BLOOM • awsten knight

70

MARCH 2019

Elle's first single from her new EP does better than she expects it to; it seems to blow up on Twitter, and her notifications are going crazier than they did the first time around.

The music video does well, too, and Jawn gets the praise he deserves for it.

Awsten sits on the bus, sinking into the couch, as he opens his messages; he scrolls down to Elle's emoji, and clicks on it.

The last text on the chat is from over six months ago now; his stomach churns as his thumbs hover over the keyboard, but eventually, he locks his phone, and places it face down beside him, with a sigh.

He folds his arms across his chest, his eyebrows dipped together as his leg bounces.

He hasn't listened to the song, but he thinks he remembers which one it is.

Awsten remembers her picking at the strings on his guitar in his bedroom in Houston, when she came up with the melody for it.

He remembers that it was about Alex - how he was texting her, and attempting to reminisce.  He remembers how she didn't tell him about it all day, but he still knew something was wrong, and how she didn't quite understand how he could see right through her.

He wonders, at what point after that day, did he somehow lose the ability to read every emotion on her face; sure, he still knew her, and he knew her mannerisms - but his own feelings seemed to fog up his judgement, leaving a mostly translucent view of her, which soon turned completely opaque.

He wonders if he can even read her at all anymore.

People online seem to be bothered about Jawn working for both of them; it doesn't bother Awsten at all, in fact, he's glad that the dumb shit he's done, hasn't affected their friendship.

Jawn has spoken to him about it a couple of times; he keeps the two of them separate now, filing everything for each of them in two different parts of his mind, since Awsten prefers to mostly steer away from the topic of Elle.

Awsten now has a collaborative song coming out in a couple of days; it wasn't planned to be released so close to Elle's single, but it's just the way that it's ended up happening.

He's proud of the song, and it sounds different to anything that he's ever done before; he's never really released a collaboration like this before either, but he knows that people have wanted it.

Besides, it's the first song being properly released that's about Elle.

He's not counting Glitter Times, because it was barely half the song, and got taken down quickly by the label; but he's sure there's recordings of it, circling the internet somewhere.

Maybe Elle won't know that it's about her, because maybe she won't remember enough to pick up on the references that he's mentioned - or maybe, she won't even listen to it.

Awsten doesn't know what he would prefer to happen; would she be angry if she listened and found out that it was about her? Or would she assume it was about someone else?

//

Elle is busy playing shows every other night, much the same as Awsten, but on opposite sides of the country; and the only reason that she ends up on social media is posting and promoting what she's doing.