OPACITY

Being single is really nothing like they make it out to be in the movies, I can guarantee that. It's a routine more than anything else, in my opinion and experience, it's working late into the nights and then coming home to an empty penthouse and a Burmese stroking against your straight-leg pants, and then probably ordering take-out because bachelors are notorious for their terrible cooking skills, and then playing video games until you feel like falling asleep. Somewhere in-between your brother's wife passes away and you're in England, listening to emotional babble about how short life is and wondering whether you're going to die alone. And somewhere deep down the rabbit hole of being a bachelor, you're getting drunk alone in some stupid pub, wondering whether you've probably at least been on a date with all of the girls around you, and not being able to emotionally commit to anything. I for one can vouch that I've most probably gone on a date with every single girl in St Ives, or Stockport, or even the little town in Austria I grew up in, and it's not an accomplishment. It never has been. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for relationships, I'm just unlucky, or not emotionally capable enough. I'm the cold, and calculated, nothing defies logic and there's-a-scientific- explanation-for-everything brother, always have been. Harry's the emotional, romantic, committed brother, that's probably why he got married, and fell asleep in my car, pissed-drunk on a Tuesday, for crying out loud. It's uncommon for him to get drunk anyway, mostly since Harry's a lightweight who strays away from any sort of drink, give him a sip of champagne and you're stuck with his blubbering-all-over-your-dress-shirt nonsense all night. I can't count how many college parties he'd dragged me to, only to get completely wasted off one bottle of beer, and pissing literally everyone off with his annoying crying. I love Harry, I really do, but he can be annoying sometimes, but I do love him. He's my brother, after all. At least he's asleep, I can handle him when he's asleep, in general. I can handle him when he's sober, because then he's pleasant, and smiling, but when he's drunk, crying and talking about dying, you start to think it's all just a routine for him too. Or he's trying to force himself into a new routine, because he's lost his. He settled down early, twenty-four early, and just reveled in every second of it. Harry's been head-over-heels, arse-over-tits, in love with this girl called Rose ever since he was 17, and saw her in the subway on the way back from a school outing. He's always giving me advice to just put myself out there, and don't get me wrong, I've tried, many times. But I've never succeeded in fully committing to something, or someone rather. There was one girl, Kat, God, Kat was the best and worst thing that ever happened to me. I was 17, fresh off the boat from Austria, intrigued by American girls because I'd never known anything like them. Kat was outgoing, outspoken, and just downright gorgeous, also completely out of my league. But she went for me, and I fell, I fell hard, for the first time in my life I felt like a human being and not just some algorithm machine. It felt great to be with Kat, but she's like a nuclear bomb once you're done with her, she'll explode, and her radiation damage will kill you from the inside out. Kat wanted me, wanted me, in ways I didn't want her. She wanted to have sex with me, and she begged me, and I told her I wasn't ready, and then I lost her. I lost her, and I lost myself somewhere along the way. I found Kat with a tall blonde guy, in my bed, listening to the most atrocious music, having sex. Yeah, that's when it went south, all of it. I'm a pretty calm person, some might even argue that I'm unnaturally calm, I basically have no temper, or expression, or emotion for arguments sake, but nonetheless, I'm calm, and collected, mellow even. But when I saw her with the blonde guy, I lost it, I lost myself in the way my fists collided with his face, and lost myself in the way I struggled to breathe as he held me up against her wall. I lost myself in the way I broke two of his ribs, and left him out cold on the floor, I had a couple bruises, a bloody nose and a skew trachea, but I was okay. Kat called me the next morning telling me that what's-his-name is pressing charges, but eventually she convinced him to drop charges if I