Finding Eden

02

It was about another two weeks before I encountered my neighbour again.

It was late—that was all that I could distinguish. In fact, it was beyond late because with that, came the horrible consequence of me forgetting my house keys. Effectively, I was locked out with nothing but my coat and a few ticket stubs from the subway along with my assortment of leotards and pointe shoes.

I despised the cold. I despised December, January, and February. It wasn't hard to loathe the time of year when it reminds you of the people you've lost. It must have brought out the worst in me, as I sat, imprinted on the steps of my house, slowly warming up to the idea of being paralyzed.

Maybe when you're catatonic, it's easier to accept where fate comes from, in the form of intervention beyond our control.

It wasn't for a while before he showed up, again on foot. There was a new, maroon guitar case in his hands and there were shiny stickers on the hard case. He just about reached his doorway when he paused and looked sideways, at me. In that flash moment, he was stuck between the decision of ignoring me for his own sake or the moral decision to ask what's wrong. The frosty air billowed around his face as he sighed and bounded down the steps, briskly crossing the distance between us.

There he stood, in front of me, but I gave no indication of that. Believe me, I wanted to, to just wonder what color his eyes were or how they complemented the rest of his features. Or to smile or say hi and introduce myself like any other person would. He rocked a bit on the balls of his feet before he checked the time on his phone and gave a quick look back at his house.

"You alright?"

I would have said yes and left him to tend to his (new) instrument if it hadn't felt as if I'd been frozen right through my core and I had become one of those monuments in Central Park, my voice stuck deep in my diaphragm. For the way his voice was laced with reluctant sincerity, my guts wanted to repay him by spilling out, right there, because these past days have been riddled with the insincere. But sitting on my tiny porch, I had become filled with cement and snow.

"You don't seem particularly alright this evening."

He ruffled his hair before he gave up the conversation and turned around. He made it a few steps and then he veered back sharply, this time walking up to me and standing straight in front of me. Unsaid, his sudden regret for obliging to his principles clouded the atmosphere. Sometimes I wondered why he came back too.

It was a game of pull and tug as he hesitated just as he was about to speak, losing the rest of his sentence to the night. Finding his efforts of being helpful futile, he let out a frustrated groan before he shrugged and left, this time for certain. A distant click implied that he locked the door behind him and his lawn was dimly highlighted by the lights he turned on inside.

A shiver ran up my spine. Half of me yearned for his unusual company, the other opposing half wanted no one to see me the way that I was. It was my fault I was in my predicament in the first place and he was just an unsuspecting stranger.

Just as I was holding my breath, the door to the strange boy's house swung open abruptly, illuminating both of our lawns. This time, he had shed his coat and was in a navy sweatshirt, his body set in a way of determination and perhaps even something more.

"I wanted to. So bad. Just forget the pretty girl sitting outside of her house but I can't so," he said to no one in particular. It acted as a disclaimer to what he did next.

"May I?" he asked, gesturing to my bag. It didn't seem like he expected an answer but he waited a few seconds before continuing.

Without any hindrance, he took my bag and shuffled through it. The line of his jaw sharpened as he deduced my situation from the lack of a key. Uncertain, he reached for my hands. He wasn't braced for the iciness of my fingers, evident in the way he took a sharp breath in. Then, with all the audaciousness in the world, he took a step forward, encased me in his arms and lifted me up. With me in tow, he made it to his lawn before he backtracked and recovered my bag.

"If we had been in any other position, I wouldn't offer this to you but you're staying at my house tonight," he mumbled into my ear as my body fell into his steps.

His voice instinctively brought my arms up to his neck, transferring my shivers to his warm chest.

***

I faintly recalled being bent over the toilet rim in the living room bathroom with him sitting on the edge of the bathtub, brushing the hair out of my face. It was fuzzy but maybe he had also been reading a book on one hand, the other one gripping my hair in a ponytail.

There was also the recollection of him taking off my coat and stripping me out of my frostbitten clothes, a sweatshirt of his in their place. I woke up in the middle of the night to see his outline taking lazy drags of a cigarette, his elbows propped on the open window. He was tucked neatly on the window ledge, a battered copy of Slaughterhouse Five at his feet. The low light of the street lamps dimly traced his profile and still in a daze, I was struck by his beauty.

Perhaps he wasn't real. What he had done was too painfully nice and for the condition that I was in, the indifference he showed to me travelled lightyears.

Tired, I tried to send him a mental telegram, hoping he would understand why I couldn't speak that night. The lullaby humming of the oil heater he had placed near my bed and the steady exhale of his smoking brought me quickly back to sleep. It would have taken me sooner, I think, if he chose to introduce me to his instruments but he didn't know it, and neither did I.

He was gone in the morning, having already laid out a pastry and some coffee from a bakery on the kitchen table.