Blue Fingers

Whenever I meet someone I always stare into his or her eyes long enough to decipher the kind of person they are. Eyes can tell you how a person feels, what their true nature is really like...
Do you believe this?

Emotions.

I wanted to push him away, it was not like last time in which it was a meaningless act. Last time, he had just supplied air for me, and I really thought that he only did that because of Vera and how she would be mad at him if he just let me die in his car. But this time it was like he was toying with me, I was limp against his kiss, if I had any strength at all I might’ve pressed my hands angainst his chest and push him off me. I stayed there until he finally separated himself from me.

“You’re like a doll.”

He told me as he placed more distance between us.

“You do what everyone wants of you and just stand there looking pretty, there’s no sense in you...you’re just there. Might as well be a zombie or crap in the street.”

His words were harsh but his tone of voice wasn’t. He sighed as he accomodated himself in the driver’s seat. I saw him from the corner of my eye taking something from the passenger seat and then stepping out of the car. He nodded at me to follow him and I did. As soon as I was on my feet he threw my backpack at me and held his own on his right hand. He started walking fast, dodging the people with bags and books and flooding papers. I stared at them for a few seconds, my eyes trying to adjust to the thousand of strings. I knew I couldn never bump into any of them but it still overwhelmed me.

I felt something against my hand and realized Ethan had come back and had now laced his fingers with mine, pulling me forward. Don’t get him wrong, though, it was not a romantic gesture or anything. I was just being slow and I could tell he needed to move fast. It was an equally robotic gesture, it was something he needed to, a necessity, rather than a whim or something he really wanted.

I tried to quicken my pace, following his robotic body as he dodged the students and walked towards a largue brick building. Once there, he saluted the porter and took me up some stairs. The walls were nice and clean, the people inside less noisy, with hurried expressions on and a quick pace. After two flights of stairs we arrived at a nicely-lit landing with a few sofas. The doors were clean and elegant, the lamps sophisticated and well-cared. He took me to door in the end of the hallway and produced a fancy key, introducing it on the whole with precision, turning it mechanically.

He pushed the door open and pulled me inside, closing the door behind him. If I hadn’t known better I would’ve confused it for an apartment rather than a school dorm. It was an extense landing, with only the needed furniture. The walls were painted white, with no mirror nor pictures hanging on the walls. There was a small table, behind the table a really extense library was full of voulmes,there where two sofas on L shape facing a tv screen with a dvd and surround system. I could see two doors on the far back, which I guessed leaded to the main room and a bathroom.

He lead me into one of the doors and I was greeted into a bedroom, a bed facing a large desk with stacks of paper and pens on a cup. A small table was occupied by a scanner and a printer and I realized the desk had enough space for a computer. The only things on the wall were a calendar and a schedule with a pretty digital clock nailed to the wall.

Ethan let go of my hand and of his backpack. He walked to the closet while pulling his shirt off and placing it on a small plastic basket by his bed. He pulled out a new navy-blue sweater and walked out the room. I could hear the water running and shuffling of things. I stood where I had been left, my eyes scanning the room for any kind of personal taste, but there was none. It was completely generic...it was liveless. I heard his footsteps as he entered the room once more, I looked up to see him standing by the door, his head resting on the wall. He was eyeing me and suddenly my school skirt seemed to short and my white shirt too transparent: I wanted to reach out for a blanket and hide under the bed. But instead I forced myself to stand tall and stare at him.

“I have to go now...I have class. If you stay here I’ll drive you home once school is over.”

He stated, not moving from the place he was. He was still staring at my, his brownie-colored eyes intense and barely blinking at all. There was something wrong with him, it was as if his robotic demeanour was some-what lessening. He looked less than a robot and more like a human. I think I could read confusion, anger, and restlessness in his eyes. But I must be imagining things.

I figured I didn’t have enough money to return home, the cab home would be really expensive and I really couldn’t throw money away. So I had no choice but to let him drive me. I nodded in approval and muttered a,

“Thank you, Ethan.”

He was about to move, probably to turn his back on me and leave when I started talking again, this time a bit higher than a mutter,

“But I don’t think I’d like to stay here until you come. Can I at least walk around?”

It took me some seconds to realize I had actually asked him for something rather than just nodding and standing there like a complete idiot. I knew that I wasn’t such a thing but my desire to make people happy and just avoiding arguements had somehow made me less of a human and more like a puppet. Realization hit as I remembered the words Ethan had told me not long ago: that I was like a doll, I did everything anyone wanted from me. Maybe he was right, maybe that was what I had become.

I could feel color rising up to my cheeks, the tears starting to form. I lowered my head and pushed them away with teh back of my hand. I heard and uncomfortable shuffling of feet and a little cough. I looked up so see Ethan looking at me, no veil over his eyes. I could clearly see concern and a bunch of mixed emotions trying to make their way through. He cleared his throat and turned around,

“You can do whatever you want, the apartment’s mine so you can wander through it...I’ll leave the key on the table if you want to go out. I’ll be here around six.”

I nodded as I his footsteps started to fade and then the door closed behind him and the room was filled with silence.