pearl-renaud-blog

[pearl-renaud-blog]

peter-kovalenko‌:

Did you play any sports at all as a kid? Peter’s mouth twitched at the corner. “Yeah, tons. That’s why I’m so athletic and coordinated.” By his side, Pearl’s movements were light, balletic, and her steady pace was his metronome- he tried to keep in time with her, moving with shorter strides that were smoother, more intuitive. He was beginning to get the hang of it, he thought. The trick was momentum. Not too much, nothing beyond your control- but there had to be something outside yourself propelling you forward, something to keep you in motion as you lengthened one leg and then the next and then the other again, the timing of the blades moving past each other in a way that was constant and equal. Momentum. If you did things immediately, the act didn’t have time to gather weight. Much in the same way, that night in Zurich on New Year’s Eve, when they’d walked up and down the winding cobbled streets where withered Christmas garlands were still hanging and come back to the hotel room, shivering, carrying the snow in on their coats and hair, slightly drunk off champagne and soon kissing in that way that was slow and deliberate, when he’d felt his heart beating like it was the only thing inside of him and he’d finally worked up the courage to reach for the buttons on her blouse, momentum hadn’t allowed him to overthink anything that followed. It had kept him in the present, kept him doing one thing until it lead to the next and the next. He hadn’t even noticed when the low-voltage hum of his anxiety, for once, fell quiet. 

“I think I was like, eight or nine. She thought it’d help me make friends, but I wasn’t about that slipping-and-sliding shit from the get-go.” Peter shrugged within the bulk of his jacket.  “I didn’t even last long enough to get a jersey.” A short silence settled, only the quiet scrape of their blades left to fill the gap. The passing mention of his mother had shifted a weight in his stomach and Peter felt uncomfortably aware of it now; he knew there was still a sinkhole in the middle of him that he could fall into and be swallowed by. He knew he had to be careful when around it’s slippery edges. Saying nothing else about his short-lived ice hockey career, he squinted over at Pearl, eyes scrunched against the bright glares of sunlight that reflected off the ice. The breeze kept lifting her fine hair, tugging it free from her scarf; Peter reached over to sweep some away from her face and allowed himself another half-smile. “So correct me if I’m wrong, but knowing how to skate- that’s a Canadian citizenship requirement, right? Did your parents get you a tiny pair of toddler skates as soon as you could walk?”

He would never admit this to her, and felt shitty for even allowing himself to feel it, but it’d been something of a relief to hear about her parents. One of the main reasons why he didn’t tell people was because there was no way to comprehend that kind of a loss secondhand. No one knew what to do with another person’s grief, so they handled it like it was something fragile and cumbersome that they’d rather not be holding- what you ended up with was too much sideways sympathy, too many well-intentioned condolences that ultimately meant nothing. 

The first time she’d asked what his parents were like, Peter had felt a certain resistance- not an urge to lie, exactly, but to side-step the truth like he had so many times before. They’d both been existing outside their own separate pasts at the time: still simple to each other, still filling the role of strangers over coffee. It was unsustainable, he knew. But he also thought there was a slim chance that he could convince her that he was worth the trouble, before she found out exactly what the trouble was. When he told her- about his mother’s cancer, his father’s absence, Detroit, then Edgeworth- he kept strictly to the facts, laying them down as casually as if they were playing cards. Pearl had slid her small hand across the table and placed it over his. I’m sorry. But her eyes had articulated something that was too knowing to be pity. Something gentle and grieving. He’d understood then, even before she’d told the story of the dark highway and the mangled car, that they were both members of the same club. The fee to join was to be hurt beyond belief. They’d both paid up front, in full, for a lifetime membership.

The sun was lowering by the time they completed an entire circle. Peter did a slow, careful pivot, as if to show her that he had, in fact, gotten more comfortable on the skates- then they stood face to face, still joined by one hand. The light was hazey now, late and golden, slanting into her eyes; his gaze was drawn there, then held. His own eyes were exact replicas of his father’s. Dark. Coffee-before-cream dark. In bad lighting, they could almost look black. But Pearl’s eyes were a color that belonged entirely to her: a soft, washed green that was almost translucent when the light hit it, like sea glass held up to the sun. They were eyes that spoke for her, voicing all her thoughts. Eyes that opened up her face- unlike his, which normally seemed to block all entry.


