Karl the Great

Karl sat at the same spot in Starbucks, where he accidentally met Jessica back in May. This time they had arranged to meet up, but the girl was already forty minutes late. Karl took the last sip of his long-chilled coffee and picked up his phone. He wanted to text Jessica, but knew that the third time would make him look too clingy and he certainly didn't want Jessica to get such an impression. Karl was sad with her lateness. It made him feel as if he was losing Jessica, just like he has lost everyone already and he couldn't afford another loss. Karl and Jessica weren't even that close, but the guy valued girl's company a lot. She was one of those people that you aren't really bound to, but you know that they are somewhere out there and that is enough to make you feel loved.

When Jessica finally entered the café, Karl was starring at his phone blankly. The girl sighed and approached her friend. She sat before Karl and waited for him to notice her. It didn't take long for Karl to do so and when he did he smiled widely.

“Hey, Jessy!”– Karl put his phone down – “Why are you so late? I hope nothing happened”

“I couldn't decide if I should really meet you” – she replied with a serious look on her face.

“What do you mean?” – Karl asked, not really following what the girl was talking about

“I mean this!” – Jessica shouted, throwing a magazine onto the table.

Karl frowned at Jessica making enough noise for the other people in the café to get interested and turn around. He then looked at the magazine on the table carefully and gulped as he realized what it was.

“Is there something wrong with my latest interview?” – Karl asked.

“Yes, everything is wrong!” – Jessica looked Karl straight in the eye, clearly still angry – “You act cocky there as always, but I know that something is wrong with you. I can sense it in your everything. You're my friend, Spring. You can't hide anything from me for long”

“Jessy...” – Karl started.

“Don't freaking “Jessy” me!” – Jessica cut him off – “Just spill it all. Now”

“Everything is perfect, Jessica. I'm living my life to the fullest, amazing people surround me, I do the job I love. Why would you think it could be the other way around?”

Jessica kept silent for two minutes before getting up and going to get a coffee. She knew very well that the get-together with Karl was going to be long. When she got back with two cups of hot liquid, she placed one beside her on the table and put another one in front of the guy. Jessica then opened the page on which Karl's interview started.

“What do you remember about your first ever photo-shoot?” – Jessica cited one of the questions and looked at her friend, then continued, now with Karl mouthing the answer together with her – “Chain-smoking joints”

Karl focused his eyes on new coffee in front of him and took a small sip.

“Seriously, Karl? You did drugs on your first shoot ever? Gucci doesn't hire stoners, unless they are super famous and you certainly weren't one at the beginning of your career.”

“How do you know my first job was for Gucci?” – the guy simply asked, still looking at his drink.

“Do you have a highlight of your modelling career?” – Jessica read another question out loud, not caring to reply to Karl's inquiry – “Doing vodka shots with Karl Lagerfeld on a spring break”

Karl smiled, remembering the interviewer's face, when he said that. He couldn't believe how stupid that woman was for buying such an obvious lie.

“Spring!” – Jessica snapped her fingers in front of the guy, so he would get out of his daze – “Everybody knows how much you adore Karl Lagerfeld, but I still don't get why would you say such a non-sense.”

“Oh, this reminds me! I bought a white cat and named him Lagerfeld” – Karl said simply –“Ri, I really don't understand why would you be so mad about this interview...”

“Oh, don't worry. I was just getting started. You know what pissed me off the most?” – the girl said, frowning as hard as she physically was able to and quoted the other question – “How did you made your last summer hot? By spraying aerosol into the ozone layer, of course.”

“What?” – Karl asked guiltily, when Jessica looked up at him from the magazine.

“Karl, that's really disrespectful”

“You know that I was just joking. Everybody gets that! You're not my fucking manager to react like this”

“You still shouldn't say such things. Some people might take it as the truth”

“Whatever. I don't really give a shit, you know”

“Oh yes, I know very well. Do you want to know why? Because to the question what the last thing that made you mutter “whatever” was, you just said “almost everything ever”. You're such a smart-ass, Spring, I can't even believe you”

“Yeah well, it takes guts to be such a rebel like me” – Karl said sarcastically, getting annoyed with Jessica being so bitchy.

“I'm aware of your rebel level very well, Spring. I'm sure everybody is after you stated that you've been causing trouble your whole life.”

