Deep End

Throwback three

I was thirteen. I was also angry at the world and suffering mild depression.

The day hadn't started out badly, but by the end of it, I was sitting on the wet, cream-colored floor of the shower crying while bullets of water dug themselves into me restlessly. It was two weeks after Eric. They hadn't been happy weeks.

I sobbed loudly, putting a whole lost of trust in the locked bathroom door and shallow hallway that separated me from my sisters room. Too much trust.

"Kamilla? Are you crying?"

I silenced instantly at the sound of Sophia's voice. Eventually, she went away, running out of interest, but no matter how much longer I sat there, silent under the boiling water, my skin continued itching as if her eyes were on me at that exact moment. I forced myself to stand, finish showering, and leave the room. When I was no longer wrapped in just a towel, I ran, giving into the temptation Sophia's voice had planted in me.

I ran out of the house, tears blurring again, filling my eyes like the shower water had, and turning the world into irrelevant dark smudges.

My life was unfair. Or maybe it wasn't, and I was just a whiny brat. That was definitely a possibility too. I cried, every single day, and what was more, nobody knew. Whether it was because nobody could be trusted or because I just didn't trust anybody, I didn't know. I just knew something had to change.

"Hey."

I jumped badly, spinning around. I was on one of the Utility Streets, the streets in Arminia flanked not with houses, but public utilities for all us Arminese. But this was a Early Bird street, and none of the utilities were open. A car had pulled up beside me on the empty street, sketchy-looking with its blinking headlights, scrappy paint job and dirty music coming through the rolled down window.

A man had spoken, his hair long and greasy, face short and unkempt.

"Hey," he said again.

I began to walk quickly, heart ramming in my chest.

"You look like you need some chill."

I continued walking.

"Want to buy a vape?"

I stopped, confused and afraid.

"Yeah there you go. I'll give it to you for forty."

I bought it. It was out of fear, out of complete and total idiocy, out of spur-of-the-moment terror. Then I ran. And it worked, at least he didn't follow me.

But once I was back in my room, shaking, pale, crying, I uncurled my fist and looked at it. My very first vape.

Looking back at the moment almost feels sentimental.

Almost.