The Others - 27. Chapter 27: The party

I park my bike in front of the house and scan the street for a car I might recognise. Stupid, of course, as I don't know what car my dad drives. He was going to be here at 5PM, he promised. He can't back out, he knows that, I'll tell everyone about his secret. Shit, I really hope he didn't back out, that'd mean I don't have the beer I promised. I see Marc on his bike, riding towards me. I notice how he's looking for the beer. He looks disappointed.

"Where's the beer man!"

"Woah, that sounds accusing," I say and try to stay calm. "I fixed myself a ride for the beer, can't take it with me on my bike of course."

"Ah, that's why you're outside?" "Yeah, it'll be here any minute. You can go inside and help the others, I'll manage here on my own."

"You just want to enjoy the sun while we do the hard work," he laughs, parks his bike and walks inside.

At the same moment as he disappears into the house, a car appears in the street. It drives up to me and stops. My dad has a frustrated look on his face as he gets out of the car. "You're the kid who made me buy you..." he starts saying, then he takes a good look at me. The frustration turns to confusion, "Well, I be damned. I should've known it was you."

"Hi dad."

"You befriended Codey," he says. "To get to me?"

I nod.

He walks around the car and opens the passenger door. "Get in," he orders.

Woah, I'm in control. "Did you get the beer?"

"Get in, I want to talk."

I adopt a sad expression. "Well, that's unfortunate, I've been very talkative for the last six years, but lately decided to stop talking."

"I wanted to talk as well. It was your mother who didn't."

I laugh. "Let's not start accusing, I'm just a child. I'm not used to having parents who fight with each other." I let out another laugh. "It would've been very weird if I was, imagine my mom fighting with herself."

"Matt... Adam..." he falls silent. "You changed your name? For fuck sake, Adam, what is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?" I feel the blood rushing to my head. "What's wrong with me?! How dare you ask me that! Please, have a talk with Freud while I drink all your beer." I start counting to ten, but don't reach three before I shout: "And now get the hell out of my sight!"

Without saying a word my dad takes the beer out of his car and places it in front of me. Marc peeks through the door, he probably heard me yelling. He takes a look at my father and notices his defeated look. But he's smart enough to not ask anything. My father gets another crate of beer and places it on top of the other two. Seth comes outside and joins us, but doesn't say a thing either.

My dad gets back in his car and looks me straight in the eyes. "I don't know what your mom told you about me, but I'm sure it's not true." I started to relax again. Very carefully I say: "At least she decided it was better to invent something than say nothing at all." And with that, he leaves. Before anyone could ask what that was about, I say: "I don't want to talk about it." I grab a crate of beer and walk inside.

How did I manage to become part of these party goers? I don’t like parties, yet here I am carrying crates of beer inside, making sure they are cold for when the guests arrive. I help Brian with setting up the light show and even talk to Todd a while. For some reason we’re supposed to be friends now, as if we didn’t clash all the time last year. Well, every time I was at school, I mean. While I was doing the hard work, Sam was watching me from a distance. Since things started happening between us, we never got together as a group anymore, so I never realised how uncomfortable it would feel to have her watching me.

I wonder, do the others know about it? Do they know how I let her down, how I used her? It’s Sam we’re talking about; of course they know. Hah, what does Todd think about me now?

At half past six we order some pizzas and try to eat them before the guests start to arrive. Marc is trying to be the host, along with Brian, as because they planned the party together. They even get given presents, which I think is pretty weird, it’s not their birthday. And we helped with planning the party too!

My bag with my clothes, toothbrush and headphones is still in the hallway, I can see it, so I walk over there to take it upstairs. Guests aren’t allowed to go upstairs, so the bag will be safe there. I can’t have people messing with it now, that’d mean I have to go back home tomorrow to get new supplies. I won’t do that, if I went home before I really left, I would probably stay. I’m so close to ignoring my real desires and staying home. I don’t want that!

When I get downstairs again, Sam is waiting for me. “Are you enjoying the party?” she asks.

“Yeah! I like it.”

“You don’t.”

I raise a brow. “What do you mean?”

“You are walking around without any purpose, moving your bag for a reason only god knows. You aren't talking at all… They are your friends here, Adam!”

I smile. “I don’t need friends.”

“You made that pretty clear.” She looks sad, of course she does. “Why didn’t you talk to me last week? I saw you at school, I kinda expected you to tell me you wanted to talk. To meet. I don’t know. I missed you.”