Peter squeezed her hand just as she had squeezed his before. “Thanks for this.” In a week, it’d be a year- he was thanking her for a lot more than a skating lesson.

As light as he tried to treat the topic, the silence that followed still brought rise to a painful remembering. A casual mention of mothers, and she can’t help but think of her own. Bernadette didn’t smile enough, and she cried with her back turned when she thought no one would notice. More than anything, she wished that their mothers could have met, or that she could have introduced Peter to her. That she could have taken him home to her, where she’d be waiting expectantly, in one of her best dresses. She would like him, Pearl knew. She could always tell when someone was special. She loved music too, she could already see her, sitting by her side, clutching her youngest daughter’s hand as they watched him play. Him, in a dark suit, with the stage lights deepening the shadows in his face. Her, housing a fierce pride at the enchantment her mother held watching him. She would think it a sort of magic, what he could do. Her smile fluttered, eyes creasing as she pushed the thought to a further, more comfortable place. She was her mother’s daughter. She’d turn her back before she let that sadness show.

“Of course. They’re the number one item on every couple’s baby registry.” She tipped her chin to look up at him properly, smile mirroring his but stretching ever so slightly wider, as if to urge his own along. “Here’s a fact not on any Wikipedia page. They stamp your passport with a little ice skate if you can prove you’re a true Canadian. You have to do a quick lap on a rink to get it. Don’t worry though. A few more practices and we’ll have you up to speed. We’re going to be the next Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, I have my country’s honour to uphold.”

The ice skates.

There was a box of the skates in the basement of the old house, varying in sizes. Her toddler skates had been Laila’s before her, and Adeline’s before that. The white leather of all the skates she’d ever pulled on had gone creamy before she claimed ownership of them, scratched and scuffed from all their years in service. She didn’t know what became of them after the house had been levelled and the ground built up again. They were building condos on the land, Adeline had explained over the phone. They’ll build new homes, she said in that careful doctors’ tone, people will be able to make happy memories there. It was a nice thought to entertain though, when the fortitude of her defences felt rocky, when she could feel the inward press of grief at the base of throat. She could think of the box as still there, tucked into that nook by the stairs. She could think of all the small things she had come to count on in that place, the sagging porch with smiling windows, the sills large enough for her to sit in. Her mother’s sable fur coat hanging in the closet, the one beautiful thing she owned. The silver teapot that belonged to her grandmother. She liked to think they would all be there waiting for her, collecting dust but safe, should she come back one day.

Pearl shook her head, bringing the hand she held in her own up to her cheek, holding it there a moment. Je t’aime, she mouthed, placing a peck on the back of his palm. There was nothing to thank her for. “Let’s head back,” she said, nodding towards the bench where the messy cluster of their boots and things sat. It was growing colder, she could feel it leeching through the leather of the skates and her wool socks. She wasn’t blind to Pete’s own attempts at concealing his shivering, the slight tremor that ran like he was part fault line. It would be dark now, and the dark came quickly this time of year, a thick curtain falling heavily upon the tops of the mountain and spreading fluidly. They’d have to make the walk back to the campus in the black. The sky had been cloudless in the day, but snow would fall in the night. Thick flakes, like the sky was shedding thick, white feathers. She didn’t mind it. There was a time where she would have begged someone to stand in the night with her just so she wouldn't have to do it alone. It’d be a year soon, and together, they weren’t alone.

[pearl-renaud-blog]

