ethereal

two

"Again?" Adam whispered to me, keeping his head down.

I emerged at the street lamp, seeing his perfect frame in silhouette form, dressed in all black and the orange tip of his cigarette giving his existence some color.

"Again? As in I smelled my brother getting high and I couldn't take it again? Or as in I heard my mom on the phone with her other lover again? Or as in my dad called me and told me he was going on a "business trip" again? Or as in it's my deceased friend's birthday again? Or as in my boyfriend hit me again?"

"Why do you stay with him?" Adam snapped.

"My boyfriend?"

"Jesus Christ, Evie! Yes, your boyfriend," Adam huffed. I jumped away from him when his voice suddenly rose, but stayed standing, not letting him see.

"Because I have no one else to stay with," I whispered.

"Yeah, because you stay with him. You can't find anyone else if you don't have the chance to look," he grunted, shaking his head at me and pulling his hood up as it started to drizzle.

"Why do you never wear pants out here?" He joked with a straight face after a minute of no response.

"I don't sleep in pants."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't."

"Come on, Evie, there's gotta be some inner-spiritual reason why you don't wear pants to sleep."

"No, it's just because I don't fucking sleep in pants. It's just like how I don't use pillowcases and how I always have to have Lucky Charms for breakfast. That's just how it is," I bit.

"You sound like you need a smoke," he smiled, holding his cigarette out to me between his knuckles.

"You know, I was thinking," I started, ignoring his offer and sitting down beside him. "Why would the loved be roaming around in the middle of the night? They've got everything to live for, so why waste their time on the wee hours of the morning?" I asked, looking past his hair that hung in his face and into his eyes that were barely visible under the light of the street lamp.

"Being loved doesn't fix all your problems, Evie. It barely fixes anything at all," he grumbled, taking a long drag.

"I don't agree with that," I argued.

"Oh, yeah? Please, enlighten me," he rolled his eyes.

I turned and started picking on the strands of fabric that surrounded the holes in his jeans. I could feel him staring at me, waiting for my response. Instead of pressing for an answer, I felt his cold hand touch my chin. He lifted my head up so our eyes met.

"Damn, he really made a mark, didn't he?" He asked, his voice hoarse as he examined my cheeks, turning my face from side to side.

I pulled my head away and clutched my cheek, scooting away from him. I let my long hair fall in my face, creating a barrier between us.

"Evelyn?" He whispered, gathering my hair together and flicking it over my shoulder. "Why don't you do something about him? Why don't you file a restraining order or call the cops? They can help you."

Yet again, I stayed silent.

"I feel so empty. I feel so so so empty all the time, and I don't know how to fill myself back up," he finally said, laying off the topic.

"Every time I try to fill myself back up, I just manage to drain myself more than I thought I could," I added, laying back on the grass and looking up at the stars.

"That's because you try to fill yourself with people. I think it's more than that," he postulated.

"What more is there than people?"

"Sadness, happiness, love, fear, the stars, the sunrise, Oreos. There's always Oreos," he joked.

I laughed, looking over at him, looking at the moon and the stars. He closed his eyes, allowing his eyelashes to touch his cheeks, which was almost elegant.

"Which one is your house?" I asked. He opened his eyes and looked over at me so that we were facing each other.

"I live right next to you," he whispered.

My eyes grew wide along with my mouth. "Wait, really?"

"Yes," he chuckled.

"The gray house? With the really cute balcony in the back? That's you?" I interrogated.

"That's me."

"God, how could I be so oblivious?" I let my hands fall onto my eyes, protecting me from the embarrassment.

"I don't know, honestly. I've lived there for about two years now, so . . . ."

I sat up, stuck my hand out to him, and said, "Hi, I'm Evelyn, your next-door neighbor."

Without hesitation, he took my hand and kissed my knuckles. "Nice to meet you, Miss Evelyn."

After a few moments of silence, Adam asked, "Can you tell me about your best friend? Her birthday is today?" He said it very small, his voice just barely above a whisper.

"Can we save that for another day? I just don't feel like talking about it right now," I said, trying my best not to turn bitter in this moment. This wonderful, ethereal moment in which I had finally found someone who could be constant, even if he would only be constant temporarily.

"Well, what else could we talk about?" He asked, sliding his arms under his head and adjusting his position on the grass.

"Let's talk about the stars."

I laid back down, closer to him this time, and set my eyes on the speckled sky above us. I smiled as I felt his eyes look down on me. I could tell he was smiling at me, and that made me smile, too.

"Okay," he nodded. "We can talk about the stars, Evelyn. We can talk about the stars."

And so we did. We talked about the stars and their beauty until our brains ran out of useless information about the universe, after which we begun talking about the universe on a larger scale. We talked about supernovae and Luna and the endless darkness that was always suspended above our heads.

"I think I'm a supernova, in a sense," he told me. I smiled at him again, turning on my side to view his profile.

"How?"

"I'm exploding due to the collapsing of everything around me, due to my world collapsing around me."