Something About Love

Alex is one who gets lost in his own thoughts, quite often. Laying his head against the train window, Alex thinks back to the worlds he would create in his mind, sitting in the back of his parents’ car. He remembers looking at the car window, and imagining a ninja with dark clothes running on top of the guard rails, somehow running at the speed of the car. He would imagine another ninja, with usually red clothes, catching up to the dark ninja, and then they’ll have a sword battle. All the commotion he imagined in his mind helped Alex ignore the constant shouting between his parents, but not when they would throw objects at each other, and get caught in the crossfire. Whenever Alex’s parents would drive across the Brooklyn bridge, Alex would look towards the buildings, and imagine a giant mecha-dragon with swords for wings, coming out of the East river, and heading towards Brooklyn, to fight with a giant rock monster with diamonds for fists. 

Alex smiles slightly, but then remembers how that was in the past now, only acceptable when he was a kid. He needed to remember that he’s a grown-up now; making grown-up decisions, and grown-up mistakes. 

Alex shifts his backpack on to the seat next to him, and looks away from the window. Looking in front of him, a girl caught his eye, staring at the window, teary-eyed, possibly thinking of the past like he had. He stares at this girl in wonder, since she was pretty, but her all-black outfit, goth makeup, and boots scares him a little bit. Maybe that’s why he finds her attractive; it would explain a lot.

Alex takes a moment to realize that the girl was staring back at him, looking more intensely at him than he was at her. After what felt like too long a time, the girl smiles back at him, and Alex shyly smiles back. He thought that would be the end of the interaction, but to his horror and pleasure, the girl walks over, and sits in front of him. 

“Hi.” she says, with a mature tone.

“Hey.” Alex responds.

The girl starts laughing, making Alex shrink in his seat.

“I’m sorry,” she says chuckling, in a normal voice, “I just like to mess with people.”  

“And here I thought you were going to beat my ass.” Alex responds.

The girl starts laughing hysterically. Alex smiles, feeling a bit better about himself. She stares at him, Alex staring back at her, barely being able to maintain eye contact.

“My name’s Raven,” she says, breaking the awkward silence.

“My name’s Alex.”

“You want to hang out sometime?” Raven says, smiling.

“Sure.” Alex responds, smiling back.

Alex struggles up the stairs, trying to find Raven’s apartment. Despite only needing to go up two flights of stairs, Alex is desperately out of breath already. Alex stumbles over to the wall closest to him, closing his eyes, wondering how the hell he was able to run up six flights of stairs when he was younger, attempting to outrace his mother who was cheating by using the elevator. He remembers how he used to think he ran at the speed of sound, zooming up the stairs, getting to the 6th floor before the elevator did. Sometimes he would win, waiting for his mother to give him a weak smile, and open the door. Sometimes he would lose, and he would have to knock on the door so that his mother would open the door. Sometimes, when he lost, his mother wouldn’t open the door, and Alex was stuck waiting for his dad to come home a few hours later. His dad would ask if Alex had lost, barely smiling, and open the door for him. On one of those days, they found Alex’s mother staring at the television with the screen off, turning her head towards the father, her face devoid of emotion. Her expression was so blank, it scared Alex; it was as if someone had died in front of her. Alex looked at his dad, who would stare at her, with a stressed gaze. Alex didn’t like it when she made that face. They never told him why she made that face. It must’ve been because he lost so much. And so, Alex didn’t like to lose.

Alex perched up when he heard someone call his name. He opened his eyes and realized that Raven was right there, at the door next to him. 

“I thought I heard someone dying out here.” She says, smiling.

Alex stands up, pretending to still be out of breath. Raven rolls her eyes and invites him in. They sit in the living room, awkwardly exchanging glances, until Raven’s roommate tells them to watch a movie, leaving them alone. Alex recommends they watch a movie that he hasn’t had the chance to watch, called “Everything Everywhere All at Once”. 

They watch the movie, Alex being interested in the premise of the film, it being about a dysfunctional family, in which the mother travels through different dimensions to save their reality from an evil, multi-dimensional threat. Alex looks at Raven, who is tilting her head while watching the movie. They continue watching the movie, getting to the part where the mother visits a dimension where she never got married with her husband. Alex noticed that Raven was staring at him, and that he was getting tensed up. 

