Elegant's Odds and Ends.

No nonsense voice
Talking
Doing
Deep thought
Hearing
Singing

You didn't want to go out at first. You liked sitting in the library reading, it's what gives you real pleasure, and besides, you have to rest up for the fight tomorrow night. You're supposed to do four rounds, and you have to mentally prepare yourself as well as physically. But all she has to do is look at you with those blue eyes in that puppy dog look, and before you know it, you're grabbing a twenty and pulling your coat on. It doesn't hit you for a moment until you're walking hand in hand down the road, and you realize, suddenly, that this could be classified as a date. But the idea of it is so ridiculous that you immediately shake your head, and continue walking hand in hand. You're just friends, just two friends.

And you're going to a movie together, her words drift through your mind again as she explains to you that it's a three movie all nighter. You pay to go into the theatre at midnight, and then you will emerge bleary eyed and exhausted, but apparently rather satisfied from the three movies you have watched. She carries a big bowl in one hand because you can get it filled for two fifty. You're walking, hand in hand, and she's talking, but you aren't even paying half attention to what she's saying because it suddenly occurs to you that your hands are wrapped around each other. Suddenly it occurs to you that you're connected by your finger tips, and you can almost feel your hands dying happy at her intense hold. Her hand is smaller than your long secretary fingers, and she wraps her's over your's anyway, like trying to drown a cat with a cupful of water.

The night sounds it's call around you as you trudge on through the snow, your other hand tucked safely into your coat pocket. But even though it's the one in the coat, it feels colder than the other one, and almost out of the blue you wonder if she could hold your other hand as well. But your practical side says that it's ridiculous because how the hell do you walk with both hands tied up. So as your held hand tingles with her heat, your other is turning blue and disappointed with cold. It doesn't bother you though, as you'd rather have at least one hand than none. She turns her head and smiles across the linked chasm at you, and you can't even look at her radiance so you turn your head away, to stare at something less painful. Yet, you have no fucking clue what you're so afraid of.

Finally, you reach the theatre, buy your ten dollar tickets, and get your bucket filled. You also purchase a large pop to share. There's no one inside yet, but the second row inside the dingy place is removed, and there are bars to put up your feet, so you grab one of the many blankets lining the wall, and you spread it over top of you, comfy cozy. And she's talking again, like wind chimes moving sporadically in the wind, and it's all you can do not to simply concentrate on the sound of her voice instead of listening to the words. Luckily for you, she loves to talk so she doesn't mind much that you never really talk yourself. Your hands aren't clasped together anymore, and you find yourself absentmindedly rubbing it, the loss almost too great to handle.

As you sit, she starts playing with your tuft of a hair do, spiking it up and flattening it, smiling every so often at her creation. You watch the way the faint freckles on her face, faded from the winter light, move as she talks, the shape of her mouth moving, and how sometimes hair falls across her eyes, and she pushes her hand back across her head to pull it back. And suddenly your hand raises because this time you want to pull it back for her, not only because it hides her eyes, but because you wonder what her hair feels like. With your touch, she sits back in surprise, as if you have done something wrong, and you are worried. But almost immediately after you finish carefully tucking it behind her ear, a smile spreads across her face.

You sit quietly for a moment, and then she opens her mouth to speak, but by then the lights in the theatre are fading, and it's too late because the first movie is starting. It turns out that you have to shut your eyes from it because it's about a boy who doesn't want to live anymore, so he goes to the Doctors, and he gets put in the hospital. And in the hospital, there is a girl with scars all down her arms, and it hits too close to home, so you shut your eyes against it, and grip her arm. But that makes it worse because suddenly all you can hear is Riley coming out of her mouth every time the girl in the moving picture opens it. But you don't sow emotion, that's not you, so you open your eyes back up, and watch with a blank face, not even flinching as it ends with her dead, arms slit wide open in the boy's arms.

So you quietly excuse yourself, and then go outside, moving more quickly with every step. Because you really could use some fresh air right now. It takes you a full three minutes to get yourself back under control, and another two to cover up the dinner that you left on the ground. So that means when you get in, the next movie is on. And you hate that because when you miss the first few minutes you never get the rest of the movie. But it makes it worth it to stay when she smiles at you when you come back, one of her hands in the popcorn bowl, and the other resting on the armrest between your seats. You don't even know what this movie is, but it's an oldy, and there are lots of deserts and lasers.

Somewhere about half-way through this one, her head bobs, and suddenly it's resting on your shoulder, and her legs are all curled up beneath her, blanket drawn up to her chin. Her eyes are shut softly, and her hands are curled up, but she's leaning into you, even with the armrest there. You can feel her hands resting lightly on you, and the way her knee slightly hits your shoulder. But the light weight of her head on you, hair brushing your cheek, is the heaviest. You don't make a big deal of it or anything though, and you simply stare straight ahead, trying not to bother her. It doesn't matter that your ass is falling asleep in the quiet of the theatre at some time around three am, you tell yourself. She's just a friend, sleeping on your shoulder, you tell yourself. But still, you can't help noticing the way her breath comes slow against you.

And when she snuggles in closer, you're hit with it, the endlessness of this night, and how even though you can't even feel your lower body anymore from sitting still for so long, it's worth it. Every nerve in your body is moving in a tingling arc to where she is touching your body, and it's suddenly impossible to try and figure out the movie, because frankly, it feels pretty much pointless. It's got nothing in it that matters to your life as much as she does. And you know that if you could you would kiss her, because she is beautiful, and everythnig warm to you. And something tells you that she isn't just a friend to you, she's your air, you don't want to try breathing without her there because you know it will hurt otherwise. But the problem is, is that you don't know what to do with it.

This feeling, you don't do feelings. You're a robot, people have told you on numerous occasions that you're just a hunk of metal with a hollow heart. You agreed to it because it made sense, because that's what you thought you were too. It was as if you were never born with that flint to create the sparks needed for your emotion to work. But when you look at her blonde topknot curled into yourself, it feels as if someone is hitting a flint so hard against your soul that it's a wonder you haven't shattered yet with the pressure bubbling up. So tentatively, you turn your head, and lean slowly so as not to wake her, and give her a soft kiss on the top of her head, even as you wonder what it would be like to kiss those sugar cookie chap stick lips, and if she tastes like popcorn.