The bus leaves without me that a few months later, and for a while I just stand staring at where it should have been in shock. When the fact finally sinks in that I’m going to have to get home some other way, I sigh and start walking. It isn’t that far away, and it’s not like the exercise is going to kill me. The weather’s nice, too.
I tend to walk in a daze, with my head down; I always think in my spare time. It’s probably a rather self-destructive habit, but it’s a habit I can’t break, like a drug you know isn’t good for you but that takes you into the downward spiral so gently and soothingly that you simply go with it. Luckily, not all my musings are so negative that they form a spiral. After having entertaining discussions with my friends, I often walk with a smile and hold my head up—I do this automatically when I get to school, too, so as to uphold my bright personality. How odd, I think to myself, that no matter how depressing I am alone, I always admit to being a natural optimist. I guess I have my friends to thank for that.
A sulky silence in a corner of my brain catches my attention, and I giggle under my breath.
Nothing negative to say today?
Don’t get your hopes up, ingrate. You’re confusing yourself with your friends.
No, that’s not true. You know very well that I have a strong sense of self, always.
Not always.
No?
Are you saying that your discussions with Trystain don’t perturb you? Especially one in particular…?
I can hear the taunt in the question, but do nothing to discourage it. Instead, I recall the conversation I had with him a week or two before.
“What on earth are you doing?” I asked, gawking perplexedly at the lighter in his hand. Trystain glanced up at me as though noticing my presence for the first time; he was lounging against a tree when I walked up to him from behind, backpack slung over one shoulder. I had just left an after-school soccer game and had some spare time before my parents would come to pick me up.
“Oh. Hey.”
“Hey. What’s with the lighter?” I repeated, dropping my stuff in the grass and flopping down next to him. He contemplated it for a moment before answering with a question of his own.
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
I paused, staring incredulously as he flicked it on and clamped the cap over it with a snap, flicked it on, extinguished it, and repeated the process again.
“…You look like you’re trying to comprehend the magic of fire. What are you, a caveman?” I joked, although I, too, was a bit intrigued, being relatively unfamiliar with the object myself. A few more flicks and snaps, and he replied, “I’m just killing time. And the fuel in this thing,” he added wryly. I grunted, still mesmerized by the tongues of flame that accompanied every few words.
Click. Snap. Click. Snap. Click. Snap.
Click.
I blinked in confusion when the tongue wasn’t extinguished as abruptly as had its predecessors, and turned my gaze to the man holding it to be met with a sardonic grin.
“Fascinated?” he inquired, innocently enough, and I heaved a sigh, rolling my eyes as I was becoming so used to doing.
“You’re the one messing with it.”
He shrugged his withdrawal and closed the lighter with another resounding snap, my eyes tailing it as he tucked it into his pocket.
“So who won?”
