may shatter on impact (tronnor)

18. Secrets & Explosions

Nora does her math homework during lunch everyday. She checks Connor's work then pencils in his answers all while taking bites of her nutella and peanut butter sandwich. Zoe rolls her eyes at Nora everyday and the proceeds to interrogate Dan about the history test he's already had and that she has next. Connor and Alfie trade stories about what we were going to do in English. I just watch all of this go on, relishing the feeling of a routine, a normal everyday thing, conversations that we've had ten of and food we're tired of but eat anyways. They include me in the conversations sometimes, ask what happens in music and Spanish and gym. I give them their answers, but it isn't a very interesting conversation.

Unless it's with Connor - who takes everything a say and turns it into an interesting conversation, never letting my words fizzle out into nothing, never letting their be too much silence.

I like that. With anyone else, especially those who know, everything turns into quiet. No one will speak because they think it might kill me. And some days it does, some days Connor will let our words be thrown into the howling wind and let the world just be silent until I say it would be okay for it not to be.

In the lunchroom, the sound of the bell is muted by conversations piling up on top of one another, students comparing notes on homework and quizzing each other on the definitions of words that none of us will ever use.

We grab backpacks and pencils and homework sheets, rushing out of the blue double doors and into the hallway like water rushing off of a cliff in the same way everyday.

Zoe is in my history class, so I follow her down the hallways that still seem like a maze to me, trying not to get shoved into lockers by the seniors.

The history teacher, Mrs. Reed, has a voice like rock - dry and boring and heavy and if she talks loud enough everyone in the class will fall asleep, or begin to. I can barely keep my eyes open when her words begin to stop my heart.

"Hmm...For example, the guns they had back then weren't as effective as they are today. You could shoot way less quickly and efficiently then versus now. For example, today...hm, what's a good example today?"

The class is silent, so silent that I'm sure they can all hear my panicked breaths and rushing thoughts like uncontrollable waterfalls, like seaweed rushed through waves that clash against rocks and eat away at land.

Zoe raises her hand innocently, being one of the only ones who ever answers questions during history class, and says, "Well, recently there was the school shooting in California, and he killed what? Forty people, in how long?"

Fifty-one, in seventy-three minutes.

"About an hour," Jordan Sanchez, the only other kid who talks in class, pipes up. "So that really just shows - "

"Wait a minute," someone interrupts from the back of the classroom. We all turn simultaneously towards Maddy Anchor as she blushes but continues. "An hour? Going by Zoe's estimate of forty people...That's about 1.5 people killed per minute. There's no way that's even possible."

Jordan glares at her; he hates being interrupted. "Well that would be the point of the discussion - guns have come so far as to be able to let some idiot kill 1.5 people per minute."

Please shut up right now -

"Well," Maddy argues. "I think that shows more about the guy who did it and less about the guns. I mean these people back in the Revolutionary War and things were in a war they didn't want to kill, they had to. This guy would've been planning this for a while; he would've wanted to kill people. In a war, the men who were drafted would've done whatever they could to not kill. The difference in motivation would have played a role in how many people were killed, wouldn't it?" She looks at Mrs. Reed for confirmation. "I'm not saying that guns haven't come far, they definitely have, but I don't think that the school shooting is really a good example."

Zoe is nodding as Maddy finishes speaking. "I agree. And in the Revolutionary War, America won partly because they had a reason to fight, they wanted to fight, whereas British soldiers were just required to. Motivation definitely makes a difference."

Jordan is about to say something but oh my God I have to get out of here, let me out, let me out -

"C-can I go to - to the bathroom?" I ask loudly, too loudly, shut up, shut up, shut up.

Mrs. Reed stares me down. "Go in any other class, Mellet, but not this one. This discussion is important. Anyways, Jordan, I believe you were about to say something?"

Zoe frowns, processing the name she called me.

"Yeah," Jordan says.

Oh my God, oh my God, why? Please -

"Wait, Troye - Mellet? Where have I heard your name before?"

"P-p-please d-don't - "

"It was in a news article somewhere, wasn't it?"

"Can I finish?" Jordan asks, exasperated.

"No, wait one moment, I know I've heard that name before," Clara says, staring at me. "I was reading an article about what happened in California - oh. Oh."

Zoe frowns, still not getting it. "What? Troye - "

I stand up too quickly, the chair falling backwards like an explosion, too much sound, too much motion, too many eyes, I'm falling apart and -

oh my God -

"Oh! Oh, Troye - you - oh."

My heart won't shut up and my eyes flicker around the room of people staring at me because now they know, they know, and everything is shattering and it's my mistake.

Only a goddamned fool would think that normal could last.

"I - "

I'm running, my heart beating in time to the explosion of fear in my chest, my hands shaking in time to the end of the world.