Firefly

The house had grown quiet. The guests from the night were as silent and beautiful as the flowers in my garden, still dressed in their shiny petals for the papers and the people who adored them. They are not loved by anyone close to them so their petals are important. The gossip is the sugar water they subsist off of. (Their beauty is a sham, they are really mutants.)1

My house was empty of souls. The people strewn across the floors, on the beds, couches and tables had all sold theirs at one point or another. I hadn’t finished auctioning mine off just yet but I had cut it into pieces so small that they didn’t matter.2

Tyler is sprawled out under the dining room table with three girls at different angles around him. I knew he didn’t love me, I didn’t love him either. I vowed to let the circles under his eyes shroud him in grayness and doubt. I would let the three bloodsuckers have him. I wasn’t going to save him, not this time.3

I waltzed between the bodies, a cigarette dangling carelessly between my fingers. There must have been something in the water, in the booze, in the little piles of cocaine Tyler had procured before our little bash. No one stirred. I never expected them to. I don’t know what I would have done if one of them had suddenly roared to life.4

I flickered and sparked like a candle through the house, pretending that I had leveled this playing field with my gaze. In a few hours they would all wake up and go their own separate ways, but for now they were under my blurry jurisdiction.5

There were still a few lines of powder on a mirror in my bedroom where people lined the walls, half naked. I took the mirror and shook the cocaine out over them, powdering their skin like a confectionary sugar doughnut. I glanced at myself in the mirror and hated how much I resembled all of them. I placed it back on the bureau and tip-toed out of the room through the maze of tangled limbs.6

Real artists, real artists like me didn’t do frivolous drugs like cocaine. Real artists weren’t afraid of death or glory, they just took what was given to them and dealt with it as it came.7

There was a smattering of people down the hall leading to the garden. I wondered what had caused them to stay here. Maybe lack of choice? The beds were overflowing with flowers that had shed their petals in lust and sweat. I would have landed in this hallway too.8

Stepping outside I was immediately wrapped in delicious cold air that hit my feverish skin like a bucket of ice water. I stomped out my cigarette so as to keep the air as clean as possible. I was shocked to find that one man; only one person had made it to the garden before crashing. He had dark curls pulled low over his closed eyes. I bent down to examine him more closely; he caught my wrist and opened his eyes.9

“Nice to meet you,” his low voice grumbled like a car engine.10

“Uh-huh,” I replied quietly in a sparrow’s chirp. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and sighed, blinking at the sky as if to assure himself of reality. I sat down in the grass beside him, the cool thin blades lightly scratching my skin. I was no longer alone, but still I observed.11

“Where am I?” He looked weary and well-worn. I felt my heart smile as it recognized the feeling. I didn’t answer him though, I didn’t know how.12

“My name is Mike,” he said after a moment, when it was apparent that I didn’t intend on answering his previous question.13

“Aurora.” I spoke my own name in almost a whisper. I didn’t want to break the spell over the house; I didn’t want him to break it either. He didn’t seem to be aware that there was a highly fragile piece of magic covering the house though. 14

“That’s a pretty name. Have you ever been up to Alaska?” He rose up on his elbows leaving his shape imprinted in the grass. I shook my head watching the grass recover from the weight that had been crushing it all night long. “I used to live there and I saw the Aurora Borealis. I just thought that might have something to do with your name.” I smiled shyly. When I was alone I was a fearless adventurer, a finder of beauty, a gorgeous princess girl hooked on flowers and good dreams. But really I’m a skittish little child, afraid that someone will rip the cellophane from my heart and notice that I’m really not that pretty.15

He had green eyes that matched the blades of grass clinging to his shirt. I felt them as they ran me over quickly, summing me up, absorbing that all-important first impression. Finally they landed on my face. “Some party huh?”16

I wanted to tell him that it hadn’t been my idea. I don’t even like parties. It had been Tyler’s project. I felt like sculpting this man into my new muse. If he was my creation he wouldn’t say dumb things like that, instead he would be my garden roommate and help me weed and play in the dirt. When he was asleep it was possible for me to believe that any of that could be possible. As he spoke, his low grumbly car engine voice failed my expectations. 17

The sun was unstoppable, peaking over the horizon and signaling the end of a safe period. I lit a cigarette to calm the urge to crawl out of my own skin. Soon the people in the house would come out of their limbo and continue on, hell-bent on trashing their lives in the public eye so that people would love them. In that house they were all the same discarded, ugly, intoxicated person. As soon as they hit the door they would become their own entities again, striving to stand out. We’re all the same.18

“You don’t talk much do you?” My attention swerved back to Mike, who was painting me green with his gaze. He rose to full sitting position, so close that I could feel the warmth from his body on my bare arms. He smelled like morning dew. I shook my head to answer his question.He looked like an intruder in the garden, not natural at all. I closed my eyes and fell backwards into the grass. I heard a soft chuckle emitted from his lips.19

