Another Sentimental Argument

"Billie, wait!"

I don't actually say those words, of course. I try and try, but it doesn't matter because it's useless. And all I can do is stare at the empty staircase and see the image of him slamming the door closed behind me, with me on the other side. The wrong side. So even though my mouth never utters a syllable, my head is screaming.

I stumble over to the top of the stairs and suddenly stop, just before I trip all the way down. My sweaty palms try frantically to grip the banister, but it's just like the words I tried to say—like the words I always try to say—useless.

My brain wants to ask me what I think I am doing—going after him and all that. But just before it can open its mouth, I shut if off and I start running down the stairs. Because the only thing I want to be thinking of is Billie's lips back on mine. Because somewhere in the vast vagueness that has always existed between us, there is a spark of specificity that I want. And for some reason, I'm going after it.

However, as it would go, I do not get what I'm wanting so badly. I ran down sidewalk after sidewalk (so it seemed) and said his name loudly enough to where he could hear it if he were listening, but not loud enough to wake up all the sleeping people that, by logic, would be sleeping at this hour.

I go by many alleyways that I thought about going down, but I reasoned that it would be best I didn't. Because the girl in me thought that somehow Billie knew I would come after him and he wouldn't want me to get hurt, so he wouldn't hide in an alleyway. That's just creepy anyway. So like I said, the girl in me thought that he had thought all of this out previously and it was all going to work out perfectly in an imperfect manner. Just like it always does.

But the girl in me has also seen too many romantic comedies and has cried too many tears over things that don't matter. So her opinion is a little wishy washy anyway.

I felt hollow walking home. Completely gutted. Like a storm surge had taken out my foundation entirely. I don't know how I made it home because I thought for sure that I was going to just lie down in a vacant lot. I remember thinking "I should lie down in that lot because it's empty. Like me." And I thought that was pretty lame and cheesy of me to think that so I just kept walking until by some magic trick of the universe I ended up at my door. It felt foreign but I kept pushing through all of this anyway because just like earlier where I was only thinking about Billie, now I was only thinking of my bed. And a little bit of Billie. Always thinking of Billie even when there are a lot of other things to be thought about.

So now I'm lying in bed, under so many blankets, and I just hear the noise of the fan above my head. I usually watch the fan go around but not tonight because under the blankets, I can't see anything and I don't want to see anything. Not looking at things really makes your thoughts louder. And as the universe would have it, I'm already a loud thinker, so you can only imagine the volume at which my thoughts were screaming now in the dark.

I am not thinking of anything important. Just how much I hate that I am like this. 'This' being so completely and helplessly entangled into another person. It's so lame and cliche. It's not like it hasn't been done before. And thinking that thought—that I am unoriginal AND pathetic—is no fun and I really just want to be unconscious just so I can get myself to shut up for a little while. But then the phone rings louder than any thought I've had so far and it makes my heart jump forward, as if off a cliff. I groan and want to know who is calling me at this late hour. But then I think that it is probably someone with the wrong number or some kid at a sleepover calling to ask me if my refrigerator is running because that's what kids at sleepovers do. When the phone stops ringing, I stop groaning because I know that it has gone to the answering machine and I hope that whoever it is, doesn't call back.

My thoughts are as disgruntled as me by the sudden distraction of the telephone so they sort of fizzle out to white noise until I'm on the edge of sleep, just about to fall.

"Logan!" Someone is yelling my name and I fall out of my bed so ungracefully I feel embarrassed although there is no one to see me.

The voice that is yelling my name is muffled. It sounds sort of angry but also kind of desperate. But not in a mad desperation, just a sad, honest desperation.

Before I make it out of my bedroom, I already know who I want to be behind the door.

And it is him. It's him with his green eyes and chipped front tooth and his black hoodie zipped up to the middle of his chest and his pants sitting just above his ankles, showing his socks. It's him with both of his hands grabbing the sides of my face and bringing me close to him. It's him kissing me in the threshold of my apartment.

