505 days ~ irwin

400 days before

Ashton

23:03

Looking at her from across the roof reminded me of two things:

1) who I continue to fall for

2) who continues to ruin my life

When my peers ask me if I have a thing for her, of course my first instinct is to lie and repeatedly and routinely say "We're just friends." Which is half the truth, therefore, I didn't lie. So when someone tries to point it out, I can just say: "I didn't lie, we are just friends. But I just so happened to be deeply in love with this friend."

I don't know, staring at her from this roof, I analyze a lot. Her lanky body can never find a position to rest in. Her legs constantly finding a new place to be, the length making her posture look awkward and uncomfortable. But she always tells me that she is comfortable, the most comfortable. Somehow, she still looks graceful and elegant. She moves with the wind, not the same pace, but quite similar. Every movement could be mistaken for beautiful ballerina's choreography. Not to mention her ballerina baby pink polish. Her sloth-like fingers that were almost always lazily painted with one coat. It was so obvious, the sheer uneven varnish would chip in less than a day. But her thoughts were something along the lines of: "Unless it's the end of the world and my only mission to save human kind is to paint my nails with more than one coat, then I will do so. Until then, everyone will have to make do with my beautiful nails with a tragically unsettling amount of bare-to-nothing varnish."

What a character she was.

She leans back on her window, chin up. In a oversized white shirt, and boxer shorts that were most likely mine. Her hair must've been in that undo for hours on end, with her baby hairs falling up before falling down. Oh, what must go on in a mind like that?

"Are you ever going to tell me?" I blurt.

She waits, seconds, almost minutes maybe. She opens one eye, not bringing her chin down. "Probably not." She scoffs, extending her legs outward, it was like a never ending cycle of legs. She could've been a model if she actually cared.

"Okay." I say it like it's two words rather than one.

She had school tomorrow, but I didn't like to tell her. I liked to get all the time with her that I possibly could. Even if that means she will be mad at me in the moment just for not telling her. I suppose seeing her mad is better than seeing her happy with someone else. Well, false happiness I suppose. We were like a type of skinny love. Well, that's what I made my brain believe to mask the pain of not being bale to tell her my dying love for her. I wish I could just yell it out towards the clouds and stars. Even aliens on mars know. They're probably up there laughing at me because I can't get a girl. I mean, I can get a girl. I have gotten a few, but this one is different. It's so hard for me to turn down girls and lie about an excuse why I don't date. How do you even go about that? "Oh yeah, sorry, but I'm saving myself for this girl who quite possibly doesn't even know my middle name, but pretends that she is psychotic but deep down I know she loves me in some sort of way. But maybe some other time?" Yeah, not really.

"What about now?" I blurt after that long talk with my voice in my head.

She giggles a little. At least I can still make her laugh on some sort of scale. "Nope." She says as she shakes her lightly slowly, eyes still shut.

I seriously wonder what she's thinking. Knowing Brinley, her head is never silent. It's never quiet up there, and I want to know all the wrong and right in her brain. But she rarely speaks her mind. Well she speaks her mind ALL the time, but not what really goes on up there, in the back of her brain. And I intend on being that person that cracks the code to Brinley Rey.

"Now?" I ask again. But this time she didn't scoff or laugh.

She reached from the box on the window sill, but not the lighter. She pulls out on smoke, placing it in her mouth loosely, without moving her head or opening her eyes. That's how much she is used to this routine.

"Okay?" I sarcastically said.

"What?" She responded, sounding confused. Which was a different tone that I have never heard before.

"You're supposed to say "okay" back." I laughed at myself, but not enough for her to hear.

"Why?" Again with the tone of confusion.

"Because suddenly you're Augustus Waters." I tried to make a joke, but the only person that was laughing was me. This seemed to be a position that I found myself in a little too often.

"What?" She repeated.

"Is it a metaphor?" I was almost cracking up with myself, hoping that she wouldn't hear.

She finally opens her eyes, furrowing her perfectly shaped brows. "I'm trying to savour the fuel in my lighter you idiot. Pass me yours." She rolls her eyes a little, but cracking a little baby brin smile.

I calmed myself down a bit before tossing her mine that was always almost full because I rarely smoked. Well, rare on her terms. Because she smokes more than the average person should. I stared at her beauty for a second more. Breathing in the air that was soon to be polluted by another marlboro light. "Okay?" I whispered enough for her to here.

"Fuck you." She responds.

I was cracking up, almost about to slip off the roof because I was laughing so hard. She soon followed and giggled a little too. God, how beautiful is she even when she doesn't notice.