“You’re something else Aurora.” I couldn’t see him but I knew that he was grinning. I wanted him to leave me alone in my world of Walt Whitman poetry and wind chimes. He didn’t belong. Well, his eyes did, but the rest of him behind those eyes was unnatural here in my garden.20

Every time I stumbled over something that could potentially turn into a fairy tale, like finding this boy with the green as grass eyes flickering in this serene garden, something happened to ruin it. Mike wasn’t the name of a prince charming, and he wasn’t what I wanted in any other way. I looked at the clouds floating through the sky, painted gold by the sun. The smoke from my cigarette stretched towards the dissipating night, clinging to it the way I wished I could. I wanted some sort of fantasy reality where everyone was the way they needed to be. Why couldn’t everything work out like it did in my head?21

Maybe I was just too much. It was all too much. The flowers pulled their petals on and took the walk of shame; I watched them from the rooftop, clinging to the tiles like a banished faerie. They were all the same, cookie cutter images of damaged perfection spilling from the house in a flood of flashy fabric and conflicting egos. Not one of them looked up to see the sun raise itself into the sky, not one of them noticed the shade of blue sparkling from the horizon. They all searched for their keys or looked at the ground or pulled out a mirror to try and fix their hair before descending into public territory. None of them cared except me. I stayed stationary, wondering if I was one of a kind or just in the wrong place. 22

Every once in a while I wanted to be like them. It was a quick rush of self-pity staining my face, painting it red with frustration. To see the world through such a filter takes a very strong girl, and a very strong girl I was not. What I would give to fall into their gangs, their torrid public relationships, their easy apathetic lives… But then I see them sprawled across the floor after a hard party and realize that I could never be like them. I was much better off the observer. They were ravaged, who would choose that? They staggered from the house in groups of two or three and after a while they were all gone. The sun was high overhead and baked my skin. I closed my eyes and thought of air and flame and wondered what went wrong. And then suddenly I wasn’t alone anymore.23

“I thought I’d find you up here.” His voice hit me like a ton of bricks. I stretched out flatter against the roof, trying to blend so that he wouldn’t chase me, catch me, or make me feel anything for him again. “I’m sorry Aurora, you know I love you.” I pulled a cigarette from the pack beside my hip and reached for my lighter. I could feel him getting closer. I lit up unsteadily, almost burning myself in the process. I closed my eyes and let the rush of smoke soothe my anxiety. I could handle this. His hand slid across my stomach, moving the fabric of my shirt up. I could feel his weight beside me now as he curled into my side, his face only inches away from my ear. 24

“Aurora? Talk to me doll,” he pleaded. My eyes were closed but I could visualize the face he was making. His dark eyes turning up to my closed ones, begging for me to forgive him once again. Tyler treated me as a goddess when there was no one else around. I think that might be the only reason I’ve kept him so long. I took a long drag and held it in my chest for a few moments, trying to decide if I should let the tide wash my resolve away just like the sun had killed the stars in the sky. 25

“I don’t want to talk Tyler.” I expelled the words and smoke all at once. I opened my eyes and tilted my face so that I could see him. His eyes were themed relief; his mouth told me that he was lying. I didn’t care. 26

The truth was that I was afraid to be alone. I always had been. I was a lonely child, a lonely girl, a lonely teen. And even with Tyler I’m lonely, but sometimes he helps. I can’t deny the pleasure of the sparks we create when we’re close. We are incompatible in almost every way, yet our lust seems to match so perfectly that it’s created some twisted semblance of love. When Tyler is chemically influenced his lust expands to include any girl with a short skirt and good legs. I’ve always been reassured because he never keeps any of them. They’re just passing through. He crawls back to me in the end.27

But then again I’ve always wanted to watch him fall. Somewhere inside of him there is a burning piece of cloth that contains every amazing thing he’s capable of. If I let him go it would add gasoline to the flames and something spectacular could happen. I’ve been tempted to do this a million times, to see what destruction could develop into. I’ve never had the heart to go through with it though. 28

“I love you Aurora,” he muttered as he reached for me to bring me closer. I closed my eyes and felt the rays of the sun, the nicotine swirling around in my body, the falling sensation of a girl making bad choices. I fell into a disenchanted rage and let the chemical explosion of Tyler’s kiss pull me out of my higher state of thinking. If there is no perfection, no splendid fairy tale prince charming then what does it matter who I give my body to? Because Tyler had never held my heart before, I stored my heart in the trees, the vines splayed out across the side of my magical little house of the coast of California. I kept my heart in the sky, in a star that would soon explode to shower the heavens with diamonds like confetti. No one could ever own me. No one should ever try. 29