pencil shavings

sixteen: peter

Nothing remains of that surreal night. Dawn breaks like a spilled pitcher of water from the cloud-cover, dumping careless torrents of rain. But of course it rains on the day I lose my freaking brother. Because the world has an air for cinematography - or maybe I'm just another insignificant person who thinks the rain falls for them, when really the sky just got bored, and skies don't give a damn about who gets in the way of their little flash-sprinkle because skies are much too preoccupied with lofty aspirations; so, honestly, it's not like they would so much as notice a kid sprawled on park grass, soaked from soggy shoe to soggier beanie, thinking of frustrated haikus in Latin about the suckiness of thoughtless weather.

Freaking cloud-spit.

I fight to move my leg over me in an attempt to roll onto my stomach, but everything hurts and my eyes are drooping anyway. It's no use. I feel as though I've embraced the spirit of the park enough to become one of those low-lying shrubs that sag all over the grass, the kind that you catch faintly swaying in the wind but otherwise deem void of any sort of awareness. I really do think I've found my fetish for all things plant-like - God, I even reek fertilizer. And the one thought tying me there is Dan.

And as I lie in unmistakable misery, my glasses splotched with rain, a voice booms from the sky. It echoes through my skull like a celestial being from high above me in the gray blurs of water.

I jolt up like an electric pulse shot down the water on my arms.

"Peter?"

Wipe the glasses, wipe the glasses, squint, and - Matt. Again.

"Don't you know it's rude to interrupt people when they're vegetating with the vegetation?" It comes out in some sort of feral growl as my voice tries to remember what it is to speak. God, I just uses "vegetating" in a sentence.

"Um." Matt watches me with a cross between pity and disgust, and the wind washes rain all over his stupidly perfect face.

"Stop making that expression, it accentuates your oversized eyebrows," I hiss, wiping my glasses and dragging myself into a vertical position on waterlogged shoes.

He just stands there with the wind battering us until I'm forced to acknowledge how cold I've become. My teeth start to chatter. Matt's shirt plasters itself to his chest. The rain howls.

"Just come with me, smart-ass." He says it just loud enough for me to hear above the wind.

Matt grabs my backpack (wrapped in a trash bag to keep it dry) and splashes into the street.

It may have been my pride, or my irrational stubbornness, which, by the way, will most likely be the death of me, but I stand there like an idiot and watch him leave.

The sky leaks like a faulty ceiling, and my mind flounders like a leaf in the gutter. And all the fear and heartache and regret - all the questions - they fuse into a tangible stormcloud of exclamation marks. I often wonder if people feel it when you're about to explode, if the pain roiling your blood can be strong enough to touch another with a subtle warning, a silent plea, a vulnerable last chance. If, when you drown in your own thoughts, someone on shore can see your fingertips grasping the surface.

Matt turns.

Maybe he could.

Fat raindrops hide the water collecting in my eyes as I meet his gaze. The moment when he looked back - when he saw me - something in me released. I could feel the air blossom in my lungs, the water dance on my lips, the light wink in my eyes. My eyes - and Dan's eyes.

I swallow what's left of my pride and follow that dumb jock.

We walk in silence, the wind yowling its soliloquy while I reluctantly listen because it's better than conversation.

"Do you want to talk?"

I glance over at Matt's uncomfortable expression. He said it with such apprehension that he must have pulled the line straight out of some gold-gilded manners guide.

"No," I say without bothering to look at him.

The wind roars up again, and I feel its teeth on my skin as we put our heads down and keep walking.

"Good," Matt rumbles. " I didn't want to listen to your pity-talk anyway."

Something guttural escapes my throat, but I don't crack completely, even with Matt eyeing me out of his periphery.

"Like you know how to listen," I whisper, "I don't even know why you asked."

I didn't.

The wind commands our attention again, but the stinging pride between us demands a greater acknowledgment that amplifies the volume of our silence. It's as loud as a Def Leppard concert.

We stop outside of a huge castle-house, which I assume to be Matt's, and it takes every remanence of self-control to keep my ragged body from bolting inside. I'm shaking with cold and so is Matt, but he doesn't walk forward.

"You need to tell me what happened," he finally growls. His almond eyes stay fixed on the house.

"So you're a therapist now?" The cold hurts. Why can't he drop it and take us into that heated heaven?

Matt clenches his jaw and inhales through his nose. "Peter, just tell me and we can go inside."

"You really think I'm about to listen to you?" I can hardly get the words out from between my clattering teeth. I squish the water from the bottom of my sweater and pull up my jeans as the moisture weighs them down.

Matt grabs me. "DAMMIT PETER," he roars, bracing his hands on my shoulders and locking my eyes with his. "TALK. TO. ME."

The rain is falling like crystal pebbles all around us and my throat hitches and a car drives past and the water pummels us like a tidal wave and we don't flinch and Matt watches me as if everything depended on what I said next.

But all I can think about is how perfect this scene would be in a movie - how cinematic - how, maybe, the sky had wooed a passing star and they were cuddling under the clouds and eating popcorn and watching us like an old film. How maybe this storm is meant for me.

I take a breath.