the blinds and the door were shut tightly, with little-to-no light seeping inside. And the light and darkness were fighting, always in the same way forever. Light was giving it all it had, zooming through with it's spear towards darkness. Missing in the darkness. It couldn't overcome the immaterial capacity of its absence and just like that, the darkness suppressed the light in its void, where it was hidden away from the world. And you couldn't even hear it calling for help, having its hands reach out towards you. Begging to be let out, in desperation. But it stayed silent, for it was nothing after all.
But all the same, it was just another way to read darkness. And Kaylon wasn't, unfortunately, reading the novel.
He was lying still on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Still shirtless. He was attempting to not move a muscle or twitch, but the darkness kept sheltering his eyes with a translucent blanket which dimmed every detail of the bedroom and its surroundings. Every time, his eyes twitched to decline the blanket. Still, he loved the idea of looking up at nothing so he could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. It was an unconventional and rather outlandish habit, but one that he strangely enjoyed nevertheless.
A knock. It partially broke Kaylon's sense of concentration, only being bothered by the sound, before resuming to look up. Another knock. He did his best to try and concentrate, which, on the outside, gave the greatest impression of his face being almost absolutely still but made him a little wiled up on the inside. And it seems crazy that something so trivial could tick someone's brains off, but it did anyway.
"Hello?" Luca asked.
"What?" Kaylon responded. Quite irritated, still calm.
"I want to talk to you."
A few seconds then elapsed. Kaylon lay still.
"Come in." He replied in the most quiet and raw voice in the world. Or in the bedroom, at least.
Luca opened the door slowly, not realizing that she introduced a sliver of light into the mental studio. It was only after her sight corrected, only then did she realize the entire room just dowsed and saturated with the comfort of the shadow. The door was still offering help, though. In such a veiled setting, she wanted to turn on the lights so she could hopefully see better and reached.
Kaylon's thoughts of Luca turning on the lights were contemporaneous with Luca's proffered fingers on the switch. Quickly, he started to speak but there was something that nosedived under the radar. "And please don't turn on any lights."
Luca was surprised, only a little bit. Her fingers stayed on the switch. But she was hesitant.
"Please."
Abiding his wish, she retracted her touch from the plastic surface. But she also stood there in confusion. She didn't know what he was doing or what he was thinking at all. She thought that he was high but then went off into a tangent. It could've been something else, something that she couldn't perceive. Or he was just high. There was always that possibility.
"Could you also close the door?" He asked.
Hesitantly, she slowly closed the door. Once again, Luca could barely see anything in this caliginous atmosphere. Better yet, her mind was all over the place now. She was confused about what she should do. There was a chair near a desk and she decided to go over to it. Kaylon, looking up at the ceiling as always, heard and saw this.
"You could lay here, if you want." He spoke, in a soothing and relaxed tone.
What? The answer, the sentence. It caught her off-guard. Only after that did she ask the most vacuous question she could've ever done, without much effort or internal dialogue.
"Are you ok?"
"Yes, I am doing fine. Can you please lay here?"
Luca just stood there, a tad doltish. Even so, shouldn't she not be? Then again, not possessing much of an open mind, no matter the situation.
Kaylon was laying West, in the direction of the window, on a bed that was parallel to the door and it's respective wall - true North. Still engrossed in relaxation, experiencing nothing for his own fun. He looked back at Luca, who was East. His head was tilted in a North-northwestern position, looking. His eyes showed a relaxed state, but mainly a vulnerable message that said 'I would like you here' in his eyes. Luca, despite being the understanding person she was, could only see a snippet of it.
And then, Kaylon's lips started to move, his voice subdued and quiet. But Luca could hear it, clearly.
"Hey," he softly spoke.
Luca gave a confused look, she didn't know what to do. Kaylon could see this, his head was still in that position.
"I promise I won't hurt you or anything. I just want you to come lay down by me..."
Luca, stock-still for a few seconds, nodded sheepishly. She stepped slowly towards the bed, a little lighter than the rest of the environment - wrapped in darkness and shadows. When she reached the edge of the mattress, she moved towards the opposite side of the bed. Facing the opposite direction where Kaylon was facing, feet-first. She then jumped up onto the platform, and sat. She moved back with her hands and hips, then softly laid down. Her position was a few centimeters short from the top of Kaylon's head, but nevertheless they didn't care.
To Kaylon, it seemed like time didn't exist and was like some stripe of limbo. Seconds appeared like minutes and minutes seemed like an amorphous part of time. and the bedroom was a stage for Kaylon to observe. Luca was still confused as to what she would do since she couldn't see a thing. And then the darkness came after a few minutes, she could start to see her vision covered by that translucent blanket that Kaylon experienced. She found it hard to stare straight up at the ceiling, but she got used to attempting the action anyway. Thoughts emptied out of her skull. Pressure and tension was released. Emotions were neutralized. And all that was left was a lifeless body next to another lifeless body in a room where only the darkness comforted them. Where the presence of nothing was present, a metaphor for the comportment of an area void of light and void of time, a certain kind of contemporary vacuity.
An area where the darkness wasn't evil or vindictive, but was a mother figure to anyone in her hands instead.
Kaylon hesitated to say something, partially because he had nothing to say. Mind was blank, thoughts were gone and motivation was at it's low point. Or so he thought. He wanted to talk about something but he just couldn't strike the right chord in his head. He turned his head toward Luca, who seemed to be relaxed and enjoying the quiet space. Her face evoked no emotion, yet her eyes were given a microscopic piece of light that gave her lucency. He kept looking at her until the muscles in his neck started complaining. He continued to look upwards from there.
