Of Smoke and Dust 🖋

Chapter Three: the whispers, the note-passers, and a justice delivered

CHAPTER THREE

Present

June 2nd 2021

8:10 AM

The seat is soft, yet it is so very hard.

She has sat here a hundred times before. Crumbs from hastily-devoured breakfast bars litter the crevices engraved into the leather, remnants of a time when her only concern was getting something inside of her stomach before class. A battered, dog-eared book lays on the ground beneath her feet, and she toes it absently as she stares at the worn bracelet encircling her wrist.

Utter silence.

Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.

Her hands are fascinating. They twist and pull. Her fingers knot themselves together. Her knuckles whiten.

Soft is the fabric beneath her, warm against her skin, holding her like it would a child.

Hard is staying. Staying when she knows why she's here. Why she's looking down at her hands instead of outside of the window. Why she's losing herself in her mind instead of absorbing the words of the book on the floor.

The Hobbit, reads the title. But that's all she allows herself to process.

Hard is her sorrow, concealed into a ball inside her stomach. But even sorrow can break and shatter and make way for-

Why why why why why.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Do not scream.

Do not cry.

Pretend.

It's a game. Nothing serious. Don't tell, please?

The car - her car, one car in a sea of many - is slowing to a stop in front of the school, and Maia's resolve is scattering like dandelion seeds on the wind. Dancing away.

She feels so small.

"Maia. We're here, sweet."

Maia doesn't acknowledge this. She knows that they're in the pickup-dropoff line, that she's expected to get out quickly and not hold up those behind her, but she can't bring herself to care.

"Maia."

"I heard you before." Maia snaps, but still, she doesn't move.

"Maia..."

Instead, she watches as a brown-haired girl climbs out of a red SUV in front of her, cheerfully waving good-bye to her father as she bounces towards the front doors.

The red car drives away.

So simple. So easy.

So impossible.

"Maia." Again that hard tone. As if it will help. "Now."

With trepidation, Maia scoops up her backpack from the seat beside her and just holds it, trying to calm her rapid, shallow breathing and her thundering heart.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Inhale. Hold.

Exhale.

She grips the handle then, so tight she almost worries it will break off (and wouldn't it be her fault, then? And wasn't that all she was good for?), and with a near imperceptible twitch of her fingers, opens the door.

Before she can change her mind, she slides out onto the sidewalk and slams it behind her.

Suddenly it's real again, and she sways slightly, dizzy. "No, Mom - " She starts, reaching for the door again, but the car is already pulling away, wheels grinding against the pavement. She's left standing there, backpack dangling from her fingertips, just watching.