Chapter Text
For as long as Eli Moskowitz could remember, he’d dreaded the thought of one day going to a high school dance.
It wasn’t the same kind of anxiety that filled him on regular school days, when he’d worry that he hadn’t put enough deodorant on, that he’d put too much deodorant on, that he was keeping a normal eye-contact-to-looking-away ratio with his peers, that they’d be too busy staring at his stupid, ugly lip to notice. The junior prom would contain all of that, plus loud, crappy music, an uncomfortable suit that inevitably wouldn’t fit him quite right, and being resigned to linger awkwardly next to the dance floor, since he obviously wouldn’t have a date. It sounded like an elaborate torture method designed specifically for Eli. At least with the Halloween dances, he could wear a costume and try to pretend that it wasn’t actually him there, that he could transform into someone else, someone cooler, more confident and likeable, just for the evening. He was never a particularly good liar though: he couldn’t fool himself into believing it entirely.
A lot had changed for Eli in the space between his initial discovery of high school dances and the present: he was kind of popular now (wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles), his self-esteem, albeit a bit rocky following his mohawk being cruelly snatched away from his scalp, was better, and his social circle had widened (can it even count as a social circle before, if the only person he interacted with was Demetri? Can one person constitute a circle?). By all accounts, he should be excited for the junior prom.
But, the world can never be that simple, can it?
There was another aspect to these stupid high school rituals that Eli had never been able to shake, that being the supposed earth-shattering significance they apparently hold over the rest of your life. All the most important stuff happens at school dances: the guy gets the girl, the bully gets the shit kicked out of him, the prom queen gets pig’s blood dumped on her (Eli didn’t count that one as particularly aspirational though). This one night was supposed to change his life, and he didn’t like that kind of pressure. Plus, if it didn’t change anything, it’d feel like he failed high school or something. It was all so dumb, he knew that, but still. Still.
He’d decided to just try and keep an open mind. After all, his suit actually looked decent on him, and even though he didn’t have a date, Demetri didn’t either, so they could hang out together, maybe dance to some songs. The fast ones, the ones that you can just bop along to and it’s technically “dancing” even though you’re putting in no skill or effort. He could still feel the remnants of a flush adorning his face from when his mother insisted on taking at least fifty photos of him so she could scrapbook them or post them on Facebook or whatever. He’d grown tired of arguing with her.
When he arrived at the dance, it didn’t look as special and magical as he had always expected it to be: it was just some hired-out hall in a hotel, bathed in neon light, the air swarming with some cheesy top 40 hit entwined with the indiscriminate chatter of the other kids. Nobody looked like they were having any startling revelations, or dramatically professing their love to anyone in front of the entire school. Maybe all the hype’s just for good movie endings, Eli thought, the hunch of his shoulders deflating as he let out a small sigh.
Still, he didn’t let himself fully relax. To be fair, he couldn’t remember the last time he did truly feel at ease, but it was a good quality for a fighter, to always have one’s guard up. At least, that was what he told himself. It was what he kept telling himself as he approached Demetri, who had of course arrived early so he could secure a good table, one drink in his hand and another untouched on the table; he told himself that the frantic beating of his heart was just adrenaline, a fight-or-flight reaction to being at the school dance he’d once swore to himself he’d never attend. It was just residue nerves from his previous life.
Demetri’s eyes lit up when he saw Eli, or perhaps it was just the flashing disco lights reflecting in them, creating some kind of optical illusion. He was easy to spot amongst the crowd, what with his disproportionately long limbs and his obnoxiously nerdy Pac-Man suit, and Eli couldn’t help but smile to himself, looking down and shaking his head as if he were an Etch-a-Sketch, as if the movement could erase the embarrassingly obvious elation he was experiencing. It was weird, how his mind would switch on him sometimes: this time last year, he would’ve hated Demetri so openly embracing his dorkiness, excitedly gesturing Eli to his side with one of his skinny arms flailing like those wacky tube men they have outside car dealerships, but now he found himself cherishing it. The fact that Demetri could still have it in him to smile at Eli like nothing had changed between them, it was kind of unbelievable. He was pretty sure he’d do anything to hold onto that look, to preserve it in a glass case like it’s a museum exhibit, make sure no grubby fingerprints or flash photography could get close to it because it’s a goddamn historical artefact to him and absolutely nothing is allowed to fuck it up.
