Rebellion Boy, A short story. Slight boy/boy. Angst. Options

[agirlnamed_aly]

Search and destroy,
Oh rebellion boy,
Fragile like glass,
He'll break like a toy.

I wouldn't know what to say,
if you asked me to pray,
I'm not the type that's alive,
Cause I'm dead for today.

Prom dresses and glitter,
Sex, drugs, and sinners,
Love is for losers,
and I'm always the winner.

I'm the alcohol in your mouth that you
just can't enjoy,
Watch out cause I'll break,
My rebellion boy.

"I need to rebel," I told him, my words straight, exact, and direct.

"Here," he says to me, words slurred and a little groggy. He hands me a glass of something.

I smell it. The odor is awful and strong and makes my nose burn. I hold the cup away from me.

"Bourbon?"

He answers softly, and something in my stomach flips.

"It's your rebellion in a bottle."

I hesitate for less than a second, and then take a swig. I thought smelling it was bad - drinking it was worse. My throat felt like it was on fire. I hacked and coughed a few seconds, and then gathered myself, along with whatever fragments of dignity I had left.

He stood there laughing, his eyes twinkling from the moonlight. "You'll get used to it," he said.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to.

We sat there silently for a long time, the reflection of the moon cast against the black surface of the lake, a silvery metallic sheen, rippling beneath the wind. The scent of alcohol was strong, and mingled with the dirt and thick smell of pine trees that hung in the air.

I turned toward him, but saw nothing but a profile of his face against the night sky behind him. He was all lip rings and piercings, pale skin, fulls lips and chiseled cheeks. The only noticeable flaw was the tiny dent embedded on the bridge of his nose, a small souvenir left over from some random street fight he got into a couple months back. To some people, he was the antithesis of perfection - broken and used and torn at the edges - that old letter you never threw away with smudged ink and permanent fold-over creases. But to me, he was exactly that - perfect.

Not that he'd ever know or anything.

"Why aren't you with your buddies from school?"

Something stirred in the bushes behind us. An echo of a ribbit reached us from behind the brush of dead leaves.

He asked me in a nonchalant matter, but only when he was impassive was he being sincere. Complicated boy, that one.

I could tell he really wanted to know why I was with him and not with my friends. Why had I chosen him over them? I didn't really know, and if I did, I sure wasn't about to tell him.

I thought about my friends then, with their letterman jackets and cheerleader girlfriends, probably off at some random party they crashed with twice as much hard liquor as the few number of bottles we had in front of us. It was a Friday night, after all.

"Who knows; rebellion remember?"

"Oh yeah, rebellion." He wiggles his eyebrows a little and I laugh.

"How should we properly guide you toward the path of the Dark side? Well, you being the Golden Boy and all we should start out in moderation shall we? How about you. . . Come home late for dinner! How scandalous. What will your mother think?"

He fell over laughing.

I threw a rock at his head, which flew past his ear and fell noisily into the water beyond. The reflection of the moon wavered fretfully against the lake, irritated from being disrupted during its moment of peace.

I chuckled a little, too, and eventually we both calmed down.

I began to wonder what they - my friends that is - would think about me sitting here alone on a Friday night with the loner everyone pretended didn't exist. The guy we saw at the mall, sitting there in the record store listening to music. The one who used to go to our school until he got kicked out (for smuggling in drugs or having an illicit affair with a teacher, take your pick). That boy with too many piercings that you whispered and gawked at when you were at the grocery store.

And apparently he was the only person I actually trusted.

I sighed heavily and laid back against the tree trunk behind me. I gazed up towards the sky, observing how the stars twinkled excitedly across the blackness above, blinking fluorescent lights in a dark room. It reminded me fondly of my sister, who to her senior prom, wore a long black gown covered in silver sequin and sparkles. The dress was hideous, with its numerous ruffles and ribbons and scattered glitter, but it was a nice memory nonetheless.

It was how I liked to remember her, before she went off to Hollywood to become an actress, only to come back 4 years later a heroin addict without any source of income and no medical insurance that she'd sure as hell need for the near future. She ended up getting AIDS from sharing too many needles with the other failed wannabe rockstars who were all supposed to be rich and famous and beautiful like her.

