nobody pines for the listener {rave}

Girls were supposed to have a heart of gold and a mind filled to the brim with common sense, but one glance upon Matilda cast this all aside. She stood hunched and overbearingly unhappy, with a sense of disgust surrounding her in all directions for at least a mile. Flowers died beneath her foot and so did my sense of ease the first couple of times I ran into her. My cordial introduction had not been matched, instead only a light bump on the shoulder accompanied by the word “nerd” uttered under her breath. And often I would turn my nose at these people, walking away with my head in the clouds and my thoughts even higher, but something about her lack of effort and displeasure with everything that was my entire being caught my attention.

Sunny Hemmings was a girl that everybody loved, and Matilda would be no different.

And I used my lack of friends as I reason to follow around, trailing in her shadows and laughing any time she said something even remotely funny, yet none of this seemed to work in the slightest, so like any great mind I went back to the drawing board and attempted to calculate the formula of Matilda’s heart.

I still haven’t found a solid answer.

I knew that disgust was her sense of taste and a world of black and white was prettier than any colors that crossed the sky; I knew she had a soft spot for Finn and Jonas even if she died before admitting it and I knew she loved me, even if it was stowed away somewhere in her stone heart.

I knew I loved her too, but unlike her inability to acknowledge it I was simply too scared to do the same, for I had loved my mother and father and I had loved lines in books but I had never loved someone who did not share these traits. She was not a family member I could push to another day or a book I could place back on the shelf. She struck a different chord in my heart, and sitting at the desk with my back turned to her now, I refused to admit the song that stayed stuck in my head when she was around.

The hands that were usually steady as could be were slipping now, and with a sigh of disgust I put the pieces of the stopwatch back on the cool wood of the desk, tossing the smallest contents into a tray for safe keeping before turning back around to watch her. She was napping as usual, with a strand of black hair falling across her face, being blown vertical with every god-awful snore she expelled. It takes my putting my own hand to my mouth to stifle the laugh that’s gotten too close to being made heard, for if there was one thing Matilda hated most, it was being woken up on a schedule any different from her own.

And even though she was not there to give me the company of her conversation I enjoyed it, for this is how much of our time together was spent, in fact this followed closely the same way our first time spent purposely isolated had gone. I had suggested we go back somewhere where the sun wasn’t so bright and she readily agreed, and the second we had made it through the door she had collapsed on the mattress upon the floor which I happened to call a bed. We had had a bit of conversation, but eventually I had become too boring or she had become too tired and before I knew it was I was talking to myself with only her soft snores as any type of response.

This about mirrored it, give or take the volume with which she filled the room. And if she was not as dangerous as a hibernating bear, I would have taken my usual route to block the obstacles of my mind wouldn’t I couldn’t quite piece together the problem I was unravelling. But eventually the tapping of my toes against the floor didn’t fulfill the purpose, and so I began my usual pace, only making sure to step much lighter than I would have done otherwise.

Thimble wouldn’t have minded if I stepped loudly upon wooden floor, but then Thimble would be too caught up in the abs of Leon Krigel to realize I had moved from the spot I had been sitting in six hours previous. And I suppose this makes it sound as if I did not enjoy the girl’s company in the slightest, and this was not true, for I did like the girl, and in a world where I could count my friends on one hand, it was always good to keep her around.

However, these were unlike the lengthy visits Matilda and I had. For often an afternoon turned to evening and night and the following morning, in which we’d sit and watch a cycle of sun, moon, and stars, only talking when we had to and making eye contact if it was absolutely necessary. But these things weren’t often needed, which didn’t happen to be the case when it came to Thistle and her noisy home. She and I were forced to be caught in conversation that seemed to drag on for what seemed like a millennium, and often the topic was one in which I did not know a thing about, and I was grateful for the times in which she took over and told me everything she had heard in the last twenty-four hours.

But Matilda, with her messy hair and tired eyes and general attitude of not giving a damn, was different. She spoke in a language other than words, and lucky for the both of us, this was a language we spoke as well (that being said, she did not speak those languages of math and science, in fact, I was surprised at times that she could count to a hundred). But regardless of the differences which filled our hearts and minds we shared a common bond strong enough to overtake even the worst of these, and that in itself made her a better companion than any girl with a heart of gold and a mind of common sense.

(And to be honest, we had neither of the two).

I may have had a mind that one would call smart but I still walked into roads without looking both ways or trying to walk through doors without opening them first, for even though many called Sunny Hemmings intelligent, sensible did not accompany this. Heart of gold scarcely crossed this list as well, for often I was seen alone and murmuring to myself, scowling at small children and rolling my eyes at adults who spoke down upon me for it. My father never criticized this, and if he did all I would have to do is mention the stutter that became evident whenever he was nervous and he’d be the first to keep quiet. My mother, on the other hand, seemed to be in disgust with every word I spoke and every action I took, and she made sure to make this evident at any chance made available to her.

(And she wondered why I never preferred her company.)

But Matilda didn’t care for she was the exact same. In fact I dared to say her heart was darker than mine, though she most likely held a bit more common sense in her mind than I did (but I’d never admit this, especially not to her). And it was this check and balance of our similarities and differences that caused us to find some sort of unlikely companionship in each other. And though she might define it as just another person to depend on when she needed a place to crash, I thought of it as much more. For she was constructive criticism when it was justified and rough comfort when it was needed but not preferred, and now was a time in which I’d call upon the former.

I said I’d never wake Matilda when she was caught deep in slumber, but this one time I’d compromise because otherwise I’d be staring at a blank ceiling until it drove me insane. And with each step I took until I was sitting on the bed beside her my breath caught in my throat a bit more, and I gingerly placed a hand on her shoulder and shook as lightly as the breeze in early spring.

“Matilda?”