violet-duffy

[violet-duffy]

Still standing, she turned and followed his finger, gazing up at the sky - but non the wiser as to which part of the colossal sky he was indicating. She dropped to her knees beside him, leaning closer in an attempt to exactly follow his finger and then stared at the little collection of stars he indicated and murmured the words he’d spoken as though committing them to memory. 

But as he continued speaking she blushed, leaning away from him and looking down at the grass. Her fingers stroked across the spikes, slightly damp to touch though she already knew that, she could feel it through the thin cotton of her pyjamas, and she wondered what to say. He carried on speaking though after a moment, though she suspected he was talking to himself, and that gave her another minute to try and think of an appropriate response. The problem was, she could tell the truth - that she was homeschooled - but it might invite more questions. He was going to ask questions at some point though she knew. Before he left, Violet was going to have to convince Jamie not to tell anyone he had met her, not to mention her existence - that was bound to invite curiosity, she was sure.

Far safer right now to talk about him. And far more interesting as well, her own life was like that of a canary, trapped in a cage looking out the window. He’d actually experienced real life...although a troublesome side of it, judging from his words. But apparently this was quid pro quo, he wouldn’t tell her unless she shared a little...and star gazing had lost it’s appeal.

Her hand snuck up to her face, touching her lower lip for a second and then diverting to her hair, winding a strand around her fingers as she glanced towards the dark house and then spoke, her tone nervous.

“She’s...not a random lady. She’s my Mom. I’m homeschooled. I’ve never...met anyone else in the neighbourhood before”. Might as well get it over with, and then he might tell her about the heist. 

A Stranger and a Strange Meeting

“Violet. Cool name.” Jamie replied, not really looking at her anymore but too engrossed at looking up at the sky. After a minute he pointed up.

“Big dipper, right there. I thought everyone knew that one.” He looked over at his new found little friend but she didn’t seem to recognize it at all. “Come on, it’s like all they talk about in school. Underground railroad and all that. I know what it is and I haven’t been to school in years and even when I did go, I didn’t pay attention.”

He wondered for a moment if something was wrong with this girl. After all no one who had a good life wandered alone at night barefoot - even if it was just to stargaze. Happy people slept at night. That was just the way the world worked.

“Now I think I can find Orion…” He muttered to himself. “He’s easy. But the dippers and Orion are all I know.” He looked up at her when she started asking questions and just shrugged. “Big criminal plan, yep that’s it. A plus for you in vocab. It wasn’t my idea no and I did it for the money.” He said rolling his eyes, “Now if you want to know any more about it you’ll tell me why you’ve snuck out to this random lady’s garden to stargaze. If not… we can just look at the stars.”

[violet-duffy]

"My name is Violet" she informed him helpfully, dropping the hand that toyed with her lower lip although doubtless her fingers would be back in front of her face within minutes. There was nothing calculated about it, no attempt to flirt or seduce, no coyly acted shyness - she just fiddled with her lip. When she was younger she had sucked her thumb, and she had trained herself out the habit, but somehow when nerves got to her - her own or other people's, Violet had a lot of empathy and a vivid imagination, she felt for characters in novels as strongly she did her own life - her hand crept to her face and her face mouth still. 

Her comment was based on his continual use of 'Blondie' but it also gave her a moment to puzzle over his words, she frowned very slightly as she did so. 'Fucking adorable'? Of course, she knew what the latter word meant, but the first word? That she had never encountered in her library of classic books and children's films. Filing it away she made a note to ask him later. But adorable was good, so surely the first word was too? It sounded aggressive though. With these thoughts in her mind she rose up from the kneeling position she had adopted and retrieved the book from where it had been abandoned.

Walking back over she stood a foot away, still standing (as if that made much of a difference) as she looked down at him and listened to his story, her eyes growing rounder by the moment.

"Heist?" she repeated, although she was familiar with that word, in a way. "That's like...a big criminal plan?" she checked, and there it was again, her fre hand moved to her face and her fingers pinched her lower lip as she looked down at him. "Why..." she trailed off, confused as she looked down at him, the clippings her mother kept rattling through her mind at high speed.

