Tying Shoelaces (standard:romance, 2189 words)
Author: Lusa	Added: Oct 22 2001	Views/Reads: 3368/2441	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A conversation uncovers emotion between two long-time friends.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

now and then there was a splash of colour to liven things up a bit. I 
kind of liked it. It was a relaxing room. "I'll have you know that my 
parents love me very much." 

"I know, Colin," came her muffled reply. 

"Probably more than you do." 

"Oh, no doubt." 

"Sadie, do you think I'm a psychopath and I don't know it?" 

"I really don't want to get into that." 

And then she was quiet. 

I frowned a little, pulling up into a sitting position. She was curled
on her side on the bed but not under the blankets, still in her fuzzy 
blue housecoat, hair kind of matted on the pillow behind her, eyes 
closed. She worked a lot for someone her age, not graduated for even a 
year yet. Cashiering most of the day and waitressing part of the night. 
She was saving up to pay her way through college, get into the 
advertising business. Then there was me; I'd be out of school come 
June, but so far my only plans were to continue bumming about with my 
part-time job at the video store. As for a career, I'd had a vague 
notion a while back about being a male airline stewardess, but that was 
as far as my ambition went at the moment. 

I looked at her again, so still and quiet and expressionless, and
wondered if she was ever curious about anything, wondered if she ever 
wondered about me, maybe about just why I climbed through her window at 
least three times a week and stayed in her room until she fell asleep. 
I tried to think back, to recall if she had questioned me about 
something, to recall if she'd ever shown interest or curiosity in any 
topic. Always in our lengthy debates it was me who posed the question. 
It was me who pondered the mysteries of life. Sadie just lived through 
them. 

Grappling for the bedboard, I climbed to my feet and onto the end of her
bed, settling on my knees and tilting my head at her. She still hadn't 
moved, but I knew by her breathing she wasn't asleep, not yet. She 
almost didn't look alive, face half buried in the pillow, arms tucked 
against her midriff, knees bent upward. I'd never noticed how small her 
feet were before. They stuck out, bare, beneath the hem of her robe, 
one tucked underneath the other. That's when I saw her toes moving, 
slowly, rhythmically, the bottom foot rippling against the top one. 

I touched one finger to her heel and the toes stopped. "Sadie?" I said. 

Her eyes were open, but she wasn't looking at me. "What?" 

"You always wiggle your toes like that?" 

"Guess so." 

I withdrew my hand, feeling a little strange and weirdly depressed that
she'd stopped moving again, eyes shut in a grave parody of 
lifelessness. I reclined onto my side, propping my head up on a hand 
behind her legs, still looking at her feet. "Sadie?" 

She grunted, a little irritably. 

"You ever wonder why I come here at night?" 

There was a pause, then a tired sigh. "Not really." 

"It's because I'm scared of the dark," I ran my fingertips against the
quilt surface, still staring blankly at her feet. "Did you know that? 
I'm scared of the dark. Seventeen years old and scared of the dark. 
Ever since I was four I have been. My brother died in the dark, right 
in the bed next to mine. Four years old, and I heard him die. He just 
kind of gasped, and that was it. I didn't know he was dead of course, 
but somehow I could feel something. Like the dark suddenly got darker." 


The blue-robed lump didn't stir, but I could hear her quiet breathing.
It comforted me a bit, but in a way it also made me angry. Still, she 
didn't say a word. I wondered if she was still listening. 

"Sadie?" 

"Yeah." She sounded a little less irritable, but a lot more tired. 

"You scared of anything?" 

No reply. 

"You used to be scared of brussel sprouts," I mused, drifting back to
childhood, looking at her tiny feet. "Somebody told you they turned 
into trolls if you left them in the dark. You still scared of brussel 
sprouts, Sadie? Naw, I don't think so. You're not that kind of person. 
You're lucky, you know, that you don't really think about things like I 
do. You just know stuff, and you do stuff. I don't know what I'm saying 
here . . . but you know what I mean, right?" 

Another grunt. 

