24 June 2011 fiction, "Cerise 2"

Leaves were falling, and the wind was giving off a chill to let everyone know that it was fall, summer was over, and winter was coming. In the middle of a small park in the big city of Chicago, a girl sat on a bench. Her eyes were a brilliant light blue, and her eyelashes seemed to go on forever. Her long, blond hair was wavy down her back, blowing around from the wind that somehow managed to make it look better, instead of worse, like the rest of the world.

The girl’s Burberry coat rustled as she sat down and crossed her legs, clothed in white tights and black ankle boots. Her fingernails, painted sky blue, gripped the small cup of some sort of caffeinated beverage, and she lifted it up to her mouth, with a small smile as the warmth from the sip she took reached the rest of her body. She started to laugh, making everyone stare in awe at her perfect teeth, and her beautiful dimples. When she finally calmed the smile down, her cheeks were a rosy red, and her lips barely hid a smile. She was gorgeous, and she knew it. She smiled as she sipped more of her drink, smiling at something the rest of the world wished they could know. As she sat, a gorgeous boy came up to her. He took her hand, and led her away from the bench, and as she walked away, the light went with her. She disappeared out of sight, the only thing left to remind everyone of her presence being a quarter empty cup of coffee.

Minutes passed, and everyone in the park resumed what they had been doing before the goddess had entered their presence. A second girl, about fifteen years old, quietly came and sat on the bench, pushing the abandoned cup off to the side. She pulled an ipod out and stuck the buds into her ears, trying to sit in peace. She pushed her glasses onto the bridge of her nose, knowing full well that they hid her best feature, her eyes. She brushed the hair coming out of her ponytail out of her eyes, and quietly sipped her hot chocolate, bought from the tiny shop across the street. Her moccasins brushed against the pavement as she sat up straighter on the bench and looked at her phone to pass the time. She knew she wouldn’t have any messages, and she was right. As the wind picked up and her hair blew a little, she pulled her arms to her chest trying to create warmth from her thin red sweater. Her jeans rustled, and she bit her lip, hoping no one was staring her way. She closed her eyes.

The girl sighed, and brushed the hair falling in her eyes out of the way. She leaned back and smiled at the moment of sunny warmth, and for a moment, she felt like the beautiful girl she had always wished she was.

However, the moment passed as quickly as it came because after she opened her eyes, she saw a couple holding hands and smiling as they walked by her. The girl bit her lip, and slid down on the bench, quietly focusing on the interlocked hands. She had always been focused on that, on holding hands. She had always been jealous of the happy girl whose hand was carefully interlocked with another’s. Maybe it was because she had never experienced that. Maybe it was because of the ache she felt in her heart every time she looked at her empty hands.

The girl sighed, and again closed her eyes. She had always been one obsessed with touch. She had always been focused on what things felt like, how she felt when her fingers collided with something. Even as a little girl, she had wanted to touch. All the clothing in the stores, wanting to know what cashmere felt like, what silk felt like, what cotton felt like. All the dogs she went by, wanting to feel what texture the fur was. Anything that looked like it was different.

She had always enjoyed shaking hands. It seemed weird, even to her, but when she shook someone’s hand, she felt like she had been given a moment to take an intimate glance at someone. Like feeling the texture of the hand, smooth, soft, rough, calloused, however it was, she felt like she was getting to know them in a way words couldn’t really describe.

She sat for a while, simply watching the park go through its daily routine, even though it was a Friday afternoon, and she could have better things to do if she wished. She had friends, she had family, and she had things she could and should be doing. But instead, she wanted to have a moment to herself. And at the moment, she had one. One of her favorite songs came on, and the girl quietly hummed along to the melody. A warm breeze pushed her hair behind her face, and the girl smiled, basking in the one of the last moments of warm weather that there would be for a while.

After sitting on the bench for a while, and getting her fill of alone time, the girl stood up, brushed off her legs, and grabbed the empty cup of hot chocolate as well as the cup of coffee that the goddess had carelessly left behind. Unlike the goddess, this girl knew that if she didn’t pick up her trash, no one else would handle it. She was a strong believer in protecting the environment; she was willing to handle the part of cleaning up for the goddess, this one time. The goddess knew her place, knew that things she ignored would just be handled. But the girl with the glasses knew that she had to handle things on her own if she wanted anything to go right for her.

