talk about why youâre mad at me?â
He half looks at me and rolls his eyes. âI donât have anything to say. Now move.â
I step aside, but I donât leave. I watch as he attempts his combination, screws it up, and tries again. He gets the numbers wrong a second time.
âItâs four, ten, seven.â I can remember his combination better than my own.
He sighs heavily. Drama queen, I want to say, but I canât. Iâm too afraid of pissing him off even more when Iâm not even sure whatâs wrong.
I swallow my pride. âIâm sorry.â
I need him, and he knows this. Iâm not even sure Iâll make it through the rest of the day without breaking down if he doesnât stop this and be nice to me again.
Still, he says nothing. He jerks his locker open so hard it almost hits me in the face, and I have to step back to avoid it. This shocks me even more than his silent treatment, because Sin is not violent. Heâs not the hit-me-in-the-face-with-a-locker-door type. Throwing my sandals at me the day of the funeral was the most aggressive thing Iâve ever seen him do.
Without saying a word, he grabs his books, slams his locker shut, and walks away.
I watch his thin shoulders, covered in a black cotton cardigan that Iâm pretty sure belongs to me, moving as he walks. He moves like a cat, stalking down the hall in a way thatâs half-natural and half-practiced.
Heâs wearing his dark brown hair free of product today, overgrown and shaggy. Not really a hairstyle at all. It suits him. With his hair unstyled, he looks a lot like Tristan, only smaller and more tense, less numb to the world.
What does he think of me? That Iâm fake? A user? That Iâll just take advantage of whoever is nearby to distract myself from real life?
Maybe heâs right.
I grapple with this as I head in the opposite direction. The bell rings, marking me late for art class. The teacher wonât care though. She rarely arrives on time, and weâre all supposed to retrieve the previous dayâs work and get started on it when we get to class.
I enter the large classroom, and someone throws a paper airplane that narrowly misses my cheek as I make my way around tables toward the drawing rack.
I thumb through until I see a paper covered in black pencil lines. The effect is a nearly solid black page, with only the slightest hints of white peeking through. Iâm not sure where Iâm going with this, but I have a feeling some heavy erasing is going to take place soon.
Iâd originally intended to call the piece Night Sky and leave it black, but Iâve tired of that idea. It seems cliché and lazy.
I turn to head toward my table, and it strikes me that I just canât do this. Iâm surrounded by kids I know. Happy, sullen, belligerent, dazedâthey are every kind of kid, and I donât want to see any of them. I donât know why Iâm here. I donât know why I thought I could do this.
So I put away my crappy work in progress, and I walk back out the door. I keep going and going until I am off campus, free again, with no idea where to go or what to do.
Back to my sleeping bag in the park? Back home to battle Lenaâs agenda?
I donât know, I donât know, I donât know.
I wear my trousers rolled.
And I suffer the same malaise of spirit that we read about earlier this year in T. S. Eliotâs âPrufrockâ poem. I may not have understood most of it, but this feeling, I got that much.
I am walking toward the park, hungry and wishing I had some money to get a burger, when a silver car pulls up beside me. I look over to see Ravi, my so-called father, with his window rolled down. I havenât seen him since the funeral, and that event is fuzzy in my memory, but Iâm pretty sure the barely-a-beard heâs sporting is a new look.
âShouldnât you be in school right now?â he says with a half
He half looks at me and rolls his eyes. âI donât have anything to say. Now move.â
I step aside, but I donât leave. I watch as he attempts his combination, screws it up, and tries again. He gets the numbers wrong a second time.
âItâs four, ten, seven.â I can remember his combination better than my own.
He sighs heavily. Drama queen, I want to say, but I canât. Iâm too afraid of pissing him off even more when Iâm not even sure whatâs wrong.
I swallow my pride. âIâm sorry.â
I need him, and he knows this. Iâm not even sure Iâll make it through the rest of the day without breaking down if he doesnât stop this and be nice to me again.
Still, he says nothing. He jerks his locker open so hard it almost hits me in the face, and I have to step back to avoid it. This shocks me even more than his silent treatment, because Sin is not violent. Heâs not the hit-me-in-the-face-with-a-locker-door type. Throwing my sandals at me the day of the funeral was the most aggressive thing Iâve ever seen him do.
Without saying a word, he grabs his books, slams his locker shut, and walks away.
I watch his thin shoulders, covered in a black cotton cardigan that Iâm pretty sure belongs to me, moving as he walks. He moves like a cat, stalking down the hall in a way thatâs half-natural and half-practiced.
Heâs wearing his dark brown hair free of product today, overgrown and shaggy. Not really a hairstyle at all. It suits him. With his hair unstyled, he looks a lot like Tristan, only smaller and more tense, less numb to the world.
What does he think of me? That Iâm fake? A user? That Iâll just take advantage of whoever is nearby to distract myself from real life?
Maybe heâs right.
I grapple with this as I head in the opposite direction. The bell rings, marking me late for art class. The teacher wonât care though. She rarely arrives on time, and weâre all supposed to retrieve the previous dayâs work and get started on it when we get to class.
I enter the large classroom, and someone throws a paper airplane that narrowly misses my cheek as I make my way around tables toward the drawing rack.
I thumb through until I see a paper covered in black pencil lines. The effect is a nearly solid black page, with only the slightest hints of white peeking through. Iâm not sure where Iâm going with this, but I have a feeling some heavy erasing is going to take place soon.
Iâd originally intended to call the piece Night Sky and leave it black, but Iâve tired of that idea. It seems cliché and lazy.
I turn to head toward my table, and it strikes me that I just canât do this. Iâm surrounded by kids I know. Happy, sullen, belligerent, dazedâthey are every kind of kid, and I donât want to see any of them. I donât know why Iâm here. I donât know why I thought I could do this.
So I put away my crappy work in progress, and I walk back out the door. I keep going and going until I am off campus, free again, with no idea where to go or what to do.
Back to my sleeping bag in the park? Back home to battle Lenaâs agenda?
I donât know, I donât know, I donât know.
I wear my trousers rolled.
And I suffer the same malaise of spirit that we read about earlier this year in T. S. Eliotâs âPrufrockâ poem. I may not have understood most of it, but this feeling, I got that much.
I am walking toward the park, hungry and wishing I had some money to get a burger, when a silver car pulls up beside me. I look over to see Ravi, my so-called father, with his window rolled down. I havenât seen him since the funeral, and that event is fuzzy in my memory, but Iâm pretty sure the barely-a-beard heâs sporting is a new look.
âShouldnât you be in school right now?â he says with a half
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