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You never felt like you belonged in those places. Like bars, parks or even car rides. Not when you were in a group, no.
Being by yourself was a different story. When you were on your own conditions, you belonged everywhere. You loved parks and cozy cafés, and going places; it was something about being there as a part of a group that made you feel out of place. Any group.
Everything could be okay and suddenly, a walk in a park made you feel like a brooding widow, so detached from the friends who are yet not stained by the tongues of death; a road trip got more bearable if you imagined yourself a hostage, driven away God knows where against her will, head to the cold window; or, like today, sitting in a bar with your friends made you feel like a divorced father of four, whose kids were taken away by some bitch wife that lied about you in court to get custody and all your money.
You didn’t know where those scenarios came from. Or rather, you knew — they came from feelings, but the question of why were you experiencing those feelings remained a clouded mystery. It wasn’t like you hated spending time with people, but you found comfort in just sitting back and being in the moment, observing them.
And it was nice until some timer you never set went off inside of you. Commanded by that timer, some bittersweet melancholy entered the stage, thickening the air and slowly pulling you away from whatever was going on. Your friends’ laughter grew muffled by it, as if they were wrapped in some bubble, their jokes bouncing off its walls, never reaching you, despite being audible.
Melancholy wasn’t the worst part. You usually noticed the change and desperately tried to hang onto your own presence: contributed to the conversation more, tried to arrange future plans, fixed your hair, moved your hands more as you talked. All of the above felt like stepping on your own throat and forcing yourself to do something you weren’t in agreement with, which in turn made the mellowness of the evening soar into pure all-consuming sadness. You felt out of place.
And your friends never meant for you to feel like that, which made it even worse. Now you felt like you were ruining their fun and punishing them for something they didn’t do. You considered Irish goodbye-ing, you always did, but never actually went through with it. Didn’t want to bring too much attention to yourself, so you resorted to quiet quitting from the inside. Which meant looking at the untouched cider in your hands, that you didn’t object ordering along with your friends (because you didn’t want to stand out, despite hating it) and waiting for the evening to end.
Perhaps, after a certain point there was nothing to do in a bar really. Your social battery was spent long before you came there, and you caught up on all the news in the first forty minutes, if not twenty. There wasn’t much to catch up to. Besides, the bar was a loud place, not the best pick for conversations. Tonight, on top of it, it was louder than usual, a group of boys crashed the place about fifteen minutes after you ordered your appetizers, and now you were forced to spend time hearing their cheers along with too much yelling and laughing. A celebration; your friends overheard a couple of toasts and assumed it was a graduation of some sort.
All efforts to keep up with the discussions were proven futile, you gave up and observed the interior of the bar, with some window-watching sprinkled in, for variety. Top quality entertainment. Wooden furniture, old posters, yellow lights. The weather outside seemed nice, it was dark, but not menacing, you reckoned the air must’ve already been sweetened up with dew brewing on the grass. Amidst one of your surveillance rounds around the room, you noticed one of the guys around the bar table staring at you. That was the danger of falling out of the friend bubble, you were always singled out. And people noticed. Ironic, since it was the least of your desires; if not blended-in, you wanted to be invisible.
You moved closer to your friends, once again making an almost painful effort to tune in to the conversation, to signal the room that you’re occupied with your own group, and that no, you did not want to talk to strangers.
The things your friends talked about didn’t make sense, words blurring into a yarn ball, you couldn’t untangle, as if they were the ones sober and you drank all their cider instead, and every time your eyes wandered to check if that guy was still staring, you found him averting his eyes, pretending to listen to whatever his friends were saying. At least he seemed shy, that made the chances of having to deal with him lower.
Your feckless attempts to make a comeback into the fun-bubble drew attention and soon everyone was asking why weren’t you drinking. You felt too embarrassed to admit you didn’t like the cider and only agreed to it to make the order less of a problem. Even though it wasn’t a problem to begin with, it just felt like it would be, were you to start picking things you wanted instead of going with the flow. Instead, you said that you were too preoccupied with listening to drink before and now felt a bit odd drinking alone. Everyone made an “Aww…” sound and suggested they all get a second round to keep you company. Great.
They asked you to walk up to the bartender and ask for the refill, since you were the one sitting closest to the edge of the table. You thought it was a great idea, this way you got something to do and walked out without being weird. And doing something for the group actually made you feel better about shutting down and being the gloomier odd out. It seemed like a good idea until you saw the guy that was staring at you move and sit next to where you were standing next to the bar table. Great.
