Counterfactual

08 | consciousness

CHAPTER EIGHT

CONSCIOUSNESS

( — the state of being; awareness of one's own existence, sensations, thoughts, surroundings, etc. )

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

          THE FIRST THING ROWAN NOTICES IS HOW WARM ISLA IS. Not in a perverted way, as they both kept to themselves throughout the night, with Isla raiding his fridge and flipping through TV channels, while he stayed mostly focused on the book and Candy Crush Saga. He only notices it when his hand accidentally brushes against the side of her neck as he tries to wake her up.

          There are plenty of ways Rowan thinks she should be spending a Friday night and none of them are being in his apartment. Compared to the people she must be friends with, Rowan is pretty boring, despite his many qualities, and, even if she's suddenly interested in playing detective, he's not the right guy for the job. He writes about mysteries, but he doesn't solve them, nor does he have any interest in doing so.

          He even showed her the fire escape, after plenty of insisting coming from her, even though he had no idea why she was so interested in that thing. She said she wanted to check whether the view from there was as breathtaking as he had previously described, but tonight's just not a good night, especially for watching the sky and the stars.

          It would be, as long as the fog gave them a break, but it has been so thick lately you can barely see anything ahead of you whenever you look outside. Even the streetlights and glaring headlights of the vehicles circulating on the roads around town are barely distinguishable, having become mere blurs of light; if that's not saying enough, then Rowan doesn't know what is.

          Nevertheless, she was stubborn enough to make him concede and take her outside, wishing it didn't feel as intimate as it did—after all, he had let her enter his apartment, which he hasn't done to anyone else in this damn town, and his fire escape is, supposedly, the most personal of his personal spaces. It's supposed to be an exit, not a way in, but, as she set her hands on the metal rail, staring up at the cloudy skies, he couldn't open his mouth to tell her she should go.

          "You're blocking the view," she told him, after taking a step back.

          Rowan, leaning the small of his back against the exact place where her hands had been, crossed his arms and ankles. "I am the view."

          "God." She threaded her slender fingers through her hair and, somehow, the mixed scent of her shampoo and cologne reached his nostrils, even with the potent smell of smoke and the cheesy pizza Rowan's next-door neighbors had been eating outside earlier. He didn't move an inch. "I don't know why I even try."

           "Perhaps I'm a lost cause"—he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, the orange light of the flame briefly illuminating her face—"have you ever thought about that?"

           "I thought you were only being difficult at first, but then I realized you're just an asshole. Plain and simple." He threw her a smug smile, raising his hands as if to say, 'I told you so'. "I don't think you're the way that you are because someone broke you or because you're hiding something; I think you're the way that you are because you're entitled, pretentious and think everyone out there owes you something. In the words of Lady Gaga, you were born this way. I don't know, maybe you've gone through some bad things and maybe they've shaped you into who you are today, but they can't possibly be the only reasons why. You're simply too obnoxious for that."