A new set of friends, complacent was I to know, desperate to receive her true affection once again.
David, Arun, Tye, Rose, Rebecca
And now myself.
These names, I suppose, would be my new group of friends for the time being.
Tye already being a major component in the mix, having my history with him known well by the rest of the group made it easier to connect than if I were a total stranger.
However, they still scarcely knew who I was in person. I guess I'd have to remedy that sooner rather than later if I were to get closer to Rebecca.
"Be my friend first, then I'll let you fuck me"
A fair statement, something I clearly hoped to not expect, yet completely validated nonetheless.
How could I have just thrusted myself onto her without even knowing who she was underneath the sex, who she truly was when not lying below me.
Eyes simply rolling with pleasure, not knowing anything about what she liked and disliked, what she cared for, her interests and feelings, only knowing her surface level emotion, one of sporadic and drunken intent.
Not understanding her true, sober mind in its fullest, the reward of further intimacy coming after that knowledge had been obtained and studied.
Cleaning up the messes we had made and saying our goodbyes, hugging and slurring on sentences of see you soon's and plans for future encounters, barely still remembering how to use our legs as we all went our separate ways.
The final words Rebecca whispered to me before parting, hugging me intimately, leaning my head beside hers to speak her ending sentence.
"Can't wait to feel you inside me again, so don't disappoint me, friend"
Hearing her kiss the air through my ears as she pushed me away once more, turning around and walking away. Scent of lust now turning back to the normality of the nature surrounding me.
All I could do at this point was to do the same as her, mind unable to comprehend most of what had just happened. No doubt I'd ponder on furiously as I cleared my mind and rinsed the alcohol from my system later on.
Stopping briefly to turn around, taking one last look, the back of her head slowly fading away, walking in the same direction as who I now know to be called Rose, stumbling forward to catch up with her pace, talking to each other as they did, I felt far more different than I first thought I would.
A sense of accomplishment, yet immeasurable dread that had now found its place over me like a storm. How this situation would play out was anyone's guess, mine being less educated than a toddler's.
Scenarios creeping back into my head as dazed as it was as I slowly made my way back home. I mean, how could we just be friends with that promise of what would soon come to be if I played along now being laid bare.
The reiteration of the word 'Friend', now three times used toward me.
What exactly that meant, mind trying it's best to understand, yet ultimately sorted into the questions for later folder, now packed full to the brim.
In the few hours of this day so far, no morning ever had been quite this eventful in my life. Thousands upon thousands of thoughts, heart near exploding, chains of anxiety being broken through if but for one sentence, still a monumental achievement in my head, considering it was directed to someone of the opposite sex.
As Tye mentioned to my newfound group, I did take myself less and less seriously with each bottle downed into my mouth, natural for the great divider of right from wrong, but even still, when it came to females, I would still be as eventful as talking to a brick wall.
Lifeless, stationary and solid.
Anxiety could never truly be quelled outright before now, waiting to remind me of its presence any chance it could, trapping me in an endless cycle of savage worst case situations, killing any good trying to calm my mind, soothing reason left dead in the water as a hail of Cannon fire barraged my inner defenses without hesitation nor resistance.
But both that fated night and today's morning just had, changed so much in my understanding of my own fucked up matter of being.
How? Why?
Storing it back into the folder within for later, I kept walking away, grass turning to concrete as I made my way out of the park, cowering back home to rest.
"Oh, shit"
Brain, still having some kind of semblance of the future in my mind as it only just now thought of the ramifications of it being so early in the day.
Parent's judging eyes in full view in my head as I was currently clearly too intoxicated to speak reason convincingly to them, as I'm sure they'd know in an instant, no doubt then scolding and lecturing me endlessly, I wouldn't hear the end of it if they saw me in the state I was in.
Being a Sunday didn't help either, it was typical of them to sleep in on this day of the week, but how long wasn't scheduled, some mornings late, some mornings early, it was the definition of a lazy schedule, guessing that's what the older of us just become accustomed to overtime.