                                          THE RENAUD FAMILY

                           LA POMME NE TOMBE JAMAIS LOIN DE L'ARBRE

RELATIONSHIP TO CHARACTER: Father

FULL NAME: Patrice Renaud

DEATH DATE: July 17th, 2016

AGE: 48

GENDER: Male

SPOUSE: Bernadette Renaud

CHILDREN: Adeline Renaud, Laila Renaud and Pearl Renaud

HOME TOWN: Gatineau, Quebec

FACE CLAIM: Simon Baker

OCCUPATION: Owner of trucking company

RELATIONSHIP TO CHARACTER: Mother

FULL NAME: Bernadette Renaud, née Tremblay

DEATH DATE: July 17th, 2016

AGE: 45

GENDER: Female

SPOUSE: Patrice Renaud

CHILDREN: Adeline Renaud, Laila Renaud and Pearl Renaud

HOME TOWN: Cantley, Quebec

FACE CLAIM: Naomi Watts

OCCUPATION: Homemaker

RELATIONSHIP TO CHARACTER: Sister

FULL NAME: Adeline Renaud

AGE: 29

GENDER: Female

SPOUSE: N/A

CHILDREN: N/A

HOME TOWN: Gatineau, Quebec

CURRENT RESIDENCE: Vancouver, British Columbia

FACE CLAIM: Adrianne Palicki

OCCUPATION: Resident Physician

RELATIONSHIP TO CHARACTER: Sister

FULL NAME: Laila Renaud

AGE: 27

GENDER: Female

SPOUSE: N/A

CHILDREN: N/A

HOME TOWN: Gatineau, Quebec

CURRENT RESIDENCE: Somewhere north of Ottawa

FACE CLAIM: Penelope Mitchell

OCCUPATION: Waitress

[pearl-renaud-blog]

Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

[pearl-renaud-blog]

basdecsey‌:

PEARL.

“A square?”

He was following her until then, nodding kindly as he tried to decide what merited a response. Pearl was clearly very lost and somewhat confused, even if she knew exactly where she was and what she was meant to be doing. For once, he could sympathize with that. The idiom threw him off, but he wasn’t in the mood for learning new phrases.

“I don’t know that having fun is the right wording.” Bastian sighed, shoulders dropping. 

“I have every reason to be, but you’re right; there is something wrong.” How to account for how dramatically his spirits had fallen since arriving earlier in the evening? He had been prepared — even sworn — to have fun tonight. The whole evening was a necessary act of defiance, and that required being present in every measure. It was to be a bit of bloodletting to further the healing. Instead, ‘ bad medicine ’ came to mind. And, Pearl was so much healthier. He could look at her and conclude that she lacked that certain kind of affliction.

Fortunately ( shockingly ), it wasn’t contagious.

“You should find a friend — someone you can have fun with.” He was looking past her, trying to see everything yet perceiving nothing. “It’s a wasted night otherwise.”

Pearl winced at the repeated words, they sounded worse echoed back to her. She opened her mouth to begin to explain the phrase, but he spoke again and she was spared. It was bothering him too. She thought sometimes, and maybe foolishly, that nothing touched him. Maybe it was the way he held himself, or the way he seemed to belong so effortlessly in the old halls of Augustine. It was easy to forget, that the mundane had a way of working into everyone’s life, even those that seemed untouchable.

Pearl smiled. It was just short of sunny and slightly crooked, but it was warm nonetheless. “You should as well,” she nudged, earnestly, “Come on Bas, are we not friends?” She feared a swift answer, a no followed by a laugh. Still, she offered out her hand in the place of the bottle she’d been carrying, now long forgotten. It was pale under the thin light and small without a mitten to cover it. The night was a beautiful one, for a place like this. It offered the gift of a clear sky, and a cold that was crisp but not sharp. It could be salvaged still.

“It shouldn’t be wasted.”

[pearl-renaud-blog]

tonisullivcn‌:

WITH: @pearl-renaud

WHERE: The Grounds/Forest

WHEN: The Bonfire Party

Toni was in another conversation they didn’t much care for. It wasn’t that they disliked company, because they did—they could spin a yarn about their all-too charming life and never get tired of it—but it was the timing that exhausted them. If, indeed, the St. Augustine tradition would carry on as they think it would, then they’d rather they be safe and sound and tucked in under their bed in their dorm, nary another thought given to the bonfire celebration. As such, they were restless, almost skittish and nervous, which didn’t escape the watchful eye of some of their friends. A drink was handed over to them, along with an invitation to loosen up, won’t you? Toni just nodded along and took the glass, but they didn’t drink from it. Instead, their eyes scanned the crowd, until they finally found a familiar face and quickly excused themself, citing a need to catch up with yet another friend of theirs.

