Rose

“Ari…?”
Uncertain. Tobey couldn’t quite believe he had bumped into this girl again - he was so awestruck that he didn’t even remember that he wasn’t supposed to know her name. Usually at this time of night there was no-one out and he had prepared himself or the usual lonely walk home from another visit. Another lady at the nursing home. He’d been peacefully walking and thinking until he’d rounded the corner and stumbled across the striking stranger he’d once comforted in the middle of a road. She was staring at the ground, looking like a mess.
A beautiful mess.
Her black dress was crumpled and creased as though, previously, she’d been sitting in an odd position of a long time. Against a wall, on the pavement, legs pulled against her chest, and hugged. She was standing now, her long, ivory legs shaking. Because of the cold? Because she was afraid? Because she was in agony? All three. She stood, stared, and shook.
Tobey tried again. “Ari?”
She looked up at him, and recognition passed across her face. Still, she didn’t speak. Instead, she reached up with a cigarette-holding hand and attempted to push the black tangle of hair away from her face. In defeat, she let her hand drop; the cigarette dangled limply from her thin fingers and smoked itself.
Who was this guy? He was gorgeous, and she’d been in his company, been in his arms once – that was all she knew. That and the fact that he was very tall. Taller than Ari by at least five inches, and she was still wearing her stupid, green heels. Stupid.
He didn’t say anything now that he knew she was aware of him. Neither did she. Both stood and thought. Thought about each other.
...basically a stranger, she doesn’t even…
…only seen him once, why do I…
…hold her again and comfort…
…happily stay with him because…
…mesmerising, she just doesn’t know it…
…Rose would pounce on him if she ever…
“Ohh!” Ari gasped and held her face in her hands. The smoke rose around her face. Don’t think about her! 
Released from Ari’s oceanic eyes and able to see the pain she was in, Tobey walked forward to be closer to her. A split second before he wrapped her in his arms and hugged her tight, something stopped him. She’s a stranger, don’t scare her. However his arms were already outstretched and he had to do something with them now. Not draw her into him though. So he reached and plucked the cigarette from between her fingers, observing the chipped, green nail varnish. He threw it in the gutter. Then placed a hand, cautiously, on her shoulder. Cold fingers on cream skin. Cold skin under caramel fingers.
Ari, yearning to be held by him again, took his gestures as disapproving and pitying ones. She felt like she needed to explain. 
“I don’t even smoke. I, I… I just wanted…I needed… something… a change. But… that was just GROSS!” She laughed to herself. Back at the party Matt, a boy in her Art class, had lit up and Ari had followed suit. Ari normally wouldn’t have smoked. But Ari didn’t want to be Ari anymore, because Ari without Rose wasn’t right, wasn’t complete. It hurt and she didn’t want to hurt anymore.  Didn’t want to be Ari anymore, so she smoked. Cigarette after cigarette. It didn’t help.
And when, two seconds later, Matt had said that he’d never noticed how wild her hair was (intending it to be a compliment) and moved into kiss her, she’d fled. Taking the cigarettes and her memories of Rose and Matt’s three month relationship with her.
She hadn’t cried like she usually would have. Just sat remembering, hugged her knees, and smoked stupid cigarettes. A whole packet. She didn’t remember standing up, just as she didn’t remember hearing the strange boy call her name. She just suddenly returned from a trip to the cinema with Rose and her adopted brother, Simon, and there she was, standing, and aware of someone watching her nearby.
Tobey chuckled at Ari’s staggered speech.
He introduced himself – finally.
“Tobey Grapeson”
She pushed her hair away from her face again, and stooped to remove her green heels.
He watched her. Make conversation. ‘You’re quite tiny!’ Delicate and damaged.
‘Not really. Five foot five. But they make me walk weirdly. And they’re stupid.” Tired and troubled. There was another silence, but it held a million things within it.
A summer-dress decorated with blood.
Just another shopping trip.
The comfort of cold arms.
Just another work-visit.

“I’m sorry” Tobey said, though the words meant nothing. He had nothing to be sorry for. It was just the traditional thing to say when someone had lost a loved one.
Ari scoffed, and completed the meaningless ritual by replying: thank-you.
Then, “walk me home?” Be my support? Help me through this? Never leave me? “Please…?” I need you, there’s just something about you.
“Of course. I’ll carry your shoes for you.” Without a doubt. I’d give anything to stay with you, to help you. “You want to go now?” Are you aware of the hold you have on me?
Sometimes, the things which go unsaid are heard over all of the simple sentences which tumble carelessly from our lips. Ari and Tobey smiled tentatively together.

During the walk the two of them talked about anything and everything. Tobey asked, Ari answered and Rose appeared. Accompanied in almost everything by laughter, smiles and happiness – for a change. The tears, sadness and pain stayed behind on the pavement, hidden by the smoke of a cigarette in the gutter. Ari, because of Tobey, could now enjoy the memories of her best friend. Why that was, she didn’t know.

She did know that she would forever be grateful to Tobey for helping her move past the grief. Even if it wasn’t gone, it was changed and no longer as painful. But because of that walk home in the early hours of a June morning, Ari could remember, think about and talk about Rose without breaking down.

It was certainly something other-worldly that had made Ari ask Tobey to walk her home. He was a stranger then. And she was ridiculously shy. And unknown to her, the three words had started her on a somewhat other-worldly journey.

“I’ll see you around sometime. Goodnight Ari” He didn’t want to leave, but he knew he would see this beautiful, mysterious, broken girl again. She laughed.
“More like ‘good-morning’… I’ll see you.”
He walked away, knowing that the people at home would have a lot of questions, but not caring.
“Tobey! WAIT!” She ran up to him, her hair fanning behind her.
Thank God! He turned and stepped forward to meet her. Perfectly timing it so that he had no choice but to catch her slender, flying form in his strong arms. She laid her tiny arms on his chest. The shoes which she’d come back for slammed against her back as his arms closed around her. She barely noticed it, too preoccupied by her spluttering heart and this beautiful boy’s closeness.
“I…”
But he kissed her. Long and hard. It was as though, in that moment, his world stopped and restarted again. But now Ari was what kept it turning.
Ari had been kissed before, but never in the way Tobey kissed her. And she knew instantly that this was the only way she would ever want to be kissed again. By Tobey.
They were just two seventeen year olds falling in love.
Nothing extraordinary about that.
The both had their secrets.
Nothing unusual about that.
However, quite unusually, one secret was life-changing for anyone who knew about it.

The sun rose an inch higher, the light shone out over the top of a block of flats and it pierced through Ari’s eyelids. A new day. A new life. She pulled away smiling, reached down, grabbed her emerald stilettos from Tobey’s hand, and winked.
With that, she turned and ran back home.
Genuinely happy for the first time in a long while.
At her door she turned back and waved. Already thinking about calling Rose and replaying the whole night to her. She had forgotten, but it didn’t matter. For now.
Nobody was there to wave back at her, but she was still happy.
“ARIANNA LIPPKEM!! IT’S DAWN! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE HOME HOURS AGO. YOU HAVE SOME SERIOUS EXPLAINING TO DO! YOU GET YOURSELF IN HERE NOW!!”
Her mum was livid but, as she fled into the house, she was still happy.