Chapter 4 – “Video Games” - Lana Del Rey #2
He laughs, stepping up to the window so I can see his face more clearly. August is handsome in a magical kind of way. His features don’t look like they belong to real people, like they should instead be reserved for celebrities and models we can convince ourselves don’t actually exist.
His boyish smile shines even in the dark, emerald eyes sparkling behind his glasses. “Do you want to go somewhere? Get out of the house for a bit?”
I was tired a few moments ago, but fresh air against my cheeks and the sound of my best friend’s voice hits like a shot of espresso. I’m wired and ready to go anywhere with him.
“Sure, let’s go.” I pull back inside my room, running to my closet to swap my heels for Converse before sneaking back over to my window and reaching my hand out for August to grab.
“You don’t want to change first?” he asks.
“Someone should see me in this dress, Augustus.”
He chuckles. “Glad it’s me.”
I smile as he pulls me through the window, and I straddle one leg over the sill.
August’s hands are warm and steady when they grab my waist, lifting me out and helping me to the ground.
I shut my window almost all the way, leaving it cracked so I can get back in later tonight, before August and I quietly tiptoe through my backyard and out the side gate onto Oceanside Avenue.
“Where are we going?” I ask as he takes a sharp left, headed up toward the top of the cliff.
“I found a spot a few weeks back that I haven’t had the chance to show you yet.”
I follow him to the top of our street. There’s an empty lot at the end of the cul-de-sac, thick with blackberry bushes.
August continues through the gravel of the lot, stopping just in front of the brush.
“We have to get through the blackberries. I started to tear them out,” he says, pointing to a small clearing I can hardly make out in the darkness, “but be careful.”
When he reaches back for my hand, I take it without a word, allowing him to lead me through. He stomps down on large branches so I can step over them without snagging my dress or scratching my ankles before tearing through thickets that stick out in the trail he created.
“I promise, it’s worth it,” he whispers.
“I trust you.”
Finally, the sky opens above me as we pass through the bushes, and a vast cliffside appears.
The soft green grass stretches endlessly beyond us, stopped only by the steep rocks that plummet into the ocean below.
In the distance, the horizon goes on forever, late-night tides rocking gently beneath the glowing light of the crescent moon.
“Augustus,” I gasp, spinning around to face him as I cover my mouth with my hand. “This is insane. How did you find this?”
He shrugs, hands in his pockets as he drops his head with a coy smile.
Passing me, he strolls through the field of grass as he calls over his shoulder, “I was on a run one morning on that back road leading to the power plant. I noticed this field on the other side of the fence and realized there had to be a way to get to it from the neighborhood. It was likely just blocked by houses, so my next few runs, I went through the neighborhood instead and looked around until I found a way in.”
“This is beautiful.” I press on my heels, slipping out of each shoe before jogging up behind him. Looping my arm through his, I ask, “What have you been doing out here?”
“During the day, I come out here and draw sometimes. Or read.” He lifts his head, and I follow his gaze toward the sky. “At night, I look at the stars.”
All the air whooshes from my lungs as I take in the sheer number of stars sparkling above our heads.
“This cliff is high enough above the town that they’re much clearer out here.”
The sky is a never-ending vastness of darkness, brightened only by the sprinkling of sparkles across its canvas, the moon its centerpiece on the horizon. I let go of August, taking a few steps forward and turning in place as I absorb as much of it as I can.
It’s calming somehow. I’ve always liked night more than day.
I like the cover of darkness and the soft light of lamps and candles.
I love the feeling of finishing an incredible book and looking at the clock to find it’s three a.m., and you don’t even care because you were lost inside another world where time is of no consequence.
I like the way the world feels quiet and peaceful, and being awake in the midst of that is almost like a secret.
I love the night sky—you can’t stare directly into the sun, but you can stare at the stars. You can study them as long and as intently as you want without fear they’ll burn you.
“I’m sorry Zach stood you up,” August says quietly, snapping me from my thoughts. “Leo was yelling at him in our group message, and when I realized what happened, I snuck out.”
I drop my head and meet his gaze, finding some unreadable expression on his face. I’m normally good at reading him—I always know what’s going through his mind—but every once in a while, he catches me by surprise when he puts his guard up.
“Thank you.”
I watch his eyes track my body, starting at my lips, down to my feet, and back up again. “You look beautiful, Elena, and it’s his loss to have missed it.”
My throat swells, my earlier emotions and the sting of rejection rising once more. “I felt beautiful,” I say, swallowing. “I felt…feminine, and you know that’s a rare feeling for me.”