“Pearl, darling,” they called out, almost desperate. The fellow sophomore was certainly a sight for sore eyes, and Toni was just about to lose their mind trying to keep up a façade of mindless upper-class ennui for the entertainment of others. At least, with Pearl, they didn’t have to pretend they were rich on top of pretending they were fine during the anniversary of Frederick’s death; with the girl, they only had to perform the latter, and that was mercy enough. “I haven’t seen you in such a long while. Your vacation has been good, I hope?” The question was meant in earnest. They’d rather hear her stories than have to spin one up of their own. “Do you mind taking this glass off of me?” they added. “I think I’ve had too much to drink but my friend wasn’t taking no for an answer.” They let out an easy chuckle before offering the glass to Pearl. “I think it’s a Long Island, but quite honestly I tuned most of what he was saying out so your guess is as good as mine.”

Pearl perked up at the sound of her name, her head lifting to find Toni’s face. She waved before she crossed the distance between them, eager to join them. They were speaking to someone, a pair of high cut cheekbones and a haughty expression, too important to know her. Toni’s company parted without excuse, chin lifted as they sought a more adoring audience. “That wasn’t on my account was it?” Pearl asked, watching a moment as they sauntered off, inquiring more out of convention than politeness. In truth, she was glad for the distraction. The party whirred quickly around her, kisses pressed to either side of her face with greetings from acquaintances and friends, Peter’s absence, the message sprayed onto the trunks of the trees…

She could dial back, relax the smile frozen on her face to something more genuine. “It’s good to see you,” she replied easily, “It was a good vacation. I have no complaints beyond it’s length. Still, it’s good to get away from here, even if it’s just for a little while.” Taking the glass, she peered into it, the light too fractured for her to get a good glimpse of it. “Are you trying to get me drunk?” She teased, taking a cautious sip. Pearl nearly coughed as she swallowed. “You heard right, I think it’s technically a Long Island, but they weren’t shy about the alcohol.” When it came to a party, Augustine students didn’t do much halfway, and that included the drinks. “Cheers,” she said, lifting the glass.

[pearl-renaud-blog]

( ✉ → sms ) cna you pick me up… and brign some shoess… i cant find mine

[PEARL]: oh Jack

[PEARL]: are you at the bar? I’ll have to find some shoes that’ll fit you, please sit on your hands until I get there 

[PEARL]: play nice!!

[pearl-renaud-blog]

( ✉ → sms ) cna you pick me up… and brign some shoess… i cant find mine

[PEARL]: where are you? are you okay? are you somewhere safe?

[PEARL]:  I can leave right now, what size are your feet?

[pearl-renaud-blog]

( ✉ → sms ) found your number written on a wall… should i erase it?

[PEARL]: What wall?? What did it say? 

[PEARL]: actually, i’d probably rather not know. Please erase it...

[pearl-renaud-blog]

( ✉ → sms ) pretty sure you dialed the wrong number, but thanks for the 13 drunk voicemails last night. btw who is pete?

[PEARL]: oh no did i really?? clumsy fingers I guess :// I’m so sorry Sylv, please delete them 

[PEARL]: I hope i didn’t say anything too embarrassing :((

[pearl-renaud-blog]

TEXT MESSAGE STARTERS, PART TWO ! 

Send one of the prompts below to get a response from my muse.

wrong/random number texts: 

( ✉ → sms ) found your number written on a wall… should i erase it?

( ✉ → sms ) [random name here]? is this still your number?

( ✉ → sms ) pretty sure you dialed the wrong number, but thanks for the 13 drunk voicemails last night.

( ✉ → sms ) you don’t know me but i’m bored and texting random numbers, so hi!

( ✉ → sms ) you FUCKING asshole, i hope you know how much i hate you!!!

sad texts:

( ✉ → sms ) can you please distract me so i don’t cry in public?

( ✉ → sms ) everything hurts lately

( ✉ → sms ) thanks for trying to cheer me up, but it’s not working.

( ✉ → sms ) what makes you feel better when you’re sad?

( ✉ → sms ) i just need to vent…

drunk texts:

( ✉ → sms ) im not DRUNK waht amkes you thijnk that

( ✉ → sms ) cna you pick me up… and brign some shoess… i cant find mine

( ✉ → sms ) the party was horrible but at least ikm drunk lol

( ✉ → sms ) whyj don’t oyu fuckign miss me????

( ✉ → sms ) all i wnat to do right now is talkk to you

angsty texts:

( ✉ → sms ) please talk to me. please help me make this work.

( ✉ → sms ) i don’t think we should see each other again.