You pretended not to see it, reading the menu written in white chalk on a blackboard. Did they hire someone to do it in a pretty handwriting and to draw all the tiny pictures? Or is there some art student taking shifts in this place? Hopefully, they paid them extra, if that’s the case.
“Hey… Um… Hi?” the guy did not take you ignoring him as a hint to back off and started talking.
Luckily, the bartender arrived in time, you made your request to repeat the cider for your friends, the bartender immediately started pouring.
“I just— “ the guy made another attempt and you put your hand to the side of your face, instinctively blocking your eyes before putting the palm in front of you in his direction, as you walked away. Some people just couldn’t read the room.
You got back to your table and soon the bartender followed. Now with glasses full, you had to participate in drinking. Clinging to your friends’ bubble as tightly as you could, practically pressing yourself to that sturdy invisible rubber wall that still felt impenetrable and very much there. You did everything you could to be included and you were, but you didn’t feel like it. You felt like your friends were cozying up together breathing some warm funny air, while you were just there from the outside looking in, vulnerable and alone in the bar, left alone in the cold to be basically violated by people like that guy.
Except he didn’t exactly violate you. And if you think about it, it wasn’t like he was even staring before. More like just a couple of rather shy glances. And he wasn’t very demanding when he approached you, quiet the opposite. You looked around the room to spot him, he was still at the same spot, a couple of friends now moved to stand around to chat. The warm lights reflected his hair and you noticed it was that dirty blonde color, looked almost brown in the shadow. Couldn’t tell the color from the distance, but his eyes were light, probably blue, since he was wearing a blue shirt. Boys with blue eyes did that. Despite all the guys being fit (firefighters, your friend suggested), he had that boyish face with almost child-like features, especially when he nodded along to what his friends were saying with that tightlipped smile. His shoulders looked a bit more slumped and you felt your cheeks get heavy with guilt. Maybe you were a little harsh.
You didn’t want to talk to him, but maybe you shouldn’t have discouraged him from approaching people. The more you observed him, the more he just looked like a nice guy, and a kicked puppy, thanks to your cold reaction to him simply striking a friendly conversation. Now, just because you decided not to be more kind, that boy will probably lose on chance to find the love of his life in the future, because he surely won’t approach anyone ever again.
It wasn’t your responsibility to cuddle a random guy’s ego, but it was hard not to feel empathetic when you could almost see imaginary puppy ears on his head drop sadly as he tried to keep up a cheerful appearance. God, you were a monster. He looked so polite as well, even surrounded by loud and annoying men. They probably noticed him looking at you before, and maybe even noticed him coming over. He took a chance to come over in front of them, and you did all that. Didn’t even say anything, which couldn’t be overheard in the loud bar anyway, so he could lie to them about it later. No, you had to give physical cues of rejection. To make it especially embarrassing for him. Poor guy.
Now you felt awful because of him on top of the regular sadness. And the cider was too awful to finish, you had no idea how your friends managed to down their second pints, but it gave them a new surge of energy and they started choosing a second place. Turning the regular evening into a bar hopping night. Your quiet quitting plans did not include that, so you laughed it off, ordering a taxi home, claiming that you have an assignment that you’ve been putting off for ages waiting for you at your table.
“Are you sure it can’t be done later? We could all gather and help you tomorrow!” your friends were making all sorts of promises to keep you tagging along, which made you feel better, some reassurance that they wanted you to be around. “Alright, just be sure to text us when you get home, okay?”
“I already ordered a taxi, I’ll be okay”, you showed them your phone as you hugged every single one of them goodbye at the entrance and watched them get in a car.
As their car disappeared around the corner, you finally felt relief. A bubble you kept trying to enter – popped, and you were free. It wasn’t fair to them, and it wasn’t fair to you, but you were so much better as a single player. Doing things on your own just felt right. You looked at your phone, looked at the bar through the glass door, cancelled the taxi, and headed back inside.
Even the inside of the bar felt different now that you were on your own. You looked for your kicked puppy, who was now sitting alone, still at the same spot.
Coming over and standing next to him, you pretended to read the menu again, calculating how to make some type of small talk to soften the edges around your last interaction without making it awkward. You had this idea in your head: you would make him feel better about this whole ordeal and then go home with conscience clean.
He noticed you coming over and made an effort not to look, busied himself with a drink, it was already more awkward that you imaged.
“Do you think they hire someone to write the menu like that?” you nodded at the blackboard.
