The Others - 12. Chapter 12: Being drunk

“Hey AB,

Suppose I say I wrote this blog to tell people around me I don’t feel like being with them. I wanted to tell them I’m not always comfortable around them. There was one person in particular, I wanted to make sure this person knew me a little better, but then something happened.

I don’t want to go into details, partly because I’m sure you don’t want me to, but I kinda like this person a lot, but now it suddenly seems as if I won’t be liked back.

So now I don’t want them to know I feel different, they need to believe I’m one of them.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience, maybe I can write another post?

Thank you for not uploading it,

The AR.”

Why didn’t I figure this out myself. It’s so obvious! He asked me not to upload it right after he came home from Sam, the night I kissed her for the first time. I totally forgot he was there when I came over. Obviously, she must have told Seth she didn’t feel the same about him and that she was going to tell me she loved me. Ugh, how can I be so blinkered. He likes Sam and Sam likes me, how cruel can this world be?

I can understand he doesn’t want his friends to know that he feels different, I wouldn’t want them to know either, though of course they’re not my real friends.

After I got home I found Seth’s last email waiting for me. It’s been a few days since I uploaded my last blog post and I know I have to write one, but I secretly hoped Seth would’ve made up his mind and asked me to upload his post.

Now it seems like I’ve got some work to do. What will I write about, though? The last few days I've spent too much time thinking about the people around me instead of trying to find new topics. Unless of course I write about something I experienced. It doesn’t always have to be about serious stuff, right?

“This time I want to talk about something completely different, guys. I don’t know everything, although I sometimes try to act as if I do. I have been wondering lately a lot about something and maybe I will post it here so as to ask you for help.”

No, not like this. This is bullshit. Never show your vulnerable side. I need to relax, I need to think of a way to write this. I check out YouTube and start looking for Bob Marley music. I really need it right now.

“What exactly is the difference between friendship and love? Now take a moment to think about the answer before you respond. Of course I know what most of you will answer, but I’m looking specifically for those of you who have an open mind. Because, I think love is a special form of friendship. There are things you do while in love which you wouldn’t do in a friendship.

But who defined what belongs where? Is kissing reserved only for those in love or are there – theoretically – friendships where kissing is normal?

I think, in order for us to answer this we need to go back to the basics. What is love? Why do we love others?

You can answer that from an evolutionary aspect, we love in order to reproduce. But is that really what it is about? What about homosexuality? Gay people do love each other, though in general they don’t reproduce. No, I don’t think reproducing is a part of love. Maybe the feeling of love is something that developed from our primal need to reproduce, that I don’t know, but I think love goes beyond evolution. It’s something that goes hand in hand with the reason the human race is the dominant species on Earth: our ability to see things in perspective, but moreover our ability to care about others. We know eusocial animals, like ants and bees, animals that are able to communicate and cooperate, but we developed something more powerful. We took away the “eu” from “eusocial”.

So, let’s say (whether or not you agree with my theories) love is a feeling we developed through being social. Of course there are some similarities between loving and reproducing, especially one kind of act. But I think this act has two sides to it, the reproducing one and the loving one. It feels good, that is undeniable and that makes it one of the best ways to show your love. Not only to show it, but to make you feel it for yourself as well. Loving someone is a great feeling, so when you can deliver such joy to someone, it makes you feel good as well.

Okay, enough about this, this topic is rather awkward. You know what, this will be continued, I don’t feel like finishing this right now. So, what will come next, how will I finish this post? That, you will get to see in a few days!”

I don’t feel happy with what I have written, but it’s all I can come up with. I really don’t feel like rewriting it now and I probably won't. Plus, I don’t want to get into specifics too much, because then maybe Sam will start getting suspicious. I’m already playing a tricky game involving Seth in my blog, I can’t risk involving everyone. Then it woud take only a few seconds to connect the dots and notice all the posts are about me.

My phone beeps. Mom is calling. “Hey mom,” I say when I answer the phone.

“Adam, have you thought about what you are going to eat tonight?” she asks straight away.

“What I’m going to eat? Isn’t it like the mother’s job to make dinner?”

She sighs. “I knew you were going to forget about it. I’m not coming home this weekend, sweetie, I’m on a camping trip with my class, remember?”

“Oh shit, of course. I forgot,” I say, stating the obvious.

“You can get some fries down the road,” she tells me, “even if that’ll make it the second time this week you've eaten unhealthy food.”

“I’m sorry, mom.”

She laughs. “No you’re not, you cheeky monkey. I want you to eat extra healthy tomorrow and the day after. Tyde will be back on Sunday, but I managed to get him out of your hair today and tomorrow. Enjoy your vacation, Adam.”

