perf*ct (boy × boy) ✔

eleven: personal space

solar clarke's pov

"Okay, now that we have all night, tell me something about yourself." I liked this confident version of Nathan.

"Could you narrow it down a bit?" I asked. Nathan furrowed his brows in confusion and tilted his head slightly on the side, so I rephrased: "Like what's my shoe size? Or what do I believe is the meaning of life?"

"Why would I want to know your shoe size?" Yeah, why would you?

I chuckled, moving to the next question: "The meaning of life is.. Well, I guess it's to find a meaning for life."

"Ugh, this swing is making me sick." Nathan complained, scrunched up his face and slumped to lay down on the rubber tile ground. "Okay, go on."

How was I suddenly the nervous one? Something about his wide and focused eyes made me feel like I was standing in front of a crowd and desperately trying to find the right words. The concentrated attention he was giving me was enlivening.

I laid down on the ground next to him, lifting my gaze to the sky. Then I started rambling about myself: my interest in philosophy, especially in Plato, how my parents had named me after the sun, that my favorite color was sky blue — I didn't tell him that it also happened to be the exact shade of his eyes — and that I had always been fascinated by space.

"Me too." Nathan got excited by the mention of space. "My brother makes me watch Star Wars over and over again.. but mostly I just enjoy looking at the stars. I k-know that's sappy, so don't hold it against me."

"Not sappy, just nerdy." It was a compliment of course. I glimpsed Nathan, who had a distant and thoughtful look in his eyes that were gazing at the sky above us. Then I turned to look up as well. I couldn't actually see that many stars, because the sky wasn't clear and there was light pollution.

"I like them because they help me to put things in perspective." I offered. Nathan gave me a puzzled look, urging me to elaborate. 

"Just by looking at them I can feel myself shrink, I can see how small my problems are on a bigger scale." I explained. "The stars tell me I'm just a tiny human being amongst billions of other tiny human beings. They tell me that there are millions of people struggling with the same issues, that my problems aren't unique or just for me. There have been millions of people struggling with the same thing and millions of people who have already overcome it."

"Oh, so there's millions of people, who have been punched in the face by a complete stranger just because they look exactly like their idiot twin brother?" Nathan smirked happily. I chuckled at that, and then we fell back to silence.

I had been looking up, but I stole a glance of the guy laying on the ground next to me. There was still a faint bruise on the bridge of his nose, and without a second thought I reached my hand to brush my fingertips along it. "Does it still hurt?"

"Um. I-I think we should p-probably go now." Nathan darted to sit up while a flush crept up his face. I scolded myself for being too forward: oh my god, have you ever heard of personal space?

"Yeah, sure." I didn't let my embarrassment show, but instead got up and held out my hand for him. Nathan looked at it, let out an awkward chuckle and allowed me to help him up. 

The Dawson family lived in a nice white house, with the greenest lawn I had ever seen, in a nice neighborhood. It wasn't exactly a house I would imagine Nathan living in, but it was definitely a house where Nicholas would.

Nathan gave me one last, rather uneasy, smile before walking across the front yard. That made my heart skip a beat and I thought it must have been because I was drunk, but then I remembered I didn't drink. Another thought crossed my mind: could I really think he was cute, even if I despised everything about his brother?

Before Nathan could open the front door, he was welcomed by a tiny rather pale looking woman and a bald man who must have been at least 6'4. Neither of them seemed too happy about Nathan's late appearance. 

I still envied him a little for it, when I got back home and there was no one waiting for me. Grandma was fast asleep, which was no surprise, and my parents must have been called back to work or something. I'm not sure what that something could possibly be, since they both lived for work, and had zero social life outside of it.

I sometimes wished they would have more time for me, but then again, them being away a lot had its benefits. I could stay out all night and keep company with cute guys who were too drunk to go home. I could make my own choices and neither of them pushed me to pick some fancy college or make myself a fortune. 

I was pretty much free to do whatever I wanted to do, as long as it didn't include hard drugs, being kicked out of school, drunk driving, murder or getting some poor girl pregnant. Like that was ever going to happen.