( ✉ → sms ) when will we admit we’re no good for each other…

( ✉ → sms ) just know i cared about you. i really did.

( ✉ → sms ) i don’t think things can ever go back to the way they were between us

misc texts:

( ✉ → sms ) why do you reply so slowwwwwww

( ✉ → sms ) help me choose a pizza topping please

( ✉ → sms ) don’t listen to any of the voicemails i sent last night. i was drunk.

( ✉ → sms ) you haven’t watched my snapchat story all day. what are you up to?????

( ✉ → sms ) i’ve had the same dream about you three times in a row, is that weird?

( ✉ → sms ) why is april fool’s the only day of the year where people critically evaluate news articles before accepting them as true?

( ✉ → sms ) soooo, in your opinion, what are some of my best qualities? i need help writing my tinder bio.

[pearl-renaud-blog]

[pearl-renaud-blog]

gia-fox‌:

EVENT: bonfire @pearl-renaud

She looked different lit by a roaring fire and not the dim cellar, which was to be expected, but struck Gia dumb anyway. All the shadows were longer: the trees, the darkest planes of Pearl’s face, someone’s arm reaching out for a glass — the other girl looked so tall, legs cast stretched across the snow like that. Gia looked taller, stood across from her, too tall, but her shadow was abbreviated, a consequence of her position relative to the bonfire (there was still nothing bon about it — out in the wild the chance of them happening upon a stray bottle of Château Lafite again dwindled down to nothing). Pearl’s sweetness had lingered even after she had disappeared into the crowd at the bacchanal, like syrupy melted sugar at the bottom of a teacup. Her sincerity felt treacherous. Gia was starting to feel undoubtedly treacherous herself.

“You don’t —” A sudden cheer behind them forced Gia to lean in closer to the girl so she could be heard, almost cheek-to-cheek, and she felt bad to be yelling across such a short distance but it couldn’t be helped. “It looks like you don’t need any help getting the bartender’s attention now.” The sentence did not strike the way she intended it to, as saccharine as Pearl’s closing words to her at the bacchanal. Instead, it was an unbalanced hit-on, and Gia retreated quickly. “Though I suppose that’s helped by the lack of their kind here.” 

Pearl leaned forward easily. She still suffered from the youngest child syndrome, there was still that desperate desire to be included in something. That included the words brushed against her ear, the cheek nearly touching her own. Someone else might have shrank away at the breach of space, but Pearl was warm and her eyes were wide and glassy, her laugh came easily. She didn’t know yet what to make of Gia Fox. The scar along the side of her face was like a vein in marble, but she had yet to determine whether it was a vein or a lightening patterned crack across the surface of delicate china. This close to her, she smelled of wood smoke and cigarettes and expensive perfume.

“But I’m still relying on the kindness of friends,” she replied, gesturing at the bottle tucked away by her feet. It was a gift pressed into her hand as a greeting, the intention clear. If it’s a party, why aren’t you having any fun? Out of sight it felt less incriminating, and she could feel less guilty about it, pretending as if her mouth wasn’t already wine stained and her words weren’t running into each other, clumsily playing a game of bumper cars as they left her lips. “It’s not as fancy as the bottle at the bacchanal, but it’s very good. We can share again, if you’d like?” It was a genuine offer, and she looked up at the dark haired girl expectantly, almost childlike in her desire for company and her willful need to include all the wayward stragglers. She patted the space beside her, shuffling over to make more room— eliminating the opportunity for a polite refusal in one fell swoop.

[pearl-renaud-blog]

[pearl-renaud-blog]

peter-kovalenko‌:

The kiss distracted him for a moment, which was probably her intention. In the slim catalogue of kisses he’d experienced (nearly all of them with her, and certainly all the ones that mattered) this one was light, chaste, just a brush of the lips meant to say hello or good-bye on another day. But it brought her close enough that for a second, he forgot that the ground was a Slip’n’Slide beneath his feet, betraying him, and Peter relaxed without really trying to. This calm only lasted for a moment. There was no miraculous transformation once she separated their hands, skating back a short distance to give him some room- left alone, Peter teetered once again on stiff legs, arms hovering uncertainly at his sides. None of his limbs seemed really sure of what they should be doing. Can you take little steps? Your balance is… not good. He gave her a look that lifted both eyebrows- no shit. Pearl’s face was caught in a smile that she couldn’t quite fight off, but it didn’t make him feel laughed at. It was a glimpse of her unbridled sweetness; he could tell that she was enjoying this, but not at his expense. She was simply happy to have gotten him this far. Maybe we should have also rented the helmet. At this, he snorted in a way that was almost a laugh. “No, I’ll just take my concussion and keep whatever’s left of my pride.”

