Status: ♂♂
A Lonely Year
and he just looks at you.
It isn’t until you’re halfway up the steps of the front porch that you realise what you’re doing.
You freeze with your hand on the railing, gloves flaked with fallen snow. When you wipe at your face, the ice melts into the fabric. “Shit.”
You know these steps like you know the shape of your hands, know the front door, that windowsill with the same dead pot of flowers (except those dead flowers look very much alive, if not a little frostbitten, and the longer you stare at them the more it feels like your knees are sort of falling out from beneath you.)
A light switches on upstairs and you jolt, slipping on the step and falling hard onto your tailbone. The curtain flutters as you stand, dusting the back of your pants off. They’re sodden through, the cold leeching into your bones, and when you look up, you happen to catch the pair of eyes looking at you through the downstairs window.
Dex.
His eyes are drawn and his hair is a mess and your heart gives a terrible, sharp squeeze at the thought that you could almost touch him if you wanted to. You stumble when you step backward. Oh God, how you want to.
He’s opening the front door before you even think of making a run for it, leaning against the doorway in his boxer shorts and a wife beater, arms crossed over his chest like they could do anything to buffer him from the cold. And he just looks at you.
“Augie?”
You lose whatever bravado you thought you may have had at the old nickname, gracelessly taking the two steps (those bloody steps, Christ) onto the landing, shielding your eyes a little against the hallway light. You feel particularly drunk under the lamp, a little too sober under Dexter’s gaze. The teasing heat from inside makes you shiver hard, and you sway beneath it, trying to keep a hold of the contents of your stomach.
“What…” Dex starts, seemingly losing the words in his mouth. You can see his icy breath and wish so achingly that you could taste it, wish so achingly that you didn't feel like that cold air exiting his lungs, gone forever.
Instead, you fist your hand in your hair, eyes flickering to your feet, and you mumble a quiet, “Hello." It cracks badly on the ‘o’, but you don’t know what else to say that doesn’t sound like, I’m utterly lost without the sound of your voice. Drunken sorrow always seems to hurt the most, and tonight you're playing in the big leagues.
Dexter stares at you, and you aren't quite sure if it’s bewilderment in his eyes, if its fear. His gaze flits between you and the hallway at least half a dozen times before you feel pretty much done with the back and forth, just enough to say, “Could I come in, then?”
You flinch at the way it comes out, like you’re desperate, like you’re utterly miserable. Only you’re a little too fraught to care, really, a little too vulnerable, still in your work clothes on Dex's front porch at almost one a.m. on a Thursday morning.
“Gus,” is what he finally says, looking over his shoulder into the house one last time. It makes you recoil, because the look on his face doesn’t waver but his voice does. Your heart sinks.
“Got someone up there, don’t you?” you say, but the question comes out as a twisted, ugly accusation. You didn’t really mean to, but the words spill out like hot tears, and you can’t take them back once they’re out there.
You don’t know if you want to, really.
Dexter inches backwards, tilting his head faintly, blonde hair falling over one eye. He looks at you, almost in wonder, and you look away. “You should go,” he whispers, voice low and soothing, like he’s speaking to a small child. It unnerves you, ruptures something in your resolve, and you scoff out loud. Maybe it’s at your own ignorance, stupid naive hope, but it feels as though you’ve stripped yourself naked on this porch just by being here, and you're not quite sure if you'll ever pick up the fractured pieces.
“Come on, I’ll… I’ll call you a cab,” Dexter says, ignoring your petulance, his tone a vacant kind of familiar that makes you regret this whole thing, like you’ve picked at an old wound now that should’ve healed a long fucking time ago.
He contemplates you like he's actually worried about you when you mumble something about taking the train. You just can’t look him in the eye. Because you know you’re still secretly searching for love on his face. Because you know if you look you really won’t like what you see.
He uncrosses his arms and says, “Are you sure?” and it sounds watery and vague and not at all convinced. You just shrug, even though it completely tears apart every single part of you that you’ve been holding so tightly together. You simply turn on your heel and carefully make your way down the steps, hands pushed deep into the pockets of your jacket. Like you’re doing anything but running away.
Don’t look back.
“Alright then,” you hear him say from behind you, and then the soft sound of the door clicking shut before you’re even halfway down the path. You count your steps until your throat clears of that impossible lump and you no longer feel tears scratching at the back of your throat.
Now all you feel is empty, really.
