In the words of Holly's favorite cousin who lived in Venice, California, there was Los Angeles Snow in Ipswich. Ash fell like snowflakes, thick and airy, and the sky was tinted a ruddy brown. There was a fire behind the mountains, and students were scurrying from class to class with hands covering their hair. Reid and Tyler were currently engaged in a heated debate of the superiority of Kate Beckinsale as a vampire over Jessica Beal as a vampire hunter when Reid happened to look up at the dormitories. Sitting on the overhang of the roof of the first floor was a very familiar girl wearing an oversized pair of purple Jackie O glasses, leaning against the wall of the second story, which was narrower than the first. Her legs were stretched straight in front of her, and he could see from across the quad that the vans she wore were duct taped together. There was ash clustered in the dark hair that seemed almost to float around her arms, but she appeared spellbound by the falling flakes, proof of the destruction so close to them.
Smiling internally, he remembered their conversation from the day before, one of their video room meetings that had grown more and more frequent as the weeks passed. She'd told him about the time her father had driven her into the mountains when she was a kid because she'd wanted to feel the inside of the low-hanging clouds that so frequently cushioned the mountains' summits. She'd cried the entire way home, because she had thought clouds felt like cotton puffs, and couldn't understand why she couldn't feel them. They were talking more and more, Holly contributing more from behind the camera than she had at first. Reid found himself sharing things with her that he couldn't even tell Tyler, like the time he brought home a baby bird that had fallen out of the giant oak tree in his front yard the summer he turned eleven. He'd named it, and cried harder than he liked to remember when the tiny thing, barely able to hold it's head up, had refused food and died that night while he slept. He had tried so hard to save it. It was then, that next morning, that Reid faced the conclusion that he was much better at hurting things than helping them. He should never be allowed around such delicate creatures as baby birds, and girls like Holly. He remembered her hand, yesterday, reaching out to rest on his when he mentioned that theory (of course leaving out his inclusion of her in the category of such delicate things), her fingertips tracing the veins on the underside of his wrist and leaving behind what felt like stinging electric shocks wherever she touched.
"Dude, isn't that the weird chick you're giving swimming lessons?" Tyler's voice snapped Reid out of his momentary reverie.
"What?"
"On the roof."
"Oh… yeah, I think. I'm not sure." He had the perverse desire to join her up there, let the shingles burn the backs of his knees with hers. They were nearly under the roof now, almost protected from the ash. Reid grinned abruptly, an ominous look that his friends usually identified with his… less rational schemes. Glancing side to side and finding no one near them, he sprang forward in what looked almost like a volleyball spike, but he jumped far higher than would've been possible, high enough to latch his hands to the storm drain of the roof that was inches from a pair of faded navy vans. Holly jumped at the sight of the pair of hands- white pale- and crouched forward on her hands and knees. Reid was pulling himself up into a chin-up position apparently effortlessly, wearing a pair of sunglasses so dark they hid his eyes.
"What the f-"
"Language now, Miss Holly. What are you listening to?" She looked incredulously from the iPod in her lap to the boy hanging impossibly from the edge of the roof to the iPod again.
"Loom." Her raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"Lesbian music?"
"If that's how you so narrow-mindedly choose to define it. Ani DiFranco is bisexual, actually."
"Ohh, well, now that you put it that way…" He pulled himself forward still higher, until his arms were straight and she could see most of his torso. His legs seemed almost to leap up of their own accord, and far below she could hear the cries of a boy- most likely Tyler.
"What the fuck man?"
"Don't worry about it Ty. Got some things to take care of." He crawled forward and turned, his back now to the wall next to Holly's. Wordlessly she extended a hand bearing the left earphone of her iPod, and they listened in silence as the ash cascaded around them. They looked nearly timeless there- eyes covered and hair ashy; surveying the damage the fire left around them with smiles as the smoke-covered sun washed them out red.
you've always got those dark sunglasses
covering up your face
but if you promise to take them off
i promise i won't squander your gaze
i will be picturesque, i will be nice
i won't do anything you can't tell your wife
i will think before i act i will think twice
just let me see your eyes
each time we spoke you put in a token- ran the tilt-a-whirl
when i was giggling and dizzy flirting like a 12 year old girl
the carnival of you and me was coming to town
watch how we spin and stop and then fall down
now we just say hello and head for firmer ground
you are the one-way glass that watches me
standing in line at the bank
i always looked into your glasses like a cat looks into a fish tank
but all i could ever see was the specter of me reflected
i'm on a monument of friendship that we never had erected
i wanted to take up lots of room i wanted to loom
you always got those dark sunglasses between us when we talk
after the party is over if you wanna take a walk
we could just look around, not do nothing wrong
just try to be at least as brave as our songs
i will bring my heart, i will bring my face
you just name the time and place
--
Holly pointed up with one bony finger- the nail polish on it was chipped and orange, and the braided silver ring looked too large for her index finger.
"The sky is bleeding."
And don't tell anybody, but when Reid turned quickly- against his better judgment- and brought his lips hard to hers their teeth crashed and she bit his bottom lip.