Unpredictable - (tristan evans)

Define Happy

No-one bothered to stare at them anymore, not even at him. Aside from a few curious glances from time to time, their presence went unnoticed even on the rare days they actually decided to turn up at school, and even those days became steadily less frequent. Too much time had passed, talk and secrets had flared up and died, everything had changed. They didn’t care, caught in the web of their own insignificant lives, dependant only on themselves and each other, a life spent balancing constantly on the edge. Reckless, they wasted no second thought on their precarious mortality, losing it all on these sick little games.

And now, whenever he offered her a cigarette, she accepted.

***

“Are you happy?” he turned to her after a long silence, the unexpected question almost as surprising as hearing the words fall from his lips.

A few weeks later, sitting in the middle of nowhere on a ragged old picnic blanket that looked as though it had seen better days with nothing but each other and the rustling of the breeze for comfort. She had quickly become used to him appearing at her door at any ungodly hour, be it three in the morning or simply a warm afternoon. This time, however, she had heard the low purr of an unfamiliar motorbike stalling in the middle of the road, glanced outside her window in disbelief to see him sitting astride a scratched, paint splattered thing made of metal and shining black. It looked dangerous; he looked dangerous, looking up expectantly and smiling when he caught sight of her standing frozen at the window, the tiny pinprick of light from the lit cigarette in his hand glowing bright in the darkness. It was just after midnight, and now as she shook her head to bring herself back to the present, she vaguely tried to recall how much time had passed, focusing on him and the question still hanging from his lips.

“Right now?”

“Yes, right now.”

She paused, plucking a three leaf clover from the ground beside her and tearing away its leaves one by one, carelessly flicking them up into the air and watching them spin aimlessly with the shadows.

“And what do you mean by ‘happy’?”

His fingers tore up clumps of grass, slashes of spring green littering his clothes and for a second she almost believed his eyes were closer to green than they were blue. But then he blinked, and they were black again.

“The kind of happiness you get when you pick up all the broken pieces of yourself and try to put them back together,” he struggled to explain with the so few words he could conjure up, “and you know you are the closest you will ever be to true happiness, but there will always be cracks, gaps where little shards of you have gone missing. Never to be found again.”

“If you’re going to put it like that then…” she looked down at their hands for a long moment, smudged with ash and stained a faint green before capturing his gaze once again, “yes, I am happy.”

He didn’t reply, watching her unashamedly as he turned her words over in his mind. He had always known she was beautiful in her own self, a deadly, dangerous thing made of fire and ice and smoke and shadows. She was watching him as he watched her and, in the sheltering blackness of night, lying there propped on his elbows without a shred of leather in sight, she could almost talk herself into thinking he was normal. But of course he wasn’t. And the heavy boots were still there, nothing could take that away.

“What about you?” she frowned, fighting to keep her thoughts together as she stared into a piercing blue that held everything he had once feared. Love, hope, and even as she read him like an open book, happiness.

His smile was all the answer she needed.

“You make me happy.” His words were simple, but he could not know how they affected her.

The skies remained spread above them, vast, unending, the stars did not move the way clouds trailed endlessly with the wind. He sat up and pulled her into his lap as he leaned back against the rapidly cooling metal of his bike, and before long the sleepless nights caught up with her, dragged her down. And then he was sad again, wistful as he looked down at her.

“I wish I could be good for you,” he heard the words coming from his own mouth, and yet his hands refused to let her go. She hung on to reality, forcing her eyes to stay open even as a gentle breeze tugged at the frayed and loosening strands that were her thoughts. He carried on as if he did not know she was awake, listening.

“I wish you needed me like I need you,” he paused, finding it difficult to admit his weaknesses. If he had learned anything over the long years spent alone, it was never to depend on anyone, anything. He thought it would be easy to stick to his rules. Never let anyone in. Never trust anyone. Never fall in love. But then she had come from nowhere and left him reeling as she passed by, scrambling to collect and understand his roughly scattered thoughts.

“I wish it didn’t have to be so dangerous for you, being with me. All the people I’ve ever loved are gone, because of me, because of the things I’ve done, and it’s not safe for you to be so close to me. But I can’t do anything, it’s too late.”

She knew what he was thinking as clearly as if he had spoken out loud.

What’s wrong with me?

She heard him draw a shaky breath, felt the gentle brush of his lips across her motionless skin. Then they too disappeared, and she pictured him staring up at the stars.

You are good for me.

I do need you.

And I don’t care if it’s dangerous.

She silently answered him, wanting to scream at how blind he was, how he could not, would not see what was waiting before his very eyes. But his eyes were only just healing, old scars only just beginning to fade away, and she believed that, given the time, he would learn to see.

He was quiet for a long time, holding her. She wondered if he was asleep, finally decided to let herself slip away as she smiled, inhaled his scent one last time, and closed her eyes. Then everything was silent, and the stars seemed to shine brighter than they ever had before. She hovered between sleep and waking, warm and safe in his arms as his breath tickled her neck.

And before even a star could blink, she was asleep.

He took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling a deep satisfaction as the last of his walls crumbled away into nothing. They were only trying to protect him from himself, from the things that hurt, but now he knew, and he wasn’t afraid anymore.

“I love you” were his last words.

But just as he too drifted into sleep, he remembered.

Love can hurt.

Love can kill.

And his worst enemy is himself.

guess who's back back again

me

VOTES/COMMENTS WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED AS ALWAYS

until next update x