06 | on my mind

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

CHAPTER 6

I've always thought of the mind as a place in its own right.

One that you can retreat to whenever everything else gets a little too much, like I did whenever I found it in myself to put that bloody journal down, but also one with the potential of trapping you.

Today was one of the latter, and my mind just wasn't on my side.

My thoughts were solely focused around one thing, regardless of how much I tried to distract myself.

And I was. Trying to distract myself, that is.

Bouncing a ball on the asphalt in time with my heavy pants, relishing in the feeling of blood pumping through me.

There was a beautiful rush that came with exercising, and it was part of the reason that I had stuck with basketball for so long.

I extended my arm towards the net, releasing the ball and letting out a groan when I missed.

What the hell?

Even my game was off, the basket taunting me by letting my shots touch its rim before returning the ball back to me aggressively.

Christ. I hadn't been playing or acting like I usually did, and I didn't want to have to admit to myself why that was.

I was distracted.

Isn't that the understatement of the century?

I was far more than distracted. Distractions passed after a while, forgotten when you regained your focus or found something more interesting.

This wasn't like that.

There wasn't anything that my brain was more interested in, and my focus had been thrown to the wind along with that shot.

So I let it do what it had been wanting to do for the past three days, succumbing to thoughts of the mysterious girl who had left more of an impression of me in the seconds I saw her than some of the people I had known my whole life.

Wild curly hair that I wanted to feel my fingers knotted in, sunkissed brown skin that contrasted the cold colours she had been wearing and an aloofness that intrigued me.

I couldn't stop thinking about her.

It was strange for me to be so drawn to someone, especially considering the fact that we hadn't exchanged so much as a sentence, and probably never would.

But I was.

Completely fascinated, without needing to have heard her utter a single word.

The absurdity of that had me bouncing the ball against the ground a little harder, wondering when it was exactly that I had fully lost the plot.

I turned down a girl who was clearly into me but was slowly growing an obsession with one that I didn't know and would never see again.

That's just great.

I paused when I made a shot, glad that I hadn't completely forgotten how to play.

The t-shirt I was wearing started to feel uncomfortable, sweat coating the parts that exercise involved the most.

I raised it to wipe the little that had gathered on my forehead, heading inside to shower.

Once I had, my hair still wet with the droplets that ran along my curls, I pulled my phone out.

The apartment suddenly felt big and empty, and I knew there was no way I'd be getting any work done today.

"You guys busy?" I texted the group chat that I made up one third of. The other two were Jake and Danny, the idiots that had somehow earned themselves the title of my best friends.

"Nah. Just putting off the essay I have to write." Jake replied.

That made two of us. In terms of avoiding schoolwork not the essay, since I spent most of my time dealing with numbers.

"You missing me already?" Danny replied, referring to the time I'd spent with him at that dumb party three days ago.

I knew even without seeing him that there was a grin on his face and rolled my eyes. Somebody needed to humble that guy.

"I knew I should've just texted Jake." I messaged back.

I would never tell him but as annoying as it was, Danny's playfulness was part of the reason he grew on me so fast.

I ate my words when he replied with one of those emojis that looked like it was crying enough tears to make a river, deciding that he was more trouble than he was worth.

Jake chimed in again after watching our back and forth for a while. "Danny, this is why nobody likes you. And Gabe, I'll be over in five."

- - - -

I couldn't tell where my legs began and Jake's ended with the way we were sprawled across the couch, eyes glued to the television.

I watched him lift a controller off the table in front of him through my peripheral vision, cocking his head towards me. "Wanna play?"

"Sure." I replied, never one to turn down a game, regardless of whether it was on the court or an electronic device.

My fingers deftly ran across the buttons, slaying hoards of god-knows-whats with every click. They were a strange cross between zombies and bats and creeped the hell out of me.

For the fourth time, blood splattered across his side of the screen and dripped the words "You lose," in a deep, metallic red.

"How is it even possible to win four games in a row?" He complained, setting the controller down on the couch next to him.

I shrugged, resisting the urge to laugh at the way disappointment had distorted his features, mouth comically drooped down and his eyebrows knitted.

Modesty wasn't exactly my strong suit but I could at least tell when to pile it on and when it was best to just not say anything.

This was one of the latter if I wanted to keep my eyes free of the dark blue bruising that they would be surrounded by once Jake pummelled me in frustration.

My eyes panned around the room and landed on Danny, perched on the stool that sat at my kitchen counter with his eyes on a football game.

Most likely sensing my gaze on him he turned around, expression way too damn similar to when he asked me for the most recent 'favour'.

"Gabe. Jake." He called, receiving a noncommittal 'Mm' from Jake in response and a skeptical look from me.

He sighed before he said what had clearly been on his mind. "Everything's so boring right now. I wanna go get hammered."

I stared at him, and he took that as an opening to keep going with a smile. "Pissed. Completely rat-arsed."

It would have been funny if I didn't know how out of control drinking with Danny could get, and I began to shake my head.

Jake verbalised my thoughts stating, "No way in hell man."

"Please." Danny groaned, his eyes levelling with mine. "I'll never complain about losing to you on the court ever again."

Tempting.

Hearing about how our 'height difference' was the only reason I hadn't gotten my ass kicked did get annoying after a while.

In reality, I only had about two inches on him and he was just telling himself what he wanted to hear.

"Fine." I conceded, using my eyes to silently plead for Jake to come with us.

"I'm busy." He shrugged.

I highly doubt it.

Jake was the laziest out of all us on the basketball team, only joining because his course required participation in at least one extracurricular activity.

He probably would've been kicked off by now if he wasn't a damn good player. One of the best on the team I knew.

My thoughts flashed back to three years ago when I first joined, and I paused to reflect on how it was probably up there with the greatest decisions I'd ever made.

The guys on the team were some of the best I'd ever met, and although Coach liked to think that he was scary and intimidating, we all knew he was a softie at heart.

Playing in matches was also a welcome distraction from the mind-numbing boredom that came with staring at numbers for half the day.

Take this as your warning not to study economics at University.

It's hell.

- - - -

The energy in the nightclub was palpable.

Strobe lights lit up the room with neon colours, but it was unnecessary since the liveliness and spirit of the people it contained was already doing the job.

Music pounded through large speakers and bodies were swaying around the dance floor in response.

"Wow." I said, eyes slowly moving around the room.

"Pretty sweet right?" asked Danny with a smug tone, probably sensing that he had won me over.

I nodded, but my attention was elsewhere.

There was so much going on that it was difficult to focus on any one thing.

Until it wasn't.

A deep voice belted "I feel so close to you right now, and there's no stopping us right now," over the roar of the crowd, and caught my attention.

It must have had the same effect on the people on the dance floor since the atmosphere changed completely.

People began moving closer to each other, seemingly hypnotised by the lyrics.

I was hypnotised too, but for a different reason.

She was here.