Out Of This World

“Kimmy?” I slowly lifted a fist and rapped my knuckles on her window pane. Feeling around in the light of the moon, my fingers found the window ledge and creeping forward, slipped themselves beneath the shutter and quietly lifted it up. I threw one leg over the ledge and onto Kim’s bed, followed by my head as my leg caught on a loose branch and tripped me up in mid air. There was a whimper as my shoulder made contact with a blanketed knee and Kim’s head shot up from her slumber.

“What the hell are you doing?!” she hissed, pulling her leg up and giving it a rub.

“Erm,” I jumped up and landed on my bum on her Spiderman bed cover, “Sitting.”

Kim rolled her eyes before pulling the covers back over her shoulders and turned over to face the wall. I watched her warily as she closed her eyes and tried to go back to sleep. How rude.

Dissatisfied by her response, I got on all fours and crawled up the bed, my body hovering over hers. As carefully as I maneuvered my steps, I knew she could feel my body heat, and I knew it was warmer than any Spiderman bed cover, yet she continued to ignore me. My hands landed on something wet and I peeped down to see what they were resting on. A patch of pillow, darker in colour than the rest lay where my hand had been a few seconds earlier; directly below Kim’s eyes before she rolled over. A queasy feeling told me she hadn’t been sleeping when I came in. I lifted the hand to brush a stray hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear. She winced in agitation.

“What do you want?” Her tone was bitter, her scowl sour, but what hurt me most was how she refused to say my name.

The last few days had been rough, moody and frustratingly boring. I didn’t know what was wrong with her, but statistics showed that the number of times my name had been said that past week in general had dropped by 80%. This was if there were statistics, which there weren’t, but just because there weren’t didn’t mean I was being paranoid.

Was I? Wait, listen…

I think that’s the sound of tension.

So mate, no, no I was not being paranoid.

“I wanted to talk to you,” I said humbly, tilting my head to look into her eyes. I held her gaze for a moment before it was torn away by her tight shut eyelids.

“So talk,”

“And I want you to reply,”

“I’m replying.”

“Kimmy, why haven’t you been talking to me?” I shifted my position and lay down beside her. She shuffled closer to the wall.

“I talked to you today,” she mummbled.

“You told me to piss off,”

“Yeah I did- with words,” she said sarcastically. I put a cautious arm around her curled up figure.

“Why were you crying, Kimmy?” I said quietly.

“I wasn’t crying!” her defence came quicker than I thought it would.

“Why were you watering your pillow then?” The next response came as I expected. It didn’t come at all. “What did I do?” There was a snuffle next to me and a small whimper. I tightened my grip around her shoulders and she gave in, resting her head against me. Slowly, she turned back over and buried her head in my chest.Suck on that, Hayden

After a few moments, her head rose up and she looked at me. A cold breeze wandered in through the open window, arousing goose bumps on my dampened chest.

“You stopped being an alien.” I gaped at her. Shock numbed ever cell in my body as my mind registered what she’d said. Alien. She hated the word. It made her feel excluded, different, a freak.

“I’ve never been accepted by them,” she elaborated, still not saying my name, “All my friends did, but never me. And it never really mattered, because…because there was always you-” she hiccupped, cutting her sentence short, but it didn’t matter, it was enough. She knew about Roxy’s party. She knew, and she thought I was betraying her.

“Kim I…” I didn’t know what to say, “Who told you?”

“Your mind. It feels human to be accepted, doesn’t it?” she whispered, gripping my shirt in her hand.

Oh God. Just my luck. The one time I’d ever kept a secret from her and she had a psychic moment. Fucking fabulous.

“I wanted to tell you, Kim, you’re my best friend…I didn’t want to hurt you,”

“I’m hurt, Ben.” She finally said my name, but in a context that I hoped would never come out of her mouth.

“I’m sorry. I won’t go,” I said, desperately groping for her trust back. Kim shook her head and her soft hair brushed my neck.

“No, that would be selfish of me. I know how much you like Isabelle…though I don’t know why…” The last bit was so quiet I wasn’t sure if she’d actually said it.

“I thought you liked Isabelle,” Kim’s head shot up,

“I never said I didn’t…” Turns out she didn’t actually say it.

“Oh…sorry, I thought you said it out loud.”

