Flickering Flame

Ashes, ashes...

Elaine Jennings

If you told me yesterday that I would watch my ex-boyfriend walk into the cafeteria during lunch today, I would have laughed in your face. But now that I'm actually seeing it, I feel like I might faint. My cheeks were hot, and I could feel my breathing getting faster.

The last time I saw him, we broke up, and then he disappeared. He's been gone for 8 months, and while there was no missing persons' posted for him, no one knew what happened. No one mentioned it, but I always assumed it was my fault. I took months to accept that he was gone, presumably forever, and he's standing right in front of me. He looks just like I remember, his hair was lightly styled to the side, a specific strand always sitting above a scar next to his right eyebrow, his deep brown eyes, that were looking straight back into mine, and getting closer, because he was walking straight towards me now. And I need to leave, immediately.

I manage to throw my legs over the bench, and begin to get up, but I can't break eye contact with him. He's supposed to be gone, why is he coming straight back to me? I watched him quicken his pace as he realized I was going to leave, instead of see him. We broke up, and he left.. I don't have anything to do with him anymore, and I certainly don't need to. Before I can fully turn my head to match the direction I was going, I end up running into someone, and falling on my ass.

Before I manage to get my bearings and get up on my own, I feel a hand grab my arm, and lift me off the floor, seemingly effortlessly. In a panic, I kick in the direction the hand comes from, while attempting to peel the hand off my arm, when I hear the voice of my best friend call my name.

"Elaine--Hey, are you okay?" He manages to distance me from him in the middle of my panic, and holds on hand on my shoulder, at full arms' length, and makes me look at him. I feel a wave of relief rush down my body as I see two green-ish eyes stare back at me, until I see how much worry is in them, and how they're begging for some kind of answer, all on their own.

"El, come on," He shakes me, and I spit the words out,

"I just saw Michael," except they're quiet, and I nearly choke on them.

"What? You couldn't have..." His voice trails off, because he looks at me, and looks, and looks, as his face turns into a sadness, slowly growing furrowed brows and wider eyes. "Okay.." he mumbles before quickly looking around the cafeteria and grabbing my wrist. "Let's get out of here, okay?"

I nod, and he leads me to the opposite side of the school, underneath a staircase. He lets go of my wrist, and we sit down across from each other. He doesn't say anything, and the only thing I can say can't be said any other way, so I say it, "I saw Michael in the cafeteria, and he started walking towards me," And then I ran into you, trying to get away from him..

"El... do you really think it was him? He disappeared." and for some reason, those words put a pit into my stomach. I know he disappeared, I know that better than anyone else does. I know what I saw. He walked in, and he walked towards me, and I ran. I ran from him because he disappeared and he's gone and he's not supposed to be here anymore. I start to explain, but the bell cuts me off, and the only thing I can tell him is, "I know what I saw,".

✩

Despite my paranoia, the rest of the school day went normally, and so did my shift at work. It made me briefly start to reconsider what I saw earlier this morning, but I couldn't shake the feeling it was really him, even if that put a pit in my stomach, too.

When I stepped into my bedroom for the first time after getting home, the pit in my stomach grew. I couldn't put my finger on why, but my room felt off, even though nothing was moved around or damaged. My room was exactly how I left it in the morning, untouched.

Against my gut feeling, I wrote it off as still being shaken up from earlier, and it finally caught up to me now that I'm not busy and distracted. I decided the best option was to go to bed, and hope to wake up feeling better in the morning. As I pull back the covers to get into my bed, I hear a faint thud outside my window, and freeze.

It was probably a squirrel, or raccoon, maybe even a cat, that ran into something outside. I knew there was no need for me to check, but I slowly lean closer to my window and peel back the curtain, revealing the side of my house, where there was nothing. I let out a sigh of relief. What was there to worry about, anyway?