Lesson 2 – Multidimensional Characters

Kite hesitated for a moment in the middle of the front room. The pink rug was soft under his feet, moulding itself around his heels and toes, his bandaged soles protesting at the caress. He knew he shouldn’t be here. He should walk right out of the house and away down the street, back to his dingy apartment. Jess was in the kitchen. He heard her turning the kettle on and cluttering around looking for crockery. The sound was so mundane it almost made him laugh. What was he playing at? Happy homes? He would have sucked at that game even as an innocent child.

“Do you take cream or sugar?” Jess’s voice filtered through from the kitchen. He glanced up to see her looking over her shoulder at him. A lock of her lovely hair had fallen across her eye and she tossed her head to dislodge it, hands occupied by cutlery and saucers. Kite’s lips tightened. For God’s sake…

Was fate mocking him, teasing him with glimpses of a life he could never have? Kite knew he didn’t belong in this house, in this world. Jess’s world. He stood there in her perfect little front room, with souvenirs on the mantlepiece and a mahogany clock with roman numerals, and his knuckles were still bruised from the window he had punched out last week, the healing scars itching wildly still. He backpack was tossed across the sofa, spilling textbooks and stationary, sticky notes in the shape of love hearts and a lone lip gloss. And his? His was full of cash that wasn’t his and cold hard metal.

“Kite?” Jess raised her eyebrows expectantly at him.

“Umm, one sugar,” he said, muting his thoughts. “No cream.”