chapter 1
a u t u m n g l o r y
The first time she saw him, he was kneeling on damp grass beside a puddle of water, dark tresses shadowing his eyes. She approached him and held her umbrella over his head because it was raining and he was soaked to the bone.
He didn't respond for a minute. After a few more moments, however, he held out a damp slip of paper with an email address scrawled all over it. She was surprised, but her hand reached forwards and took it anyway. He smiled a heavily-dimpled smile. How cute, she'd thought.
"Why?" she'd asked, surprised that she was still able to speak, since her eyes were still transfixed to the way water droplets clung to his eyelashes.
She sighed as she thought about how this sight would've made the perfect picture for her photography assignment. She refocused once more. He was, to put it simply, stunning.
"Because. You seem nice," he'd said simply, like it was the most normal thing in the world.
She asked him if he always carried around paper slips with his email on it to give to 'nice' people; he said no. They laughed, but the laughter soon diminished into an awkward silence - the kind that made your head buzz with unspoken words.
She cast her gaze across the crumpled sheet. It had a number as well as an e-mail address written across it in a messy scrawl.
"Lightningstar, one four three seven?" she read aloud slowly. She'd wanted so desperately to giggle.
He glared at her hotly. "In my defence, I was ten! Besides, all the good names were taken..."
"Didn't you just... I dunno, make a new account?'" she'd asked, furrowing my brows.
He scratched his neck in that classic masculine manner. "Well, yeah, I'd thought about it but... I took one look at my long list of contacts and thought - well, ƒuck it. I'm not gonna bother regaining them all."
"Wow, for someone who looks so athletic, you sure are lazy..." She giggled, earning an intimidated stare back.
"You know, about my contact, I'm starting to rethink giving that away..." He reached forwards to grab it, so she held it out for him to take.
"Sure, have it!" she said, a challenge in her tone. He studied her before backing away slowly, a blush cooking up in his neck.
"No, it's okay... I- I mean, it would be rude to take back a gift," he muttered, defeat hanging over his voice. And then it was her turn to smirk.
Their eyes met after a pause as the rain pattered against the material of her umbrella, but she averted hers immediately. She'd hoped that the blush creeping around her neck would not be too visible; she'd hoped that he didn't see her in her red-faced state - she could feel his eyes on her.
After a few more moments, he cleared his throat with an awkward cough.
"Uh, anyways, I hope I hear from you soon, Miss..." He trailed off, glancing at her with a sheepish half-grin.
"–Clara Yin, but just call me Clara," she'd said. "And you are...?"
He nodded a nod of acknowledgement. "Mister Connor Tyler Laine; just Connor to you."
"You've got a name like one of those movie stars, huh?" she felt herself grinning ruefully. He grinned back, and she found herself developing a strange attraction to it all.
"Hey, are you comparing me to one of those... 'movie stars'? I'm oh-so flattered!" he mocked, his voice rising into a falsetto at the rear. "I mean, I know I'm amazing, and terribly gifted in the looks department but..."
She interrupted his shameless self-flattering speech. "Don't get ahead of yourself - we've known each other for-" she'd checked her watch, "-three minutes. And no one really goes by their middle name these days anyways." And just to spite him, "I doubt I'll be remembering your name anyway."
"Don't worry, I'll have you screaming my name in pleasure before you know it. Both names."
Her pupils dilated a little at his crude sense of humour and ducked her head as she tried to conceal her growing blush. He snickered. She glowered at him until he finally conceded.
"Okay, okay - I'm sorry. No more weird jokes. Friends?" he held his hands up in mock surrender.
"Hardly," she snorted. Two could play the chasing game.
"Acquaintances?"
"Fine."
They stood in silence for a while; her, watching the raindrops catch the tips of her hair as if they were tears, and him, fingers reached out to cushion them as if he could freeze them in time.
"So, how long've you been here?"
She puffed air from my lips, counting the time in my head. "Um, I'm not too sure - a month and a half?"
"Why'd you come here, of all places? We like to call the area 'trash city'. Fitting, don't you think?"
She shook her head. "See, I came because it's 'trash city'."
He stared at her cryptically. "And why's that?"
"Eh, I'm into photography, you see. And I'm trying to 'capture the beauty in the ugliest of places', so to speak." she air-quoted.
"Finding light in dark?"
"Something like that."
"Pretentious much?"
"I guess, but I'll do what I want."
He nodded slightly; his eyes were focused someplace elsewhere. "That's cool. I've lived in my apartment for... around the same time, but I've lived in the neighbourhood all my life."
"Ah."
"Yeah."
And that was that.
"So, I'll be hearing from you then?" He shot a boyish grin in her direction, one eyebrow shooting upwards in a sort of questioning look.
"I mean, I guess..."
He stepped closer and pinched her right cheek, eliciting a scream, and when she opened my eyes to glower, his face was the portrait of evil.
He checked his watch, his eyes widening as he registered the time. "Shīt! God, I'm sorry to go like this -- but a situation calls," he said, biting his lip in a way that could only be described as sinful. Or a credit to her imagination. "Call me, yeah?" he added.
All she could do in that moment was offer a smile and a nod, holding up the paper in a sort of salute.
And then silence ensued as rain fell about them; him and his retreating figure, and her, still immobilised from the shock of the encounter.
The next time she looked up, the rain diminished into a weak pattering - a little like her heart - and he was gone.
As she stared at the paper slip nestled between her fingers, she grimaced. She didn't do interaction. Talking to people interested her as much as talking to an inanimate object would. Friends, and making them, had never been her forte.
She left after the rain let out. She was dumbstruck by the strange feeling of wanting to know him and wondered absent-mindedly about having friends - the real kind, not the type that ditched, or only hung out in class, or the kind that you could only laugh with, not cry with... It wasn't that she'd never felt like that before, but it'd just been so long.
YOU ARE READING
Somewhere Near Here
Teen Fiction'Time walks in a straight line, as far as I know. God, I could be wrong - maybe in a century or two this will be invalid, and science was never my thing. I mean to say, we were caught in the crossfire of time and its assistant - timing. We got unluc...
