Chapter four

IV
         “Aren’t you slow today?”  Des said. She lived in the neighborhood and often escaped to the city with Sienna at night. They were skating, with Stacy and Sheldon, down the neighborhood and its long winding streets.
         Sienna raised her eyebrows in response, arms around her elbows. “It’s cold.”
         “It isn’t, what’s wrong with you?” Stacy asked.
         “Nothing.” Sienna said, “Must be a fluke in the wind.” It was cold, and she didn’t think her sweater provided enough warmth. But it wasn’t the warmth she needed, and it wasn’t just the cold of the wind that made her cold.
         “The weather’s great.” Sheldon said, shrugging and sighing, “It is a bit cold though.”
         “You’re still cold under that layer of fat you’ve got under your skin?” Des said, laughing.
         “It’s not fat,” Sheldon whined, “I’m just big boned.” He laughed.
         “When have you not been big boned?” Stacy rolled her eyes.
         “When I was seven I was skinny.” Sheldon said.
         “Sure, Sheldon.”
Laughter. But the laughter seemed hollow to Sienna’s ears. In fact, everything seemed so hollow.
         “What is wrong with you today?” Stacy said.
         “Nothing.” Sienna shrugged, “Nothing really.” She saw her house at a distance; she was already planning her escape from Stacy’s confrontation.
         “Look…you guys go right ahead…I’ll pass by our house…I have to do…something.”
         “Sure…whatever.” Stacy grumbled, turning her back. Des was already way up ahead. Sheldon looked back with two sad eyes; the wind was in his dark hair.
         “I’ll catch up if I can, don’t wait up, okay?” Sienna said.
Sheldon looked away and went ahead, glancing back every once in a while before completely catching up with the others.
         Sienna sighed and went home. Of course there was something wrong. Everything was wrong. Just days ago she had discovered that the king had been her grandfather. With wrong timing and bad coincidence, Papa could be discovered as the rightful heir to the title. There would be chaos. Papa’s half brothers will definitely not like this. Definite chaos. An end to everything they knew.
         An end to everything I knew, Sienna thought, clicking her heels on the asphalt and the wheels retreated into her shoes.
         “I thought you were going to be out all afternoon?” Mama was out on the lawn, tending to her flowers. Papa was with her.
         “I wanted to come home.” Sienna said. “Papa…how are you?”
         “Fine, why’d you ask?” Papa looked funny; there was mud on his face.
         “Nothing. It’s just…You know. Doesn’t it feel heavy?”
         “Does it?”
         “It does.”
Papa frowned and rubbed sweat off his brow. “Does it? Now then…what heaviness are we talking about?”
         “You know…”
         “Oh…that heaviness.”
Sienna leaned on the gate, expecting answers.
         “Well Sienna, from the start, your grandfather never did stop from giving me all sorts of heaviness.” Papa laughed, “Now he’s given me the burden of a whole country that needs nurturing.” He flicked a bug off one of Mama’s prized roses, “And I can’t even tend to these flowers…”
         Sienna looked at the roses; one of the petals had already been accidentally plucked off by Papa’s gloved fingers.
         “Careful!” Mama hissed, “My darlings, he didn’t mean it.” Mama talked to her flowers. She said her love made them bloom. She said the flowers were scared of Papa’s heavy hands.
         “Oh dear,” Papa whimpered.
         “So why is it that you never held a grudge against Grandpa if he gave you burdens?” Sienna asked.
         “Well…” Papa paused to consider, “…I admit, I was angry at him. He left my mother, and she had to raise me alone from scratch. She told me it was pointless, holding grudges.. And besides, he revived the country. That was his atonement and it was good enough for me.
         “But I think I might never forgive him now. For what he did. Because now, it won’t be too long until my half brothers find out. About me. It would be an end to…everything we worked so hard for.”
There was silence and nobody recovered from it.
         “I think I’ll…I think I’ll go skate.” Sienna said quietly.
         “Come back for dinner,” Mama said.
         “Yes Mama.” Sienna took the wheels out and skated past the house.
The wind sung of the sorrow of bidding farewell to the yellow grass. It sung of  the slow coming of icy cold times. This was perhaps, what made Sienna love the neighborhood; the sad poetry of the wind and the grass and the distant mountains and sky. The hushed silence that embraced and comforted the loneliness within you and reminded you that you weren’t alone.