Some generic pop song that Eli didn’t recognise was blaring from the speakers and the fruit punch was slightly too sweet but he kept drinking it anyway so his hands could have something to do. Demetri was wallowing over having to go stag to junior prom: Eli wasn’t fully paying attention, phasing in and out of his constant ramblings and occasionally commenting whenever there was enough room for a second voice (Yeah, it totally sucks that Yasmine couldn’t be here, dude.) but he still felt like he wasn’t entirely there, like he was a jigsaw puzzle with all the edge pieces arranged in a neat frame, but with no image to fill the empty space. Everything just felt kind of vague. So, he kept standing there, solo cup tilted by his lips, staring out into the jungle that was the dancefloor like he was watching a nature documentary, on the outside looking in.
He turned to look up at Demetri, backlit in bright pink and deep blue, practically glowing himself, as if he wasn’t aware of what a depressing pair they looked like, and found Demetri looking right back at him, a smirk adorning his features. “So, Moon, huh? You guys going to get back together, or…?”
Eli blinked owlishly: he hadn’t even realised he was staring at Moon, who was dancing gracefully in the centre of the room, of course, surrounded by her friends, laughing and moving like she was in complete control of herself. Eli had really liked being her boyfriend. He liked having a hot, cool girl care about him, to have her think he was hot and cool himself. He liked that she was kind and supportive and that she played guitar and was a good kisser. But it was all quite surface level: it didn’t run particularly deep for either of them. It wasn’t like they were soulmates or anything, like Miguel and Sam. He certainly wasn’t going to silence the crowd and make some big speech about his love for her like the end of some high school romcom. They were friends now, and it was comfortable. But Demetri was still wiggling his eyebrows like an idiot, and Eli knew that no protest he made would ever be able to convince him of anything outside of his assumptions. Stupid dick, thinking he knows everything, Eli tried to brush him off.
Then, a voice, a blonde head of hair parting the crowd like the Red Sea, and Demetri had gone all starry-eyed again.
Yasmine said she just flew in but Eli was willing to bet that she’d been back in the Valley for hours, probably, waiting for the right time to make the perfect dramatic entrance. She certainly didn’t look like she’d just gotten off a flight, with her shiny, immaculately curled hair and flawless makeup. She looked beautiful; Eli was human, he could see that. But, for some reason, when Demetri said it, with his eyes wide and sparkling like he was interacting with a goddess or something, he had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. It made him feel itchy and restless, like his skin was covered in bug bites, and once the feeling consumed him he couldn’t find a way to shake it off. Demetri scampered off to the dancefloor, hand-in-hand with Yasmine, and all his insides were twisted up like old laundry. All at once, he hated being there. He hated every suit, every dress, every shitty, bass-boosted song - even the punch he was sipping tasted wrong all of a sudden. Perhaps someone had spiked it, like how they always do in the movies; he wished that was true, because maybe alcohol could quell the pit that had formed in the depths of his stomach, the pit that everything inside him seemed to be gravitating towards.
The rest of the night was a blur. Demetri and Yasmine were joined at the hip the whole time, always holding hands and giggling and making out in public as if they had no respect for anyone around them. He stayed with them, though: Demetri was technically his “date”, and it was a marginal improvement from lingering by himself like a loser. He went to the afterparty, lingered there as well, until the whole night had been spent up and there was no more junior prom to experience. Apparently there was a fight by the pool; even though he’d usually jump at the chance to kick some ass, he wasn’t in the mood, plus he really didn’t want to see Robby again, not until the image of him standing over Eli, razor in hand, had at least somewhat grown foggy in his memory. He didn’t even bother to go and watch - he just stayed slumped on Stingray’s couch until Chris offered him a ride home.
He collapsed onto his bed, not even bothering to take his suit off, and focused on the cracks on his ceiling, like, if he tried hard enough, they could widen and display an entire cosmos or swallow him whole into some abyss. He wasn’t sure what timeline he’d prefer. As his eyes adjusted to the light, more cracks began to appear and his ears were still ringing from all the noise and he felt like crying, but he couldn’t pinpoint why. Eli felt a tear tiptoe across his cheek, cold and quiet, and he blinked all the others back. He felt ridiculous, crying in bed for no reason on prom night. When he exhaled, it didn’t bring him any relief: his breaths were shaky, like a Jenga tower one block away from collapse. Was that going to be his life, always just one wrong move away from collapse? He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. He squeezed his eyes shut so tight that he could see colours dancing on the inside of his eyelids. Phosphenes, his mind supplied him, Demetri once told me they were called phosphenes.
And even as he fell asleep, the creases in his forehead remained, the lone tear track glistening slightly in the moonlight. And when he fell asleep, he was still thinking about Demetri.