Synopsis: Ellie & Josh

Saints and Birds

“Only once they love each other is when they’ll be able to finish their journey. Otherwise they’ll have to fight their way back again. They’ll have to keep fighting the same monsters over and over.” Kasey had elaborate plans for paper monsters that would be placed all over the floor, blocking the way between the dolls and the safe zone on the other side. “Only when they love each other, they’ll be safe.”
Ellie didn’t want the dolls to have to keep fighting the monsters forever, she didn’t like the idea very much, and she thought that she would cut out the monsters smaller than Kasey told her to, to make sure that the dolls would be able to beat them more easily.
“Would that be agape or philia?” Ellie asked, handing over the last doll and watching as Kasey examined it.
“It would be everything,” she said, setting the doll down as the sun shone through her hair and across the bridge of her nose, in front of her eyes. “Eros too, even,” she said with a mischievous glance at Ellie and Ellie laughed. Eros was like a joke to them, because after Kasey had explained what it meant neither of them could understand why anyone would want that. The idea of passion had a sort of mysterious appeal to them, in the far-away way that they were able to imagine it, but neither of them could see its value, especially the kind that involved two bodies doing strange things. It seemed that it would make everything so complicated, and the paper dolls had to wear clothes, that was just the way it was, and so they stuck with the first two, agape and philia, which pleased them very much.

--

They invented other games, Ellie and Kasey and sometimes Josh, too, like the game that they played in the tree house in Kasey’s backyard where a magical stick that was always chosen very carefully from the ones scattered throughout the garden would give whoever held it special powers, and only they could climb to the highest part of the tree house and stay there until the stick was stolen from them. Josh even dated Kasey, briefly, when they were in middle school, kissing her on the back porch behind her house and holding her hand at school. Ellie didn’t talk to Kasey about eros and philia then, but when they were alone it was still the same, with their games and stories, and Ellie didn’t want it to be any different. She would never mind sharing anything with Josh, not even her best friend. She never called Josh her best friend, even though she could have. She understood why he would want to kiss Kasey, though, and she even asked what it was like one time but he wouldn’t tell her, he only laughed like he couldn’t understand why she would want to know or like he wanted to keep it to himself, a secret. Kasey offered to tell what it was like to kiss Josh, but Ellie decided she didn’t really want to know about that, because he was still her brother and she still had to go home and share a room with him, after all, but she supposed she could understand why Kasey would want to kiss Josh, too.

--

She wanted nothing more than to be with Peter then, in the safe place of his arms where she didn’t have to think about anything, where she only had to listen to his heartbeat and know that she was where she was supposed to be. But Kasey was looking at her with a face like the face of a supportive friend, with a warmth in her eyes, and she touched Ellie’s knee and Ellie had wanted this, too, so she forgot about being bitter.

--

“Did you ever miss me?” she said as they both looked out at the street and contemplated something that was not actually there. Josh thought about it as cars passed by with their headlights a brief flash. “Did you ever think about me?” Josh never answered a question without deciding on a true answer first.
“No,” he said finally, knowing it was true, and he held the cigarette between his fingers and turned to look at her.

--

“I always knew you would fall in love someday,” Kasey said, as though it were a condition that Ellie was predisposed to. Ellie decided that she would not even respond to that, because she knew there could be nothing wrong with falling in love.