Eight Reasons Why I Kissed Hayden Beaufort (Part 5/8)

#5: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PHOTOS AND REALITY

“Ah, Liv, there you are!” I whirled around to see Freddie standing near me once more, his expression, as always, unreadable.

“There I am? I asked, glowering with what I hoped was a suitably lethal amount of disdain. “I’ve moved all of two centimetres. You’re the one who wandered off.”

“Yeah, but, you’d turned around, and you’re hard to recognise from behind. Your fringe is, like, your defining feature, or whatever, and makes you easy to spot, and, well, yeah.” Freddie furrowed his brows, as though he was trying to work out where exactly he’d lost track of his sentence.

I blew said fringe out of my eyes in frustration. I was teetering on the line between being pissed off, and full-blown exasperation. “Freddie, are you drunk or what?”

“Nah,” Freddie replied, but didn’t elaborate, leaving me less than convinced. His eyes suddenly focused – so sharply that his features all seemed to realign. His bemused expression was replaced by a cunning smirk. “Who was that guy you were talking to?”

It then occurred to me that I hadn’t found out the name of the boy with the almost-orange eyes. I swivelled to see if he was still standing beside me, but his leather-jacketed self had vanished, the spot where he had been standing already filled up by other partygoers.

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. I felt strangely untethered by the discovery of his absence. “I have no idea.”

Freddie gave a low, mocking whistle. “Weren’t about to put what we talked about into action, where you Liv?”

“No, Freddie, I was not planning on kissing that boy.”

“Sure.” Freddie nodded slowly, one eyebrow raised sceptically.

I narrowed my eyes at him. Rationally, I knew that all Freddie was doing was demonstrating his knack for pushing people’s buttons, but I couldn’t help but snap, “Could you not be a total prick for five seconds?”

“Possibly,” Freddie said with a shrug. I exhaled through my teeth and pulled my gaze away from him. Partially, this was to make sure that I didn’t bite his head off – I knew there was nothing I could say that would hurt Freddie’s feelings, but making a scene was hardly high on my list of priorities for the night. But as I did so, I realised that I was simultaneously searching for him. I wished that I’d asked him his name. But in that brief conversation, it hadn’t even occurred to me. Somehow, who he was hadn’t seemed important, not at the time.

I felt a bit ridiculous. I’d spoken to him for a few minutes – not long enough to give a rat’s arse about him, I told myself. Freddie continued to look at me expectantly, so finally, finally, I did what I should have done when I’d first laid eyes on him tonight.

“Screw you, Freddie,” I said, “Why’d you friggin’ call me if you had no intention of leaving? Is messing with me how you get your kicks?”

“No,” he replied, sobering, a hint of anger in his frown, “It’s not that.”

“And all that talk about hooking up with people? You thought I’d like that?” When he didn’t reply, I continued, “I’m going home. If you want to come, follow me, but if you’d rather not you can find your own way home.”

I pushed my way out of the room. Behind me, Trifecta finished up another song with a loud drum fill, and I almost wanted to stay and listen – to recapture the magic of their first song. But I didn’t let my pace slow until I was off the property and halfway down the street, when I turned around to see if Freddie was coming with me.

He was walking slowly, hands in his pockets. When he reached me, he pursed his lips thoughtfully, then grimaced. “Hate for you to come all this way for no reason,” he muttered.

“Fine,” I said. I turned around and continued down the street, and we walked the rest of the way to the bus stop in silence.

* * *

By the time I reached my front gate, it was almost ten o’clock and dark. The driveway was empty, which meant my parents weren’t home yet. I let myself breathe out a sigh of relief as I hurried up the garden path to the front door. As I turned the handle, I remembered telling Eugene to lock the door on his way out. As irresponsible as he could be, it wasn’t like Eugene to leave without locking the door behind him, but the door swung open as I pushed it.

Walking into the hallway, I frowned. Ahead of me, I could see that the light in my bedroom was still switched on. When he was thirteen, Eugene had gone through a phase where he’d been fixated on saving the environment, and ever since he’d been totally anal about turning off the lights when he left a room. My frown deepened, amplified by a sense of uneasiness that added to my already edgy mood.

I peered into my room. I rapped my knuckles against the door frame and hung my head, relieved, when I saw Eugene huddled on one corner of my bed, his head resting against the wall. From the sound of his steady breathing, I could tell he was asleep. I crossed the room, dumping my bag at the foot of my bed and knelt on the mattress, next to him.

“Nmmph,” he grumbled as I shook him awake. He stared at me hazily for a moment, still looking half-asleep.

“Wake up,” I said. My voice felt strangely loud. After having to shout to be heard over the music at the party, speaking in the hush of my empty house was off-putting – especially since I was still keyed up from being annoyed with Freddie, and talking to the boy with the orange eyes, and listening to Trifecta.

“You’re back,” Eugene said, blinking. “I wanted to stay, make sure you got home alright. Guess I fell asleep.”

“You guess right.” I gave him a small smile.

“Freddie get home before pumpkin time?” Eugene asked. His tone of voice made him sound as though he was asking because it was obligatory, not because he’d really been wondering.

