(Show Me) The Things That I Shouldn't Know

un.

The city was calling my name: its bright street lights shining as if their life depended on it, its architecture standing tall and proud like a parent watching their child take their first step. The streets were alive, with an endless number of people parading up and down, some of them drunk - a typical Friday night scene for the city of London. The hubbub only started to die down at 1am, but it kicked up again at 1.30: the night was still young.

At 2am, I found myself wanting to join in on the commotion, not satisfied with merely watching from the window of my flat. I had fallen asleep at roughly 10pm, but the vibrations of music from nightclubs had caused me to awake from my (peaceful) slumber. This was a usual occurrence as a result of living in the city centre, but I didn't mind. I had lived in London for all my life, and I loved it there. Therefore I was used to the noise, and although I was a relatively heavy sleeper, I still had my moments - this night being one of them.

There was no point in me trying to fall back asleep, as I struggled to fall back asleep once woken up. When I was awoken I would either read, watch TV or stare out the window with a cup of something warm. However, that night I didn't just want to stare at people walking through the streets - I wanted to actually join them, rather than observe them.

It was, and always is, a poor decision to walk around London by yourself in the middle of the night on a Friday. Yet, this thought didn't pass through my mind as I threw on my coat and scarf, and tied my shoes at 2.12am. I'd made a flask of tea so that I wouldn't completely freeze to death, and was gripping it tightly with my (already) freezing cold hands.

Stepping out of the flat complex, the moon dauntingly shone upon my face and followed me in whichever direction I turned. The deep blue night sky was dotted with tiny specks of silver glitter, the aligning and pattern of these specks completely random and irregular. I took comfort in the fact that the sky, something essential to human life, wasn't perfect. It reminded me that I didn't need to be perfect either. Every time I glanced up into the night sky, I had to fixate my glasses as they kept slipping off the tip of my nose.

It wasn't long into my walk before my nostrils became polluted with the aroma of kebab wafting through the air from the nearby takeaway shops that were still open, accommodating to the needs of the people spilling out from the clubs, drunk out of their minds. While I was glad that I wasn't one of them, I equally did feel a bit of envy as I couldn't remember the last time that I went out and had fun.

I decided to stroll through the park. There were 2 parks in the area - one that everyone visited, and at this time on a Friday was bound to be riddled with drunks; the other was secluded and the only people to enter it were those passing through on their morning jogs. Out of the two, I opted for the latter.

Perching on a stone wall that felt as cold as the air itself, I started to sip on my tea. I was in just the right place to still hear the laughter erupting from the city centre, but at a volume at least three quarters quieter than what it actually was. In that moment, I reflected upon my previous thoughts of how I envied these people, and decided that as long as they create that much noise, I was no longer envious. It was irritating. And I didn't want to be the cause of anyone's irritation. (Unless they deserved it, that is).

I heard some rustling in the nearby bushes, which at first startled me, but I figured that it was just wind, or a cat. I liked cats. I was more of a dog person, yet I had a cat and not a dog. My reasoning behind that was that cats are a lot less hard work than dogs as they're more independent. And they're just as beautiful. But, I still loved dogs more because-

"Hi."

I spilt my tea all down my pyjama bottoms. It wasn't scalding hot, but it was warm enough for my legs to tingle. My head shot up and my eyes darted to the man stood directly in front of me. Instantly, my initial thought was that he was drunk. There seemed no other plausible reason as to why he was walking through an isolated park so late at night. At that moment, my mind didn't seem to register the fact that I had also walked through the same isolated park at the same time of night - wasn't it hypocritical of me to judge him for something I had also done?

"Are your legs okay?"

"Yeah...why are you talking to me?" I internally cringed at my own rudeness. I wasn't rude. Just precautious. (Others call it rude).

"I'm lonely."

Not the response that I was expecting. I was expecting a rude answer, to match my rudely asked question.

"Do you want to sit? There's room next to me on this wall, which - by the way - is ever so comfortable,"

He studied me for a moment. I studied him back. He was contemplating my question.

"What if I was a murderer?" he asked, a look of seriousness in his eyes.

"Then I have a murderer sat next to me."

He laughed and sat down next to me.

I shuffled over.

* * * . . . * * *

We spent the next few minutes in silence. I wish I could say that it was comfortable silence. But if I did say that, I would be lying.

The laughter that I could previously hear came to a halt, music stopped pouring out from the nearby nightclubs, the birds stopped pecking at the ground and had gone to sleep. The silence was actually deafening. I blamed the 'murderer' sat beside me, who was casually staring into space. I wondered if he was okay, but I couldn't bare to ask another potentially rude question.

I checked my phone: 3:07am. I'd been out for just about an hour. Why had it felt like so much longer? Maybe-

"So, what are you doing out so late?" There he went again.

"I couldn't sleep."

"Are you an insomniac?"

"Yes, actually."

"Oh." I noticed his foot tapping at the ground at an incredible pace. I shifted my gaze to his face, which I could now finally see. His skin was perfect, not a single blemish in sight. His lips were thin; he kept biting and touching them. His nose wasn't small but wasn't large either - it suited his face perfectly. He had no hair on his face besides his thick eyebrows and his eyelashes, which were longer than mine. His eyes where what I was drawn to last. It was hard to decipher their colour in minimal light, but what I noticed was an enormous black-purple bruise covering his left eye. I wanted to reach out and touch it.

He furrowed his brow at me. I figured I'd probably been staring at his face for too long, especially at that bruise which seemed to frame his face in an odd sort of way. His brow twitched again, but I couldn't bring myself to stop staring at him.

"I'm Camille, by the way." I said, hoping to ignite some conversation so that my ears didn't bleed from the excruciating silence.

"Camille. Is that French?"

I nodded my head.

"That's a lovely name. I'm Alexander."

"Nice to meet you, Alexander."

He smiled. I heard my heart drop. I now had to tear my eyes away from him, because if I'd stared at him any longer, I would've melted right there and Alexander would have been left sitting next to a puddle.

"I'm sorry about making you spill your drink, by the way,"

"It's no problem," My turn to smile.

I didn't want to, but I couldn't help it -I found myself now shifting closer to Alexander, back to my original spot. I felt comfortable.

We spoke for the next 4 hours. We spoke about stupid things. We didn't even speak about ourselves. The most personal thing that I learned about him was that kiwi was his favourite fruit. We shared a lot of silence in those 4 hours, but the silence became less and less awkward as the hours flew by.

At 7:19am, his phone started to ring endlessly and he ignored it the first two times, but the third time he picked it up. He spoke so quietly to the person on the other end of the phone that I could not even hear him, then told me that he had to leave. He looked sad, but that might have just been me imagining it, or perhaps it was just his normal face.

Alexander bid me farewell, and as I did the same back, I noticed that his eyes were green.

He walked out of the park, joining the crowd of people that had all of a sudden appeared in the distance. I took a moment to recollect myself, grabbed my empty flask, and walked back to my flat. Despite having my glasses on, my vision felt impaired. I couldn't see properly. All I could see, no matter where I looked, was a pair of green eyes.