Comatose

A Quiet Life

It turns out that, once again, our fearless leader was right. A Saturday afternoon in a New York graveyard is the perfect way to bring fresh air to an irritated boy like Rowan.

Not that I would know. One thing the dark boy walking the semi-familiar streets with me does very well is hide his emotions. No matter how often I slide my gaze off the old buildings and ancient streets to glance at his stoic face, it never changes.

It's unavoidably frustrating.

"Why don't you ever talk on these things?" I sigh after the silence stretches on for too long. "You're like a--a Goth dog or something. It's the most irritating thing in the world."

He scoffs at my paper-thin comparison. "A Goth dog? So much for our walking dictionary."

Insulting. "At least it got you to say something," I point out. He just grunts at me and keeps walking. I have to jog faster to catch up with his long strides.

Rowan is a long boy. He's also a dark boy in the sense of personality category, meaning I'm not totally off with my metaphor. He's always been tall and slender and stoic, a stone statue of indifference to a world that cares less than it should. His ground coffee, no-sugar-please skin melts into his stainless steel eyes and like a compare and contrast photo. But if one wonders if such a glorious thing makes him at all tempting, a word of advice: I once compared him to a ninja and the boy near took my head off. So, fair warning.

"I'm not here to have a conversation with you," he replies to my probing looks.

"Why not? I'm a great conversationalist."

"Says the violently crazy girl to the Goth dog."

I point a stiff finger at him. "Don't you mock me, Rowan. And don't call me violently crazy. I'll kick you. Hard."

For a moment, it seems like his mouth might just twitch up into a smile. Then it passes and he says "Just keep moving. We can't waste any time on useless banter."

I huff and turn away. "You're just mad I made you drop the act, Mr. Silent and Mysterious."

"Because name-calling isn't what started this in the first place."

True enough. Unfortunately for him, however, I'll never admit it. Nothing in my year-long life so far has been my fault and there's nothing he can say that will break my streak now.

One thing I will break, however, has got to be this heavy silence. Silence makes me think and thinking leads me to bad places. Bad places generally lead to me getting sweet little nicknames like 'violently crazy girl'. I'd hate to end up with another afternoon spent cleaning stupid people off my various pocketknives.

I'm not a violent person, really, nor am I very crazy at all. Mostly. I just prefer to solve problems my own way. And of those, at least, I've got plenty.

The cemetery is empty when we arrive, not including the random smattering of pigeons that seem to appear everywhere I've seen in the city. It's quaint and peaceful, a quiet respite from the constant flow of back home at the Hanging Tree.

Home. Such a strange term. It can be so many things: a noun; a verb; an adverb; an adjective, even. People abandon it when they're no longer counted as children, then return when they're too old to be treated as anything but. A place to live, a place to love. For people like us, a place to leave.

I wish I could remember mine.

Rowan starts out the search first, checking in a couple mausoleums for any hidden wonders other than sparkly pieces of dead people. I read endearing inscriptions on cold headstones and wonder what they'll put on mine when I finally get what's mine.