Between the Lines✔ [COMPLETED]

[20] What Leaves Us Broken

Kyle

The night is chilly even when I'm wearing layers of cotton under leather to keep from freezing –it's true, fall is here already, and I can already see the snowflakes crumpling from the clouds above. My steps are hasty and I'm deliberate in my effort to keep quick –keep quick, because the longer I take to get to the corner house –the abandoned one with the dilapidated front door and roof- the less likely I'll be to make it by nine o'clock sharp. I step in a puddle of water, treading on with a grimace. 

Don't stop walking. Don't stop. Don't stop.

My boots are wet and traces of hurried footsteps trail behind me. I know that nobody is following me but the feeling of being watched remains. I know I am being watched.
I make it to the corner house. It's quiet –I hear the sounds of crickets in the grass on the overgrown lawn. Crispy sounds are what could be heard as I step through the bush to get to the front door. I know they'll be here. I know it. 

I wait. I hear one or two cars passing down the road –only a few- because this street is quiet with no prying eyes to spare the time to notice the little things –quiet in the sense that people keep to themselves, not necessarily that they're vigilant.

The inside of the house is dark, and I shift the straps of the black bag on my back because the weight of what's inside it is being pulled down by gravity –or perhaps maybe it's not just the fact that what's in the bag is heavy. Maybe it's the whole fact that this situation is heavy –a heavy burden, so to speak, that I literally have to carry. 

Footsteps –not just two- are heading this way, and soon enough I hear the crispy sound on the grass again.

Hand over the bag, collect the money. 

Hand over the bag, collect the money.

That's all you have to do, Kyle. 

There's a click as I hear the loading of a gun.

___

Malory

"You intrigue me," I say, "You're stubborn... and arrogant, but also mysterious and kind. You're one piece of a puzzle that has never fully been put together. I've found I have no choice but to seek the delight of being in your company."

Kyle is slouched over on my couch –his eyes are running lazily over the lines as I read them. "This is such bullshit," he laughs.

I smirk, "Just try it. You'll get it eventually."

He clears his throat. "With what reservation should I take this comment? C'est un compliment?"

"Set," I correct him. "Pronounce it like Seh. Seht ong complimon."

"Yea," he says, rolling his eyes, "That."

I drop my script onto my lap. "Say it, Kyle. You have to get it right," I giggle. "It's a French play."

"I know, but seriously? I haven't done French since Year One –when it was a compulsory subject. And I didn't quite like it, to be honest. Everything sounds so... nasal and... romantic. Like can you imagine being in parliament in France? It's like you're reciting a love poem to your fellow ministers. And look at that –they don't even pronounce the endings all that clearly."

My eye twitches. "It's a foreign language, Davidson. Of course it's different. Now in that time you spent ranting you could have already mastered how to say it. Shut your irrelevantly complaining yapping hole and get the work done."