The Attic

Twelve

It all eventually escalated to John leaning on one shoulder, above Paul, playing with the possibly ex-bassist’s hair with his eyes unfocused.

            Then Paul suddenly felt himself snap out of his daze. “John,” he said suddenly, and hearing his name, the older one snapped to attention.

            “We…we can’t do this again,” Paul said, feeling slightly woozy still from the drugs but sure of the importance of what he was saying.

            Whether John was disappointed or not, Paul wasn’t sure; his face didn’t betray any form of emotion, but his hand slowly left his hair.

            “Why not?” John asked, a strange light in his eyes, and Paul felt his brain freeze and stutter. Shit, this was it. That was John’s leap of faith—but he couldn’t let him throw everything away. It might’ve worked ten years ago, but now too much had happened; everything had changed.

            “John, we’re too tangled in our own lives. There are the wives, and there are the kids—you have a boy to think about now—“

            “We’re not at home,” John insisted. “We’re out here in the middle of nowhere, we don’t need to worry about the kids—“

            “This is just what happened ten years ago,” Paul said, his voice barely a whisper and his throat closing off. “I can’t deal with just—going back to our normal lives—“

            He pushed John away and stood up, a strange masklike expression of pain on his face. John felt insides twist, and Sean’s face swam in front of him. Now there was an awkward, hurt silence that John had to patch up with some kind of segue.

            “Here, let’s make some dinner,” John said, hoping Paul would play along and pretend nothing had happened.

            “Alright,” Paul said, standing up and touching his own shoulder almost imperceptibly.

            Five minutes later John was taking turns staring at a big bag of rice and then at the stove, like he wasn’t quite sure what to do. Paul stepped into the kitchen, as he was setting the table, and saw John inexplicably frozen.

            Paul smirked despite himself, feeling the sadness dissipate at such a domestic scene. John jiggled one of the burners and nothing happened, except a small flame that died out almost immediately, but still made John jump back slightly.

            “You’ve no idea what to do,” Paul stated, trying very hard not to laugh.

            “No… it’s just, this is a different stove from the one I have,” John said, pushing his glasses further up his nose, and turning to Paul in utter helplessness.

            “Here, you can set the table,” Paul offered, and John gratefully went to the drawer to hunt for some forks.