#celestialmay

     The phone ringing in your ear was deafening, but you held it tightly in your trembling hand anyway. Your chest was tight, each heave of breath in and out like nails down a chalkboard, and everything around you felt both too loud and entirely muffled at the same time.

    Pick up. Please.

      You could hear kids outside, trick-or-treating. Their squeals of excitement, their boisterous giggling. You could hear the crunch of dead leaves underfoot. The grumble of a car passing down the street.

     Still the phone rang.

     You picked at a fraying thread on your jeans, fiddling with it like it was the only thing keeping you grounded. It was. As well as the hope that your call would be answered.

     The call rang out. An automated voicemail message played in your ear.

     Your phone fell into your lap, and you took a shuddering breath, feeling your heart bleeding into your chest.

      It was just you and the fraying thread now, you supposed.

    Your face felt hot from the burn of tears. It was hard to tell when you stopped crying and when you started up again.

    Of course he hadn’t picked up. Why would he have? He had that Halloween party on tonight. He was probably getting ready, maybe, or already pre-gaming. He might not have even had his phone on him. Maybe he just didn’t want to pick up.

    You sighed, and pressed the heels of your hands against your eyes, watching the swirling constellations of colour dance behind your eyelids.

    There was no one in the apartment but you. Your roommates all had things to do, places to be. You couldn’t blame them. You didn’t know if you would’ve asked for their comfort, anyway.

    Your ribs closed tighter around your lungs, and you shrunk in on yourself to try to alleviate the pain.

    Then – a buzz. Your phone was ringing.

    You took a moment to muster the strength to lower your hands from your eyes, but when you saw it was him – who else would it be? – you answered immediately.

    You sniffed, and cleared your throat. “Hi.”

    “[Y/N],” he said. “Hi, what’s– Is everything okay?” You could hear music in the background, and the hum of other voices.

    How the hell did you respond? “Um,” you said, your voice pitched high.

    “What’s going on?” he said immediately. “Just – sorry, hang on a tick.”

    You heard him say something to his friends, and, a few seconds later, after the sound of a door closing, there was no background noise at all. “Sorry, just went somewhere quiet. What’s the matter, what’s happened?”

    You shouldn’t have called him, you knew that. It wasn’t a reasonable thing to do. He was your friend, yes, but you weren’t that close. And everyone knew – but him – that you had feelings for him.

    But as if you could have possibly called anyone else in that moment.

    “I’m sorry,” you said. “I don’t…” You sniffed, and wiped your nose on the back of your hand. Yuck. “I don’t know. I just panicked, and I…”

    “It’s all right,” he said, and his voice was so warm and soothing and everything you wanted to hear. “You don’t have to apologise, it’s okay. Do you have someone with you?”

    “No. My roommates are all out.”

    “Right.” You heard a door open and close. “Tell me what happened.”

    “I don’t know,” you said, and, honestly, you didn’t. “I was fine all day, and then I just – I don’t know. My brain started going a hundred miles an hour, and I was thinking about everything, just my life and the future and all that scary stuff, and I – I freaked out, I started crying, I couldn’t stop.”

     The background noise was coming back, and your heart sank to your knees.

     “It’s dumb,” you said quickly. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll– I’ll let you get back to the party.”

     “No, no,” he said in a rush. “No, sorry, just…”

     He spoke to someone else again, and it took a good thirty seconds for him to return to the call. “Sorry,” he said. “One second, I’m sorry.”

     The sound of a door opening and closing. Silence once more.

     “Right, I’m back,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m listening, I promise.”

     “It’s okay,” you said. “I’m sorry to drag you away from everyone.”

     “Hey,” he said, and it was so gentle you almost started crying again, “don’t apologise, okay?” 

     Wait – a fresh burn on your cheeks. You had started crying again, after all.

     “I’m sorry,” you managed to squeeze out, your voice thick. “I just didn’t know who else to call.”

     “I’m glad you called me,” he said. “You’re my friend, and I care about you. I’m glad you called anyone, but I’m especially glad you called me.”

