A History [m.h.g.d.]

Turn

Do you remember the time I walked all the way to your house in a downpour? I insisted on sleeping over even though I was clearly trying to pretend I wasn't sick. You shared your last joint with me anyway and when you cupped my jaw and blew smoke into my mouth, I wished I had the courage to wrap my fingers around your wrist. I was only 15, still too afraid to touch you, to call you my own. I went to bed with wet hair and the next morning we both woke up with a fever.

***

I knew you were using again. I should have held you when we were on the bus that night, instead of waiting until you were face down in Boston. I was scared. Why am I always so scared?

***

George had torn open every drawer and turned out every pocket, cursing at himself for not replenishing his stash earlier in the week, finally sitting on the edge of his bed frame in defeat as he lit up a cigarette instead. It was so late and he was so very tired. 

The same phantom that woke him in the night over the years had begun to visit more frequently in the past few weeks. A dull throb between his shoulder blades radiated painfully. Matty's fingerprints had left an invisible stain there. A mark that exposed a dependence George didn't realize had formed until they were apart.

Their relationship had been filled with its share of flippant and careless touches from the beginning, but Matty's hand on his back in the middle of the night meant something to him. It was intentional. It always had been. A reassurance in the dark that wordlessly communicated 'I am beside you'. 

George knew Matty could tell when he had truly fallen back asleep and when he was only pretending. Sometimes Matty moved his hand around, lightly sliding his fingers over the freckles on George's back in different patterns. An electrified and unspoken gesture, a subtle request for George to acknowledge him that went unanswered every time. 

George tapped the ash off his cigarette before taking a deep drag. His chest was heavy with regret. How many times had he stopped himself from turning to face Matty? From putting his lips against his ear in a whispered 'thank you'. George realized that with every touch he'd withheld, every word he hadn't let himself speak, he had slowly paralyzed himself further. It had been nearly 10 years and he'd still felt too powerless to reciprocate until Matty was already drowning. Even now, when he knew Matty had sobered up, George still hadn't gone to see him. 

George looked out the window at the rain beating harshly against the glass. He thought of Matty in his flat, their flat, two blocks away watching the same storm. Matty without drugs, without alcohol, alone with the harsh whirlwind of his own thoughts, reaching out for a shadow of a memory that would never touch him in return.  

He felt a lonely pulse sweep over his body and in a swell of emotion, George stood up as if he'd been called. 

***

The door had been unlocked, and when George let himself in he wasn't surprised to see Matty sitting on the sofa in the dark, wide awake at 3:06am. 

Matty stood up abruptly, but remained glued in place. Eyes wide, fingers holding the end of a blunt. His expression of hesitance painted so prettily by the cold light from the window.

George stepped slowly towards Matty until he was standing so close, the rain in his curls dripped down onto Matty's cheek. He reached down to take the blunt from Matty's fingers and inhaled deeply, his other hand gently cradling Matty's chin upward before blowing the smoke into his open mouth. George allowed his fingers to slide behind his neck and into his hair. Matty just stared up at George for a long while as the smoke dissipated between them, before finally allowing the corners of his mouth to timidly turn upward and break open. 

The clock turned back then, and in that moment George was 13 years old, seeing his shy smile with the crooked teeth for the first time under the dim light of the music room. 

Just like that they started again. And George knew this time with certainty he would tell him, show him.

I'm not scared. I want to call you mine.

I am beside you too. 

They stood quietly, taking a moment to finally understand who they were. Two lonely shadows blindly colliding in the dark, illuminated by each other's presence. 

"What are you doing George?" Matty's voice finally breaking the silence in a playful lilt that echoed their meeting a decade earlier. 

George bit the inside of his cheek and paused before tilting his mouth into a half grin.

....

"I didn't have any weed so I just came 'round."