The Woods

The moon swelled against the onyx sky and Kellin couldn’t tell if it was twelve or two in the morning. It didn’t really matter in the end because he was high as a kite and his right arm was slung around the slender shoulders of some girl he didn’t remember the name of. She had bright orange hair and laughed too loudly at his jokes. Sure, she was pretty, but Kellin had his eyes set on the boy with dark eyes sitting parallel to them. He looked in and out of place all at the same time and that fascinated him even more.

He watched as a boy with sandy hair approached him with the ‘you look cute for a Mexican’ line that caused the boy to pour whatever was in his plastic cup all over sandy hair’s shirt.

Sandy called him a bitch.

He punched sandy in the eye.

Kellin laughed and took another sip from his own cup before removing his arm from ginger’s shoulders. The boy stood up, mentioning something along the lines of ‘more alcohol’, and walked away from the party, towards the woods. To Kellin, the whole situation was weird because the table with alcohol was in the house not the forest and he dropped his cup in the grass before he disappeared into the sea of trees.

It was his pure curiosity that led Kellin to follow the boy. He ended up walking in circles and questioning if he even saw him at all.

“You followin’ me?”

It was soft and quiet, but raw and loud enough to break the silence of the forest. Kellin tried to utter out a reply but became confused (once again) when he turned to look at him and was met with a bush.

“Up here,” His eyes traveled up and met the same dark ones that hypnotized him. The boy’s face was illuminated by a lantern hanging from a branch above his head. “How’d you do that?” Kellin slurred and leaned against the tree claimed by a mystery. Yeah, he was definitely a mystery.

“What? You’ve never climbed a tree before?”

Kellin scratched his scalp at that question. When was the last time he’d climbed a tree? Ten years ago? Or seven? He looked up again and saw him cock his head to the side as if to say ‘come on up’. It took a while for him to make it to mystery’s branch but he got there eventually.

Seeing him up close was absolutely breathtaking. He wasn’t the prettiest, but the little tooth spaced before his canines and the silver nose ring looped around his right nostril left Kellin in absolute awe.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?”

Maybe he didn’t mean to be rude. And maybe he did. Or maybe Kellin was just being creepy. To this day he still doesn’t know. And to this day that boy is still complicated and that’s okay because Kellin doesn’t mind.

Kellin shrugged, “you.” His statement brought heat to the boy’s cheeks and stretched the corners of his mouth into a toothy smile. He noticed the way the boy’s nose crinkled at the sides and the way his left cheek dipped into a soft dimple.

“What brings you into this neck of the woods, white boy?”

Kellin tilted his head to the side. White boy? That was new. He shrugged again in an attempt at being nonchalant about following him, “I like the woods.” The boy smirked at his response, “cute.”

This was his turn to blush.