(no subject)
Jade stood under a too-blue sky on too-green grass without shoes. She
wiggled her toes in the sickeningly soft clover and cringed. Pointing
a sharp, freckled nose over her right shoulder, she re-examined her
house for the fifth time that day. It had gotten shabbier over the
Winter; the cement between the bricks was cracking and making lines as
complicated as the root system of a dandelion. She missed the cold
nights wrapped up in blankets and Luke's arms, drinking hot cocoa or
rum and smoking weed to keep warm. She missed the air that was as tart
as her, and she missed exhaling smoke without lighting up.
The sun beat down on Jade's shaggy salon-layered boy hair cut and she
had to squint her apple green eyes against the stark pollen dusted
light. She didn't like the way moisture from her head ran down her
neck, or the way the sand at the beach was too hot to walk on
barefoot. She didn't like when her skin stuck to the bedsheets. She
didn't like shaving her legs.
"Hey, come up here" Luke called from the window, "you gotta see something".
Jade opened her eyes as wide as she could manage to stare up at him.
She just nodded and walked back towards the door with her arms
swinging out to the side like an airplane, or a self-cooling-unit. And
while you wouldn't be able to tell by the look on her face, she was
silently appreciating her roommate/lover man/friend for the
possibility that whatever he wanted to show her would somehow make the
new day bearable.
Her ratty old Chucks with the holes in the soles squelched with dew
(or was it sprinkler water?) as she went up the wooden stairs.
Jade muttered with angry eyebrows "probably termite infested. probably
gonna fall right fucking through."
When she was at the top and hadn't fallen through, she let out
a semi-conspicuous rush of gushing breath. Luke popped his head in
from the Library doorway and rolled his eyes, but did so with the
sweetest smile.
"Alright, get your ass over here."
"What did you want to show me?"
"You'll see!"
Jade blinked and followed him one step behind into their Library,
which was actually a converted walk-in closet with shelfs on the
walls. It was really more like a book pantry then a real Library like
you read about when they talk about mansions. But Luke had a mini fan
going and there were two tall glasses of water sitting, waiting on the
only surface to be found that wasn't completely occupied by volumes of
plays and books on Ancient Rome and Arabic to Enlgish dictionaries.
"So whats the big deal?"
"I organized all of our books alphabetically!"
If and only if you knew what to watch for and were looking at just the
right moment, you could see the way her eyes dimmed slightly at his
words.