tristane

Things are really good. Things have been falling into place ever since I got here, I can't for a second say I regret my decision to stay. The guys in the group are getting more and more familiar, it is like living with a hundred of your friends in one big collective. Such a small world, but what a great world it is.
I would lie if I said it was all sunshine and roses. There are days when I just want to stick my head into the sand and dissapear, but they are few and getting further between. Stuffing in the boxes today for the move tomorrow a couple of the guys suddenly showed up and took a box each.

It was the prettiest sight you ever saw.

The only one who didn't help was Ace. I can't wrap my head around that guy. When I came down he stood by the car, his arms crossed over his chest, raising one eyebrow at me as I approached.
"You know me," he said to my unuttered question.
And in a way I do.

It was only a couple of days into the course when he became the first person in years to look me in the eyes and ask me how I was. Me. And suddenly I found myself telling him about how much of a game I played, how shy and insecure I felt, how sad and lonely I really was.
And he listened.
I could never tell after that how he had taken it. Had he listened simply out of curiosity, because it was a peculiar phenomenon that he had witnessed, or did he actually care? I couldn't be sure. He is one of those hard to read people. But as I was sitting with my personal development plan a couple of minutes later, still shaking from the emotional effort, he came up to me again, putting down a simple gray plastic cup with a familiar beverage.
"Espressochoc."
It was only one word, one simple gesture, and then he left again, but I couldn't stop tears from welling up. It was my favourite coffee. I hadn't asked for it. He had just given it to me out of concern, because he knew it was my favourite. It made my heart ache.

So I ran from him, the way I always do from people who can hurt me. He probably didn't care anyway. He had no reason to.

Then he came up to me one evening the next week.
"Do you want to take a walk with me?"
For almost an hour we walked around the area, round and round across the fields and pathways. And we talked about everything that is Honest and Real, of Fears and Truths. It was a good conversation. The purest one I have had in many, many years.

So once again I started to run from him. I feared him like a whipped dog fears the master, convinced that he would kick me at any hint of emotions.

We don't speak much in school. We're not part of the same crews. Not that anybody can stay apart in this place for long, but there are a few sub-groups. Yet these last couple of days he has come up to me and talked and joked in his ordinary cynical manner, as if there was something more than just happening to bump into eachother. Just like today.
"Not much of a gentleman in you," I replied as I loaded the last box into the car.
"Did you ever think there was?"
"There is always hope, my friend. There is always hope."

Then he smiled at me. As if there really was.