Two Worlds
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, please don't sue - I'm still
leeching off my parents,
and I don't think that they will appreciate it much.
Author's Notes: A big thank you to Arianna for being
patient with me, you are the best.
Also, this was originally Madie's fic, but she handed it over to me
(effectively making me go insane) so you guys can thank her for her
insistent bugging to write this in the first place.
Dedication: To my baby, my words are for you.
**********
Have you ever experienced a moment in your life where you know that things will
never be the same? When you're in that exact moment, the world stands still for
a split second and you just *know* your life will never be the same?
Where you lock eyes with a person, and you see the person look at you like they
just saw the most beautiful person in the world, and you know you're giving the
exact same look, because you, yourself, believe the same thing?
I have.
I was late for a meeting. The sky above was pounding seemingly endless amount of
raindrops cooling me down, for surely I was blowing off steam out of anger over
the whole situation. I was already a half an hour late and the traffic was at a
stand still. I had lost all patience, threw money at the cab driver and walked
the rest of the way without an umbrella.
I was sent to London for a month to write an article on a few new up and coming
artists living here. From the moment I stepped off the plane everything had gone
wrong and today was proving to be no different. I was to meet the first person I
would interview and by the looks of it, this wouldn't be easily accomplished.
When I finally arrived at the house, I walked up the stairs and knocked.
Nothing but silence answered me.
I was never late.
I decided to come back later, in the hopes that she would be back at a later
time.
**********
My life has always been a blur. Life moves past me either in fast moving images
spiraling away from me or painstakingly slow making me want to scream. As I
walked through the London streets that day, everything around me proved this to
be true. Blurred rain, blurred faces, a blurred meaning in life. The line
between fast and slow blurred as well. It was as if I walking in slow motion
inside a world that was speeding past me.
Maybe it was the fifth cup of coffee that I shouldn't have had that morning.
Or maybe it's just fate's twisted way of warning you that something amazing is
about to happen. Looking back at everything I would like to say that it was the
latter, but as I walked down the street that mid-morning, I wondered if someone
had slipped something in my latte when I wasn't looking.
Blurry, fast-moving images. Paranoia. Everything was starting to get to me.
Maybe I was having a midlife crisis. At 23. I chuckled at this crazy conclusion
I had made when everything went back to normal. The world around me regained its
normal pace and the pouring rain that was drenching me stopped. I looked up to
see the most gorgeous woman sharing her umbrella with me.
Katie has a kind of exuberant energy to her that just comes naturally. She
glowed on that rainy day with a magnetic force that captured me in a way that
nothing ever has. To this day she has never ceased to make me smile, and even
though I was going through hell, she somehow made me smile through the rain.
There were no words. We walked along in silence. The world around us seemed to
feel the connection we shared and before I knew it, the crowd somehow separated
us without our consent. Again with the blurred rain, blurred faces, and blurred
meaning in life.
I ducked into a small café to sit down. I needed time to prepare for the
interview that I would have with the artist and my only hope was that the young
visionist would be home at a later time.
I ordered myself another latté, yes I was a daredevil, and I opened the
portfolio of work that belonged to the girl I would be interviewing.
I looked down to see a sad pair of moss green eyes looking up at me. The artist
had focused on the eyes only, and as a result, I felt myself being pulled in by
the two-dimensional painting. The eyes were hypnotic, and I felt as though I had
seen them before.
Like in a dream. With me walking in slow motion in the rain, with fast-moving
blurred images, and a girl with an umbrella.
My head snapped up to a soft 'ahem' and I was immediately pulled back to
reality. Moments before I was looking at the sad green eyes but somehow I found
my own shut. Upon opening them, my eyes focused on a beautiful woman holding a
newly purchased bag of paint and brushes smiling down at me with an amused grin.
It was the same woman who shared her umbrella with me, saving me from the
relentless rain and she had the same hypnotic green orbs as the picture.
I smiled as gracefully as I could, having just been caught in a daze. "You must
be the artist I'm interviewing." I held out my hand to shake hers. "How did you
find me?"
She nodded and said, "Katie Singer," and took my hand. There was a pause as both
of us looked down at our joined hands. From the moment our hands touched we
connected in a way that was beyond physical.
We felt at ease with each other right away, the second she sat across for me. We
started to discuss her art, and surprisingly, things completely unassociated
with art. It was the most unorthodox interview I had ever done.
The whole thing surprised me. Most of the time I do interviews in no less than
one hour, and here I was with a woman I had just met talking from morning to
night. The words flowed from our mouths easily, me being on a caffeine high and
her having a natural energetic aura about her. Nothing that was said or done was
wrong.
It was amazing. She was amazing.
Like the way she was always constantly moving whether it be her gesticulating
hands when she emphasized her words or when she was bashfully wringing out her
napkin when I threw a compliment her way. I loved how her bangs fell in her eyes
that made me want to reach over to push them out of the way just to get closer
to her. I even adored the way she made her coffee. Three large tablespoons of
sugar.
I must be insane, but the sight made me smile. "Do you want coffee with your
sugar?" I said jokingly.
Katie smiled widely, "I've always been a sugar junkie. When I was little my
nanny used to give me a tablespoon of sugar before I took some nasty cough syrup
and before long, I wanted that tablespoon of sugar even when I wasn't sick." She
chuckled along to my laughter, "imagine a little four year old bouncing around
after three tablespoons of sugar. I'm surprised I still have all my teeth."
