Stuck

Party. A social gathering, as of invited guests at a private home, for conversation, refreshments and entertainment.

At least it was the definition of those parties that I had attended back at home. It always started the same, invitations going around and then the talking began. And those who weren’t invited overheard and told others. Later those would decide to crash the party, to drive to the house of the host, take their refreshments, usually beer and liquor, talk and make bets or play drinking-games, and then dancing to obnoxiously loud music.

Yet here in this small, cozy town, even partying was different. The word didn’t spread randomly by itself, but people were allowed to tell others and bring them. So no one was crashing nor could they drive to the house of the host, since the party was held in a sheltered, small barn that had been laid waste for a few years now.

The conversation was usually held in sober state and the entertainment consisted, despite the single, lonely speaker which strained to be heard across the laugher and chatter, providing some background music, no one was dancing madly. The ground wasn’t shaking either from the bass. But a campfire was crackling distantly, outside of the barn or it would probably burn to the ground within a second, closer to the forest that surrounded the area, swallowing every stray noise.

The only thing familiar was the beer that was given out seemingly randomly. And after the shock of a party being held plainly in the middle of a freaking forest, I strived for some familiarity.

But there’s this thing about alcohol. It divides people in two groups, just easy as that. There’s no discrimination, no judgment. But when people are intoxicated just slightly, it either makes them happy, or sad. And there is nothing you can do against it.

This reaction however changes when more alcohol is infused. Now there are multiple reactions possible. The ones who turned happy before may now turn daring, or quiet, or simply not stop laughing again. The ones who turned sad may become aggressive, or they turn merry, perhaps they try to prove themselves forgetting every fear that may overcome them in sober state, but more commonly they turn into a depressed wreck.

Right now, though, I didn’t bother that I was one of the sad ones. Alcohol was familiar and the easing feeling that it brought with it was more than welcome at the moment. So I drank. And I continued to drink the beer even as the bitter taste seemed to become nauseating. I got my count of refills and settled for a bale of straw just outside of the barn, ignoring the people around me, staring into my cup and closing my eyes when I dipped my head back and emptied its contents in a single gulp.

I was just about to bring my sight to its usual level again, when I felt my seat shift. Turning my head, I noticed the familiar bunch of unkempt dark brown hair. I lowered the red plastic cup and let my hand rest on my lap, staring dumbfounded at the small smile directed my way.

It was Ian. And while I stared at him, he stared back and didn’t say a word, nor did he move, as if he didn’t even exist. As if we were caught up in our own bubble, forgetting about everyone else. And they didn’t seem bothered by it, because no one dared to intrude in our silent exchange that I couldn’t put into words. It felt as if we were bonding. Through this act of staring and seeing, I felt myself suddenly understand him, felt as if I entrusted him a tiny part of myself to keep and cherish.

But as pleasant as being cloaked in ignorance and fluffy white mist was, he decided it was time to end it, opened his mouth and spoke.

“Why are you drinking so much?” The smile was still plastered on his face, as his words rang in my ears as if he had shouted them in a silent basement, not spoken them trough the noise of a party going on around us, and they carried a negative connotation with them, as if he wanted to scold me.

I lowered my eyes, gazing at the cup and swinging the small left-over beer around thoughtlessly. Then I shrugged my shoulders and lifted my eyes with a sigh, not looking at him, but choosing to stare at the woods. “I guess I’m feeling guilty.” I said nonchalantly, the alcohol loosening my tongue more than I would have liked.

Instinctively I lifted my legs up onto the bale and hugged them to my chest, still staring at the woods. It was the alcohol beginning to show effect and I knew that it would pass soon.
“Guilty?” Ian questioned and my eyes were drawn to his emerald ones once again. I rested the side of my head against my knees and looked at him, gauging the situation before answering.

“I haven’t done my trig-homework for tomorrow.”

