telling me things .

[alessio montague]

<sub>The brunette boy, his hair discreetly combed back, brown eyes sparkling behind a pair of raybans and forearms incased in an unbuttoned long sleeved work shirt, a plain white wifebeater showing through, really was nothing exceptional the cold, rainy day that had hit Rowe Island. Sunglasses were present only to hide the blooming dark circles just under the iris, the evidence that it had once more been weeks, if not months, since his last night of full sleep – that and the fact that he'd been sitting outside, in the rain, under nothing but a tiny awning, for the past two and a half hours. Cigarette after cigarette had been burned down to his finger tips without really being smoked, his lips wrapping around them once, maybe twice if he got around to it. The coffee cup in his left palm had long since gone cold and he had yet to realize it; his expensive leather loafers had been drenched by the island dew, and then rain, toes were soggy and he didn't seem to pick up on that either. In his head, he could see it. He was writing an entire novella in the space it took to comprehend these things, obviously something missing at the moment, but the waitress knew him so it made it at least partially okay that he was so spacey and distraught. Lips curling downwards at the side as a decently proportioned chunk of ash fell off the cancerous stick between his fingers, he brought it to his mouth and sucked on the end, hard enough to draw through the smoke that would so easily make his mind clearer. Or at least, that's what it usually did – perhaps that's why he clung so desperately to the thought of something there to make his life at least a little less grim. For now, he was stuck on an island. For now, the only thing he had to look forward to was the event in the middle of the following month, the assurance that the time and dedication he'd spent at the school was worth it for a little practical joke that only a few people understood. The dreary weather of Maine was an offset, as well as the behavioral status of the majority of the students at Siren-Bishop. Sure, it was prestigious but honestly, he'd much rather have finished his years out at Santa Croce; you couldn't beat a personal maid with lattes from your favorite cafe around the corner every morning. No, lattes from Milan were simply incomparable to everything else.

He did, however, have a waitress who was blatantly attractive and not questioning him for sitting out in the rain, so for the time being he was placated. Stubbing out the cigarette amongst the others he'd hardly smoked, he picked the engraved pen off of the table, the one that had been in his family for generations and given to him when Gio disappeared; it had been a present for the oldest Montague brother and that hadn't happened, so he'd gotten it instead, along with a huge share of his brother's stock, because apparently he died or whatever. Not that he wanted it, he promptly gave it to various organizations. Aaliyah had been right – he didn't want anything he was set up for, and eventually he'd get around to telling someone who mattered exactly that, but for now, the plot was laid out in his head. A haunted lighthouse, and the main character would be a keeper of it, a man who's wife stands at the top every day, looking out to see for their son to come home from his trip around the world. It would be an easy write, and even better, an easy read. A hop, skip, and a jump to sales all around the world, he'd promote it with ease and find himself living off of whatever could come from it – when that stopped working, he'd take Aaliyah to New York and they could live in his family's apartment on fifth avenue, the one he was inheriting within the next year. It would be good, it would be clean and pristine and there was his future, mapped out for him with no effort. Lips turning up at the corners with the prospect of a good deal, he tilted his head back, only to notice a shadow – a very obvious one, at that. “Yo,” he greeted unceremoniously, nodding to the person.

OPEN.</sub>

[/sub]

[aaliyah hemingford]

grey clouds formed over rowe island, the signature grey clouds that welcomed students, that told them they were no longer in new york city, but stranded on an island with their peers and teachers, with no fifth avenue or night clubs, except cbgb which to the elite, held no meaning. aaliyah sat by the lighthouse and watched the strong waves hit the sharp rocks. in biology class the previous year, she had learnt about parasitic relationships. it was a relationship in which one organism benefited, and the other organism was harmed. in other words, it was a give and take relationship, with one organism only giving and the other only taking. it was the relationship that everyone always feared, yet it was not clear in this example, who was being harmed. were the rocks being harmed by the slap of the blue sea? or was the sea being cut by the jagged rocks? it was unclear. the sea poured over the coast like blood. the waves grew stronger, preparing for one last victory or one last defeat. aaliyah looked up to the sky, and with the strong crash of the wave against the rocks, it was clear who had won. as aaliyah turned her face up to the sky, a rain drop greeted her on her forehead. she turned her attention back to the dark sea. tales said that dead sailors lay on the jagged floor, she wondered if the strong sea would sweep them up into it's loving arms and bring them back to life. she could no longer watch the indecisive battle between the water and the sea. the light rain had done her no harm and she felt the pull towards town.

