Guilty for Wanting

I skated to go meet Thea for lunch. We always get lunch right after our classes end on mondays and wednesdays, finding some small taco joint in the valley or eating cafeteria take out

on the lawn. I passed the outside of the library where I usually find her curled up on a bench with her latest literary obsession and I honestly secretly enjoy listening to these ramblings. She does the same for me, listening I mean. The day my grandmother died the only thing I could think of on my way to school was what she would say. I felt guilty for wanting her sympathy but her comfort is something else. Thea hugged me in the same holding on for a second too long way and told me all of the things a kid hears when he loses someone. I told her about how my Dad died when I was young and how this campground upstate has become my family’s makeshift cemetery. I spent spring break there with this nagging feeling I should have asked her to come with me, even if I couldn’t.

This morning I told her to wait at the bus stop for me. Even though I did, I was still oddly surprised to find her there in her mother’s camel coat and converse with this week’s book in hand. I hesitated for a moment. I could turn around and make up some excuse later but I knew deep down I didn’t wanna do that. Today had to be the day I told her I had a girlfriend.

I tapped her on the shoulder in the gentlest way possible in an effort not to startle her, but I inevitably did. It was weird feeling threatening just for her eyes to meet mine and her lips to curl into that comfortable smile. The shuttle bus brake’s creaked by, shattering an otherwise perfect frame in time and we shuffled on. Thea pushed her big sunglasses over her windblown hair that trailed down her back and shoulders in dark waves. It was as if I had seen her eyes for the first time when the sunlight hit them - had they always been that green? I told her unknowingly about a show I was seeing in Echo Park that night with my older sister Sam called Young Jesus. We shared a pair of earbuds and she put her feet up on the seat with her hands clasped around them while listening to one of their albums. She laid her head on my shoulder the way she does after a hard test or long day and I let her, with the nagging pleasure that it would end soon once she knew about Julia.

Thea scrolled on instagram and looked up in excitement, eyes sparkling and all, at me to tell me her friend was opening for Young Jesus at the same venue tonight and that she was going to go and for a moment I was genuinely excited until I realized that once I told her it wouldn’t be the same. I smiled and told her I’d meet her there.

I got to stamped on my way into the Echo and was overwhelmed but welcomed by the amount of people all crowded in this dark room that smelt of cedar, smoke, and spilled beer. They had free pizza from the place next door out of a table that I saw when trying to scan the room for her. I don’t know how in the process of trying to tell her I was seeing someone I ended up going out with her.

Thea is driving from the opposite end of city so we decided to meet here. I brought my sister Sam in an effort to keep me straight who was already drunk, mingling with her friends. I was incessantly looking from my spot by the bar to the door, waiting for her arrival. Part of me wanted to abandon the whole confessional and instead enjoy whatever happened tonight. She would never cross paths would Julia and ultimately I would never be found out. Simple. One night of indulgence. No, no, no if Julia ever found out she would be crushed she already has trust

issues I can’t do that. I’ll stick to the original plan, stay for the set I came for, buy her a beer and leave with Sam right after.

I texted her saying I was here and I saw a blue light illuminate by the door revealing Thea. She was wearing the same black jeans from school earlier that day ,with her clunky mary janes, and a sparkly blue shirt I hadn’t seen before. She was also wearing or rather it was wearing her, this oversized carpenter jacket that made me wonder if it was originally hers.

I flagged her down and gave her the most platonic side hug I could but I gave in and turned towards her.

“You want a beer?”, I smiled trying to ask as casually as possible, realizing even that sounded like a line and this all looked like a date.

Thea blushed, noticing my nervousness, but let me off with, “Yeah, do they have Stellas?”

I held up my bottle and said, “ What do you think i’m drinking?” laughing. Of course we would have the same taste in beer. Sam turned a corner and boomeranged back to me, full of questions about Thea when I nudged her and she realized Thea was only a foot away.

“Oh my gosh hi! I’ve heard so much about you! How are you love? You look so cute!” Sam gushed rather genuinely, I can’t recall the last time my sister clicked so well with another girl. Sam and Thea chatted while I bought the beer. We all kind of showed up late and the opening band that she came for was about to go on and I desperately needed a cigarette so I took the new best friends to the back patio. I thought if I could get a moment alone with her maybe this would be the time to tell her but Sam wouldn’t leave us alone. She got recognized by other people and split off for a second, leaving Thea with me.

