Smoke

12: Fiction

Elinora called me over at the beginning of class. I walked up to her, nervous, stomach turning as our eyes met.
Her eyes reflected my worries, and I looked away, sitting down in the other chair next to her.
"I found varieties of sources, like wind breathing, ice breaths, water breaths..." she trailed off, seeming as uncertain and nervous as I was.

She glanced at me and straightened her posture, taking a breath and regaining herself. "And even one about fire breathing. That one was quite interesting," she smiled, pulling the books onto her desk from her bag, "though I'm not sure how accurate some of these are. I hope they help, anyway." She said, sliding the books to me. I nodded, trying to work past my anxiousness.

"Thank you so much, Elinora." I thought about all the time she took to do this. And about how ungrateful I actually was. I pushed aside the fear and turned my guilt into a smile.
"It's the least I could do." She responded, nodding. "Don't forget to take notes, and bring them back to me at the end of class."

I nodded, taking the books in my arms, wobbling over to my desk with this heavy sliding weight in my arms. As I set them down, arms tired, I thumped into my seat, looking at the covers of these books.

My gratefulness dissipated as I flipped through each book. One after the other after the other, and they were all fiction books. I rolled my eyes, feeling just as under-informed about this power as before, feeling even more powerless than ever about how I'll learn to control it.

I was irritated and bored, and saw thin strands of white-grey smoke leave my mouth the few times I yawned. It brought me back to the moment, and I closed my mouth quickly each time, feeling my heartbeat quicken even as I tried to steady my breath.

By the time the bell rang, I had skipped through the books until I got to the dramatic parts, trying to distract myself from getting too mad and releasing the smoke from my mouth. I resorted to only reading for entertainment, ignoring all of the probably-useless information in these books. It was all made up, and gave me nothing important to learn, anyway.

I stumbled up to her desk with all he other students, returning my stack of books before I left. She glanced up at me. "Did you find anything useful?" She asked.

"Not yet." I said hesitantly, uncomfortable, adjusting my backpack and trying to hide my irritation. I heard other kids mumbling to each other, talking, their feet sliding against the dusty tile as they left.

"Maybe soon." She smiled, nodding. I felt like she could see through me.
"Maybe." I replied, smiling back. I was unsure about if I would learn anything in this class, and I turned away, heading to my next class.

I sighed as I left the room, not even knowing what I was supposed to learn there. All of those books weren't filled with facts about this power, about how I could control it enough to not have to deal with it every second. They were filled with fiction that couldn't help me at all.