Work Text:
Kirby Anders, you are an enigma. Or an anomaly. I haven’t quite decided. The way you sit on the memorial bench outside the lecture hall, your head buried in a tattered, well-thumbed copy of a book in a dead language, and your boot-clad feet swinging back and forth is elegant, if not a little eerie. Your feathery hair. Your smoke lined eyes. The fishnet tights that climb your legs like ivy. It’s breathtaking. You take my breath away. Suck the air right from my lungs like it didn’t belong to me in the first place. It’s almost parasitic.
Ringed fingers fold around a chipped travel mug, steam curling from the top. You normally drink more creamer than caffeine, iced, but this time of year calls for black coffee, hot. If you could, you’d eat the coffee beans straight. You said so once in Workshop.
You sit on the opposite side of the table from me in Workshop. I catch your eye sometimes, and your smouldering gaze flicks over my features. Drinks in every inch of me. The left of your lips curves upwards as I squirm under your stare. I break the focus first, turning my head to the Workshop instructor. Every square centimetre of my burns.
You stand outside workshop with smoke on your lips and ice in your eyes. You rock back and forth on your heels, your eyelashes fluttering and your arms swaying by your sides. You’re not listening to music. That’s just how you are. It’s incredible.
“Carrington!” You beckon me towards you with a flick of your heavily bangled wrist. A smile – it’s somewhere between a smirk and a scoff – grows when my head whips around. I divert myself from my route back to my apartment and float over to you. You are magnetic.
“Kirby.” I breathe out the greeting when I reach you. Your vicinity warms the chilly February air. Like a crackling fire amongst the snow.
You offer to share your cigarette, but I shake my head. I promised myself I’d stop. Your eyebrow arches but you don’t press further. A cloud of smoke escapes your lips and encapsulates your head. I press my lips together and lean on the wall next to you, observing you from the corner of my eye. I rub my hands together. Your warmth is fading.
“Your piece was very… interesting,” I say, lifting my head from its place against the bricks. You keep your face forward, your eyes closed. Interesting is one way to put it. I’m not sure what it was about. One of our classmates admired your take on loneliness, said it was haunting. The only thing I gathered from it was that it was dark. It set a chill in my bones, but I couldn’t quite put a finger on why. It adds to your mystique, I guess.
“Thank you,” you say. Your skull scrapes against the wall as you turn it, though it doesn’t appear to phase you. Your usual aloof expression remains pressed to your face like a mask. “I didn’t think anyone would get it.” You want to hear my thoughts. You know I didn’t understand – still don’t understand. It’s a challenge.
“I thought it was beautiful.” Indistinct thoughts whirl around in my head, begging me not to mention loneliness. I have a feeling that’s not what it’s about. You would have mentioned it if our classmate had gotten it. Called the rest of them idiots. “Very thought-provoking. I loved it.” It’s as best as I can do.
You seem satisfied enough with my analysis and loop your arm around mine. “Walk with me.”
Our interactions have been almost exclusively limited to within Workshop or outside our short fiction seminars. You’ve never asked to spend longer than a small talk ridden conversation with me.
The frost-bitten wind whips my hair in my face, yet haloes yours out around your head. Ribbons of strawberry blonde artfully splayed in the air. Colour pinches your cheeks and brushes your knuckles. It’s colder than your outfit would lead anyone to believe. Only you could get away with a thin sweater and a skirt with no jacket in New England in Winter without contracting hypothermia. You’re talented in that way.
The local park’s gates loom behind us. Wet leaves slick out the path, and you pull me left until frozen grass crunches under our feet. Our elbows are linked and you’ve weaselled your hand into my coat pocket. I wrap my fingers around your wrist.
We draw nearer to a thick band of naked trees, their shadows cancelling out the light from the already weak sun. You come to a halt, and I slide to a stop next to you. You grip the keys in my pocket. My shoes are soaked through. Goosepimples prickle up my legs despite my wearing trousers. My teeth are close to chattering.
You pull another cigarette from your bag and place it between your lips. You light it and take a long drag. The sudden looseness of your body would otherwise tell me you’ve been aching for a smoke for hours; days even. It’s been five minutes. You raise your head to the sky.
“Are we looking for something?” My head tilts to the side and I look to where you are. Nothing but the overcast sky. Not even a bird in sight.
“Just enjoying the view.” Only you’d find beauty in the monotony of a sky full of stratus clouds.
You drop your cigarette and crush in beneath your boot. Your elbow’s grip on mine tightens. You pull me closer to you. My stomach drops to my toes. You smell of menthol and smoke. Almost clinical. Yet not at all.
