Autor's Note: This story is based on two stories i have written in the past year that i didn't show to anyone (because they both kind of sucked). This story features Linus from my story Sullivan Street but other than that the other characters featured or mentioned are not real nor are they based on anyone in particular. If you like the story, great. If you think it's about you, tough. it's not.
Story by Rob Graham
Linus sat at the window and watched the moonlight play over the grass. The pale blue light threw stark shadows against the wall as his thin arm snaked out and retrieved a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a box of matches from the floor. He slipped a cigarette from the pack and dropped the rest absently into his lap. The match flared, illuminating his thin frame, with the tattoos scattered across his torso. Linus inhaled briefly as he shook the match out and sighed out a lungful of smoke into the still air. He watched as a thin stream of nicotine blue curled up from the burning ember and dissipated against the glass.
He leaned back against the window and closed his eyes. He needed to sleep but his mind was constantly at work, gnawing at the problem that would probably never be solved. He blew a smoke ring and watched as it slowly floated and expanded. He reached out and tapped the ring with his finger and watched as it broke up and drifted to join the thin cloud already forming near the ceiling.
Somewhere in the darkness there was a sound of bare feet padding across the wood floor towards him. He turned slightly and watched Emily emerge from the shadows, pulling an oversized green flannel shirt over her naked body.
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
Linus shook his head. He offered her the half finished cigarette and returned his gaze to the window. Emily took a drag off the cigarette and briefly followed Linus’ gaze though the glass. She turned her attention back to him, observing his hunched shoulders and the way his jaw seemed to swell slightly when he clenched his teeth in thought. She noticed how the moonlight seemed to accentuate his pale skin and threw the dark stubble on his head into sharp relief. She took another drag and ground the cigarette out on the windowsill, leaving a small burn mark on the worn wood.
She swept the ash off the sill and pulled herself up and sat down next to him with her back to the frame so she was facing him. She pulled her legs up to her chest and hugged them with her arms, laying her head on her knees. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
Linus shook his head again.
Emily looked at him, waiting for a further response. When none came she began to roll the flannel sleeves up from where they dangled around her wrists. As more of her slender arm was revealed the small tattoo chain of stars around her right wrist caught Linus’s eye. The moonlight had a similar effect on Emily as it did on him, accentuating her paleness and making the contrast between skin and ink that much sharper. Her short red hair stuck up in random spikes, tousled from sleep. He watched as she rolled her sleeves, her movements graceful and slow and he almost forgot the time and his fatigue.
Emily finished rolling the sleeves at her elbows and looked back at Linus. She knew he had been watching her. Nobody ever watched how someone rolled sleeves or smoked a cigarette or the thousand and one little actions that people did every day, but Linus always tried to see them and look for the simple beauties as he called them. His lyrics, at least the ones he used to write, were full of references to movement, sounds, sensory events that most people didn’t even notice any more. Linus constantly tried to see things as a child would see them, for the first time. At first it had made her self conscious, but she had gotten used to it now and actually felt somewhat flattered that something as simple as breathing could be seen by someone as beautiful.
The adjustment completed, Emily reached into the front pocket of the shirt and retrieved a silver flip-cover case and a red plastic lighter. She opened the case and pulled two cigarettes out of it. Closing the case with a snap, she returned it to the pocket and put both cigarettes in her mouth and lit them one at a time with the lighter, returning it to the pocket as well when she had finished. She took one of the cigarettes out of her mouth, turned it around and placed it between Linus’s lips. He accepted it and inhaled, returning his gaze to the window.
Finally he spoke. “I just can’t seem to stop thinking about it, you know? I mean, he was my friend. We didn’t know each other for that long, but we understood each other. He was one of those people to who I would have gladly donated a kidney to save his life and then this shit happened.”
Emily nodded. “Yeah, I know that this has to be hard for you, but listen, it’s not the end of the world. Times change, people change, no matter how much we want things to stay the same…”
“This isn’t something you can explain away!” Linus suddenly cut her off. The sudden flare of emotion caught her off guard and she stopped. Linus turned his eyes to her and his gaze was steely through the thin haze of smoke. “Someone who I thought was my friend, someone I thought I could trust, suddenly decides that that doesn’t mean shit. I had someone important to me stab me in the back.”
He took another drag off the cigarette and blew the smoke out irritably. Emily puffed at her own cigarette and stayed quiet. Linus would speak when he was ready, she knew. Prompting wouldn’t help it. Sure enough, after a brief pause, Linus continued.
“It’s just hard when you think someone is your friend and then they suddenly turn on you like that. I mean, Gabe was a great person and a lot of fun to hang out with, but then he started hanging out with Rachel and suddenly it’s like he’s not allowed to be my friend any more.”
Emily unfolded her legs and let her bare feet dangle towards the floor. Her hand reached out and rested on his shoulder. Linus looked briefly at the hand and then let his eyes drift up the thin arm to her face. Her blue eyes almost seemed to glow in the moonlight.
“I know you’re upset and confused. I know how close you and Gabe were, but you have to understand that Rachel doesn’t like you, has never really liked you and sees you as something of a threat. You are someone who Gabe can relate to and can talk to. You two understand each other in a way that she will never be able to match. Therefore, she sees you as someone who might tell Gabe that he doesn’t want to be with her, or might even steal Gabe from her. Since she doesn’t like you and sees you as an adversary, she tells Gabe that he can’t be your friend any more, be it through subtle hints, denying of sex or just flat out telling him. Either way, you know that you were only trying to be a friend to Gabe and trying to have a good time with him, but that doesn’t matter.”
While she had been speaking she had never broken eye contact, had held his gaze. She had seen the small tear form in the corner of his dark eyes and had watched it slid silently down his face.
“I could tell you that Gabe will see how much he hurt you and will apologize and everything will be ok, but I would be lying to you. I don’t know that he will and so I won’t tell you for sure. It may be that you two look back on this in a few years and laugh, but it may also be another painful memory for you. The day you lose a friend is always hard, but brooding over it isn’t going to make it any easier.”
She hopped lightly down off the windowsill and held out her hand. “Come on. We can talk about this all you want, but in the morning. You don’t need to be awake for your brain to work this one over.”
His eyes went to her hand and saw the small pixie tattoo peeking out from under the rolled sleeve. His attention was diverted momentarily by a flash of silver where the moon caught one of her piercings. Stubbing out the cigarette, he climbed off the sill as well, feeling Emily’s arm encircle his shoulders.
“What if I still can’t sleep?” he asked.
“All I can ask is that you try,” she replied.