I love her. Maybe she’s busy all the time, but that's because she has to keep Tyde happy and hold down a full-time job. So it sometimes looks like she forgets about me, but she doesn’t. She’ll never forget about me. Even if I don’t spend a lot of time with my mom, she knows me, better than anyone else. Of course there is a lot she doesn’t know, I’m never going to tell anyone all about me, but still, she knows I need my time off from Tyde.

“Thank you, mom,” I say, my voice cracking a bit out of admiration for her. “Have a nice weekend.”

“You know I won’t,” she laughs. “I’ll see you on Monday.” And with that she ends the call.

How could I forget about this? I had planned this weekend a few weeks ago, when she told me she was going to Hell for a whole weekend and when I heard my brother was going to spend the weekend at a friend’s. Suddenly it was clear, I’m going to get drunk! Oh yes, I really need this.

It’s only 6 PM and normally I wouldn’t have dinner for about another hour, but I decide to eat early. That’ll leave me all the rest of the evening free. I nip out of the house to go and order french fries and a croquette. I get back pretty quickly and eat in no time at all. Of course I put on a film, Monty Python again. God, I love them. Especially the Ministry of Silly Walks and the dead parrot sketch. A few years ago I made a compilation with all my favourite clips in it and that’s what I’m going to watch tonight.

I kick things off with a beer. That’ll get me in the mood for sure. My father was originally from Holland, so he always drank Dutch beer and even after he left, my mother kept buying Dutch beer. It’s probably the only thing I have left from him. Why did he never contact us when he lives so close?

I take a Brand and laugh at the fact the beer brand is called Brand. Did the Dutch do it on purpose, just to make me laugh? I laugh even harder at the the idea they would have done that. Woah, I don’t even have to watch Monty Python to start laughing. This night is going to be amazing.

I’m a fast drinker. I didn’t count the beers, but I knew I had drunk enough for my mother to notice it and I can’t replace the beer because I’m still a minor. So I decide to start drinking vodka instead, to equalise the impact I have on my mother’s drinks cabinet.

Oh no, I'm starting to get emotional now. Some people get really happy when drunk, others start being annoying to the people around them, but I get emotional. All the past emotions I have been feeling come back to me, but mostly I just feel sad. I feel sad about what's happened, about what I have done in my life. I’ve been drunk a few times, but unlike others my age, I am always on my own. And every time I start thinking about Yuri. No, rephrase it: I start crying about Yuri.

Without really thinking about it, I grab my phone and scroll through my contacts until I find JayJay. That’s not his real name, but everyone calls him that, so I did as well. He was a real life friend of Yuri. Although I never met Yuri in person, I once met JayJay. That’s the only proof I've ever had that Yuri was real.

When Yuri deleted all his email addresses, destroying any possibility for me to contact him again, JayJay was all I had left. He though, told me many times he wasn’t allowed to talk about Yuri, but that didn’t stop me from trying to find out. Trying means most of the times texting JayJay while I was drunk. Our chat history is a nice way to see when I was drunk. Every time I started texting him, I’m sure I was drunk.

-“Hello.” I text him. “Can you please respond to this if you read it, it’s important to me.”

-“Hey.” JayJay replies.

-“How are you?” I ask.

-“I’m fine, I guess.”
“Just tired. Just came home from a treatment for my headache.”
“How are you?”

-“Bad.” I reply. “I feel bad. Really bad.”

-“Hm, that’s not good. Are you feeling sick?”

-“No, I just feel crap.” He doesn't answer so I decide to continue.
“I kissed my best friend.”

-“Oh, that sounds good!”

-“It made me think about Yuri once more.”

-“Like what?” He asks, as if he doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

-“Emotions.”

-“Ah, I get that.”

-“And the fact I’d like to know what exactly happened to him, why he started ignoring me.”
“You know why. You don’t need me to tell you.”
“I don’t even know why I started texting you. I guess it’s the drink.”

-“Oh, don’t drink too much, that isn’t good for you.” He replies, totally ignoring everything else I just said.

As if he cares what happens to me. Hell, I bet he’d be happy if something happened to me.

-“I know. I know I drank too much, so I’ve got that going for me. Whenever I’m drunk all my hidden emotions start coming back. That’s why I’m texting you right now.”

-His reply:“To be honest, I wanted to text you a while back, but I feared you would start on about Yuri again. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Ugh, are you kidding me. What’s wrong with this guy. I’m absently watching Monty Python and think about a way to respond to him.

-“But there is something I need to tell you.” He texts. “I promised to tell you whenever I heard from him again. I spoke to him New Year’s eve. He told me he was home for a day, he had spent weeks at the hospital. He told me he probably wouldn’t get back online for a few more weeks. He told me not to worry about him. He asked me not to tell you guys, But I promised to tell you if he came online again, that’s why I’m doing that right now. I don’t want to lie to you, you have the right to know about it.”

