My Silver-Lined Cloud

I wrote this on the fly about a girl with some issues she is trying to get over and she has the help of her boyfriend, Josh.

  I sat against the red brick mailbox as the summer wind blew through my hair. Josh sat across from me in the street, searching my eyes. I put my head down and my hair came with me, obstructing my view of the world outside and hiding my face from him and instead, stared at his hands. Clasped in between Josh's large, rough tanned hands, laid mine, bare, naked to the world; to whoever wanted to see them. He shook my hands in his and clasped his fingers around mine so that my hands were balled into fists underneath his grasp.

The scars shown, clear as day, practically illuminating from my pale skin. Their bright red outlines, so fresh, still brought stabs of pain as Josh gently rubbed his thumb over them, again and again, in a rhythmic sort of way, over the jagged, bumpy lines across my skin. I knew he hadn't meant for that to hurt me, and it really hadn't, because I'd dealt with far worse than that, but tears still brimmed underneath my black-lined eyes, threatening to spill over everything, spoiling everything I've worked on. I wasn't going to go down that easy.

I knew he was still staring at me. It was one of those times when you can just feel it, another persons' eyes trained right at you, watching your every movement. But I didn't look up at him. No. If I did that, everything would explode. I would look into those blue eyes of his, see the pain he felt because of my pain, and I wouldn't be able to control it. It was all becoming too much. I pulled my hands from his grasp, not looking up, but knowing he was hurt by that gesture, and I sighed, an exasperated sort of sleepy sigh.

I didn't know what Josh would do then, so I was surprised when I felt his hand, soft and warm, underneath my chin, forcing my face up to look at him. My eyes met his and I collapsed inside, too worn out to fight any more. I reached up with my now free hand and tussled his mousy light brown head full of curls. They were soft under my fingertips and felt nice. For a moment we just sat there like that. With the wind gently blowing my hair around my face, surely looking disastrous, and him sitting across me with the breeze billowing his shirt out in front of him, making his skinny figure look buff for a moment, eyes trained on me as I watched his hair run through my hand like the sand on the beach when you pick it up.

A few moments later, Josh gently lifted my head up again so that I had to look him in the eyes. I didn't know what to say and I don't think he did either. So we just sat there, watching each other. Finally, I couldn't take it, he had forced it out of me. A tear drop fell down my cheek, slowly making its' progress towards earth where it fell off the bottom of my chin and landed on the black asphalt with a splat. Concern washed over Josh's face and I smiled weakly as he brushed away the trail the tear had made on my face with his free hand. Then he took my face in his hands and cradled it gently as more tears started to roll down.

“I'm tired,” I said with effort, chin trembling, as I looked into his eyes. He nodded, bobbing his head up and down.

“ I know. I know” he said, never taking his eyes off of me.

“I'm tired of fighting,” I sputtered, requiring more effort to form the words, trying not to lose it. Josh just sat there, head bobbing up and down, as we looked at each other. I covered my face with my scarred hands all of a sudden, and sobbed right there, in the street. Not a moment too soon, I felt myself being swept up into a warm embrace. Warmth encircled me as I looked at the blackness through my eyelids, and felt the tremors sweep through me sending a fresh wave of tears on the loose down my face. Josh stroked my hair and quietly muttered, “I know, I know hun.” and rocked me back and forth trying to soothe me.

After a while, I was all cried out and very tired, as my eyes grew heavier and heavier I fought to stay awake but could not any longer. My eyes drooped shut and the world started to fade around me, quieting down. The last thing my mind registered before I fell asleep was a distant voice calling out to me saying, “Everything is going to be OK,” and for that moment, I believed it.