“Family issues?”

Alex pauses. “Yea.”

Raven reaches out for Alex’s hand, but Alex retracts his arm slightly. 

They finish watching the movie, which ends with the dysfunctional family being a bit more understanding of one another, and the mother finally accepting the fact that her daughter likes women. Alex shifts around on the sofa, then looks at Raven, who was already wiping tears off her eyes, ruining her makeup. He notices how despite looking a bit scary, she’s quite pleasant to look at. He stares at her, watching her sobbing, until Raven glares at him back. Alex feels as if his heart jumped a bit, or skipped a beat, or both.

“I’m sorry, I look like such a mess right now.” Raven says, continuing to wipe her tears.

“Oh no, no. You’re fine.”

Raven looks at Alex.

“You didn’t get sad, watching the movie?” Raven asks, tilting her head.

“Yeah I did.”

“I didn’t see you cry though.”

“No, not really. I get sad pretty easily, but it’s hard for me to cry anymore.”

Alex waits outside of the arcade, waiting for Raven. He was a bit surprised that Raven wanted to go on an actual date this time, wondering what she had seen in him for her to ask him out to the arcade. Alex takes out his sketchpad out of his bag, skipping past the drawings he hasn’t finished yet, and starts on a new drawing. While Alex lets the pen glide across the paper, he looks at the red stain at the corner of the pad. He remembers how he would mostly spend his time drawing in his room, or playing with his brown, medium-sized teddy bear, not focusing much on his homework, since his parents didn’t check to see if he was ever doing it. Alex would know when the school called, however, since his mother would violently open the door, grab him by his hair, pressing his head against his desk. Through his tears, he would see that his mother would be crying just as much, her overuse of mascara apparent as it dripped down her cheek like a black tear. When he saw that tear, the beating started. He would get beat so hard, that blood would drip down from his lip, staining the notebook, merging with the ink. After his mother made sure he would finish his homework, he would go back to drawing, putting his teddy bear by his side, ignoring how the blood ruined his drawings.

Alex realized that he broke his stencil from pressing on it too hard, and he forgot his replacement when he came to the arcade. He looked up and he saw Raven walking towards him, giving her back a forced smile.

They enter the arcade. Alex stands still and scans through the giant space, filled with machines with bright lights and big “WIN” and “JACKPOT” signs protruding from the arcade cabinets. After staring into the large space for a while, he looks at Raven, who was grinning from cheek to cheek, doing small hops on her feet. Alex smiles, finding Raven’s hopping pretty cute. Raven holds on to Alex’s arm, and they load up their play cards at a nearby kiosk, and then walk around, looking for their first machine. 

While Alex is walking, he is pulled to the side by an excited Raven, who wants to go on the Dance Dance Revolution machine. Alex watches Raven as she puts her hair up in a bun, takes off her boots, gives them to Alex, and gets on the machine to start the game. He watches as Raven easily passes the tutorial, then immediately chooses the expert difficulty on the Japanese pop songs. Alex is surprised at how efficient Raven’s footwork is, barely touching the ground, hitting all the notes perfectly. He looked at her expression, looking so determined, clearly enjoying herself.

By the time Raven finished the 3rd song, she was dripping in sweat, wiping off a bit of the makeup she had on. As Raven leaned in to tell Alex something, Alex caught a whiff of her body odor, Alex going into a trance while Raven was walking away. It was strong, yet had a certain smoothness to it that exuded that feminine tone. This type of smell was the most pleasurable for Alex, out of the other feminine smells he’s experienced. There was another type of smell he liked, that of a more subtle gentle smell; however, Alex wasn’t convinced that the gentle smell was natural, since he noticed that the gentle smell belonged to multiple people, which in his mind, didn’t make sense. He definitely preferred Raven’s organic, strong smell; it was much more personal to Raven, then it would be for multiple other women.