Now that he was standing independently on the ice, there was nothing to do but to follow her instructions- little steps. The body, relying only on what it knew even though everything it knew was currently useless, pitched forward and back to counterbalance every time he shifted weight. He steadied himself. Began sliding one leg forward first and then the other, in jerky movements that made him look like a poorly-designed robot. Little steps. “Okay,” he said out loud after the first few, as if saying that word was enough to make it so. 

His shuffling progress developed a pattern: first a few little steps, the I-think-I-got-it-now confidence beginning to show once his stride took on some rhythm, and then, the one step that separated his legs a little too much, too fast, his jaw reflexively tightening, his body reeling back, the stutter of skates clacking against the ice as he fought to stay upright. Touch and go. Stop and start. Somehow, he closed the gap between them and realized that she must’ve been slyly sliding backwards the whole time, because they’d made it nearly to the center. Peter took the hand she was offering- no longer clinging to it like a lifeline, but still reassured by the gentle, mittened squeeze he got in return- and stood, breathing quietly, looking around at their surroundings from this new vantage point. They were in the middle of it all; the bristling ranks of the pines, the blue Alps rising in the distance, all of it washed with a weak winter sunshine. The light was somehow more tender and transparent than it had been before, and he felt himself breathing freely for the first time since his feet had touched the ice. Maybe for the first time all day.

Warily, almost grudgingly, something that had been tightly compressed unfurled in him. He allowed himself to acknowledge that this wasn’t so bad. It was kind of nice if you knew how to open yourself up to it. He wasn’t having this revelation because there was some special magic here, and definitely not because he actually liked skating. It was entirely her doing: Pearl’s ability to make things feel different when he was with her, to make him feel completely present rather than partially somewhere else. To make him realize that he could be happy- the possibility surprised him each time. He looked down at her, impossibly pretty even with her flushed cheeks and her nose as pink as an unripe cherry, and briefly, felt so uncomplicated that the entirety of his past might’ve been nothing but a bad dream that he’d woken up from that morning, but hadn’t been able to shake off till now.

“Fun fact. My mom signed me up for ice hockey once.” The mention of her just slipped out. He felt the need to brush right past it, to not make anything significant out of something that had been completely offhand up until the very moment it was said. “And this is still by far the longest I’ve lasted out on ice.”

She skated backwards slowly, slowly widening the space between them and the treeline. It would be two years soon, two years since she first arrived in Switzerland to this place, and with all that time she was still in awe of it’s natural beauty. The mountain climbed craggily upwards, the evergreens were so dark green they looked nearly black against the blinding white of fresh snow. The air was so clean, and it could be so quiet this far from the shadow of the school— even now, as she watched Pete inch carefully forward, she could believe for a moment that they were the only ones left in the world. She watched his face contort in concentration, biting back a smile.

Are you in love? Momo had asked it once, wine drunk and giggling, sitting cross-legged on the floor while she braided her hair. She thought of it a moment, thin fingers deftly weaving the glossy black strands. Pearl wanted to be loved, to be cared about. She needed it like sunshine, and she smiled at her friend’s question, not answering. How sentimental she could be, someone might think, such a charming quality. It’s only until they realize that she had to be to survive. Clinging to these small tender moments, she keeps herself afloat. Peter didn’t have to say it. It was enough that she could feel needed, and it was good to feel that way. Like she was important to someone, like she mattered.

He didn’t mention his mother much, and never before so easily.

Over the years, Pearl had found it simpler to pretend for others like her own parents were not dead. When people asked about them she replied in the present tense. She didn’t correct anyone when they asked. She made believe like they far away, but not gone. Death made people feel awkward. They fumbled for the right words to say with the same moon-faced apologetic expression. She wouldn’t erase them. It wasn’t moving on either, but at least, she tried. This was her burden to bury, to keep safely tucked away. Out of sight. It was hers to keep manageable. Shiny, contracture scars that required tending from time to time.

