Lemon hair, a sigh of relief, and a small smile.
Bloodshot eyes, a borrowed book, and a returned smile.
The best friends drank in each other's appearance, taking care to notice the details that had changed in the time the boy had been away. The location wasn't ideal for such careful work. The train station was filled with smoke and beggars, filthy people and the stands with merchandise, not to mention the noise of the trains itself. Yet the young children, for that what they were, one fifteen, the other fourteen, gazed at each other with such solemnness, because they knew what had happened months before.
***WHAT HAD HAPPENED MONTHS BEFORE***
The girl living through bombs raining on
Her street, and the boy living through what
would be known as the end of Nazi Germany
on the battlefield.
It was the girl who spoke first. "How are you?"
The boy answered in his typical fashion. "I lived through the end of a war, how am I supposed to be?"
The girl corrected him, as it was her fashion. "We both lived through a war."
By this time, they had walked away from the train station to a bench outside of it. The weather was awful- gray skies and many angry clouds bending to the angrier wind. The bench was grimy and hadn't been cleaned for several weeks- but that was to be expected of a country that had lost a war. No time was to be spent for the cleaning of public benches; the government was more concerned about building their country up from scratch, for the second time in a half a century. Yet the boy and the girl held no such concerns at the moment. The moment, both realized, was for each other.
"That isn't what I asked you." The girl said. "When I asked you how you were."
The boy sighed. "Saumensch, I should have known you weren't going to ask a simple question."
"I still want the answer."
The boy ignored the girl's request, and opted to search through his bag instead. He took great appeared to take great care not to rumple the few items he had in his ownership. It was to be expected, he had lost everything else. After a minute, he pulled out one of the trinkets he had.
*** WHAT THE BOY HELD***
A small red book, with a picture
of a dragon on the front, and the
title 'The Hobbit'
"I traded for it." The boy said, "I'm not a Book Thief."
"Thank you," Said the girl, carefully tracing the delicate lines with her finger. The drawing was lovely, she decided, and if she ever learnt to draw, she'd try and draw the cover.
The boy snorted. "Don't get too full of yourself."
"No, that's your job, isn't it? Saukerl." The girl smiled, a small one, but holding the qualities of happiness never the less. It was contagious, and the boy was smiling too, even though both of them had been through hell and back in less than a year. The girl's smile faded, and she turned to the boy sharply. "I still want an answer."
The boy sighed. "Really?"
The girl was stubborn. Which was a good quality to have, when you have a boy for a best friend. "Yes."
The boy looked at the sky, a murky, confusing, gray, which was exactly how he felt. "I feel tired." He said.
"I feel the same." The girl said, and fell quiet.
There was a great silence.
It was ear deafening, really, except for the fact that it wasn't making a physical noise. It was thoughts that were making the incessant noise, thinking of what they had lost, and what they had gained in return. Life was funny like that. Your world, the one you spent all your time and effort to build, could be knocked down in a matter of seconds, yet the real world, it keeps spinning.
The girl reached for the boys' hand, and the boy adjusted his fingers so he could hold on properly. And they sat, the boy and the girl, for the rest of Germany's gray afternoon, without speaking a word.
It was the boy who broke the silence.
"Liesel." He said, with great importance.
"Yes, Rudy?" The girl answered.
He leaned in for a hug, his long arms wrapping around her boney shoulders, resting his chin on her hair. She shifted, placing her arms around his waist, burying her head in his chest, marveling at how strong he had gotten. Yet he was still Rudy, her Rudy, and that made the world all right. He was always taller than her, but now he was almost a full head taller, and Liesel wondered if his leaders made his taller, somehow, or if were bound to happen.
He himself had noticed how long her hair had gotten and that it smelt of ink and old pages, a scent he deemed fitting, for his best friend, the Book Thief. Rudy wondered how she had gotten so thin. He could wrap an arm around her waist, and it would go all the way around. She was always skinny, but this was a change.
*** A SMALL NOTE OF REASURENCE ***
They were natural, small changes.
No one else noticed, but then,
no one else knew them like
the other did.
"I missed you." Liesel said. "So, so, much."
Rudy smiled into Liesel's hair. "I missed you too." He paused, "Just as much."
"Do you think we'll ever be the same?"
"I don't know." A pause. "Do you think it'll ever be okay?"
"I hope so."
*** AN INTERESTING THOUGHT***
Just perhaps, they were asking
questions they already
knew the answer too?
And the best friends (and maybe almost lovers), walked off into their future.
Behind them, the sky turned blue.
END