Because The Sky Is Falling

7/9 YELLOW (1)

The sky became lighter slowly, but once it was bright again, it presented itself in a pastel yellow, and Shinn turned off her phone's flashlight as it was no longer needed. Pulling my hand out of my pocket with the intentions of examining it, I found that the side on which my pinky was closest had started to swell and it had become a light-ish pink. Shinn noticed it when looking over at me and exclaimed "Oh my God, D, does it hurt?"

"Only a little," I lied.

"C'mon, let's go home, we'll put some ice on it."

At the time, I did not know if she meant her home or mine, but I followed her to find she, in fact, meant her own. Her parents were both home and we stopped to greet them before hurrying up the stairs. This may have made us look suspicious, the way we ran up the steps, but we really had nothing to hide. Except for my failing pride, that is. Seriously, who just randomly punches a car with their bare hand? Well I guess the answer to that question would be: me.

We were in her kitchen, me sitting up on her counter with her retrieving an ice-pack from the freezer. Thankfully, her mother was a nurse, which is why they had the really good kind of ice-packs (the kind hospitals use).

"D," Shinn started as she turned to me with a questioning look upon her face. "Why the frick would you punch a car with your bare hands?"

I sighed, but also chuckled at myself. Anger had taken me over in the moment, and I felt the need to take it out on something, but—

"I mean, if you really wanted to hit something, you could've picked up a crowbar, a piece of scrap metal, anything to hit the car with...but you used your hand." By the time she was saying the last part, she was in a laughing fit on the floor, which triggered my own laugh to rise again, and it refused to stop for several minutes.

"Oh, I'm such an air-head sometimes," I said shaking my head at myself, but with a large smile spread right across my face.

But then we both got serious again once I had received a notification from Facebook—my mom had posted something that scared us both. It was a status that read "Is it just me, or is the air getting a little bit thinner? Poor, Nicole has had to use her inhaler three times today 😥"

Nicole was my sister whom had just happened to have asthma. Only 9, she was. Sitting upon Shinn's counter-top in her kitchen with an ice-pack to my pink hand, I had had a revelation. I gasped and then turned to Shinn with my mouth agape still from the gasp. She was now sat on the counter next to me, with that same questioning look once again upon her face. "What is it?" She asked biting her lip.

"Those people—the ones at the junkyard—they had all of the five gallon jugs to store air. They realized the air was going to become thin and were stocking up on it."

She looked down at her crossed ankles. "Oh," she said. "Well, I kind of already knew that."

I shouldn't have been surprised. "That sure is Shinn, for you. Always a step ahead of everyone else." I stated, smiling at her.

"I suppose so." She pulled her hair back, showing her facial features much more than before, but missed a strand as she pulled the rest back and placed the hair-tie tightly in her hair, letting a low ponytail sit on her neck. "Ugh!" she complained once noticing she had missed the strand, but hadn't cared enough to re-do the ponytail. Her hair was so long and quite thick, that no one could really blame her. She would sometimes describe it as a beast to be tamed, but I never thought it needed to be tamed.

"I should go home and actually eat something, today," I suggested once realizing I hadn't eaten anything since the night before.

"Yeah, me too," she agreed. "I'll come over tomorrow or something."

"Alright, see you later. Love you!"

"Love you too."

The "Love you"s were completely platonic, but also important. Platonic love in general is very important.