Saturday.
Or a day. Any day, really. Just another day. Another twenty-four hours. Another one thousand, four-hundred and forty minutes. Another eighty-six thousand, four-hundred seconds.
Each second was a year.
Karden was a million years old.
Eight o'clock. Lydi's door swung open. She was asleep on her bed. She was paler than last time. She had a new bandage. But she was there.
He walked over to her bedside and sat down on the plastic chair there. The noise roused her.
"Karden." She beamed. The first time he'd ever seen her beam. It looked like it hurt.
"Lydi. I missed you."
"I missed you too."
The conversations that had so easily passed between them didn't come. Karden looked down at his hands.
"I went to your house once, two weeks ago."
"Oh?" Lydi sounds almost nervous.
"Who was the man at the door?"
"My step-father. He married my mother. Now my mother's dead. He's not even related to me." Her voice was monotone.
"He doesn't seem very nice."
"He's okay. I don't think he loves me."
Karden reached out and brushed a strand of dark hair from her face. "You deserve to be loved."
"I've got you."
She hadn't said it back, though. Karden didn't feel hurt. He already knew she was a little too lost to think about that. He didn't mind at all.
Her eyes searched his face. "Kiss me. Please."
And he did. And somewhere in the seconds and the minutes and the hours, he allowed himself to get a little lost too. And they came together. And for a moment, he didn't feel broken.
But then they fell apart again. And reality returned.
Karden shut the door behind him.
He didn't want to wake her.
He walked home.
YOU ARE READING
cigarette daydreams
Short Story"hey - lydi, got a light?" "literally, metaphorically, or spiritually? because i have none." "that's a bit gloomy, don't you think?" "it's punk rock."
