BOYS OF SUBURBIA [boy x boy] [Wattys 2018]

✗ THIRTY-FIVE ✗

Arissa has really nice hands.

They were soft and spindly, like a ballerina's fingers- graceful and lithe, sort of bony with sharp, nicely-filed ends and red nail polish but they feel nice. He noticed this when she kept squeezing his every time she laughed at something he said.

This was the fifth time they met at the shisha lounge that Arissa really liked. It didn't feel weird really- usually, he avoided girls all the best he could but Arissa was different.

Mamounia was a place that was definitely out of his price range but Arissa always insisted to meet there because she liked their shisha and their coffee and she always offered to pay, which he didn't mind. It was a swanky place tucked in the posh districts of Knightsbridge, filled with comfy armchairs and ottomans and circular banquettes so the guests could feel like they were having their own private party at each table. One wall was lit with dozens of black candles, flickering in the dimly lit room, and a DJ was playing mellow lounge beats on a turntable.

"...and so I told myself I shouldn't hang out with her because it seems like I wouldn't like her. And I don't- at first, but after a while, she sort of...are you listening?"

Sebastian was fixated on her hands when he finally shook out of it, "Hmm?"

"You weren't listening," lectured Arissa meanly, the shisha pipe lay in between her fingers."Were you?" She cocked her eyebrows, which were supermodel thick and bushy, perfectly maintained through microblading. 

"Sorry," Sebastian laughed, humorlessly, "Drifted off."

"What's so interesting?" Arissa asked before she sucked the shisha pipe deep, inhaling for a good five seconds before blowing out cherry flavoured smoke in the other direction. "That you tore your attention away from me."

"Oh, nothing," Sebastian shook his head, "just thinking about...A-Levels."

Arissa's face twisted into an unpleasant expression and she sipped the glass of Grey Goose she was nursing."Oh God, don't even remind me."

Sebastian chuckled, "I'm not worried strangely...I know I should but there's this undaunting calmness I have to it..."

Arissa rolled her eyes, "And that's why you aren't normal," she explained, "Because you use phrases like 'undaunting calmness'."

"And that's why you aren't normal," Sebastian shot back, tone teasing, "Because you are terrifyingly observant of everything I do."

"I am a teenage girl. We care. Too much, it seems."

"Better than too little," said Sebastian, thinking about Niko. "So you were talking about..."

"Denise."

"Ah."

"Fucking twat." Her Malaysian-British accent made that sound really cute. "You want a hit?" she offered with her shisha pipe.

"How do you-"

"It's like a cigarette," Arissa explained, "But breathe in deeper, then take it out of your mouth and let go. It's really nice."

"Yeah, okay."

Arissa used a clean piece of tissue to wipe her saliva off the mouthpiece and then passed it to him. He did as he was told. Being no stranger to cigarette smoke and joints, the shisha flowed down his throat smoothly and billowed out of his mouth like little sugary wisps rising like phantoms in the air. "Fuck, that's smooth." 

"Good, aye?" 

"...oh, look who we have here." That jeering, unmistakable Cockney-accent ladden voice cutting into their conversation was like somebody just poured a bucket of ice water down Sebastian's back, drenching him in shock and trepidation. "The faggot finally got himself a girlfriend."

Sebastian's cheeks flushed red, clenching his fists tight, but Arissa shook her head, gesturing to their surroundings. They were in a nice little shisha bar with plenty of people around. It was only eight o'clock, but the place was already jammed with people, dressed in the hippest fashions and sipping pastel-coloured cocktails and smoking hookah. 

"Piss off, Roger, unless that eye is looking a little lonely," Sebastian said bravely, puffing up his chest. Roger's eye didn't look as bruised as before but they still showed signs of discolouration.

"I think I'll go when I want, mate," sneered Roger, who loomed closer with his pack of thuggish, oafish mates following his every step. Idiots. Every one of them. "Especially since your girlfriend is such a fit, pretty little bird."

"Yeah," Davey dumbly interjected, just going along with Roger, blatantly staring at Arissa like he never seen a girl before. And it wasn't hard to stare at Arissa. She was only sixteen and she had a massive cleavage; a girl with a size-four waist but a chest that said size eight so the lacey criss-cross black top she spotted certainly did justice on her chest, as well as the slimming pencil skirt she wore. "How did you get with such a bird?"

"He has more cohesive brain cells than the both of you," barked Arissa, glaring fiercely, "So go away and leave us alone if you know what good for you."

Roger's lips smacked and his eyes practically burned in rage at Sebastian, who stared him down just as fierce. "Fine," he said maliciously, and Sebastian knew one day Roger wanted to make him pay, "I don't hit girls anyway."

Roger marched off, stalking away with his hulking friends following his lead but not before they showed their ugly faces with ugly expressions of intimidation to scare them.

"Are you okay?" Arissa wondered, grabbing his hand, "Do you need to talk about it?"

"I'm fine..." he wiggled his hand out of her grasp and tried to ignore the slight dejection that flashed across her features. "Look, um, I don't know if you take this wrong the way but-"

"No," amended Arissa hastily, "I mean, yeah, I was just..."

"I'm gay," blurted out Sebastian, hating himself as she recoiled in hurt, "I'm not into...girls, I'm just letting you know."

"Oh," Arissa blinked, trying her hardest not to let the pain discern in her words, and she downed the last bit of her Grey Goose. "Okay."

It didn't feel that way. 

-

LMAO AWKWARD.

man just writing this makes me realize how much i miss shisha for fuck's sake.

dedicated to euterpes for having some of the best lgbt books out there!

ANYWAY, please vote, comment and tell me what y'all think!