DECEMBER
I am caught in the middle of wakefulness and dreaming when a gust of cold air blows across my face, tangling its claws in the hair splayed demurely against my forehead. Slowly rubbing sleep from my eyes, I glance over at the time, hazy red lights telling me it is just past three in the morning. There had been a time where I would have still been awake at this moment, fiddling about, my fingertips dripping with paint, but that was then, and this was now; sleep always knows how to find me.
Once mildly aware of my surroundings, I sit up, brow furrowed, searching for the source of the earlier breeze. There is no way I would have left my window open to the cold December night air, and yet there it is, sea-green coloured curtains billowing softly like ghosts just waking from a long slumber, the latch unhinged, panes rhythmically hitting the side of the house.
Extending my legs from underneath my body, I heave myself out of bed, dragging my down blanket with me, and peer outside, reaching to shut the window against the biting chill, when a slender finger appears from above, motioning me to follow. Silently, I grab my favourite blue sweater from the ground and tug it over my head before hoisting myself over the windowsill and onto the slant of the roof, making my way to him. The frigid air gnaws at the exposed skin of my face and I toss my hood over my dull brown hair, longing for the comforting warmth of my bed. I consider asking him to come inside with me, to get lost in the tangle of my sheets, but he seems to fit here, on the rooftop.
He is sitting with his legs stretched out in front of his body, leaning back on his hands, his head tilted up towards the sky. I fold myself down awkwardly next to him, blushing at the lack of grace my movements hold; I’m all limbs, my mother would say. I keep my gaze fixed on my hands, which I’ve folded in my lap, watching Jude out of the corner of my eye. His expression isn’t one I can decipher, but he seems happy, a small smile playing on his bow shaped lips, ebony hair flopping into stormy blue eyes. He shifts then, patting at his pockets, searching for something. I remain silent as a dim orange flicker is cast across his face several times before taking hold of the end of the joint he holds delicately between his fingers. After taking a long drag and exhaling, he offers it to me, his smile now slow and lazy. I accept, holding it between my thumb and index, but don’t bring it to my lips. Jude doesn’t notice, having gone back to staring upwards.
“The stars are nice tonight.” I say, trying to remind him that I’m here.
“Alex, why do you think the stars shine?”
“Well…it’s…I…” I stutter, mildly surprised by his question. “It’s because of nuclear fusion, isn’t it? The compressing of hydrogen being fulled into helium, energy being expelled, your eyes being the first things the photons coming off a star has reached through however many light-years away it might be, all that.”
He purses his lips. “That’s not what I asked.”
“No, you did, you…”
“I asked why you thought they shine, not what you know, not what’s actually true, what you’ve learned. What you think.”
I pause, confused by his question, unsure of how to answer something in a way that would challenge what has been proven to be true, what I know to be true. Jude never seems to care about things like science or what reality is; he’s constantly making up his own definitions for things, constantly living in his own imaginary up world, but I love him for it.
Taking my silence as an invitation, he continues, leaning forward, his hands gesturing wildly as the words tumble from his lips. “You know how, in The Lion King, Mufasa tells Simba that stars are where the great kings live, and that they’re always looking down on us? I like that, I like to think that maybe, since the day we’re born, we’re assigned a star. And when we die, we get to go up to that star, and watch over the people we’ve left behind on earth. There are so many of them, how could they not hold some kind of purpose?”
I nod, looking at him, enjoying the sound of his voice, the tone it takes on when he talks about something he’s given a lot of thought to, something he’s passionate about, the gleam in his eye unparalleled, the mesmerizing way his smile curls up towards his left ear.
“Which star do you think is mine?” he asks me softly, after a few minutes of silence.
I sit, unmoving, casting my gaze towards the sky, preparing an answer for him. I am always doing that, preparing, always hoping to impress him with my words. I’m about to reply when his head hits my shoulder; a common gesture between us, but tonight, somehow tonight, it seems different. I feel the beating behind my chest pick up, and I’m worried he’ll notice the change.
He nudges me lightly then, his nose bumping my neck.
“Alex?” his breath is hot against my throat.
“I…” I hesitate, stammering when I feel his fingers brush along my arms, his hand finding the one I’d let fall to my lap after handing him back his joint. “I don’t think you’re like a star.”
I feel his head lift from my shoulder then, feel the warmth of him leaving me.
