6Elle Me Dit || Mika
MOLLY
I’ve said,texted, and thought the phrase ‘JP’s ball’ way too many times today. I hold the little green sphere under my palm as I ride the Metro home from McGill, rolling it against my thigh like JP did when he sat on my bed. He apparently asked Ace to ask Stéphanie for my number, and I woke up to a text asking me to look for his ball under my bed. We’re supposed to meet up at some point today for him to get it back.
I can see how having this thing with you all the time would be soothing. All day, I’ve been driving myself insane replaying yesterday evening in my head, and it’s oddly comforting to work the tiny piece of rubber against the muscles of my leg.
I still can’t believe last night happened. I felt so awkward the whole way over to the bar, trailing at the back of the group and wondering if I should have just turned around and left. No one really seemed to notice me, but thanks to all the doubts that have some kind of permanent residency in my head, I couldn’t help thinking everyone secretly wanted me gone.
Things were better while the band was playing. I always feel the same way when I go to a show. I’ll stand in the crowd, arms wrapped tight around me as the jostling bodies press in from every side—too close, always too close, the smells of sweat and beer rolling off them and filling my nose and throat until I think I’m going to choke.
Then that first guitar chord rings out, that first snap of the drumstick, the inhale of the singer’s breath in the microphone just before they start the first song. Suddenly the crowd isn’t full of people waiting to judge me or trod me underfoot; it’s made up of people whose heart’s all ache and swell to the same tune as mine, people who have come together for just a few hours to forget and remember, to hurt and to heal, to seek and to find.
Music, like all art, transforms people. It lets us shed our masks, our disguises, all the layers we wrap ourselves up in to get through day to day life. It lets us be all the raw, ugly, and beautiful things underneath. It lets us be who we are.
At least for a little while. I want to hold onto that person so badly, to let the version of me that isn’t afraid of things claw her way out of all the worries and insecurities I keep her buried under, but I know what happens when you lay yourself on the line. I know how fragile we all really are, how even concrete hearts can crack, and I just can’t seem to forget it.
The metro car grinds to a halt, and I pocket JP’s ball, cringing at the phrase. I step out onto the platform at Berri-UQAM. It’s a big station where three metro lines connect, even more packed than usual at this time of day. I jog up the stairs to street level. Stéphanie and I’s place is still a ways away, but I usually just walk from here to avoid the hassle of switching lines.
One I’m out from underground and back in reception range, my phone pings with a few alerts. JP wants to know if I’ll be home in the next fifteen minutes. I shoot him a quick confirmation.
Stéphanie has already left for a night teaching classes at the dance studio, so I after I get home, I dock my phone in the kitchen speaker and start blasting the rest of my ‘Walking Home From School’ playlist through the apartment. The music is so loud I don’t hear the knocking on the front door until it intensifies into a constant thrum of heavy rapping, timed to the beat of the song.
I cut the music and lunge for the door. JP’s standing there in a straight leg jeans and an oversized, tribal-printed sweater that would make Ferris Bueller ooze with envy. He should look ridiculous. I mean, hedoeslook like he just stepped off the set of Macklemore’s ‘Thrift Shop’ video, but he’s got the sly smile and no-fucks-given attitude to pull the outfit off like Mr. Bueller himself.
I’ve always had a gigantic crush on Ferris Bueller.
“Sick beats,” he greets me. “Can’t go wrong with a little Mika.”
I feel the heat rise in my cheeks. “I swear it’s a guilty pleasure.”
I step back so JP can come inside. He walks right past me and flops down on the couch, landing in a ‘paint me like one of your French girls’ pose. I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing at the idea of drawing him lying like that in his groovy sweater.
“Mika has some bangers,” he assures me. He shifts himself into a sitting position. “Sorry. I think I landed on your backpack.”
I chuckle. “It’s okay.”
He pats the couch beside him, and I hesitate for a second before taking a seat. It’s not like there’s anywhere else to sit down in this cramped excuse for a living room. My whole body hums when I sit down with my leg just a few inches from his, and I blame it on my usual being-around-people nerves.
He clasps his hands together and speaks in a sing-song voice. “So, Molly, how was school?”
He says my name the same way Stéphanie does:Moe-LEE.
I find myself imitating his saccharine tone. “It was good, JP. I learned lots of things.”
We both chuckle this time. He leans into the arm of the couch.
“Really?” he asks.
I shrug. “I guess. Sociology isn’t always...thrilling.”
His eyebrows contract. “That’s your major? You don’t like it?”
“I mean...Ilikeit.” I trace the seam of the cushion with my finger. “I do like it, it’s just...”
My voice trails off when I realize how much I’ve been talking. There are moments with JP when I forget he’s in my favourite band. There are moments when I forget he’s still a stranger to me. He makes everything feel so easy, like our conversations are a piece of flawless machinery, instead of the clunky, rust-caked gears that refuse to turn when I talk to almost anyone else.
“Just what?” he prompts.
