Solitaire Game

Prologue: Per Solum Lacuna

Three Pebbles Short of a Game of Solitaire

per solum lacuna

*

Platonic friendship: The interval between the introduction and the first kiss.
- Sophie Irene Loeb

*

Matt has logged on.

David: Hey there cutie! Long time no speak.

Matt: Oh heyyyy!!! It’s been aaages. *grins* How are you?

David: I’m good. You know, busy but happy. You?

Matt: Ummm… I’m… ok…

David: You don’t sound so ok.

Matt: Well I’m lost tbh. lol!

David: Lost? lol! Cutie, how are you lost? Where are you?

Matt: Well you know how I once said I’d swim the big wide ocean and wash up on the shore, bedraggled and half drowned and then once I was nursed back to health by strange 4th generation Italian-Americans I’d come and find you and say hello?

David: Yeah…

Matt: Well I got on a plane instead and I’m currently sitting outside JFK on my bag with my best friend’s blackberry and guitar and no idea where I’m going. *sheepish*

David: You got on a plane to America?!

Matt: Yeah… I couldn’t stay at home and my best friend is currently living in NY so I figured I’d just do it. But now she’s not picking up and I’m beginning to panic cos it’s getting dark and I don’t know where she lives and well… yeah…

David: Well calm down cutie, I’ll see if I can find a map ok?

David’s status has changed to ‘Busy’ so he or she may not reply.

Matt sighed and dropped his hand clutching at the blackberry to his side. Eyes flickering up to the sky above, he watched as the clouds tumbled over each other, bright white being smothered by roiling black bruises as dusk bled into the horizon. Shivering he curled around his knees, hoping that David wouldn’t be too long, cursing his impetuous, foolish decision but knowing that he couldn’t have done much else… He knew he hadn’t been thinking straight but this had to have been the best option. There was only one person in the entire world who could and would protect him and that was Alexandra. As soon as he was with her, he knew that he would be more than just safe, he’d be hidden, lost. But he didn’t know where, in the monstrous city of insomnia and florescent lights , she was. Feeling more and more hopeless by the second, he stomped his feet to try and warm his numb toes and hunched over even tighter and tried to ignore the looks he was receiving from the people trickling into taxis. He probably should have bought more than $10 with him… Then he’d have been able to get somewhere…

Having first landed and wandered up the Help and Information desk, they’d all been really helpful. His confusion had been endearing, he supposed, until they realised he had no money to go anywhere or to buy anything. Since then, the airport staff had actively ignored him, other than to search his bag when it went through the machine. When he’d asked one man if there were any youth hostels nearby, he’d been laughed at and told that he’d be lucky to find a bunk free in a hostel so late in the evening, especially on only a couple rumpled notes. He almost felt like crying but that wasn’t in his nature. Instead he sighed again, sat up and pushed his light blond hair from his eyes.


He felt like he’d been mown down by a juggernaut as he sat, slowly stiffening in the cold wind and wistfully imagining being somewhere quiet and warm. His ribs squeezed painfully tight whenever he breathed too deeply and his bruised face was one big nasty ache. He was frightened by how much he hurt. But that was a semi permanent state and he knew he’d been lucky so far that nothing inside had shattered or burst or snapped beyond repair. Reparation was all he needed. Tipping his eyes to the twilight he wondered if anyone had noticed he’d gone yet. It had probably been long enough for his sister to notice and she’d have told his mum. And his mum would be worried which would be a good thing. She’d be hassling Greg, crying and stuff, she had always been a drama queen. Whilst he didn’t like the idea of worrying his sister or making his mother cry, because he loved them, obviously, but he hated the way that his mum would twist things, make everything that happened to anyone else seem to affect her worst of all. Even with him and Greg. Even when he was having the shit beat out of him in the master bedroom, his mum was always there to make it seem like she was being hurt the most. She’d start crying and her mascara would run. Matt used waterproof eyeliner for that exact reason. It was funny how she’d never learnt to do that.

Soon enough he knew that the weight of the sky would melt down. The clouds carrying the cold, northern wind would burst and wash away the last of the stove-summer heat. It had been a glorious afternoon he’d flown down into. A beautiful, idyllic sweep of the American coast before touchdown had made him hope… just like all the Europeans hoped when they came to conquer the New World… He’d really thought things would be sorted then.

The blackberry vibrated loudly in his hand. David was writing.

David: BACK.

Matt: Yey!

He didn’t want to hope as he waited for the phone to respond.

David: Where did you say you were?