He didn't look dangerous. She had seen photos of murderers, her mother loved a scare tactic, men with greasy long hair and tattoos by the dozen. He looked...cute. And harmless, in a way. She didn't feel like she was in danger, although would she even have known if she was? 

"Was the heist your idea?" she asked, curious more than put off still.

A Stranger and a Strange Meeting

He watched the way she played with her hair and bit her lip. It was cute in a sexy kind of way. He wondered if she wasn’t so innocent after all and if she knew what she was doing. Either way, it seemed a bit sad she hadn’t found any constellations yet. “Blondie, I have come to an important conclusion. You’re fucking adorable.” He reached out a hand to her, “Well hand me the book and sit down. Two sets of eyes are better than one after all.”

Jamie wasn’t exactly sure why he was offering to help this girl out. Mostly he just didn’t want to go back inside and this seemed as good an idea as any. Plus there was the fact that now that he was sure she was sixteen he couldn’t deny that she downright gorgeous, if a little odd.

He sighed and rolled her eyes at her alarm though. Alright, so it was sort of a big deal the city of Boston had basically given him a restraining order, but there really wasn’t much a story behind it. Just one misdemeanor after another on top of being in two many wrong places at the wrong time. And there was the museum thing. 

"Nothing too bad, don’t worry." He shrugged, still holding out his hand for her book. "I just sort of, well, defaced that memorial on Bunker Hill. And then crashed my motorbike into it. After almost setting fire to the USS Constitution. It wasn’t fault at all really. I was the distraction for the big heist. Course that meant I was the only one to take the fall… but I still got my cut. So that’s what matters right?"

The whole story was much too long and complicated to get into now and he really didn’t feel like telling her his whole back story explaining the who and the what and the why to the major crime that had made Boston’s judicial system hate him beyond all hope.  Talking about it sounded too much like something that would make his therapist happy anyway. And he was intent on not doing that. “I mean, I’m not a bad guy.” He explained, faltering a little, wondering if she would scream and out him as a trespasser. “I’ve just had some less than awesome ideas in my lifetime, you know?”

[violet-duffy]

Helplessly she shrugged - what could she say? If she was short, then she was short. Violet had little comparison, although she did know she was much littler then her mother but even her Mom wasn't as tall as Jamie. Idly the thought crossed her mind that perhaps it would be expected she be more of her Mom's height...but then it wandered away again. She wasn't to know it was living her life outside the sun that had left her this way, stunted like a flower kept out the light. 

But she definately could guess why he called her 'Blondie'. Her hair was golden, long and loosely wavy, and reaching the dip of her waist by now. Her Mom had never let her cut it and it was a sure sign the two were getting along well, or more specifically that her Mom was in a good mood, if she sat to play with it. On a good day she could spend an hour or so combing the long blonde locks till they shone like silk. There times when she wondered if it would be easier to have short hair, like the cropped bobs she had seen out the window sometimes - less time to wash it and comb it, less fuss needed to take care of it. But at the same time she rather liked it, and never seriously thought about cutting it off - even his nickname she rather liked, lifting one hand to her hair as he said the word. 

His comment on the sky called her attention away though and she bit her lip, her fingers moving to fiddle with the same spot before she confessed. "I haven't found any of them yet...I have a book" Violet explained. "But...so far I haven't figured it out". 

Part of her was tempted to ask if he'd help...but far more of her was intrigued by his story. Her eyes grew even wider and round at his little confession, her lower lip falling away from the upper as her mouth hung open her surprise, two fingers still resting on her lower lip as she quite frankly stared at him.

"Not...allowed...in the city? But..what did you do?" And for the first time she wondered if she ought to fear this boy. The number of newspaper clippings she had been forced to read about girls raped and children stolen, people attacked and beaten and murdered without reason - well, yes, he said he hadn't killed anyone but what if he was one of those people who hurt girls like her? The men her mother warned her about?

Although surely, if that were the case - her mind jumped in with a logically hole in that problem on a plate for her - he wouldn't have come to kick cabbages. And he wouldn't have sat down to talk to her. 

A Stranger and a Strange Meeting

[violet-duffy]

Sarcasm - she'd been sarcastic? Well. That was a new one for her. And on the plus side, not only had she achieved a new thing, but he seemed to have liked it. She would file that away for later although she strongly suspected her Mom would not find it funny or clever. 

