The Girl in Blue Suede Shoes: a short story

2

Charles woke the next morning with his face against a pillow. His lips still tingled from the night before. He sat up against his headboard, combing back the damp hairs that tickled his forehead. His clothes still lay, damp, on the chair in the corner of his little room. He looked out the window to his left, shining gold streams of sunlight, frowning at the absence of the girl tapping the window and holding a home-made bouquet of flowers to wake him. Charles sighed and left his bed.

After washing, dressing and waking up fully, Charles went to the empty kitchen to whip up Saturday brunch. He stopped in his tracks at the threshold of the kitchen. On the dining table, lay a pair of worn, torn at the toes with stickers on the side, blue suede shoes. Charles slowly approached the shoes and picked them up and, cradling them in his arms, brushed the toes with his thumb.

'Why are Ell's shoes here?' He asked silently. Charles walked back to his room and swiped the trophies on his shelf to the floor and set the shoes on the very center.

He kept them there, but refused to look at them the day after, and the days following then because he knew that Elliote was gone.

-

A week after his girl's disappearance, Charles lay in the tree in front of the school. He held his book over his eyes, covered his blazer over his head and even laid with his head hanging from the tree but no matter what, he was unable to slumber in the big oak like he loved to. His ears longed for the sound of her voice to soothe him into sleep.

Charles sighed with exasperation as he snatched his bag and began to walk home. His walk home fell through the narrow neck of the woods, with apple trees leading his neighborhood.

Charles looked up at the trees, their leaves were turning orange and red and already had begun falling at his feet with the fruit. The leaves crunched beneath his steps, which was oddly satisfying. Afternoon rays of sunlight peaked through the low branches and a few had ripe apples hanging from them.

He walked down more, with crunchy steps, that soon stopped. Charles squinted at a branch just before his neighborhood. He jogged to the branch and untied the laces of the blue suede shoes, torn an the toes with stamps and stickers on the side, from the branch. He took the pair and held them in his hands. They were identical to the others, he knew just by looking at them.

Charles ducked under the branch, and ran the rest of his way home to add his two clues to his shelf.

-

"Whatever happened to your blue-shoed friend?" James, an acquaintance, asked Charles on their walk to class.

Charles snapped out of his daydream. "Who?"

"The girl, winter jacket, leaves in her hair, blue shoes? Always sleeping in trees and dancing in the rain?"

"Oh—she moved." He shrugged, his heart sank another inch.

"Hmm. Where to?"

Charles gripped the strap of his bag. "I dunno."

James pat his shoulder and went into class. Charles stopped by his locker before entering. He spun the combination with practice. 30...3...21. The locker opened when he pulled—but he immediately slammed it shut. His heart began beating faster and faster like a it was racing against his mind. Charles opened the metal door an inch, and looked into the darkness. A strip of light fell through the door, revealing the a stamp on the side of the blue suede shoe.