All Under the Stars was Alabaster II

I stayed staring straight ahead. My right hand holding the cigarette adjacent to my cheek. The slim slice of smoke slithering up. I flickered my eyes to the right to see him, my eyebrows furrowing habitually. I chewed on the middle of my bottom lip and looked him up and down. I arched my left eyebrow and cocked my head to the left, expecting some dialogue from him. We were both soundless.

He came closer and put his hand on the bench were I sat, He pulled his hand back. It was too cold to touch.

"You cold?" I ask.

"Uh, well, it's freezing out here. Aren't you cold?" He replys in a curious monotone.

"Yeah." I comment.

We both give an awkward half smile. The kind of smile where you kind of fold your lips into each other and pull the corners of your mouth up. We breathe. I take a second breath and a pull from my cigarette while staring at him. He hated it when I would smoke. Now, I don't care. I stare the bull in the eyes while waving my flag in front of him. I have no idea what the hell his point was by coming out here. To check on me? To see if I was alive? To talk to me? To care about me? I've moved from hurt to anger by his staggering presence.

"Well, what do you want?" I snap.

He breathes. "Uh, just to say hi I guess..." He answers.

"Hi." I say.

For a moment we were about to laugh. We were going to laugh at the silliness of my stubbornness and the obvious awkwardness of him. Had we laughed I could see us reconciling. I could see us joking, I could see us lightening up. We both understood the need to be serious and the need to block out our magnetism.