It might take awhile for her to understand sarcasm though as she blinked at his comment and shook his head slightly. "No...I'm sixteen" she told him, her voice naively confused. She didn't look twelve did she? Violet didn't know, she rarely saw herself in a mirror and never knew how old the people she had watched out the window were. 

Turning her head she looked vaguely in the direction of across the street, wondering who Chris and Jeanne were - maybe that elderly couple who had young men and women come visit all the time? that might make sense why she hadn't seen him before. When she looked back Jamie had thrown himself down on the grass, apparently making himself comfortable. Violet remain standing, biting her lip, her gaze drifting toward the second storey of the house. She knew her Mom's bedroom was at the front, that's part of why she felt safe to sit in the garden. but she still felt nervous, queasy even, at the idea of this boy being sat here...what if she found out? What if...what if she knew he'd been here?

He looked comfortable though. And there was something about him. And to hear about the city...?

Slowly, she sat down with him, kneeling more like a geisha as opposed to the way he sat, comfortable and sprawled. But her eyes were wide and lit up with a kind of light as he described the city, curious. Fascinated by the idea of a place filled with people where you never had to be alone. Where you always had someone to talk to, if you needed it. 

The question being turned back on her startled her for her reverie and she sit her lip before answering honestly. "No. Second time. But...I don't come out to trash cabbages" she admitted shyly. "I...why did you sneak out? And why are you here? Why leave...Boston?"

A Stranger and a Strange Meeting

[violet-duffy]

"Well...not everything" she pointed out logically. "But I wear my pyjamas at night time" Violet said, glancing down at herself, the fabric loose and masking her figure very slightly, her bare toes pale against the grass she stood on, and then she lifted her head to look at him again - in time to see his smile.

Sheltered she might be, ignorant and innocent, but she was still a teenage girl and she blushed more hotly at the smile, the way his features softened making her stomach do a weird twisting tightening thing she had never experienced before and could only describe as 'squick'.

"Thank you" she said, hesitating for a moment then opening her mouth to speak. He hadn't offered his name, she might know almost nothing of human interaction and meeting strangers, but in novels when one character offered their name the other did as well, that was how introductions seemed to go and she assumed it must be the same in real life. Except he hadn't. Her pause though to try and figure out if she could ask, and raise this issue politely, meant he carried on - he seemed much more practised at the art of conversation, while her speech was slow and stilted he seemed natural and relaxed. 

Her eyes lit up at his words, fascinated by the suggestion - a city! It sounded exotic to her, so quiet had her life been, and without meaning to she took a step toward him. "The city - is that...where you're from? Which one?" Violet asked, her tone eager to hear more. "What is it like?"

A Stranger and a Strange Meeting

"Because it’s nighttime?" Jamie parroted. "Well, that explains everything doesn’t it?"

He shook his head, clearly this girl wasn’t going to be giving him any straight answers. He could respect that. He didn’t like to speak openly about, well, anything either. And if she proved interesting enough he was confident he could find out anything he wanted about her. It was the same with all girls, getting their trust was just a matter of smiling a the right time and keeping enough promises.

He granted her a hesitant smile, not wanting to come across as too eager or predatory. She seemed rather skittish and he wasn’t going to hurt or scare her. He just wanted a conversation that didn’t revolve around someone’s pension. Not many of the kids in the small neighborhood would talk to him, apparently their parents had all warned them away from him. Good-two-shoes, cowards the lot of them And the only source of human interaction he had outside of his foster parents were with the overly friendly old folks who seemed to fill this tiny town. 

"Violet. That’s a pretty name." He tipped his head back and looked up at the clear night sky. "Star gazing. Cool. Can’t say I’ve ever done that before. You don’t see many stars in the city. The lights are too bright and the buildings are too tall."

[violet-duffy]

@dovecameron: green//vert 🍏

[violet-duffy]

As he backed away she drew her hands to her chest, clasping her fingers together over her sternum, the gesture almost like praying as she gazed at him and she relaxed, just ever so slightly, as he said he wouldn't do it. Much as she hated cabbages (and she really did hate them) it was better they be left alone and allowed to be grown into her dinner. Her Mom would be devastated and so angry, and even if she didn't suspect Violet, her in a bad mood was enough to ruin Violet's days. 

