Empty Benches
A quick story based on the writing prompt empty benches that I came across a few moments ago. I just got a random plot bunny from that prompt. Kind of based on a story that I once read where a girl with a birthmark traded something to become beautiful, but only vaguely. I don't remember the short story name, but I think it was by Holly Black.
Please review and tell me what you think!
The fog kissed the girl's cheeks as she sat on the otherwise empty bench. It was a cold, dreary sort of day, something that one might expect to be the premise of a horror novel or a murder mystery. Perhaps that what this was, a murder mystery. The girl shivered in her long black coat, trying to find some remnant of warmth from the coffee shop across the street in the folds of her coat as this thought crossed her mind.
This girl looked normal in all aspects except for one. Her long brown hair was straight and her grey eyes were nothing out of the ordinary. She wore no makeup to adorn her face or to bring notice to it. Her clothes were greys, blacks and browns and she wore no jewelry.
However, there was something that always drew peoples' eyes to her face. An angry red splotch of color ran the length of her cheekbone, marking her as different. She had been called many things in her life. Tomato was one of the more popular ones. Scar-face by the boy who used to throw his lunch meat at her.
None of these names mattered not to the girl. She had no care for what others called her. She simply wanted to disappear, to become like everyone else. Her mother had always said that it was an angel's kiss on her cheekbone, and she had always quipped back, "It must be the devil's mark because it is red and because it is ugly."
Then he had come. Like a ghost, he had floated over to her in the coffee shop across the street. With his pale hair, pale eyes and pale skin, he had looked like death itself. She had looked up at him once, and then her eyes never left his face. She had openly stared at him, as many did.
Beautiful was a word that came to mind for the girl. Horrible was the one that most called him. Horrible and beautiful.
He had leaned over to her and whispered, "What is it that you desire most?" His lips had brushed her ear, and she had shivered at the chill that entered her body through that mere brush.
She did not want to answer this beautiful creature, for something about him seemed off. But her lips formed words. "I want to be invisible."
He had smiled at her then and drawn away. He had then offered her mysterious instructions to meet him at this bench at this precise time, and she had come, despite her misgivings.
Thus she sat, staring at the empty expanse of bench beside her. Was it another mean trick? Did the boy know who tormented her and sympathized with them? Were they all waiting in the trees beyond the sidewalk to scare her? She glanced around nervously, and then back at the coffee shop. It was warm in there, perhaps she should wait…
"Looking for me?"
That same voice. She didn't jump, for she had been hoping it would happen. She glanced over at the boy, with his silvery hair and eyes and white-as-snow skin. "You're late."
"Only fashionably so," he said, and smiled. His teeth glittered like ice. He was dressed in cargo pants and a black thermal shirt, and looked to be unbothered by the cold.
She shifted on the bench. He leaned forward after a moment and brushed a thumb over her cheek. "Most would wish to be beautiful," he said, frowning. "You are strange."
She laughed at the irony. It began to snow a moment later. She paused and looked up at the sky. "What am I doing here?" she asked as the snow settled on the bench between them.
"You came because I asked you to, no? You want something."
"Do I?"
"I can feel it in you. The desire. But it isn't for beauty."
"No."
His cold-as-ice fingers were underneath her chin, jerking it up. His eyes were hard. "What is different about you? They all want beauty. Beauty I can give. There is plenty of beauty from where I come."
"And where do you come from?"
He smiled then, and the hard look evaporated from his mercurial eyes. "That's a secret."
She should feel scared. She should question his sanity, or her own. But she did not. She had been raised on fairy tales and the folklore of her Irish grandparents. They left milk out for nonexistent beings and put salt on the windowsills to keep unwanted folk out. "Surely not all secrets are meant to be kept," she said.
"No," he said. "Indeed, some are meant to be shared." He released her chin, but she did not look away from him. His eyes were swimming like an ocean, shifting like wind in the air. Perhaps if she looked away, he would disappear just as quickly as he had appeared beside her. She did not look away. "Kiss me," he said suddenly.
"What?" She began to question, but he pressed cold lips against hers. She found her eyes closing, and she reached out to place a hand on his ice-cold shoulder. Something was being drawn from her, something deep, deep down inside. It was the last of her warmth, and she clung to it for a few moments.
Perhaps the cold wasn't so bad, she thought after those heartbeats in which she fought the boy, and let it go. It slid through her lips to his like a breath, and she was left with a sense of nothingness. When she opened her eyes, the boy was gone.
To the casual onlooker, the bench that had, just moments ago, held two occupants, was completely empty.