Ali

joy grew outward

Ali sat out of the front door smoking a rolled cigarette and watching the sun go to sleep, her arms folded over her skinniness. Her phone vibrated in her pocket, but she chose to ignore it. The leaves in the trees sang as they rubbed together. She noticed a silhouette in the distance. A voice reached out to her, weakened by the wind. 

Once closer, Ali was able to hear Joel say hello. On the hour-long train journey he’d worked out exactly what he was going to say to her, but the conversation was already not going to plan. She invited him in for a drink.

A long, comfortable silence passed between them. The kind of silence only people that have known each other for years can share. Joel saw that she was wearing the t-shirt he gave her for a birthday four or five years back. He hadn’t thought of it since. She smiled when he mentioned it. She twisted her silver bracelet round and round her wrist as she asked him what he’d been up to.

By any standard Ali and Joy were the prettiest girls in school. The boys admired the twins from a distance, but most believed they had no place talking to them. For the first few years of school, they kept to themselves. But as time went on, Joy grew outward as Ali grew inward. The only way you could tell them apart was by their hands. Ali’s eternally glowed a cold red. Joel hadn’t seen Ali for years. Not since they had slept together. 

Saying he slept with her was generous or literal. What had started out as a wordless love affair had culminated in them drunkenly walking to a supermarket at four in the morning to buy wine after a night out. Ali lived an hour’s walk away, and the buses were long past running. 

Whilst watching a film without so much as a hand brushing through her hair, she had fallen asleep. His pulse would race every time she shifted, her body rubbing against his. He moved closer, his arm brushing against her back.

He watched a tapestry of dancing shadows on her formed by the morning sunlight. Her hand was resting between her shoulder and neck. Joel could feel the cold radiating over the small distance between them.

Her confused crush left her speechless the following morning. She was afraid to show how glad she was he stayed over. She decided to prove to him that she was listening. She repeated certain things he said to herself to show that she was taking in his every word. 

Ali realized that he wanted to kiss her. And when he saw that she knew, he reddened and hugged her goodbye, whispering something into her hair.

A few months later, in a bar in a city far away, he noticed her laughter ring out. His heart skipped a beat. He turned. And saw Joy.

Joy is the person that would say out loud what everyone was thinking. She was the dealer of knowing smiles. She recognized him immediately. Before he even got the chance to say hello. She embraced him. He felt the lean of Ali’s body up against his and reminded himself that it was not her.

The blinds created a barcode of light and shadow on her back. Her warm hands rested on his neck. The smell of beautiful sweat still lingered in the air. When he had told her he was going home, she insisted on coming back with him. He was too kind to say no. But once they were in bed together, his feelings began playing tricks on him. He ran his fingertips over her ribs, felt the bones through her delicate skin. It was something he’d wanted to do since he first met Ali.

Ali remembered a thought that had plagued her crush on Joel. They sat next to one another, probably thinking the same thought, definitely unable to say it to the other. 

The situation was through no fault of their own. Joel and Ali were attracted to one another because they were both shy, because neither had been capable of making the first move. The room was filled with the words they were not going to say.

Their time together was more attractive in retrospect, he decided. He checked the clock on his phone and said he had to get going.

Ali stood beautiful in the doorframe, her figure defined by the light of the half open door behind. He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. Her hand brushed over his arm momentarily. 

Cold.

The house became somber after he left. She wiped the condensation from the window. A man was walking his dog in the distance.

She fell back onto the sofa and stared at where he was just was, listening to the silence. She had remembered him with such sentimental fondness. She ran through the conversation she wished they’d had.

She rolled herself another cigarette and went out on the front door step for the third time that evening.  She sat alone and looked at the sky. The sun had set, a shade of pink diffusing itself over the valley. A memory of summer hung in the air, shades of green clinging on to the near brown leaves.