"I..." Looking down as she trailed off she looked at her own clothing and then at his - she was sure her Mom wore something very similar sometimes to sleep. But he was male, so perhaps that was different. "Because...it's night time?" She pointed out, her questioning tone indicating she thought her answer was obvious and she was uncertain of what he meant. 

Lifting one hand she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her gaze on his face as he moved nearer, her expression curious and slightly wary but it was less fear of him and more her own internalised concern that she needed to not reveal too much - what was she to say? He did not look familiar, so he must have moved to the area in the past six months. When she had her attic room she had been able to peep out at the streets and watch other children, although she didn't know the names, she knew by sight everyone who lived in the surrounding houses, she had watched them play street hockey, wash their cars, walk their dogs, mow their lawns, she had watched the minutiae of their daily lives and envied their freedom. From watching, she also knew some men were more attractive then others, and she could tell this boy was very good looking, and found herself blushing without understanding why as she met his dark eyes.

"I..." Words failed her as she tried to think, her hand lifting reflexively to her face, fingers pulling at her lower lip in an odd nervous tic she had. What could she admit? What could she reveal? For starters, if she admitted this wasn't somebody else's garden, he'd known she lived here which nobody was supposed to...oh, if only she had stayed inside! Her name she could offer though, couldn't she? "My name is Violet" she admitted. "I'm...stargazing". Not a lie, at least.

A Stranger and a Strange Meeting

Jamie looked the tiny girl up and down, becoming more and more confused the longer he looked and listened. She looked about to cry and he took a few steps back and threw his arms up as if in surrender. “Alright, fine. I shouldn’t really. I can’t really afford getting caught.” He admitted. He gave her another once over and cocked his head to one side. “Why the hell are you wearing pajamas?”

He took a hesitant step closer, smiling a little and hoping she wouldn’t really start to cry. She was beautiful, there was no denying that, but so tiny he wondered if she was just a really developed twelve year old or something. The last thing he needed was a sobbing twelve year old girl accusing him of trespassing. “I’m Jamie by the way. But, uh, if you’re not here to wreak havoc what are you doing in someone else’s garden?”

It was a nice night, not too cold and the skies were clear. He wondered if maybe this was a suburban thing, for kids to walk around as they pleased at night. People always said the suburbs were safer than the city but still, whatever she was doing here, it felt fishy to him and he wasn’t going to leave until he had a straight answer from her. This weird girl was the first interesting thing to happen to him since he arrived.

[violet-duffy]

This was a task that would be better suited to two people, ideally one of them who knew what they were looking for. Although the suburbs were dark, they were perhaps not dark enough that she saw all the stars to match the picture on her lap with the sky above. Plenty of people might have given up at this point, but Violet found some persistence in her she didn't know she had - besides. She had nothing else to do to while away the hours till dawn. Most people might sleep, but she did not sleep well, and never had - mostly because she never tired herself out enough to need the rest, and when she sought it, it was from boredom not exhaustion. Without school or a schedule to work around, sleep happened when it suited her - being outside could only happen at night. If nothing else she could enjoy the cool spring breeze, the way it pulled at her loose hair and made her toes twitch from cold. It was something to feel, even if the feeling was less than pleasant. 

Somebody interrupted her murmuring as she read aloud the advice for locating the Big Dipper, and Violet started, her eyes wider then ever as she looked toward the young man. At first she couldn't speak, anxiety and fear created a lump in her throat and she just stared as he whispered. But although she did not understand every word he said, she understood enough and after a moment she folded herself, the book placed on the bench as she hurried toward him, the cool grass spikey on her bare feet.

"No, no, no, no" she told him, her tone hushed but panicked. "Please, no, you cannot! No, you cannot ruin the cabbages, my Mom, she will think it was me! Please, don't" With every word she grew more worried not less, her green eyes filling up with tears.

If he ruined her mother's vegetable garden, her Mom might ask her question, ask her if she'd heard it or seen it. If Violet couldn't act convincingly (and one lie was no guarantee she could do so again if it mattered, she could easily grow flustered and unconvincing) she might grow suspicious, she might even think it was Violet, she might check the tiny window that was the only view of the outside world she had from her basement - she would be in so much trouble, and the fear of this, the fear of her Mom's anger, had the sixteen year old trembling as she implored the stranger.

