rosalyn ➼hood

Three

|Calum|∞

It started on a particular night, about a week after I met her. I had forgotten about her, she didn't really say much so she wasn't one to leave an impression. She just... simply slipped out of my mind.

I feel really bad for saying that about her now.

But that night I returned to the beach. I had argued with Mali and my parents; I can't remember over what. It was very late at night, almost midnight.

Of course, being the drama queen I was, I had stormed out of the house with just my car keys and phone. And drove there, I guess for no apparent reason.

I remember how I slipped off my vans and placed it beside a tree. My anger had subsided slightly, just getting hit by the cold air and the sound of the waves.

"Hello Calum." rosalyn greeted me. I didn't even see her behind the tree.

"Holy shit, Jesus! What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I always come here every now and then." She replies, smiling and walked towards the sand. Her hair was up in a bun that night, strands of stray hair framing her chubby cheeks. So fucking adorable.

And she looked just as beautiful as she did when I had first met her.

"How often, exactly?" I asked.

"When I feel like it." rosalyn's answers were always so short. "It's so calm at this side of the town. It's like you're disconnected from the whole world, you know?"

"True." I said. I watched as she looked up at the sky almost adoringly with her beautiful eyes. I just leaned against the tree, wondering where the hell this girl came from. I had never seen her before in my entire life.

"The stars are brighter here, yes?"

"Yeah." I walked up to her and landed softly next to her. Pulling up the bottom of my jeans as high up as I could, I listened as she spoke the few words that she did.

"People like to name stars. I don't get why though, because that one star there has probably a thousand names on it. A lot of 'us' claimed on it. If you know what I mean." She pointed to one of the brightest stars.

It made sense, all her words.

"Where do you come from, rosalyn?" 

"Not from here."

I waited for her to add anything. Maybe, tell me where she actually came from but she didn't respond.

"Well?" 

"What?" She asked blankly, her brown eyes wide and looking at me in such a way it made me wish my eyes were like hers. I had never had the strongest urge to kiss someone than that moment.

"Where do you come from?" I repeated, hoping that I've made the question clearer.

"I said not from here. Somewhere else."

"Tell me about yourself." I tried to get her to open up. It was evident that she would stay at the beach for a long time, might as well make her a friend.

"What do you want to know, Calum?" rosalyn asked, looking at me. She just had this constant smile that makes me wonder what she's so happy about. Always so positive, you can literally feel yourself feeling more free when you're with her.

"What's your favourite colour?" I asked. I didn't want to scare her off and ask her something too personal.

"White."

"White's not a colour." I remarked.

"It represents purity." That damn smile again.

"Everybody knows that."

"They know it. They don't feel it." She puts a hand over her heart.

"What do you mean?"

"I think you know what I mean. Purity." She drew something on the sand with her fingers, drawing out my words as she did so.

"I can only think of virginity." I said stupidly. She wrote down my words in cursive. 

She gave out a light laugh. "Purity comes in different forms. Virginity, of course. Being free, and innocence. You know how much I like that word? Innocence?"

"I don't know but I can tell that you like it a lot." I laughed.

"It's such a beautiful word. But it is rarely felt. You cannot be pure without innocence. Does that make sense?" She turned to me and I laughed.

"It doesn't but I'm going to pretend it does." I said. I did that a lot, talking to rosalyn. Acting as if I understood the riddles she spoke in.

"You're very nice, Calum."

"Thank you?"

"It's a compliment."

And then we just sat there silently. Occasionally I tried to ask her some more questions about herself. Where she was staying at the moment, how long she was going to stay there, did she still go to school, does she have any siblings but she brushed all of them off.

But not once did she show any signs of annoyance.

"Why did you come here, Calum? Problems at home?" She asked, as if she'd known me my whole life. 

"Yes, actually. I had an argument with my sister, Mali and my parents." I thought that maybe if I opened up a bit more, I could guilt her into telling me more about her. There was something so intriguing about rosalyn. Like you just have to know more.

"You have a sister?" 

I nodded. "Mali-Koa. She's older than me."

"I'm sure she's beautiful."

"She is." I said. "But she can be a pain in the ass sometimes."

"She's still your sister. She just wants what's best for you."

I thought again of how my parents had yelled at me. And how I yelled back at them and dissed Mali in the face. I remember how my parents told me off for yelling at my sister. I think the argument was about me taking up football, and them talking about how Luke and Michael weren't very good influences.

It was a jumble of a lot of shit that I got over. 

"If only we can choose what to remember. Just the things that a worth remembering, and get rid of everything that's not." rosalyn suddenly said out of nowhere.

"Did something bad happen that you want to forget?" I asked, concernedly.

"A lot of things."

"Did your parents die or something?" I blurted out. Smooth, Cal. Real smooth. I mentally kicked myself. I mean, what if her parents really were dead, and I was being insensitive?

"No, what kind of question is that?" She threw he head back and gave a laugh, not seeming affected by my previous inquiry.

"So, what's your favourite number?" I asked her.

"That's random. 17."

"Why 17?"

"It's a nice number. Don't judge it."

"Wasn't judging the number." I defended. "Mine's 25."

 "I assume that's your birth date?" She laughed. "Everyone always chooses their birth dates."

I shrugged. Next to rosalyn, I'm pretty much a kindie kid in comparison. She always sounded so intelligent, a trait gained from the simplest of words. I didn't understand that. Still don't. "Pretty much."

I can't remember anything much from that night except for the fact we laid down on the sand after a few hours. I swear I didn't make any sort of move on her, but we stayed there till about 3 in the morning.

She didn't fell asleep, said she had problems sleeping at night. I wonder if it was insomnia.

I liked rosalyn.

rosalyn∞