as she walked, the rain grew stronger, dampening her long golden hair. she had become accustomed to the rain. it had no evil intentions, in fact, only pure. the rain was the closest she would ever get to feeling tears roll down her face. her black t-shirt began soaking up water. half a year ago over winter break in vienna, she had taken the t-shirt the morning after a one night stand from a young man's apartment. the t-shirt was black with a german band that she didn't know on it. there was a v shaped cut at the neck. her worn jean shorts fit perfectly on her long, golden legs that would soon lighten with the cool maine sun. she wore no jacket despite the cool breeze. she was never cold.

from a distance, she knew who it was sitting outside the soda shoppe. she could see the smoke curling into the air from his cigarette, the one that he disapproved of so. she walked slowly towards him, taking her time. he was clearly in the middle of a thought, he was always in the middle of a thought, creating a story in his head. it was never their story he was creating though, for their story was as indecisive as the waves and rocks. what had pulled her to town had been him. 99.9% of the time, she believed there was no such thing as fate. she believed that life was a messy chain of events that were set off long before a person was born. because after all, a person's story is not their own, but a continuation of someone else's. but this one time, fate had drawn her to him.

she hadn't seen him in weeks, and neither had made an effort. time didn't matter to them. they could go days, weeks without seeing each other and pick up right where they left off. she thought he knew that they would never work out, that was why she believed he wasn't writing their story. they had a parasitic relationship, whether he knew it or not, she knew. at the moment she was the one being harmed. he was intruding every corner of her shield, tearing it down, making her weak. it wasn't his fault, he didn't mean to. she didn't feel it, yet. but soon, the tables would turn and she would be gaining strength. with her rebuilt shield, he would never defeat her. she assumed he knew, and if he didn't she was not about to tell him. words were not her strong suit. they would never work out.

she took the seat across from him. most girls would have gone over to kiss him, but she didn't. she picked up the pen that he recently had put down on the table. she ran her fingers over the cool gold engraving, the same one that haunted her lighter and locket. one day, these possessions would belong to children who knew nothing of their significance, but they would learn. they would learn heartbreak and lack of trust from the locket, the power of fire from the lighter, and the power of words from the pen. she didn't respond to his greeting, greetings weren't her thing. "you look tired," she told him, noticing the sunglasses that covered the circles that she knew and loved. she was never plagued by them for a reason she didn't understand.

[/justify]

[alessio montague]

<sub>He was so lost in his own variation of reality that when Aaliyah's face came into focus, as she sat down, he merely glanced sideways at her and continued tapping his slender fingers against the table. It wasn't anything personal, he hadn't seen her in weeks and he was certain she hadn't seen him (ever since they'd gotten closer, the two of them had difficulty keeping secrets from each other), but that didn't mean he hadn't thought about her. In fact, most days didn't pass without a hint of her, at least. Slowly removing himself from the fog that had over come him, he ran a hand over his short, spiky hair, water droplets flinging about from the rain that poured, merciless, from the skies. Cocking his head slightly to the side, he let a smirk befall his attractive features as she mentioned his exhaustion. A mere nod was elicited from the boy in response to her question, and soon enough a palm was wrapped around the coffee cup in front of him, warmth radiating from it but refusing to permeate the layer of tough flesh that was his hand. Words were his strong suit, they were his vibrance and energy, he found comfort and solace in being able to manipulate them to suit his needs in a variety of languages, and yet... he didn't find anything to say to her. She was simply there, which was enough for him at the moment; they could have easily been that couple that hardly ever speaks to each other, but they didn't have to. Most things were communicable through actions or movements as well, even if he didn't feel like bothering to read hers.