The girl walked away, pushing her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose, and turning up the volume of her ipod. She walked all the way to the bus stop, which was a good five or six blocks from where she had been sitting. She was far away from home, about a half an hour bus ride. But she was willing to take the bus this far, if it meant that she could have a few moments of pure bliss as an anonymous park-goer. It was better this way, she told herself. She would not run the chance of running into someone she knew from school, which she really did not want to risk. Not when she was feeling like this. She just wanted to be alone. And this park, the park where she could just sit on a bench and no one would bother her, the park across the street from the small coffee shop where she always got a hot chocolate on a cold day, the park where she was just another face in a sea of faces, this was where she liked to go to get away.

She climbed onto the bus, showing her pass to the driver. He smiled at her, and nodded that she was fine to go. She walked to the middle of the bus, and grabbed a seat by the window. Resting her head on the glass, she breathed a sigh. Back home, to the place where she felt anywhere but home. She sometimes wished that she could stay at the park forever. But that was an impossibility. She had to get home, and she knew it. It was hard to leave, but the moments of quiet in the park made all the time at home until her next park visit bearable. Things would be fine when she got home, she hoped. Just hoped, but knowing that they would be anything but.

She sat in silence for the next five minutes, and soon enough she forgot that she was on a bus, the leaves mesmerizing her. She perhaps would have left reality for a while, had someone not nudged her.

When she turned around to see what had just happened, a boy with brown hair and green eyes stared back at her. “I’m sorry.” He said.

“Excuse me?” the girl asked.

“I said I’m sorry, well, I nudged you by accident, and well, I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”

The girl laughed. “Oh? Well, I barely felt it, so it’s alright. I forgive you.”

The boy, relaxing a little at the girl’s smile, laughed as well. “I’m Nicholas.”

“Cerise. It’s nice to meet you.”

Nicholas smiled. “Well it’s very nice to meet you, Cerise.” He stuck out his hand, and Cerise shook it, smiling wider than she thought she was able. Cerise looked into his eyes, and found they were deeper than she had imagined. Looking into his eyes, Cerise found that she could not read him as easily as she could read others. She stared deeper, begging them to tell her at least one small thing about this Nicholas. They revealed nothing.

The bus jerked to a stop, and Cerise blinked, breaking her intent gaze. She reluctantly pulled her hand from his, and shook her head. She turned and looked at the window, realizing that it was her stop. She turned back around, to see Nicholas looking the other way. She tapped him on the shoulder, letting her fingers linger a second to feel the softness of his green sweater. It was cashmere, and she melted.

“Um, this is me.” She breathed as he turned around to look straight into her eyes again.

“Oh, of course.” Nicholas said, standing up to let her through. He smiled.

Cerise smiled too, and she glanced into his eyes one more time before walking by, conscious of the fact that her shoulder brushed his softly. She left the bus, and waved as it drove away, not even noticing what she had left behind.

 The girl turned around, and the smile faded from her face. She was home. She slowly ascended the stairs to the door of her apartment building, nodding a quick hello to the man with the crooked teeth sitting outside the front door. She knew why he was here. The warmth coming out from the building’s vents were better than anything else he could find in the city, and no matter how creeped out the girl was by his crooked smile, she always found herself with a little sympathy for the man. He really had it worse than she did, even if it didn’t seem that way sometimes.

Opening the door to her apartment, the girl sighed. Here she was, back in her home where she would have to forget about the meeting she had with Nicholas on the bus, and worry about taking care of her mom and sister. She slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind her. Everything was as she had left it. And that was to be expected, it wasn’t like anyone had moved since she had left. Cerise pulled the headphones out of her ears, and set her ipod down on the small coffee table littered with magazines. Elle, Vogue, Seventeen, anything you could imagine was on the table, scattered messily. She sighed, rolling her eyes. Her sister had always been a magazine junkie. She pulled off her sweatshirt, hanging it up on the hook by the door. She walked into the bedroom, knocking softly as she entered. Her mother looked up from her bed.

Her mother smiled, and for a moment Cerise was taken aback by her beauty. Her mother really was beautiful, with her bright blue eyes, and soft brown hair. She walked over to her mother, and took her hand. Her mother smiled brighter, not saying a word. The girl turned away, hiding the tears that were quickly rising to the surface. Her sister was asleep, her beautiful brown hair falling over her face. She gently shook her sister, and the eyes slowly blinked open.

“You can go Gina.” She said. “I can stay with mom for a while.”

Gina smiled, and yawned. She stood up, stretching.

“I think I’ll go read some magazines.” Gina said simply. Cerise smiled, blinking back the tears at how simple Gina could be sometimes. Gina had never really understood anyway, she was only twelve; and had only been eleven when their mother was diagnosed.