This Is How It's Supposed to Be.

Despite the fact that our movie nights were near silent, one of the few times we didn't gossip or yell or make much noise at all, my mother and grandfather retreated to their rooms as soon as the guys started arriving. My mother left because she wasn’t big on snooping into my life or eavesdropping; my grandfather left because though he was slowly accepting that all of my friends were boys, he still didn’t like it.

Everyone seemed to arrive together, tumbling in the front door in a single solid mass, fighting to be the first one in the living room to claim their seat. It was almost like a competition for the best seat on the old tattered couch, even though we ended up with the same seats every time.

“Hold up, guys,” I told them. “I haven’t even made popcorn yet.”

They sighed impatiently, but followed me into the kitchen anyway, hovering around the breakfast bar as if they didn’t believe I was actually going to start making snacks. I threw a handful of kernels into the air popper (probably more than recommended) and plugged it in, sticking a bowl under the spout before telling Jared to watch it. Mostly confident that they could manage without me, I sprinted up to Caitlyn’s room, taking the stairs two at a time, skidding to a stop right in front of her door.

“Hey, Cait,” I knocked softly, not entirely sure she was even still awake. “We’re putting a movie on…you gonna come down?”

Her door opened and she peeked out, flicking her light off before she followed me down the stairs. I didn’t even have to look to know something was going on in the kitchen, because everyone was trying to hold back laughter and definitely not succeeding. Jared was standing in front of the popcorn machine, looking clueless as to what he should do. Popcorn was spitting out of the machine, onto the counter, the floor, bouncing off the already-full bowl. Bonnie was having a field day, quickly snatching anything she could that landed on the ground, happy to have a rare treat.

Everyone was laughing as he scrambled to fit as much as possible into the already obviously over-capacity bowl.

“Jared! Why didn’t you just get another bowl?” I was laughing now, too, struggling to maintain a serious tone. He claimed he didn’t know where they were, to which I replied, “Jared, you’ve dug through my cabinets hundreds of times. Really?”

While I found a bowl, Bonnie was in doggie heaven, darting as fast as she could to get everything off the floor that she could, determined to get every last bit before she was shooed away. Once the counters were cleaned up and the popcorn was finished, we all grabbed drinks and made our way into the living room, pushing the coffee table out of the way and claiming our usual seats, with slight adjustments because of Caitlyn.

John, being the tallest, always got the chaise lounge, something that was always non-negotiable. Caitlyn sat to the left of him, in Pat’s usual seat, with me on her left, and Garrett on mine, claiming not only his seat, but Jared’s, too. Kenny sat on the other section of the couch, his usual two cushions, with Pat and Jared sprawled out on the floor.

It took a while to settle on a movie, as we had seen almost every one in my collection, but we did eventually. After putting it in to play, I fell onto the couch next to Garrett, who grinned at me and leaned back, making himself comfortable. We were nearly silent throughout the entire thing, with only the occasional gasp or whimper as suspense built, or the more constant “Give me the popcorn!”. We took our movie nights seriously; they weren’t an excuse to get together and hang out and talk, because we did that almost every other day of the week to begin with.

About halfway into the film, Caitlyn looked absolutely terrified, and if she were any closer to John Oh she would have been sitting in his lap. I smiled and shook my head, laughing silently to myself. Garrett looked at me questioningly –although it wasn’t odd for me to laugh when blood was being shed, there currently wasn't any violence on the television screen. I nodded my head to the right, and he too laughed, slinging an arm over the back of my section of couch. His head eventually found its way to my shoulder, something not unusual, and suddenly I was hyper-aware of not only myself but also of him. I was conscious of the way my shoulders rose and fell slightly with every breath I took, how I could feel Garrett’s hair on my shoulder and the way his shampoo smelled. This –us sitting here– was absolutely nothing unusual, but everything Caitlyn had said, despite the fact I’d tried to push it away, was haunting my thoughts for the rest of the movie. I pushed them away over and over, or at least tried to, but with each breath I took I could feel my own movements and Garrett’s presence so clearly that it was all I could do to not tense up and hold my breath.

“You okay?” He whispered suddenly, lifting his head from my shoulder to look at me. It was then I realized that I was holding my breath, despite my best efforts not to.

“Yeah,” I said, breathing out. “It was just…the suspense.”

I knew that he knew it was a lie. The movie was near the end, and the suspense was long since over. And I knew as well as he did that the suspense didn’t bother me at all whatsoever. I’d been known to burst out laughing, after all, right at suspenseful or violent scenes while everyone else cowered behind hands and pillows.

He didn’t say anything about it, and for that I was thankful. At least I thought he was letting it go because the movie ended, flashing credits across the screen, and I leaped up, nearly stepping on Jared or Pat (I didn’t know or really care which), because all that mattered was getting up and away from Garrett and to the TV.

“I’m going upstairs,” Caitlyn called softly, waving to us. “G’night.”

We all whisper-yelled a chorus of goodnights back to her, and once she was definitely upstairs, I turned to John.

“I think she likes you.”

“Really? I wouldn’t have noticed,” He replied, his expression clearly say that he had, in fact, noticed. He looked uncomfortable, something I didn’t exactly blame him for.

“Relax, John, she’s done this before. It’s a crush –she’ll get over it. Just ignore her.”