As he listened to my words intently, probably thinking a deep and depressing truth would break forth, I noticed the shining in his eyes that had been there at lunch. The curiosity he scrutinized me with. The eagerness he tried to get me to speak with.

But when he caught the blasé tone of my voice, he knew that I had evaded his question with an airy answer that didn’t bother me in reality. Yet I wasn’t lying to him. I really hadn’t done my trig-homework which was due for tomorrow.

“Ah I see.” He said with silent amusement latched on every syllable, lowered his eyes to the ground, depriving me of staring at the molten emerald they held prisoner, and shook his head lightly. When he looked up again, he was smiling fully at me, his eyes glistening.

“But you’ll make a fool of yourself.”

I stared at him blankly, wondering if he really cared or was just trying to make conversation. He was waiting patiently for me to answer, the smile on his face not wavering once, and he seemed genuine enough. Yet I gave in to my instincts, defending myself.

“I don’t care. I’ll be gone soon anyway.” The words seemed harsh as the hung between us two and while I watched the genuine, warm, friendly smile on his lips I understood that he didn’t deserve it. He deserved a friendly comeback and a few inconspicuous requests to go and enjoy the party by himself.

But it nearly hurt me physically when I saw him take the hit as if it was nothing and answer lightly.

“Well if you continue drinking like this, yes…” He trailed off, making sure I understood what he was playing at. And of course I did and couldn’t hold back the snort.

“It takes a lot more than this” I gestured towards the nearly empty cup. “for me to be goner.” I told him wisely, nodding at my own remark.

He was laughing silently by now, his eyes twinkling amusedly. “Really? But what do I hear about you kissing Emil Eagleshoff while being sober?”

The moment he mentioned Emil and the kiss I felt my body shift uncomfortably. Realization settled in that I had thought Ian was too nice to make a remark about it. But I had been proven wrong and I felt my stomach churn. But that could have just been from the bitter beer I had consumed.

I closed my eyes as if answering his question made me unexplainably tired, as if I had had to do so too many times before. The blackness of the room was disturbed by the light gleaming through my lids, prompting the usual black to become a pleasant dark brown-grey, and I wallowed in this strange color while speaking up.

“That was only to prove your friend wrong. To tell him to back off and leave Emil alone.”

Ian was silent for a long moment and I nearly though he had gotten up and left, leaving me here to continue drinking. But then I felt something warm touch my upper arm, directly below my shoulder. I opened my eyes and after blinking a few times to get my sight adjusted to the light, I saw his hand resting there on the thin fabric of my dark blue sweater.

“I’m sorry. That was rude. I shouldn’t have said that.” The smile on his face had vanished, leaving nothing of his former merriness behind. I shook my head slightly, rubbing it against my knees before taking a deep breath.

“Don’t worry. I’m not surprised, really.” My voice was feeble and I wasn’t sure if he actually heard. But the way his eyes were following the movement of my lips, I knew he would ask if he didn’t understand. “Actually I’m just confused why you didn’t comment on it before at lunch.”

The words weren’t spoken with contempt. They were plain nearly without any emotion, just a slight bit of curiosity. As I watched him, I noticed how small traces of his smile returned. His startling emerald eyes glanced back up at my grey ones as he answered the unspoken question.

“I didn’t know.” His eyes wandered back to my lips again while I stared at him confusedly. When I didn’t answer the confidence and the smile on his lips faltered for a second in which he felt unsure, not knowing if he had offended me. I could nearly see how he subconsciously tried to read my expression. And then he seemed to catch on and elaborated.

“Charlie didn’t say anything. Probably because you won the argument. He hates loosing like nothing else and was fuming the whole day. So we left him alone. I only found out on the ride here.”

I blinked once, too lazy to nod, but he understood my answer. “So someone was talking about it?” I asked not really interested, already knowing the answer. But it seemed to be a fitting thing to say.

