Tell Me About It

Alex was bored.

People were chatting and moving about around him but the only thing he found interesting was the thick cotton stuffing showing through a hole in the seam of the couch cushion. He took a sip of his beer as he fingered the torn leather, slowly widening the tear. He picked at the stuffing as the bass of the speakers thumped across the floorboards and settled deep within the couch. He rolled the white fibers between his fingers, watching small white strings float to the floor like the snow flurries outside the window. In the back of his mind he knew Mrs. Barakat would have a heart attack if she saw what had happened to her couch, and the rest of her house for that matter, but Alex's buzz wasn't too concerned with that at the moment.

He looked up from his fuzz flurries and glanced at his best friends and bandmates Jack and Rian flirting with two pretty blond girls across the room. Even Zack was hitting it off with a cute girl; engaged in quiet conversation in the corner.

Alex returned his attention to picking at the couch stuffing and sighed with resentment, not at his friends but at himself. It wasn't like him to play the wallflower at a party but since his girlfriend had recently broken up with him, the holidays had been particularly glum.

Though for the past few weeks he had hated Lisa's smile, a perfect set of pearls covering the opening to an endless set of lies, he was starting to miss it, and her. He was just about to reach for his phone on the couch when someone plopped down next to him, sending it sliding down somewhere between the couch cushions.

"Oof, sorry," the girl said to him before sitting back up and turning back to her friend sitting on the armoire across from her. It was clear that the girl's friend was drunk, as she seemed to laugh a bit a too loudly at everything that was going on around her. Alex took in her smeared makeup, the piece of green gum visible in her laughing mouth, and purposeful cleavage above her scoop-neck Tee and went back to picking at his couch cushion.

"Dang, look at them go." The girl next to him said to her friend. "I never knew he had it in him. I mean, I knew Cass did, but I never pictured I'd be watching Zack Merrick make out so… viscously with a girl in public."

Alex looked up. Sure enough, Zack was in a fearsome lip-lock with the girl Cass. He almost smiled as he remembered watching Jack antagonize Zack earlier about his drinking capacity until they both had taken about four shots in a row and called a truce. Alex was brought back to the scene as the drunk friend erupted in another bout of laughter, this time directed at herself when she had fallen over getting up from her seat.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," she giggled as she chewed on her gum. "You stay there, Mar, I'm okay," she waved at her friend before sauntering off to get another drink or maybe even head to the bathroom to throw her last few drinks up.

"Oof," the girl next to him said aloud, referring to the state of her friend. She turned share a look of amusement with Alex but he was busy pulling at fluff once again.

"Having fun?"

Alex looked up, embarrassed, though he wasn't sure why.

"Why yes, I am actually."

"Bull shit." The girl smiled. Dark side swept bangs framed her rosy face. Her smile seemed genuine.

"Yeah, well. Yeah…" He looked back down at the growing pile of cotton. He grinned nervously and felt his face flush slightly, frustrated at his sudden lack of ability to speak. He simply didn't care to charm anyone tonight, to impress any girls with his words. "I guess I'm just not in the mood to party," he finally managed. The girl nodded in understanding.

"No, I hear you. I feel the same way. I think It's because I'm just not into the holidays this year." She exhaled and checked the time on her cell phone.

"Yeah, me too!" Alex gushed, enthusiastic that someone shared his disdain for the holidays as well.

"What's your reason?"

Alex hesitated for only a moment, before bluntly stating, "My girlfriend cheated on me."

"Sucks."

"Uh huh," he sat back and sipped his beer. "Your reason?"

"Same thing, actually. Only it was my dad who cheated on my mom," she answered with equal bluntness.

Alex quickly swallowed his beer, not expecting that response. "Oh, huh, I'm sorry."

She waved it off. "No, it's okay, I mean it was expected, a least by me, and there's actually a lot less fighting now that they're not living under the same roof anymore."

"Oh, well, that's…" Alex stared into his empty beer bottle, as if hoping some humane, caring phrase would be floating around at the bottom for him to offer her.

"Sorry," he heard her laugh, in the nervous way people tend to laugh when they think they've said too much.

"No it's cool…" he trailed off again, concentrating on picking more fuzz from the seem. He felt her move and looked up, watching her grab her coat and head for the front door.

"Ah crap." He suddenly felt incredibly stupid for his lack of sensitivity and was about to get up to follow her when he felt his phone vibrate from between the couch cushions. He fished out his iPhone and saw that there were no new messages before noticing the girl's phone lit up on the cushion next to his. He picked it up and the name "Dad" illuminated on the screen. Curious as to who this girl was, he hit the unlock button and looked at her phone, making sure not to open the message from her father. The background image was of the spray-painted Blink-182 smiley, and her contacts included most of the kids from their high school. Realizing what he was doing, and how much time he was wasting, Alex quickly shut her phone and hopped off the couch, sending the fuzz he'd been pulling flying everywhere.

"Hey!" His breadth came out in clouds in the cold December night.

"Hey, you left your phone," he said when he got to her. "You left it on the couch. There's a message."

She thanked him and took it from him, her cold fingertips touching his. "Great, just who I wanted to talk to," she said sarcastically, referring to the text message.

Alex stuck his cold hands into his pockets and kicked some snow that was on the ground around him. "Well, you can talk to me, you know. I'm Alex." He extended his hand.

"Yeah, I know," she shook his hand. "I know who you are. I'm Maria."

"Well Maria, it's awfully cold outside, we can head back in and you can tell me all about it, or the snow is kind of nice too, if you want to go for a walk…"

"A walk sounds nice, Gaskarth, only you might need to help me keeps my hands warm," Maria said, slowly sinking her hand into his coat pocket where his hand own hand was trying to stay warm.

"A walk it is then," Alex replied, locking his fingers with hers and leading her into the dark holiday night with a smile.