Don't Look Behind You ⇒ Lucaya [DISCONTINUED]

girl meets fire

{m a y a}

It was a ruse. I didn't really need to use the bathroom. But I couldn't just think about things like this in front of my friend, could I? If anybody saw me in a vulnerable state, it would be the end. For them, I mean; I'd punch their teeth in if they told anybody. The system worked well, and I didn't really want my best friend to have chipped teeth.

Riley hadn't seen me at my worst. I'd always hidden that side of me, in fear that she would underestimate me and label me as 'weak'. I wasn't weak...at least, I wasn't most of the time. It was only when the inevitable thoughts of my past came up, when I really was weak. The weight of the world was placed upon my shoulders in the form of the atmosphere. My old physics teacher had given us a few lectures on the atmosphere, and I wasn't too keen in remembering all of the information, but one fact in particular stuck out to me.

The atmosphere reaches out to a distance of three hundred miles. Everyone has three hundred miles of air above them, weighing them down. Add some of life's problems to this and some additional stress, divide by the amount of people on the Earth, and you get the mean amount of pressure you face in a lifetime. Apologies for talking Science, but if everyone else could live on with their day without any breakdowns, why couldn't I? It had been two months, and I still wasn't okay. I had a loving guardian who was most probably boarding his flight and thinking of me simultaneously, and I still wasn't okay.

I wasn't sure how it was for most people. How were you meant to feel after the death of the most important person in your life? Was I acting weakly compared to others who shared my experiences? If it was deemed as 'normal' to be this crushed, how did anybody bear the pain?

At this point I was clasping the slightly wet bathroom sink with clammy, sweaty hands, and trying to picture what I would do when I returned home. Usually, my mom would be out working at some wealthy person's house as a maid, and come back around four, before leaving at eight to tend to the diner business. That was then, though. This is now.

I imagined arriving home, with nothing to look forward to; not my mother's hugs or Shawn's smile. Reality was so dull and empty that it could potentially destroy you. I was realising it now, for the first time. Dead. She was never coming back. Could I have prevented it? Saved her? Maybe I could have tried.

A cacophonous blaring interrupted my thought process (thankfully. I wasn't sure where they were going to take me.) It was a sound I hadnt heard since the sixth grade: a fire alarm.
On the first day of school? I understood drills were important (though they totally skipped them in seventh and eighth grade for a reason unbeknown), but the first day was meant to be relaxing. I sighed, and washed my sweaty hands before starting to head out.

Except, I couldn't. The door had seemingly been locked and from the outside too. Nothing would do the trick. I twisted the knob around a million times, only to achieve sweaty hands once again.
I was attacked with a chilling thought: what if it wasn't a drill? I'd never considered that possibility before. Was there an actual fire? What would happen if I didn't make it out?

No, I told myself. There was no use getting myself even more worked up. That would result in even more panicking. I would just take a deep breath in and--
Smoke. It wafted through the miniscule spaces between the wall and the door hinge, engulfing the entire room, wrapping its hands around my neck and choking me.

I looked at the door once more in anguish, hoping this was all just a prank, or better, a dream. But it couldn't be; the smoke was too much to be anything but real. A small note that I hadn't noticed before caught my eye, lying on the floor, having been pushed through the gap.

Instead of fending for my life, I unfolded the piece of paper, all while coughing out smoke.

'How hot can it get before you evaporate? -xo'