Ephemeral (#Wattys2016 #JustWriteIt)

Chapter 3

I followed her in all the turns she took, in all the alleys she walked through and in all the places she stopped at, trying to figure out what she was doing or where she was going. She took a quick turn and I went behind her, still being unnoticed. It was a dark alley and she walked and walked so I figured she must know an ending to it, and I decided to follow her but at the end of it, she came to a stop and turned around, watching me dead in the eye.

"What do you want?! You've been staring at me at the train for weeks, and now you're following me?" She asks with a fire in her eyes that gives out the fact that she's completely furious.

"I- I ju-" I began to say but I realized I didn't have a logical explanation as to why I was following her so I just looked down at my shoes.

"You what? What do you want with me?! We come from very different worlds you little rich guy, so I advice you to stay the hell away from me if you wanna keep that pretty face of yours. Now move. And don't you dare keep following me!" She says before bumping her shoulder harshly against mine as she walked past me.

As soon as she's out of alley and I'm left alone inside of it, I run to the end of it and see her take another turn. Me being my stubborn and, honestly, stupid and dumb self, keep walking carefully behind her, making sure to not be caught this time. I see walk into what seems to be a neighborhood. Once I enter behind her, I see broken houses, houses with blankets as doors, some houses even has missing parts of the ceiling. I watch carefully as she walks into one of the best looking houses. It has a piece of wood laying on top of it as a door, broken windows covered with pieces of wood in form of a cross, and a broken porch. I look around the place but my head quickly turns back to her house when I notice a flicker of light at the side of my eye, and notice she turned the lights of the house on, or at least someone did. I walk closer to the house, and I'm standing close to it, I hear yelling coming from inside the house, a sound of broken glass, and the echoing sound of skin against skin. The earphones girl runs out of what I'm guessing is her house and the lights of the house goes off once again. She sits down on the pavement a few feet from her house and everything is silent once again.

I slowly walk towards her and touch her shoulder. A terrible mistake. She whips her head back and her eyes scream danger, and I can see how scared she is, but once she notices its me, again, her face quickly turns red, and when I think she's going to explode in screams, a low sob spaces her parted lips. Not knowing what to do, I just sit next to her and listen to her sobs, turn from low to high, and from high to low, until they come to an end.

"What is it that you want?" She asks me and scots a little further away from me. I would do that too if someone was following me.

"I just wanted to know what you meant by 'two different worlds'" I tell her and she looks straight at the road ahead.

"And why where you following me earlier, why do you stare at me every single day on the train? I do notice, you know that right?" She asks me and I chuckle.

"I didn't know I was that obvious, I was actually surprised when you caught me following you tonight" I tell her honestly and she lets a small laugh pushes past her lips. "And I was following you for the main reason that you seem interesting. Very interesting" I tell her and she stares up at me again.

"Please don't hurt me I've done nothing! Did Alex send you? To hurt me?" She says pulling out a pocket knife, aiming it towards me, after standing up in an alarmed state, quickly walking backwards, away from me, with her eyes never leaving mine. I stand up too and put my hands in the air.

"Oh no! I don't even know Alex. Why would anyone send me to hurt you? And if that was the reason why I was following you, don't you think I would've already hurt you?" I ask her but she doesn't lower the pocket knife.

"Do you want to rape me? Kidnap me? What do you want?!" She asks and a million questions zoom past my mind.

"God no! I'm 25 years old, you're what? 16? I also have a girlfriend. I would never do anything like that even if I didn't have her or ir it wasn't illegal. Like I said before I just wanted to see where you where from because you seemed very interesting. Thats all. I swear" I tell her and after staring at me for a good 2 minutes, she lowers the knife, but still keeping a good distance.

"Well now that you saw what you wanted you can go and live your perfect little rich life and leave me alone" She says and I take a step towards her, but she quickly puts the knife up again, making me backtrack.

"I heard what happened at your house. I was wondering if you had a place to stay for the night?" I ask her and she looks at me, her blue eyes piercing my brown ones.

"Thats none of your business" She says without putting the knife down or coming closer.

"I was just asking because if you want you can stay at my place? I have an extra room. My roommate moved out last week" I tell her and she lowers the knife.

"What do you want in return? Whats the catch?" She asks me while cocking an eyebrow.

"No catch. It just seems like you need a place to stay in. I mean you're only a kid, you can't stay out in the streets alone" I tell her and she walks closer to me.

"Okay. But only because I don't want to freeze tonight. Try anything funny and I will break your arm" She tells me and I laugh, before letting her walk ahead of me, for her to lead the way back to the train station.