Transformers ( Bayverse ) - I Bleed When I Fall Down

10 - Stuck

    ~~~

    Fay frowned, kicking a rock out of her way as she walked down the dusty trail. The recent drought was killing plants and leaving soil dry as an old bone.

    She sighed, the sun as cruel as it had been seven years ago. She was fourteen and half her life had passed since then. She hated it so much that so much time had passed and yet so little had really happened. It felt like time had just been dragging it’s feet.  Every summer, fall, spring, winter blurred together in a giant hodgepodge of gray. It was all so miserable.

    Seven years. And what had she done? She’d mourned and grieved and just . . . she let herself get stuck in it. Her teachers, her mother, her friends were all worried. Every year it only seemed to get worse. “I don’t care,” she mumbled to herself, stuffing her hands in her pockets. For a while now she’d been obsessed with wearing black. Black shirts, especially. Anything dark she could get her hands on.

    It made her mother worry all the more about her. But it didn’t matter to her. It felt right to wear the dark colors. I just . . . projected how she felt . . . It was her way of wearing her heart on her sleeve. Of course, no one else saw it that way. They just automatically classified her as ‘emo’ or ‘goth’ and dismissed her.

    She groaned, hating everyone for being so judgemental, for giving up so easily. She kicked another rock, sitting down in the grass. The yellow, dead grass. A few scattered patches were still green, but not much.

    This summer was particularly brutal on her mood. ‘Of course it is,’ she thought angrily, eyes burning. This year couldn’t be normal. And it absolutely couldn’t rain on this day. It hadn’t rained on this day for seven years . . .

    The sun was brutal and warm, but at the worst the temperatures were in the 80’s. The day was cool enough by summer standards and the temperature being lower than expected was the only blessing Fay received.

    She sighed, cradling her head in her hands. Her hair was oily and clinging together in clumps. She hadn’t had the energy to shower the last couple days, and her hair was paying the price. “At least it doesn’t look too bad when it’s black,” she told herself, trying to focus on something else today. But all she saw when she closed her eyes was shattered, jagged metal and broken bodies. She resisted the urge to call out to them.

    That didn’t keep a few tears from slipping down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I love  you so much . . .” She looked up at the pale blue of the sky, the brightness of the sun. “And you shone when they were taken from me . . . You didn’t cry and share my sorrow . . . You just shone and smiled like it was such a good thing . . . I hate you for that.”

    She turned away from it, looking down, clenching her eyes shut and grinding her teeth together, wishing the sun would just go away and never come back.  The glint the sun cast on the object hit her eyelids and she pulled back before opening them, catching sight of the piece of metal. It was an odd thing, the shape asymmetrical. Otherwise, it resembled a narrow diamond, the kind of shape you learn in elementary, not the shape of a gem you’d put in an engagement ring.

    She picked it up tentatively. The metal was gray and dull, a few scratches digging into the surface. It looked weathered and old. Fay turned it over several times. The ends were sharp, sharp enough . . .

    She slipped one end over the top of her skin slowly, brushing it lightly. If she applied just a little more pressure . . . She could slice open her skin. If she so desired. Fay took a deep breath, pressing the metal hard enough against her wrist that it hurt, but not so much that it cut. And even though she wanted to . . . She couldn’t bring herself to slide it across.