Miserably Loving You.

Dressing up for Halloween felt weird. I hadn't done something like this in so long that by the time I had finished doing what I needed to do I just felt stupid.

My costume was nothing special, but Violet and Mom had gotten me a "leather" jacket and I figured a simple costume could be made out of that. I tussled with the idea of being a biker or a greaser for a few hours but then realized everyone would just assume I was a greaser anyways and went with that.

My hair didn't want to cooperate for the longest time, but eventually with a little bit of Violets help (mainly just her hair products because apparently water can't fix everything) I managed to get somewhat of the classic pompadour down.

This was all way too much work for me though, and that's where the stupid feeling started sinking in. I don't know why I was bothering this much, I could have thrown on some sweats and called myself Rocky, but... I don't know, it just didn't feel right.

Maybe it was because of the excitement Violet and Gage had for this party. I knew Gage was trying to hide it or suppress it, but it was definitely there. Especially after I told him I was buying his costume he actually seemed less annoyed with Violet and more eager to help her out.

Violet, much to my surprise, decided that since she had long pale blonde hair that she would do an almost spirit like costume with a tattered modest dress and a shit ton of white paint. I honestly figured -like every Halloween- that she'd want to go with the most extravagant and uncomfortably short costume. Not that I had any problem with her doing what she pleased as a woman, but I'm her brother so of course all I wanted to do was throw a sheet on her and lock her away from all the evil people in the world.

But she was dead set on being able to enjoy Halloween this year, and that she didn't want to deal with uncomfortable cat calls or anything else along those lines. So as an older brother I was really excited about that.

Thinking about her costume just brought my thoughts back to Gage wearing those cat ears. He was a cute guy in general but holy shit. Seeing those on him actually made me giddy. It felt weird, but I can only imagine how cute the entire costume he would put together was going to look on him.

After I rolled up the cuffs of my jeans and slipped my arms into the leather jackets sleeves I couldn’t help but to sigh, I knew that I probably looked like a tool but this was the least douche-y and absolute cheapest costume I could think of. I didn’t mind buying Violet and Gage things they’d probably never wear again, but buying something like that for myself just made me cringe. I didn’t want to own a pirate costume or put fake slobbery fangs in my mouth, so this costume was perfect for me.

I was kind of glad I decided to skip out on taking my medicine for the last two nights, they had been making me feel terrible and I actually wanted to at least half enjoy tonight so I gave myself that two day buffer of no sleep so I could be at least kind of conscious for this party.

When I heard the only three voices I cared about conversing from downstairs I decided that now was probably the best time to leave my room. I wasn’t going to make this costume look any less lame by just standing up here, so I should at least go and enjoy looking at my sister and our friend… And maybe have my mom call me handsome so I can get a tinge of my ego back.

“Jesus Leighton,” my sister laughed. “I had to paint my entire body and it took me half as long as you took! Did you have to skin the cow for its hide yourself?” I ignored my sister and looked at Gage. He had the ears and tail on, but this time had black pants, a black cardigan, a white shirt, and white knitted gloves. I assumed that he was going for a tuxedo cat look, and honestly he pulled it off well. I could feel my chest tighten as he smiled at me and the drawn on whiskers moved against his cheeks.

“Shut up Violet.” He laughed and I couldn’t help but notice how the blacked out spot on his nose scrunched up when he did so. “You of all people should know how hard getting hair to stay in one place can be.”

“Yeah!” I finally joined in, trying to shake this weird draw to Gage I was having. It felt like I had never really appreciated how cute he actually was until this costume heightened it. Now I just sound like I’m into cats, but I swear I’m not. “What he said!”

“Oh calm down you three.” My mother laughed. “Leighton you look very handsome. Like a real brooding bad boy from one of those 50’s movies! Are you going to show these two how to doo wop?” I rolled my eyes and kissed her forehead; though I’d never tell her, that really did make me feel better.

“Yeah Leighton, show us how to boogie!” Violet laughed.

“One glass of water and your entire costume is ruined.” I smirked, causing her to rethink making fun of me again. “Are you guys ready to go though?”

“Now wait a minute!” My mom said, stopping me from grabbing my keys. “If there is drinking at this party… Be smart about it? No drunk driving Leighton. You call me at any time and I will come pick you guys up okay?” I nodded, though I had no intention of drinking.

“So… Is this basically a pass for us?” Violet asked, causing both Gage and I to audibly groan. “What? I mean, I just wanted to know!”

“No, it’s not a pass, but I can’t protect you guys from everything and I know you’re going to do what you’re going to do, so just be careful and we’ll deal with whatever we have to deal with tomorrow.”

Now, I heard this spiel my mom was spewing about a thousand times. I was more of a social butterfly back in the day than Violet had ever been. So I knew that as long as we were safe and didn’t end up in the back of a police car, mom didn’t really care what we did. I wasn’t going to tell Violet that though; she needed to figure that out for herself just like I had too.

