Birdie

The coffee is warm but does nothing to awaken my cold and tired veins, just outside the window are galaxies of constellations and I think I might be tired, tired enough to sleep. Like really sleep, sleep like I haven’t done in months and the thought is so wonderful I feel tears spring to my eyes. But like all my good feelings it is short lived and I am awake, like really awake.

I think I might be tired for something other than sleep, something primal and something raw. Something completely and utterly different to sleep and I yawn at the thought. I reach with slightly shaking hands to grasp the cup of coffee in front of me taking a deep sip of the dark liquid and letting the warmth burn my throat, it’s been a long night, one of tossing and turning and in desperation sneaking out to find the beautiful creatures of the night.

Only they aren’t beautiful, they like me are sad and desolate, I feel hopeless as I stare at a couple of teenagers no older than me sharing secret whispers and words that mean more than my entire life. I quickly look away feeling all my sadness bubble up inside me and spill out, I want to cry but I don’t. Not here, not in front of people who couldn’t care less, I grasp the coffee cup wishing my hands would just settle, just for a second but they don’t and I am left frustrated, waiting for the impossible because my hands always shake when I get like this.

When I feel this amount of sadness my hands shake, they always have and always will. My lips are chapped and I lick them trying desperately to fix one problem at a time, maybe if I can fix my lips I can fix my sadness. It is a pipe dream one destined for failure but I hope nonetheless. I look back at the couple a few booths down from me and watch them, they look so happy and I can’t help but wonder if I have ever looked that happy, for some strange reason Eli enters my head and I can’t seem to get rid of him.

I want so desperately for him to leave my thoughts and stop bothering me but he is there smiling at me in that infuriating way that makes me think maybe he would understand my words, maybe he would understand me. No, he will never understand I am awful, horrible and ugly; no one can ever understand the depths of my ugly soul. But the thought is nice nonetheless, it is really nice like a sweet dream stealing my attention and leaving my lungs free from air.

I didn’t bring my erase board so ordering my coffee had been difficult. I had been reduced to fining a menu and pointing to the item, I could have chosen to speak, I could have taken my silence and thrown it all aside but I hadn’t because of Alison and all she will never again get to say. I feel sad again and I find myself sighing into the night air waiting for something I can no longer name, I am sure I will know it when it comes but until then I am clueless.

I know the waitress is watching me speculating as to why I had come in and refused to speak, maybe she thinks I am stubborn and maybe I am. Maybe she thinks I am mute or deaf or dumb, maybe she thinks a range of things, I don’t care I just wish she would stop staring at me with such sadness in her eyes like only the broken hearted come here alone. Maybe my heart is broken, maybe it has been trampled on by life but that doesn’t mean she can sit there and stare at me like that, she just can’t.

I feel tears threaten to slip from my eyes but I don’t want to cry and prove her point right so I throw a dollar on the coffee table and slip from the restaurant wiping furiously at my eyes. I begin the walk back to my house but somewhere along the way I take a wrong turn and get all mixed up. I haven’t been to the diner a whole lot but for some reason tonight I cannot remember the way home and that makes me sad like I am infinitely lost.

And maybe I am.

I don’t really care, all I care about is getting home in one piece before dawn breaks and my parents realise I am not at home in bed. That would be bad, like really bad. I would get grounded and I wouldn’t be able to sneak out anymore when I can’t sleep. I don’t notice the car pulling to a soft stop next to me until I hear a voice, “Yo, you looking for a good time” It is a boy I don’t recognize with long dark hair and dangerous eyes, ones that Alison would have loved.

I shake my head desperate to get away but he has other ideas pulling the car to a stop and getting out cornering me on the street like a victim, “What I ain’t good enough for your words?” And I know where I am, on the wrong side of town the one that has the bad boys Alison loved and nothing but hurt in its stars. I look up at the stars desperate for them to open up and swallow me whole, I wait thirty whole seconds before I realise it isn’t going to happen and I am stuck, here with a boy that means trouble.

I try to push past him but he grabs my arm and holds me in a death grip one meant to stop me in my tracks and it does, I am frozen. This boy is going to hurt me and I am helpless to stop it, which seems unexplainably cruel. But then again everything seems cruel these days, everything hurts these days. And I am left staring at this boy willing words to come from my mouth but being left in the silence,

“What the fuck is going on here?” A voice shouts probably waking the neighbours, I don’t care it seems to frighten the boy into letting his grip on my arm lessen, just slightly, but it is enough for me to steal my arm away in a hard yank that sends the boy reaching after me fruitlessly. I turn for the first time to the owner of the voice who is standing in a pair of jeans and nothing else on his front stoop his hands balled into fists, Eli.

I sigh a sigh of relief and rush away from the boy with the heavy hands to the boy I know will protect me, “You okay Birdie?” HE asks never taking his eyes from the other boy, I nod not sure if he expects my words, my nod seems to placate him some, but I can tell he is ready to fight and I terrified.

“Fuck this” The other boy spits returning to his car and blasting his music so loud it makes my teeth chatter, or maybe it is the ice in my veins that make my teeth chatter I’m not sure all I know I am chattering like lunatic. Eli wraps one arm around me in a protective motion that leaves me breathless,
“What the hell are you doing here Birdie?” I want to tell him the truth that I got turned around and lost but the words don’t come, and I all I am left with is a shrug, meaningless.

Eli rakes a hand through his hair in a motion that leaves it standing on its ends, almost as if realising for the first time he snakes an arm around his midsection blushing slightly. “Wait here” But I am too scared to listen and follow hot on his heels into his house where he slips into a dark room reappearing with a t-shirt he quickly slips over his head. He pauses at a computer desk to grab something making his way back to me holding out the object, a pen and a piece of paper. I have never been more thankful to a person in my life,

Thank you I write,

“That’s okay Birdie, jesus you scared the shit out of me”

I’m sorry

Eli shakes this away as if I am being ridiculous, “Lucky I came out when I did, what the hell are you doing here alone at this time of night, don’t you know what kind of people live here?” I want to write wonderful people because Eli is wonderful but I don’t because it seems immature and I don’t want Eli to think I am immature.

I’m sorry I write hope this satisfies his question but I don’t think it does because he is look at me like I am a petulant child, his gaze makes me feel like a child and I squirm under it. “Well let’s go”

Where?

“Home, I’m not letting you walk home by yourself, let me grab my keys” And for the first time in twenty nine days I smile, like really smile.