STATIC (LGBT)

Chapter 33

“Come on up.” I said, this time wanting her next to me.

Zoë´s eyes raised in surprise since I´d always said I´d be out quickly, but she didn´t protest. She was right behind me as we went up the stairs at the corner of the house and headed to my room.

It was quick really. I had all of my stuff in the duffle bag I´d used last night. My parents weren´t home last night either but I knew they had some business to attend to… tonight, I have no idea why they weren´t here. They were at the concert but I haven´t seen them since then. Not when we came back home to change and switch the car with the motorcycle…

Noticing this I went downstairs to verify if they had left a note or something. It would be there if they´d come back when I was at the party.

Right on the kitchen table. There it was. The usual post-it note.

 

Your dad and I came home after speaking to the IMT director. Then we decided to head over to have some dinner. We won´t be home until late. You can go to Zoë´s if you want. Just write ´yes´ or something under this so we know you´re there.

See you tomorrow,

Mom

“Your mom sure knows you.” Zoë put her hand on my hip. “I guess it´s obvious though, since you spend so much time with me now.”

“Maybe.” I answered back, indifferently to her attempt to flirt with me… I don´t know why but this letter nagged me a little… especially since my dad is the one who usually writes them.

I wrote ´yes´ underneath my mom´s cursive handwriting, put the pencil down and looked at Zoë.

Zoë looked at me and after a moment, she smiled. “What?”

I looked at one of her eyes, and then at the other. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

I looked down at her lips and couldn´t resist the temptation to kiss her. “About how I´ve lost count of how long you´ve been here.”

Zoë regarded me for a second and then blushed slightly, but in quite a cool way… Know what I mean? In that way that makes you see her personality, the personality she exposes in front of you.

---

“Ugh…” Zoë said as she laid down next to me in her bed. “Man, I´m horribly tired. Too went on today.”

“Yesterday,” I corrected her by pointing at her night clock.

“Yesterday,” She affirmed, nodding at me.

Sigh… wow… it really HAD been a long day. From waking up in the morning with a deep feeling of dread, to becoming better friends with someone you barely know, to dealing with your stage fright, to making your relationships public and finally, to dealing with someone fainting.

Yeah, a lot.

Tonight, I´d be able to sleep tranquilly…

I think… And I say ´I think´ because I´m not really sleepy just yet… Instead my eyes wandered around the room, looking at every detail inside of it.

Zoë had changed the bed covers so they were, for the moment, a navy blue but it wasn´t so distinguishable without lighting… yet the camouflage curtains were easily recognizable since the moonlight shined on them intensely. Other than that, everything in Zoë´s bedroom was as usual. The posters showing her doing every single extreme sport she´s every tried were on the walls like always, the desk at the corner of the room was as engraved and as a mess as it normally is…

Everything was fine… Everything. Even the sounds around me were great. There was nothing to listen to. At least far away… I think I could hear the ticktack of a clock somewhere in the house but I have really no idea where it came from…

I closed my eyes for a moment until I realized how I could hear her breathing as well…

I turned my face to the right side, and found Zoë looking at me. The moonlight, yet again, reflected on her pale eyes making them look much more endearing than ever.

Before I could speak, she spoke.

“You´ve been keeping count of how long we´ve known each other for?” Zoë asked in barely a whisper.

I regarded her silently as she searched underneath the covers for my hand. I felt her long and delicate but firm fingers entangle themselves with mine, and I felt a strong warmth radiate from it.

You see, this is what Zoë does to me. It´s because I know what kind of person she is that this happens. She tends to give good first-impressions in order to not conduct any further connections with people unless she´s interested. She becomes close friends to those who simply don´t mind her attitude and are capable of following her string of strange actions. Yet, if you catch her by surprise she tends to not know what to do and tries to categorize you into something… (I know this because in some way, I´m like that too) But she seems to be capable of consolidating what you mean to her rather quickly.

That´s why she could say she loved me so quickly and with no shame… because she figured it out.

“I used to.” I said answered back.

“Why not anymore?” Zoë asked.

“Because I worried that time played a role in determining your feelings for someone.” I said, almost confessional, as I closed my eyes. There really was no problem with me being honest? It feels right at the moment.

“Long sentence there.” Zoë said, and I could feel her smile through my eyelids also shining in the moonlight like her eyes. “But, I know right? Time can matter but at the same time it doesn´t. Like, look at me. I love you already and I´ve barely even known you for… almost 4 months?”

I shook my head and opened my eyes, “Around 3.”

“Even worse.” Zoë said chuckling. “But I was serious about the connections we all have with each other…. Especially when it comes to music. You can know a lot about someone by listening to how they play.”

“And…” I started as I moved in a little closer to her, “how do I play according to you?”

“You tend to prefer ballads when playing solos or independent recording. And most of those songs have some significance… and they all seem to be close to the heart. The fact that you play them with the trumpet is the most interesting because most of these songs, well, one would play them with a piano or something like that which shows you control over the instrument… In summary, Alex. It´s like you´re singing...” Zoë kissed me on the forehead quickly and put a protective arm around me but I pushed my head back so that I could look at her. I wanted to see her as she revealed how much she´s analyzed me. “Like, in the inside, you truly care… yet it´s hard for you to show it because you know it can consequentially hurt.”

And with that, she´d trapped me again. But this time, she wasn´t speaking too much like she usually does when she can´t get her head around something. Zoë knew exactly what she was saying, and that´s why I kissed her just as firmly.

After losing that small sense of courage, I mumbled. “You love me too much…”

Zoë leaned in to touch our foreheads together, “There´s no quantity to it. I just love you, Alex.”

She kissed me again, and we continued talking. We talked a lot. Enough for me not to realize that I fell asleep at some point or another.