"If I had a flower for every time, I thought of you,
I could walk through my garden forever."
_Alfred Tennyson
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I
I was self-conscious in school the day after that 'incident', I knew he didn't know what I did in the toilet after seeing his bare body but it felt that somehow he knew about it, though it was impossible cause he was sleeping and certainly there were no security cams installed inside the house much less in their toilet. Lol.
I didn't know what it was actually and why I did it, like what the hell was I thinking, I mean I'm not sure why I was drawn to Boris, maybe because during those difficult times I got no one and he's the only one that I hang on to.
Sometimes I thought we need someone in our lives, and we need not to label what it was all about. The important thing for the most part was the peace and certain serenity while you were together, like all the grey things in life seemed to disappear. There were people that anonymously slipped in our tiny little worlds however troubled they maybe would somehow supply temporary stability, that despite our current pains from the splashed of painful events, darkness and rain; they somehow protect us and provide an umbrella to prevent us from further annihilation and under this umbrella there's comfort.
II
Then in the following weekends we continued our drinking slash movie binging, of course it made me realize that when I was with Boris I couldn't care less about the world. Though I didn't dare to do 'it' again and there were no opportunities either much less I didn't want him to know those weird desires that I had. Though sometimes I felt inclined to caressed him while he was drunk as skunk in the middle of the night, I didn't dare... spending just drinking and watching movies was good enough for me, I was happy about those tiny little chips of time which were the only scraps of happiness that I can find during that time I was living in Dessert End.
We shoplift and sometimes gave it to the homeless littered around the corner, there were times when we ate with them, Boris and me and some homeless hippies, we drank and smoke everything we had. Boris was aggressive when he argued about capitalism vs communism, like for fuck sakes, I was sick of hearing that topic from them.
"hey kids, yah should do good in school, yah wouldn't be like me when you grow up!" declared Yevgen, one of the homeless guys we hang out with, he told us his life's story, how escaped from a small town in Siberia to western Europe and ended up doing menial jobs for gang lords then ended up in America.
"how did you end up in Vegas?"
"well destiny works on mysterious ways kid, I came here doin nasty things what have you, then suddenly things gone spirally downwards, police were involved then I did half a dime in total"
"Whoa! in prison? What's it like?" asked Boris with elated eyes as if prison was Disneyland.
Yevgen enumerated and counted his days, and it became weeks, months and years... and then he was old and homeless. He still lives off from food stamps and the generosity of the people around. He babbled over and over again while he was half drunk, that life is a game and a one-time game, there's no re-spawn once you've lost it.
"You've made big mistakes and face consequences till the end like dominoes in motion, yah know what I mean"
I must admit those times were one of the best times in my life, like meeting with the junkies around, hanging out in the shady part of the town, eating stolen foods, sometimes we dive in the dumpster just for fun and experience like heck all the homeless around weren't dead so those foods should be fine. Sometimes when I came home from those reckless after school adventures made me stronger, it taught me how to stand up to Xandra and Larry when they poked around and asking me about my daily routines. I knew didn't give a damn so why would they bother to ask; I knew they'd just ask just to annoy me or assert their authority over me.
III
In later weeks I stopped hanging with him for a while, and he too was busy with his own stuff, we somewhat drifted slightly, maybe it was because we had different interests after academics, Boris was in the skate park, I was in the choir practice.
We greet the usual like couple of high fives in the corridor, me and him in somewhat separate lives. He was hanging out with shady boys from the higher years most of the time after classes, sometimes I saw them smoking outside the vicinity of the campus. I kept myself busy with our choir practice, that song 'Kruhay' was really cool but also a pain in the neck, it was a bit heck of a challenged, maybe Mr. Tim was trying to impress not just the school but the big names in that Vegas party in the coming weeks, of-course maybe Mr. Time wanted to send a message that it was a big mistake if art programs be defunded. And education should have a soul, and if it wanted to have a soul, art programs should be also a part of its core.
IV
One week before our performance in Vegas as I was walking one late afternoon on the usual stretch towards home, I saw a silhouette of two persons walking side by side ahead, like two birds contented with each other holding hands, laughing together, smoking from the same butt, carefree and resigned. I couldn't believe it what I saw, it was Boris and some girl which appeared to be part of our civics class. I didn't know her that much though she didn't have a good impression on me, she appeared like a girl who was raised by a junkie parents and had been neglected to tend all her personal affairs by herself. But it didn't matter to me that much, what mattered was she was with Boris. I stopped for a second and let them walk ahead much much farther as I was trying to digest things like, did she know Boris before? were they friends before I'd meet Boris? Or when, how or in under what circumstances they did became acquainted? Like I couldn't even put the right words of my questions, much more the answers that it deserves if it ever deserves one.
I didn't bother to call him or them for that matter, I just returned home haunted by questions. Was that the reason why we slightly drifted apart? Because he found someone other than me?
V
Desire is a bitch, it always is. Some things in life weren't meant to be concrete, it couldn't be understood by simple justification. Some things were just an enigma and will remain so through the years. Some things aren't clear enough to know what it was all about, like some random garbage thrown on me unexpectedly by some stranger. Some things were and always be a mystery, a question, a confusion... Desire is one of them. It haunts me every night, taunting me from every direction as if my heart wanted to scream the name of the person I was searching, to no avail.
I was thinking at that time of ways how to push myself to him, to be honest like pushing him to spend a time with me drinking again, as a friend... yeah as a friend. I was happy with that 'scraps of time' that we were together however tiny meant a lot to me.
But with Boris I cared too much, maybe too much that every fiber of my being was crushed by his absence now. It felt like his absences were a blow to my well-being, though couple of hi and hello in the corridor, or just occasional hand waves here and there, or just a smile... were just band-aids for this aching and longing that I've felt... which he know nothing.
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The Goldfinch (Fanfic)
FanfictionI've look for you in every which way, outside of me, behind me, in front of me... inside me.