He shifted uncomfortably and retracted his hand. The sudden loss of warmth made me want to stop him, but I kept my mouth shut firmly, the embarrassment holding my tongue in place. I watched as he swung one leg elegantly across the bale, straddling it and then plopped down, shaking my smaller form slightly. His eyes were fixed on the straw and he began to pull single strands out of it, while silently admitting.

“Yes.” He paused his jaw setting and his hand stopped momentarily. Then he cast a glance at me, as if to check if I was okay. His eyes fluttered towards the straw instantly as he saw me staring at him. And he began to talk quietly. “Does it bother you?”

I desperately wanted to say yes. I wanted to rant about how much it annoyed me, wanted to tell him that I hated the town for its habit of prattling and hated the people for gossiping about me. But the prospect of revealing so much of myself to him frightened me, because I didn’t know how he would react. I couldn’t trust him. And so I kept my mouth shut and used a reply that I had said way too many times in the last few weeks. So often in fact that the words itself held no meaning anymore. It was just a jumble of letters for me.

“No. I don’t care. I’m leaving soon.”

He didn’t respond after that, playing with the straw and keeping his thoughts to himself. Then he got up and I watched him, thinking he would leave me, telling me good luck and leave me sitting here all by myself. And I wondered if it would hurt me to hear him say it out loud. Because at the moment, while I looked up at him, hugging my knees, resting my head on them, I felt like a small child.

My train of thought was disrupted though as he extended a hand towards me. I stared at it and furrowed my brows, not knowing what he wanted me to do. Then he rolled his eyes.
“Come on. We’ll get you a new beer.”

I lifted my head obediently, took his warm hand and allowed him to pull me to my feet. The grip of his fingers lessened until he drew his hand out of mine completely, assured that I was safely standing on my own two feet. Then with a nod towards the metal beer barrels we made our way over. I followed after him, throwing looks right and left into the crowd.

It seemed like nearly everyone was here. At least the whole junior and senior grade. Well all except Emil. He hadn’t been invited. Sure now it would have been easy to make him come here to the party as well. I could have just invited him. But I hadn’t known that before. I wasn’t used to their partying rules.

Ian stopped suddenly in front of me and I nearly bumped head-first into him, but had enough sense to stop. Yet I was in full swing and lightly stumbled against him. He was pushed forwards slightly, caught off guard by my clumsiness, but steadied himself soon, turning halfway to pull me besides him.

An amused smirk was playing on his lips as he glanced down at me. I smiled sheepishly and took the plastic mug, filled to the brim with beer from him. Carefully I took a few gulps, so I could walk comfortably around. Ian waited until I was finished and then gestured for me to follow him. I did, confused as to what he was doing.

We left the barn and my converse hit the high grass until Ian headed for a small trampled trail that led to the campfire-area.

Slowly, we walked besides each other and I felt his eyes on me, so I looked up at him questioningly. I wondered what was going through his mind right now, because he seemed rather solemn. I saw him shake his head and avert his eyes, letting loose a deep breath.

“What is it?” I asked, startling him apparently. His head snapped to the side and he nearly stumbled as his feet tangled in the trampled grass. Cursing silently under his breath I tried to suppress a smirk.

“It’s nothing.” He finally said. I raised my eyebrows at him, taking a sip of the beer and already thinking about making a humiliating remark about him nearly falling down just right now, but he beat me to talking.

“I mean it’s just…” He trailed off and let out an agitated sigh, slowing down even more. “You’re always talking about leaving.”

I nodded lightly not wanting to disturb him in the apparently difficult train of thoughts he was trying to explain.

“Are you really planning on doing it?”

His blunt, honest question caught me off guard and for a moment I froze. He seemed to take it seriously and it affected him. I didn’t understand how that could be, because I had kept my distance from everyone, so he shouldn’t care. Yet I didn’t want to answer him. I couldn’t answer him because I didn’t want to say the words. To speak it out loud would put on so much more pressure.

So I decided not to answer, took a sip of my beer and avoided his eye, staring at the fire about ten meters ahead, already hearing the crackling sound it made. But he seemed to have gained his answer from my behavior, beginning to talk again.