Drawing his gaze up from the point on the middle of the table where he'd been staring, he leaned back in the chair and crossed one slender ankle over the other knee, a position that exuded confidence, eyes watching as the waitress moved back towards the table. He slipped her a five dollar bill, enough to pay for her tip as well as the relatively useless cup of coffee, watery from the rain that was pouring from the ceiling, and she turned immediately around, flouncing back off to the inside, back to the warmth and comfort of a small, inside building. It was okay, he hadn't really wanted to drink it anyway. Coffee stained your teeth and as a Montague, he couldn't be having that. To think, most kids had taken out a second mortgage on their houses to attend the prestigious academy and he was content enough, not worried at all, to spend time thinking about his teeth and their level of glitter. Sometimes he doubted his own sexuality. Choking back a laugh at the thought, he cocked his head slightly to the side and took her in, all of her, for the first time since she'd sat down and the silence had encapsulated them both. Long, slender fingers toyed with his monogrammed pen, hair spilled over her shoulders like it had never shifted it's position in her life, skin was tan and smooth.. she didn't look tired, or worried, or fretted. Then, she never did – emotions as such didn't plague her, it was odd. Alessio was used to the girls that freaked over everything, that bothered him with the tedious details of their outfits or whether or not they looked fat, because they'd gone up from a zero to a two the previous week.. he didn't date for that particular reason.

He couldn't stand whiny bitches and often told them so, when they didn't appreciate it, the relationship ended and he was back where he started. At seventeen, it was by far too much stress to argue over having gone to get a line or two of cocaine, a sip of whiskey; he didn't handle stress well, and thus was frequently found alone, or wishing he was alone. Aaliyah wasn't like that. Thankfully. “You don't,” he finally surmised, lips quirking up at the corners in something like a half-hearted grin. “Did you go back to Germany?” in reference to where she'd been, he never asked an outright question. It was always a guess, never a question. Eyes twinkling behind his expensive sunglasses, he trained his gaze on her, only her, despite the waitress coming back, volleying for some attention in a battle that never should have been started. He held a hand up to signify that she could leave before she started anything dangerous, and Alessio's smile broke out into a wide grin as she turned away, dejected. “People these days. They act as though they've never met a foreigner.”</sub>

[/sub]

[aaliyah hemingford]

People could ask aaliyah questions all they wanted, they would receive a cock of the head or a light stare, but no answer. Alessio assumed that she had gone back to germany. But she hadn't, she had gone no where near germany. She liked to think that she was an honest person. She never told any lie, but she never told the truth, that made her honest, didn't it? Life was constantly divided between good and evil, light and dark, and the truth and lies. For her, the world was made of lies. Nothing was real to her, she couldn't help but stop to think sometimes that none of it was real. Neither the rain pouring down from the sky as tears nor Alessio. It was all just a lie. So when she was hesitant to tell Alessio the truth, or whether to lie to him, she immediately realized that lies were the truth. If the whole world was made up of lies, than that was true, wasn't it? She was twisting around words in her mind, words that she had no understanding of, to make them sound the way she wanted them to. Unlike Alessio, she would never express herself in writing, or pictures, or music, or dance.

The glorious truth of where she had been that summer was to be revealed. When Aaliyah went anywhere, tracking her down was impossible. She took no cell phone, she told no one where she was going. Her parents had learnt to accept it since she always came back at some point, but others were still wary of her whereabouts.

Where had she gone that summer? First, she had flown down to Brazil and following that Cape Town. She spent a month traveling around there with few belongings. She attended the raves and had acid trips that she would never forget. She still longed for the feeling. She couldn't remember whether she had hooked up with anyone or not, she believed that she hadn't, but she would never know. Wherever she went, she met someone interesting. And then when she tired of the heat and the alcohol, dancing with the same guy, she flew to France. She went home, her home, her great-grandmother's mansion in Montmartre. It was hers now that her great-grandmother had died, but she would always refer to it as hers. She spent a long few days roaming through out the beautiful, wrecked house. She examined the family portraits of her ancestors that had fought in the French revolution and countless other wars and had died.

That was the part she was tempted to lie about. She wanted to keep her great-grandmother sacred, she didn't want Alessio to know that she had been there, because she didn't want to share it with him. He would never understand the faint smell of old perfume that haunted the house, the flowers in the garden that never died, or how when she stood anywhere on the grounds, she felt at home. She had been tempted to search for a clue to how to unlock the locket, but then she had realized that opening the locket would mean nothing, it would simply be a story about her ancestor, about one of those loves that Shakespeare wrote about. It would not be the truth, it would be a lie of centuries past. Yet, she already knew the story, it was set in her blood. So she hadn't looked for the clue, she had not touched anything in the house, she wanted to keep it exactly the way it had been since her great-grandmother had inhabited it, slightly messy but in an order that she recognized.