He pulls his hands from his pockets and takes a step closer. “What were you looking forward to most?”
“Being pretty for once.” I snort. “And the dancing. Slow dancing.”
August nods, as if expecting that answer. He’s quiet for a moment. His hand rises to cup the back of his neck as he takes a deep breath. Shaking his head slightly, he finally holds that arm out to me. “Do you want to dance now? At least get one out of that dress?”
The most genuine smile I’ve mustered all day creeps onto my lips. Nobody else gets me the way August gets me. I’d never ask a boy to dance. There is no one else I’d even admit those thoughts to.
About two years ago, I settled into this alternative, dark-girl persona.
I like weird books I’m way too young to read, and I don’t like having sleepovers.
I don’t play sports, and I hate concerts because they’re too loud and crowded.
I don’t do great in social situations, and I force myself not to care about appearances because I’m afraid if I did, I wouldn’t hold a candle to other girls.
My favorite color genuinely is black—it’s the only color I think elevates all others, but when I explain that, I get accused of trying too hard to be different .
Friends —and I use the word lightly—I’ve had in the past told me I was trying too hard to not be like other girls , and I never understood it.
I want to be like other girls. I don’t know how, and nobody will teach me.
I don’t want my only friends to be my fucking brothers, but I can’t make myself try to connect with anyone else.
Somehow, rejection from female friendships hurts worse than rejection from boys.
It’s like…I’m supposed to fit in with girls.
I’m supposed to find solidarity and compatibility and support in them, but I’m too awkward and too dark and too…
whatever the hell makes me so strange. Being unable to find my place in those spaces is a sharper sting than accusing a boy of being too stupid to keep up with me.
I’m too stubborn to conform, and despite it all, I like who I am. I know there are other girls out there who feel the way I do—I can even see it in some of the ones I go to school with— but trying to express that feels like an obstacle I’m not willing to overcome.
So, I stick to myself, to my brothers, because they’ll always accept me.
I let myself pine after Zach because I think he accepts me too, and August is my best friend because he accepts me most of all.
He sees me deeper than the rest of them.
He reads the pages of my soul that seem to be written in a language no one else understands.
Nobody else would ever ask me to dance because they can’t imagine me wanting to, but Augustus Hayes hears the words I can never seem to say.
So I take his hand. “I do want to dance.”
He smiles, pulling his phone out of his pocket with his free arm and, because he truly knows me better than anyone, he plays a Lana Del Rey song before dropping it onto the ground behind us.
With the hand holding mine, he tugs me against him, snaking the other around my waist and resting it on my lower back.
He opens his palm, and I let my fingers fall into the spaces between his.
August leads, moving us in circles as the slow, deep sounds of a harp and piano float around us. “You do look beautiful, Elena. All the time, but I’m sorry the whole world didn’t get to see you tonight.”
Something erupts in my chest at that, at the intense focus of his gaze clashing against my own. His eyes are so green, it feels like I’m staring directly into the depths of a gemstone. Stars dot the sky above his head, but they’re nowhere near as bright as his eyes.
My heart rate drums in my chest, like it’s part of the song playing around us.
I don’t know what it means.
“I guess you’re just the lucky one.” I sigh, dropping my head against his chest, unable to face him any longer. His heart is thundering too, but the steady sound of it calms me.
August is warm and solid. He feels like safety, like the grass beneath my bare feet, soft and grounding. His hand at my back is comfort, like being wrapped in a blanket on a cold night, the peaceful heaviness of it. I could stay right here forever and I’d be okay.
It’s different from when Zach touches me in the same place. Zach’s touch is scorching. It’s heat and thrill. It feels like something that doesn’t belong to me, but I took it anyway—stolen and fleeting and desperate.
Zach feels like staring into the sun, but August feels like gazing at the stars.
“Why’d you come find me, Augustus? Why’d you ask me to dance?” I’m terrified of his response, but fluttering with anticipation for it too. This moment feels deeper than anything we’ve ever experienced, and I don’t know what it means. I don’t know if I want to, but I do know I don’t want it to end.
He’s quiet for far too long, so I lift my head and find him staring down at me. Something wars within his eyes, and just as I find myself lost inside them again, he whispers, “Because you’re my best friend.”
I smile, nodding before falling back into his chest. Besides the music playing, we’re quiet. I match my breathing to the rhythm of his heart as we sway atop the coastal knoll, the moon and stars our audience.
August is the only real friend I’ve ever had, and I have nothing to compare this kind of connection to, so I tell myself that’s the reason this moment—his touch—feels the way it does.
Friendship. That’s all it is.