A Sudden Snow

“What,” he asks and lifts his eyes from his acoustic guitar, realizing I had been staring at him for the last five minutes while he strummed a tune on his guitar.

For a second I didn’t realize he said anything, until he repeated the question with an accompanying sharp snap of his fingers.

“Nothing,” I mumble and avert my eyes to the several classic horror movie posters in his room. I realized that when teachers asked him who his idol was, he probably said John Carpenter or Alfred Hitchcock rather than the usual response of my dad or my mom. To be fair, my answer was never my dad or mom either.

“Want one,” he asks while holding up a joint, his demeanor as casual as ever.

“Umm, sure,” I say dumbly and grab it from him, eliciting a chuckle from him.

I liked the sound of the noise, it was short and almost sounded like a broken clown toy that needed a battery change to fuel its nightmare inducing laugh.

I like strange sounds, I keep track of them in my journal.

Without really thinking about it I turn and grab my bag, which still has snow on it, and rummage through it like a mad man. I find my journal, rather one of them, in between a box of condoms and my phone charger. I find a black ink pen in the side pocket, turn to the next empty, semi empty, page, and jot down what his laugh sounds like to me; a broken clown toy that needed a battery change to fuel its nightmare inducing laugh.

I realize that the joint, which I had forgotten about, was now semi crushed. I look at him and see that he is eyeing me curiously, but not in an overall friendly manner.

“Sorry,” I murmur and hand the, now not so pristine, joint back to him.

He suddenly laughs loudly, making my whole body jolt because of the sheer volume of the laugh.

It’s also a sound I like, I think about writing it down in my journal, but after that I think it best not to.

“You’re a weird dude Gale,” he says, his laugh dying down and hands me another joint; apparently not too concerned about the last one being crushed in my fervor. I thought about how I had Introduced myself to him; Ricky Gale, not my actual name of course, and how it was weird he called me by my fake last name.

“Why do you call me by my last name,” I ask quickly, still holding the joint awkwardly in my hand.

“You’re useless,” he teases, ignoring the question I observe, and takes the joint away from me.

At this point I think I might never get to smoke the joint, but then he suddenly puts the tip of it in between my slightly parted lips. It’s warm from his hands, warmer at least than my frozen lips.

Instinctively, I press down on it, and he subsequently lights it with a bright green lighter I hadn’t seen before.

“Now you suck in, grab it out of your mouth, and blow out,” he relays the steps to me.

I feel like a kid having to be told how to wash his hands, but I guess the situation is quite different.

I do what he says, but automatically start coughing once I get a hint of the weird, but good tasting smoke.

This makes him laugh again and he takes the joints from my hand and smokes it smoothly, not coughing like a madman like I had.

“Maybe weed isn’t for you,” he says and walks over to where his phone is plugged in, hanging his guitar on the wall as he goes.

“Sorry,” I apologize and blush from the embarrassment.

“Hah, your fine,” he says casually, “why are you apologizing?”

“Oh, I guess you're right, sorry,” I say but then realize I just apologized needlessly again.

People say I do that a lot.

“You don’t have to apologize for anything dude,” He says and grabs his phone, “my mom made pizza bites by the way.”

“Oh, cool,” I say, trying to hold back the audible sounds of my stomach.

“Yeah,” he continues and sits down, “but last time she texted em that while I had a friend over there were no pizza bites and she was just sitting there in her lingerie.”

“Oh,” I say and suddenly my stomachs hunger vanishes.

“So, better be on the safe side and not fall for anything she had planned to try and sleep with you,” he says casually and takes another hit from his joint.

“Excuse me,” I exclaim, thrown off to say the least.

“My mom may be fifty, but that doesn't stop her from sleeping with my friends, or trying to at least.”

I thought that was incredibly fucked up, to say the least.

“You wanna listen to some music,” he says and walks across the wooden floor to a bluetooth speaker the size of a soccer ball sitting on his bed.

“Umm, sure,” I say, thinking that music might make the situation less awkward.

If I had to listen to screamo music I would, anything to get me out of random snow that was happening right outside.

He had promised me new clothes, since mine were all wet, but had just given me a towel so far.

“Oh yeah,” he snapped and looked at me, “you needed some new clothes, right?”

I was weirded out by the timing of his question with my thoughts but just shook my head yes because my jeans and shirt were wet and cold from the snow.

When I left five days ago I didn’t bring a jacket, because it was techancilly summer. Although, it didn’t look like it now.

He went over to the closet, which mostly looked like a black void, and threw out some black sweatpants and a black hoodie which looked to be holier than his ripped pants. I wonder if that was fashion or if it was just an old hoodie. If I had to guess, probably the latter.

“So can I just get to the elephant in the room,” he turns and says, his eyes genuine.

“...yes.”

“What are those ugly shoes you're wearing?!”

I don’t respond, for more than a minute, I can’t seem to find the words.

“What,” I ask finally, looking down at my worn shoes.

I would have figured he would have wanted to know about why I was walking around in this sudden drastic weather change at 10pm with a bag full of stuff.

“Seriously dude, those shoes are so ugly and staind, like how do they even hold your feet they look like they’re falling apart at the seams,” he says, semi-seriously.

“You don’t want to know about…”

“Well sure I do,” he interjects, “but, I figured you wouldn’t want to talk about it.”

He’s a genuinely nice person.

Why does that make me want to fuck him.

“Well, yeah I guess I don’t.”

“Then that settles it,” he says and goes back to the speaker, “so I’m thinking red hot chili peppers or Aretha Franklin.”

“That might be music's complete opposite pairing,” I say, with a laugh.

I haven't laughed in a while.

“What can I say,” he says and shrugs, “I like all types.”

“You choose,” I say a big grin on my face, I'm sure.

“Aretha Franklin it is then.”

...Is it possible...to fall in love for the first time so fast...