She had wandered the grounds filled with overgrown willow trees, bird baths, old fountains, ladybugs crawling all over the long stem of plants, a pond with lilly pads and toads, marble statues of cherubs, a run down green house, the sun that always managed to shine brighter than anywhere else. She missed it all. Especially the overgrown plants that she could lay in for hours. Trees overlapped the paths everywhere. The house was designed by Spanish architects on top of a hill in Montmartre, overlooking the Moulin Rouge, a view from her bedroom window. There was a courtyard and vines were beginning to creep up the walls on the inside. A ballroom with a high ceiling made of gold from Venice and a beautiful white chaneleir. It was the most beautiful place Aaliyah had ever stepped foot in.

She was brought back to reality by his stare."Yes," she told him, the first lie she had ever told. It was a simple word, yes. Telling him where she had been would complicate things, bind her to him. The word felt foreign coming out of her mouth. She looked away from the pen and up at him. She had nothing to lie about, yet she couldn't bring herself to tell him the truth, about her great-grandmother's house that belonged to her, or the locket, or her escapades in cape town and brazil. When he made a comment about the service, she looked away, he could be so aristocratic at times. Yet, she didn't leave him. She looked past the trait, mostly because it did not come out often.

"And you went back to Italy." To any observers, their conversation was awkward, filled with few words. The space apart had provided her with time to comprehend their relationship. She didn't know where they stood, whether this was all that was going to happen. She didn't know whether she wanted anything more, she was comfortable with him, in this silence. There were so many things she could have said, but in her typical fashion, she said none of it. "And what did you write about?" She asked with the knowledge that in any spare time he had, he wrote. She was always curious about what he was writing down, but she never tried to ask him or pry, she was not like that, for she did not want him to pry.

[/justify]

[alessio montague]

<sub>“No, actually.” he shrugged, rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand and slowly moving the sunglasses out of the way so he could do the same for his exhausted eyes. Christ, so tired.. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to fall asleep, because ever single dream revolved around Milan and that incessantly chattering gossip page. It was like some sort of nightmare, but it was reality; it’d been days since he last attempted a wink of nighttime rest and relaxation and things were starting to grow a bit fuzzy around the edges. Returning his sunglasses delicately to the bridge of his nose, the boy glanced over her shoulder, his gaze held there by a familiar car, speeding along the highway.. But it wasn’t, it couldn’t be and he knew that, so he disregarded it and returned to the incorrect statement she’d attempted to make truth. “St. Tropez. The family’s estate there.” The slight fabrication was hardly detectable through any of his actions, the only thing that would have given him away his eyes, but they were covered with the black protection of a pair of sunglasses, leaving him anonymous and handsome enough to stop a couple of female drivers in the street, if he so wanted. As for Italy, he could care less because yeah, it was beautiful, but France was so much better. He’d stayed, no problems, with the family friends, and ended up not-so-faithfully declaring his falsified love for a female by the name of Alejandra, who was in fact… Spanish. What a mess. Spanish and Italian in France, in his French family friend’s chateau down by the beach. The rocky shore was very similar, with the exception of beautiful cliff faces and red-orange glow, even at night, in St. Tropez.. He wouldn’t waste another day in Maine if he didn’t have to. Lips curling up at the corners in something like recollection, the boy scratched his arm. For her, it might not have been awkward, but the pressing stares from everyone inside the café, at the boy who was sitting in the rain to begin with and then his companion, the undoubtedly beautiful but obviously not mentally right Aaliyah.. Well. It was strange to be sitting there with her, not saying anything, but he didn’t have much to say to her to begin with. Conversation had never been her strong point and he was having a difficult time coming up with what he wanted to spit out lately. There were thoughts, sure, but nothing he particularly wanted to vocalize.

