My Filler Chapter for Borderliners

F I L L E R C H A P T E R (8-9)


She then went on to explain something to me but I did not pay attention. We sat in that storage shed, and we talked, talked about what it was when we were children in Copenhagen. She asked me what it was like not knowing who my parents were why they had left me and about not knowing what it felt liked to be loved or taken cared of. She began this interrogation that last through the night. August had fallen asleep a long time hours ago and me and Katarina had been speaking for only a few minutes. These minutes felt like an eternity. It was like time had stopped to listen to mine and Katarina’s conversation about our lives as we were finally alone and out of the grip of the academy. Time had stopped.
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I began to speak but I did not pay attention to what I was saying. I spoke but without reason. Katarina just sat there and listened to me while her eyes seemed to scan my face and all of its contours and ridges of skin. Throughout our whole conversation, she sat still and only stared at me. I stared back and blocked out everything else so that I could marvel at her beauty. After she kissed me, my life had changed and I forgot about the school and all of the rules and regulations. We were two souls that had separated from the real world, only for moments; enough moments to talk about our whole lives and stare into each others’ souls.
But then she said to me, “Peter, was that your first kiss?” I proceeded to tell her that it was my first kiss and that it was unexpected but desired. Katarina had proposed a kind of spiritual marriage to me and with our kiss, there was acceptance and we were sealed together forever. Our kiss was a point in time that was unable to be revisited and I would never feel that feeling again. Katarina then asked me “Do you like the watch?” I told her that I did but that I did not know what it was for. I asked her why she gave it to me and she proceeded to stare, so I did not question her further. We kissed for a while and then she fell asleep on my shoulder.
Then I looked over at August, almost as though I was staring at child. He had picked a spot in the storage shed with some cardboard boxes and fell asleep on top of them. While Katarina and I spoke left and ventured into our own world, August had ventured into his own. He was twitching and was having a bad dream, one that did not seem to end because once he woke up, we would have to walk back out into the freezing winter of Denmark and trek through the snow along the path back to the school.
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The next morning we woke up to the sound of scraping on the walls of the shed. August had sprung and the cardboard boxes gave in to his weight. Katarina and I had sprung to our feet and I ran over to the window. I looked through and saw that it was only a gentle deer scraping it little horns on the wall of the shed. Perhaps it had an itch that needed to be scratched.
We got up and decided it was time to go back to school at dawn while the school and its faculty were beginning to assemble through the archway. I closed the door, locked the lock and we left the shed behind. As we walked through the snow, I looked back only to realize the significant role our little shed was going to play in our escape. I fell in love with Katarina during the night we spent together and August seemed oblivious to that result. We had scaled a level in our relationship that was kept at bay while in school. I now loved Katarina and I know she loved me. While walking, I was behind her, she was behind August, and not once did she turn around to speak to me. Not once to speak of the night before or of our plan to escape and take August with us.
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Time resumed at dawn and went back to its routine. Time had stopped for me and it was a powerful feeling when I kissed Katarina. I will never forget when she asked me if I loved her and when I did not answer.