     You sucked in a sharp, painful breath, and said nothing. You had nothing else to say.

      “Is there anything in particular that made you upset, or is it just everything in general?” he asked.

     “Everything,” you said. “I’m just… overwhelmed. And it’s so dumb because everyone else is going through the same thing as I am, like, college and jobs and all that, and I feel so ridiculous not being able to handle it.”

     “You’re not ridiculous,” he said. “Trust me, there’s not a single person on this planet who can handle everything they’re going through at any given time. Life is overwhelming. That doesn’t invalidate anything you’re saying or how you’re feeling, but, honestly, literally everyone is on the verge of a breakdown at all times.”

     You fiddled with the frayed thread. It did make you feel a bit better, though, what he was saying.

     “You’re not alone,” he continued. “Yeah? Not alone. I’m always here to talk to, or your roommates, or your parents, your friends. We’re all here to support you. And it wouldn’t matter if you were going through half of what you’re going through – everyone has different limits on what they can deal with at one time, and there’s no shame if your limit is lower than what you think it is for other people.”

     “Yeah,” you mumbled, just to let him know you were still there, if anything.

     “People’s brains work differently. You can’t change how you’re wired. And that’s okay.”

     You’d stopped crying, and the weight of your exhaustion was starting to settle in on your shoulders.

     “You’ll make it,” he added, with such a firm sense of confidence that it almost made you smile. “It doesn’t matter where you end up in life. Doesn’t matter what you end up doing. Your life will play out as it plays out, and I know it’ll be great. Because it’s you.”

     You did smile then, and you made a small sound of acknowledgement.

     “Hey, which number are you?”

     You frowned a little. “Huh?”

     “I’m outside your flat. Which number are you, so I can press the buzzer?”

     It was like someone put a Mentos into a bottle of pop and then shoved it into your heart. “What? How?”

     “The party just at the end of your street; I walked here. Can I come up?”

     “Um, yeah, yes. I’m number 105.”

     The buzzer went off a second later, and you scrambled up on wobbly legs to let him in.

     “Cheers,” he said.

     “What are you even doing here?”

     “I told you, I was just down the street.”

     “Yeah, but you didn’t have to come.”

     “Of course I did. You said you were alone.”

     Your throat squeezed shut, and you swallowed heavily. “You didn’t have to,” you said quietly.

     “Do you not want me there? I can leave if you’re uncomfortable.”

     You hurried to the bathroom to check your face. You’d clearly been crying, but you didn’t look disastrous. Well, any more than usual. “No, no, it’s… I’m all right.”

     “I’m almost there,” he said. “Number 102, 103… 105.”

     A knock on the door.

      You went to open it.

    There he was, in all of his six-foot-two, curly-haired glory. He still held the phone to his ear, and he was dressed in black slacks and a frilly white shirt. He had a fake dribble of blood running from his lip, and he wore a cape around his neck.

    You giggled, and lowered your phone, hanging up. “A vampire?”

    He grinned. He didn’t have fake fangs in, but his canines were pointy enough that they almost looked like real fangs. “Yep.”

    You let him inside, and when you closed the door behind you, he swept you up in a hug.

    You clutched onto him, breathing in his smell – he was wearing his nice cologne – feeling every ridge and sharp edge of his slender frame. He was so lanky that you could really wrap your arms around him, and you felt like you could almost pick him up.

    God, you liked him so much. And here he was, hugging you, despite the fact that you looked like a mess. Despite the fact that your problems dragged him away from his party, he was hugging you.

    “I’m sorry you feel like this,” he mumbled.

    “Mm,” you said noncommittally.

    When you finally broke the hug, he sighed, rubbing your arm soothingly. “Cup of tea?”

    You chuckled. “You don’t have to.”

    “Sure I do. Cup of tea fixes everything. Go sit down, I’ll bring it to you.”

    You didn’t go sit down – you followed him to the kitchen, and sat on the bench, helping direct him as he put the kettle on and fetched some mugs and teabags.

