Published: November 18th 2019, 7:23:25 pm
Just like I kinda did Inktober last month, I'm trying to kinda do NaNoWriMo this month. Buffy Burlesque kinda took over so I'm not as far as I'd like BUT I think I have the first act written!
I'll be putting it up here in more manageable chunks, though, because no one wants to read a full novel on the internet in one go. And also because I am largely fueled by outside validation.
Chapter 1 is here https://www.patreon.com/posts/finally-writing-26715395
Here comes chapter 2
Alcoholism runs in my family so I always told myself that I would never take a drink when I felt like I really needed one. But whatever. I order a well whisky neat because fuck you that’s why.
I will myself into not taking a first big gulp. This isn’t my bar. I’ll have to pay for my drinks. I only have 12 dollars in my wallet so this drink will have to last me a while. That blessed first sip ratchets back the tension in my body. I’ll have this drink, wait for the storm to pass, figure out where the hell I am and how to get home. I just… shouldn’t try to think past that right now.
The bar’s much more quiet than I expected. Bars down here are usually douche-y finance-y type places. The kind of place where everyone used to be frat boy or sorority girl but now they spend too much on their clothes to throw up on them. This place isn’t like that. There’s not that buzz of posturing, of networking, of forcing one’s self to have just the right amount of fun. This place isn’t even a sports bar. It feels ageless, somehow, all red velvet, exposed brick, and dark polished wood. That’s a recognizable look but not one I can really pin on specific time or place. Baroque-ish, Art noveau-esque, Edwardian-gentleman’s-club-y, but also kinda 80’s goth dive. The lights are small and bright, like candles and Christmas lights. And maybe also fireflies? I mean, they can’t be fireflies but I… don’t know what else would look like that. Dylan would know.
Scattered across the walls, hanging among the curtains, mosaic-ed in swirls over the tables, are shards of broken mirror. The crowd is quiet, with a hint of hushed excitement. Everyone’s dressed better than me and I’m suddenly worried about how much my drink cost.
“What do I owe you?” I ask the bartender. He leans forward and looks into my eyes.
“Just tell me a secret,” he says. He’s cute enough so I didn’t mind him flirting with me, but I’m sure I want to flirt back.
“I just got my heart broken,” I say which can be a flirtation or a fuck off, depending on where we go from here. I leave it at that. No sense in closing off my options so early in the evening.
“I’m not sure that’s a secret,” he says, eyes apprising me. “But it’ll do for well.”
And that is how you earn a tip.
The woman at the next barstool turns to peer at me through the cloak of her oil slick black hair.
“Who broke your heart, girl?”
“My boyfriend,” I tell her. “Or, ex-boyfriend, I guess. I’m not used to saying it yet.”
“His name is a thorn in your heart. Pluck it out.”
“Dylan?” I ask. This lady’s weird but I feel my chest ache when I say his name. Maybe a weirdo is what I need right now. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“What makes him so worthy of your pain?”
I’m filled with too many answers to speak one. I grope through the jumble of five years to find something that she might understand.
“He’s just... he’s Dylan,” I say, as though emphasis might somehow show her the enormity of his name in my mouth. “He has the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen and bone structure like turn of the century architecture. He was everything to me. The only answer I had in life. He was the sexy Crybaby/Luke Perry/Jason Dean/bad boy of my life. Without the motorcycle. And, you know, murder. But he did have tight jeans and pierced ears and a very sexy smoking habit. I envy the poison in his lungs. They will never be parted. He was The Boy Your Mother Warned You About but I made him love me anyway. He saw me as something precious. And that made me precious.”
“Did it?” She doesn’t seem impressed. I crumple a little.
“It felt that way,”I mumble.
“Love can bring out our magic sometimes,” She concedes.
“That’s what it felt like.” I agree. “Or maybe, I don’t know. Maybe I was magical the first time we met. I was fifteen and I’d just produced my first show. And, honestly? It was fucking great. After months of fighting and stumbling and fucking around it had all just…come together in that weird magic way that shows sometimes have: like, everything’s a disaster but you just keep going and suddenly you’re in front of an audience and it all just works. I was leaving the theatre after the show and the guy the theatre had running the lights caught me as I was walking to my mom’s car. He said
“Hey you produced that show, right?”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” I kinda mumbled because I suck at taking complements, even though they’re the air that I breathe.
“I mean, my school gave me the money,” I clarified. “So I just, like, picked the play and organized the rehearsals and, like, directed it and acted in it and stuff.”
He looked astonished. I wasn’t trying to boast, it just kinda happened. I said it all as humbly as I could it just…sounded like I’d done a lot. It had felt like I’d done a lot, too. It just didn’t seem impressive when I was doing it.
“Well, it was awesome,” he gushed. “Just awesome.”
I glowed a little bit and I thanked him again as I got into my mom’s car.
“That Dylan guy’s pretty cute,” my mom said.
“Joke’s on her because I fell in love with him. Not right then, a couple years later, when we both worked at the theatre. Still, she was NOT happy about her 17 year old daughter dating a 23 year old. And I get it, that doesn’t sound good but…it wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a creep or anything we just, fit together. Like flirting was our native language and we just fell into it when we were together. Just being around him was fun and exciting. I looked forward to seeing him in a way I hadn’t really felt about someone before. I’d had boyfriends before. I’d thought I was in love but it never felt as right before. It was like, there’s this thing that happens sometimes when you’re acting, and it probably happens with other stuff too, where it all just flows and you somehow just know “This is good. This is right. I’m doing a good job at this and it’s easy as breathing.” That’s how I felt just being around Dylan. I felt like the best version of myself. When he finally, finally, finally said something about my looks I was breathless.
“You think I’m pretty?” I asked, feeling like the girl in a teen movie who wears glasses and a ponytail.
“Of course,” he said it like it was obvious. “You’re beautiful.”
A small and spiteful dam inside me broke and I believed him. I had never believed anyone else when they said that, but I believed him. It just meant more coming from him.
“Thank you.” I shrank away from his compliment, feeling unworthy. “I’m not good at accepting compliments but thank you.”
“Well you should get used to it,” he told me, “because someone as beautiful and talented as you should be showered with flowers and compliments every day.”
Every cliché is true the first time you fall in love. I know it sounds fucking stupid but in that moment time stopped, the earth moved, and my heart and lungs forgot their purpose. Something in the core of me thrummed in my chest so hard that I thought I might shake apart.
He doubled down. Only God knows why.
“Look, I probably shouldn’t be saying this and I’m probably making ass of myself but …Yes, I find you very attractive and interesting. And I don’t, like, expect that to come to anything but… I… You should know that.”
I could hardly breathe. My command of language was completely demolished. I couldn’t just stare at him all night, though. I had to say something. Anything. Preferably not something stupid.
“Ditto,” was the best I could come up with and that would have to do.