Not Helping

Viviane

I make it up the steps just as Mr. Gabe, the janitor, is closing the side doors. Actually, full disclosure: he's already locked them and moved on with his life, but my frantic banging draws him back.

"Morning, Mr. Gabe," I pant as he lets me in.

"I think you need to get your watch fixed," he jokes.

"I'm fashionably late," I retort playfully as I trudge past, but he's right. The night's escapades had me running on a lag and I needed to bounce back or bow out. Neither option presented itself as doable, but you never know. Maybe the perfect summer lull outside would kick itself up into a hurricane warning and I'd get to sleep out the storm safety proceedings under a shelf in the basement.

He quickly overtakes me, patting my aching back as though he can tell I need the encouragement to continue down the hall. It warms my heart, but also cracks every bone in my chest cavity. I wouldn't tell him the second part though.

I don't know how many other students he actually speaks to on a daily basis, but from what I can tell, not enough. They're missing out big time. Mr. Gabe is probably one of my favorite humans in existence. He's on the older side, got a little salt and pepper going on with his hair, but despite loads of smile lines, his skin tone is perfectly even. There's a jazzy air about him, from his wizened voice down to the rhythm in his steps – like they walked him straight out of a Harlem Renaissance oil painting. He told me he'd been a musician in his younger days so now sometimes, when I see him pass by the windows during class, I imagine switching out his mop for a saxophone. He seemed like a sax guy to me, but then I could definitely also see him on something more substantial like a piano; tickling those ivories like the suave cat daddy he's probably always been.

"And hey," he cast's a look over his shoulder, "Don't let me catch Kumen up to anything again." It takes me a second to figure out what he's talking about.

"Oh, I couldn't find him today," I call back.

No offense to Kumen, but he's the last thing on my mind right now. I'm a little more worried about how I'm going to explain last night's absence to my parents—and by "explain" I of course mean "cover for". Explaining would be suicide.

Some kids get to hide real issues like pregnancy and drug involvement from their parents. I have to sneak around to do community service. Sure my community service isn't exactly girl-scout safety approved, but someone has to step up. It's not like I plan these things, I just get swept up in them and try not to make anything worse.

Trust the gates of Hell to open on the one night I decide to break curfew. I knew it was dumb, but I needed to get some air. I never meant to end up on 5th Ave. Like I said, Trouble just kind of sneaks up on me for the hell of it sometimes. I didn't even know about the fire until I was practically in it. And then I really did go in it.

Now, hours and hours spent bussing supplies and dragging people out of tough spaces were about to culminate in the grounding of a lifetime if I couldn't figure some way to swing this.

Breathing heavily, I lean against the lockers, digging out the beaten up key to mine. As I fight the archaic vault for entrance, something quivers in the corner of my eye. Echoing silence falls as I pause, glancing across the hall. Nothing seems out of the ordinary at first, but after a few more seconds caught between frustration with the door and intense paranoia, I'm positive that my bag has shifted position since the first time I'd looked. Slowly letting my hands rest to the floor, I crawl back to the tattered mass of fabric that is my school knapsack. It convulses gently against the tile floor, muffled noise escaping from beneath the main flap. Rumbling sounds mixed with garbled complaints of battery and packing negligence.