Matt: JFK airport…

David: Seriously?

Matt: No I’m playing a really funny joke…

David: Well keep an eye our for a red fiat ok?

Matt: Ummm… ok…. why?

David: I’m going to come make a detour and pick you up. And before you get anxious it’s fine cos I’m meant to be headed towards Manhattan in the next hour anyway, reckon you’ll be able to get a coffee somewhere and hang where you are for a couple hours?

Matt: OMG are you serious?!

David: No I’m playing a really funny joke…

Matt: You’re really going to come and get me?

David: Yup. You just hang in there cutie. I’ll be there asap.

Matt: Thank you Davi.

David: See you soon babes.

David has logged off.


*

Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind does moe
Silently, invisibly.
- 'Love's Secret', William Blake

*

David saw Matt first. His headlights caught the boy’s slim form between the solid sheets of downpour. He wasn’t sure how he even knew it was the English boy but… he knew… The sandy-blond head was bowed over a cup of steaming coffee and thinly clad shoulders giving away his discomfort as they trembled in the cold. He was leaning against the wall, just undercover and barely protected from the rain. He noticed the taxi in front had sped away, whooshing past the foreigner and throwing up spray from the wheels. Pulling up, he tried to seem casual as he wound down the window and tried to double check that it was his cyber-friend.

“Matt?” He shouted through the rain.

A half-shadowed, pale face whipped up, confused but hopeful and the bright blue eyes took David by surprise. He remembered being told what Matt looked like but he hadn’t realised that by ‘blue’, the boy meant electric, unnatural, cerulean.

“David?” The hesitant voice that came back to him made him grin.

“That’s me. Get in here before you get any wetter out there!”

The boy straightened up, pulling himself from the huddled stoop he’d been in to reveal his fragile frame. David wasn’t quite sure of what he was seeing. The Englishman was wearing skinny grey jeans, worn through at the knees and with a black gypsy scarf around his ankle, tucked into his battered converse. He had a thin Rocky Horror t-shirt on underneath what looked like an over-large purple cardigan. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was wrapped up in a thick scarf and had sailing gloves on his hands, he wouldn’t have understood how he wasn’t blue with cold. Even as it was he could see the shivers were worsening. He wasn’t really surprised, of course, that Matt had paused after hoisting the guitar case onto his back. He could imagine the boy momentarily letting his suspicions rattle in his head like pins and needles.

Matt saw the red fiat through the deluge and felt his heart thud heavily in his chest. He couldn’t believe that David had really come for him. The boy he’d found on a penpal site when he was 14… He couldn’t figure out whether he should just go with his instincts and take a chance or play it safe. It wasn’t much of a decision. It wasn’t like he had any other options except stay out here and freeze. He ducked his face so that his better half was towards the car and dashed out to the car. David’s smile was warm as he opened the door, throwing his half empty bag onto the back seat before sliding his guitar carefully on top.

“That’s all you got?”

“Yup!” Matt grinned and lowered himself into the seat, carefully keeping the left side of his face turned away as he reached for his seatbelt. “I can’t believe you really came and got me.”

Neither could David but he didn’t say that, “You travelled the ocean.”

He turned n the ignition and shook his head, remembering the conversations they’d had when they were younger and matching them to this young man in his car. “You really are a punk, aren’t you cutie?”

A nervous laugh, “Really? I am?” Matt kept his face turned away, David assumed because he was worried now, “And you’ll ignore it?”

“Didn’t I say I would?” For Love he added in his head and knew that Matt would hear those exact words himself.

Matt’s grinned widened and he dared to look the man he’d only ever known per solum lacuna in the face. It was cute; a lop-sided crooked grin that lit up his thin face and removed the tiredness from around his eyes. David smiled then frowned as he noticed that it wasn’t shadow across the porcelain skin but a bruise, purple and blue splattered under his eye and running over his cheek bone. Before he could stop himself he’d leant across and tipped Matt’s face in his direction so that he could look the startled blond in the eye, see the damage done to the stranger he’d just picked up.

“Is this why you’re here?”

Recoiling in alarm, Matt tugged his chin away and seemingly tried to shrink into the seat. David couldn’t miss the fear and disgust that crossed the battered face.

“My best friend lives here. I thought it would be the safest place to go.”

“Who did this? Your step-dad?”

No reply.

“You never mentioned anything like this-”

“I hope I didn’t make you come too far out of your way…” It’s not the sort of thing you talk about.

Shaking his head, David indicated right, deciding it was best to drop the conversation for now, and they took off away from the airport.