         Sienna put her wheels back into her shoes and looked at the slope up ahead. It was not too elevated if you were on foot, but on wheels it was difficult to climb. She caught sight of Des, Stacy and Sheldon at the opposite distant street; they were racing and their laughs were audible. Sienna looked at them for a moment, hoping they didn’t see her; but Sheldon turned his head towards her direction. Sienna immediately turned away and went up the slope. There were better things up there.
         From the top of the slope was a road that led downward, and there was a great stack of cut grass that lay at the very end, forming a great and soft mound that would cushion one’s rough landing. Sienna took out her wheels and leaned forward. The long way down was exhilarating, and when you closed your eyes it almost felt like flying. The cold wind caressed you face because you didn’t go down too fast and at the very last inch of downward sloping road, Sienna leapt a little and her feet left the ground. In a split second she was suspended in midair; for one fleeting moment, a feeling of freedom, of liberty, of lightness. And then thump. Into the soft, itchy grass.
Sienna lay there for a moment, the sweet smell of the old grass filling and scratching at her nostrils. When she sat up, she wasn’t alone anymore.
         “That was some ride, wasn’t it?” Sheldon said.
         “Yeah. I guess so.” Sienna said, getting some grass out of her hair. “What’re you doing here?”
         “I saw you climbing the hill.”
         “Oh.” Sienna wasn’t paying attention. The mountains were pale blue and looked like they were weeping. The sun was low and looked like it was listening to the mountain’s woes, the yellowish colors of the sky comforting it. The grass and the wind danced to their sad music, and the sight was breathtaking. Sienna tilted her head and stared at it all, letting herself be carried by the unheard music.
         “Sienna…” Sheldon said quietly, “…What’s wrong?”
The sight was too beautiful. Sienna didn’t answer Sheldon and his inquiries. Later she turned to him and said, “Look, Sheldon. The sky. It’s singing.”
Sheldon didn’t say anything. He just looked at her with confused, rather pitying eyes.
         “It’s singing the mountains to sleep. Look.”
Sheldon didn’t look. He looked at her, Sienna, and she found it uncomfortable how he looked right into her eyes, right into her, right through her, right into her soul.
         “Don’t look at me like that.” Sienna said firmly, “There’s nothing wrong with me Sheldon. Nothing.”
         “I didn’t mean it that way.”
         “So stop looking.”
         But he kept looking at her, eyes half hidden under his hair, blown into several directions by the wind. The he looked down, sighed and looked at the sky.
         “Come with me.” He smiled, “I have something to show you.” He took Sienna’s hand and pulled her out of the grass.
         “What is it?”
         “Just come.” Sheldon led her away from the road, “When I was little, this neighborhood had been bigger.”
         “You lived here before?”
         “Yeah.” Sheldon led her over an extension of the road, hidden underneath taller grass reaching out to each other. “We used to live up on a hill before moving out to the city.”
         Under the tall grass was a network of long forgotten roads and clumps of burnt wood and concrete where houses used to stand. Up on one hill, however, a wall of wood planks remained standing, crawling with moss and vines, weather beaten and worn.
         “That’s where your house used to be?” Sienna asked.
         “Yup.” Sheldon stood on the concrete floor behind the low wall of old wood, “This was where my room used to be.”
         “Did you have a small room?”
         “Sort of. We moved out I was nine, I think.” Sheldon smiled in reminiscence and went over to the other side of the wooden wall, where there was a patch of elevated land stuffed with grass.
         “Everything looks bigger from here.” Sienna remarked.
         “I know,” Sheldon said, patting the grass with his right hand. “Come sit. The view’s much better.”
         “It’s the same.”
         “The light’s at a better angle.”
         “I wouldn’t know. They look the same to me.”
Sheldon laughed. Then let out a small cry of irritation. “Ah man, some insect got into the laces.”
         “What insect.?”
         “I dunno. A ladybug I think.” He lifted a hand, poised to squash it.
         “It’ll stink if you kill it.” Sienna said quietly, “And Mama said you’ll get nightmares if you kill ladybugs.”
         “That’s cute.” Sheldon laughed, fumbling with the laces, “Damn. I can’t get to it. I just cut my nails and I can’t reach it”
         “I’ll get it out.” Sienna said and bent over to take the insect. It looked like a tiny spotted ruby as it crawled unto Sienna’s finger and stayed there for some time, unsure of what it was to do next. Sienna surveyed it, ignoring the sting of having her back bent too much; it seemed to shine when the light hit it at that angle. Sheldon bent over to look at it and there was a small gust of wind that sent his face closer until his lips brushed her cheek. Perhaps it was not the wind, or maybe it was the smell of her hair that brought him closer. Sienna felt the nudge of his nose on her face, the touch of his lashes and lips and hair. But she was too intent on the ladybug and it flew away.
