I pulled on my bright red rain parka and slipped outside. Even though it was a sunny October day, the weather had turned decidedly chilly, with rain and hail and whatnot.
She was waiting in her car, smoking a cigarette, impatient, I could tell. Her perfectly manicured fingers (painted in some color which, she later told me, was called Golf Punk) tapped restlessly on the steering wheel. I tried the door and, finding it locked, lightly tapped on the window. She unlocked the door and I took great haste to get in as quickly and quietly as possible. Obviously, she did not seemed very pleased with me and my tardiness.
She started the car and drifted down the driveway and onto the street, not bothering to check for traffic or the constant stream of little children which usually littered the street, playing jump rope or racing toy cars, or just sitting on the curb, staring thoughtfully at the cars which flew by.
But this day, strangely, no children played in the street. "Must be too cold," I said out loud, but she said nothing, just turned the radio up.
I turned it down. "Ainsley, what is it? I know I must have done something to piss you off."
She sighed. "Never you mind about it," she replied, not taking her eyes off the road. "Just a bit of this and a bit of that, you know how it is."
"Yes, I do," I agreed, even nodding along with the steady rhythm of rain on the windshield. We were all starting to become stressed out, really. The pressures of my band and her art, and the touring, interviews, and other little things had just driven our relationship to the limit. It was mostly me, though, and here I was, just a kid, barely 17, and Ainsley 22, an adult, a striking adult as well. She had her own apartment, a job, and a life she could choose to live her own way. She painted, brilliant beautiful landscapes, still life sketches, portraits, and the like.
My life was dominated by overachieving parents who wished for me to, quite literally, "Rule the world." The band was just becoming too much for me to handle. I wanted to be with Ainsley, to hold her, to love her, to be there for her, but I couldn't even do that.
"So what's on the agenda?" I asked, even forcing a small grin.
She didn't return my attempt at a smile, nor did she try to. "I don't know. I'm just real tired."
"Do you just want to go to your place for a while? Not to do anything, I mean, just-" I cut myself off, feeling awful.
"Just talk?" Ainsley laughed, a sort of sinister laugh, that made me shiver uncontrollably. "You know what happens everytime we plan to just 'talk'."
"Insane, huh?" I said half-heartedly. "Yeah."
She eased the car to a stop at a stop sign that blazed as red as my parka. She seemed to notice that and, reaching over, stroked the soft, shiny nylon of the front of it. She grinned. "That's awful pretty," she said.
I laughed, a chuckle that sounded quite unlike me, and that scared me so that I gasped and jerked, slamming my head against the back of my seat.
"What the hell...?!?"-but then I was kissing her, and she didn't seem to mind that too much.
She pulled away and stepped on the accelerator. The car roared across the intersection like some sort of predatory animal, or worse. I leaned my head back against the cushion of the seat and gazed dreamily out the window. She seemed in a better mood now.
"Let's go to my place. To talk," she said, and then I was feeling pretty amorous myself.
the end
