Somehow something or other is just sort of clicking.
I was writing this and I realized that no matter what anyone tells me and who thinks it's boring or slow-paced (which for a fact is the case of many people. My hits on chapter one far exceed those on the other chapters. People have been reading it and going 'this isn't worth it')... this is my goddamn story. It goes wherever I want it to go and I have to return to the basics of writing - doing whatever I want because I'm enjoying it. Exploring any conversation that tickles my interest. Even if it serves little to the plot and just has some revealing subjects. It is a first draft, and it is mine, and there is no limit on its length. HT could be 500 pages or more, and it wouldn't matter, because revising is a whole other deal, and even the length there is not that incredibly huge.

When I realized that, this simple conversation grew larger to me than it may appear to someone else. And to think how the discussion with the actual Phantom will go... well I'm excited to say the least!


HE'S THERE
Chapter 23 – That Makes Two of Us


The pain in my forehead dissolved into a weak pang between my eyes when I moved too fast, but things were suddenly seeming average again at 9:00 PM. When I looked back on it, the day wasn't as horrible as I suspected when I woke up. It helped that Baskin Robbin hadn't so many costumers that night and I got a chance to socialize with a couple girls behind the counter and a semi-cute guy (not that it means much to me). I told them rather bluntly, not sure why it needed to be a taboo subject, that I drank too much the night before and suffered the side affects and all but one nodded their heads and sympathized with me.

I also got a free sample of Mocha Chocolate afterwards, maybe with a little hope that it would wake me up.

I finished it on the way home and realized that it was time to stop moping. I should probably just call the Phantom and discuss this subject calmly and rationally. And in English, if you don't mind. (Cookies for you if you know what movie that line is from.)

So that all lead up to me, standing at the tower of the play structure in the park. Covered in fuzzy layers, like a snow monster, yet determined to be outside; to be alone; to be higher than every thing and every one else. My skin felt like marble... it hurt to breathe- this air was piercing the walls of my throat. But the starless navy sky was entrancing. I just didn't want to leave it. I wanted to stare up at infinity for a while and contemplate if I had truly changed at all since I met him. No... I felt like.... no... I don't see how. Maybe I had become more assertive, but more frightened all the same.


When I returned to my feet, about ready to climb down and head to warmth and safety, I could see the wooden theatre structure's roof. No outlines, no detail... just the attic window... with a round white light cutting through the brush like a full moon. Strange... I could not remember seeing such a thing when I arrived.

It didn't mean he was there.
Though I did wonder what he must have been up to that very moment.
He thinks I think that he might hurt me.
'Well I never would.'

It was only a half relevant statement.
Like he knew he was eventually going to scare me.

“What are you doing up there.” Meg's voice echoed. I darted my eyes at the ground and couldn't find her. When I swirled behind me, she was hanging on a bar in a poofy blue snow coat with fur trim, very relaxed, it seemed.

I shrugged my shoulders and grinned. Both of us went silent again as she swung back and forth a bit and I watched her shadow along the snow-scattered dirt, stretched and mangled by the streetlights.

“...How did we both end up here at the same time?”

“My parents forgot to get the mail. I saw you when I went out.”

“...All the way down there?” I gestured down the street to her house. She stopped playing and dropped.

“I know, I know... you're used to people stalking you...”

“Heh, oh, you're so clever.”

Her face was dim, but I could tell it was smiling. She strolled around the bottom of the tower and worked her way up, pausing with her arms crossed over the platform under my feet. I was analyzed by those round black eyes for some time, probably looking some mixture between amused and annoyed before she asked.

“Are you feeling okay lately?”

I breathed heavily.

“Whyyyy do you ask....”

“Uhhhh... Well.... you have been quiet all week... you keep wanting to talk about me... which... come on... you're can't be that interested in my life. Especially my love-life.”

“No, I really do think Jeffrey's cute.”

