The moon catches the lip gloss on her Cupid’s bow perfectly, and she’s smiling with that pouty bottom lip. Her thin nose has a slight curve in it, adding to another flaw that makes her more attractive. The next few cords are ripped out of her soul. I can feel them.
They come out so fast, yet so smooth. I’m in awe of how quickly her nimble fingers move across the strings. No wonder her nail polish is chipped.
This is her stage, her performance. I’m just an audience member witnessing her magic. The wind is a paid actor, moving her hair just when she leans back or moves forward.
Her body flows back with the song, the slight bend in her knee, the occasional foot tap with the rhythm, all to pull the lively production together.
She and the music were one constant being. Moving in harmony. Charlotte wasn’t just creating music, she was music personified.
Fluid. Powerful. Mellow. Compelling. Healing. Free.
I watched her spin, rock, bend, slow down, and speed up. Following her, every step, clinging to every wafting note. I could watch her for hours.
The passion she let flow from her, so vulnerable, without using a single word.
The tune comes to a gradual end, and when she finishes, she releases a heavy breath like she’d been holding it the entire time.
Claps, loud ones fill the air and I look to my left noticing that this moon-eyed girl had gathered a crowd. A few people had stopped to watch her performance, a few of them tossing a couple of dollars in her empty case.
She rocks on her heels, giving a bright smile to those applauding her. She takes a view and bows laughing playfully.
I’d never been interested in a girl before. Not like this. Sure, I knew the curve of a few women's hips, what they looked like when they come, but this was different.
I wanted to listen to her talk about her dreams, what her favorite food was, and I wanted to watch her play that violin more.
“You’re full of secrets, aren’t you, Charlotte like the Bronte sister?”
“You have no idea, Malakai,” she says with a luminescent smile and a joking tone.
She shouldn’t have been attractive to me, but there she was. With her flushed cheeks, euphoric charm, and patchwork tattoos. I’d never found myself attracted to someone's soul, it had always been superficial.
But I was attracted to hers.
She grabs her bag, laying it on the ground, and looking through it until she finds what she is searching for.
“What are you doing?” I ask as she pulls out a black Polaroid camera, pointing it at me.
“Taking your picture!"
“And you’re doing that because?” I hold my hand in front of the lens, so she can’t take it.
She rolls her eyes, pushing my hand out of the way,
“I'm trying to make a memory here," she complains.
"Isn't it still a picture?" I argue.
She glares at me, slitted eyes, frown, and wrinkled forehead.
I don't like pictures.
But with a sigh, and another swat at my hand, I finally budge. Letting her get an angle she wants.
"When my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, I bought a Polaroid camera and I started keeping sticky notes in my bag. So I can write down things I don’t want to forget, and document that I was here.” She points the camera at me.
“So that one day, if the disease that holds my mom captive decides to come for me, I can look at these pictures and maybe think, Hey, whoever that girl is, she lived and she had an amazing life.” She clicks the button, and I try not to blink. The picture starts to come out.
“Because I want to remember, I want to remember you, and more than that, I want to live.”
I’m struggling to swallow properly. Her honesty, how raw and real she is. There is something remarkable about her, more than just her moon eyes and music genius.
The way she is staring at me like she wants me and not just sexually. She wants to get underneath my skin, to see everything behind the mask, and I can’t let that happen.
So when she asked for my number before I called a cab, I told her I wasn’t looking for something serious. I told her that this was fun, but it wasn’t something I wanted to pursue.
She'd said it was something like fate that had brought us together these two times.
I told her that I didn't believe in fate.
Seven
Here Comes the Storm
Charlotte
"Tell me all…" I hum the lyrics, dancing across the expensive hardwood floor of the hallways.
The outside of this house looked like Wednesday Addams grew up and became a house designer, but the inside was beautifully remodeled and these floors were perfect for sliding across.
I wasn’t going to move in, not until Pearl forgot about snickerdoodle cookies in her oven and caught the complex on fire. My ceiling had smoke damage. I couldn’t live in it while they were fixing it.
I was stuck between finding an entirely new apartment or moving in with Em.
So instead of emptying out my bank account, I chose the cheaper option.
My room was on the second floor across from Em's roomie. I hadn't met him yet, but if he liked Emerson, he was sure to like me.
I was going to try to keep my messy habits contained to my room. The key word is try.
I planned to make spaghetti before they got home as a thank you for letting me stay in the spare room to try to support my brother in his walk to sobriety. Spaghetti said that, right? It was the only dish I couldn't screw up. And who doesn't like pasta?
Psychos that's who.
I sway my hips, causing my embroidered mom jeans to hang off my hips exposing my black Calvin Klein underwear, but I'm all alone in the huge house so who cares?
Plus the matching bra is the only thing covering my top half, and I think that'll be the first thing someone notices if they walk in anyways. My messy bun is falling off my head as I head-bang through the hall, carrying the last box to my room.
I hated moving, you never realize how much stuff you have until you have to fit it into boxes. I’d been up and down these steps a million times today. I desperately needed a bath to soak out the soreness from my lower back.
I slide the cardboard across the floor, examining the new room. It was big enough for me, but the walls were blinding white, and it was boring.
I'd have to ask if I could hang posters or maybe paint it. I needed some type of chaotic decoration.
The song changes and I groan in happiness. I grab the broom resting on the wall, swinging the handle like a microphone, just as the heavy beat of Diary of Jane by Breaking Benjamin blasts through my headphones.
Emerson said he and his teammates had an event today which meant him and the owner of this house wouldn't be home till later. Just enough time to christen this place with my shit singing and cringe dancing.
I close my eyes, letting my head fall back, and start rocking hard to the deep drums. I was Benjamin Burnley in my mind. There was a sea of punk kids in the crowd and this was my encore.
The beat taunts me, leaving an opening space right before it picks up.
"Ugh," I grunt into my microphone, whipping my head forward and leaning down to the crowd as the guitar hisses in the stadium. I can feel the heat from the lights as my mouth opens delivering the first verse.
The crowd lunges for me, yelling the lyrics with me. I stand straight up, holding my microphone between both of my hands as the tempo drags off, only the sounds of drums fill the void before the chorus goes in hard and Burnley starts to shred emotions out of me as he reveals that he is trying to find his place in someone's life.