An Odd Kind Of Wonderful

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"Don't ask her why she needs to be so free / She'll tell you it's the only way to be." (The Rolling Stones)

    Raisa jumps backwards at the first sound of the first firework and hits her back on the window shield of the Commodore and I don't even notice the firework at all, forgetting about kissing completely, and I get a sense of relief wash over me. I know I love this girl: I see those words flash up in front of my eyes: I know I can't do anything about it.

    When I do turn to see the sky, it has purple strewn threw it, like somebody's just spilled glitter on a piece of black cardboard. Then, there's a bang and I see streaks of pink and green and soon enough there's every colour I could ever name reaching up into the clouds, creating clouds of smoke on their own. After a minute, my ears are numb to the deafening sound, and there's a tiny thought that maybe there's something wrong, but there can't be. Not now.

    Sometimes I wonder about how far the human race has gotten: sometimes I wonder why we've come this far whilst so many other animals have remained just as they have for millennia. Why do humans constantly advancing while, say, apes, are just as they were? But I don't always.

Sometimes, now, I can almost hear the slipping of other thoughts from my mind. I've always felt this way about fireworks. I guess that's why I like seeing live bands and listening to loud music so much—they're so strident they often leave no room for anything else.

    Raisa's hand finds mine, and I freeze, she is cold though summer floats in the air. And then there's a weight on my shoulder, not the press of anxiety, of "why are you still alive?" It's the weight of Raisa's being, of her human nature, and I have never felt so at home so far from my realm of the known.

    "I want to say something," Raisa says to me, and it takes me a moment to realize it wasn't my imagination.

    "Say it, then."

    "I'm scared."

    "Raisa," I whisper. "I've spent my whole life like that. And I've told you more secrets tonight than I've ever told anyone."

    "But you're different." She says, adamant. "I haven't spent my whole life like this. I don't know what to do."

    "It doesn't matter. Just do it."

    "I think..." She bites her lip. "No, I can't."

    "You don't have to if you can't. We can leave it." I offer.

    "No, Nathan, you're supposed to pressure me into saying it," Raisa says. "We're in a movie, aren't we?"

    "An arthouse movie doesn't follow the conventional rules of storytelling." I say.

    She kisses me, quickly, on the cheek, a little below my bottom eyelid. "I think I like you, just a little." She says, and I laugh, just because of how shocked I am.

    "I thought you were going to' tell me you only had a year to live or something," I shake my head, relieved, and she laughs too.

    "I might, you never know," She ponders, and faces the harbor again, blue irises hazed by a neon rainbow. 

    "I hope you still live," I whisper.

    "I hope you do, too."

    The fireworks go on for another ten or twenty minutes 'til they end on a high note in the key of golden rain falling down on the water, and when they fade I find my way out of their psychedelic trance. I hope you still live.

    You know what? Me too.

    And that's an alien thought if ever I've had one. It's unnatural, and I feel like I've broken a rule, just by admitting I would like to live.