Eli's gauze-covered fists slapped on the taut black punching bag. Chalk dust had turned the air into a haze, like someone had turned on a fog machine. She sneezed.
There was something about the boxing gym that managed to calm Rose down. Maybe it was because there was rhythm everywhere. Patterns. Familiarity. A deafened tune that few could pick up.
Eli could hear it too, all too clearly. His eyes saw the punching bag, but in his mind he pictured himself smashing Jockstrap over the head with his cello repeatedly to the beat of Saint-Saëns' Le Cygne. Very therapeutic.
"Hey, Rosie." She looked up from her novel. A sheen of sweat covered Eli's arms and torso, and the scabs on his knuckles had broken underneath the gauze. Blood soaked through the wrapping and rolled down his fingers, dripping off of his fingertips to make constellation-like patterns on the gym floor. She cocked her head slightly. "Come here for a second."
She dogeared her page and set her book down next to her bag before ungracefully climbing to her feet. She warily approached the punching bag at Eli's side. She could smell copper and iron, bloodred and permeating.
"I'm going to teach you some things, and I want you to pay attention," he said. She shook her head rapidly. She didn't want to be any more dangerous than she already was. He sighed. "Listen, Rose. I'm not going to be around in Ireland. You don't know how to defend yourself. You sure as hell have the potential to, but you need to build up strength--"
She punched him in the stomach. Hard.
He bent over with a strained oomph and clutched at his abdomen. "Okay, okay, the strength is there too. Technique. I meant to say technique, you barbaric woman," he gasped out. She blinked when he looked up at her. "You're evil, seriously."
She shrugged nonchalantly. I know.
"Anyways," he started as he straitened up, "I'm going to start you with some simple stuff, just basic defensive attacks. Stand here, like this." She mimicked his stance, her feet hip-width apart and slightly staggered. "You want to evenly distribute your weight on both feet, but don't stand flat-footed or you'll be too stiff." She nodded.
"Now, you want to keep your abs tense. It's almost like a wall. It'll prevent major pain if you get punched in the stomach. Also, if you get hit, absorb the blows. Don't step into them." She raised an eyebrow and smirked. He faltered. "What?"
She picked her phone up off the ground.
Why are you assuming I'm going to get attacked or hurt?
"I--I'm not. What? No. What?"
It's Ireland. They're supposed to be pretty chill in Ireland.
"Whatever. You never know."
Why now?
"Because."
Eli...
"Because you won't talk."
Her eyes widened and she paused. He ran a hand through his hair. "You won't talk, and that scares the living shít out of me, Rose. Your voice is your primary defense, and you won't use it. So if I can't make you talk, the least I can do is teach you something to protect yourself with."
Suddenly her father was in front of her like a dream. Your voice can always be your weapon. Got that, Rosie? She shook her head rapidly to dispel the image. She looked back up and Eli was there again, staring at her with eyes of chaos. "Rose..."
She turned from him and lashed at the punching bag, her lower shin coming in contact with a satisfying slap. Her fists whipped out, pummeling into the thick leather. She let out a frustrated scream as she battered her limbs until fresh wounds opened on her knuckles. They looked like Eli's. All this time he stared in shock.
Finally she slumped against the bag, panting. Then she carefully hauled herself up and collected her things before walking to the exit. She heard whispers.
"What the hell is wrong with her?"
"Do you think she had some weird breakdown?"
"She looks fine to me."
"Fúcking crazy."
She didn't care. She just couldn't bring herself to care about what strangers thought about her anymore.
I am fúcking crazy.
She smiled at this new realization and stopped walking. She slowly turned around and walked back up to the gym door. The door opened and there stood Eli. He rushed forward when he saw her standing there on the grubby pavement, but faltered and stared warily when he saw her smile. Her mood changes were growing more and more unnerving as the days counted down.
She handed him her phone. I don't need another weapon. I'm dangerous enough already.
His expression was miserable; his voice desperate. "What happened to you? Why won't you tell me?"
She shook her head solemnly. Because I'm a selfish person.
"How?"
I should tell you. If I told you, you would be more careful around me. You might not get hurt. But I'm leaving, and I'm going very far away, so I guess I won't have to worry about that. That's what makes me selfish. I couldn't stand to lose you, because then I would have no one left. But if you're dead, I would have no one left anyways.
She seemed to come to a realisation.
That's why it's so good that I'm leaving.
She smiled, wide, and almost to herself.
I can't kill you if I'm not here.
She laughed, a relieved little laugh that sounded more like a hoarse cough from misuse of the voice. Eli looked very worried. She spun around in a little circle, her arms thrown in the air to the mercy of the wind.
I literally have no more shíts to give. I'm leaving. That's that. Let the monsters bite at my throat, but let them do it across an ocean.