My mind, still faded from my angel seeing me once again, showering me with promises, affection made known in my presence, teasing me into a sense of security, less did I have room for anything else, nor did I have the patience for anything but her beauty to sear through my head, all I wanted to think of, see in my mind, was still her
I had to play it safe, getting back home would be a challenge, but I'd played my fair share of stealth games back in the day, so let's channel that experience.
OPERATION: DON'T GET RIDICULED
'Codec call incoming: Channel 12.7'
"Robin, your mission, should I reiterate once more, a black op, this one's gonna be off the books
You're gonna be on your own this time, I trust you'll be able to handle this?"
"Copy, yes sir, what's my briefing on this one?"
"Simple, infiltrate the premises and get to the target location without being seen, stealth is of the utmost importance here
If any alarms sound off, you'll have their entire army on full alert, locking down your target in an instant, rendering it impossible to get in and obtain the Intel we need to secure
I understand you've been briefed on why we need this information, the fate of the free world depends on this mission succeeding
I trust you're ready"
"Yes sir, I'll signal in once the Intel is secure, I trust we have an exfil ready for me once the objective is complete?"
"We're working on it, should be ETA twenty minutes, any more time you take after that unfortunately, you'll have to make your own way
I trust you'll take it on yourself to find one?"
"Not a problem sir, I'll get it done regardless"
"That's the Robin I know, channel in if anything changes
Good luck soldier, the world's in your hands now, see to it that you save it"
Back door was still open as I approached my house, guess I forgot to close it completely when I left.
Entering the hallways of my house, snores from parents ever present, still asleep thankfully.
making my way down to the still open door of my room, slipping my mind about just how hesitant I was in my pursuit hours before.
Slowly closing my door, pushing with the utmost careful intent as to not make a whisper of noise as I did.
Sigh of relief as I lay my head on the now closed bedroom door, slipping down to the carpet floor beneath, head now lay on the wooden brown slab covering me.
As I tried silently to calm my thoughts, assuring my mind it was finally safe from the outside world and its prying eyes.
MISSION COMPLETE
INTEL SECURED
Now one with myself, no one else around to muddle my train of thought, I could finally resolve the transpired thoughts that had been lingering.
First word that sprung to mind.
How.
Yet before I could even think about the screaming thoughts now flooding my free mind, buzz from the liquor a light still scarcely keeping me awake, a notification hummed through my phone as it reconnected slowly to the internet of my residence, feeling it faintly in the pockets of my jeans I currently wore. Hesitant at first, I reached in and secured it, sounding off more and more as my screen slowly turned back on
A group chat notification, no, two, three, four…
Obviously a new one I had just been added into, as I would make it a habit of mine to flag every group I was invited into as read only, no notifications present, I figured being the loner I was that rarely a note would go by concerning me, just individual remarks, inside jokes I knew not most of, not exactly caring either if I wasn't known or involved. I figured I'd investigate anyways, just to be sure.
'The Misfits Five'
Title of this group stood out to me somewhat as my brain wrapped around events prior, mind racing with ideas. Further investigation confirmed my now small suspicions turned into fact as I checked exactly who was a part of this new group I had been added to. PIt was the very same people I had just seen previously before.
Tye Langley, David Fren, Arun Patel, Rose Beenthal, Rebecca Goodard.
The supposed new group of friends I had just made, remembering exchanges of introductions just prior, studying not their characters due to my focus being razor sharp on my now fixated addiction made flesh.
Yet still I did pay somewhat of an attention to these new faces, learning little by little, enough to know or at least guess their face value stereotypes, covers being judged, books could come later, inevitable considering the ultimate goal at hand.
Nonetheless, let's do a role call…
Tye
The obvious first pick to judge, as I'd known him throughout the last five years of my life.
The perfect type, man of the hour as I always called him, always speaking, talking to anyone and everyone he saw, trying to relate, friendly by nature, it made him easy to hang out with. Always putting my mind somewhat at ease as he probably understood my situation, awkward as I may be, he still took his time to help me out, hangouts and all, always keeping me in the VIP sections, something I always admired.
