Friends of Windows (title still in the works) 1.2

A/N:  This seemed longer before I uploaded it on here...

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I sit on a cement divider- something I do often here.  Cars rush passed, heading home to their lives most likely.  I want to stop them, I want to stop them and shake them and tell them that life doesn’t last as long as they think, and I want to tell them to make a life that they’ll remember when they’re gone.  I want to tell them to just stop, get out of the car, look around, and feel the air on their skin.  Feel how calm it is.  But I don’t.  They can’t see me, and even if they could they’d think I was crazy and call the police or something. They can hear me, but that generally just makes them run or think they’re crazy and I don’t like doing that.  Just stop.  I tell one of the cars- a silvery Dodge truck that zooms by.  Its brake lights flash at me, lighting up the fine film of water on the pavement.  For a moment I think it’s heard me, but it swerves around something and then speeds off.  A figure runs across the road where it was nearly hit, the sound of water splashing under it’s footfalls.  For a moment fear tries to scrape it’s gnarled nails down my spine, but then I remember I’m dead.  

The figure makes it’s way towards me, and I just watch.  When they’re nearly stepping on me, they stop and sit beside me.  It’s hard to get used to being able to stare at people as much as you like, but it’s easy to stare at this person.  It’s a kid, I’m sure.  Too short and skinny to be an adult, but it’s too dark to see much else.  I watch her for a long time- until the traffic starts to slow for the night.  It gets quiet enough that I can even hear them breathing.  At first it’s steady, but then their teeth start to clank together.  I look away, wishing I had a way to warm them.  And then I’m wondering what this waffe of a thing is doing out, alone, at night. There’s a sob and my head snaps back to look at the kid again.  You weren’t crying.  I think to myself.  You were just shivering, weren’t you?

“Where are your parents?”  I say under my breath without thinking.  

Silence.  Complete and utter silence.  Neither of us moves a muscle.  

“I’m sorry-- I thought I was alone!” The kid, who actually has a mature sounding female voice, says.   

I don’t know what to do.  Should I reply?  It must be dark enough that she can’t tell if there’s someone here or not.  I get that feeling I used to get whenever the phone would ring.

...I used to get that feeling!

“Oh, no!”  I say, barely containing myself.  “I’ve been here awhile- err, I thought you just…  I thought-- I didn’t see you there, either.”  Maybe I know this girl…

She laughs nervously, and I hear her shift.  

“Lovely evening.”  I say, not knowing what else to say.  But after I say it I feel so stupid.  She doesn’t want to talk to me.  Why would she want to talk to me?  

“You know…”  She says, pausing “most people would think otherwise.”

I bite the edge of my lip, trying not to laugh.  I don’t even know why that’s funny to me.  I’m just so happy she’s talking to me.  Someone’s talking to me.  

“Yeah…”  I say.

“Everyone’s always complaining about the rain, and then there’s a drought and everyone’s like gee, that’s no good for the farmers!”  She says, and I don’t know it, but I imagine her shaking her head in the brief moment of pause that she leaves for that thought to sink in.  “And I’m like, dude, guess what farmers are growing all the food for?  They’re growing it for you, bonehead!”  

A huge sigh escapes her, and then she leaves me to my thoughts.  

That’s when I remember that she was crying, and I feel a bit guilty for laughing at her frustration…  I had thought it was mostly a joke…  wasn’t it a joke?

I want to ask her if she’s okay, or why she’s here, but something tells me that a). it’s not my business to ask and b). it will just upset her somehow.  

She sighs and stands.  “Well, I’ve got to get on my way.”  She says.  

A moment of panic washes over me.  Don’t go I think, you can’t just go.  “Uh-huh, alright…” I say, mostly just because I know I’m supposed to answer but I’m too busy thinking of what to do, to come up with good things to say.  

“Bye!”  she says, turning and walking away.  

And this is when I turn into a stalker, I think, rising as quietly off the divider as I can.  “Yeah, see ya!- I mean bye!!”  I say, cringing at my lack of tack.  I hear her laugh, and then continue walking, her footsteps letting me know where she is.  

So with the grace of a hippopotamus, I follow her.

I have to stop periodically to hear where she is, which gives me some hope that she can’t hear me too well over her own clomping shoes- and I’m being a lot more careful than her, so it might just be possible.  We walk in for about ten minutes, by fast-food joints and hotels, we let a train track lead us for another twenty minutes or so and then come to an apartment building.  I’m so excited and full of adrenaline that when punches in the password on the code-lock-pad-thing, and opens the door…  I follow her in.

In the light, I can see that she’s not a kid at all.  She’s around my age, maybe late teens - early twenties.  It always amazes me how different things look in the dark.  Her long, copper hair is dripping rain water all over the carpet, and the frill of fake-ciot furr is wilted from the moistness itself.  

She sheds her jacket, folding it under her arm, maybe so that it drips less…?  Then she glances back towards me and I freeze, terrified she’ll see me, but then she doesn’t and I feel  disappointed rather than thankful.  I can’t help staring at her shoulder blades.  Shoulder blades are beautiful.

I finally notice the lobby, and glance around briefly.  There’s a pair of easy chairs sandwiching a coffee table between them, and the lights are so bright they make me want to puke from the headache they’re giving me.  There’s a few paintings on the walls that seem to be more concerned with looking expensive than looking interesting. One’s of a man with a beard that curls under his chin, and for some reason - I don’t know, maybe because I’m sneaking into some high-end apartment or something - he’s staring disapprovingly at me.  Another is of a muddy road, with some washed-out mountains in the distance.  I’m so busy wondering who would actually buy such a boring piece of art, that I lose track of the girl.  She was just here.  She must have turned into a hallway.  

Panicking ever so slightly, I run as fast as I can on my tiptoes and turn the corner- narrowly avoiding smacking into her.  She jumps, muttering an apology before realizing that no one was there (...that she knows of).  She was probably feeling the air tug at her hair, or maybe when someone nearly runs into you, no matter how invisible they are, the feeling of pure idiocy still leaks through.  

She’s still staring right through me, her jaw grinding her teeth together slowly.  She has grey eyes, and her face is infested with freckles that lead down her neck.  I glance down at what had stopped her here, and see she’s picked some sort of pamphlet off a small table.  After a long moment of me holding my breath while she contemplates, she finally turns and starts walking again.  I breathe out, and face palm.  This was a terrible, dreadful, horrifyingly stupid, ridiculous idea.  But it’s the most excitement I’ve had in what seems like… Then I remember I just fell from heaven only a few hours ago, and I tell myself to grow a spine.   

She leads me into an elevator at the end of the hall, and presses six.  Some kind of italian sounding music is in the background, just loud enough that it sounds incredibly invasive in the silent atmosphere.  The girl tips her head forward, looking at the ends of her hair.  I imagine that if I had hair like that, I’d probably head-bang regularly, and live with a major headache for eternity.

The elevator dings, opening to reveal a man in sweatpants and a grin.  

“Oh hey Claire, how’s it going?”  he says.

Claire?  I think.  

She smiles up at him, but I could have sworn she flinched.  “I’m good!  Yourself?”  she says.

He nods enthusiastically, “good, I’m good as well!” he says.  

Claire and I step out of the elevator, and I just manage to avoid a collision with the man on his way in.  

“See ya, dear!” he shouts at Claire, and then he’s gone, and we’re walking away from it and Claire’s glaring at the ground shaking her head.

Maybe I should just go back to my uncomplicated life of solitude and confusion…  but then, I think that may have been a contradiction.  We pass doors and numbers and I wonder which one is hers.  Then she stops at Door twenty six, sighs, and to my surprise, knocks.