"What the hell is wrong with you!" Eli exclaimed. "Look at yourself, Rose! You're all over the place." He gripped her shoulders tightly to keep her from spinning some more. "I don't care anymore. Don't tell me what happened, or what you think you did. Just please, don't say things like that. Please. I need you to understand that I am still here for you, even an ocean away, and that you're scaring me shítless, and that I don't give a dámn about what you did, or what you could do to me!"
Rose's eyes dimmed at his outburst. Suddenly she was aware of her surroundings. Eli's fingers on her shoulders were rough and callused and thin. Such graceful, nimble hands for such an ungainly boy. Small spots of blood had leaked from his knuckles onto her thick blue shirt. The wind was picking at strands of her hair and tossing it about. The sidewalk benath her feet felt solid, so unlike herself. She was a dust mote drifting in the wind.
She felt hollow now. The burst of maniacal delight was gone as fast as it had come, and she mused on how the past hour had gone. She had felt indifference. Then amusement. Anger. Hopelessness. Some sort of twisted joy. So conflicting. An absolute shítstorm.
And now emptiness.
She took out her phone once more.
I think I'm going crazy Eli. You have to let me go.
Silence. Was he considering it? She hoped so.
"Are you stupid?" Her head shot up, and her eyes met his, which contained a grin and no trace of doubt. "You are my best friend. No one will take that away from us. Not even you." At this, he poked her in the forehead.
She lunged forward and squeezed her arms around him. He let out a grunt of surprise, but his arms closed around her and his eyes slid shut. He felt content.
Rose turned to walk back inside the boxing gym, and he trailed in behind her. As soon as he could not see her face, her smile dropped.
He would let her go, even if he wasn't aware of it. She would make sure.
********
Rose was alone. She was nearly crushing the slips of paper she had hurriedly scribbled on as she hastened to the park in the woods.
She didn't know why she was doing it. She didn't know why she did anything anymore. All she knew was that she was crazy, and that her name was Rose, and that she was going to bury some pieces of paper in the ground in a park.
The air was dry and chilled, and the trees bent towards her, but not menacingly. If anything, she felt welcomed into that little corner of the world. The presence of the frigid morning slithered up beneath her t-shirt and ran it's soft fingers across the curve of her back, but it felt good on her hot skin. She felt almost feverish.
Rose had with her a small trowel, stuffed inside her bag, along with a little tin box that Andrei had decorated in elementary school for a class project. She reached a clearing just beyond the cement tubes and knelt down in the middle of it. She carefully pulled the trowel and the little box out of her bag and set them on the ground.
The earth was growing colder as the days slipped past, and the aged trowel nearly snapped at the handle when she tried to sink it into the ground. The soil softened the more she dug at it, and eventually she had a small but reasonably deep hole that was just large enough to stuff the box in. She gently set the box in front of her and opened it's lid.
She took one of the papers. On it was a name: Kaya Virani. She gently placed it in the box.
Another slip was drawn.
And another.
And another.
Dani Gheata.
Marku Gheata.
Andrei Gheata.
Caroline Barringer.
She took a deep breath. Don't hesitate.
Elijah Ashford.
Several other names were added, and the box went in the ground. Slowly her life was buried beneath the soil.
If one had ventured out on that bitter dawning day, inexplicably drawn to the small forested niche, they would have been met with a senseless wave of melancholy, and would have been driven to their knees by its force. As it was, the day was new, the grass was frosted, the sky was grey, and the world was fast asleep. None noticed the silent lamentations of a small girl cutting ties with what she percieved to be her entire world.
********
The air just beyond the airport doors buzzed with potential energy, and the hairs on Rose's arms stood up. Rose stood before the checking counter with naught but two large suitcases lugging behind her, her bookbag, and her violin slung across her back. Eli and his parents were there, as well as Caroline. Eli helped her lift the bags onto the scale. They were all caught up in their own little worlds as the people blurred around them. Eli's parents were conversing softly with Caroline, and Rose wondered briefly if she had told them about her little Sunday morning incident.
Her bags were whizzed away, replaced with a boarding pass that felt flimsy in her cold hands. She took out her passport and slipped the the boarding pass between the pages, catching a glimpse at her fourteen year old self staring out at her, a smile on her face and a voice in her soul.
She took another look at the boarding pass. In tiny letters, she read TSA Pre-check ✔.
Shít.
She walked back to Eli and the others. Caroline was the first to hug her, and she held on so tightly that Rose feared her lungs might burst from emotion (or because they were being physically crushed).
A tearful goodbye was given by Margo, and a stonyfaced one from Jarvis.
And then there was one.
He was crying. She wasn't, but that was okay. In that moment, it was all okay. In that moment, they saw each other. They could recognize all that they were and would ever be. Two souls that had affected each other in immense proportions. Two bright souls, one blinding, and one a little dimmer. But that was okay too.
And these souls would continue to grow brighter, even in their absence of each other.
(I hate myself but I'm not dead.
~A.R.)