         “Sheldon, make a wish.” She meant to say it and she turned to Sheldon and didn’t say it completely, because the words didn’t quite escape her lips. Because amidst the sadness that the wind sung, and the sun bending lower into the weeping mountains, two souls met and made a strong and fixed connection at the expense of a single light touch

                   *                                        *                                        *

         “Didn’t you ever wonder if the stars were really made of diamonds?”
         “Haven’t they always been balls of gas and fire?”
         “Yeah…but I heard somewhere that when they die, the heat and pressure would be too much there would be diamonds.”
         “Hm.”
         “Yeah…maybe only when they die.”
Sheldon run a free hand over his hair. Looking up at the early evening sky, a few pinpricks of sparkling lights were appearing on the horizon. The dark blanket of deep bluish purple was already coming down into the fuchsia color that kissed the tops of the mountains.
         “I should be going.” Sienna said and lifted her head from Sheldon’s arm but a gentle hand pulled her shoulder back down.
         “Stay. For just another minute.” Sheldon sighed. “Watch the sky with me.”
         “I never knew you were interested in the sky.”
         “I am. I just…never knew anybody else weird enough to share it with.”
         “Jerk.”
         “Haha.”
         “Tell me. Have you ever had sex out in the open?”
         “What?” Came Sheldon’s surprised response. “No…why?”
         “Would you have been too busy feeling your orgasms or would you still see the person giving it to you?”
         Sheldon chuckled. “It depends.”
         “How?”
         “I mean….so far, I’ve only cared about the orgasms in sex above anything else.”
         “Hm.”
         “You pervert, you.”
         “I was just asking.”
         “Why, you want to find out?” Sheldon’s peevish face moved above her and closed in lightly for a kiss.
         “No.” Sienna said after.
         “Then why’d you ask?”
         “To be sure.”
         “Of…?”
         “If you’re in this just for the sex.”
Sheldon frowned slightly. “How can you say that?”
         “We met at least only a month ago…”
         “But I feel like I’ve known you so much longer.”
         “You’re funny, Sheldon.”
         “Then what are you in it for?”
         “The heck of it.”
         “I’m not all about fucking, you know; I don’t think with my penis or anything like that.”
         “You’re hilarious.”
         “I love you.”
         “Don’t say that.” Sienna said.
Sheldon silently lay down on the grass, his back making a muffled thump as he lay again beside her. “I’m not making further explanations. I just do.”
         “It’s better if you don’t say it.”
         “If you say so.”
Silence.
         “I mean…I just felt like you should know.” Sheldon said quietly, “At least, now you know.”
         “Sure. Thanks.”
         “I’m…it’s okay if you don’t—”
         “It’s better if you don’t bring it up, Sheldon,” Sienna said, “It’s easier. It’s better like this, if you won’t bring it up.”
         “Sorry.”
         “No problem.”
         “It’s uh…alright if this is too much. I can give you space if you need it—”
         “Stay, Sheldon. This doesn’t change anything.”
Sheldon laughed quietly. “Good. That’s good.”
The following moments were filled by the silence and the rustling of the grass  and the smell of the cold evening breeze.
         “I’m going home now.” Sienna sat up and brushed the grass off her clothes.
         “You want me to go with you?”
         “No. It’s okay. I know the way back by now.”
Sienna stood and took the wheels out her shoes. “Aren’t you going home?”
         Sheldon smiled. And in Sienna’s mind she saw him again, for the first time, like a small pet who had just settled in its new home. “I’ll…stay here some more. You take care.”
         “Sure…thanks.” Sienna skated slowly at first and had already gone ten yards before Sheldon called out after her.
         “Sienna. Can I still see you after this?”
         “I said nothing changes, ninny.”
Sheldon laughed. “Sure…I’ll call you later.”
         “I’ll probably be asleep by then.”
         “I’ll still call you.”
         “Sure.”
If he had said anything after that, Sienna didn’t know, because she leaned forward and skated home as fast as she could. The grass reached out for her and the wind sung to her, because tears fell down Sienna’s face, knowing that before long, the pain of saying goodbye would be more difficult; intensified to a power she knew would destroy her.