“Okay, fine. I just want to know why you went so damn overboard last night.” The way she said it didn't sound quite like herself. Maybe it was just the high juvenile voice... almost like it was asking a kid why they stuffed their vegetables in a napkin and threw it out. Except the kid was me, and I was two months older than her.

“Why does it matter? You have drank plenty of times and I never brought it up again.”

“Yeah, but-”

“And Paulina obviously does sometimes... and nearly every one at school.”

“But you never did...”

“I guess I jumped the bandwagon.”

Mariam though to herself a moment and let go of the platform.

“Suit it yourself.”

Another long awkward silence.

“I doubt it will happen much again. The stuff actually didn't taste so great...”

“Yeah...”

“...Where was Paulina today?”

“Uhmmm... I don't know. I think I'll text her. She wasn't on aim or anything.” I smiled to myself. Not sure why... She came up to the top and we huddled together with our glowing phone screens, incessant clicking noises from each. I wanted to check if I'd gotten anything, I guess.

“Godddd...” She started, her message sending. “It's fucking cold out.”

“Noooo shitttt.”

“Hehgheh... yeah...” She lowered her head in thought.

“So. How did chemistry go today? Both kinds.”

“Tchh. Nothing happened. We took notes, and he ignored me.”

“Well have-”

“No more about Jeffrey! If I say hi, I'll tell you, otherwise I'm a chicken.”

“Okay okay-”

“H-How is the Phantom.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“... I thought you didn't want to hear about that stuff.”

“Yeah well we have nothing to do and we're sitting on the play structure in the dark and I guess I'm in the mood, so spill before I change my mind.”

I thought of how to word even the first sentence that would answer “how” he was “doing”. Nothing came.

“Wow, that's so interesting. He must be one hell of a guy.”

I snickered. The kind of way you do when you want to ignore how cold you are.

“I don't really know what to tell you... about how he is...'doing'.”

“Well when'd you see him last?”

“...Yesterday.”

“When?” I realized that to her, my day seemed busy. School and then the Shrek party. I could not exactly say that he followed me home when I was trying to mind my own business.

“We just had a short talk after school.”

“About...”

“...About...” I shook my head, trying to convince her without actually verbalizing that we were going to reach a dead end one way or the other. “Well, we're just having kind of a disagreement... on something... and he thinks I'm being a little... rude... and I think... he's not being empathetic enough.”

“So you're fighting.”

“No. No... really... we're not...”

“I could've sworn you guys fought all the time. You know, first he finds out about Paulina, then he doesn't want us to talk.”

I narrowed my eyes.

Just then, her cellphone pulsed a load upbeat pop song, which I think was Harajuku Girls, which totally mismatched the mood of our conversation and could have been avoided. She went for it instantly, like it was saving her from my reaction.

“Heyyyyyyyy!!! ... What's up? ... Agghh, really? Oghhh poor baby.” She made kissing noises into the phone. I rolled my eyes. “Are you serious? ... God, I guess you're right......I'm here with Lillian... ...She is... tres contrarié...” I raised myself from our sitting place briefly and looked to the glowing window again. It was still sitting there. “-And then I was like... what are you doing?! No!!Aghahaha! But Mr. Byne doesn't really notice... ... Oh, okay... yeah, I'll see you.” She turned to me and swung the phone in front of my face so fast she almost nicked me in the teeth. “Lily, say bye.”

“.... Bye, ... Paulina.” I felt awkward saying it.

“Okay, cya.” She concluded.

She hung it up and we just stared at each other as she wet her lips with her tongue.

“Paulina said she had a throbbing headache in the middle of the night that wouldn't go away and now she's got the flu.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“...Hm. Well I'm lucky she didn't have to do any mouth-to-mouth on me last night, aren't I?”

I said it without much thought and then the both of us were giggling like asian schoolgirls.
It died down and we had nothing left.

“... We don't fight all of the time,” I reminded her, blankly, with my eyes down the street.

