unfamiliarity | mileven

unfamiliarity

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He moved to her town unexpectedly. Hawkins, Indiana was the movie-like definition of a small town; everybody knows each other, doors get left unlocked because nothing exciting happens in Hawkins.

And when he moved to town she didn't care, had heard from her dad that he was there and knew he didn't like him very much and his name was Michael but Jane's nose was far too deep into a book for her to worry about a new guy in town. She doubted he was the trouble people were making him out to be.

When Jane did see him, she observed him from afar, but never with much concentration, only when she saw him exit her favorite bookstore or when she saw him smoothing out his fingers over a street artist's telecaster. His dark curls were a stand-out contrast to his pale skin and an even bigger contrast to her boyfriend's light, pin straight strands of hair. Her boyfriend was classic. He was unfamiliar.

She pretended that the unfamiliar side didn't stir something inside her.

She had met him on the first day of spring break, the streets slick with the aftermath of a light drizzle.

"Whatever stirs this mortal frame..." She had been mumbling under her breath, tracing a leaf off a tree branch that she had to duck under to continue her walk. "All are but ministers of love."

"And feed his sacred flame," a voice finished for her.

She glanced up, eyes only slightly bright with curiosity. He spoke again before she could even separate her lips that had fallen shut.

"Reciting Coleridge in the middle of the streets?"

She blushed.

He brushed past her with a small smile playing at the corner of his lips, and she felt nothing resembling comfort and she got lost in the feeling that had spattered inside her. She would've defended his presence to anyone who spoke in hushed tones about him, she really would've, but she found she was the only one who had a pleasing first experience with him, so she kept quiet.

"Jane reading Jane, hmm?" he had asked her one day, approaching where she was sitting cross-legged on a bench.

"Jane reading Jane," she affirmed.

"Mansfield Park?" he inquired, gently picking up the copy out of her hand and marking her page before flipping through the rest.

"Yeah, I'm rereading it," she responded, voice speaking up in a soft manner once she trusted it to be as such, tucking a fallen strand of hair behind her ear. "I read it when I was twelve, but I didn't understand a word of it and I forgot about it until I heard the title in a movie the other day."

He chuckled at that and a smile formed across her face without her permission and she willed the butterflies in her stomach to stop fluttering so hard.

"I'll have to borrow it when you're done."

"As long as you return it unharmed, I'll bring it to you when I'm done," she said, hands falling into her lap as she fidgeted with the rings on her fingers.

"I'll hold you to that."

He held her to it, and it became a routine, and she wondered if she was doing it to be polite or whether it was an excuse to see him over and over again. She found she didn't really care which, as long as she had a reason to drop what she was doing to be in his presence.

Her boyfriend didn't like him. Didn't like that he was competing with a guy who had the same interests as Jane, read the same books as Jane, had the same smarts as Jane. He didn't like that he was competing with a guy who was six foot one and didn't like that he wore a leather jacket.