I could see the whole city. The skyline twinkled, with lights going on and off as people moved and drove and went about a million lives. The wind blew at me, and I looked down to find myself staring straight down the the battlements of some building. Everything was laid out before me, the work and world of millions of people, through hundreds of years. I hadn't even been alive for four, not that I could remember at least. I felt tiny looking at the works of all these people, who just went about there lives. Normal people. I leaned back from the edge slightly, leaning against Josh.
"Do you like it?" he asked, whispering it to me. I couldn't even answer. I just nodded, pressing myself against him. "I've never taken anyone up here before."
"What is this place?" I asked him quietly.
"I just come up here to think. To get away from people for a while. Sometimes I just can't stand to be around them." He stopped, as if he had said too much.
"Thank you," I said. I brushed my hand on his cheek.
"I suppose I owe you an explanation, right? I said I would tell you about me."
"You don't have to," I said. He seemed smaller and frightened when he said it, and I didn't like it. I liked him confident and happy and holding me. "I trust you."
"You should trust people because they've earned it Leeloo, not because they happen to be nice to you one night," he said sadly. "How do you know I'm not some master seducer, who realized that his only chance is to get you to care about him enough to let him go?"
I hadn't even thought of that. What if I was just being a fool? I pulled away to look at him. "Are you?"
"No," he said, but I had already decided I didn't care. I cared about Josh enough that I wanted him alive, that I did want to find some way to let him go. Not even that, I cared about him enough that I wanted him to keep being part of my life. He would be the only part of it, really. I wanted more than to just have this one fantasy with him. I took his hand, wanting some sort of contact with him.
"Do you want to hear about me?" he asked.
"Only if you want to tell me," I answered. I did want to know about him. I found myself wanting to know everything about him. Why did he like musicals and scifi, why his favorite food was some restaurant food, why he had a special tower to get away from the world. He sat down on the rooftop, and I followed.
"Well, I'm from Florida," he said. "I just came here to Chicago for school. School and to get away from home."
He grimaced when he said it. I nearly interrupted him, but he gave my hand a squeeze, and I decided to just let him keep going at his own pace. "Home wasn't the best environment. Mine wasn't quite the normal wholesome family." He paused, looking up at me. I guess he felt me tense up while he said this. I got tense at the idea of him being hurt. I wanted to go back and protect him.
"I never got hurt, don't worry. My mom made sure of that," he said. He looked away when he said it. "She made sure that none of it ever got to me. I just buried myself in my books, in my studies, in whatever obsession I had at the time, and pretended I had no idea what was happening. So I got great grades."
"I never saw any of it happening, you know. But I knew it. I heard everything. And I could see the marks on her. The way she moved afterwards. She protected me for eighteen years. Stuck with him so that I would have a normal life, would have all the things we would need, and I ran away to college and left her there." He clutched his coat as he said it, and I could hear one slight impact as a tear fell from his face onto it.
"It isn't your fault Josh." I said, scooting closer to him.
"I know," he spat back. "it's his fault for hurting her. And it's her fault for letting him. But it's my fault too, for never doing anything to stop it. Never. I never once stuck my head out of my room when they were fighting. Eighteen years of pretending like nothing was wrong, of sticking my head in the sand."
"You were just a kid," I insisted, wrapping my arms around him. "What could you have done?"
"Anything!" he said, throwing off my arms and standing up. "I never did anything! In my whole life, what have I ever done that mattered?"
I'd never seen him like this. Uncontrolled, angry. I didn't really know him, I suppose. I'd only spent a day with him. Or an evening really. I didn't know he could get so mad. But at the same instant I realized it, he seemed to change.
"I'm sorry," he said, dropping back down to sit next to me. "I didn't mean to scare you."
I scooted over to him, and leaned on him, the calmer, stronger Josh that I was used to.
"Shouldn't I be the one holding you?" I asked him.
"Is that how this works? Because I like it like this." I smiled up at his words. Did he really mean them? It seemed stupid that two people could meet and click as well as we seemed to. That we would share each others inner most secrets and dreams in such a short time. Maybe this happened all the time. I could only remember about three years.
"I like it too," I said, closing my eyes as he held me.
Author's note: So here's a little more about Josh.
What do you all think? Can you meet someone and decide that they are important, that you might be falling for them, all in one evening?