“I mean, all stars die eventually, don’t they?” I continue quickly. “Maybe not in our lifetime, that we can see, but they do. They implode, fade away.” I glance down at him, pleased when his head rests once more against my shoulder. My chin touches the top of his head as I speak. “You’re too…you’re too stubborn to burn out. I think you’re more like the sky. Always there, holding the stars, stretching on forever.” I stop, unsure of what I’m trying to say, where I’m trying to go with this, when I feel Jude pressing his lips against the skin of my neck. The gesture is so light, barely there that I’m afraid I made it up, that it was just a product of what my heart desires so completely.
But then I feel it again, the gentle graze of his mouth whispering across the skin pulled tight over my collarbones, his free hand digging slightly into my thigh. I turn my face to look down at him, his eyes heavy lidded, his grin sloppy and crooked. Shaking slightly, I bring the fingers that aren’t laced with his to brush against the strong line of his jaw, slowly tracing what I’ve imagined caressing a hundred times. Jude closes his eyes then, and I take that as a sign of encouragement, shifting my body closer to his, our chests so near that it would only take a light breeze to force us against each other. His own free hand rises in turn to grasp my wrist, and he brings my still trembling fingers to his lips, softly kissing each finger, his eyes—usually a blue I’m so fond of, are dark, laced with something I’ve never seen before; desire—now open and locked with mine. I lean in, and he grins, inviting me forward.
My head pounds, pulse loud in my ears as I complete the distance between us. What is actually seconds feels like minutes, hours, as I wait for our lips to collide; the slow dance almost as exciting as the kiss itself. When our lips meet, the sensation is unlike anything I could have ever conjured in my imagination. Jude’s mouth is soft, moving skillfully against my own and I press against him, my hands running up his arms to grasp his shoulders, his finding my waist, slipping teasingly under my sweater to graze against the tense muscles of my abdomen. My face flushes at the contact, but instead of pushing him away, I dig my fingers in against his strong shoulders, a whimper catching in my throat. Gliding his lips over mine, he slides his tongue over my lower lip, as though begging to be let in. I comply, moving my hands to tug lightly at his hair and Jude moans, his breath—warm and sweet—snakes out, pouring into my mouth, collecting like a puddle in the dip of my tongue, intoxicating me. I want to fill my lungs with that breath, and when Jude begins to ease me down against the roof, I don’t hesitate.
I wake in my bed hours later, the memory of his lips still lingering on mine, the feeling of his fingertips clutching at my skin still strong, as if it had only been moments earlier.
Anonymous asked: Which writers inspire your style of writing?
Oh gosh, another tricky question! To be honest, I’m not terribly inspired by other writers, which doesn’t sound like a good thing to say, but hear me out. I love books, always have. I don’t really know where I’d be without them. They’ve been such great friends to me when I needed them most; comforted me with their stories, allowed me to escape to another place for awhile, made me laugh, made me cry. And sometimes I admit that I have a hard time distinguishing between what’s happened to me and what I’ve read. There have been moments where I’ve had to pause and say ‘wait, no, that was something I read about.’ So books do impact me greatly.
As a writer though, I think it’s a bit of a mistake to allow others to inspire you, at least, in the way I’m taking the word inspiration here. Of course, sometimes when I’m done reading a really good book, I get the desire to write, or I’ll see a word in a book, a string of sentences that I particularly enjoy and want to try to incorporate into my own work. But to me, because writing is such a greatly personal form of expression (i don’t have other means of doing so like music or dance. and calling me anything more than mediocre at art would be a huge exaggeration) I want it to be entirely of my own doing. I want to look at a piece and be able to say ‘this was entirely of my own mind, of my own heart.’ I don’t want to read over my work and feel like it’s familiar, like I’ve read it before. That’s not to say that I’m knocking people who are inspired by other writers though, I do understand. But personally, it’s something I try to stay away from.
The closest I can come to answering this question is telling you that when I was twelve, I read Holly Black’s Tithe, and that’s when I started to really discover how magical books and writing can be. Though Cornelia Funke’s The Thief Lord also had a rather large impact on me when I was ten.
This has made me think a lot though, and maybe I’ll consider posting a list of my favourite authors. Though that could honestly take forever. dkjhfgjh.
Thanks for the question, anon!
