He's lived alone as long as he's worked — working jobs that exploit. His name is Seazon, but he's always been known as Sea. A half-arsed name for a half-arsed guy. Working to survive and surviving for no one.

Then a book, left by the previous tenants, finds its way around his flat. When he reads the first page, instead of his own internal monologue, he hears someone else trying to reach out.

He has a neighbour, Lucas — gentle, awkward, infuriatingly kind yet secretive — that refuses to leave him alone.

I unclench the fist I hadn't realised had formed, a dull ache now pulsating through my knuckles.


"You don't know what you're talking about. I've given you my introduction, you've seen my life how it is now, why the fuck would you want to hear the old, outdated, pisstake one."


He bites the inside of his cheek, sucking it inward like a child to a thumb.


"It's still you though Seazon. It's not a stranger I want to hear about."


His Adam's apple rises and falls, his breath deepening as he swallows.


I rummage my knuckles around my eyelids, creating those small specs that look like stars in my vision.


I wonder if Lucas loves the stars as much as I do. I can just imagine it. No worries, no stresses, no fucked up leg. Just us. Sat upon some shitty appartment balcony with a familiar spring breeze floating by, passing  through our fingers as we touch. 


Will I be looking outward still? Limiting myself to a touch, something purely physical, practically pointless with no emotional tax. 


Or perhaps reverted back to that spring under the stars, feeling them now through those eyes instead. 


I droop my head, shaking it slightly, as I glide my hands on my thighs.


I'm getting distracted, he's getting to me again, rearranging my emotions, laying there watching me in that way.


It's the lack of preparation that's bugging me.


"The fact is I don't reminisce or recollect my past. The only ones who know of it are the ones who were there, and well… most of them are dead. At least assumed dead."


Lucas's finger twitches, reaching out to feel my hand before stopping himself. Something's happening, there's no reason for him to interfere this time.


I scratch my cheek, pulling away a short golden blonde hair that was latched onto my nose ring, smothering it between my fingertips and smiling.


"I don't know what words will be constructed as I speak and for your sake, hopefully it'll all be completely ineligible."


I toss the hair, watching it float down beside my leg. It's my story, I can't hide from it anymore.


But I've not been called anything other than Sea my whole life."


I don't even know why I was given a full name in the first place, especially since I've never heard it spoken out— by anyone. Well… accept one man, called Lucas."


Chapter 11 - my name is… (mini chapter)