Alex closed his eyes, imagining Raven’s smell, being able to recreate it with great precision. He was proud of himself, and then he opened his eyes, seeing Raven right in front of him, with a worried look.

“Did you fall asleep while standing up?” Raven asked.

“Not really. When did you get rid of your makeup?”

“I told you, I was going to the bathroom. I would rather have no makeup than messed-up makeup.” Raven responded.

“Oh. My bad.” 

Raven rolled her eyes, taking her boots back, leaning on Alex to put them on again. Alex and Raven walk around the arcade some more. Raven points to a claw machine, with giant stuffed animals. Alex isn’t interested as much, but walks over with Raven anyways. They get to the machine, filled to the brim with different kinds of animals; blue, pink, and purple dolphins, orange, black, and blue birds, and black, green, and gray bears. Looking at Raven, he notices that she was eyeing one of the bigger blue dolphins. Alex looks behind the blue dolphin, and in the corner of the claw machine notices a medium-sized brown teddy bear, overshadowed by the other bears around him. Alex swipes the play card, and aims for the top left corner, where the brown teddy bear sits. When the claw goes down, the body of one of the gray bears tilts the direction of the claw, making Alex miss the bear he wanted.

“Why did you go for that one?” Raven asks.

Alex ignores her in frustration, and tries again, and again, and again, getting more and more frustrated each time. Alex fails one more time, and kicks the claw machine, moving the position of the bears. Alex notices how the bears moved, and tries again. The gray bear that was in the way was still in the way, but a little less so. Alex kicks the claw machine again, tries again, and fails again. Alex keeps going in this cycle, until he’s finally able grab the brown teddy bear with the claw, but drops it right outside the prize hole. Begrudgingly, Alex swipes one more time, noticing that he had used up all of the balance on the play card. 

He looks around him, noticing how everyone had stopped to look at him, hearing people murmuring to each other. Alex feels the stares of everyone around him, adding to his growing anxiety. He looks back at the teddy bear, and hears Raven let out a small sigh on his right. Alex turns around, expecting to see Raven looking at him with disdain, yet when Alex looks at Raven’s teary eyes, he doesn’t find disgust, but rather a mixed sadness; not with disappointment, but with something else. That something that Alex wasn’t familiar with. That something which scared Alex. That something that made him run away in the first place.

Worried that people were staring at him, Alex starts to back away from Raven. Stopping when he gets held back by Raven grabbing his arm. Alex kept looking at the ground. Alex didn’t want to look back up. He couldn’t be able to look back at her. He couldn’t face that stare. He couldn’t watch the black tear fall down her cheek. Alex ran. Ran away to not fall into that trap called love again. And again.

Alex woke up with a pounding headache. Realizing he forgot to eat since yesterday, he wondered how he had the strength to get to his hotel after work. He didn’t have much money left over, since bagging groceries at the nearby bodega didn’t give him enough to eat everyday. Alex shifts around on his bed, looking at the blue dolphin next to his backpack. It’s been two weeks since Alex ran from Raven, two weeks of leaving her crying. He went back to the arcade yesterday, spending an entire day’s worth of his money to get that dolphin, in hopes of being able to apologize to Raven. That is, if she even remembers him anymore. 

Alex forces himself up, feeling tired, not wanting to go to work today. He remembers that he needs to extend his stay at the hotel, or else he would have to check out tomorrow morning. He rolls over to his nightstand, and checks his wallet,  realizing that he needs to go to work today. Alex puts on a hoodie over the t-shirt he slept in, puts on some jeans, and goes to the bodega. 

Alex didn’t like working at the bodega, but it was the only place that would hire him on such short notice. He didn’t even have to go through a hiring process. When he was walking down the street, a middle-aged, almost-bald, tall Italian man was smoking a cigarette in front of the bodega. The man looked at Alex with half-opened eyes, staring him down, making him stop. The man then asked in a raspy voice with a heavy accent, if Alex wanted to make a couple of bucks. At first, he was scared that the man was a drug dealer, but the man led him into the shop, telling him that for each bag he helps out with, he gets one dollar. After telling him about the job, the man said his name was Giussepe, but Alex could call him “Juicy” while letting out a mix of a chuckle and coughing. He thought that was a good deal, but then realized that not many people came into the shop. Not to mention, some sketchy people that looked just like Giusseppe, visited regularly, smoked cigars, gave Alex a small tip once in a while, and would sometimes go to the backroom for hours, forcing Alex to man the register until they came back. He was smart enough to not question what they were doing in the backroom; after all, he was just there for the money.

