Glitter

Nora never came home.

Not for that night at least.

This man, this stranger, and I sat on our respective cushions, a cup of coffee each and a plate of biscuits between us. We didn't really talk, to be honest. I think that maybe, it was because we were too unfamiliar with each other for it. But there was no awkwardness, surprisngly. Just a very comfortable, very easy silence.

I spent the moments that he would spend glancing at his watch watching him and I couldn't help but find the gentle slopes of his face more and more endearing each and every time. I didn't want to admit this to myself though, so I kept the best poker face I could on and twirled the stale coffee biscuits around my fingers again and again.

"Your home is pretty small," he said once, glancing up at me.

I had just placed the last bit of biscuit into my mouth when he did, so I waited a few seconds before replying. "I guess it is."

Looking around the living room, his brown eyes took in the details that I had long since learned to ignore: the chipped ceiling paint, the old wall paper, the thinning carpet. Strangely enough, I was slightly defensive.

I knew that the apartment had very little and offered little more. I knew that it's windows could never be opened, because of the smog from the nearby factories, and I knew that sometimes, the wiring could act up a little and turn the breakers off for days on end. I knew that there was no television because the circuit breakers went haywire whenever we tried to turn one on, and that the lack of furniture was more due to the fact that we didn't have enough money to spend on a sofa set more than improvised home designing. But despite all this, this was our home.

My home.

I worked for the rent, the food, the bills. It was mine in every possible way.

Mine and Nora's, but you got the point, didn't you?

His scrutiny of the place did very, very little for the fact that I was beginning to regret ever letting him into the house in the first place.

"Is there a problem?" I snapped. I couldn't help the sudden bite in my tone.

His eyes snapped towards me and he shook his head, "No, not at all."

I cocked an eyebrow; knowing that it was too late. I was already too worked up. I had changed my mind. Mr. Stranger-man needed to leave now. I didn't like that he was looking around like that, judgement in his eyes. I'd had enough of that back home, when my father had lost his job. Only back there, I'd had the excuse of college to keep me from full time work. I didn't here. And I worked as hard as I could with the little opportunity that I had.

I worked and worked and worked and while it wasn't getting me anywhere huge, it was keeping me alive.

This man had no right to just waltz into my life and make his tiny little judgements about my tiny little house because damn it, I worked for this. I earned it.

He had no right. No right.

"Nora isn't coming home tonight," I hissed, "so you should go. Come back some other time or something."

I had already gotten to my feet and was at the door by the time he stood. He held the plate of biscuits and empty cup in his hand and looked perplexed.

"Did I say something to offend you?" he asked sincerely.

I glared at him, unsure of how to react. It confused me that he could judge my living conditions like he had and be so genuinely nice in the same breath. I decided that maybe he was schrizophenic.

"Just leave."

And he did.



He came back that Friday night, and for almost every second or third night after that.

I was already home when he knocked on the door again; dressed in my most comfortable pajama pants and a faded out t-shirt. I wasn't really surprised when I saw him standing there, a plastic bag of something in his hand. It figured that if he really had wanted to meet Nora, he would have shown up again sooner or later.

"I brought food," he smiled when I saw him. The bag came up and exchanged hands. I didn't bother to wait for him to enter before checking the white bag. It contained some cheese nachos, chocolate milk, crackers and more biscuits. Junk food, basically.

Shutting the door behind me, I turned to find him settling himself down on the same cushion he'd claimed before and frowned.

"Nora might not come home tonight, you know."

He glanced at me and smiled, "I know. No harm in waiting, is there?"

Emptying the bag out onto the kitchen counter, I clicked the heater on and separated the creamed cookies and plain biscuits into two separate plates.

"You should have called first, you know. Or something like that. I might not have been home and you would have wasted a trip from whereever you come from."

"I don't mind. And it's lucky that you are home, isn't it? Now we can have biscuits and coffee and whatever."

I looked up to see him grinning at me. I guess I couldn't really help the grin that I gave back.

It wasn't until I heard the heater was whistling when I moved and once I had turned away, I realized that I was beginning to like this man. He was (somehwat) nice. He was considerate and he was cute. And he still had that strange sense of humour. I guessed that I could learn to like him

But he was also judgemental, and he'd already classed me into the "sad poor" without a second thought. I was sure of it. That characteristic alone made me wary of drawing too good an impression off of the man. Oh, and of course, the first two times we had met.

I wondered briefly at the nature of his relationship with Nora and realized that it shouldn't matter. Nora's life was none of my business. We had met just that morning and she'd told me that she would come by tonight to meet him. It was already nine'o'clock and she still hadn't showed.