I can’t just tell her: I totally forgot you existed. It’s the truth, but that’ll hurt her feelings. Am I weird for not caring about others? I don’t want to be anyones friend, but still I don’t want to hurt them either. Does that mean I'm not a normal person? “I was busy. Sorry.” She moves her fist to my head and for a split second I want to duck away. I don’t, if she wants to hit me, I probably earned it. She gently knocks on my head and says: “I wish I could take a look inside of there.”

I laugh, it’s a bitter laugh. “No, you don’t.”

She turns serious again. “You know, Adam. You’re mysterious, you’re maybe a little weird, but you’re adorable as well. I told you I like you, but you never asked why.”

“Is there a ‘why’ to liking someone?” I ask, honestly confused.

“Of course there is. I like you because I can see you’re a good person. You care about others, even though you try to convince yourself you do not. You’d rather hurt yourself than hurt others. That’s an ability I can be jealous of.”

The door of the hall opens and Seth walks in, but seeing us immediately turns around. “I hurt enough people.” Please leave me alone, Sam. Walk away! Stop saying nice things about me.

“But you didn’t intend to. Adam, people sometimes hurt others, and some people do that intentionally.”

To avoid kissing her again, even when I don’t want to, I turn around. I already drank some beers and I notice I’m falling for her compliments. Could that be the reason I kissed her? Maybe I don’t love her, but the things she says to me? Damn, if she continues this, I might even end up in bed with her. I don’t want that!

I think about Codey. I wanted to talk to him before I left, but I couldn’t for the same reason I didn’t talk to Sam. I like them, I like everyone, but I don’t want to. It’s almost as if karma forces me to love the people around me. “Let’s go back to the party. The others are probably wondering where we are.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

We go back into the living room and I notice how Seth looks at us. He probably wonders if something happened between us. I know he likes Sam, he told me that much when he thought he was talking to a stranger. I even recommended that he to talk to her. I want them to get together, I wish them both the best. They’d be happy! I walk over to him, just as some popular song comes on and everyone starts dancing. I already noticed he never dances, just like me, so I figured I could talk to him quietly now. Maybe I can convince him to talk to her tonight.

He emailed something about changing his life? What did he mean? You know, it feels weird. After those long evenings talking to him, in some way I feel connected to him. I know what keeps him busy, I know him better than the others know him, but still it’s kind of like that’s another me. Maybe after disconnecting the blogger in me from myself, they became separate persons? That’s weird, isn’t it? “Hey Seth!” I greet him while thinking: here I am again, after saying goodbye to him.

He didn’t see me approach him, apparently, because he looks startled. “Hey man.”

“So, are you enjoying the party?”

“Look at my smile,” he says and smiles at me. Damn, that’s a pretty cute smile, I got to admit! “That’s how much I enjoy it.”

I said I felt disconnected from the blogger, as if two different people talked to him, but I think he feels the same way. To me at least, because he doesn’t know I’m the anonymous blogger, of course. Right now I can see Seth and I talk to the person he deliberately wants to show the outside world. When chatting with him, however, I can’t see him, I don’t see his smile, but he shows me another him. So it’s like the friendship I have with him takes place on four different levels, if that makes any sense. I know his online profile as Adam and as the blogger and I know the real him as both Adam and the blogger. Never mind, this probably makes no sense. Well, I feel like I know him four times and he probably is worth knowing that much.

“I saw you looking at Sam,” I start and he looks confused. “You like her, don’t you?”

It takes him a few seconds to think of an answer. “I don’t know. You like her, right?”

I laugh. “No, don’t worry. She is all yours.” I glance over at Sam and notice how she’s enjoying the party. I’m jealous, I wish I could enjoy parties like she does. “I think she likes you too. You should probably take a shot.”

“Thanks,” he says absently, his mind obviously not on our world anymore. We just sit there, silent. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I pull it out to see who texted me. Probably mom, I think, only to be proven wrong by the display. It’s Codey.

“Hey,” the text says. “I have a question… Do you know why my dad just told me to never talk to you again? I’m confused, what happened?”

Damn, what is dad doing? What game does he think he’s playing? I can just tell Codey about my him and I would win this fight even before it really started. “I’m at a party now, I’ll reply in about an hour or so,” I text back. I need to think of a good answer. I need to make sure I play this game right, even though I can’t lose much, my life is about to end tomorrow.

