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It's the week before the summer of '09, and Nicole and Jecka are at the top of their school building after-hours.
It's quiet, the whistle of wind hushed and the rustle of leaves weak. There aren't really ever any birds around, so they aren't making any sounds either. If there were, the hormone-drunk teenage boys in town would've already fucked it to death— it's been on the local news before. Maybe the weird nerdy science kids would've already experimented on it beforehand? Probably with the teenage boys' semen.
Ew.
A cigarette dances between Jecka's lips, blonde strands of thin, brushed hair limply hanging between her fingertips. Soft golden light drapes over her in waves, casting delicate shadows across the contour of her face and the different layers of her hair. It's reflected in her rich amber eyes— a kaleidoscope of feelings simmering in murky puddles, tucked deep into pools of shimmering ochre, bright like sun pressed to rhinestones— and radiates from her in an intangible molten form. A dead look marionettes the one supposed to be there— like she had just been going through the motions, like she wasnt physically there— subtle, but present nonetheless, and Nicole can't help but notice how weird it looks on her face.
Jecka wasn't dead like Nicole was. Jecka had dreams of who'd she be after high-school, had tears to shed over the tragic death of a pet or the pain of her dad's belt against the bone of her back, had a life to live.
So why didn't she look like it?
The concrete uncomfortably scratches against Nicole's palms with a painful friction she doesn't see anywhere else very often. It pushes against her in retaliation when she pushes onto it and it, pathetically, makes her feel weak in comparison. It's a thought that losers have, but Nicole is a loser in her own way.
Not very consoling, though.
She slouches over herself as she scoots forward and uncrosses her legs, letting them dangle over the edge.
"Jecka?" She impulsively calls out, and she's left with a sour aftertaste, the lingering coat containing the foul trace of genuine care that had tried to tack itself to her words heavy in her mouth. It's shameful and it's hideous, a cadaver of a shattered hope that accompanied a brutal childhood. It feels gross— the thought alone is almost enough to drive her over the edge of the building, but something within her doesn't care enough to do it.
Jecka softly hums in response, dull smoke languidly curling from her plump, rosy lips. Her eyes don't travel as they usually do with the subtle fear of disrespecting who she was talking to, instead staying glued to the silhouette of a slice of rotting suburb knelt before a sun-bathed throne. She takes another lazy drag, breathing in, out, chest stuttering with the motion.
Her head slowly turns, pretty rings of topaz ghosting over the still expression of Nicole. "Was there something you wanted to say, or..."
The words cling to the back of her parched throat, each vowel forming a thick stone within her larynx, liquid courage falling through the slim gaps like a funnel. She turns away from her gaze, intently fixed on her eyes.
"No."
"Wh— fuck you then, bitch, the hell? You're wasting my time here."—tch—"Not getting any younger, you know."
You're the one spending your evening with me, she wants to say. She doesn't. "Blah, blah. Words. You're so predictable."
"I'm going to throw tomatoes at you during your graduation."
"As long as you also do it to Kylar, I don't really care." Nicole muses. "Maybe Jeffrey, too, while you're at it."
Jecka pretends to think on it, forefinger folding over the naked skin of her chin. Sighing, she resigns. "You know what, why not?"
"Deal."