Purposely ignoring the question about his writing, he tilted his head slightly to the side and basked in the brief ray of sunshine that broke through the gloomy rain, dependable as always, tilting his head back to catch a couple of the shining illuminators and stretching in the newfound heat, his jacket sopping wet behind him. The hood would probably mold, so the chances of him wearing the coat ever again were slim; water proof wasn’t his style, considering the sparseness of torrential downpour in anywhere he’d spent a good deal of time, previous to now. Running a hand absently through damp hair, he relaxed his posture and rested his feet against the bottom of the table, silence all encompassing and making him fidget absently. Without really realizing it, he fell back into the sleepy trance he’d originally come from, memories of the summer flooding back to him. Laying on the beach all day with the Spanish girl, her sunning herself topless and him just laying there, alternating between reading and scribbling down notes for his story; surfing along the craggy shore and then taking the yacht for a spin or two with the family’s friend’s daughter, gorgeous in the sunlight. He didn’t actually cheat, just thought about it a couple of times and that was bad enough, wasn’t it? Not to mention he’d spent his entire summer surrounded by gorgeous women, and gorgeous beaches, and naked gorgeous women on gorgeous beaches with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a copy of the latest rolling stone in the other. “Welcome back,” he finally muttered, not bothering to open his eyes because everything was so normal and it was frustrating, it was complicated, but it was usual. Typical. If he said he didn’t miss her it would have been a lie, but at this rate the progression wasn’t really going anywhere and he was a bit bored, to be honest. Time to score some spliff and go sitting on the docks soon enough, fishing with the old man from town who everyone just called captain, because no one knew his real name.</sub>

[/sub]

[aaliyah hemingford]

Aaliyah closed her eyes and tried to remember the moments in the time before she had gone to France. She mildly remembered other mens' hands. Some had been dark, others light as they roamed across her body, feeling the curves of her hips that barely existed. Only once had Alessio crossed her mind. She had been dancing with a guy, a man. He was attractive, nineteen or twenty. He ran his hands up and down the sides of her body as they danced and kissed her neck, in the same way that Alessio did. Shivers were sent down her spine as she thought of him in that moment, longing for the touch of his lips against her bare skin. And then the feeling passed. She moved away from the boy and went for a walk on the dark beach. And that had been all, he hadn't crossed the vast plain that was her mind since then. She opened her eyes slowly.

The summer had passed and it was fall. Whatever had happened had happened. Had she been faithful? Had he expected her to be? Had he been faithful? She had no inkling. Yet there was something in her eyes, sorrow or pain at the realization that in those two months away from each other something had shifted. Instead of saying nothing, there was something to say, something to explain. They were close enough to each other, but on two different spectrums, lost in memories of a summer that had gone.

As the rain continued to fall, Aaliyah felt the desire to leave. The silence was no longer comfortable. Whatever had passed with summer, was not going to be replaced. She had no memory of what had been of them before summer, what it had been like. She only remembered the feeling of his touch on her skin. So easy it would be to just tell him that she didn't know what she had done that summer. She had done nothing. Whatever had happened in Brazil and in Cape Town had been a different person, the remainder of a girl still searching. France had been the little girl, the one who never closed her eyes, who feared the light as she had been told, who was content with no feelings. And in the continuation in that moment, she was the little girl again. The one who had been taught to fear light and good and love. She touched her locket, trying to remember through her ancestors what it felt like to love. It had been lost centuries ago, and it had not been found. Aaliyah was the one who had to suffer, the one who had to wear the weight of it all on her long, dainty neck.

He said that he had gone to St. Tropez and she said nothing. If it was a lie, she let it be, if it was the truth, she let it be. She did not question it. He welcomed her back. Back to what?

She broke the silence. "Flowers that never die are worse than ghosts. In order to kill them, you have to pick them. So I picked one, an celestial dark red rose. I ran my fingers over the ever smooth petals, and then let it fall to the ground." She spoke of the overgrown garden in France.

"Even fire can not kill them, though, it would be so much easier that way. So the flowers stay that way, all through out winter and summer. You have to pick them, in order for them to be released." She told him, letting go of the pen in her fingers, she disliked pens. Of course it wasn't truly the roses she was speaking of.

She stood up from her seat, ready to leave him and whatever it was on the table behind. It only took a few steps to reach him. One hand reached out to touch his cheek, eyes locked. She leaned down to the level at which he sat and gave him one simple kiss. Tender, yet soft, devoid of the pain that came with summer and filled with the lies that had been muttered among blank stares. None of it mattered, for it was fall now.

[/justify]