Romance Dialogue with Kara: Bianca and Elijah

Setting: New York City.  Subway late at night. Train, waiting for their stops.

Eli is was watching the emergency lights of the subway flash by when the train rolled to the stop at Astor Place station. A young woman with a booming voice entered the nearly empty car.

Eli can’t help but over hear her conversation. She is gossiping about a friend.

            After a minute or so the young woman hangs up the phone and notices Eli staring at her. He’s not used to city life and finds her sort of interesting.

            “Can I help you?” She raises an eyebrow at him.

            Eli takes out the earphone from his left ear. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. I’m not used to hearing people have such honest conversations in public.”

            “If you don’t want to hear it then you don’t have to listen.”

            “No, no. That’s not what I meant. Or rather, I wasn’t eavesdropping. Sorry.” Eli was gets up from his seat and walks over to her seat. He extends his hand for her to shake. “I’m Elijah Newman.”

            The girl looks at his outstretched hand in a mixture of confusion and annoyance. “Um, hi.”

            “I didn’t mean to offend.” Eli retracts his hand but still studies the profile of her face. “What’s your name?” His abruptness surprises even himself.

            “Bianca,” She says hesitantly.

            “Bianca…?”

            “Why the hell do you care?”

            “Sorry. I’m not from New York. Where I come from everyone knows each other’s last name. I don’t know how this city works yet.”

            “You’ll learn quickly.”

            He put his hands in his pockets and he looked out the window at the darkness of the tunnel. “People here are so honest. There’s no polite bullshit.”

            Bianca shrugged slightly. “No ones got time for that in New York.”

            “I think that’s why I like it here.” His gaze fell on her again. “Why I like the people here so much.”

            The subway rolled to a stop and Bianca stands up. “Well, this is mine.”

            “Oh, alright.” Eli steps out of the way. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

            She snorts. “I doubt that. This is New York.”

            Bianca gets up to leave the train and her wallet is left on the seat behind her.

            Noticing this Eli quickly gets to his feet grabs the wallet and runs after her.

Bianca is already climbing the stairs and has her headphones in.

            “Wait!” He calls out to her but she doesn’t hear it over the loud music.

            He touches her shoulder to get her attention.

            Startled Bianca turns around and instinctively takes a swing at his nose.

            She realizes its him and shouts “What the hell? You can’t just sneak up on people like that.”

            He holds out the wallet as a peace offering.

            Bianca looks from the wallet to his bleeding nose and back again. “Wow, you really don’t know how this city works.”

            Bianca notices the blood streaming down his nose. “Ah, shit, sorry. You really shouldn’t scare a girl like that.” She digs through her purse and hands him some tissue.

            “Its fine. No really, it was crooked before anyways.”

            She laughs for the first time. “You’re kind of funny.” Bianca grabs hold of his arm. “If your nose isn’t too badly broken, call me.” She scribbled her number on his forearm in sharpie. “I can show you around.”

            He watched as she walked away. Eli had a broken nose, a blood stained shirt and an arm covered in ink that probably wouldn’t wash off for weeks. He was completly mesmerized.