Day 7.

(continued directly from day 6) Like a snail’s antenna, when my fingers touched it they jumped back. It stung more than I thought it would. But at least it wasn’t bleeding. Just a narrow cut, still a little raw.

As I look back, I’m pretty impressed with myself. It took me this long to realize I was talking to a girl and not become a shy, insecure kind of guy who tightens his lips and keeps a downturned head with the occasional upward glance and eyebrows. It’s not that I’m uncomfortable around girls. I’m used to girls. It’s just... I’m not much of a people person as it is, and though I can relate to girls well, I just can’t help but feeling they hate me.

When I was a freshman in college, I found myself embarassing desperate for a relationship. I was far from home, I didn’t know anybody, and I felt this need for connection. My second semester, I thought I had found it.

But that just kind of proved my whole “not good with girls” theory.

“Bejamin Faires, what is wrong?” the girl asked.

I had adopted my inner focused stance, arms close to my side, shoulders slightly hunched. The change must have been so abrupt that she had noticed. She touched my arm. “Are you not okay?”

She talked weird. But besides that, she knew me. How did she know me? I took a deep breath. I knew I could get beyond this stupid trick my mind was playing on me. I looked up at her from a downward titled head.

“Who are you?”

She smiled widely. It was a cute smile. If that smile was more prevalent in this world, teenagers wouldn’t need to write so much angsty poetry.

“My name is ... well, Kon calls me Thi.”

I raised my head, tilted it, my eyes squinted. “Really? That’s your name?” Parents really needed to get a grasp on reality sometimes. They think its cute sometimes to name their kids peculiar or just plain weird names without thinking of the consequences that kid will have to live with the rest of their lives. Particularly during highschool. I mean, at least a first name is something you have control over for your kid, at least easier than the last name I guess.

The girl nodded vigorously. Since she already seemed to know my name, I figured I’d skip that introduction. Which brought me to another question.

“How... how do you, well, how do you know my name?”

She smiled again, crossed her arms across her stomach like she was hugging herself. She looked calmly excited, if that’s even possible.

“I’ve known you for a long time.” She turned me, her hands on each shoulder, towards the door, then pointed at it. “You used to sit there, on the outside, and you would write. Sometimes, I would sit on the other side of that door and pretend like I could see what you wrote about.”

Suddenly her eyes got very large, and she darted off to the other end of the building, hopping over debris and a pew in a manner that suggested she was very accustomed to its presence, the way you can navigate your house with only a little trouble when its no sight kind of dark. I turned to watch her, but she disappeared behind a pew across and maybe five pew up from where I stood. I heard some rustling, a few clinks, then a gentle sound of triumph. She popped up from behind the pew, stepped onto its seat and in what only seemed a few steps judging by her grace, she stopped before me and held out a journal.

The journal I’d lost the day before.

“You write beautiful things, Benjamin Faires. Your heart must be very beautiful.”

“You read it?” I asked, grabbing it pulling it out of her hands, a man protecting his treasure. The sparkle in her eyes died, her stance fell. She bit her lower lip. A step back.

“I am sorry... what I not meant to?”

“I don’t even know you!” I said, a fusion of exasperation and infuriation. Why was I getting so angry? I had private thoughts inside, yes, but nothing horrible. But I didn’t know her. She was a stranger. And she’d read it.

Her brows bent up slightly, she breathed deeply, stepped back again. She pointed at the door.

“When you wrote, I longed to be your muse. When you cried, I longed to hold you. When they laughed, I wanted to hide you. Every audible thought, I heard and I cherished. Every story read aloud, I envisioned. I know you. I would have been so much to you.” She hesitated. I wanted to crawl in a corner. Or be slightly freaked out. After a moment, she said softly, “All you had to do was open that door and I would have been here. I would have been that friend I heard you ask for. Why didn’t you ever open the door?”

Her eyes never looked away. She held my gaze until I had to break it. Once I did, she sat down on the edge of the nearest pew, her head hung.

Now, with her back to me, I watched her. She tucked her hair behind her ear, but it fell back out. She didn’t move for the longest time. The silence seemed to echo eternally, and I wished it would be filled with something. Music, voices, anything. Silence can be the most unbearable sound in the world.

I had never opened that door, and she had been here all this time? How was that possoble? This place had been deserted. That’s what everyone thought. Was she a homeless person, an orphan or something like that? How had she survived like this? Separated from contact? And why hadn’t she opened that door?

When I thought about it further, it wasn’t true that she was seperated from all contact. Twice now she had mentioned someone named Kon. What sort of a name that was, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it wasn’t even real. Maybe the person didn’t exist, or was some animal she had befriended and opted to make anthropomorphic.

“I’m... I’m gonna go,” I said, nodding towards the door, even though she couldn’t see me. She didn’t say anything, didn’t move. As I took a step away, I felt like an extraordinary douche.

“Don’t go.” It was barely whispered but it felt like it reverberated throughout the building. I looked back at her. She still hadn’t moved.

Suddenly, one of the front doors creaked open, and someone on the other side said,

“Thi, sorry I’m late, I was held up late at the office. But I got that hot chocolate thing you like at–” He stopped as he stepped through and saw me. I didn’t have to see him to know him. I knew that voice. This time I could see him clearly.

He was tall, a strong frame with wide shoulders. Black hair with a widows peak deeper than my own. Heavy dark brows above equally heavy black eyes. The strong angular nose evened out the strong angular jaw. His skin had an olive complexion. Huge hands held a huge styrofoam to go cup. Complete with a shabby black suit and wrinkled white shirt underneath, I felt like I was staring at some ebon monolith or something.

His face was the epitomy of blank, then slowly morphed into anger.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I expected a tone of fury, but instead I heard it mixed with fear.

Thi jumped up and before I knew it she was standing in front of me. Very close in front of me. Like she was protecting me.

“Kon, wait.”

“Thi, what is he doing here?” the man yelled. She called him Kon. This guy was the one she had been talking about before?

“He’s just... I mean,” she began.

“Get out.” He began walking towards me.

“Kon–”

I stepped back.

“Stop it!” Thi yelled, and as he tried to bull past her, she pushed him back. I don’t know how she did it. She looked so little and frail. And the man was practically a bulldozer. But she stopped him.

“Thi, you know he can’t be here. If they found out–”

“He is my friend. I want him here.”

“It doesn’t matter. You know I don’t make the rules.” He looked like he was apologizing. There was something supremely weird about all of this, namely the connection between these two. They stood there, the guy making Thi look like a child, but both staring strongly at each other. If anything, I would have said Thi was the one in charge. Finally, the Kon guy sighed, pushed the to go cup into Thi’s hands.

This must have been some sign of resignation, because Thi stepped back till she was standing next to me. Kon crossed his arms over his chest.

“Kon,” Thi said, after taking a noisy sip from her hot chocolate, “This is Benjamin Faires.”

“I know who he is,” Kon said with a sigh.

“Benjamin Faires,” Thi touched my arm, “This is Konstantine, but I just call him Kon.”

Begrudgingly, Kon raised a hand in an inconvincing greeting.