I wasn’t going to drink tonight though, I needed to keep my two little eggs safe in and sound in their shells inside of my basket. I knew from the beginning that this was how I would handle tonight and I had no preconceived notions that I would be going to this party to enjoy myself. This night was for Violet and Gage, to get their feet a little wetter in the high school experience since after this year I would no longer be around to cart them around.

We all piled into my car and road the few streets over to Darren’s house. Though the house was pretty large, I knew Darren wouldn’t be throwing a crazy rager. He might be rich, he may be young, but he isn’t stupid. He was pretty lazy though, so the less he had to clean up was always more appealing to him. When we went inside I could hear Violet groan, apparently she thought this would be way more exciting like the bullshit you see in movies.

“So… Is this it?” She asked, and all I could offer her was a shrug. Sure the house wasn’t packed wall to wall with bodies, but there were way more than enough people here. The music wasn’t blaring but it was loud enough to have to stand close in order to hear someone talking to you.

“Probably, do you want to go home? Because for a person at a party; you sure are doing a lot of complaining.” I laughed and Violet just sent me a dirty look before taking Gage’s hand and dragging him away from me.

I watched the two and sighed, they were my scapegoats… If people saw me with them they probably wouldn’t bother talking to me. But now they’re off doing their own thing, and I don’t want to look like a complete loser by following them, so I just took it upon myself to slowly wander the house.

A few people talked briefly to me and expressed their surprise that I actually showed up. I offered a few empty promises of hanging out before college and a few more half empty promises about going and getting lunch, but everyone seemed content with my responses so who knows if I’ll stick to them or not.

“Leighton! You made it!” I turned around and looked at Darren. “I really didn’t think you’d show!”

“Yeah me either.” I laughed.

“So where are the people you were bringing?” He asked, looking around me.

“Uh, they’re around here some where. They kind of went off and did their own-“ I paused as I caught a glimpse of Gage. I couldn’t see my sister around him, but I definitely saw a guy with him. “-Would you excuse me?” I didn’t bother to wait for Darren’s response, I couldn’t tell if Gage was uncomfortable or not, or who the guy talking to him was so I had to go check it out for myself.

When I got closer I noticed that Gage didn’t look uncomfortable per say, but there was just enough tenseness in his shoulders to “validate” my worry. The guy standing in front of him was no were near ugly, but had to be new to the school or just a kid from another school because I had never seen him before. With that being said I decided to approach with as much caution for Gage as I could.

“Hey,” I said, taking them both by surprise as I wrapped my arm around Gage’s shoulder. “Everything okay over here?”

“Uh… Yeah?” Gage said as he looked up at me, so I smiled back down at him. “Oh uh, Leighton this is Elliot, Elliot this is Leighton.” Elliot extended his hand so I took it in my own, shaking it firmly before looking back down at Gage.

“You okay?” I asked, and he nodded simply in response. “Alright, well I won’t bother you two anymore!” I let my arm drop from Gage’s shoulders and left the two boys to their own devices.

I don’t know why I went over there really. I mean… Tense shoulders? Really Leighton? When the fuck did that even ever matter before? How could you even tell that they were tense? I couldn’t really! It was pretty dark and he was wearing all black so was that just some lame fucking copout to go see who Gage was talking too? Why did it even matter?!

I sighed and grabbed a root beer before sitting down on the empty couch. I could have gone back to Darren and talked to him more about… Well nothing, but I just wasn’t feeling like it now. Too many weird thoughts were coursing through my mind to even begin to care about speaking to him or anyone else.

“Leighton… You okay?” Gage asked, breaking my attention away from my thoughts about him to him.

“Uh, yeah. I’m fine, why?”

“It’s just…” He sat down beside me and shrugged. “I don’t know, that was just kind of… Off colored for you back there, I guess.”

“What, making sure you’re okay?” I chuckled. “Isn’t that kind of my thing?”

“Lately it seems like it.” He smiled, and even in the semi dark room I could still see that blush on his cheeks and again it made my chest tighten like before.

“So Elliot?”

“Oh! Uh, no… He’s just a friend from mine and Violets class.” I raised my eyebrow at him, because that’s not at all the response I was looking for, but it felt way more satisfying. “I mean, uh, he had to go call one of his friends.” I couldn’t help but smirk, it was almost painful how cute he was. “S-s-so wasn’t this your friends party?”

“Yeah,” I chuckled at his obvious attempt to change the subject. “He’s over there somewhere. He’s dressed as that Phantom of the Opera guy I think.”

“Oh okay, yeah I think I saw him earlier.” I smiled and nodded as I looked at Gage. I don’t know why, but I just couldn’t take my eyes off of him tonight. Was there a full moon out or something funny in the air? It wasn’t like I was just noticing he was cute, but it was definitely a way bigger thought in my mind this week than it had ever been before.

“Have you seen Violet around?” I asked, trying not to create an awkward silence… Awkward silences caused people to leave, and it was way easier not to dwell on things about Gage when he was right in front of me.

“Uh, she was in the same room with me earlier, but I think she wanted to go get a drink…” I nodded again and looked around the room, she was no where to be seen which kind of made me uncomfortable, but she was a grown ass woman, she knew what to do if she needed me.

