Night Lights and Dark Places

Chapter Twenty - Mirror

The book he was reading demanded all of his attention. Never in his life had he encountered such complicated, impenetrable prose, and he found himself rereading passages just to figure out the context for a single word. Ordinarily, he'd have asked Tolly to translate, but she had her nose buried in her own equally incomprehensible text books. Science was its own language that he had no real desire to learn, and this was slang. Not even the kind of slang that Tolly used herself, but fictional slang combined with a style of writing that he was unfamiliar with. Maybe he could've gotten away with just one question. James glanced over at her with an uneasy expression.

To his surprise and hers, their eyes met, a connection that she broke with an urgency that only further confused him.

"Sorry," Tolly mumbled, hiding behind her notebook. She was curled up on the couch with her books open around her and had no reason to apologize. James blinked and watched as she resumed her frantic scribbling.

After a long, awkward moment, he turned back to his book.

"You look so angry when you're concentrating hard."

James sighed and put his book down and when he looked at her, she was wearing an exaggerated scowl.

"Have you been watching me?"

"Not really. Only a little bit, kinda." Tolly's mischievous little smirk gave her away completely, and she sat up and shifted her legs beneath her. Her choice of lounge attire was predictably risque, so he averted his eyes until she finally settled.

"That's strange. Please don't do that," James said to the floor.

"It's okay, I was just drawing you."

"No. No! That's much worse, please don't do that!" He addressed her directly, annoyed. Tolly laughed and turned her notebook around. In the margin, looking completely out of place beside her beautiful script, were a series of super-deformed drawings. A glossy purple fingernail tapped one group in particular; a sketchy profile drawing and a small, smiling cartoon, both sporting huge, pointed ears that were immediately recognizable.

"Is that me?" He squinted hard, scanned the other drawings.

"Yeah. Not a great likeness, but I'm no illustrator," She said, then pointed to the smaller cartoon drawing. "I like this one best. It captures your essence."

James grimaced and inspected the drawing more closely. "My... essence?"

"Yeah, of course. You smile a lot more than I think you realize. It's super cute."

James rolled his eyes. "You're intolerable."

"You mean in-Tolly-able?"

The expectant grin that split her face was so wide that it looked painful. He miraculously managed to keep a straight face. "You're speaking more nonsense than usual." He turned back to his book, but she didn't let up.

"I know my transgressions committed are unforgivable," She began smugly. "But I'll let you take a nice shot at me. Artistic retribution and shit."

Tolly slapped the notebook down on the coffee table, turned to a clean page. She was leaning over his shoulder, grinning, and waving her pen in front of his face.

He regarded the pen with narrowed eyes. "I don't know how to use that. You're just going to make fun of me."

"I'll teach you."

James begrudgingly accepted the pen in his left hand, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. With more patience than he'd anticipated, she carefully curled his fingers and positioned his thumb around it and guided his hand to the page.