I tried to keep quiet then, I really did, but . . . "Sadie?" 

Silence. 

"You awake?" 

She kicked me. 

"You have a hero?" I rushed on before her pause could become a
never-filled gap. "Your dad, right? I like your dad. But I always went 
for the superhero types, the unbelievable ones. I don't think I ever 
really admired anyone close to me. Well, excepting you, of course-- you 
know I worship you. But I dunno, everyone was too human for me." 

I flipped onto my back, looking back up the ceiling. There were stars on
her ceiling. "Sadie," I said, and this time my voice went soft and 
choked with frustration. 

This time she made no vocal indication of hearing me, but turned, onto
her back. 

"You ever wonder about things?" I asked almost desperately, feeling the
warmth of her hip against my shoulder. "Anything? Isn't there anything 
you just don't know, anything that you wish you had an answer to, 
anything you sit and think and think about but just can't answer for?" 

There was a long lull of empty silence, and it was only then I noticed
the clock ticking in her room. It was one of those really speedy, 
really annoying click-click-click ones that you knew was just speeding 
away toward the alarm. Come to think of it, I guess I never heard one 
that wasn't annoying. Still, this one was particularly unnerving. 

Then she spoke. 

"I used to wonder," came her voice, hesitantly, quietly. "If you were
never truly happy, could you never experience unhappiness?" 

The stars still kind of glowed a little, I observed , looking up at the
shadowed ceiling not reached by her lamp. How about that. 

"I mean, kind of like . . . shoelaces. You can't untie them unless
they've been tied first. Y'know? So I thought, first I'd have to be 
happy, before I could be . . ." She fell quiet, then her voice came 
back, real small. "Colin?" 

"Yeah?" 

"I don't want to be unhappy." 

I breathed, quicker than before, but she kept talking. 

"It's scary knowing that I'm going to be, at one point in my life. I
mean, usually I like knowing what's going to happen, so I can plan for 
it.  Usually I plan what's going to happen. But I didn't plan on this, 
I didn't. I didn't even notice it until recently." 

I played with my tongue ring, rolled my head to rest my cheek against
her side. 

"I think it's your eyes that started it," she continued, almost
babbling. "They remind me of Cocoa's. Cocoa had blue eyes. You remember 
Cocoa? I loved that cat," her voice almost caught, but she ran on. "I 
guess even back then it was too late to try out this theory of mine. He 
already made me happy. But then he got run over by a truck. So then, I 
got unhappied." 

She stopped, and I found myself straining my ears for more, holding my
breath with an awful suspicion that she was done. 

Then she whimpered. "Now there's you, and you-happiness, but what
about-- Oh, God, Colin," she cried. "I don't want you to get run over 
by a truck." 

The thought of laughing at the pure incredulity of that statement didn't
occur to me until about twenty minutes later. As it was, I just threw 
myself up into a sitting position, my eyes tracking wildly for her face 
just before she pushed it under a pillow. 

"There," came her stifled voice. "Now I answered your stupid question
and told you one of stupid mine. Go away and let me sleep." 

She set her shoulders determinedly, and I had no intention of arguing.
But still I couldn't leave, tongue bar clacking away with abandon at my 
teeth as I gazed down at her motionless form in mild frustration 
rapidly being swallowed up by a manic joy. Finally I couldn't hold it 
in anymore and I let out a howl, startling her into an undignified 
squeak until I rolled, caught her in my arms, and sent us both tumbling 
off the bed. 

We landed somewhat less than quietly with me on top and grinning like a
maniac, as her jaw worked rigidly and her widened grey eyes blinked up 
at me. 

"You are a psychopath," she gritted. "But I think you bloody well know
it." 

"I love you, too," I returned, and eased up off her. 

"Colin?" she looked up at me. "You know something? I'm still scared of
brussel sprouts." 

"Good." I tilted her chin back and pretended to examine the contents of
her nose. 

"You know something else?" she continued dryly. "It was you that told me
they turned into trolls." 

I cackled evilly and glanced down. Her toes were wiggling.


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