Smoke Without Fire pt. I

8th Grade - 14 years old

Colin

I leave my house and the sky is grey or maybe it’s a pale blue but I can’t tell because the clouds are too bright. Dad said bye. Mom said see-ya. I ate a granola bar as I walked to the bus stop listening to my music on shuffle and I don’t listen to it.

I look out the window until the bus gets to school and I read the words on the page in the middle of a book I forgot the title of and the words pass under my eyes and I look at the letters and I don’t read them. The kid that I’ve gone to school with my whole life sits next to me and out of the corner of my eye I see the side of his face and it makes my heart beat in my throat and I can’t breathe for a second and I need to look again and I look again and it’s not him. It’s the kid that I’ve gone to school with my whole life.

I read the book I forgot the title of until the science teacher puts a new slide of notes up. I stop mid-sentence and write the chemical equation for photosynthesis and read another four clusters of letters and hear his words in my mind and he’s whispering in my ear and I can feel his breath on my neck and I want to scream and I’m so afraid and the knot in my throat is almost fatal and my vision is speckley and black around the edges but I’m in science class.

Third period. 11:27. I look behind me and there’s a styrofoam model of the element for titanium or some shit like that that some overachiever made for four points of extra credit. The hairs on the back of my neck are still standing up and the science teacher is still droning on about C6H12O6 and she makes the class say it back to her and the drone is reflected and on and on and on.

I put earbuds in and my music on shuffle and look out the window. The sky is definitely blue now but I’m not sure if I like it. No one sat next to me even though the bus is overfilled and some kids were four-to-a-seat even though we’re not supposed to do that. Whatever. They always glare at me anyway for some reason.

Mom said hi sweetie and Dad isn’t home yet but Mom is on her lunch break. I said hi back and got a yoghurt from the fridge and put my backpack on a chair in the dining room and I close my door and take off my shoes and my jeans and almost change into sweats from my dirty laundry but then I remember he touched those and I cry. I wanted to collapse dramatically to the floor but I know that would hurt and Mom would hear so I crawl into a little ball at the back of my closet where my old tennis shoes are and I cry and I cry and I cry and I cried until my chest hurt and I realized that the knot in my throat would never go away and my sobs were hollow. Is my chest hollow too?

I see him and we’re having fun I guess but I’m not sure. He tells me to do something and I shake my head and I want it to be over already and he says now and I shake my head again so he says now again but he’s not smiling anymore and his brow is furrowed. I don’t want to but I don’t want him to think I don’t like him so I don’t say no I just do it. I just give in I surrender but I feel the knot in my throat and I shove my face in the pillow and try to act like its good because yeah its good but no. I pretend to like it and wait and wait and wait and he’s still not done so I try to act like the guys in the videos because I’ve seen them but not on purpose. I can’t take it anymore and it hurts and I want to stop I never wanted this.

My chest hurts and the sobs will never stop and I am hollow and he took my fire.

I am hollow and I am smoke without fire.

SRC