cigarette daydreams

/16

Monday, English. They were analyzing Pride and Prejudice. Who was Pride? Who was Prejudice? Arguments could be made for both. Prove one in a paragraph for next class.

Lydi was fiddling with her pens again. She was trying them horizontally now, and every once and a while, one of them would slip and roll down the desk, disrupting the others. Lydi would start again.

Across her pens, she looked at Karden. He stared at the board, wordless. He had barely blinked since the start of class.

"Dead inside?"

"Don't mock me, Lydi," Karden snapped, whipping his head around. All of a sudden, he was alive. "You still haven't proven anything to me yet."

"I will. You have to be patient."

"Yeah, well, I'm starting to think you don't know anything. You're full of shit, Lydi Stern, and you're dragging me along in it. I won't stand around waiting for something that isn't going to happen."

Fists clenched on his desk. Pride and Prejudice was untouched between them. What as the antonym of that?

Pride: shame.

Prejudice: good will.

In the story of Karden's life, it was obvious who the two terms belonged to. Lydi was good will.

Karden was shame.

Because he was ashamed. He was ashamed for any number of things, starting with the death of his brother and father, and ending with Lydi.

He had known her, what, three weeks? And he knew nothing about her. She seemed to know everything about him. So yeah, he was ashamed. And he hated it. And he was even more ashamed of that.

Lydi read something on his face. Karden didn't know what.

She gave him a hint of a smile. "Meet me at the hospital on Saturday. I'm not going to be here for the rest of the week, so don't forget. I won't be here to remind you."

Karden's gaze sharpened and he dropped the shred of self-directed anger he still possessed. "What? Why?"

"Because I'll be busy."

"During the day?"

Lydi cocked her head at him. "Yes. During the day."

"No cigarette daydreams?"

"Nope."

And she turned back to her pens and didn't say another word.