“...Often enough?”

“I don't know. I don't think they are really fights.”

“They're either fights or they're not.”

“It's more like... he's just planets away from you or me. He's a human being, he speaks in the same language, but nothing he conveys is from a... a .. familiar... sort of... brain.”

“...Uhuh? ...”

“It's like, he could be totally upset over something I think we need to just forget about, or he's all 'whatever' about something I just cannot make sense of. Our definition of 'normal' is totally different. He's a weirdo. Or I'm a weirdo? I don't know...”

“How is he different than us.”

I made a bunch of stress-relieving nonsensical sounds and scratched the back of my head a little.

“When he wants to make a point... he just says it. No bullshit, not even build-up.”

“Lots of people are like that.”

“But he doesn't seem to always know that he has to explain why he's saying it or elaborate. He isn't even helpful if what he says is disagreeable. He just thinks you should come to terms with it. Like he must always know what he's talking about, and-”

“Maybe he's bad with girls.”

“I-I don't know. I haven't asked about his history.”

“Maybe you should.”

“No! That's completely inappropriate.”

“Why?”

“...I...”

“If you're going for a relationship, that sounds like a perfectly expected thing to ask.”

“I guess, but...”

She stared at me blankly.

“Maybe I don't want to know.”

“Why?”

“Becauseeee.... then... I wouldn't be the only one.”

“Awwwww....”

“Shut up.” I nudged her in the arm.

Suddenly I realized what we were getting to and I wanted only to escape it. I stared into the floor and crossed my arms, scrunching my shoulders in to hide my face in the collar of my coat.

Mariam took the signal well enough and stood up to start scanning the horizon.

“So... if you don't mind me asking... Why do you care so much about someone that's so socially inept and... weird?”

I really didn't know how to answer. She sharply turned to me and fell back into the bars.

“Okay wait... sorry... I didn't mean it like if someone's weird than they don't deserve anyone to care about them. I just meant.... You only understand him, what? Half, a quarter of the time? And it's hard for him to handle your feelings right?”

“At least half of the time I do understand him. And when I do, I realize that the things he does understand about me, he understands more than anyone else. Well... I mean... you would be in that category too.”

“What does he understand about you.”

I buried my forehead in my palm.

“He's toying with me. He knows something about what I want that even I don't know. It's like I have been secretly insane all of these years, and he wants to see me lose my composure.”

“...What?”

“I think he knows that how I am is...not how I am.”

“Oh.”

“And he appears to be exactly how he is, and he's trying to promote total honesty here, a total dive into...weirdness... And I'm just not there yet. But I could be, eventually. No.. no.... one of us has to be the designated driver here.”

She laughed.

“I don't completely get what you're going on about.”

“... That's probably good.”

“It's just funny that someone I only met a couple months ago is the one that knows this about me.”

“That's because he's your stalker.”

“Yeah, and it's weird having a stalker.”

“Well don't you ever think about the fact that stalkers are a bad thing?”

“But I know what it's like to be obsessed.”

“...I know you do.”

“...What's that supposed to mean?”

“...Maybe you and the Phantom are more alike than I thought?”

“Ohohoh, really? I've never stalked someone.”

“You may as well have.” I paused and stared at her. “I think you just let him stalk you because you know it's regarding his feelings for you.”

“...”

“It feels good having some guy be absolutely madly in love with you, doesn't it?”

“Okay, I really do not think that's true. ...Are you forgetting that this is a roleplay?”

“I think he's just using the roleplay as a device.”

“But I can tell he's a Phantom at heart. I just can. There's so much more to discover about him, too.”

Mariam looked like her mind was going off in a tangent.

“Since when did your life get so interesting and complicated?”

“... I don't know... October?”

“See? God was all 'I'm sick of Lily bitching.'”

“It's not ...quite as fantastical as I thought it would be.”

I joined her in stance and looked up the street. I couldn't spot the window any longer.