Instant combustion

I was leaning on the washing machine. The one next to my appartment, there for the tenants to use. I was leaning on it because it was shaking so bad I thought it would just go through the wall and end up in the kitchen.

-Do you think it washes better when you hold it like that?

My heart stops. I’m 16. Everything that’s not on purpose is an embarassement.

-Ahhhh, well, no, not really, it’s just really noisy you know?
-Sure!

He’s smiling, turning away from me, facing his door, unlocks it, goes in. Instant combustion. I was on fire, from the embarassement of course. But mostly from seeing him. My mother had told me about him. Our appartment doors were facing each other. The new neighbor. Cute was the word she used. I didn’t have any words. I was in love. 10 seconds, a flushed face.

The following day I found a sheet music for Wrapped around your fingers lying on the floor in the hallway. It could only belong to him, since we were the only two tennants in the basement. I almost knocked, but chickened out and left it stuck in the door knob.

Later, in the evening we crossed each other. I was on my way in, him on his way out. Smile again. Flushed again.

-Thanks for the sheet, I was looking all over for it.
-OhitsnothingIfigureditwasyoursyouknowitwasobviousandIdidnt
wanttobotheryousoIleftitthere.

One big word, shooting out of my mouth at 100kmh, while looking at my shoes.

-Well, thanks anyway!
-Ok. While trying to dissapear so I don’t start to giggle or talk again.

A week or so later. I invite a few girlfriends over, we drop acid and shoot the shit. Then I say my neighbor is really cute. And all this and all that and I go to the bathroom and when I come back to the living room, the door is opened, and two of my friends are chatting up my neighbor… Shittttttt. But he’s cool, invites us over for a beer. He has a couple of his friends there too, getting ready to go out to the club. So we chat and I can see the guys are having fun with us, teasing us, thinking they’re so smart since they’re in their mid twenties and we’re in our mid teens. But Neighbor is looking at me more and more, and I can’t feel that damn acid kicking in at all. Can’t feel much, except the fire.

The guys leave, we go back to my place. Day after, I walk out the appartment. He probably heard me, cause he opens his door and invites me in. The same guys are there, and one of them is getting ready to do a tattoo on Neighbor. So we pick a design, have a few beers, and I’m in love. In love, at 16, with a 24 year old man. We exchanged numbers.

I couldn’t wait. I had to call. A couple of nights later. I asked him if I could come over to tape Pink Floyd’s the Final Cut that a friend lent me. It was mine, I was lying. Of cours Neighbor says, come on over. He knew. He knew why I was calling, knew what was going to happen. But we played innocent for a while. For about five minutes.

Time line: A month of fucking. A breakup that wasn’t one since we were not going out, since I was too young, since he didn’t love me. Three months of me crying, spying on the girls that were coming and going, of listening to the clickclicks of their high heels shoes walking from his living room to his bed room. Six months of more fucking. A breakup that wasn’t one since we were not going out, since he didn’t love me, since I couln’t take it anymore because I did. A month of silence. A phone call. A diner. Ninteen years of life together.