She's not dead yet, but you might as well just say she is.

She sits in her hospital room where the lights are turned on too bright and a mechanical clockwork functions inside the plaster white walls. There are syringes and needles pierced into her skin - the only things keeping her alive. Heroin or not, the needles are a part of her now and always will be.

"You believe in God?"

His voice breaks me from my reverie.

"No," I answer without even thinking about the question.

"I thought you were Catholic," he responds.

"People think I'm a lot of things."

Silence.

The occasional sound of a squirrel scurrying through the trees breaks the quiet.

He lies down next to me, his back flat against the ground while I continued to lean against the old pine. His eyes are heavily lidded, his lips slightly parted to reveal a row of white teeth.

His hair is dirty and disheveled atop his head, and I wonder if it is soft and not as rough and sharp as it seems to look. Something sinks in my chest. I'm not sure what it is.

I pull away from the tree and roll over next to him.

"You think God actually puts us on earth for a reason?"

I don't answer. He does it for me anyway.

"I'd like to think so, ya know? It's f**ked up of him already to have us born, then get raised thinking that the world is all about sharing and bright colors and perfect shapes that fit together instead of greed and dying cities and distorted people."

He pauses for a while, and I notice - a little uncomfortable - how he shifts closer to me.

"I remember when I was 6 --," he starts, and his voice falters a little. "My kindergarten teacher used to stay with me every time my mom forgot to pick me up. She used to tell me 'I'd drive you myself,' but the school wouldn't let her. So she'd stay with me late into the afternoon - hell, one time even till 9 o'clock while my mom went off on some hot date with some a-hole just as sleazy as the guy she f**ked the week before.

But anyway, we were outside on the field, sitting there looking up at the sky. My school back then was poor as hell - no playground, no nothing - so instead of sitting on the swings we sat on the dirt, and shit, the dirt was good enough for me. She pointed toward the sky and told me that when I was old enough I'd be able to touch the stars. 'You'll be so tall and great and wonderful,' she told me, 'and you'll meet someone someday who will help you reach them.' I asked if that person was going to be her and she started crying."

He reaches his hand toward the sky, stretching as far as his arm will take him as he lies against the bare ground. His fingers are long and his nails are bitten down, ridges and valleys of calloused skin along a large, flat palm.

"She told me she couldn't help me reach the stars, and for a split second I hated her. But then I wrapped my arms around her legs and told her I wouldn't need anyone's help; I'd reach them by myself."

His voice was raspy as he continued, and I watched as his lips moved, breath forming wispy clouds as they escaped into the frigid night air.

"Only problem is I'm 6 foot 2 and I think this is as tall as I'll get. I wonder sometimes, if I'll ever reach them."

I'm glad he doesn't cry.

I bring up my hand next to his, just as large but not as rough, trying my hardest to reach. The sky seems so close by, more like a few centimeters away, not a few light-years. I picture myself 6 years ago running my hands along my sister's prom dress, my black sky with stars, by now eaten out by moths and lying abandoned in her old closet.

And then suddenly every nerve in my body is alive and alert.

His hands are touching mine, fingertip to fingertip, suspended in the air against the sky, the one we can see but not touch. I suck my breath in through my teeth; I think he notices but chooses not to recognize my reaction.

Our fingers intertwine, and his hands are not as rough as they look. After a while we get tired from the strain of holding our hands up, and eventually resort to laying them between us while we lie there shoulder to shoulder.

Time has passed, but my hand still feels warm, like it's touching something that's burning. I wonder if that's what the stars feel like.

I forget what times it is - could be past midnight - maybe even later, and I turn towards his face now turned towards me. His eyes burn with some sort of resolution - a conviction of some sort whose meaning I can't seem to grasp.

I can smell the bourbon on his breath. He leans over and kisses me.

I think to myself,

"I found my rebellion in a boy."

Author's Notes:

I just wrote this the other night because I felt inspired and had nothing better to do. I'm rather fond of it. Constructive criticism is welcome.

FYI, I wrote the story first, then the poem. Angst is intended.

[*stephinika*]

very nicely written. i loved it. the story just pulled me in.