I let him push me backward and he makes sure to close the door with a kick of his foot. He kisses me unsteadily and frequently and keeps walking forward as I go backward. Soon, my back hits the corner of the hallway wall and I wince a little under his kisses. He doesn't stop kissing, but starts multitasking now because he begins talking. Muttering "I'm sorry, baby" "I'm sorry" "Are you okay?" Babe, I'm sorry." And I am not certain if he is talking about the fact that he accidentally ran me into a wall or that he's sorry for the way we kiss each other so well but always seem to find something to yell at each other about.

We find my bed in the dark and we lay ourselves down together, because he refuses to let go of my lips. I can't blame it all on him, however, because my desperate hands are refusing to let go of the back of his neck. I need him that close to me.

I feel like I'm running out of breath in a beautiful way. And I know I need to breathe. To push him off of me so I can get a damn gasp of air. But I don't want to. I don't want that at all. It's the last thing I would ever want when Billie is this close to me. So I just keep kissing him, pushing my limits, seeing how long I can go before...

"Sorry." He sounds embarrassed when he says this, as if he is about to be scolded. I try to smile a little bit, apologizing for pushing him off for a second, but I'm not sure if he can see the outline of my lips in the dark. I know that I still feel the weight of his lips on my own.

I try not to be so obvious about the large intakes of air I'm taking in. I try to keep it even and steady. Soon, it becomes quiet in the room. Which is odd because it was quiet before—it's not like we were talking a lot while kissing. But when we're not kissing, it seems so much quieter.

While I'm watching him chew on the inside of his bottom lip subtly, I feel all kinds of emotional and I knew that this was coming. Just like it always does. I don't know why looking at him makes me want to cry.

"I came after you, you know." He looks quickly up into my eyes and then they're gone.

I leave a spot open in the air for him to say something, but he doesn't. So I continue.

"When you left, I ran after you. All the way down those goddamn stairs and down all the sidewalks I thought may lead to your apartment." I move over casually as he shifts to lie down beside me. Now we're both looking at the ceiling, listening to the words that come out of my mouth. "I really did. And I wanted to find you and tell you that out of the two of us, you aren't the asshole. You never were and you never will be." I heard myself laugh without any humor. "It's always going to be me. As history will show, I'm always the asshole out of us."

Achingly, I roll my head to look at the side of his face. I can see the moonlight hit his eyelashes and I think it's really pretty. After a long time of silence, I turn away because I don't know what else to do.

I stay perfectly still next to him and wonder if this is what it feels like to be truly invisible. I almost don't notice him when he says, "I know."

"What?"

"I know you did."

"You know I did what?"

I think he is going to groan in agitation at the fact that I am clueless to what he is talking about, but he doesn't. He should have, but he doesn't. "I know you came after me. I saw you."

I don't say anything because I feel this hollow feeling crash into my stomach and I don't know what to say.

He knew what to say when I didn't. "I was standing on the far side of that corner store right before my place. On the opposite side of all those fucking neon lights he keeps in the window. I was smoking a cigarette when I heard you." He still doesn't look at me while he is talking, but I can't turn away. "I don't know. I just sort of spaced, put my cigarette out and held my breath." He blinks really slowly after saying that and I wait patiently. "And then you walked past and I watched you go."

"Why did you just let me go by, calling out your name, then? Looking like an idiot."

He shrugs and I turn my head away from him to stare at the ceiling.

A few minutes go by and I miss his voice so I say something that I hope he responds to. It's not the best thing to say in order to get a response, but it's all I can think of.

"You came back, though."

"I know."

And we both turn our heads to face each other at the same time and both of our hands are folded on top of our stomachs and we are not touching each other at all, even though I wish we were (I always wish we were) and I hear him swallow and I feel my stomach leap in nervousness and then he kisses me lightly and I forget why on earth I would ever want to yell at him because, I love him. I really do.