“Do you feel that, Carrington?” Your breath joins the fog hanging over us. We turn our heads to look at one another simultaneously and your nose is an inch from mine. My heart climbs to my throat, burning all the way up. I nod, my gazed trapped by yours.
For a year and a third, I’ve watched you from across the table in Workshop. Saw you in passing on campus. Exchanged hollow words outside the lecture hall. I’ve never looked at you properly. Never noticed anything important. The slope of your nose. The spattering of freckles across your cheekbones. The curve of your lips. Simply ethereal.
“I do. I feel it.”
I feel your breath on my face, but not whatever that is. I know you’re not talking about the freezing temperatures. I never want to stop looking at your face.
“I’m so glad.”
You drop my arm, and then your large black leather backpack, and lay down on the grass. I stare at you for a few moments, questioning your sanity. I wanted to ask why you were lying in the wet grass in the middle of February, but I didn’t. I kept my lips laced shut, and pull off my jacket and sit down on it next to you. My fingers are numb.
You close your eyes and hum the theme song of a children’s show I’ve forgotten the name of. A simple tune comprised of only a handful of notes sails from your throat, overwhelming my senses. I’m nostalgic for a feeling I’ve never felt before.
You take my hand and lock my fingers with yours, your grip vice-like. Your nails pierce my skin and attempt to draw blood, but never go through with their threats.
“My piece was about home.” You roll to your side to face me and stop your humming. Our classmate was close. It was about homesickness. I nod, prompting you to continue, but you don’t. You stare over my shoulder at the path that is filled with mothers with strollers and other members of our university. You narrow your eyes at them, as though challenging them to a staring contest. I’d bet money you’d win. Every time.
“What reminds you of home?” I ask. You contort your face and shrug, and I worry I’ve offended you. You leap to your feet and pull me by the hand to mine, the back of you soaking. I fold my coat over my arm, and you drag me to the closest grocery store without a word.
The fog from outside follows us in, encapsulating you in a warm embrace, blurring your features and your actions. Undoing the stitching of the fabric of your reality. I’m bleary-eyed trying to look at you.
We walk up and down every aisle without picking up anything. More browsing the staff and other customers than the goods for sale. We loop back to the entrance, and you pull your bag around to the side of your body. Three avocadoes, bakery cookies and two bottles of wine slip into it, disappearing without a trace. No one else notices but me despite your lack of subtlety. They avert their gaze, hide their attention. You’re only seen when it suits your desire.
I am in awe of you, constantly. Your confidence is as unnerving as it is impressive. You dance past the check-outs without an ounce of anxiety, you smile at the security guard as we leave, shooting him a wink and leaving him blushing. He covers his face as we cross the small parking lot and I breathe for the first time since we entered.
“Shoplifting reminds you of home?” I ask, my lungs adjusting to their new luxury of air.
“You could say that.”
You live in student housing, and it reminds me of hell. Worn brick buildings teeming with mould, the smell of something rotting assaulting my nose. The air is thick and nauseating, a heavy weight on my shoulders. I don’t know how you live here.
We walk four flights of stairs to your room. The paint chips off the walls and the floorboards are cracked beyond repair. Your twin-sized bed sits in the far corner, under the window, without any sheets or pillows. Skeletons of devoured books line the shelves on the walls and spill over onto the desk and the dresser and the floor. Drawings of wildflowers and of teeth and of dancers are taped to the grubby windows, acting as curtains.
You sit on your bed and invite me to do the same with a pat of the mattress next to you. Motes of dust float upwards from between your fingers as you do. I do as I’m told, folding my ankles under the bed. You pass one of the bottles of rosé and keep one for yourself. You unscrew the top and took a swig straight from the bottle, licking our lips as you bring the bottle away from them. I follow your lead.
You kick off your boots and lay back on the bed, your head resting on the wall. It’s a grotty cream colour, water-stained and tinged with age. I wouldn’t touch it if you paid me.
“Your piece was shallow,” you say, taking another long drink of your wine. I skip this time.
“Really?” I ask in response, my voice more intrigued than the hurt spinning in my stomach. You don’t care about my feelings. You care about the craft. It’s constructive criticism, though your critiques are harsher than your construction. I’ve seen you in action with others in our Workshop group but never had your scrutiny pointed in my direction.
“Your character had no wants or goals.” You go on, listing everything my piece did wrong, as though you’ve ever written anything comprehensible in your life. I keep my tongue between my teeth and nod along with you, your warmth running cold. Ice creeps up my fingertips and spreads across my chest. Your flames sputter out, cloaking me in frost.
Kirby Anders, you are an enigma. Or an anomaly. I haven’t quite decided yet.