apologized, and I did, put my best face on, grinned happily and told him just how sorry I was about breaking his nose, and probably two of his ribs. I did forget to mention how he was supposed to be sorry for screwing my girlfriend, but I guessed if I did anything wrong I'd have a big-shot lawyer hanging over my head. I probably could have handled the situation fine, I was in law school, criminal defense law, but then again, my social anxiety would have a case to lay down in the middle of my throat. I would have been a terrible lawyer, my first case as a junior associate I screwed up, choked up in front of the judge and ran out like a scared kid doing a school play. That was right before I found Kat and what's-his-name in my bed. The last time I saw Kat Souhleris was when I went back to get the cat we got together a Christmas beforehand, only because I really loved that cat, and I wasn't going to let her keep it. I showed up at her doorstep, and she looked terrible, eyes all red, and wearing pajamas, but I looked worse, my swollen eye, and the hangover from the previous night still lingering around me. She gives me this massive hug and screams that she's so happy that I'm back, I just take the cat and tell her she's dead to me, which was a little overbearing, but I was half-drunk, so I don't dwell on it often. I don't know how many different drugs I tried using to forget Kat, to feel something, I can't even remember why I did it, I can't remember why I wanted to forget everything, why there was this sudden urge for me to feel something. I'd never liked emotions before, I always avoided them, like a road-block, I avoided them. But after Kat committed that infidelity, I just wanted to feel anything and everything. I suppose it's normal for humans to derail after a shock, but I didn't just derail, I crashed into a wall. I thought a lot then, while I was high, wasted, whatever, and most of the theories I came up with were long forgotten, but this one about love and the heart always seemed to stick in my brain. I used to think that humans were all just a bunch of junkies, we were all just waiting for our next fix. Our hearts have nothing to do with love, or falling in love for that matter, our heart is just a circulation organ, our brain is the one who falls in love. And with this 'falling in love' comes the hormone releases, just like an adrenaline junkie, some of us get addicted to the hormone release when we're in love. I realized after Kat betrayed me, we weren't in love with each other, we were in love with how we made each other feel. All of my failed relationships had been the thrill of the feeling, all those girls I spent hours staring at, while trying to make awkward conversations only lasted as long as I liked the way they made me feel, otherwise there was nothing. Sex is relatively the same, we don't like sex, we like the way it makes us feel. Raw, sort of primitive, I liked it after Kat vanished. I've done sex, but never made love, there's a difference in my opinion. Metaphorically, here I am, still a virgin. So, what the hell am I doing in Vienna? After Harry's little fallout, I run away because I need a break. Now I'm in Vienna, because I can't deal with his emotions. I really deserve a prize for the worst damn brother in the world, really I do. He keeps calling me, spamming me with text messages and I'm still trying to figure out how to tell him I'm in Vienna because I needed a break from him. I suppose I could spin a lie about seeing Leah, or wanting to see the Vienna Philharmonic, but we both know I hate classical music and anything to do with that. Leah knows I'm in Vienna and calls me to tell me to meet her and a friend for coffee. Leah has always been the social butterfly in her circle of lesbians, thank God for her circle of lesbians. If Leah had straight friends, she'd be setting me up with every last one of them. I spot Leah in a pastry shop, along with a pink haired woman. I'd seen a lot of pretty faces, a million of them perhaps, models, billionaire's daughters, and actresses, who had as much depth as a puddle on the side of the road. All they had going for them were their overly large breasts, and pretty eyes. When I saw Leah's pink haired friend turn around, she had a pretty face. But she didn't just have a pretty face, and decent breasts, and pretty eyes, she had a memorable face, one that was imprinted into my brain the minute I laid eyes on her.

