I just laid in the grass for a little while. I wondered if I would catch a cold.
But I couldn't care less about it.
I couldn't even bring myself to care when sounds of rustle snuck up behind me.
At that moment I wasn't terrified or confused or lost.
There was nothing.
I heard footsteps. Breathing. Stopping. Silence.
"Hi Ben, hardly recognized you."
It wasn't an unfamiliar voice. Matilda's, to be exact.
"I come out here a lot", she added, without hesitation or any hint of wavering.
She came closer.
"I'm not stalking you or anything. I live right down this street. Then left. Then left again. Then right. Then the fourth from the left. Wait. One, two, three, yeah, the fourth."
The pretty witch. The person Linda was talking to as we were sitting in the park, drinking beer, telling stories, shouting buffalo.
"What are you doing here?", she asked me.
"I don't know."
She sat down next to me.
At that moment I noticed how lucky I was. That Matilda was the one who found me.
In this remote neighbourhood on this far away, empty field - who knows which psychopath might be seeking to kill some virgins.
Virgin. Virgin Irvin.
I thought that that'd be an insult to people called Irvin.
Also, it didn't really rhyme.
Also, it wasn't as funny as Beeb Boob in the slightest.
Boob. Beeb Boob.
"You're really just not anything at all, are you?"
It was the first time that I looked at her from up close. She didn't look like a witch today.
Her eyes were filled with gentle clouds. The incredibly dark bags underneath her eyes made the sharp outlines of her face look unbelievably kind.
She looked right back at me.
"Do you sometimes hold your breath to see if you could make yourself suffocate?"
"Please what now?"
She looked flustered. Confused I didn't understand. Or relate.
"I thought that that's what you're doing here. With the train and everything?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Testing death? Getting as close as possible and if it happens, well, it happens?"
She pulled a lighter and a box out of the pocket of her thin, long and black jacket under which she wore more comfortable clothes, more suitable for staying in bed than going out in the middle of the night.
Shortly after, she blew smoke in my face.
Her breath reeked of nicotine.
"Do you smoke a lot?", I had to ask.
"Sometimes."
"Why?"
I felt how Matilda's presence slowly brought me back to reality.
She didn't seem to give a living shit. She didn't seem like she'd talk to people unless she wanted to herself. She didn't seem like a person that'd be crazy about sports.
She's probably a crazy person and plotting to kill me.
YOU ARE READING
What do the stars feel when they look at Us?
Teen FictionBen starts to care. About you. About people. About his girlfriend. About feelings and being a person. Growing up. But it's difficult. Seemingly, especially, for him. And he's failing. Miserably. So he's starting to look for answers in the stars. Mos...
