Sanctuary
If there was a word to describe what they shared; it would be sanctuary. The ebb and flow of their friendship was serene, the gentle lapping of the ocean versus the full blown tidal wave they faced everyday.
Nobody but him would use the words comfort and Chloe in the same sentence, he'd often muse, but that was the beauty of it. To find ease where others only saw obstruction and difficultly gave him a sense of pride. They were too busy trying to mould her to the way that they believed she should react in situations to see the elegant simplicity that was already there.
He didn't pretend with her. It never even crossed his mind to. The meticulously erected barriers that he carried around to show everyone that he was honestly alright with his life would have crumbled under her scrutiny if he ever tried. He knew that from the first moment they met.
She took no nonsense, she was blunt, and she had no time for socially constructed barbed wire. What you saw was what you got.
Sometimes he envied her for having the strength to just be.
Sometimes, late at night when the shadows danced around them both he realized with clarity that she was no happier on the inside than he was.
He wasn't sure how he got there that first time, on the grubby landing outside her flat a little after midnight. Too much liquor had clouded his thoughts, and somewhere in the back of his mind a small voice was chiming that this was a crazy idea and that he should go home and sleep it off. But instead he had knocked.
It was then that something beautiful and rare blossomed.
She was wrapped in a blanket, but he had obviously not woken her. Surprise at seeing him on her doorstep crossed her features briefly, but was soon replaced with something that he couldn't quite fathom.
"Insomniac too huh?" She shot, and turned around leaving the door wide open to admit him without a backward glance.
It easily became habit, when he couldn't sleep, his feet finding their way to her doorstep. She was a night owl, computer whirring and TV on quietly until early into the morning. He never felt as if he was bothering her and for that he was thankful. On that first visit he had been given the somewhat small tour of her flat, been shown where her favourite chocolate biscuits were stashed, and then she had left him to his own devices.
She never had asked why he turned up, or what was bothering him. She never probed or pushed him as everyone else seemed to. She did not tell him that he needed to see a shrink, or that he needed to let it out, or he needed to cry, or a million other needful things that the others in their infinite wisdom tried to thrust upon him. She merely smiled that lop-sided smile of hers when he chided her for her small DVD collection, and went back to the flickering screen of her PC.
When he finally spoke - when it finally became too much for him to lock inside, she sat and listened patiently, her face reflecting everything. When the tears came she rubbed his back; her keyboard dexterous fingers working out a lifetime of knots. Her voice, though unsteady, told him over and over that she understood.
And afterwards, huddled together under the crochet throw on her beaten up sofa, he realized that she probably did.
Fin
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