Dryden, as I'm sure it's about the makeup.

"Puck from that Shakespeare play, right?" Dryden asks, leaving me unsure what to say as I ponder through the reference he had referred to. I remain sitting on the ground with my arms hugging my legs, revealing my bare ankles. It doesn't take him long to sit beside me.

"I haven't read that play in years," I tell him as the chill from the autumn breeze picks up again, making me cold with the weather feeling of autumn and winter mixed in one, as it gets closer to the winter season in New England.

"You wanted to be Puck so bad you got depressed when you didn't get the part," Dryden tells me as he brings up the memory of freshman year when literate history class had introduced us to the works of Shakespeare. Shakespeare, the godfather of queer playwrights as literate history, taught first-year students how plays had been in Shakespeare's time. And Mercutio, the west wing hero in the nineties version of Romeo and Juliet, paraded around his pride as the school system debated whether he was gay or not.