Relative Fiction | ✓

10

I wished there was more of a concrete explanation of why I was the way I was. I could use the excuse that my dad wasn't really around, but that didn't really matter, because when he was around, he was...pretty damn normal.

When my parents realized I had sort of a knack for the whole art and painting and drawing thing, my dad gutted the shed in our backyard so I could use it for a makeshift studio. I've had to paint and repaint the walls over the years just from getting splattered with colors, or being sketched on, or any kind of mess that my moods created. I went through phases of just filling buckets with paint and throwing them at canvases the size of my body, or phases of trying to mix and create every color that my eyes could physically process.

I guess in a weird, twisted way, everything I did with my art reflected me - a hot fucking mess.

That was also the reason why I paced around my room, ripping open every dresser drawer and tearing through my closet, unable to find a single clean shirt to wear. Everything was either wrinkled from being just balled up and thrown around, smelled like cigarettes, or both.

"Man, can you just chill the hell out." Hunter droned on in his usual bored tone as he sat on the edge of my bed and watched me flutter around my room like a moth trapped behind glass. "I have never seen you this wound up about something in the almost 10 years I've known you. You're literally going to get coffee with this chick."

"Should I get a haircut?" I was too focused on my haggard reflection in the mirror to even register half of what Hunter was saying. "I feel like I look like a dirty hippie."

"I'm quite sure it's too late for that, unless you've somehow invented a time machine without my knowledge and plan to go back in time to this morning to buy yourself time to get a haircut," Hunter brushed me off with his usual nerd candor. "Besides, you are a dirty hippie."

I let out a groan and pulled at my hair again. "You're useless."

"Kai, I'm serious though," Hunter sighed out. "Are you sure about this?"

I finally looked over at him, and he eyed me with an expression he never wore - confusion.

"What?" I scoffed, tugging another shirt off and throwing it to the floor. Vaguely aware of how much resemblance I bore to a skeleton that belonged to Fight Club, I found myself wrapping my arms around my torso until I could find another shirt.

"You know what I mean." The puzzled expression he wore was gone as quickly as it came, but he continued to glance sideways at me with his dark eyes, like I was a dog that just got caught pissing on the carpet.

"No, I don't," I groaned, finally settling on a gray hoodie that smelled less like cigarettes than my other clothes did.

He exhaled sharply through his nose. "Look, I just want to make sure you're going through with all this for the right reasons. Not just so you can get close to her and finger her in the backseat of her car."

"Man, you're such a little shit Hunter." I threw my comb at him after unsuccessfully trying to sort my mad mop of hair out. "That's juvenile, we're not in high school anymore."

Hunter just continued to side eye me.

"Okay, I mean I wouldn't mind if it did happen," I shrugged. "But that's not like my goal or anything."

"What is your goal, then?"

"Well..."

I was interrupted by the shrill ringing of my cell phone, which sat beside Hunter on my unmade bed. I saw Sage's name pop up on my caller ID, but before I could grab the phone, Hunter snatched it up.