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As he drove up the barely-there dirt path, the cars’ headlights washed over a hunched form alone in the dark. Distantly, he wondered if she intended for him to find her. A spot she showed him, one he visits regularly, all after lashing out like that.
Or she also used the spot to clear her head. More likely given the harsh words.
He parked his car and shut off the engine and the lights along with it leaving the stars and moon to light the hillside in a dim glow. She had to have heard the car approach. Getting out, he pocketed his keys and walked towards her, his steps soft but not silent on the rock and dirt path.
Chi sat with her back to him, staring off at the city in the distance with her knees pulled tightly to her chest as compact as she could get. Her bun of hair was falling, cockeyed against her shoulder with random strands straying from the hair-tie.
He stopped about two yards away, hands in his pockets. What does he even say? ‘Are you okay?’ No, because she obviously wasn’t. ‘What did I do?’ Hearing the reek of honest ignorance from himself would make his skin itch. He thought they were finally growing closer – becoming friends. He had known when he fucked up before in other relationships, but he couldn’t put his finger on what set her off. It had to be something he did.
Crickets and frogs saw fit to ensure no silence would suffocate them. They stayed like that for a long while. Chi staring off paying him no mind, maybe she thought he’d take the hint and buzz off; Decker shifting his weight from one foot to the other every other minute while he hoped for something insightful to come to mind.
Eventually he landed on, “So, uh . . . you want to maybe tell me what happened back there?” He internally winced as his voice settled into its nonchalant default – a familiar, but inappropriate tone.
She didn’t bolt. He could chalk that up to a win in itself.
With an exaggerated groan, Chi folded in on herself shoving her face in her hands, “Fu-u-u-uck!”
Decker tensed briefly, but before he could speak Chi filled the air, “Do you think balloons know when they’re about to touch a sharp object?” Her knees fell to either side and she sat butterflied, elbows on knees, hands holding up a head too heavy to support itself with all the bullshit jostling around inside.
A small noise of pure confusion escaped him, blindsided by the sharp left.
“Like, if it drifts down all slow-like onto a bed of nails! It could land and not pop! Not right away, at least. But does it know? It’s lying on its doom. It could probably even get comfortable with that.” She lamented the fictional balloon less like a puzzle and more akin to an existential crisis.
“Uh . . . I don’t think balloons are conscious of their eminent demise.”
“That’s what I’m saying! They aren’t! And it’s dumb! Because DUH! Obviously those nails are going to get you killed! But the longer they don’t . . . the longer the balloon can sit there with no consequences . . . it could get comfortable.”
He stood there dumbly. While he was fine with not touching the emotional tension with a ten foot pole, the strange topic didn’t seem like a fitting substitute.
“And then a breeze sweeps it up, it goes for another glide. It thinks the nails are maybe not so dangerous anymore. And if it lands real gentle, it’s fine. Land there safely enough times and fuck, I bet those nails look like a friend.” She released a heavy sigh, shoulders sagging impossibly more inward.
Ah. That sounded like a metaphor.
The fine arts weren’t his forte, but it looked like the best route available. Decker closed the gap between them and planted himself cross-legged within arm’s reach of her, “Well, it might not be all the balloon’s fault. Metal nails coming in contact with it repeatedly could create a static electricity that draws it back in?”
The crickets refused to let the silence between them be too quite when it fell.
Abruptly she snorted and laughter tumbled out with slightly jagged edges, but not entirely broken at least. Chi shook her head, leaning the weight entirely onto one hand. She looked at him with one eye, the way her hand awkwardly grappled her face obscuring the other, a weary smile present.
He supposed he didn’t completely flub whatever point she was getting at and pressed on, “I suppose, if it can charge up enough of a static electricity the balloon may be able to actually hover just over the nails. It’d create a pseudo barrier preventing them from actually touching. I think I did an experiment with something like that when I was a kid.”
Her shoulders shook with quiet giggles, the visible eye rolling fondly. She either appreciated his effort or thought he was an idiot. Either way, he’d take it over more fighting.
Another lull fell between them, eased by the ambient wildlife. Decker turned his gaze to the stars, shining teasingly in and out of cloud cover.
Chi rubbed her face in her hands roughly; stretching, pinching the flesh and made sure it felt real and correct. With another sigh, she lifted her head from her hands, easing their burden and gazing upwards as well.
“You don’t get it, huh?” she said quietly. Barely a whisper.
“Are you the balloon?”
“It’s not a perfect metaphor.” Still quiet.
“Are you . . . afraid I’m going to hurt you?”
No answer.
“Chi.” He looked at her, dread knotting in his stomach. Her face looked pained.
“It’s hard to get comfortable,” she spoke up finally, refusing to meet his gaze, “around people in general, really. The process of being comfortable is kind of seamless, though. As soon as you realize you’re comfortable, as soon as you’re complacent and you feel safe . . . suddenly it’s hard to not relax. It just comes naturally whether you want to or not because you’re comfortable.”
He chewed on that a moment before confessing, “I don’t think I follow.”
“I can hide when I’m hurting when I’m on guard around others. When I start to get cozy with someone, it’s harder to hide that pain whether I need to or not.” Her expression creases with an old pain that never healed right.
“Hm. I get that.”
Sharply, she locked her eyes on him. No anger or fear, just a genuine yet gentle surprise, “You do?”
“Sure.” He shifted to fully face her rather than the empty hillside, “When me and the old man would listen to some good music, just relax and trade trivia tidbits even though we both already know all the trivia, it’s easy to forget what a complete ass he is. In the moment it’s like he was never awful, I get tempted to forgive and forget. But whenever I tried, I just get hurt again. He never fails to remind me why I left in the first place.”
The heartfelt sharing only made Chi collapse into herself again, shying her stare away like his heartache came far too close for comfort. That wasn’t his intent.
“But hey,” he laid a hand on her shoulder, “lucky for you though, your friends aren’t assholes. I’m not going to backstab you and Bo would never even dream of it. If you want to talk, I’m here. If not, that’s cool too. Heck, if you want to just speak in your cryptic metaphors all night, I’ll do my best to play along. I do suck that that stuff though.”
Another laugh, “You’re an idiot.”
He shrugged, “Could be worse.”
~*~*Cryptic bullshit ensures*~*~