He didn’t reply, but instead shook his head and walked away, giving me his “you’re-such-an-awful-person-but-you're-my-best-friend-anyway” smile, waving as he closed the front door behind himself and the others as they filed out.

I left the dishes in the sink to deal with in the morning and retreated to my room, tired from my day, even though it was far from eventful. Already in the shorts and tank top that would make do as pajamas, I fell into bed, barely getting under the blankets before I was yawning and my eyes were closing.

The silence didn’t last long, because just as I was slipping into unconsciousness, something jolted me awake. It was a familiar noise, that of a knock on the small window above my bed, but it was unexpected nonetheless. I knew right away what, or rather who it was: Garrett. He knocked again, louder this time, making it known he was being impatient. I unlocked and pushed open the glass pane, telling him to go around to the front door so I could let him in.

We snuck back downstairs, hoping that no one would wake up and hear. They didn’t, of course –they never did. The nights at home were always strange; once the lights were off, it was like everything shut down. We were all robots, it seemed sometimes, and once night fell, our “off” buttons were pressed and that was it until morning. The silence was nice, I guess, because it gave me time to be alone. For once it would be just me, Caleb, and not Caleb and Caitlyn or Caleb and the guys. But still sometimes the silence was unnerving, like a horror movie waiting to happen. Everything echoed: footsteps, Bonnie’s mid-dream whines, the whir of the fridge running in the kitchen.

When Garrett was here, sneaking in, it didn’t help to calm my paranoid brain. I grabbed his wrist, something he was probably familiar with, and pulled him towards the basement stairs, running as quietly as possible while I whispered, “go, go go go,” as we went. I heard his footsteps behind me, muffled by his socks, and how he exhaled, smiling as ran and finally pulled open my door.

Yawning again I straightened the blankets on my bed and pulled a pillow onto my lap, leaning against the shelf that served as my headboard. Garrett sat at the foot of the bed, leaning against the wall with his knees pulled into his chest. We stayed there for a while, silent, staring at the space in front of us before I sensed that there was something different about tonight. It wasn’t unusual that he was here after dark, or that we weren’t saying anything. But I could sense that there was something different tonight, something that wasn’t…normal.

“What’s wrong, Gar?”

He sighed, softly, a noise that was barely heard. “It’s just...” He paused, almost sounding unsure of himself. “Damn, I hate coming to you about something like this.”

“It’s Lauren, isn’t it?” I asked softly. I knew it because he’d normally sit down and gather his thoughts and then let it all out in a stream of thoughts and ideas that didn’t really have any organization whatsoever. He’d talk, not caring what came out or how. He never thought that I didn’t care or that he was boring me, because he knew I’d always be there to listen. But when it came to Lauren, he knew I didn’t like her, and it was even more obvious after the stunt I’d pulled the day of the bonfire. He didn’t want to bother me with whatever issues he was apparently having with her.

“…Yeah,” he finally admitted. “I mean, I don’t know. It’s not the same anymore, y’know? And I know that you and the guys don’t like her–”

“Garrett. It doesn’t matter whether or not we like her. If you like her and she makes you happy, then we’re happy. We don’t have to like her. I mean, you’ve been dating her for a while now, so there has to be something good about her, whether we see it or not. And that whole walking out thing yesterday, that…that was completely uncalled for.”

He ran a hand through his messy hair, giving me a half-smile that looked more sad than anything else. “We’ve been fighting so much lately, that I don’t even know if I want this anymore.”

He stayed silent, and for once, I didn’t know what to say. I’d always assumed that, like Lauren seemed to think she was, their relationship was perfect. I’d guessed that everything was always okay with them, and never even considered that Trey and the guys and I might not be the only ones unhappy with the situation. “Yesterday…after you walked out and I told her she couldn’t stay, she just like… I don’t even know. It was like she was different person. She just walked out. Said ‘bye, I'll call you later’ and left.

“And then this morning, I guess I forgot to tell her we were going out, and that I was coming over here for a movie, and she completely flipped on me. She was screaming over the phone. I couldn’t make out half of what she was saying, that’s how fucking pissed off she was. I didn’t even finish listening; I hung up and she texted back something bitchy. I shut my phone off because I didn’t want to listen to her anymore.”

He put his head in his hands after that, rubbing his face as we sat there in silence. I honestly didn’t know what to say. I’d never been in a relationship, and I’d never been good at relationship advice anyway. I wanted to suggest they work it out, or that he break it off, but I didn’t know enough about her and from looking at Garrett, I knew he probably wouldn’t take it well. I pulled him over so he was lying down next to me, the two of us squished together on our backs on my full sized bed. I let my head fall onto his shoulder, and he sighed, putting an arm around my shoulders as best he could. “I honestly don’t know what to say,” I told him, whispering, “But I’m sorry that things are shit right now.”

We fell asleep like that, next to each other, with my head on his shoulder and his arm around my shoulders. I fell asleep lulled by his breathing, thinking about how Lauren would react to know that he was here right now, next to me, sleeping with me in the most platonic sense, without her knowledge. I couldn’t keep back the thoughts that Caitlyn had planted, and I fell asleep with her words echoing in my head, thinking that if she saw us right now, how she’d think she had all the proof she needed.