“Why?” He asked simply before elaborating. “Why do you think leaving is better?” And then after another quick pause in which I didn’t meet his eyes. “I mean this town isn’t much, but is it really that horrible?”

I thought about what to tell him, how to explain as my feet carried me further towards the fire. When we reached it, he was still waiting for his answer and we sat down on a blanket that had been left on the ground. I pulled my feet up towards my body again, loosely draping my arms over them and staring blindly into the flames. The place was completely deserted and it was mostly silent, safe for the noises of the night and the crackling of the fire.

After a while, during which Ian had mimicked my stance, also staring into the blaze, I whispered.

“It’s like a cage.”

I heard the rustling of clothes beside me as he shifted, turning his head and molten emerald stared at me, curiosity shining in them.

“Why?” His question was simple, but the answer so complex that I took a moment to gather my thoughts. But I didn’t look at him. My eyes were directed at the fire, but glazed over and staring into distance.

“I can’t get out. I can’t do anything here. Not everything that I could do outside. I can’t mess up without everyone knowing about it. Talking about it. I can’t simply get drunk as Charles was to kind to explain, because everyone would know. I can’t be myself because they are so simple-minded and anxious to have anything else than themselves around and I can’t mindlessly sleep around because everyone seems to be freaking related to each other in this town.”

Ian snorted next to me, his voice incredulous as he spoke his voice full of spite as I had come to get used to hearing. But as he used it, I felt hurt, because I had opened up to him, even if just slightly.

“So this is why you want to leave? Because you can’t fuck whomever you want and because you can’t be a whore?”

I stared at him, my fists balling and my eyes full of hatred. The feelings that hadn’t bubbled up the whole day came dashing back, setting my skin on fire. I felt like slapping him but I refrained from doing so.

“Don’t call me a whore! Perhaps I’m naïve, thinking that someone like you could ever understand what I was talking about, but I’m not a whore!”

I saw one of his hands curl into a fist as well as he angrily stared at me from his place beside me. We both leant away from each other as far as possible, subconsciously though.

“Someone like me?” His eyes narrowed.

“Yes! Someone like you who has never seen anything but this fucking dump here! You’ve never been out and have never seen that there so much more out there than this!”

“Oh sure! Because whoring around and drinking until you pass out is such a desirable experience!”

”Well it’s better than smuggling alcohol like a ten year old!”

He just snorted again and was about to talk, but I had gotten up already, thinking about leaving.

“You don’t know anything. Not about me. Not about the world. You know nothing about me and why I slept around. So why do I even bother?” And I turned to leave, walking past the flames with angry steps, feeling stupid for believing he would be different. But another simple question made me stop dead in my tracks.

“Well why are you here?”

It was funny how in that moment Emil’s face flashed in my mind. Sure, they had used the exact same words and I felt the exact same as when he had asked me, but I wasn’t about to evade Ian’s question as politely as I had evaded Emil’s.

Spinning around I took a few steps back towards him, staring angrily at his sitting self.
“Because I fucked up! I fucked up big time!” I threw my hand to the side, pointing at the trees that outlined the clearing. “I fucked up so much that my parents, whom I hate, haven’t even bothered to call. So much that even my friends have banished me from their lives. And I can’t… I simply can’t breath, because I know it’s my fault. And though it’s my fault I hate them, because this wasn’t the only way out, and it’s fixing nothing. But probably there’s nothing left to fix. And now I’m here, stuck, with absolutely no where to go! And I care! And I feel caged up, because I haven’t seen my parents, the friends or my school! I feel caged in because in here is nothing and out there is everything!”

He lowered his eyes to the fire, while I stared at him, willing him to say something, anything. I didn’t want my words to hang between us like that. They were suffocating me in that pure hatred that I felt.

After what seemed like an eternity had passed, his voice softly disrupted the silence.
“Sit down.” He paused. “Please.” He added as an afterthought.