David
From what I could tell through his initial ramblings of a recent lost relationship, he was your stereotypical helpless romantic.
Burly hunk of a man, something that Rose loved to constantly admire about him in a friendly manner, at least when I had first seen them before.
Something resembling Bruce Banner in an amalgamation of both hulk and human, nerdy face yet Olympia worthy body, Arnold Schwarzenegger be damned.
His personality reflected the complete opposite however, emotion overflowing each sentence he would spill from his head, being the overdramatic side to this group.
Something they seemed to not mind, embrace in fact they did, being the subtle voice of reason to this rambunctious circle of friends.
Arun
He was much more of an enigma than the rest, mostly staying to himself much like I did, yet his face was plastered onto the screen of his phone, constantly typing away.
Perhaps he had some kind of a following he was keeping intact as we hung out, maybe a secret celebrity hiding away his truths from the rest of us?
He would interject the occasional logical statement here and there, thick British accent made known near instantly as he did.
None taken aback, so clearly he was social enough for them to be used to it.
Yet I couldn't shake a sense of overwhelming ego from this guy.
Rose
To say she was one of the sweetest, happiest girls I had ever met would be the very definition of the word understatement.
Her happy go lucky personality rubbed off on me immediately the more I heard her speak through the time she was in my eyes.
Making it her goal to be a friend to every single face within her vicinity, a single spark from her vibrant state of mind would've made anyone feel like dancing madly, her arms probably grabbing yours, coaxing you to dance with her through cutesy music full of rumbling kicks and deafening snares.
And yet, she felt vaguely familiar, as if I had seen this personality before, reminding me of a college friend I had made before this initial meeting almost verbatim, all she needed was a guitar in her hands and she'd be the same.
Rebecca
….
"Fuck"
I couldn't pin it down.
Hearing her speak, feeling her on my skin, all I could think of was the seduction she displayed. Maybe this is what she meant by the answer she had given me.
'Be my friend first, then I'll let you fuck me'
That sentence still ingrained in my now defunct mind, stuttering once again as I contemplated briefly what exactly this entailed.
Crawling back into the bed I was in once before, holding onto sanity like a sore thumb, throbbing pain made obvious, I decided to look deeper into this chat room of close friends as the outsider I had now made myself known before my inevitable relapse into sleep.
Typical ramblings of the groups past antics showed through messages between one another. Arun being the more dominant feature than most, pictures a plenty of the crew being posted by him alone, guess being constantly glued to his phone wasn't for nothing.
Pictures of your typical nights out plastered around, bottles in hand, smiling and laughing away.
Some far less unfiltered than others, nothing was off the table for these guys I suppose.
However one caught my eye in particular as I scrolled through, reaching deeper and deeper into their past actions as a group.
It was me…?
This wasn't something recent, it was an older memory, much older than I could've expected.
Checking the date, seven months ago underlined.
Whiskey bottle in hand near empty, throwing my middle finger to the lens that caught my face, expression that of a rebellious teenager, as I would've been obviously a drunk, unhinged mess at the time that picture was taken.
Something I initially winced at, further bringing evidence for my anxiety to prosecute me for when I became sober and awake, still null and void in the here and now, just waiting for its opportunity to attack my defenses, still bolstered by the liquor in my system.
Asking not fully the question of why I was already present in this group, despite supposedly not having met anyone else but their ringleader, Tye.
Thinking perhaps that this was his way of slowly introducing me to these people. An icebreaker for them, as to say I was also one of the same as you, a party fiend. Not exactly the truth, back a year or two it might've been, but the occasional casual affair was not lost on me.
But who took the picture, also inside the frame, near close to the same pose as mine, bottle in hand, saying the proverbial fuck you to nothing but the lens, tounge out, middle finger present, not a single care in the world for anything but the moment that now stood still, made once again permanent with the upload.
