Own Me

Chapter Seven

A.N. This chapter, well, it gets pretty intense here. But don't worry, a lot at least. Anyway, spicy gif of Thomas Brodie-Sangster smoking a cig, which I think breaks the boundaries of hotness. Vote and comment, talk soon, xoxo Clay. 

"I want women - and men - to feel empowered by a  deeper and more psychotic part of themselves. The part they're always trying desperately to hide."

-Lady Gaga

♔ Chapter Seven ♔            

I returned to the run-down old brimstone to find Fletcher sprung out across the dusty old sofa, arms behind his head, and a grin written over his boyish face. He lay there mischievously, like he somehow knew something that I didn't, or like he had something over me. Whatever it was, I was probably about to find out.

"What's got your face looking like that?" I asked, jamming the window shut gently behind me. I wandered over to the sofa where he lay down, picked up his legs, and sat down into the space, dropping his legs lazily over my lap.

"Oh nothing," he said, pausing a second to let out a low giggle.

"It's clearly something," I observed. "What is it?"

"Just watching you and lover boy fumble down the road like two love-sick teenagers, that's all."

I grumbled. "You saw that?" I knew what came next. If I thought I knew Fletcher at all, which I doubt I ever really did, he was about to tease me.

"Yep," he said freely. "I saw it all. Every. Little. Thing. Nothing gets past me." It didn't take him a second to start pounding me with questions. "So, who is he? He was cute, wasn't he? He looked sorta cute, I guess. I mean, I know your type, and he's definitely your type."

"I don't have a type," I objected.

His response was a slimey laugh. "You so have a type. Innocent, shy, awkward little things that you try to fix."

"That's not my type," I refused to believe.

"Come on, accept it by now. I mean, I accepted a long time ago that my type was, well, myself. Face the facts, the more innocent and uncorrupted your tricks are, the harder you fall for them. Where did you meet, by the way? And are you dating him, like officially, and like, you know, monogamously?" He said the last word with resentment, his face scrunching in disgust at the simplest idea of monogamy.

A lot of Fletcher's ideas about life and other shit seemed to stand out to me a lot. His basic observations were always somehow unusual or insulting or just plain wacky. But I guess that was what I loved about our conversations, he always had a way of making them memorable, a way of standing out amongst the crowd, despite being so small.

"No, you idiot. We had coffee, that was all," I lied blatantly, and he could tell I was lying.

"And what about that kiss?" he asked, his lips lifting up into a cheeky smile.

"What about it? People kiss all the time." I moved over to plant a kiss on his lips, to prove my point. A quick, harmless kiss. "See? We kiss sometimes. It doesn't mean anything."

"Yeah, but when we kiss, it's platonic, or because we're drunk. I could practically feel the tingly, sparkly fluff bursting off of him when he reached in and planted one right on your face. I mean, what a sweetie! No one kisses like that anymore."

"It wasn't that big of a deal." Another obvious fucking lie. I mean, the two of us knew I was lying, but he wouldn't call me out on it, and I wouldn't start telling him the truth, so this was what we were left with. Light, bitter conversation. And I was more than fine with that. I suppose that was what most of my conversations had been like, and not just with Fletcher, but with everyone. Bitter conversation, tiptoeing around the truth.