I did imagine this, and it was the most adorable thing I've ever heard.
"You must have tired your parent's out." Surely my parents would have had a
heart attack if I were on a sugar high 24/7.
Katie shrugged, "they were never really around. They sent me to boarding school
here in London once I hit the proper age, and any memory I've had before that
was with my nanny." I saw her eyes glaze over at the thought and I suddenly was
overcome with a strange urge to make it better.
Katie and I were so different, but we had one thing in common. Loneliness.
I grew up with two sets of families, one with my mom, one with my dad. Two sets
to choose from. Both effectively making me not feel at home with either. Katie
had grown up practically without a home, without a family, but she had been able
to accomplish something that I wasn't able to do. She had found a home here in
London, and she was able to find a world where she belonged. My work has allowed
me to travel to thousands of places, yet I've never felt at home anywhere. Not
even my home back home. Which is my dream home really, a small ranch with
horses. Yet even with this, there was always something missing.
Loneliness is exactly what doomed us from the beginning. My world consisted of
many, while hers remained securely in one spot. Her world was in London, while
mine was anywhere as long as I kept moving. Loneliness had me always running
away, and loneliness is what made London Katie's security blanket which she hid
under from the rest of the world.
We were both silent and deep in thought when the owner of the café politely
kicked us out. "We are closing now ladies," he said, breaking us both away from
the daze we were in. Reluctantly we gathered our things and made our way to the
door.
I was shocked to feel a pang in my chest at the realization that the night was
quickly coming to an end. The whole time I was with Katie I somehow found myself
lost in her. From the start I enjoyed Katie's company, and having to part from
her now, I just didn't want it to happen. I had all the information I needed,
our interview was done but I felt as though my time with her had been too short
to walk away now.
It was as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. The next thing I knew she
unleashed her umbrella, and covered us both. My savior.
"You busy?" Katie looked into my eyes and asked.
Of course I wasn't. "No," I said with the sound of my heart beating in my ears.
She smiled sweetly, "do you want to see my work?"
**********
She showed me her paintings. Each one of them as beautiful as the next. Her
studio was filled with them. Hanging on the walls, leaning against the walls,
laying on the floor. Each one of them depicting a moment in her life, each
representing something of her world. I was surrounded by the world she lived in.
I got lost in her world.
"They are all so beautiful."
"I've seen things much more beautiful than these."
The way she looked at me made me melt. Blushing, I felt like hiding from her
intense gaze, yet at the same time I wanted to get lost in it, as I had done
with her paintings.
**********
We talked all night, and somehow ended up on opposite sides of her bed facing
each other. We were comfortable with each other from the start and as I lay
facing her and saw the way the moonlight shone on her, I felt as though I had
known her forever and that this moment that I was living at this very second
should have happened long before. That somehow our lives should be connected
which was exactly what I wanted. I wanted her even in the earliest hours of our
presence together, and looking back on it now, it doesn't surprise me one bit.
"You're beautiful," I blurted out of nowhere. At the time, I realized how insane
I must have looked. I was a reporter who had just met the artist she was
supposed to interview, laying across from her in her bed, calling her beautiful.
I was absolutely insane.
Katie did nothing but give me that beautiful smile that I felt honored to be
graced with.
"I mean," I desperately fumbled for a correction (which was stupid, I really did
mean it) "your work is beautiful. The way you use contrasting colors and your
shading is perfect, how the light shines in one angle, and how it's constant
throughout the whole picture, because I've seen some that weren't consistent
y'know and they were absolutely horri-."
"Jessie?" She cut into my embarrassing babble. Again with the beautiful smiling.
"Yeah?"
"I think you are beautiful too."
I blushed and looked away only to lock eyes with her again seconds later.
Her eyes were captivating. I realized then that I could stare into her eyes
forever. I don't know how long we lay there in a comfortable silence, but before
I knew it I felt my eyes droop and noticed that she too was falling asleep.
"I should go," I said, moving to get up.
But she didn't allow me to. My heart sped up when I felt her hand take mine.
"Stay," she said. The quiet protest made me look into her eyes hopefully.
The way she made me feel. I hardly knew this woman, and the way she made me feel
made me wonder if I had gone completely nuts.
"It's too late, I don't want you to call a taxi this late in the night," she
said, and I wondered if I was just seeing things when I saw a different meaning
in her eyes. She gave my hand a squeeze and I felt my stomach flutter.
"I don't want to be a burden."
"You aren't." Katie said, her green orbs pleading me. It wasn't her hand in mine
that kept me in place, it was her eyes that had captured me and kept me still.
"I'll sleep on the couch." I said, moving to get up again. She kept me in place.
"There's no way I'm letting you sleep on the couch. I will." It was my turn to
tighten my grip as she tried to get up.
"Stay," I said with a tired amused grin. "It's your bed, I should go."
"Jessie?" she said, pulling me closer. My heart was going to beat right out of
my chest.
"Yes?" I squeaked and silently cursed myself.
"Goodnight," she said turning off the bedside lamp.
She still held my hand, not letting me get up. "Goodnight," I whispered, hearing
my heart beat pounding in my chest. I must have been imagining things when I
heard a second heartbeat, just as fast as my own