Match Your Weakness With A Name

Fourteen? Why Does The World Hate Me?

I am bored, so I drive over to Awsten's and see if his mother will let me in.

His house is a house. It has not changed. I park my car on the curb in front of his house and get out.

Nervously, I knock on the door. His mother pokes her head out. "Why hello, Gerard!"

"Geoff."

"Right. Come on in." She beckons me through the doorway and invites me to sit down at the dining room table. I accept this invitation, though I only have one thing on my mind.

"Is Awsten here?"

"He's at therapy. Tea?" she asks, bustling around the kitchen and coming up with a black kettle.

"Um, sure," I say. She opens a cupboard and pulls out a tiny pink teacup. After pouring the tea, she deposits it in front of me. I take a sip, with my little finger out because fuck you, and inwardly shiver at the taste. She conveniently left out the part where it was green tea.

"Is it alright?" she asks.

"Uh, yeah," I say, and continue drinking it.

She takes a seat next to me at the table. "What brings you here?"

"Uh, I wanted to see Awsten," I say.

"Oh, don't bother with Awsten," she says. "He can be...temperamental at times."

"But I wanted to see if he was okay," I say.

"Okay? That boy's okay changes every day," she chuckles. "I feel like a superhero for being his mother."

Alarm bells ring in my head. "So, um, when will he be back from therapy?"

"Around twenty minutes," she says

"Can I stay that long?" I ask.

"Of course, Jeremy."

"Geoff."

"Right."

She leaves me to my own devices. I don't do anything out of fear I will look silly.

True to his mother's word, Awsten arrives twenty minutes later.

I stand up when he comes in, closely followed by Otto. "Hey."

"Geoff!" he says. "I didn't think you'd be here."

"Well, I am," I say.

He crosses the room and takes the chair next to mine. Up close, I can see that his eyes are tinged with red. "Now that you're here, get me the fuck out."

"Language, Awsty-pie," calls his mother from the kitchen.

"Don't mind her," he says. "But please, get me out."

"Always," I say. "Where do you wanna go?"

"Anywhere but here!" he says. "But preferably outside."

"Awsten," says his mother, "you're still grounded."

"I don't care," he mutters.

"I know a place," I say. "But if we don't hurry, we might hit the afternoon traffic."

"Then let's hurry," he says, and springs up from his chair.  He bounds out the front door on his shaky newborn-fawn legs, and I chase after him to make sure he's alright. His mother calls out his name, but it doesn't matter. He's already halfway to my car.

"Aws! You can't get into the car without me!" I shout as he reaches the passenger-side door. he smirks and opens the door.

Fuck. I forgot to lock the car.

"Or maybe you can," I murmur, and pop into the driver's seat.

I start down the road, Awsten bouncing beside me, and try to remember where the cemetery is in relation to his house. "Put on some music," he says, and I smile.

"Any preference?" I ask.

"No," he says, and I put on "All-Star" by Smash Mouth.

He looks at me like I've killed a baby.

"Okay, fine, I do have a preference," he says. "Put on Panic! at the Disco."

"Thought so," I say, and shove A Fever You Can't Sweat Out into the car stereo.

"Much better," he says, and grins, melting my cold, dead heart.

"So, tell me about your life," I say.

"Well, as of now, it's quite a nice one," he says. "But only 'cause you're here."

"Aw," I say.

"Don't get a big head," he says, and I laugh.

It goes on like that for another fifteen minutes, until I find the cemetery.

It's a nice cemetery. If I were dead, I'd want to be buried here. It's right on the outskirts of town. There's lots of trees and flowers and there's a little stream that runs just past it into the wooded area behind. When I was four, I fell into the stream. It was a historic event.

"We're here," I say, parking.

"You took me to a graveyard?" he asks.

"It's not a graveyard, it's a cemetery," I say, "and it's a damn nice one at that."

"Never been here," he says.

"You're missing out," I say.

"How do you even know about this place?" he asks. "Lot of death in your family?"

"My great-grandma's buried here," I say. "It's not that sad to me, I didn't know her. But my family went here all the time when I was younger to pay respects. I just ran around, because I was little."

"Oh," he says.

"But anyway, it's a chilled-out place," I say. "I went here a lot after my first boyfriend ditched me."

"Well, show me its secrets," he says, and I take his hand, ignoring the jolts of electricity that spark through me.

"Right this way," I say, and lead him through the trees to the stream.

When he sees it, he breaks out into a grin. "I love it."

"I figured you would," I say.

"I get why little Geoff just ran around," he says. "I wanna run around."

"So? Run around," I say.

He smiles wider and takes off down the stream. I shoot after him, eventually stopping when he reaches a few rocks nestled in the banks.

"This was one of my favorite spots," I say.

"I can see why," he says. "This is so pretty. Why didn't you take me here sooner?"

"It's a bit of a personal place for me," I say.

"Ah," he says.

"You wanna sit?" I ask, gesturing to the rocks.

"Sure!" he says, and we mount the lowest one. I sit cross-legged and am done with it, but Awsten takes off his shoes and socks and rolls up his skinny jeans so he can stick his feet in the water.

The silence is a nice kind of silence. The water is rushing, the birds are singing, the branches are shaking, and Awsten Knight is breathing.

It's not like any other quiet I've experienced. It's not chilling, or unsettling, or lonely. It's nice. It is a moist, warm day, and I have a lovely guy next to me, and there's a tiny chance he thinks I'm lovely too. The closest I've come to something like this is when I was here alone before I met Awsten, and even that was different. That was a darker kind of silence.

"Did you ever have a place like this?"

"Not really," he says. "Just Nadalrad Park, and maybe Otto's backyard if I was lucky."

"I went to Nadalrad for the WiFi, and here for the aesthetic," I say.

He laughs. "Got to have that aesthetic."

I could sit with him forever.