When he arrived at the bodega, Alex felt nauseous, barely being able to keep his vision straight. He stumbled into the shop, and rested his back against the wall, staring at the floor. Taking a deep breath, Alex forced his head up, only to be startled by Giuseppe staring straight at him, cleaning the front of the store.

“What the fuck is wrong with you kid?” Giuseppe blurted out. “I don’t need you passing out on my fucking floor.” 

Giuseppe reaches behind him and tosses Alex a protein bar, which he failed to catch. He looks up after picking up the protein bar, looking as Giuseppe shakes his head and says “Unbelievable” under his breath. Alex eats the protein bar, feeling even more down than he was before. 

A few hours into the shift, Alex is nodding off at the register, woken up by the bell connected to the door. He notices that two out of the three people standing there looked like Giuseppe’s friends. The one person that Alex didn’t recognize was bald, putting on a Mets jersey, and was stomping on a cigarette, right on the spot where Giuseppe was cleaning earlier. He hides the gun with the jersey, and stares directly into Alex’s eyes, as if he wanted something from him. 

“Do you know where Juicy is?” The bald man asks.

Alex points to the backroom door, the bald man signaling Alex to walk out of the counter area. He pulls out his wallet, taking out $300, handing it to Alex. 

“We need to talk to Juicy for a bit.” The man turns to the two other men, who walk by the door, getting ready to pull something out of their pockets. 

He turns back to Alex. “Don’t worry about running the shop today. We’ll take care of it.” 

With a pat on the back from the man, Alex awkwardly steps away from the shop, pretending that nothing happened, thinking about how he just got more money than he had been paid in a week and a half. Walking up the street, he was thinking about what he would be able to do with the money; since Alex could pay off an entire week of the hotel, or he could go to the arcade and try out that Dance Dance Revolution game, or he could take Raven out for a nice dinner. Alex lowered his shoulders and gaze, and started to question himself. Did she deserve better than him? Why did he treat her like that? Why did she treat him so nicely? 

Alex had no answers to any of the questions, more importantly, he doesn’t know why he is so afraid of her. He likes being in her presence, her random spikes of energy, her scent, and yet his body reacts to her touch as if it were touching hot magma. Alex felt a deep chest cavity starting to grow, and now he couldn’t get Raven out of his mind. That stare kept replaying in his mind; he was so used to stares lacking in emotions, but her stare was so different, so tender and sweet, despite having wronged her in front of everyone. 

He arrived at the hotel, and sat on his bed staring at the wall. Alex hasn’t felt this conflicted in a while. The heavy swirl of emotions felt like a brick laying on his chest, and yet it started to feel so warm, and somewhat comforting. He wrapped his arms around himself, and tried hugging tightly, but it felt like something was missing; the heat only formed on his chest, and yet he longed for the warmth of the entire body. He sat up, hunched over, pressing his chest tightly to make his ribs hurt. Alex let out a deep breath, and shed a tear. He felt the tear run down his cheek, as another tear followed on the opposite eye. Each tear came one after the other, until forming a stream on both ends. His throat hurt from trying to hold back even more tears, until he let out his breath and laid on his side.