Pete was different. He didn’t board grief away, he sat with it. He carried it with him, and it was corrosive. It rusted like old sheet metal left in the rain. Anyone who looked at him could see the damage it inflicted, the dark shadows and the dark eyes and that heavy hopelessness that he pushed uphill, like Sisyphus. She knew his family history in broad strokes, a timeline delivered in monotone. She’d done her best to spare him a pitying look when he’d finished telling it, she knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of one. It was a raw seam, his past, and she didn’t press on it. No, it still needed time to heal.

She looked up, hiding her surprise to listen intently, giving him her usual dose of wide-eyed attention. “How old were you?” She was trying to picture him on ice skates, years younger and padded shapeless and miserable in hockey gear—still recognizable by that same characteristic frown. It pulled a smile to her lips. “Did you play any sports at all as a kid? How did they squeeze ‘Kovalenko' onto the back of a jersey?” Pearl turned from in front of him to his side, slowing to be able to skate hand in hand at his pace. 

[pearl-renaud-blog]

Haruki Murakami, Kafka on Shore

[pearl-renaud-blog]

rae morris - grow - feat tom odell

[pearl-renaud-blog]

jacklevesque‌:

If Pearl took any longer with the lighter he was about to pluck it from her hands and light the damned thing himself. It was almost painful to watch, but he let her do it as he blew out a couple of o’s himself from his kicked-back position and tried not to look too smug about it. “A crypt for the cryptic, yes?” Jack said, his lilt making the words sound funnier than they should have been.  He wasn’t sure if they really went together, but he found it to be quite the joke.  “Too fucking short,” he replied, jerking his chin to nod along to her words. “Just the one? No surprised visits from the other?” He had heard of her mysterious second sister only once or twice and it always made him ask questions, it was a part of Pearl that she didn’t really like to open up about. It was incredibly hard not to be curious. There was a blimp in Pearl’s perfect narrative, something that at one point he didn’t think was possible.  “I went to New York and met up with my sister and our friends,” he started, flicking ash bellow the seats. “I can barely remember most, but I still think it’s better than the shitty cruise the other upperclassmen were trying to get me to go on.” They went to flashy New York parties, full of glamor he was sadly accustomed to, given the fact that he had grown up quite lavishly. “I attempted to help my sister with her terrible love life a little, but I can’t exactly corner the girl she’s in love with and tell her to stop breaking her heart. My intimidation tactics are very circumstantial, you see.” 

Pearl tried not to look impressed at the smoke rings he executed effortlessly, but it was a losing game. She smoked without skill, holding the smoke in her mouth and then puffing it back out again when it felt like the right time. They’re not even smoking, Laila had said once, scoffing at the screen, passing by a younger Pearl in pyjamas watching an old movie in their childhood living room. Everything’s fake in those movies. She’d been just as easily impressed then, tucking away that bit of knowledge and even now she felt like someone elegant, like Katherine Hepburn or Ingrid Bergman. She raised an eyebrow at the joke, begging herself not to laugh but falling short.

The question about her sister quieted her laugh. Pearl wished she could hide how the question felt like a knife point to some tender part of her, but she wouldn’t lie. “No. No surprise visits.” Adeline had given up long ago, but in the long hours to kill in the glass cage of her eldest sister’s apartment, she found herself dialling Laila’s phone number. All those years and she never changed it. It gave Pearl hope that maybe she did want to be found, like this was the first bread crumb to a united Renaud front once more. “She was on the other coast, she sent her love though.” That was an embellishment, but Jack didn’t need to know that. The phone call had been short, the click of the receiver chasing Laila’s final words; Bye now, Pearly girl.

She relaxed into the seat as she listened, copying his move and tapping ash under the seat. She wasn’t sure if that would result in a terrible fire, but he seemed to do it without thought. “You don’t go to your family home for the holidays?” The picture he painted seemed to be inline with what she imagined, a party in one of the world’s most glamorous cities, but she felt inclined to ask. She couldn’t recall a time he’d spoken about his family beyond his twin sister, and this was likely the best chance she’d get. “Did you give her love advice Jack?” The idea delighted her. “Poor thing. Is it unrequited love, or?”