It was her.
"…Rebecca?"
…
Mind raced, too far gone to think any sense, yet thoughts went haywire nonetheless.
…
Mind swiftly fading out, memory now lost beyond this point of interest.
Some thoughts came and went however.
Some good.
Some bad.
Some far worse.
Clearly hiding some thoughts, some memories away from a time gone by, no doubt the amnesia being brought on through artificial means and own over indulgence.
Not now darling
WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT, BITCH…
7 PM, Home
It was a habit of mine to play music in the background as I scrolled through the various messages and posts that pinged throughout the day. Supposedly passing out midway through my discovery as I forgot to turn off my phone's now blaring music playing without pause.
'The Only Exception - Paramore'
Huh, I guess that's appropriate.
I reached for my phone to turn off the noise. My once drunk mind now turned hungover, reeled itself back into motion in my body with sharp paces, walking around my being with a blade in its hand, circling me, laughing hysterically as it did.
Enter stage right, anxiety.
Thunderous applause.
Screams of sheer admiration roared through the crowd.
THOU THOUGHT THY COULD SUSTAIN A JUST COMPOSURE IN THE ABSENCE OF REASON AND PROTECTION?
FOOL BE THEE!
FOR I AM NOW INDELVED IN THY PRESENCE
SUCH HASTE TO RECONCILE
I HAVE NOW BEEN MADE MANIFEST!!
"Par for the course, birdie even"
Picking myself up, sitting forward swiftly from the sleeping position in my bed, it started to hit me like a wave of uncontrollable dread, a freight train finally delivering its packages to my now somewhat clear mind.
"Did I know her before?"
So maybe that's why she took it upon herself to make the first move, scared I might not recognize her for a last time, not give her the time of day, or in this case, night, if I didn't already know her prior.
Frantic letters to my memory started writing themselves into manifest desperation, back in full force.
As if I was replaying the very same situation I found myself in this morning, deja Vu creeping up again.
Anxious demon now complete and awoken, filling my mind with various thoughts, carved from the tree trunk endowed with a more than potent aura of regret and fear, the stagnant alcohol still within my system, now no match for its ugly head rearing as it ravaged me.
I had seen her once before, yet when and how did I have no clue to, only made proof by that one single photo taken.
Thinking back to moments in time, times where I had been with friends imbued with liquor raging through theirs and by extension my own.
There was one that had slipped my mind, scarcely remembering it even now.
Little did I remember however, the bottle in my hand from the photo made that known in full, obvious intoxication in my eyes.
I swiftly opened my phone again, heading back into the newly acquired chat through friends, trying to seek again that photo that I had seen before my internal thoughts shut down, answers needed to the suspicions that were pinning me down.
Scrolling with intent, down the rabbit hole again, through messages and photos of various doings, I found it.
Same photo I had seen prior, obviously unchanged from moments ago when I had first seen it.
Studying it further, scanning each pixel intently, hoping for a faint out of reach memory to finally be attained, a new clue as to why this girl had chosen me specifically to be her new attraction, she could've had anyone, anyone at all in this world of men, yet she found me first
Seven months ago
I had one idea, one single nights worth of memory, hazy as all hell, probably unrelated, yet still I had to be sure. I rewound time for a moment as I remembered this faint point in my memory, hoping to understand more.
May 23rd, Previous Year
Fading into my mind were memories of messages exchanged after a class I had attended at my college, walking back into the main area of the campus, footsteps deafening ears as countless others did the same, uniforms forming around me in the sea of students preparing and in the midst of attending classes next scheduled in their rosters for the day. Phone in hand, screen in my eyes, a single message I could remember seeing.
"Keen for drinks tonight?"
Extent of my memory showing it's flaws as I failed to remember who sent it or it's full context, yet still, knowing myself at the time, I would've undoubtedly answered yes
The typical mundane cycle of school life must've carried on for the day as I had no recollection of any other significant events prior to the one I was most focused on. Day turning into night as I scrolled forward in my less than stable memories, fading in and out of rememberance, as if a corrupt recording, only being able to play certain parts of it's file
It was the willow again.