“Jessy, please, just stop”

“I will, if you start telling me what's really on your mind”

“I didn't even want to be a model in the first place” – Karl said before tasting his coffee.

“What?” – Jessica raised an eyebrow – “I thought it was your dream and passion”

“I was nearly making the ends meet, after I finished high school. But then one day I was sauntering through the streets with your brother Sam, when some woman approached us. She asked if I've ever thought about modelling and left her card. I was very sceptic about it at first, but Sam said to me something that I still remember word by word to this day: “Spring, listen buddy, either you're going to get paid to be a piece of meat and live like a star, or you're not going to be paid to be a piece of meat and freeze to death in winter”. Technically, Sam was the one who talked me into trying a model's career”

“Sam never told me about this” – Jessica couldn't stop herself from saying that, though she didn't want to interrupt Karl.

“Sometimes I feel guilty” – the guy continued, not paying attention to what Jessica said – “I feel like I'm living somebody else's dream, because I never gave a shit about being a fashion symbol.”

“Spring...” – Jessica started, but got cut off by the guy.

“That's a secret for you to keep. No one else should ever know about this”

“Why?”

“I just don't want people to nose in my life too much”

“O-okay. I promise I won't ever tell” – Jessica nodded, dumbfounded by Karl's sudden outburst. Even if she wanted to know the truth, she didn't really expect Karl let her know.

“Jessy, do you have any idea what my tattoo means?”

“Yeah, you've got words “April, May, June” tattooed on your chest because you couldn't decide which of these months you liked better” – the girl chuckled.

“No, I wanted them written on me, because the three most important people were born then. My mother was born in April, my father – in May and my older brother – June” – the boy said, leaving his friend startled.

“Do you know what's my favourite place?” – Karl asked, snapping Jessica out of her daze.

“Yes, it's Paris” – she answered, remembering that being repeated in many interviews.

“Well, that's also a lie”

“Karl, do you always lie? I mean, even about such details like your favourite things?” –Jessica asked, not hiding her surprise.

“I've been to more than fifty or sixty different places – from well-known capitals to towns, as big as Vatican” – Karl started, after squeezing a smile onto his defeated face – “I always visit famous places in town but I never forget to take a peek at horrible ones, like dirty cheap strip clubs. I guess you can say I've seen it all. But the thing is – even when I've seen so much, I would never go to any of those places to just chill and have a good time. I think that favourite place has to be the one, where you can have time just for yourself, where your soul can heal or what-so-ever. Maybe that's why my favourite place is the graveyard.” – Karl looked at Jessica, who now had a guilty look on her face, as if she was trying to apologize to Karl for making him speak, but the guy continued – “I mean, the people I've cared the most in my entire life are already dead. My mother, my father, my elder brother and even my best friend Sam – they are all dead. Maybe it's ironic to say, but luckily, they all rest in the same cemetery, so whenever I go there, I can see them all. I have even placed a gravestone next to my parents grave for Emily Lilith. I haven't told about it to Zoe and probably never will, because I don't really feel the need to do so...”

After that where was a long silence. Karl didn't want to talk anymore and Jessica was just afraid to say anything. The guy felt tears forming in his eyes, so he held onto his cup, trying to hold it all in. No matter how hard Karl clutched onto the cup, in the end his tears started rolling down his cheeks.

“Karl...” – Jessica whispered softly, putting her hand onto her friend's.

“I just...” – the guy inhaled – “I-I miss them all so much.”

“I'm sorry, Karl.” – Jessica started circling around Karl's hand.

“You know, this just hasn't been my year. First my mother passes away, then Zoe loses the baby and...” – Karl suddenly stopped, remembering Luke.

“And? Did something else happen?” – Jessica asked carefully.

“A friend of my died. This September. He was also a model” – the guy said after a pause, wiping his tears away with the hand that was free from Jessica's grip.

“Oh my god, Karl. I'm so sorry to hear that. How did he pass away?”

“He committed suicide.”

“Suicide? At such a young age! Oh wow... I could just wonder why would he do such a thing...” – Jessica breathed out.

Karl didn't say anything else. He took his other hand out of Jessica's and now cleaned his face from tears with his both hands. There was no way that Karl would tell Jessica more. Even when he trusted the girl so much, he still couldn't admit that he was the one to blame for Luke's tragic end of life to someone. It was something for only Karl to know and carry the guilt to his grave.