A Giant's Eye

Chapter One

Sitting on the rooftop with Petyr is the best place to be, always.  The stars are illuminated by the embers falling from the butt of his cigarette, not the other way around, because up on the rooftop it’s easy to imagine that the stars are just specks of dust inside a giant’s eye when we’re dangling our legs off the edge.  On nights like this one, Petyr watches the moon, and I watch him.  Him- the way his cheeks puff in, out, as he exhales and inhales on his cancer stick.  Him- his profile, the way his nose, only slightly crooked when you face him, becomes a pale white hill from the side.  I’m the one who broke it but we never talk about that anymore.  Him- freckles like stars dusting a moon-white galaxy, a small scar on his jaw acting like an asteroid belt.

“Stop it,” he says, and the smoke cloud hovering around his lips quavers.

“What?” I ask, my voice shaky and dumb, interrupting how perfect the silence of the night was.

“You’re getting sad again.  I can feel it.  I told you that you’re not allowed to cry about it.  Tears are-”

“A waste of time,” I finish for him.  I’ve heard it before.  It was one of the first things he said to me, actually, but I don’t remind him.  He knows.  

“I should come up with a better phrase.  Or maybe you could stop being a smart ass.”  He swallows, the only sign of anxiety that I had seen from Petyr so far, and that only serves as fuel for my incoming tears to feed off of.

“Oh, gods, you’re doing it anyways,” he grumbles.  “Fine, come here, then, you whiny

little shit.”  So I wriggle up next to him, let the weight of his arm hang around my shoulders, and press against his slim side, and wonder if it makes me gay to enjoy this contact with my best friend.

Fuck it.

“Petyr?”  There I go, interrupting the silence again.  I know it would be prudent to enjoy this night while it’s mine, since it may be the last, but I’ve never been one to do what’s best for me.  I’m toxic by nature.

“Hm?”  He had been staring at me, and maybe that makes him gay too, but fuck it.

“What do you think they’re going to show you?”

And for the first time, Petyr doesn’t have anything to say.  He tightens his grip on my shoulder, relaxes it, tightens it again.  Shrugs.  He’s trying to be nonchalant about this but I know him better than that- I see right through it.

“I have no idea, Rei.  No idea at all.  For all I know, it could be a complete load of bullshit.  I mean… the meaning of life?  I never asked to know.  I never wanted to know.  But if this “meaning of life” is what’s given our generation the drive to build the country into what it is today, I don’t know if I want a part in it.”  Smoke blows from his nose, and for a moment, all I can see is Petyr the Dragon.  The absurd image makes me want to giggle, but gravity feels like it’s growing stronger and it’s getting hard to breathe.

“If you could choose… If you could choose, would you stay?” I whisper, afraid of the answer.

The silence says more than he does.

My eyes reach towards the stars yet again, and I want to ask Petyr what my pupils are reflecting- a sea of stars, or the eternal smog rising from the factories?

“You know I wouldn’t.  But that’s not the real question.  I’m leaving only to be put in another city, with more fucking factories, with more fucking smoke and cracked concrete and death.  If I could choose, I would go back home, and I would bring you with me.  Don’t act like a kicked puppy being abandoned in the dust, because whatever’s waiting for me after tomorrow is probably a hell of a lot worse than what you and I have here.  I would take us both away from this if I could, but I don’t know if there is anything else.”  Petyr’s chest is heaving by the time his mouth stops moving, and despite the dim light of darkness, I can see that his pale cheeks are flushed with anger and passion and emotions that don’t have a name.

I’m silent for a long while.  Petyr throws his cigarette off the edge and lights another.  

“Goddamnit, Petyr.  Always having to be the first at everything.  If you’d been born a few days later, we would be doing this together.  Just… promise me you won’t do anything stupid, okay?  If the meaning of life isn’t all you had hoped?  I don’t want you to get hurt.  You’re supposed to be waiting for me after I catch up to you.  It’s only a few more days until I turn eighteen too.”  

A chuckle rumbles from somewhere in his chest, and his body trembles.  I feel good for making him feel good, and finally, this night seems to not be an utter failure.

“I’ll try to be good, Rei.  I’ll find you, and things will be just like they used to be.  Okay?”

“Only if you promise.”

He rolls his eyes.  “Fine.  I promise.”

I’d like to ask him to seal the deal with a kiss but that’s gay so I don’t.  He leans his head against mine, and we stare up at the specks of dust swimming inside some giant’s eye, listening to each other breathe and trying not to notice that both of our shirts are dampening with both of our tears.