“Yeah, didn’t even lose a shoe.” I shifted position, already feeling one of my legs fall asleep. “The thing is, I don’t get why he called me, of all people. Surely someone there could’ve given him a lift.”

“He didn’t say anything, then?”

“Nothing constructive.”

Eugene nodded slowly, hugging his legs to his chest and resting his chin on his knees. He looked straight ahead at the mural of photos I’d put up there. I adjusted myself so that I was following his gaze.

A good fifty per cent of the photos were of the pair of us – a few from when we were little, a few awkward pre-pubescent photos and stacks of recent pictures. I looked at them every day, but this time, my gaze lingered on a picture of Eugene and me from the end of last year. Theo’d taken it on his phone, so the quality was pretty crappy, but it was one of my favourite photos. My face was half cut-off, , so the focus of the photo was Eugene. He had an ecstatic smile on his face – a look of completely unrestrained, giddy delight. He was alight with happiness and exhilaration, his hair as unruly as ever, and his arm slung around my shoulder. The photo had been taken at some pop-up gig in town, featuring a bunch of artists we’d never heard of. Somehow, Theo managed to bluff his way backstage, and ultimately ended up performing with one of the bands, who had apparently had their bassist call in sick. Eugene and I had cheered and screamed the whole time Theo had been on stage, and as he walked off after their set, he snapped the picture of us. It was only a few months ago, but the Eugene in the photo looked scarily different to the boy sitting beside me now.

I shifted again, deciding that perhaps kneeling wasn’t the most effective position when it came to being comfortable. Restlessness raced through my veins as I adjusted my weight on the bed. Eugene turned his head to look at me.

“Geez, Liv, quit fidgeting.” He placed a hand on my shoulder, as though to anchor me. I turned towards him and grimaced. He sat up straighter, and our eyes met. When we were in primary school, this would have turned into a lengthy staring contest – there had been so many times when we’d spend ages trying to make the other look away, or to crack up laughing.

This time, though, it felt different. This time, meeting his gaze triggered something in my brain, something that made me lean in closer.

I could, I thought. I so could. My heart hammered in my chest. I moved my hand to run my thumb along his jawbone. He looked up at me, his eyes locked on mine. His grip on my shoulder softened slightly, then he clenched the fabric of my sleeve, as though it was now me anchoring him, from drifting away. In my peripheral vision, I could see the movement of his shoulders as he breathed in and out.

I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to find out what he wasn’t telling me, and then to tell him that I’d fix whatever the problem was. But I also wanted to know what would happen if I kept moving closer, until our lips met, and what would happen after.

I closed my eyes, and pressed my forehead against his. With his other hand, Eugene took a few strands of my hair, and I felt him twirl it between his fingers. Slowly, I placed my hands on his shoulders, my pulse still frenetic.

I didn’t move any closer. I just sat there, holding him close. I didn’t want Eugene, not like that. And I especially didn’t want things to change between us – although it was starting to feel like I didn’t have the choice.

I’d never gotten it when people described their friends as being like a brother or like a sister. Maybe this was because I was an only child, but even though I’d known him since I was four years old, Eugene had never felt like a family member. It was a different sort of bond. It came down to the fact that I hadn’t chosen my family – but I’d chosen Eugene. Four year old me had chosen him over all the other kids in our kindergarten class, and I’d continued choosing him every day since.

Now, it felt like he was fading away from me.

“I’m so sorry, Liv,” he murmured.

“What for?” I replied.

He pulled back and looked at me blankly, as though he hadn’t realised that he’d spoken. He took his hands from my shoulder and hair and rubbed his face.

“Something I haven’t told you about,” he eventually said. “Something that I don’t want to ever tell you about.”

I got up off the bed and frowned at him. “Eugene, what is it? What’s with the secrecy? It’s me. There’s nothing that you could say that would stop me from being your friend, and you know that.”

“Maybe not,” he said, fiddling with a loose thread on his jeans, “But there might be something that would change the way you look at me, and I don’t want that.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way you look at me, Liv,” he began hesitantly, “It’s different to how others see me. I like who I am in your eyes.”

I sat back down, my back to him, I looked back at my photo mural – the visual history of the pair of us. “Maybe it’s not your choice, how I look at you,” I said.

“Yeah,” he sighed. I felt him move behind me, and then he was next to me. I rested my head on his shoulder, just as he had done to me earlier this evening. I took his hand and threaded my fingers though his. He squeezed my hand in turn and leaned against me.

“I love you. You know that, right?” I asked quietly.

“Of course,” he said. “And I love you too, more than anybody.”

“I know.”I straightened up and gave him my most pointed stare. “But it doesn’t mean I’m not angry with you. I don’t like it when you keep things from me.”

“I know. But I just can’t…” He stood up, still holding my hand. “I’m sorry.”

I remained still, then let my arm drop into my lap.

“Good night, Livvy,” he said. He turned and walked out of my room. A few seconds later, I heard the sound of my front door slamming shut.

I fell backward, and stared up at my ceiling. Eugene hadn’t called me Livvy in years – no one had. A rush of fatigue swept over me, and too late, I replied, “Night, Eugene.”