Surprisingly I did, sitting down next to him, where I had sat before, calming down rapidly.

“You know, you’re a lot like Alan. Angry, talking about cages, quiet, stuck here. Though you seem a lot more tired” He said with a soft smile and looked at me. I returned his look and for the first time since I had seen him the curiosity had vanished. There was no trace left, for it had been replaced with slight guilt because he ought to have foreseen it happening.

I stayed silent, thinking about the thin boy who had driven me here in a sleek black BMW. It was the first car like this that I had seen in this town. Usually they all drove trucks. He had a sharp face, longer than average, dark blond hair and green brown eyes that barely looked at anyone longer than a few seconds. As nearly everything about him, the pair of elegantly bended eyebrows invariably drawn towards his eyes, in a brooding stare, were thin.

“We used to chaff about his silent demeanor a lot when we were younger. It was wrong, but we were kids and didn’t know better. But one day everyone at school was whispering and staring and we didn’t know what was going on.” He smiled fondly at the memory.

“But we found out soon that Alan had told them a few of our most embarrassing stories, most of them about how we had ended up crying. And we didn’t live that down for months. Yet it taught us to stop messing with him.”

“What’s his story?” I asked after a long silence, in which I had realized that Emil had been right about Ian’s social status. He had been right about the mingling with the popular kids. I noticed this as I stared at Ian, contemplating whether or not to make a move on him. He could be my ticket out of here. Not the town, but this brooding and boredom. He could probably even stop the gossiping that I was fed up with. He was a ticket out of this. But I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take the chance. The prospect of using someone made me hesitate.

At first Ian didn’t look at me. But then he turned his head and his eyes were soft, smoldering emerald as he looked at me. I felt my breath stutter.

“His parents are always busy, on business-trips and never had time for him. So they brought him to his grandparents. He lives with them now, but he isn’t happy.” His smile changed into a slight grimace before he continued. “And I can’t even blame him. He knows, just like you, what it’s like out there. I feel like such a little kid just saying this.” He shook his head and averted his gaze.

Without thinking I reached out towards him. “Don’t.” I said softly, placing my hand on his knee.

He nodded. “But it’s what I feel.” He didn’t know that I wasn’t talking about his feelings at all. I didn’t want him to stop looking at me. We sat in silence for another while before I returned to the original topic.

“You said before that he’s just like me. Alan. He’s talking about being caged in, stuck here, quiet and he’s angry. Why is he angry?” I asked softly, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Isn’t that obvious?” He asked, his voice rising for a second, before he calmed down. “It’s much the same reason as why you are angry. His parents aren’t there, they aren’t here. They’re too busy with their own lives. I’ve seen it often enough before. At first when Alan came here, he wasn’t the brooding guy you know now. He was quite normal until after the second weekend he spent here.”

He paused his eyes far away, replaying the scene in his mind. “He had changed, was quiet and didn’t want to talk. I remember him sitting on the swing all alone. And I asked him what happened. He just said nothing. Nothing at all. And then he kicked the ground as hard as he could.”

“His parents didn’t show up.” I guessed my voice gentle. Ian nodded solemnly.

“Yes. And they stood him up so often that he says he stopped caring a long time ago. But he still does. I see it every time the phone rings. He still thinks it is them, calling to check up on him.”

Surprisingly it was again me who broke the sustained silence. “I’m not like him.”

He raised an eyebrow at me questioningly. “Alan. I’m not like him. My reasons for being like this aren’t the same. And I’m not simply angry. I really hate them.”

“How can you hate your parents? I mean they didn’t even do anything to you. I could understand if Alan hated his parents. But even he still loves them. So what could they have done, for you to hate them? For you to be so tired? So… old?”

I shook my head silently, dismissing his question. “Let’s not talk about this, okay?” I got up from my seat, took the mug from where it had rested on the ground next to me, and extended my hand towards Ian, having made my decision.

“Let’s go for a walk instead.”