Molotov Cocktail

Darkness didn't bother me. I'd been conditioned to hide in it most of my life. Sleeping was the problem.

When I laid down to rest, I'd begin to hallucinate about that night. The sticky evening grass under my head, the cool cotton of her sundress against my legs, one of her blonde curls wrapped around my pointer finger as she dipped her head, meeting my lips with hers. I started depriving myself of food and rest on purpose just to sojourn with her ghost, but then one day, the vision changed.

Her lips went blue. The skin around her eyes bruised as they bulged out of her head. A deep purplish red mark ran the length of her neck. I tried to wrap her in my arms, but I couldn't. She crumpled into dust.

After that, I taught myself how to sleep standing up.

The compound was a patch of desert at best, almost too similar to every dystopian movie I'd ever seen. The smell of kerosene and shit poisoned the air. Grease painted faces, breastplates made of scrap, do-it-yourself armored vehicles. There used to be correctional officers to keep the peace, but they stopped coming. There used to be cots to sleep in, but they've been shredded to the bone for tinder. They used provide us with measly supplies, but now we were left to fend for ourselves.

There's a Molotov Cocktail in all of us. A funny concoction of chemicals that make up our humanity. If you keep it nice, leave it be, it'll stay perfectly dormant. Light the fuse and try to break it, you'll start a firestorm.

The dirty Ford pick-up ground to a screeching halt when it reached City. I'd snuck into one of the few vehicles that still crossed the high voltage electric fence separating City from the compound. The driver was an electrician, paid a suitable wage to keep the electric fence active, so City was safe from us.

I could've been mistaken for a small critter as I scurried to the back of his truck, my body small enough to hide under the tarp he had in the bed. Some bandits tried to hijack his car, but he was quick with his rifle for an old man. I stared at the rusted stains smeared in the tarp above my head. I didn't underestimate the seemingly weak. That's how I was one of the few able to sneak myself into City.

I clutched the leather strap around my neck, fingering the heavy heart-shaped pendant at its center. I hope the Senator said grace tonight. Death was coming for him.

**

The first thing I noticed about Susanna was her hair. Thick spirals of gold that almost touched her hips. She looked mythical. A character from one of my Mama's stories.

When she introduced herself in homeroom freshman year, I remember it feeling odd. I felt like I already knew her.

"I'm Su," she said shyly.

"Vera," I answered.

She smiled at me, and it set me on fire.

It didn't take long for us to become inseparable. We'd stay up late on the phone. We'd gossip about Sally C. in homeroom or Mrs. Buchanan reprimanding us for passing notes in English. Sometimes she'd gush about the football team. I'd hem and haw along, pretending to understand her infatuations, but I didn't. I didn't understand the rage building in my gut about it either.

I didn't want to, but she insisted we go to Homecoming dance. Su had more friends than me, so most of the night I waited for her attention like a fan of a pop star.

They played a slow song as I sat on the bleachers nursing a cup of punch, watching Su dance with Ricky from science class. She gazed at him innocently, laughing at something he whispered in her ear. Was I jealous of the attention she was getting? Shouldn't that be me? Chasing boys, blushing when their hands touched my back?