He looked at his drink, processing whether you were talking to him or not, looked over his shoulder, to you, to the blackboard, to you again, eyes wide open, eyebrows raised slightly. “I don’t—” he looked at you, looking back at him, making it clear that yes, you were talking to him. “I don’t know—I can ask someone—” he looked suddenly alert.
“No, it’s okay,” you smiled, something about his reaction was genuinely adorable. “I’m just wondering, because it looks so well-done.”
“Oh… Yeah,” he looked at the blackboard again, “it does, yeah.”
You chuckled, and looked at your hands, resting on the bar table.
He looked at you for a moment, before collecting himself. “You wanted something to—what are you ordering?”
“I was thinking…, something with rum… A Long Island maybe.”
“Oh,” he nodded like it was some crucial information, “me too.”
You looked at his cup, more full than it was empty. “Are you sure? You seem–”
“No, it’s–Don’t want it anymore.”
“Okay.”
The bartender came up and the guy ordered two Long Islands, looked over to you for approval.
“It’s fine. I can get myself–”
“And some fries. Do you eat fries?”
“I eat fries, but you don’t ha–”
“Yeah, and some fries,” he gave the bartender a polite smile, “Thank you!”
You shook your head. “You really–”
“Come on…” he looked at you pleading with guilt. Was it for meddling with your order, the previous interaction, or maybe the awkwardness of it all. Could be all three. “I’m Leon, by the way.”
You smiled, nodded and introduced yourself in return. He reciprocated the smile, and his eyes sparked, it looked like the imaginary puppy ears on top of his head stood up. You finally felt better about yourself and your smile grew wider.
When the cocktails arrived, you took a cold glass with both hands, finally something you liked instead of wasting money on drinks that felt like a participation ticket. Watched him make a face after a sip. “Are you sure you wanted to drink this?”
“No, it’s just cold,” he smiled, looking inside the glass as he stirred the ice, “well, actually, it’s my first.”
“Your first?” you gestured at the abandoned cup he set aside.
“No, I mean, this type of—” he pointed at the cocktail, you raised your eyebrows at the fact he presumably wanted something he never even tried, “I just had a beer. Well… I don’t usually… We were just celebrating. Just got out of the police academy. Recently.” He smiled proudly.
“Oh, I see,” so that’s what it was “Well, congratulations!”
You raised a glass and leaned in, clinking it to his, he looked slightly alerted at your movement and smiled, making a face again as he wiped his mouth.
You laughed. “You really shouldn’t drink it if you don’t li–”
“No, it’s just cold,” he almost whined and you laughed again.
“So… You’re going to be, like, a police officer or something?”
“Well, yeah. Tomorrow’s my first day actually.” He looked so damn proud, like a kid showing off his drawing. It was nice seeing someone so proud of what they were doing. There was something pure about it.
“That’s great,” you nodded, “you probably shouldn’t be drinking in that case.” you leaned in, pointing to the glass with your shoulder.
“I’m barely drinking. I actually don’t ever, so it’s going to be fine.”
“Well, if you don’t ever, then your tolerance is like… Low. So, it’s actually going to be worse.”
You could tell the beer already got to his head, making his delayed reactions somehow cuter. He looked puzzled and contemplating something.
“I’m just kidding, you’re going to be fine,” you smiled.
He hung his head and laughed, blonde hair falling, flickering under the lights. The bartender placed a large plate with fries in front of you.
“I’m not kidding about the tolerance, but you’re going to be fine,” you added, taking a fry from the plate, “what’s a few beers? And one cocktail.” The fries were a genius idea, you realized you were really hungry the whole time.
“One beer.”
“One beer. And one cocktail.”
He sat up straight and smiled at you, you realized that the awkwardness of the situation was replaced with something electrifying yet comfortable instead.
“And what do you do?”
“Well, I’m not graduating yet. So, just school…”
“What do you study?”
His enthusiasm was contagious and you found yourself telling way more than you usually would’ve. Even though you usually hated talking about your life to new people, Leon made it easy. The whole conversation made you weirdly fall in love with your life again. You liked everything you told him about it, you couldn’t wait to live it again in the morning. Maybe add something new to it, something you never told anyone before. And you could tell him about it to watch his mesmerized reaction. It seemed like he genuinely cared and asked questions no one ever did before. The initial plan to make him feel better about your rejection and go home now was out of the window.
Getting out your phone to exchange numbers before heading out, you remembered that you never texted your friends that you got home. Looked at your phone and saw seventeen missed calls, and the group chat blowing up with messages, along with some direct ones; tone varying from angry to concerned. The mood Leon managed to get you into didn’t allow you to feel stressed about it though. Instead, you smiled, realizing that your friends cared.