-“So he knows I contacted you again?”

-“Yeah, I told him.”

-“And he wasn’t like: I want to speak to him. I used to be his god damn boyfriend! How could he ignore me anyway? He read my emails, that I know. After I sent them, he deleted his email address and in order to delete an address you need to log in first. He saw them, I’m sure of it. Why did he ignore it? I asked him to forgive me for something I’m not even sure I did?!”

-"We didn’t talk about it. He was back for one day, I didn’t want to spoil his mood. By the way, I never told him you specifically contacted me, I told him our old group of friends wanted to speak to him again."

-"And he didn’t ask for me? He didn’t speak to me for more than a year and he didn’t ask how I’m doing?!”

-"When I mentioned his friends he immediately asked me to talk about that next time. In the past he regularly asked about you, but you and I weren’t on speaking terms, so I didn’t know how you were doing then. When we started talking to each other again, he was already in the hospital.”

-"You could’ve asked me, you know?” I respond.

-“I have to go for a little while now, my parents want to know how the treatment went.”

-"I just want to finish this part of my life. I want to leave it all behind. I want to know if it was Yuri when I thought I was talking to him. I’m drunk and I probably won’t remember a lot of what I’m texting right now, but this is the real me speaking. I’m always saying the truth when I drink, that’s something I know about myself. And I want to know the truth. The truth about Yuri, about you, about my emotions. Maybe you can tell me, I believe so, but even if you can’t, you’re the only way for me to ever reach Yuri again.”
“And if I’m not going to be able to talk to Yuri again, soon, then...”
“Never mint.
“Mind*”

-“I understand. I’m going to talk about you next time he gets online again. Maybe he’s able to talk to you personally, but I don’t know for sure. I really want to help you, Adam. I really hate what happened to you. But, if I’m going to tell you, it’ll get me in trouble. I don’t want that either. But I promise I’ll tell him about tonight when I speak to him again, okay?”
“What do you mean with never mind?”

-“Haha, I don’t know. The weird thing is, I know everything I’m doing right now. I literally write down everything I think etc. I always forget everything, so this chat is a way to record what happened. I don’t remember what I meant by saying: never mind.”
“I remember! I wanted to tell you my life isn’t worth living if I can’t talk to Yuri again. You know, that's an overdramatic statement, so stereotypically gay of me!”
“Wow, do you know the feeling when you disagree with yourself a minute after you said it?”

- “I do. But I promise I’ll tell you when I speak to him again. I’ll try to make sure you can find closure to all this. I mean it, after all what happened, I owe it to you.”

- "I just dropped a mug, I’m really drunk right now, haha. I know I’m very drunk and I still drink more. I’m wierd, hehe.”

- "So stop drinking.”

- "I want to talk to Yuri again. I really loved him, really. He helped me through a difficult moment in my life, made me bound with him and left me more broken than I was before.”

- "Truth be told, I wasn’t the best of friends to you either. I still feel fucking guilty about that. But I’m serious, be careful with the drink, it could backfire easily.” He texts.

- “I dunno. I know I’m acting very weird right now, but I’m happy I’m telling you. Tomorrow I’m gonna read what happened today. Woah, I read my own sentences and I notice the mistakes I made, but I don’t even correct them. There really is something wrong with me, haha. Tomorrow I’ll have a headache. Haha, don’t worry. I don’t blame you.”

- “What are you drinking, BTW?”

- “Beer, vodka, pastiche and bailey’s.”
“Whut. There is blood on my t-shirt. I didn’t even feel it. My finger is bleeding.”
“Oh, that’s gonna be headache indeed.”

- “How did you cut your finger?”

-“I broke the mug, remember? And I cleaned it up. I grabbed the pieces with my hand.”

There is a silent pause, neither of us are writing anything. My mind is wondering to many places, but mainly to Yuri. God, I need to know what happened. I can’t stand this anymore!

-"I’m sorry for acting weird. I’m not drunk very often. I kissed my best friend, but that’s not the solution.”

-“Don’t worry, you don’t have to say sorry. I don’t have the right to accept your sorry.”
“And kissing could be fun.”

-"Haha, I can’t.”

-“Why,” he asks.

-"It’s so weird. I know I’m drunk, but I can’t help it. I can’t even think straight.”
“And because I still think about Yuri all the time.”

We continue our conversation for awhile. My stomach is screaming out in pain, but I keep on drinking. At one point I decide to drink until I fall asleep and never wake up again. I even text Sam, though I don’t know why. I walk to the stairs, but before I can take one step I fall down. I lay on the ground, hurting and rolling around. My stomach aches. I run to the toilet. I can't tell if I vomited.

Slowly I make my way to bed. My stomach is still very painful, but I manage to fall asleep.