Episode 6: Decisions and Stuff – Part 1

Amir

She’s always on the phone. Every time I see her, she got that shit glued to her hand like somebody’s got her on call. Every chance she gets, she’s on it, texting or whispering to whoever’s holding that leash. I asked her about it once, maybe twice, a while back when we first started kicking it, but she brushed it off like I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing; rolling her eyes like catching attitudes changes facts. She does that all the time too, when I ask questions about what she does outside of me and her. She don’t like it, so she gives these vague ass answers like I can’t read between the lines. Like I can’t bypass what she’s saying to get to what she’s not saying. She thinks she’s that good at navigating our conversations, controlling the narrative, but all I’m hearing in the silence beneath all that noise — is that she’s fucking with somebody else — maybe.

The messages are kind of… muddled, switching up as often as her mood. One minute, she’s saying she wants boundaries, whatever the fuck that means. The next, she’s under me, saying everything but that. Then she says she wants to keep things simple, organized; so we agree on a couple hours, a few designated days a week; but then when the weekend hits, all that goes out the window and we’re in this room for two, three days straight sometimes, like we’re on some kind of honeymoon.

Trying to figure her out, deciphering what she really means versus what she says she means, is like a full-time fucking job and she’s not even my girl. Shit’s confusing too ‘cause I know if she was my girl, disappearing for days, coming home with hickeys on her thighs and shit, she’d have a problem. So that means… she don’t have a boyfriend — she can’t. Good. But then who’s she always talking to?

She was back on the phone again. This time, reading something, online maybe. I couldn’t tell for sure. One hand was covering her mouth, trying to hide the smile that was creeping up behind it, the other had a tight grip on the phone. Her eyes were large, growing in size with each swipe of her finger, and her body was as stiff as the headboard behind us. I leaned into her pillow, nudging my face into her arm to get a closer look at what had her so excited. If this had been any other time, me being this close to her phone, would’ve had her doing crazy shit like throwing it across the room or shoving it in the bottom of the nightstand’s drawer, but this time, she didn’t even budge. Instead, she slammed a hand into the bed, her fingers clenching the sheets between us. She was one scroll away from losing her fucking mind all over something called… Graylight?

“What’s Graylight?”

“What’s Graylight?” She turned to me slowly. Her tone, offended, like I had just called her out her name. “You’ve never heard of Graylight?”

“Nah.” I shook my head. “What is it? Some kind of show?”

Her head flew back as loud laughter took the place of where her answer should’ve been. She looked at me, her mouth hung open. “Are you serious?”

I nodded.

She rose to her knees to fangirl over this thing. “Only the best show to air on TV, ever! I can’t believe you’ve never heard of it.” She pushed me down and climbed on top of me, her initial look of shock fading into something more curious. “Do you even watch TV? What do you do for fun?”

Oh, so she can ask me questions about what I get into but when I do it, it’s a problem.

“Not much.” I kept my answer as short as she likes to. “So tell me what this Graylight’s about.”

She goes on this long ass story about a girl named Lux, some dude, and a baby. Some spoilers were leaked about the movie that’s coming out this week, a spin-off from the show, and that’s what’s got her flipping out like this.

“So you wanna see this movie?”

“Uhhh, yeah!” she laughed at the apparent ignorance of my question. “But tickets are sold out everywhere opening week. Believe me. I checked.”

She slid off of me, her excitement fizzling out, as she came to the realization that seeing this movie when she wanted wasn’t happening, not on her own anyway. But somebody who knew the right people, in the right places, could make it happen for her — if they wanted to.

I hung onto that thought for a minute, careful not to say something I couldn’t take back.

This thing we got is good, but it’s fragile. One swing in the wrong direction could fuck it up, and I don’t know if I want to take that chance. A movie’s just a movie, but taking our thing outside this room makes it something else, something that can be confused for something more serious like… a relationship, and I’m not trying to do that with her. I’ve had enough of those to know that shit’s not for me, but… being here sometimes with her — under me, on top of me, beside me — looking at me in that way she does, fucks me up, man. Shit.

“I got you.”

Her eyebrows wrinkled at the obscurity of my response. “On what?”

“The tickets. You wanna go, right?”

“Yeah, but…” Her voice trailed away; confusion posted all over her face. “With you?”

I laughed. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“No– It’s not– I didn’t– I’m just–”

“When’s the movie coming out?” I relieved her of her struggle.

“Friday.”

“Alright. Let me know what you wanna do.”

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