cigarettes ☹ alex turner

VI

SLOWLY BUT GRADUALLY, I open my eyes and they flicker as I try to grasp who is around me. The bright light hits my eyes and I don't open my eyes too wide; it probably looked like I was squinting.

"Kimberly?" Mr Turner spoke quietly and softly whilst he shook me gently with his large hand on my shoulder.

After a few minutes of my eyes flickering, my eyes finally adjust to the light and I feel everything at last. My empty stomach, my dry throat and the tiredness, which always washed over me. He is sitting on the floor, his eyes completely parallel to mine.

Mr Turner sighed in relief. "Thank god you're okay," he says and I furrow my eyebrows in confusion and sit up.

What the hell was going on?

I was laid on my living room sofa and there was once a cushion lay beneath my head. Propping myself on my elbows, I felt my elbows shaking weakly and Mr Turner notices this and holds my shoulders.

Shivers ran up my spine at his touch. "What happened? Where's Richard" I ask, my voice so much raspier than usual.

His lips form a straight line before speaking again. "You fainted from lack of food and sleep. Richard said he wanted to give us a moment." He finishes and begins to lick his lips as I turned away. I couldn't gasp. Not now.

As well as feeling very insecure that he knew about my private issues, I was delighted that he had stayed to see if I was okay despite his other priorities.

I fainted. He knows. "Do you err, know?" I speak quietly and shyly, ducking my head as I played with my nails. I caught the fact that my legs were place on top of his thighs.

Our eyes lock, which I break by jolting my head away from the sight of his beautiful, warm brown eyes.

"That you're an insomniac and anorexic? Yes. I knew that the second I laid eyes on you."

I gulped and swallowed the lump formed in my throat. "How?"

He smiled a little. A very, cute small, genuine smile as he looked as if he was thinking back to the day we met. "Your eyes were dull, almost dead. Shades of purple shadowed your eyes. Your skin was too pale to be considered healthy. Over chapped lips, messy hair and a body which looks dozens underweight. It's not that hard to determine, Kimberly."

I laugh quietly before responding to what he just said. "Thanks for pointing out my flaws."

"They aren't flaws. It just looks like you've had breakfast at the heartbreak hotel," he said and I giggled. I could really see the 'Alex Turner' shining through him.

I scoff sarcastically. "If I had breakfast," I mumble.

"I wish you did," he mumbled back, as he leaned in as a surprised, hushed gasp left my lips.

"Why?" I whisper, observing his face for some sort of clue; after all, we only had known each other for about two weeks; despite the countless amount of encounters we have shared.

"Because," he said, looking me in the eyes, as I did the same for the very first time. I started to understand what he meant by 'dull eyes'. His eyes were full of life, and filled with some sort of light.

"We're all just skeletons underneath. This skin and fat and muscle; it's all just a shell; just something that makes us different. Underneath it all, Kimberly. We're all very much same."

I chuckled dryly and licked my lips as my eyes flickered from Mr Turner - Alex - to my lap. "I'm afraid society sees it very differently."

"Who said you have to see it the same way that society sees it?" He questioned as I bravely kept my gaze on his face.