A Stranger and a Strange Meeting

Jamie was fuming. If things were different he’d have run away by now, hell he would have run away on the day social services had dumped him in this shitty land of picket fences and flat skylines but that wasn’t an option anymore. His only options seemed to be bum around the local library or die of boredom until Chris and Jeanine, his newest set of foster “parents,” decided he could be trusted with the keys to his own motorbike. At least I found someone to sell me cigarettes, he thought to himself as he snuck outside,

He sat down on the front porch of his current house and lit up absentmindedly. He considered his situation. Chris and Jeanine weren’t bad people, it was just the three of them and they mainly left him alone. There was food, the house was clean and he had a bed which was more than he could say for the last home he had been placed in. Still, he was bored out of his mind, not to mention he couldn’t sleep without the city’s lullaby of sirens, car horn, yowling cats and the occasional gunshot. 

He looked around the small neighborhood and scoffed. It couldn’t look more like a storybook if it tried. The house colors followed a pattern, the mailboxes all looked the same and everyone’s hedges and lawns were meticulously trimmed. Well except for the bitch’s across the street. She had some kind of weird garden thing going on in her backyard. Jamie ground his cigarette butt under his heel and kicked it to the curb. The woman who lived across the way reminded him of his second foster mom with her pinched face, foul mood and the way she glared at him as if she hated him just for breathing. Of course he had crashed his grocery cart into hers this morning at the market but that was an accident. Sort of. Anyway, he hadn’t deserved the way she had complained to Jeanine about him afterwards. Now it might be an extra week before he got Maximus’ keys.

The more he thought about the Bitch the angrier he got. Something had to be done about her, about this shitty situation, about the fact that there was literally nothing interesting in this town whatsoever. An idea began to form in his mind and Jamie felt the rush of adrenaline flood his system and before he could even truly think about it, he had crossed the road and hopped his neighbor’s fence. He had overheard the Bitch bragging about her prized cabbages and he grinned at the thought of her face when she woke up to find them destroyed.

He snuck around the side of the house toward the garden only to stop short. There was already someone there… another vandal? He approached quietly, not quite able to see who it was in the darkness.

"Hey." He whispered. "Who the fuck are you? You trespassing? Want to help me squash this mean bitch’s cabbages?"

[violet-duffy]

A Stranger and a Strange Meeting

It was the first time she had ever lied to her Mom, in sixteen years. 

There isn't much to do outside, at night, on your own but look at the stars - and if she was going to look at them, Violet wanted to know about them. So, using the excuse she wanted to paint the cellar ceiling accurately, she had asked for a book about astronomy, with constellations, and her Mom had brought one back from the library. At the time her palms had been sweating and she'd struggled to keep her voice steady - now, sat outside, she felt oddly powerful. She had lied, and her Mom hadn't known - she could lie. It was almost a revelation to Violet, although very likely the feeling of control would not last long.

Few sixteen year olds have complete control of their lives, but fewer still have as little as Violet. Locked in a basement for most of the day, never allowed to speak to anyone else, never having met anyone else, with every book and film she received monitored before hand - she was like a child, naive, innocent and ignorant of the real world.

Her house, and now her back garden, were all she knew - and this was only the second time she had been in the latter. There was a small window, level with the outside ground but high up from her bedroom, and one day, leaning her head against it to watch the puddles, Violet had discussed the wood was warped and rotting, the catch was loose, and she could push it open. It had taken another two days before she had summoned up the courage to sneak out. It should have been a wonderful experience...but she was as lonely, and as bored, as ever, with no company, nowhere to go and nothing to go. Honestly, the idea of leaving the garden filled her with panic which gripped her heart, but that didn't change the fact there was little to do within the fenced area - till the book idea had occured to her. 

Wearing old fashioned pyjamas, the top buttoning up like a man's shirt, the bottoms puddling over her feet due to her height, the blonde was sat cross legged on the bench, the book open on her lap and lit by a torch as she looked from the text to the skies. Her full lips murmured the words as she turned the pages and repeatedly squinted up at the heavens.