“I have something I gotta talk to you about”, I managed to utter with some confidence. “Mhm what - you’ve got a secret?” , Thea teased with a cigarette wedged between her pursued lips motioning for a lighter.

As I bent closer to light it I started up again, “I have - “hey Rose Dorn is on in five hurry up!” Sam interrupted coming from across the patio.

Fuck.

Thea sensed something was up and said “Secrets don’t make friends” in a mocking sassy manner.

She’s right they don’t, they make cheaters I mused silently.

“Well that’s true Thea but I just think that well uhm I don’t know if” , I said just as Sam made her way through the crowd back to us.

“Nevermind I’ll be right back” I said absent mindedly, grazing her lower back to get past and make my way to the bar. The girls made their way back inside the venue to get to the stage, I defeatedly sipped a second beer with another slice of free vegan shmeegan pizza. I finished and looked for two short, ginger and brown haired girls in the crowd.

 When I found Thea and Sam the first act was on and they were great. Thea said she had met the girl at a benefit gallery she had thrown a couple months earlier. The lead singer had bleached platinum blonde hair with bangs and wore a long floral dress that matched her Jaguar. She looked as if someone stretched Courtney Love. In all fairness her voice was good and their set was cool with these colorful projected graphics that turned Thea different colors with each changing slide on her pale skin. The last song in their set was called “Genius” and she did the little sway to this heroin lullaby, each time just barely brushing my hand. She did it so effortlessly and seemingly unknowingly that I couldn’t tell if it was intentional. I swayed back and our arms brushed again. I caught myself smiling. Maybe this was a date. Maybe I had moved on, maybe Julia and I were growing apart. I don’t know. This tingling electricity was a common sensation with Thea, I had one every time I saw her. The way I hold her feet up when she reaches across from her seat to prop her feet on my knee under the table at our diner up the street. That time she picked a flower and shoved in the fold on my beanie as if it was a lapel. How we hug after I walk her to class and try to slap on some friendly term to brush off the feelings we just exchanged there. And yet she never seemed affected. She floated through moments like these, not oblivious, but with a carefree infectious perspective that make you feel like you could meet her in this version of reality she inhabits. Thea turned and looked at me, the song was ending and Young Jesus was coming on next. In another life or parallel universe I kissed her then. I really did. There are infinite almosts between us and infinite maybes and in that moment I knew what we had was like a shooting star that I was watching leave my life just as it had entered it.

I looked at Thea with more intensity than I intended and she returned it. We reached an understanding. An emotional stalemate. Everything was quiet. Sam made eye contact with me and it was apparent she dug into her secret stash flask and usurped its offerings.

Young Jesus came on and played perhaps the most emotional set I had ever heard of theirs. The front man screamed cathartically and lost his mind and I nearly shed a tear. Thea noticed as if she could sense it and whized around and asked, “James you ok?” half serious half bedside manners.

“Oh yeah, totally, just some smoke got in my eye.” I attempted lamely.

The lead singer continued in his exorcist ritual, I wonder who hurt him. Thea even hugged him after the show, and he kept saying thank you repeatedly. That was the kind of girl she was. If she saw someone going through it she was there for them. I admired that she never listened to any social ques or tried to act cool and reserved. She was just herself always.

I tried to leave as soon as the last song ended. I needed to go home and think things over, if I was going to end my relationship with Julia I needed to be sure. I grabbed Sam and told Thea I’d see her on monday after walking her to her car. She had a little glimmer in her eye as I left her which I couldn’t see clearly until the headlights of another car from across the lot illuminated her slightly glazed eyes, she knew something.

I got in the car with Sam who was slouched and spilled all over the front seat with a mop of red hair between her and the door. As I got on the 101 she started to sober up.

“ I don’t know what I’m going to do Sam - like fuck I really like her you know that but I can’t hurt Julia but like you met her and you can see what I mean now right? Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t tell her maybe I wasn’t meant to tell her. If I just get my shit sorted out I’ll figure out something. I don't know” I stammered, bemused and at a loss.

A couple drunk hiccups and a giggle was followed by the sentence, “I told her” from Sam’s mouth that sent shots through my nerves.