Finally, he got an idea to talk about. He took in a breath, opened his mouth and let air become an aural noise.
"Isn't it interesting how words work?" He spoke softly and quietly.
"Hmm?" Luca responded.
"Do you think that it's interesting how words.. work?"
"What do you mean?"
"Just, in general, the grammar. The meanings. How it's spelled. How it's pronounced. It seems.. interesting, to me."
"I see."
When the duo talked in the room, their voices became prominent in the empty darkness that embraced them. When they didn't talk, the absence of noise in the room constructed a place of comfort again. To Luca, it was just silence. In Kaylon's mind, he didn't care. But it reflected visually the omnipresence of the space inside. It was interesting how they viewed the room and how the absence of light toyed around with his vision.
A couple of seconds slipped by
"Have you ever stared at a word before?" He asked.
"No." Luca answered, calmly.
Another couple of seconds. "It's weird. Like, I stared at this word for about a few seconds and.. I don't know how to explain it. It was like I saw it turn to gibberish. Like I didn't know how to spell it, it was just gibberish. And then it was a word again. You understand what I mean, right? Have you ever experienced that?"
Luca let out a titter. "Uh... I don't think so. Sounds cool, though."
"Its... just unreal."
The last two words were separated by a chuckle from Kaylon. And then everything went dead for a few seconds, maybe even a minute. But who knew? No one was even watching the time.
"So, you know the word cherry, right?" Kaylon asked.
"Yeah. What about it?" Luca asked.
"I find it a little captivating...."
This time, it wasn't just a short amount of time that passed. A longer period of time elapsed, going by without anyone saying anything. It would've been approximately half a minute, but no one was keeping track of the time.
"Go on." Luca said.
Kaylon took in another deep breath and continued.
"Yeah, ok," Kaylon replied, "So you know that words can have different meanings, right?"
He took in a deep breath.
"So I only know two meanings. One of them is the fruit, which I did have before and I'll get to later. But do you know what the second meaning is?"
"I think so..."
"Pretty much, it symbolically refers to the hymen so..."
He stopped. He wanted to say it, but he was hesitant. Usually, he wasn't a very dirty person by nature. The fact that he was introverted didn't help either. Kaylon started to predict that she would think he was perverted. But he meant well, he didn't mean to spark repugnance. So he continued anyway, despite the pressure.
"I'm pretty sure you know what it means to pop someone's cherry, right?"
Luca groaned quietly. At first, she did think he was perverted, iota as the sentence was. Then she seemed to understand and all the thoughts of the former went away. Although it left an aftertaste.
She let out an utter of a laugh. "Yes.."
Kaylon sighed for a few seconds then continued, in hope that she understood him. It was only a tiny bit of weight on his chest, anyway. Compared to how he was on the way to David's apartment, he was
"Thank, God!"
She looked at him. "What?"
"Did you think I was perverted?"
"Yes, but I didn't think that you were trying to be. I'm sorry about that."
"Well, thank you."
"You're welcome."
A few seconds passed.
"Why do you think I started to talk about the word cherry?" Kaylon asked.
Luca smiled a little bit. "I think it has to do with a story."
"Yes."
Luca started to smirk and looked at him. Kaylon followed suit. "Was it about you doing it?"
"No!" Kaylon exclaimed, forcing a small chuckle out of himself. "Not even close."
Luca smiled, even though her 'joke' failed. "Alright. Go on."
A few seconds pass. Kaylon looked up at the ceiling.
"Anyways, I remember this one time when I was younger, like eight years ago or so. I didn't talk as much as I could now. I was.. pretty quiet, didn't have a lot of friends and.... I was often lonely. I listened to music more often then I talked with my family. I think I was more autistic then.."
He laughed quietly.
"Around midnight on April 27th, my father woke me up out of bed. He said that he had something to show me. We snuck out quietly so my mother wouldn't notice. He said it was important. I was curious back then, so I went without a word. I even remember what I wore that day: A faded T-shirt and jeans. So we sneak out of the house and he drove me all the way to this lake. Before we went there, he got two strawberry milkshakes for the both of us. They both had cherries on top."
He took in another deep breath and continued.
"We went to Roosevelt Lake. It was about a two hour drive there, I fell asleep in the car. The milkshakes were warmed up a little the time we got there. And we drove to this special spot Dad knew off the top of his head. He had everything prepared, there were blankets in the back of the car. And I rode shotgun all the way there."
Another deep breath.
"Once we sat down, we didn't talk for five minutes. Then Dad asked me if I knew what I was here for. When I said I didn't know, he told me that when he was back in high school, he met this girl across his locker. After hanging out with her one day, ehen he asked for her name, she said it was Haily. Over five months, they got closer. About a year after, he decided to go and ask her out. And he drove her to the same spot. That's where they first kissed. Five years later, on April 27th, he got two strawberry milkshakes with cherries before they went to the lake. There, he proposed to her. The reason he brought me there was because it was their 24th anniversary and, most importantly, he wanted to pass this spot on to me when I found myself a girl - someone who I wanted."
"Skylar?"
"I plan to take her to the spot soon."
And then a long time passed by. The room fell silent once more.
"Can I ask you a question?" Luca asked.
"Sure." Kaylon said.
"Why cherries?"
Kaylon looked back at her, tilting his head to the left. She also did the same, turning her head instead to her right.
But instead, all he did was smile.
"I don't know, really. It just popped into my head."
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