Sitting inside its shelter, drinking heavily like I had just done this morning, it was me and two other people.
Their faces blurred out by my mind, unable to see who they were, trying my hardest to piece together anything at all that would even at the least give me the names of those I sat with.
Yet one name finally came rushing back into my head, a name I didn't expect in the slightest to show, yet show it did.
Rose, talking away in her now familiar, energetic tone, drink in hand, motions sporadic and descriptive, myself replying and laughing at her sentences and antics.
She didn't seem like the type to forget seeing someone, especially in an exclusive manner as this memory was suggesting, just the three of us in a less than wide space, hidden away from the world in the darkness of the night.
Three of us.
Three.
Already shocked that my mind had completely removed her name from my existence, something rarely done in my case, usually keeping light descriptions of most if not everyone I met in my life.
Questions raised, having enough already to make even the most sane of people go mad, a feeling I had grown fully accustomed to a long time ago, still however leaving uncertainty banging and slamming through the walls in my brain.
Meaning there was one more I was missing, one more piece of this memory I was failing to remember.
Could it have been her?
She seemed chummy enough with Rose to maybe favour her out of the rest of the group, those two supposedly being the only females out of the five I had just met today, it would make sense she'd gravitate toward Rose more.
My train of thought was suddenly interrupted as I felt my phone vibrate, slapping me out of my memory and back into reality.
Picking my head back up, screen still showing that fabled picture in my hand, questions indeed needed answering, storing them yet again for later as I tapped off the photo and back into the messages of this group chat.
A new message had just been sent forward into it as I scrolled back down to more recent ones.
Rebecca:
"So next week Saturday right? Everyone still good?"
I remembered all of us exchanging different ideas of our next meeting together, the whens and wheres floating around our final conversations before we separated.
Next Saturday huh?
Having it still be a Sunday currently, it'd be six days away from the present time, six days until her body would be close to mine again, seemed like an eternity away given my obsession was very clearly prevalent, still not letting off my neck for a second, choking all reason in my mind.
More pressing to me however, was whether or not my questions would be answered come next Saturday, how to ask them and when, how I'd word them, if I could even do it at all, if she'd even be there.
Granted yes, she was the one confirming the date, but people live their own lives, different things can jump out at random at any time of any day, plans can and will change, more often than not.
Guess all I could do was wait and wonder, anxiety shaking me to my core, hoping I'd survive the next week with mind still intact as it's mouth swallowed me whole, inside it's wicked stomach, acid slowly melting me away.
Yet wait and wonder I'd do for the time being, praying that I'd get to see her again.
…
I lived a rather mundane life during this holiday season, pacing around my room alone, boredom would usually strike me if I wasn't sitting at my desk studying various courses and classes, books on top of books lay visible, papers scattered around the board, getting myself ready for the next semester.
If not studying I'd be sitting around, listening to music through my headphones, tapping away on my phone for the day's feed of friends updating their statuses, posting back and forth, mostly trapping myself in my head however as all of us few anxious souls do.
Thinking thoughts of past present and future, sometimes for hours on end in my case, now however changing slightly considering those past two days of completely new and foreign feelings, more prevalent than ever as I got to indulge in my memories, seeing her face again and again
My Nintendo Switch being a brief excuse to snap out of it, getting a quick rush every now and then playing some of my favorite go to boredom killers, Mario Kart and Zelda being particular picks of choice at this time.
Parents would usually come in every now and then, checking up on me, letting me know when food was about to be served, the typical parental behavior one would expect, both loving me to death considering I was an only child.
Time passed in this routine, minutes ticking away, the clock sitting on my wall bringing its own theme song to the hours slowly driving by, living out my daily life, still constantly thinking of the weekend slowly coming into view once more with each day.
Tick, tock…
Tick, tock…
__________