Part Three: and then, he found me.
The sunlight glittered across the water, slight ripples rising across the lake beneath the gentle fingers of a breeze. Jazmine Dubois sat at the end of a dock, bare feet lazily dipping into the frigid water. She wore a knitted sweater and jeans, little protection from the quickly dropping temperatures. Her breath fogged the air before her, and still, she continued to expose her toes to the icy lake water, opting to feel something in the chilly air rather than the hollowness the warmth of her apartment provided.
She had nothing, no one. She worked as many hours as possible to pay rent, something that would've been easier if she had a roommate. She blamed work and school on why she never visited her parents, and she had yet to tell them where she lived.
Isolation, she knew, was the only option left to her. She retracted her toes from the water, letting the painful liquid drip from her painted nails and back to it's home. Her thin arms, lacking both muscle and fat, wrapped around her shoulders. She sought comfort in the only thing remaining; herself.
Her wild locks danced about her head in the breeze, shielding her red tipped ears.
Footsteps on the wooden stretch behind her, planks creaking in rhythm to the movement of the oncommer. Jazmine tensed, unsure, and turned to meet the stare of the stranger.
"It's you."
"I'm all I need." A quiet whisper, a voice like a bell that drifted frigidly across his form in the silence. The park was almost always empty in the winter, it was why he loved it so. It was a break from the sound, from the fucking ceaseless thoughts of the others.
Instead of reaching for his ear buds, be followed the sound of the voice. He was drawn to the unspoken pain, the isolation he could hear in his own thoughts.
She was sitting on the dock, shoes off and in her lap. Honestly, she thought quietly, not the pounding, uncontrolled volumes of everyoneelse, but a soft, hidden volume. It was like she wanted to slip away, like she was scared of herself.
He let her thoughts roam, filling the empty air around them. When she considered letting herself slip in and drown for the fourth time, he made his presence known.
"It's you." She had said.
He nodded, and she stood, sighing.
"I just wanted a moment to myself." She thought. And he, silently, always silently, agreed with the sentiment.
He walked forwards down the dock, as she walked past, trading places. He hadn't wanted her to leave, to disturb her, but perhaps it was for the best. They had grown up in the same town, lived on the same street for their public school years, but they hadn't ever interacted. The dock was slick and he slipped, eyes wide with surprise as he fell. And the girl was there, her arm grasping his and holding him freely above the ice. With ease she set him down back on the dock, and he was bombarded by a torrent of her inner thoughts.
Fear was the most prominent. "I'm sorry." They both said, voices joined in synchronization.
She took a step to leave and he spoke, talking more than perhaps he ever had during his first twenty years on this earth. "Wait!"
Her green eyes shone, but she turned back to him.
His words left him in a rush, trying to compete with her thoughts, with her silent panic. "Don't be scared, please. You're right, I do know, but now you know. I can hear everything, spoken and unspoken, in everyone. From everyone. We're the same, you and I."
Her doubt, strong and bold pummeled down on him like punches. "Listen to me!" He begged, grasping her hands with his despite her violent thoughts of crushing him, unintentionally or not.
He did what he never thought he would, what he had always ran from and what she too, had always denied herself - he opened himself up, face wet and limbs shaking.
"I trust you. I trust you. We're the same and I trust you."
Her tears fell, and so did his.