Leah Aulte is a strange, and crazy human being. Anyone who meets her would know that, but Leah Aulte is also a daredevil of sorts. After she runs over to me, engulfing me in this bone-crunching hug, and calling me an ass in German for not calling for six months, or something. I'm too busy trying to casually find a way to ask her who her memorable friend is.

"I'm so happy you finally came to visit, now you can finally meet Michelle!" Leah exclaims, I continue gazing at the pink haired girl, wondering whether this is the Michelle Abrahams. I'm literally going to drop dead if that's Michelle Abrahams, but I really don't want to ask and risk it not being Michelle Abrahams.

"Yeah," I answer half-heartedly, not committed to the conversation, at all.

Leah giggles, almost mischievously, and then says, "this is Amanda, she's one of my friends."

Amanda, goddammit, I'm done. "Oh, right. This is the other girl you keep talking about."

Amanda turns to face me, emerald eyes glistening with friendliness, "uh, yeah. Right, I'm Amanda. Leah's only straight friend." She gives a nervous laugh which half sort of makes me want to drop dead. Again.

"Pleased to meet you," I say, and I mean it, "I'm Insley Aulte, the straight brother who lives in New York."

Leah smiles, pleased with something, "Amanda, I've got to run a few," Leah flicks her fingers, as if to compensate for the fact that she probably doesn't know the English word, and then looks at me, muttering something in German.

"Errands," I say, shrugging, noticing Amanda's confused look. She must not be able to speak it then.

"Right, errands in town, so if you don't mind staying here with Insley for an hour or so, that would be great." Leah says, all innocent. Of course. She's setting us up.

I stay silent, hoping Amanda picks up on it as well, and she does, "Leah, no. No you are not doing this again!"

"Sorry, I've got the car!" Leah grins, practically running toward her little city car, I half expect Amanda to run after her, but she just lets out this massive sigh, like she really doesn't want to be here.

"Uh, I've got a rental car a couple blocks away if you really feel like going home." I say stupidly, knowing you can't really force a date, or whatever this is. I've sat through many agonizing sessions with either Leah or one of Rei's friends when they've tried to set me up for dates, I've learnt just to try and ignore it.

"You know this is the third time this week Leah's tried to set me up with someone, this is crazy," she sighs again, "and to answer your question, no. I don't want you to think you're bad or anything, it's just I really don't want a relationship."

"I get that," I say, "neither do I, I mean, you're beautiful and pretty funny, it's just I'm not interested."

"Right? Leah really doesn't seem to get it," she laughs sheepishly, "she thinks I'm getting too old and that I need to get married, like yesterday."

"Yeah, my friends are tired of having to listen to me talk about emotional commitment every Friday night because I can't seem to keep a relationship." I reply, also laughing a little bit.

"You know what, screw this date shit, I'm a young, single woman, who really could go for some cake, so why the hell don't you, young attractive sir, join me for a slice of cake and maybe a nice conversation, platonically?" She asks, and well I'm pretty done for. This girl is.. well.. strange in the least. I like it.

"I will totally platonically join you for a whatever this is." I say, grinning.

"Two people, going out for coffee. That's what it is." She smiles, and we go inside. This strange girl. I platonically think I've found my match.

Leah comes back half an hour later, with a brunette by her side. She spots me and Amanda laughing about some stupid goat video that's been circling around social media and she's all smiles.

"Insley!" She exclaims, "I want you to meet someone."

"Hey, man. I'm Michelle Abrahams. The fiancée." Michelle grins, a lopsided grin. She speaks with an American accent, relatively the same as Amanda.

"Oh, hey. Nice to meet you, I'm Insley Aulte. The brother." I reply with a polite smile as Michelle pulls me into a hug. It's awkward and I can hear Amanda stifling a laugh in the background.

"You should come for dinner! Tonight I make my famous pasta alfredo and then you and Amanda have an excuse to spend time together!" Leah smiles happily.

"Platonically." Amanda and I both say at the same time, earning odd looks from Michelle and Leah. But we laugh anyway.

"Alright, I'll be at your place at about six?" I ask and then she nods. I find myself half looking forward to it. Platonically.

A/N:

ahhh!! yes, this is it! Opacity has been in my drafts forever, i never really had major things planned for Transparency, as it was my first novel, but Opacity.. yes.. i hAVE SO MUCH PLANNED! :D also i love insley so so so so much like wow shit i want him for myself my smol son, precious cinnamon roll uwu

i hope u enjoy this bc i lovelovelove writing on this lol :-)