    Just him being here was enough for you to forget your worries. It was all painfully domestic – you could almost picture this as the norm, after waking up in bed with his arms wrapped around you. Maybe he’d be in his pyjamas. Maybe his boxers and nothing else.

    He more than likely wouldn’t be wearing a vampire cape and a frilly white shirt. But tonight was Halloween, and they suited him, in a funny way, so you weren’t complaining.

    The sleeves of you jumper had been pushed up to your elbows – you tugged them down over your hands, pushed your hands under your thighs, keeping your fingers warm. Your feet swung idly.

    It was the first time he’d been to your house, you realised. He already seemed at home here.

    “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, handing you your cup of tea. “Or would you rather talk about something else to get your mind off it?”

    You curled your sweater paws around the mug, blowing on the tea. “I dunno,” you said. “I’m just really tired now.”

    “Do you have Netflix?”

    You nodded.

    “Do you want to watch something, maybe?” His hazel eyes studied your face carefully.

    You nodded again, giving him half a shrug.

    The two of you sat on the couch, side by side, a respectable distance away from each other. His cape was folded on the floor beside the couch, and he’d rubbed off the fake blood on his face with the back of his hand, staining it and his chin and jaw pink.

    You didn’t want to be a respectable distance away from each other. You wanted to be pressed against his side.

    But you were just friends, and not even that close friends. So you stayed where you were.

    You insisted that he put on whatever show he wanted. You didn’t mind, as long as it wasn’t something too heavy. He was hesitant, but you could see the way his eyes lit up when he spotted Our Planet, so you told him that that was what you wanted to watch.

    You didn’t really watch it, though. He had half an eye on it, but you mostly just chatted.

    The pendulum was starting to swing the wrong way again. You’d been so happy to see him, but now you began to realise why calling him had been such a terrible idea: being this near without being able to touch him, to pull him close, was excruciating.

    He caught onto your sinking mood soon enough. He gently tried to pry you open, to ask what was wrong, but you kept your lips sealed tight. It was more than generous of him to spend his Halloween evening sitting here with you, as despondent as you were – you didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, too.

    He watched you carefully. You refused to look at him.

    So he told you a story. A story about him and one of his friends. He loved this friend, he added hastily, but they fought a lot. Perhaps too much. But, regardless, they did seem to leave each other.

    They’d been fighting one night, at the dwindling tail-end of a party, both fuelled by alcohol, and it had almost come to blows. They had been hurricanes of unfiltered rage, screaming like they’d never screamed before. Most people had left the room, knowing that trying to calm either of them down would have been a fruitless exercise.

    And then a third friend had walked into the room to see what the fuss was about. He had been dressed in nothing but his underwear and a pair of socks, despite the fact that it was winter, and was eating a bowl of cereal.

    The fight had ended abruptly – so abruptly that it was as if everyone had suddenly dropped dead. They hadn’t dropped dead, but their jaws had hit the floor in shock, bewildered by the bizarre sight in front of them.

    The third friend had asked what the hollering was all about.

     And then the tension had snapped like a broken guitar string, and everyone had been beside themselves in a laughing fit.

    You couldn’t help but laugh yourself as he told the story, painting the scene like an artist paints a picture.

    Your tea, half-finished, grew cold on the coffee table. A whale breached on the TV. You couldn’t have cared less about any of it. All you cared about was him, and the movement of his hands, the flutter of his eyelashes as he double-checked his memory for details, the shift of his dark brown curls as he moved his head.

    “What were you arguing about?” you asked him.

    He went very still, and suddenly the breaching whales were very interesting. “Uh,” he said, “it…”

    “Sorry,” you said, your ribs closing in on each other again. “You don’t have to tell me.”

    He brushed his long fingers along his protruding bottom lip, and you could see the gears turning in his head.

