Just One Look.

Walk Away.

"How's your band going?", Steven asks, laying beside me on the grass, happily ruffling his bleached hair and he seems so light- hearted. "How are you?", he will ask, "What's going on?", but I never tell him.

Never when he asked me between stolen cigarettes as we were supposed to attend sport class, never in his tiny room, listening to Aerosmith and not now. "It's great", I'll say, "I'm fine", but maybe I'm not. The leaves between my fingers feel like wax, the sun tickling in my nose, making me sneeze.

"Can't I join?", he asks, "No", I say, although I'd like him to and we laugh. I can tell he's down, but he never says it. "One day", he just starts to babble, "we'll be playing in front of hundredths of sexy chicks and they'll all want to blow us, screaming 'Slash! Slash! Slash!' and 'Stevie! Stevie!' and we'll play like maniacs. Can you imagine?", and I nod, grinning, but thinking 'maybe...just maybe not...cause maybe, just maybe I'm gay'.

Cause' I will stand in our small, ratty rehearsal room, looking at Axls back, watching him smile with that kinda melancholic feeling in my clenched belly, playing like a maniac like I would for all those girls. Shy laughter, hushed movements, tiny kisses in the sun, holding his hand under the table. Small moments, memories and I don't know if I want it all back.

'Maybe, just maybe, I'm gay', I think again and I hate him. I hate his every word, every screech, the soft, feminine sway of his hips, the golden hair that frames his blushed face. I hate him for making me consider all this stuff, making me feel like it's me against the rest of the world, me all alone with those nagging doubts.

I don't eat much, I'm stubborn with my grandma, shouting at her for no real reason and I'm too proud to apologize. I'm too proud to ask her what it feels like- being in love. I cuddle with my pet snake, talking to her, Izzys dog going berserk every time he can smell her on my hands and Izzy looks at me like he looks at Axl these days.

That calm, comforting stare of knowledge. It's never pitiful, but strangely comforting and I just wanna go home and hide. From him. From Axl. From Judy. From my mom and my grandma. From everyone. It's such an adult thing to say, I need time all on my own, cause' kids these days just wanna hang out and get high together. I like that. But I also like to ride my bike.

I like to feel the streets under the wheels, moving forward and far away, even if its just an one hour ride. I like to think I'm all alone in a new city, all alone in my imaginary pride of being the last survivor of a dying world with no one knowing me. Driving through heat and rain and I'm unstoppable, until I return into the empty daily routine- being part of a system that just works for you if you are willing to align.

But I need money, so I have a new job, working twelve hours straight some days to buy a new guitar, some cigarettes or pot from Izzy. There's that one guitar I saw and played so often in that big store and I want it really badly. Sometimes I think it's the most important thing in the world, then I think, what's important at all? It's not a guitar. It just can't be an expensive guitar.

But in the end it's that stupid guitar that allows me to let all those feelings flow. All those things that I don't tell Steven. We write those songs that mean much to us and on some days I just play those riffs, unmoving, on other days it's inside of me and I close my eyes. Sometimes Axl will look at me then with that special spark in his eyes and I like to think it's admiration. I'm good on the guitar, I know that, but it doesn't always feel the same to hold it. Like it never felt the same to hold him.

"What's up, fucker?", he asks and Judy smiles at me- she just stopped being wary about me. Like I don't count. Like I never counted.

"You're late asshole", I answer with a grin, but I mean it. Asshole. Fuckin' asshole. But it doesn't help.

"You sound awful today", "You're totally out of tune", I say and I know it hurts him. Asshole. I am the fuckin' asshole then, but it doesn't help either, cause' he doesn't deserve it.

When he's drunk enough I sometimes catch him looking at me between kisses for Judy and sips from his drink. I think he doesn't know. He never meant to. Or we both do- knowing. But it's not what should be, it's not what should ever have happened.

When I leave and return from work I don't miss his complains, but I miss his presence. His small, sleeping silhouette in my bed. But he's gone- somehow.

I come home from rehearsal tonight with all those thoughts spinning through my head and my grandma is sitting in the kitchen in her nightdress, eating apple pie. I say "Hi", standing in the doorway and she smiles at me, pointing over to a chair, so I just sit down and take some cake, stuffing it into my mouth, staring on my plate.

"Where's Axl?", she asks, her voice all soft.

"Moved. With his girlfriend."

"That blonde girl?...Judy?"

"Yes. Judy."

She looks at me for a while, then just shoves another, giant piece of pie onto my plate, wordlessly. I start eating, feeling like crying, cause' I'm too confused, uncertain, feeling tired of being myself. The sweet, almost sugary taste is soothing me in a way, my belly getting warm from the food. I swallow, then finally find the courage to talk when she fills a glass of milk for me, putting it one the desk.

"Can I ask you something?"

I look up into her calm, wrinkled face, suddenly thinking that she must have been beautiful once.

"Sure, darling", she says and I stare on my plate again.

"Is there something you regret?", I ask and she thinks for a while.

"Everyone does."

"Maybe I regret something...maybe I want it again."

"Then you think you should regret it, because you have started to miss it now?"

"Maybe..."

"Missing something isn't bad..."

"But it hurts."

"I know."

When I look at her again she smiles first, then looks worried when I shrug my shoulders, unsure if she really does. I just sit there in silence then, all pitiful and suddenly she sits directly beside me, a hand softly pulling my head to her shoulder, stroking my hair and I remember it's what she used to do when I was a little kid.

"Eat your pie", she says then and maybe she's right.

When I finally lay in bed, watching all those posters on the wall I ask myself if loss or regret hurts more and I decide that regret is the worst. Missing something isn't a bad thing, yes, and in the end

letting go can sometimes mean more than anything else.