Mathew

Mathew
Has been thinking about telling Hank they should head out. There’s so many people at this event talking about art and it’s making him uncomfortable. Mathew’s life has been a series of easily made decisions, when he said where he wanted to go to university the statement became a matter of fact and soon after he was unloading his luggage in his dorm room. It was at this point however that things stopped being easy choices. The people he was rooming with were not his kind of person, they annoyed him deeply and whenever he tried to crack a joke or say something that would make his buddies back home laugh, they would stare at him confused or, aggravatingly, push back and ask him why he found the joke funny. It was a whole big deal for the first couple of weeks as he suddenly learned he was suddenly under scrutiny and that a life of carefree choices suddenly had consequences.

The people at this party give him the same looks as he tries his best to navigate a social situation he used to excel at and he curses them under his breath as they push back just like his roommates and although some are receptive or quietly give him looks indicating they share similar sentiments it is not nearly enough to push back against the judgment and so he ends up smoking outside, handing his cigarette to a morose looking peer in a rare moment of sympathy.

He asks the young man who introduced himself as Brian if he understands why things are changing the way they have been, and Brian somberly mutters something that he is too drunk to really pick up. Nodding his head as if he’s understood, Mathew retreats back inside, searching once again for his friend.

Mathew turns a corner and there in the living room is the most beautiful sight that