Fight With Fire

31

I wish I were tempted to sink into my mattress, deep down into oblivion where nothing can hurt me. I wish I could find comfort in burying myself in a pile of pillows where I can block out all the noises that haunt me. But I have completely given up on my bed.

I have had constant distractions from everything that I has happened. When I'm looking for an escape by myself I go to the library or if someone is there I go to the small closet in the lighting booth. If I need to clear my mind then I lose myself in a book. I have small stacks in my room, in the lighting booth, and in a corner of the library. I steal moments of sleep when I need it but I never make it to my bed before I pass out. I have stripped my bed anyway. I have brought my duvet and some pillows to the lighting booth to make it more comfortable. Some pillows are in my corner of the library. The bed is stuffed into the corner of my room covered in dust and spider webs.

I am currently lying on my carpet with a book open. The words fill my head and leave no space for all the worries that have given me headaches when they build up too much. I hear a throb in my head and I read 4 pages before I realize that I am hearing someone knock on the door. I mark the page and stand up stretching my limbs. The sky was low in the sky when I opened the book but now I am staring at a beautiful sunset. The soft orange light warms my skin and fills the room with light. I wrap my hand around the cold doorknob and pull the door open.

"Ugh." I roll my eyes and close the door before it fully opens.

"Ella, can you let me in?" Gwen yells through the door knocking again.

"No." I reply simply before resuming my place in my book.

"Ella?" Gwen starts knocking louder making it impossible to focus on the words in front of me. I sigh in frustration and open the door before lying back down on the carpet. Gwen stands in the doorway awkwardly before realizing that I am not going to invite her in. She walks in and studies my room looking at the book all over the floor and everything piled on the empty bed in the corner. "Nice room."

"Nice face." I remark in the same sarcastic tone. Gwen mock laughs and starts walking around the room. "Gwen?" She turns to me. "Get out of my room?"

"Hate me so much that you don't even want to know what I have to say? Guess I'll just leave then." Gwen walks slowly towards the door making a show of reaching for the doorknob. Gwen looks over her shoulder and I raise an eyebrow. When she realizes that I'm not going to stop her she sighs and takes her hand off the doorknob. "Ms. Fields told Adrian to tell you that you have to come to class tomorrow because there is an important announcement or something like that."

Over the last few weeks I haven't bothered with class. I'll show up when I remember but I haven't been paying attention to time recently. Time has become relative, seconds feeling like hours, and hours feeling like seconds. I keep Charlie's music box with me wherever I am; my room, library, lighting booth. I wind up the small crank as much as I can and use it as a background to whatever I'm filling my time with. The soft notes of the music box and the light of the sun are the only clues that time has passed. I have gathered Charlie's instruments from their individual spaces and moved them to the shelves in the back room of the lighting booth. I have some of the music books that Charlie used but I haven't been able to understand enough to play anything.

"Are you the new Adrian then?" I ask in a tone to show that I really don't care.

"I would appreciate if you dropped the attitude." She scolds me like a 5 year old that has taken an extra candy.

"I would appreciate if you dropped off the face the earth. Guess we can't all get what we want." I speak in a monotone voice paying more attention to my book then to Gwen. Gwen makes an impatient clicking sound like what a rooster would sound like if you ran at it too fast. I flip the page.

"For your information, Ella, some people have morals. I would never let my sick boyfriend come all the way here just to deliver a silly message when my room is just down the hall." Gwen sticks her noise toward the ceiling at the end of her sentence as if she just said something really clever.

"Wait." I close my book and look up to Gwen. "Adrian is sick?"

"Now I have your attention?" Gwen laughs bitterly and shakes her head.

"Poor Gwen." I remark sarcastically pouting. "Afraid I'll take your pretty boy?"

"I know that you like him," I laugh and she speaks louder ignoring me. "But you'll never take him. We have a strong relationship and I trust him so you can't make me feel insecure."

"I wouldn't be so confident because Adrian probably has the same trust in you and that's not well placed is it?"

Gwen looks like a fish with her eyes wide and her mouth opening and closing. She regains her composure and stares at me. I narrow my eyes at her daring her to contradict me.

"I don't know what you're-"

"Please Gwen, save it for someone who cares." I stand up and start walking through the room picking up stray books.

"I- You- There's-" Gwen stutters following me across the room trying to form a sentence. I place the books on the desk and turn back to fix the carpet. Gwen leans against the desk knocking over a small jar of ink. "Oh my god I'm so sorry. I'll clean it up."

"Stop. I'll do it." I sigh and move everything away from the spilled ink and open a drawer for the cloth to soak up the ink. Gwen takes a step back behind me rubbing her hands together anxiously.

"It was an accident. You have so many open jars of ink on your desk there." Gwen laughs nervously looking over my shoulder. "Are you writing something?"

"No." I wring out the cloth in the bowl of water and continue cleaning the leftover ink.

"Here let me help." Gwen steps forward and tries to take the cloth from me. "Wow there's a lot of stains on that... is that blood?"

"No." I say through gritted teeth yanking the cloth away from her. She stumbles back, bumping into the empty drawer. The drawer falls out of the desk and everything falls out sending the contents across the floor and spilling ink.

"I am so sorry, Ella. I don't know what's up with me today." Gwen crawls on the floor and starts collecting everything on the ground while avoiding the ink. "I think I shattered something. Are those... Ella, why do you have a bunch of syringes?" Gwen looks up to see me coming towards her. I push her back down into the shattered glass and spilled ink and lean over her.

"Get. Out." I spit the words in her face willing her to see how angry I am. I grind my teeth together so hard that my jaw muscles burn and I can hear my teeth scraping away like sandpaper. Gwen crawls away and runs out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

My anger at Gwen quickly turns to frustration when I survey the mess around me. Gwen's clumsiness has shattered my syringes, spilt all my ink, and left me completely screwed.

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