“You don’t have to stay here on the couch with me Gage, you should go enjoy yourself with her, let loose!”

“I uh,” He paused and looked down for a brief moment. “I want to be over here though.”

Within the time it took him to finish that sentence and the time it took for me to lean over to him, everything became clear. It was just one fluid movement, I leaned in, my hand touched his face, and I brought our lips together. It just took the feeling of his lips on my own to make that tightening in my chest explode into something completely different. The way his lips desperately kept pulling me back made me regret that I hadn’t done it sooner.

When we pulled away I could hear a soft whimper come from him, but he quickly regained his composure and started at me with those huge dark mocha colored eyes with misplaced grey hues sewn into them. The grey didn’t belong there; it was as if his eyes wanted to be a lighter color but genetics or some other force of nature wanted to keep them dark. I had never once heard of grey being imbedded into brown eyes, but it just made his face that much better to look at.

“I-I…” He took a deep breath and nearly choked. “W-why?!” But before I could answer his question he covered my mouth with his hands. “N-never mind! I-I don’t want to know, oh… I’m so sorry!” He removed his hands from my mouth and then started cleaning off something from my face. “M-my nose rubbed off onto you.”

I couldn’t hold in my laughter after that, but I repressed it as much as I could so I could stop him from wasting his time.

“Gage,” I said, a smile clearly stuck on my face. “Just, come back.” Though I knew my sentence didn’t make much sense, he obliged my request.

This time the kiss was a little less of a surprise, and we were both far more prepared. I felt everything this time, the way his lips glided with mine, the way his half lidded eyes slipped closer to being fully closed the longer we kissed, and the way his breath had tasted. It was warm and sweet, just like he was and I could feel how hesitant he still was so I pulled him closer to me to let him know that this was just as much his kiss as it was mine.

I didn’t want to pull away again, I really didn’t and I could tell that he didn’t want too either, but I needed to see his face again, I needed to see if the reaction from this was the same from the first one. I didn’t want him to be nervous, I didn’t want him to freak out, and I especially didn’t want him to apologize for this again. I just wanted him to smile and let me know that he wanted that to happen just as much as I needed it to.

He stared at me the same way before touching his lips, I smiled when I noticed his gloves got in the way of him actually feeling them, but he didn’t seem to notice. I was a little worried for a moment but then I noticed a small grin tugging at the corner of his lips.

“There you two are!” We both jumped and looked at my sister who much to my dismay looked as if she was having trouble on her feet. “This party is boring, let’s go!” I jumped to my feet quickly and caught my beyond intoxicated sister before she face planted.

“Yeah I think it’s about time we get you home.” I chuckled and picked her up. I glanced over at Gage who looked beyond disappointed that his friend, so I offered him a small smile and a head nod before leading the way back out to my car.

Gage opened the back door and I placed Violet in the seat and had her lay down across. The house was less than two miles away so I didn’t bother with a seatbelt, because really, if we got into an accident now then it was probably her time to go.

Even though Gage sat up front with me, he was eerily silent, but he followed me into the house and helped me get Vi into my moms bed safely. I knew he was just dying to talk about this, and so was I, but the last thing we needed would be to have anyone else intrude into this conversation. So as soon as I shut the door behind us, I took his hand and led him back to my room. I knew that he was probably getting the wrong ideas about my intentions by the way his hand was shaking in my own, but once we were safe behind my closed door I just smiled at him.

“Gage, I’m uh…” Now I was the speechless one.

“Do you want to talk about it in the morning?” He asked, to which I could only nod back, but as soon as he turned to head for the door something inside of me snapped.

“Wait! Gage! Don’t go, I won’t have it in me to bring this up again. I-I want you to be my boyfriend…” He paused and I could hear the pounding of my own heart in my ears as I waited for him to turn around. I don’t know where that sudden burst of emotion came from, but I wanted him here with me. I think I needed him here with me more than I was actually willing to admit yet.

“Really?” He asked, but he didn’t bother to turn around which scared me.

“Y-yeah really…”

“Not just because we kissed though right?” I felt my heart sink a little because I really wasn’t one hundred percent sure about this answer yet, but I didn’t want him to know that.

“No, that’s not the only reason.” I said, and Gage took a deep breath before turning around to look at me. I couldn’t see what he was feeling though, and that scared me because I was the one who was always hard to read, I was the one who always got yelled at for being “too mysterious”. But here we were now, and I was the lost one.

“Promise? You wont wake up tomorrow and regret this will you?” He asked, and I could just feel all this built up sadness pour from his lips.

“I promise Gage.” I tossed my “leather” jacket off to the side before flipping my light switch and taking Gages hand to lead him back to my bed. Again, I knew he was getting a very misconstrued idea of what my intentions were again, but as soon as I snaked my arms around him he seemed to relax a little.

This felt right too. Us laying together like this had always felt right, but he still hadn’t answered me about being my boyfriend… Maybe I was the one who was getting the signals mixed this time… I don’t know. But even if he didn’t want to be my boyfriend, I at least had tonight. I would get over the disappointed eventually, but tonight happened the way it needed too and I was at least one hundred percent sure about that now.