THE ART OF BURNING

pre: prologue

[ ━━ ❝ ✧˚⋆｡☾✩˚⋆｡࿐❞ ━━ ]
MAYA
(2014)

SOME OBSCURE RELATIVE of Callie's was dying, but Maya didn't think that the bitch was any more goddamn special than the rest of 'em. Those days everybody was either dying or knew someone who was.

But, as it goes, Callie had a thing for the dramatic, and Maya had a thing for her.

So, like the complete dumbasses they were, they drove the three hours from Berlin to Manchester with the weird kid Mo passed out in the backseat just to visit her obscure dying relative for ten minutes. Callie cried; the relative told her that she loved her and kissed her on the cheek, passionate and wet. Maya and Mo got rock candy from the sweet little blonde secretary, and it wasn't that Maya was jealous or anything, but the secretary gave him blue raspberry and her grape. (Who even liked grape rock candy? It tasted like sugary medicine.) After the ten minutes were up, they climbed back into Callie's Jeep and pointed her GPS to home three hours north.

Maya couldn't stand Mo; he made her want to rip her hair out. He was fourteen, only three years younger than she was, but he acted like a nine-year-old. Plus, he looked like a school shooter.

But, as it goes, Callie had a thing for him, and Maya had a thing for her.

Not that Callie's thing for Mo was Like That. The girl was gayer than Dumbledore's beard and, besides, Mo was, well, Mo. He was the still green sky before a tornado struck: strange, quiet, full of terrifying potential. The kid that set lightning bugs on fire instead of catching them.

Traffic in the city was bad that day. There was a protest going on, one of the many that had sprouted up after the Proposed Bombing. Sitting in a standstill jam, the trio watched with an apathetic, detached sort of interest as the protest inched closer to them. They rolled their windows down, feeling the crisp fall air rush in. Using a camera she'd got from her dad for Chanukah, Callie photographed the movement—people of every age and every race peacefully marching, clutching each other and holding picket signs. WHO ARE U SAVING - US OR URSELVES? HUMAN LIVES / MONEY and Maya's personal favorite, a quote from The Hunger Games: IF WE BURN, YOU BURN WITH US.

Eventually, traffic started thinning. Their speed picked up. Maya lounged back in her seat, sucking on her rock candy. Mo was still watching the protest as it faded from view, his expression as blank and as intense  as it was the day they freed him from the hellish institute he'd been trapped in all his life. He was sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce, unbuckled, barefoot. Callie tossed Maya her camera, and she started snapping polaroids: selfies with a purple tongue, Mo seeing the world through the eyes of a child and the body of a teenager, the red and gold leaves, Callie laughing into her steering wheel.