    He looked back to you, but only for a moment, before his gaze moved to his lap, his eyelashes brushing his high cheekbones. “Um.” He took a deep breath. “He was… I got really mad at him because he was– There’s this… person… that I like, and he was threatening to tell them that I liked them, because he was saying that I was a wuss and I was taking too long, and I got defensive, and it just sort of escalated.”

    You twirled the frayed thread of your jeans around your finger. “Oh,” you said, and you knew immediately that with just one word, you’d given away your thoughts. It was like hearing a singer miss a note, jarring and painfully obvious.

    “I didn’t think that this person could possibly like me back,” he continued. “We’re friends, but we’re not really that close.”

    Your finger froze, the frayed thread wrapped around it.

    You expected him to go on, but he didn’t.

    You dared to glance at his face. He was watching the TV again, a shimmering school of fish.

    The two of you sat in silence for what felt like half an hour, but was only a minute, if that. Him, watching the TV; you, watching him.

    Your mind was loud, so loud. Three thousand questions scrabbling over each other like starving rats in a cage. The main one was the loudest: was it you? Did he mean you?

    You couldn’t answer. You didn’t dare ask.

    But you couldn’t stay silent for any longer. “Maybe you should tell them,” you said, and turned to watch the TV.

    You could feel his eyes on your face now. “I don’t think I should,” he said.

    “Why not?”

    “They’re in a bit of an emotionally vulnerable state right now, and I don’t want them to think that I’m just telling them that to make them feel better. Which I wouldn’t be, but their mind seems to be very good at convincing them of things like that. So I want to wait until it’s the right time.”

    Your heart had grown three times its size. Surely it must have – there was no way a heart of average size could beat against your ribs so forcefully.

    “And that’s all assuming they even like me back. Sometimes I’m sure they do, but other times I have no idea. They can be hard to read. But it’s one of the reasons I like them so much. They always seems to be brimming with so many… thoughts, but they rarely ever tell anyone what they are.”

    You finally looked to him, meeting his gaze. “They’re about you,” you said, the word falling from your mouth. “They– A lot of the thoughts revolve around you. Too many of them.”

    You could see his eyes darting between the two of yours, his lips parted ever so slightly.

    “So maybe you should tell them,” you added. “In no uncertain terms. Just in case they… want to know. For sure. So when they think back on this conversation, their mind doesn’t convince them that they read everything so very wrong.”

    He licked his lips. “I like you,” he said. “In no uncertain terms, I really, really like you.”

    A child screamed outside. A car roared past.

    You barely heard them.

    “I like you too,” you said softly.

    He nodded, a tiny movement of his head, and then you both broke out into huge, beaming smiles.

    You giggled, ducking your gaze, sunshine blossoming within you. It was too much. You felt too much, and you wondered if it were possible to explode from it.

    He shifted closer, reached over and tucked your hair behind your ear, and you lifted your head. He cupped your cheek, and maybe it was possible to explode, after all.

    “Are you feeling all right?” he said gently.

    You leant into his palm, your eyes sliding closed. You nodded, humming contentedly.

    “Thanks to you.” You opened your eyes again.

    He dropped his hand, but you caught it, lacing your fingers together. He inhaled, just a small breath between his lips that you only noticed because you were watching him so closely.

    Without even thinking, you leant forward and kissed him. He kissed you back, just a gentle press of his lips against yours, and then it was over. The briefest kiss, but you felt alight.

    You chuckled, glancing down at your intertwined hands. “Uh,” you said. Your thoughts were a blur, and, tried as you did to pluck enough words from the mess to form a coherent sentence, you were left all but entirely mute.

    You caught his gaze again, and you were stunned to see that his cheeks were tinged pink. He quickly glanced away from you, clearing his throat, and you giggled.

    “Shut up,” he mumbled, and you laughed again, giving his hand a squeeze.

    He squeezed your hand back, tugging you closer, and you shuffled over until you were pressed against his side, his arm around your waist. Instead of the frayed thread on your jeans, you fiddled with the frills of his white shirt.

    A bird soared on the TV. Your cup of tea must have been stone cold by now. The sound of kids outside had dissipated, for the most part.