Chapter Fourteen

All it takes is one word to change the entire mood of a situation.

In the almost naked light of the moon, there are four words which change the mood of a situation. They are words which rush to my head as soon as I feel contact of his lips on mine. There's a slight delay before they reach my lips, but this is weighed out by the fact that in the moment between when he had kissed me, and I had registered this, my hands had found their way between us. Except this is not one of these moments where I'm going to say they pulled him closer.

No instead, what happens is I find myself with eyebrows arched at Garth, who is looking stunned. He is stunned from the fact that I have forcefully shoved him off of me, and am probably looking at him with such disgust. And it takes me a moment to register what the hell had just happened.

But when I do come to my senses, the words tumble forward into the haunting silence.

"What the hell Garth," I say, raising my voice. It's a volume I've never felt myself reach before, but given the situation, I feel like maybe it's justified. I want to be sick. Not because Garth invaded my personal space. Not because a boy kissed me. Not even because there are a million things I want to scream out at once. I want to be sick because there is a part of me that understands that treating Garth like shit is not going to help anyone.

The way he sat in his seat, it just made me want to turn away. He looked almost like a kid in that moment, choosing to occupy the least amount of room as possible. His eyes might have been on mine, but his entire body was contorted against the passenger side door, fingers clinging on the handle, as if expected to make a quick getaway. Everything about him just looked so struck with fear; fear of me pushing him away; fear of realizing that this might have been the wrong thing to do; fear that I might kick his ass.

And I'm not going to lie, my mind crossed the thought for a second, but I didn't want to. But the fact of the matter was that for a few moments in time, the thought was there in my head.

I brought my hands to my face, trying to wipe away the years. If I could just go back in time to when things were more simple. Back to a time where being lonely didn't feel so suffocating. Life was not supposed to be this hard.

"I'm sorry," came the voice of a soft child through the darkness. "I shouldn't have done that."

"It's fine Garth," I replied, stony and almost mute.

"It's really no-"

"I said it's fine Garth," I bellowed, a little louder than when I had pushed him off of me. Of course it wasn't fine, I wasn't a complete idiot. But making him believe that everything was fine sort of felt like the most important thing. Not that he would ever believe me after that explosive outburst.

My teeth gritted in anger; anger towards my own inability to express how I was feeling in this moment. Because how was I feeling? Vulnerable? Confused? Livid? Nothing seemed to make sense at this point.

We waited in silence for a few more moments, before Garth relaxed a little. He still wasn't ready to come out of his corner, but it seemed like he had acknowledged that I wasn't going to hurt him. His face was still turned to me, but mines was still turned out towards the view, hoping and praying that I could somehow get lost in it all.

I was wrong. It wasn't fine. It wasn't fine because nothing was fine.

My hands gripped the steering wheel, curling so tightly that I could practically feel the leather give way before me. A second of thought is all it took before I turned the key in the ignition, and put the car into motion.

"I think that's enough for the night," I said, still cold.

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The ride back down had been silent. It was that kind of silent where you knew you should have said something, but somehow everything felt weighed down in this bog. Words flew around my head, and I could never decide on which ones I wanted to pick out. I couldn't tell if I wanted to chastise Garth, or thank him for being open and honest with me. He'd proved to be so calm and level headed this whole night, and then in one instant he'd let his guard down and when that happened, everything fell apart. It wasn't a good excuse, hell, it hardly felt like an excuse at all.

The silence was only broken sporadically, with a few directions from Garth. They didn't feel so much like Garth giving directions, as they did feel like Garth mumbling out some PowerPoint presentation. So cold, so distant.

When he finally told me to stop, I took a bearing of my surroundings. Not the nicest of neighborhoods, but it was a situation which could have been worse. I looked across the street at the house that Garth was staring at. Behind the curtain you could tell that silhouettes were moving, one almost motionless, and the other like a whirlwind. There was something bold about the whirlwinds movements, and it just made me feel a little uneasy watching it.

"Why did you kiss me Garth?" I said after moments of this agonizing silence. It didn't come out as a question, but rather an accusation. There had been the odd rumor here and there about Garth Vega. No one had ever proven anything about him, mostly because he kept to himself. But now I knew for definite. I knew why he might have wanted to kiss me, but that didn't explain why he did it.

Garth just looked on, not moving for the longest time. His eyes almost seemed glazed over at watching the silhouettes. There was a stillness to him that felt so eerie, like he wasn't ready to leave just yet.

"What does it matter?" he said, almost monotone.

I rolled my eyes. "It matters because obviously there was something that compelled you to do that."

"It's just a kiss Xavier, it doesn't have to have meaning behind it."

I was almost ready to lose it again, until I turned to see that in the light of the streetlamp, there were familiar tracks running down his face. Vulnerability had never been a strong suit for me, and it was clear that the concept was just as alien to Garth.

"Garth," I said softly. "Please, just tell me."

"I wanted to make you feel something, something that wasn't sadness." His own voice was weak, but unmoving.

"So you kissed me?"

"It's not about me wanting to kiss you," he said, opening the car door and stepping out. "It's about trying to help a friend who was clearly dealing with some shit." He shut the car door.

Before I had the chance to say anything else, he walked off, head held low and movements so somber. The light of the streetlights guided me to him, until he disappeared into the dark of the night as he walked up his driveway.

And just like that, I feel like I knew less about Garth than I had earlier this evening.