He was crying, on his side, on that day as well. That day he ran away. He was fourteen years old, and was lying on the kitchen floor, right after his mother had hit him with the edge of her shoe. She was shouting at him, blaming him for the fact that his dad hasn’t come home in 3 days, because Alex wasn’t doing well in school. His mother starts to walk away, right when his father walks in, and looks straight at him, ignoring the mother yelling at him for his disappearance, until he strikes him on the side of the head. The air being silent for a second, Alex’s dad stares at the mother, and punches her straight on the nose, her body hitting the fridge and falling over next to Alex. Too scared to look at his mother, he stares at his father walking towards their room. He comes out a minute later with a bundle of cash and a backpack, giving it to Alex. He tells him that he’s not safe here, and if he stays here any longer, he might end up dead. Alex looks over at his mother, noticing how she hasn’t made a sound. His father tells him that he’ll walk Alex to the outside of the building, but from there, Alex would have to be on his own. They walk out of the building, the fall breeze making Alex shiver. He looked all around, staring at the clear, blue skies and the bright sun. He turned around and saw that his father was gone again, staying true to his word. Alex stood there for a minute, before running in the other direction, the breeze feeling like small knives on his eyes, and yet no more tears fell, until today, 5 years later.

His tears had dried out by now, and was no longer feeling that weight on his chest. Alex moved sluggish, his body feeling 30 pounds heavier, and turned his head towards the backpack. He looked at the backpack for a while, then moved his head towards the blue dolphin, thinking that he wanted to see Raven. Alex took a deep breath, and grabbed his backpack, along with the blue dolphin, and walked out the hotel.

Alex walked towards Raven’s apartment, still shaking. Would Raven still care about him? Would Raven forgive him? Would he have the courage to even talk to Raven again? However, he kept walking, for the chance that she might still care, for the chance that she will forgive, and for the chance that he will be able to acknowledge his mistakes, as there’s no point in running away again, not when he’s so close to it. Alex looks up, and stops a couple feet away from Raven’s apartment complex. He sees Raven sitting with her purse, on the stairs leading up to the building, looking less energetic than usual. He steps forward, stopping again, noticing that Raven was staring at someone walking towards her. Alex stays back and watches how Raven gets up, and hugs the man, who was well-dressed, and looked way better off than he did. Raven and the man enter the building, leaving Alex shocked. He walks towards where Raven was sitting, noticing that she had left her purse on the ground. He stares at it, putting the blue dolphin right next to it, then taking out the arcade play card from his wallet, placing it right on the blue dolphin. 

Alex starts to walk away, holding his backpack straps tightly. Staying there would probably do more harm than good, and he didn’t want to risk having to confront Raven again. He didn’t want to cause any more unnecessary stress for himself, and for Raven. She would be happier with the guy she found, and so, there would be no reason for Alex to stay there anymore. His time to go somewhere else had come; after all, he knows that he needs to move on.

Raven scurried down the stairs, and headed to the stairs of the building. She was hoping that nobody had taken her purse while her brother was helping her move stuff in her apartment. She swung open the doors to the building and saw her purse, right next to a familiar-looking blue dolphin, and the play card Alex and her had used at the arcade.

Raven sighed, she was stressed enough as it was, she didn’t really need another reminder of how bad she messed up. Not about going out with Alex… or maybe it was? She didn’t really know, and now she’s thinking about it too much again. She picked up her purse, the blue dolphin and the play card, and struggled to open the door while holding the three things.

Raven went upstairs to her apartment, her brother waiting on the misaligned couch. She went to her room, and props up the blue dolphin alongside her other plushies on her bed. Raven sighs, looking at her bed, seeing if the dolphin fits in with the rest of the plushies, looking at the major color difference between her room, her plushies, and the blue dolphin. 

“Why do you need all those plushies?” 

Raven turns around, her brother giving her that annoying look.

“It makes me comfortable, they keep me company.” Raven responds.

“What about that dolphin?” Her brother points at the blue dolphin plushie, “it stands out from the rest of your black and pink shit.”

Raven sits on her bed, putting the plushie that Alex gave her close to her chest. Her brother sighs, scratching the top of his head.

“Are we going to finish moving the furniture around? I have to go to a meeting in an hour and a half, you know?”

“I’m aware.” Raven breathes, “just give me a few.”

“Why? Is that one from some other special one now?”

Raven sits up, holding out the dolphin and staring at its poorly stitched buttons for eyes. She looks around her room, with all the colors of a monochrome rainbow.

“I’m still not sure. Probably not that special.”

Raven sets the dolphin beside her, staring at the wall.

She sighs, “Oh well, it doesn’t matter anymore, anyhow.”