"What are you doing?" she exclaims with a laugh pushing his book away.

He looks up and cleans his reading glasses, frowning severely, "What was that for?"

How quickly his weakness is exposed when he trusts. He thinks of how they all move, all vibrate at their own frequency and pace. He finds himself wishing he would match up closer, that in noise and chaos they might align in their similarities. It is their differences that intrigue him. Flawed and stubborn, they both fight in their own habits, finding strange fascination in the speculation of the others.

"This is a textbook," she laughed, holding it limply as a child would their greens.

"Yes," Josh stammered reaching for it, "and I need it to figure out lighting combinations. It's information I need to process."

"Come on," she says softly pulling it out of his reach, "Do you trust me?"

He looks at her curiously as she gently shuts the handbook, pressing a pencil in between the pages creating a small curve in the binding.

She runs to a nearby shelf, standing on her toes as a dancer would in a graceful rendition of simplest movement. She lets her fingers run across the rows, eyes scanning each title until she grasps and pulls one down with steady hands.

His brown curls fall in tight and coarse curls across his forehead as he pushes the laptop aside. Why is it there always seems to be something between them?

"Here," she said, taking a small book and setting it beside him.

"Wuthering Heights," he said running his hand across the crumbling paper cover to rid it of dust. It was covered in creases, the tan underneath running in long veins up and down the spine, "I didn't know someone's height could wither."

"Very funny," she said, "Really, please. You'll like it I swear. Just the first few chapters."

She took a hand and reached for the manual across the table, taking it up against her chest and holding it closely, "And I'll read yours in exchange."

He bit his chapped lip, skin peeling painfully like tissue paper off a present.

"Fine," he finally said leaning back in his chair and throwing up his hands in defeat, "But I have a lot of work this week. If I don't get to it-"

It's the rough noise of acoustic guitar strings, the clanging on pots as his foster mother laid out the supplies for dinner and smoothed the pages to a recipe book. Highway trips and Jack's laughter all caught up in his head as he opens to the table of contents and searches for chapter headings.

"Then next week," she stated firmly, "Ten bucks says you don't finish it."

Josh gave a small laugh, fixing his thin-framed reading glasses on the bridge of his nose, "Deal."

-----------------

Melanie holds the phone in her palm and sits against the wall of the hallway, the back of her neck plastered to the cold tile.

Ms. Steele,

While we appreciate your application we regret to inform you that currently we are not looking right now for someone of your particular...

It was silly really, even thinking she had a chance. She didn't know what she had expected, but now the tears were welling as she set the phone to the floor beside her. She had been delirious with the sweet dream of being someone, of being good enough to be wanted and cared for either by person or calloused company. To be recognized as intelligence, as breathing ingenuity in a way no one else could. Instead they saw her as what perhaps she truly was- ordinary.

Mel wiped her cheeks and tapped her toes in her shoes uncomfortably as the people began to pass. A quiet pain, a crushing loneliness in never having anyone or any adventure of significance.

The first thing she saw was the mud, caked thick on the rubber soles of white converse. They slowed, then stopped and swiveled, the loose laces swinging underneath with each step.

"Mel?"

His voice is stiff, it's timbre edged with worry as he kneels down and a pair of inquisitive eyes join her level.

She explains in a soft voice how she applied, how her scores weren't enough, how classes were going wrong and life wasn't exactly going right. A thousand little shimmering things that had appeared so beautiful at first, appeared as hope, only to be shards of broken glass stepped on so painfully later.

"You know- you know that doesn't make you any less of a person right?"

Mel held her head and closed her eyes, a shuddering breath escaping as she tried to stop the tears. Josh was silent a moment, his long fingers tracing the zipper track on his hoodie in one long stitched line. Seeing her like this was twisting him inside, a dull sickened stab in his stomach.

"Mel, your worth isn't contingent on any grade, any number or expectation- you're exceptional Melanie. And if they can't see that then, well, they can take it up with me I guess."

Josh paused.

"Though I won't last long in a fight, just warning you. A mild mannered debate maybe, like, I've got several killer pieces of evidence, and a whole lot of eyewitness testimony. "

Mel laughed a little as he nudged her. He looks concerned still despite his weak smile. He keeps glancing over her features, broken thoughts cut off by new worries and doubts. Melanie the perfectly imperfect. Melanie rehearsed and honest hearted with blazing vigor for life. Mel the maybe not so happy after all.

The music plays soft over the speakers, he hears it when her optimism flickers back on and the last tears dissipate. He displays a smile and after a moment he holds out his hand with a feigned confidence. His fingers curl slightly in gentle arches, each little line bending in curving rivers and topography. Mel locks her hand and he helps pull her up.

"You okay?" he asks.

"Better now," she says with a small sigh, "Thank you."

-----------------

Slowly, steadily, calmly, she analyzes the bigger picture and then moves forward. She sees the spark and yet waits and watches for all the pieces to be assembled

His mind is as hard drive, every speck of information downloaded instantly in spastic explosions.

'It's the only way to move forward,' Josh thinks, 'compartmentalize, and go it alone.'

As far back as he can remember it's all been the same. One moment's eye contact with a person, and he received a million thoughts packaged up neatly in a filing cabinet for his mind to shuffle and sort in a heartbeat. Perhaps it is only a heightened form of empathy, one that stings as he sees injustice, stares down suffering. Looks into the eyes of a friend who hurts.

"You don't need friends," Josh mumbled falling backward onto his couch at home and tossing the keys onto the counter, "We have thoughts of others all sorted and revised in neat little paragraphs. No need for friends when you already know everything you need to about everyone from a facebook page or google search. No lack of patterns, no surprises. There's facts and books and history."

He reaches for the laptop, to search out some new algorithms, learn something worth meditating on.

Still, his eyes are drawn to the object strewn across the table, green binding stares back at him, a ragged patch of life in a winter apartment. He considers googling the answers, sparks noting the first chapter and reciting some rambling speech about how much he loved it.

And yet something feels wrong in fooling her.

"Like pieces of a puzzle," Josh sighed, "The whole picture still remains on the front of the box, even when a piece is missing, you know how it's supposed to go. It's just frozen, waiting for the last part."

He gave an irritated groan and set his phone beside the laptop on the couch.

No distractions.

"Emily Bronte," he muttered aloud to himself beguilingly.

Pride.

He's never been one to let pride get in the way before. Why now?

The blue vase sits on the table sporting dandelions and wild flowers with a bit of water in the bottom. He likes bringing the yellow home recently, another small piece of his hardware rewritten with a bit of life unruly and free spirited. Controlled, but colored with a taste of adventure all the same.

'Shut up and read the stupid book.'

He's tried before, reading fiction. But a mixture of slight ADHD with a sprinkle of complete disinterest was enough to keep the imagination away.

Not this time however, the words seemed to come easy, floating away into phrases and paragraphs instead of painful blocks of writing that stung his eyes and pricked his tongue as he attempted to read them aloud. Maybe it's because she asked him, or maybe the Brontes, just maybe, the Brontes knew what they were doing. When the first chapter had been suffered through, Josh scanned the next page with his eyes. What was ten dollars in comparison to a friend? Losing a bet, gaining a fellow mind, it was worth it. A friend worth a little self sacrifice.