It’s been a lonely year.
You freeze with your hand on the railing, gloves flaked with fallen snow. When you wipe at your face, the ice melts into the fabric. “Shit.”
You know these steps like you know the shape of your hands, know the front door, that windowsill with the same dead pot of flowers (except those dead flowers look very much alive, if not a little frostbitten, and the longer you stare at them the more it feels like your knees are sort of falling out from beneath you.)
A light switches on upstairs and you jolt, slipping on the step and falling hard onto your tailbone. The curtain flutters as you stand, dusting the back of your pants off. They’re sodden through, the cold leeching into your bones, and when you look up, you happen to catch the pair of eyes looking at you through the downstairs window.
Dex.
His eyes are drawn and his hair is a mess and your heart gives a terrible, sharp squeeze at the thought that you could almost touch him if you wanted to. You stumble when you step backward. Oh God, how you want to.
He’s opening the front door before you even think of making a run for it, leaning against the doorway in his boxer shorts and a wife beater, arms crossed over his chest like they could do anything to buffer him from the cold. And he just looks at you.
“Augie?”
You lose whatever bravado you thought you may have had at the old nickname, gracelessly taking the two steps (those bloody steps, Christ) onto the landing, shielding your eyes a little against the hallway light. You feel particularly drunk under the lamp, a little too sober under Dexter’s gaze. The teasing heat from inside makes you shiver hard, and you sway beneath it, trying to keep a hold of the contents of your stomach.
“What…” Dex starts, seemingly losing the words in his mouth. You can see his icy breath and wish so achingly that you could taste it, wish so achingly that you didn't feel like that cold air exiting his lungs, gone forever.
Instead, you fist your hand in your hair, eyes flickering to your feet, and you mumble a quiet, “Hello." It cracks badly on the ‘o’, but you don’t know what else to say that doesn’t sound like, I’m utterly lost without the sound of your voice. Drunken sorrow always seems to hurt the most, and tonight you're playing in the big leagues.
Dexter stares at you, and you aren't quite sure if it’s bewilderment in his eyes, if its fear. His gaze flits between you and the hallway at least half a dozen times before you feel pretty much done with the back and forth, just enough to say, “Could I come in, then?”
You flinch at the way it comes out, like you’re desperate, like you’re utterly miserable. Only you’re a little too fraught to care, really, a little too vulnerable, still in your work clothes on Dex's front porch at almost one a.m. on a Thursday morning.
“Gus,” is what he finally says, looking over his shoulder into the house one last time. It makes you recoil, because the look on his face doesn’t waver but his voice does. Your heart sinks.
“Got someone up there, don’t you?” you say, but the question comes out as a twisted, ugly accusation. You didn’t really mean to, but the words spill out like hot tears, and you can’t take them back once they’re out there.
You don’t know if you want to, really.
Dexter inches backwards, tilting his head faintly, blonde hair falling over one eye. He looks at you, almost in wonder, and you look away. “You should go,” he whispers, voice low and soothing, like he’s speaking to a small child. It unnerves you, ruptures something in your resolve, and you scoff out loud. Maybe it’s at your own ignorance, stupid naive hope, but it feels as though you’ve stripped yourself naked on this porch just by being here, and you're not quite sure if you'll ever pick up the fractured pieces.
“Come on, I’ll… I’ll call you a cab,” Dexter says, ignoring your petulance, his tone a vacant kind of familiar that makes you regret this whole thing, like you’ve picked at an old wound now that should’ve healed a long fucking time ago.
He contemplates you like he's actually worried about you when you mumble something about taking the train. You just can’t look him in the eye. Because you know you’re still secretly searching for love on his face. Because you know if you look you really won’t like what you see.
He uncrosses his arms and says, “Are you sure?” and it sounds watery and vague and not at all convinced. You just shrug, even though it completely tears apart every single part of you that you’ve been holding so tightly together. You simply turn on your heel and carefully make your way down the steps, hands pushed deep into the pockets of your jacket. Like you’re doing anything but running away.
Don’t look back.
“Alright then,” you hear him say from behind you, and then the soft sound of the door clicking shut before you’re even halfway down the path. You count your steps until your throat clears of that impossible lump and you no longer feel tears scratching at the back of your throat.
Now all you feel is empty, really.
It’s been a lonely year.
♠ ♠ ♠
thank you Helen. for this, for everything.