Halle Louise Spark

Lips Do Not Feel Like Stones

Halle Louise Spark was so close to me I could feel her warm breath on my nose. It did not annoy me that she was taller than me, as much as it annoyed me that her breath tickled my face, which was inherently distracting, and now was really not a good time to be thinking of when it would be appropriate for me to itch my left nostril. I'd never been this close to her before, never close enough to realise that the curve on her bottom lip dips a little deeper on the right side. It however, was too dark to tell whether or not this was due to the shape of her lips, her expression or simply a smudge in her cherry lipstick. And I for one, though vaguely intrigued, did not really care about that. I was much more interested in why her hands were shaking and why she was standing in front of me at all.

"Halle," I whispered, and her eyes flickered up to settle on mine, "Halle, what are you doing here?"

"Where is it?" she asked, her voice agitated.

"Where is what?" I asked, and if it had been anyone else but Halle standing in my room at 3:00am, I would have been rather agitated myself.

She pushed past me and began -to my surprise- tearing through my dresser drawers. "Be quiet, you'll wake my parents," I muttered, kneeling next to her. "And get out of my stuff." I said, coming to my senses. I shoved the drawers shut and she whipped her fingers out the way in surprise.

"Sam!" She exclaimed, "for gods sake, be careful!"

"Keep your voice down!" I said, my voice a hushed whisper.

She looked at me again, and the crease in her brows told me she was trying to be assertive, but her hands were still shaking, her eyes glassy and desperate. "Where is it?" She repeated.

"Halle, uh, are you high?" Her eyes searched mine with what seemed to be disbelief.

"Shit," she said abruptly.

"Oh, well, come on, get up, let me help you home, okay? I can't believe this. Halle actually appears at my window and she's the one who's on drugs. Just my luck," I put my hands under her shoulders, to pull her to her feet but she resisted.

"Sam, I'm not on drugs."

Now it was my turn to say, "Shit," I paused, "Well then what the hell are you doing in my house?"

Her face fell. "Oh no," she shook her head. "You don't have it. It's not you. It's not you." Her disappointment flooded the room as if I had in fact been plunged into ice cold water. And the glass in her eyes fell liquid over her cheeks.

"What do you mean it's not me? What don't I have? Halle, what's going on?" I stammered, confused and concerned. But she was already halfway across the room to my window.

"Sorry, Sam. I have to go," she said without turning around.

"No!" I said quickly, and she stopped in her tracks long enough for me to step forward and grab her wrist. She spun around in alarm.

"Let go of me," she exclaimed, pulling at her arm.

"No." I said pointedly, "You snuck into my house in the middle of the night, to tell me I don't have something, that I have no idea what the hell even is, and you're just going to leave with no explanation at all? Answer my question, Halle."

"Let go of me Sam," she said quietly.

"Tell me what's going on. Or I'll call the cops for breaking and entering," I warned.

"Sam, you're hurting me!" She shouted.

I dropped her hand and clamped my own over my mouth. "Shit. I'm so sorry."

She backed up, bumping into my window frame, her hand rubbing the other wrist methodically. Her hair caught in the street light outside, and her black nails sparkled with reflections. "Even when you're scared, you're beautiful," I blurted out. Shit. Fuck. Fudgeballs.

"That sounds like something a pedophile would say," Halle spoke in a cooler tone now. Perhaps because she saw my moment of weakness and seized it, perhaps she remembered she was standing in a room with a Sam Somerton, and she was a Halle Louise Spark.

"I, um, I'm not a pedophile, just for the record," I stuttered.

"I know," she said and walked over to my bed and sat cross legged in the middle of it. She stared at me for perhaps a minute, which felt both unsettling and crazy and I guess I just stared back. I liked the silence. I liked the way her wrists rested on her ankles. I liked that even though she was thin, a crease ran along her stomach because of the way she was slouching. I guess it's because it made her look real.

"My parents are getting a divorce. Mum's wedding ring just disappeared straight off of her finger and she thinks Dad sold it. Jack said said he saw you pick it up when you dropped the paper at the doorstep the other day."

"You're here because you thought I stole your Mum's wedding ring?"

She sniffed and nodded, "Yeah," she whispered so quietly that if the grandfather clock in my room hadn't broken last Tuesday, you wouldn't be able to hear her.

"You wanted me to have stolen it." Her earlier look of disappointment flashed in my head.

"I guess I thought if I found it, they could be happy again," she muttered, "I'm sorry Sam."

"This is what I picked up at your house," I sat on the throw over at the end of my bed, and offered her the small red stone. Her fingers brushed my hand as she took it which sent shivers up my arm.

"I saw it on your lawn and I didn't want the mower to choke on it, so I picked it up."

"Why'd you keep it?" She asked, turning it over in her hand.

"I don't know." But I very surely did. I kept it because it was so smooth and it matched the colour of her lipstick and maybe I thought that's the way her lips would feel, only colder. But I'm close enough now to see that there are lines in her lips now too, and who am I kidding, lips do not feel like stones.

"I should go now," Halle whispered, but she waited, as though she needed me to confirm this.

"I'd like it if you stayed," I offered.

"I know," she said softly and got up and climbed straight out the window. But this time I did not chase after her, or try to stop her, I just watched her cross my lawn, turn the corner onto the pavement and disappear behind the neighbour's hedge.

And with that she was gone and I was left with nothing but the sound of my breaths and the comfort of a late night Summer breeze to calm my racing heart.