I threw the man a worried glance. If I'd actually had an opinion on the matter, I would had thought that she was purposely avoiding him. But I reminded myself that I didn't, and instead, served the man a cup of coffee and biscuits. He sat cross legged on the floor and dug into the biscuits and tea like nobody's business. If there were anyone else there, they would have been forgiven for thinking that he was a homeless man, finding good food after a very long while.

I took the cushion directly opposite him and realized that no, I didn't really mind that he was here, waiting for Nora, in my house. Even if he was a judgemental asshole, I didn't mind the company he offered. And I was willing to guess that he didn't mind either.

I was beginning to 'not-mind' about this Mr. Stranger-man and that irked me.



Parks had a certain magic to them, especially during fall. Awash with every golden, brown and green hue known to man, with just the right amount of breeze sifting through the leaves - I loved how lost you could get just by sitting there, enjoying the beauty that nature had to offer.

My feet stretched out before me, and my backpack serving as an improvised pillow beneath my head, I let myself absorb the earthy, musky scent of my immediate environment before opening up the book I'd brought with me to the park.

Saturday mornings, in the park, were a godsend break from the long hours of housekeeping I'd had to endure throughout the six days I worked at the O'Reilleys. While the family I worked for were so much kinder than most of the others I'd had the misfortune of coming across, Mrs. O'Reilley had an obsessive compulsive complex that demanded her thirteen bedroom mansion be scrubbed clean from ceiling to floor every second day.

Thirteen bedrooms.

Frowning at the words on the book, I let my hair fall forward as I realized just how tiring my current job really was.

Who needed thirteen fucking bedrooms anyway?

Unless you ran a hospital, or a boarding room, you didn't need thirteen bedrooms. Not unless you reproduced like rabbits and had two hundred and eighty children to think of. Well, okay, slight exaggeration but still.

Thirteen bedrooms.

It just made my head spin, it did.

I was halfway through the first page when a shouted greeting brought my attention to the park bench under the first park lamp from where I lay. Mr. Stranger-man - what had been his name again? - stood there, hand waving my way. Because I hadn't disclosed my name on our last meeting, he'd taken to calling me "Red-head." Brushing my hair away from my face in an attempt to hide the very thing that was now gaining others' unneeded attention, I sat up and pulled my backpack closer to pack my book back in.

Perhaps the park wasn't going to be as relaxing as I'd thought it would be.

He called again, "Hey, Red-head!"

Shooting him a dirty look, I unzipped and zipped the necessary compartments before getting to my feet. Was I avoiding him? I obviously didn't think of it that way. I called it having a sudden urge to leave the place without a moment's notice.

It had nothing to do with the fact that he had spotted me, and was now walking towards me, that cheery smile on his face.

Nothing to do with the fact that I found his cheerfulness, even this far away, rather sickening - especially when I was in such a foul mood about work and, nothing to do with the fact that meeting him might entail some sort of half-assed excuse for Nora's absence. Nothing at all.

I'd just about gotten to my feet when the man got to me, his hand immediately reaching for my elbow.

"Hey, didn't you hear me?"

Looking up at him, I didn't even bother smiling. "No."

He made a face but the smile was still there. Why he needed to be smiling every single minute of his life escaped me. Staring at the floppy brown hair and sparkling eyes, I envisioned into his brain some sort of disorder that led to the over production of dopamine and endorphins in his body. That made sense to his overt cheerfulness, did it not?

"Well, I didn't catch your name the other night when I came over."

Sighing, I shrugged my slipping backpack on before crossing my arms in front of my chest. "I don't recall giving it."

It wasn't that I was trying to be overly mean or anything, really. I just didn't like people, period. Sure, I could fake being nice, work the odd flirtatious smile once or twice to get me where I needed, but people - talking to people? - that wasn't me.

"You're quite the social butterfly, aren't you?"

I shot him a look before sighing. "Fine, it's Dianna."

"Dianna? Nice to meet you Dianna," his hand came forward and shook my rather limp one enthusiastically. I forced a smile.

"Nice to meet you too er ... "

"Alex." His attention had wandered back to the park bench he'd been sitting on. It was only then that I noticed that he wasn't alone. Some other guys were sitting there, all in various stages of consuming packaged snacks. I couldn't decide whether they'd just been passing through or had been sitting there for a while.

"I have to go now, but uhm, I might see you again sometime soon - if you don't mind. I'd really like to meet Nora as soon as I can."

I glanced at his friends once more before nodding at him.

"Okay."

And just like that, he turned and walked back to where he'd come from, cheery smile and all. I watched his retreating shape for a few seconds before turning in the opposite direction and beginning on my walk back home.

Alex, I decided, didn't sound like such a bad name to remember at all.