Touch

3 ︳

❝I opened up the door and let you come inside... ❞

- Parachute

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©

The week before my father turned into nothing but ashes and dust, he was talking about all of the things that I should do once his body couldn't take the pain anymore. And I remember it, it's hard not to, the way his body was lying almost lifeless on the white bed. I remember my crying face, and the screams that left my mouth, and my mother's screams. I was questioning the words he said because I was breaking one of them, and I should feel bad and guilty, but I don't, I don't.

"When you meet someone you never met, don't talk to them, and don't do anything. Nothing."

Nothing.

"So Marlow how's life?" I was sitting in a beat up truck that smelled of old cigarettes with a broken passenger window and a door that didn't close properly.

I didn't look at him as I talked; instead I watched how the trees flew by and how the sky was now a bright blue instead of the previous hours.

I shrugged.

"Crowds don't make me happy, alone I don't feel right."

➸

Two hours later I was sitting on cold grass, hands around myself. Some old pop song was blaring through Dakoda's car and while he wasn't looking I snuck a glance at him. He looked different; I don't know how or why, he just did. The dry tears were now gone like the cold wind and the need to ask him what was wrong was nagging my mind, but I didn't, because again, I didn't know him. At least I had exchanged words with him, some small, others that only lasted a minute or two.

When he talked, he didn't really analyze his words, he just spoke what came to mind. He didn't tell me, I figured it out my self. I don't know if meeting him was a good thing or a bad thing, but somehow I was grateful for the way he didn't' mind my flaws and imperfections. 

"Ready to go for a swim?" he was hovering above me, the rays of sun highlighting the dimples in his cheeks.

I wanted to scream at him for suggesting something like that. But instead of doing just that, I stared at him, like really stared at him, somehow trying to figure out what was with him. 

When he didn't notice the answer in my eyes, I shook my head, translating as a no.

He smirked, "What, afraid of water, Marvie?" I didn't know why but the nickname somehow bothered me. Maybe it was the way he said it or the way it just slipped easily out of his tongue like we were friends.

Were we friends? I wasn't sure.

I wasn't afraid of water, I just didn't like the way I had no control over my body. The water controlled me, not myself. And it gave me an awful feeling. 

So, using every strength in my body I stood up to face him, looking at his pale face that somehow looked paler than usual, "Dakoda," I said, while closing my eyes tight, "I know we just met and you don't quite know me enough to know that I really don't like it when people tell me what to do, but I do it anyway, because I'm just Marlow, a girl that no one really cares about." 

I didn't like this, at all.

He didn't answer, instead he looked at me like I was a puzzle piece, and maybe I was. He was too. 

"Second, don't ever ever call me Marvie." I suddenly felt suffocated, like the air I breathed seconds ago was gone and the only thing left was the dry air around me, so I pulled out a match and burned it. And this time I didn't look at it or observe it like I normally do, today, I just felt it.