Keeping Up With the Wind: A 'Burban Tale by Suleyma Moon

5.

            These fools were seriously starting to stress me out. Within the hour, I'd begun to block everything and everyone from my mind. Usually nothing much could faze me...unlike my friends. But on the rare occasion that my temper did rear its ugly little head, my anger would engulf me so completely that it would leave me drained and emotionless in the end. Something told me that there would be a lot of this going on that summer, and we had only been out of school for a few weeks.

            Sitting on that park bench at Magic Island and looking at my friends, I thought about how much we had been through over the years. With the exception of Shadow and Whisper, we had all grown up together...and together we had taken the good with the bad. Whisper was still sitting beside me and carrying on a regular conversation with Blaze and Spider, as if Blazed hadn't just kissed her a few minutes before. Li'l Jay was sitting on the other side of me, staring at nothing in particular. Finally, he glanced over at me, but I don't think it registered that I was even sitting there until his eyes had already moved on. I saw Shadow leaned up against a nearby tree, watching us all. I could tell by the look on his face that we were the furthest thing from his mind.

Then there was Faith. She was sitting on the table next to Spider, looking around the park full of awe and wonder.

            "Hey Thunder," she called, not looking in my direction. "Do you think people ever really landed on the moon?" She looked over at me and I smiled vaguely, but didn't answer. "I don't think so," she continued.

            Faith and I used to have discussions like this all the time. Sometimes, other members of the group would try to join in, but our conversations were always either way too deep or way too ridiculous for them. Eventually, everyone else would just give up and ignore us.

Today, however, I wasn't much in the mood to get that deep myself.

Faith turned and gazed at Shadow for the longest time. She and Blaze both had a way of watching people, very reflective-like, but kind of eerie. It was like they were looking right at you, but not exactly. Almost like they could see straight through you.      

            Watching Faith, I realized just how frail she really was. She had been asthmatic all her life, but I noticed something more than just her usual ailments that night. Faith never really got sick like other people did. She was just really weak all of the time. On this particular night, she looked paler than usual and her eyes looked dull and tired. Somehow, though, she still managed to keep the radiance that she and her brother shared.

            Faith was so pretty. Come to think of it, Whisper was, too. And don't even get me started on the boys. Every last one of them was gorgeous! Even Li'l Jay would have been an absolute knockout, if only he were a little older. I just knew that he would be the best looking one of all when he grew up.

If only those boys weren't my friends...but they were. And we all knew that any of us hooking up could potentially mess up the whole vibe. Out of nowhere a past conversation between Ace and myself popped into my head about how he would never try to date any of us girls.

            It was almost as if Ace knew that I was thinking about him, because the minute he crossed my mind, I could see him walking towards us in the distance. He looked like a cowboy rolling into town with his posse, making sure everyone knew that there was a new boss hog in town, so don't even try it. He seemed indestructible.

            Only...he wasn't a cowboy. And he didn't have a posse.

In fact, he was all alone.

            Still, I had to admit that just his mere presence commanded a certain amount of respect from everyone, young and old. I noticed that Shadow was watching him, too.