Old Gold

After a few days of ‘being helpful’, I decide to get out of my room and go for a walk. It’s a break from my usual M.O. for sure, but the usual just isn’t cutting it anymore. Waiting around to say ‘no’ to someone is only fun if you find yourself able to say ‘no’.

On my walk, I’m finding myself inadvertently thinking about why I’m walking. What’s the difference this week compared to the last few years of my life? I definitely haven’t lost my desire to mess with people, trouncing Reina in Wii Sports is the most fun I’ve had in years. It’s not that I’ve made a full 180 when it comes to following orders either, I still haven’t touched the portfolio on Charlotte.

Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way.

Sure, I’ve encountered different people at each stop during my current life but none of them have been different. Up until this point, it’s like they’d been throwing new skin suits over the same cast of paid actors and just changing the stage. As if the way people look matters, it’s never mattered up to now.

I like seeing the flowers in bloom, they're pretty.

It’s never mattered before now.

“Shit!”

As I round the corner of the dorms I am immediately spotted. Lexi is leaning out of her window, frantically waving her arms in the air.

“Something wrong?” I ask.

“Oh, it’s just you.”

Lexi’s expression relaxes and she goes back to lazily leaning against her windowsill.

“It’s just me.”

“Think you could grab something for me?” Lexi asks, pointing to the ground below her window. I don’t know why she thinks I’d do shit for her.

“Yeah sure.”

I didn’t mean to say that.

“Thanks.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Somewhere between half and two-thirds of a cigarette.”

After a few moments of feeling around in the dark, I find the cigarette and hand it to her.

“And why was I looking for this?”

“Because I wasn’t finished yet.”

Lexi takes a lighter from her pocket, relights the cigarette and takes a drag.

It seems obvious now that Lexi wasn’t waving her arms in the air before because of some schizophrenic delusions (at least not entirely). She was just trying to get rid of the smoke. But why? With the way this place is run, I doubt Lloyd would give a shit about something like smoking.

“Who you trying to hide this from?”

Lexi makes sure to exhale right into my face before answering me.

Cigarettes are one of the things you cannot get into this city, no matter how hard you try. Everyone knew what they were, of course, they always popped up in the shows we watched. If ever a character complained about smoking, it was about the smell, so that’s what I expected to hate about them. But what I find most uncomfortable when Lexi blows it back in my face is that I can taste it.

“Emma.”

“Emma? Why would she care?”

“That girl is too maternal for her own good,” Lexi puts on her best Emma impression, “‘you’re gonna die young if you keep smoking those, Alex!’

“Alex?”

“My name’s Lexi.”

She doesn’t sound mad but I decide not to press her further. The other day she implied that Alex was her birth name and that she’d prefer not to be called by it. Did Emma really call her that? She’s proven herself a little quick to anger but that seems so out of character…

…I just decided I was going to ignore it. Do what you tell yourself, Abel.

“She’s right though. Those things cause cancer or whatever it’s called.”

“I didn’t say she was wrong. Maybe I just want to die young.”

“Do you?”

“No, probably not,” she says as she flicks the end of her smoke towards my feet, “but I don’t prefer the idea of growing old here.”

“Just go somewhere else.”

“I thought I just made it clear that me and Emma are not the same person.”

“That’s fairly obvious.”

“Then why are you trying to annoy me like I’m her?”

Lexi’s eyebrows are raised further than I thought they could go. As per usual, she’s not annoyed, she’s smiling. Her expression is that of an adult who’s just been told a bad lie by a child, I’m very familiar with it. It’s a face that says; ‘do you really think that’s going to work on me?’

“Sorry, force of habit.”

“Don’t apologize, just try harder next time.”

“You want me to try harder to piss you off?

“I want you to say something to me that isn’t solely designed to provoke a reaction. If you want to try pissing me off, do it because you want to.”

“What’s so wrong with wanting to provoke a reaction?”

“You’re doing it again.”

“Sorry…”

A silence rides in on the wind as I listen to one of them yet again.

“So are you going to say something else to me?”

“I can’t really think of anything.”

“This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing… what are you doing out here anyway?”

“I’m taking a walk.”

“No shit. I’m looking for something more akin to a reason.”

“I was just thinking a bit too much.”

“Ah, one of those walks.”

“You take ‘em too?”

“No, I smoke.”

Lexi reminds me of some upperclassmen I used to admire, someone who really doesn’t give a shit. But I don’t know if she reminds me of them in a good or bad way. Half of those guys were the type who had threesomes with other people’s partners and the rest ended up in the disciplinary schools (and some of them wound up being both).

“Can I ask you something?”

It’s funny. I haven’t thought in a very long time about whether or not I should ask a question, if it’s the kind of thing they’re comfortable answering. But it seems when it’s an actual question, one born from curiosity and not perverse ambition, I fall right back into the conventions I’ve tried so hard to shake. After all, I never was the type of person to not care, and I couldn’t start being that person without it all being an act.

“Shoot.”

“How do you deal with… all this?”

“With all… what?”

“With everything. How do you stay so relaxed the way things are? Knowing that what you are isn’t acceptable? That you’re going to die in this box?!”

“Shhhhhh…” Lexi puts a finger to her lips and points towards a room further down the way that has the lights on, “I don’t think this is a conversation we want to have with everyone.”

“I don’t care what they think of me.”

“And I don’t care what you think period, but I don’t want to upset Reina.”

“Fine, don’t answer me.”

I go to turn around but I do so very slowly, hoping Lexi will stop me. Before she’s even fully left my vision, however, Lexi puts a firm hand on my shoulder and spins me back around.

“Now you’re trying to annoy me like you’re her.”

Lexi’s arms are folded and her expression now is unlike it was earlier.

“It seems to be working though.”

“Yeah, of course it is. Say whatever you want to me but don’t run from a conversation like a coward. Especially not one you started.”

I shrug her hand off my shoulder.

“Alright, then answer my question.”

Lexi grabs me by my tie and drags the upper half of my body into her room.

“Why don’t we take this conversation somewhere a little more private?”