The Bright Side

Chapter 10 - Part 3

SKY

I wish I had seen his sleeping face when he had stayed the night. I wish that I had woken up before he did so I could have had a look at his expression. Now I'm sitting here, trying to ban my imagination on paper and although one can tell that it's supposed to be Tristan, it still looks all wrong, forced. I got his crazy curls right, sticking out to all sides and the shape of his face. The curve of his lips turned out too tense though and with his eyebrows a bit crunched it looks more like he's pretending. Whatever he looks like in his sleep – I'm very certain that the picture I'm sketching into my notebook doesn't resemble it in the slightest.

"Damn," I mutter and dump it next to the bed on the floor, along with my pencil.

It's been four days since the funeral and I'm still waiting for a sign, that Tristan is alright. No texts, no call, no bumping into each other on the street – it's like he's vanished from the surface of this planet.

Weekend sucked. I hung around at East Coast alone again and it kind of made me wonder how I could have ever thought that it was fun centuries ago before I met Tristan. Well, the skating part still was fun, but the sitting around alone, having no one to share a fag with just plain sucked. Good thing about it is that I actually did some stuff for college and tried to prepare for the collections in October, which translates to going through twenty pages of Econ and then playing video games (which is also much less fun without Tristan). Yesterday and today there at least has been work again. Evenings though? I don't really know what to do with myself. I feel like I've listened to all of my music, read every magazine at least a million times, played through every video game that I own and drained all my ability to draw already. All possible things to do are either boring or ...boring. I need some distraction!

"Sweetie?" Mum pokes her head through a new-born crack in my door and snaps me out of my self-pity. "The girls, Leslie and I are going to watch a movie together. You want to join us?"

Urgh, yeah. Like my Gran always used to say: Be careful what you wish for.

"What kind of movie?" I try to fake interest before I let her down.

"We were thinking Fight Club."

I probably misheard. "Fight Club? As in Edward Norton beating the shit out of people?"

"Leslie suggested it. So, you want to come?"

The thought of sitting through a violent psycho drama isn't exactly enticing, but the thought of being bored stiff all evening isn't thrilling either.

"Yeah, alright."

I scramble off my bed and follow Mum downstairs to the living room, where Amanda and Jen are already nestled down on the couch and I take a seat next to them. Leslie greets me from one of the armchairs with his upper lip curled up, like he's about to snarl. What a prick. We haven't exchanged a single word during the past few days, not even a glance – either of us went for pretending the other was air – so I guess having him glare at me means some progress. I display my emptiest Sky Face for him and direct my attention towards the others.

"So, all ready?" Mum cheers as she sits down in the other chair and picks up the remote, clearly delighted to have gathered everyone who's even remotely old enough for the St. Cloud's big fat movie night.

"I still don't know why we're watching what he wants. He's not even 18," Amanda mutters.

"Oh, and you are?" Mum silences her with a short side glance and starts the movie.

Ages ago, in another lifetime at Eton, I had watched it with some friends and shrugged it off as some weird brutal mindless fighting movie. I seem to have forgotten about shirtless Brad Pitt though, oh my. That's definitely worth sitting through the smashed-up noses and knocked out teeth.