When we were 16, Kattar and I both decided to burn CDs of our top twenty favorite songs and spent an evening razzing literally every artist the other chose.
“Boo. Are you allergic to music made in this century?”
“Are you allergic to musicians that can actually sing?”
I snatched the radio out of his lap in the middle of one particularly obnoxious emo or pop-punk song, and turned the sound down to an inaudible mutter, hiding the radio under my shirt.
“Give it back.”
“Not on your life. How can you listen to this stuff? It sounds like bad feelings.”
“That’s kind of the point. Music is about expressing how you feel.”
“What kind of feeling exactly is a “Chemical Romance?”
“I don’t know… hormones?”
“That is so gross.”
…
“Just give it back.”
“Never.”
He hesitates.
I wonder how many signs there were that I missed. How many times he showed in subtle ways that he liked me - and I didn’t even notice them - too busy believing that nobody did - that nobody ever would.
I wonder how many times I hurt him without even realizing it.
“I have one more stupid joke.”
“Oh, shut up.”
“I have to be Frank with you, “The Four Seasons” are the worst band I’ve ever heard.”
“How can you even say that? You’re listening to people MOANING about CANCER, right now.”
“Every song you listen to is just some guy gushing about how beautiful somebody is. How can you listen to stuff like that?”
“Um, because it’s nice to imagine what it’s like to have people say nice things about you - to have someone care enough to want people to know how much they love you-”
I wonder what that’s like…
“-Maybe you don’t care because you’re a boy. You guys are all like ‘death and misery, rock and roll…’”
“Guys DO like to hear nice things about themselves too sometimes…”
“Is that so? Well, fortunately for you, you have fifty percent of the school at your disposal. Why don’t you ask some of the cheerleaders to write you a ballad?”
…
Maybe I sort of knew.