As you went outside, you noticed two things. One: you were right about the air smelling sweet and fresh. Two: it was way colder than you assumed it would be.
“Would it be weird if I walk you home?”
“I don’t know,” you cracked up slightly, “are you planning on making it weird?”
“What? No, I–I mean, I won’t make it weird. I hope,” he added, trying to be self-aware, “But would it be weird if I insist on walking you home? I mean, we’ve just met, so I get it, but also its late and dark…”
“…and you’re a police officer.”
“Well, not yet, but… Wait, what do you mean?”
You just laughed, tugging him by the jacket, and walked in the direction of your house.
“No, what do mean by that?” he tried not to laugh, was thinking too much. You didn’t even know what you meant by that. Perhaps that he was safe to be around. You didn’t know. Like it’s such a police thing to do, taking people to safety. Something along the lines.
You made several stops on the way, looking at the stars and the moon, and the trees and everything. You rarely got to walk at night, and the occasions when it happened, you tried to be as fast as possible, using your clothes as a shield, buttoning up every button, pulling down your sleeves and up the hoods and down the hats and everything.
This night was different, it appeared like the world was yours to take in. You felt a jacket drop heavy and warm over your shoulders and you held on to it, so it doesn’t fall down as you looked back to Leon who draped it over.
“I usually wouldn’t do this on a first date, but it’s completely out of necessity. It’s cold.” He joked, clearly thinking about doing it since you got out and opting out of it over some anxiety that you were about to protest.
“Oh, so it’s a date?” you put the jacket on properly.
“Well, no. I didn’t mean it like–”
You bust out laughing again.
“It’s fine, thank you.” You put the collar of the jacket up to hide from the chill air, it was definitely necessary.
He smiled and his cheeks got rosy from something other than the cold. Now that he mentioned a date, you could almost see the gears in his brain trying to figure out a way to circle back to that and test if you’d actually agree to one. As if you weren’t letting him buy you a drink, and he wasn’t walking you home with his jacket on.
And as you neared your house, you found yourself wishing you lived a city away, just so the night would never end. In another country. On another planet. No doubts, he’d follow you.
“So… This is it,” you turned around, watching Leon as he struggled looking for courage, then trying to tame the courage he found and looking overall lost. “You gonna ask for your jacket back?”, you teased playfully, “Or for the second date maybe?”
“A second?” his frows furrowed, “this wasn’t…”
“Well, if you don’t want it to be…”
“I do, but–but–I mean,” he laughed and rubbed his eye, “dammit, sorry, I mean, I promised not to make it weird, and if you didn’t…” he bit his lip and shook his head at his own awkwardness, “I swear an actual date would be better. If you’d like that, of course.”
“I’d like that… If you would’ve asked.”
“Well… Um, would you want… me to ask…?”
“This is not how it’s done,” your cheeks hurt from smiling at this point, so making a serious face felt like some needed rest for your muscles, “Am I asking myself out or are you asking me out?”
“I am. I’m asking you out.” he looked at you, his jacket now off your shoulders and in your hands, a barrier between. “Would you go on a date with me?”
You stepped closer. “Yes.” Handed him the jacket. “And thanks for the jacket. And everything.” You hesitated for a moment and leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek. Skin soft; warm despite the weather. He looked at you frozen, at your lips, then your eyes, blinked and you saw the prettiest smile light up his whole face. “Good night!” you smiled back and tried your best not to run to the door; normal walking speed did not match the excitement.
Once you were inside, you realized you forgot something. Opening the door again, you yelled out.
“Leon!” he turned back in a speed of light, “Good luck tomorrow!”
He gave you a wide smile, waved, and grinned sheepishly at the pavement, turning away.
You took out your phone, ready to text your friends that your phone died and you fell asleep. What a bummer.
But typing it out didn’t seem right, some hesitation seeped through. You couldn’t shake off the radiating light that boy infected you with. Something about that light — so pure and honest and almost holy in its naivety. You couldn’t lie about it. Not when you could still remember the way his jacket smelled, and his smile and his voice, and his cheek under your lips. You pursed them and bit your lip to stop the giggle escaping, it all seemed so silly, now you were feeling shy for having the lips that touched his face, his skin, on you, under your tongue. Even thinking back to the moment was electrifying and you hid your face into the pillow, making the weirdest noises. You’d tell your friends everything. In details.
Falling asleep was the biggest problem, especially since you wanted tomorrow to start as soon as possible.