“You read the blogs of the anonymous blogger, right?” Seth asks.

“Sometimes,” I try to sound indifferent.

“Did you read the most recent one? About choosing a river?”

Hmm, this could get interesting. “As a matter of fact, I did. Yeah. Why?”

“What did you think of it? What did he mean?”

“I don’t know. It sounded like he is scared of life.”

He looks at me, too deep into my eyes I think. It feels like he looks right into my soul. I suddenly feel uncomfortable. Does he know I’m the blogger? God, I hate this feeling. There isn’t anything worse than feeling like someone knows you’re lying. It itches throughout my whole body. He can’t know it! No one knows it. “He is smart, that’s something everyone agrees on. He probably realises more things about the world and about life than we do. If someone like him is scared of life, what does that tell us about it?”

“Seth, this is a party, let’s enjoy.” I smile but it only makes me realise my smile is so much different from his.

“Well, I’m trying. But it made me realise something, life is short. I’m afraid that one day I will realise why the blogger was scared and after that, I can never enjoy it. I’m afraid of that.”

Okay, here is comes. Seth is about to change his life, that’s what he said in his email.

“I’m so nervous right now,” he admits.

“You can do it, just walk up to her and tell her,” I encourage him.

He sighs. “That’s not what I mean,” he says. “I don’t like Sam, I like you.”

Wait. What? Huh? Did I hear that right? How can I not have seen that? This is so weird, he called me smart but I didn’t even realise what he was getting at. What do I say now? I haven’t had time to think if I like him too… Of course I do, but do I like him enough that I can say it out loud? Can I get this emotion out of its prison? He doesn’t understand how I work, why does he come straight out and say he likes me? I know I told him to, but I never expected him to like me! He doesn’t know how I work! Ow damn, I’m panicking, aren’t I?

I need time to consider whether or not I want to show a piece of myself. I’m this shattered human and the only way to hide that is to only show the outside world one piece at a time, but the only way to keep the other pieces out of sight is to hide them. Deep inside of me is a prison of hidden pieces. I only let them out while writing. What should I do now? Waaaah.

“I’m sorry. I knew you didn’t really like me, but I got to the point where not telling you hurts even more than the disappointment of being rejected.”

“I’m not rejecting you,” I say before I could really think about it. “I’m just confused.”

“I knew you liked Sam, she told me about you two. She told me you admitted you liked her, so she told me how I couldn't hurt myself by telling you. You could never be gay, I knew that already! I just want you to not hate me. I couldn’t keep this to myself anymore. It hurts. Ow god, I’m so sorry.”

He keeps rambling, I’m still confused and silent. I look at him, seeing the tears in his eyes. Damn, I wish I could kiss him right now, right here.

“Wait, Sam told you I’m not gay?”

“Of course she did. She wanted to keep me from doing something as stupid as this. Ow, I hate myself. Probably the beer. Adam, can you please forget about all this?”

Argh, he is about to cry. I can’t do this. I can’t hurt him by not responding at all. It hurts me to see him being this hurt, you know? And I do like him, but I never considered that. Or whatever. I don’t know, I’m confused. What now?

“I have to go,” he says and walks away. I notice Sam saw this all happening, even though she couldn’t have heard anything. The music is too loud, even I had problems understanding everything he said, and I was right next to him. She walks towards me, but reconsiders and keeps her distance. Seth has grabbed his jacket and is walking outside.

Sam told him I wasn’t gay? But she knew I was? Why would she do that? I look at her, I look her straight in the eyes. What the hell… She did it on purpose? She didn't want us to know about each other, even though she knew we were both gay. Damn it!

Or did she want to protect me? She knows I’m a weirdo, so maybe she wanted to protect Seth?

Why am I even doing this to myself. Fuck it. Fuck the whole world, I’m leaving tomorrow, so I don’t care. I get up, give Sam an angry look and follow Seth outside. “Wait!” I call out to him. “Seth, wait please!”

He stops walking and turns around. “I’m sorry man, I didn’t mean to. Sam already warned me. I’m sorry, Adam.”

“Wait, please wait, I want to tell you something. But I’ve got to send a text message real quick.”

He looks confused, but he waits. So I send the following message: “Codey, I can't talk to you about this over the phone. I want to come over, if that’s okay with you?”

I walk up to Seth. “I don’t know why Sam said the things she said,” I say and I kiss him.