“It doesn’t matter what I think, Ben. If-“ she took her deep breath, “If you like…If you like her, go for it.” She gave me a weak smile and I pulled her lovingly back into my chest. Slowly, she raised an arm and draped it over my side in an awkward, but warm hug. My heart fluttered in relief. There was the crack of a snapping branch and our heads shot up in fright. A hand appeared on the window ledge and Kim let out a squeal.

“You idiot! Someone must have seen you come in and now they’re coming up to kill us all!” She hissed. I rolled my eyes but tightened my grip around her never the less. I felt her body freeze up in terror under my arms and I tried hard to concentrate more on channeling heat and less on whoever was outside. A leg swung over the ledge, the foot bearing a battered up old converse. I decided it was time to intervine.

“Take another step and I swear I’ll lodge my snow globe so hard into your sack you’ll be on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not for owning a third ball!” Kimberley got there first. The hand rose up in peace.

“Shit, sorry, I think I have the wrong house…I’m going now, please don’t lodge anything anywhere…” Kim jumped in surprise.

“Hayden?”

“Kimber?” And instead of retreating the leg was followed by another leg which was followed by Hayden, landing neatly on his feet. It may sound childish that I was jelous that he didn’t trip and fall, like I had every single time I stepped through that window for the past seven years. Brushing himself off, Hayden looked up and spotted us in bed, and froze.

“Oh, uh, sorry…am I interrupting something?” I had every intention to leave my arms right there, wrapped protectively around her, but it seemed that Kim did not.

“No! No, come take a seat. Ben…” Kim shot me a look whilst removing my hands from her waist.

Grudgingly I crossed my legs and moved so I was leaning against the wall. I caught her eye; her expression was apologetic, bashful, and I new she had told him to come. This was our thing, these night time chats were our tradition, and she told him to come on down and invade it. Hayden was a nice guy, he was my friend, but right then, I wanted nothing more than to toss him out the window and into the traffic. Call it brotherley affection, but I was fucking pissed.

Kim got up and gave Hayden a peck on the cheek. For a second I thought she was doing it just to spite me but then I remembered we left sixth grade four years ago and so I told myself to calm down. I didn’t know why I was getting so jelous, this was good. Kim was making friends, which ment I didn’t have to feel so guilty everytime I left her alone. This was great. This was excellent. Yeah…

I watched, but didn’t listen (not that I could from that far away) as the two of them laughed and flirted and joked about things I didn’t know about. How could I not know about anything Kim did? I went with her everywhere. Or so I thought. Suddenly there was a silence, and I tuned in. Hayden was staring at Kim really strangely…the closest word that came to describing it was fondly. Kim wasn’t looking at anything in particular. Her eyes were twitching about the room and as I attempted to tune into her mind, so were her thoughts.

Do it. Now. Just ask her…

I swivelled my head toward Hayden and looked at him suspisciously. What was he planning?

Get rid of Ben. Just ask, he’ll understand.

I decided I could carry on staring, as his eyes didn’t seem as though they would leave Kim’s face any time soon.

They think you’re being weird. Just get him to leave and ask her out!

Bingo. Hayden was going to ask her out, but not before getting me to leave first. I decided, upon impulse, that I wasn’t going to move. That I would stay grounded, even if it ment Kim ignoring me for the rest of my highschool life.

But why? What would I get out of it? Nothing but the satisfaction of knowing Kim would never get hurt. Of Kim never finding happiness. I sighed and switched my gaze to Kim. Her lips were tweaked into a smile and her eyes were shining. The usual shell of frosty air was absent and the blood had risen, warm to her cheeks. I stared, bemused, at them both, lips slightly apart, the heat slowly dissolving off my skin.

“Um, Ben?” I looked up and readied myself to leave, “Do you mind…giving us a minute,” I nodded, gave Hayden a weak smile and stood up. Kim looked up at me, a smile on her pretty pink lips. I gave her a small embrace before climbing out the window and dropping off the tree.

Kim, I really like you and I was wondering…

I fell to my knees, clenching my teeth at the pain that had errupted in my shins on impact of hitting the ground badly.

I was wondering if you’d go out with me sometime…

I stood up, licked my finger and whiped away the blood pooling at a small graze on my right knee. Then, after brushing myself off, I walked through the hedge, wanting nothing but the pain of a pack of spiky branches to cut through my flesh and block out every thought radiating from Kimberley Leone’s bedroom.