pencil shavings

twenty: sam

Only a couple sips of highly concentrated coffee remain when two silhouettes walk past the window.

No way.

I bite my lip as the door squeaks and two boys walk in, keeping a good distance apart from each other but muttering enough to make it clear that they had come together. Peter rubs his beanie anxiously, and Matt orders something in a stumbling voice that's too low to understand. No way no way no way no way... it's like witnessing the Montagues and the Capulets strolling into a restaurant together.

I wait for their hesitant footsteps to come closer, pretending to type on my computer, until, of course, I can't wait anymore and look up.

I break into an uncontrolled grin.

"Heyhowareyouguyswhatareyoudoinghere?" The words bubble out of me like a geyser. Matt takes a seat with the smallest twinkle in his eyes, looking at Peter, and my beanie-friend collapses next to me, squinting as if he's deep in thought.

"I suppose for not having had caffeine in the last twelve hours, I'm doing okay. That said, by my normal caffeinated standards, I'm in the bottom of hell."

He yawns, letting his head drop onto the table.

I bite back my smile, before his hair falls at just the right angle over his eyes and my breath catches. Last night. I turn away before the memory snowballs into something that can douse this whole moment in awkwardness.

I offer a little smile at Matt when I catch him watching me.

He mutters something about grabbing the coffees before I have a moment to say something, and storms off. Why is he always pissed?

"Beats me," Peter says, his voice muffled between his arms. I smile ruefully. It's nice to meet someone who thinks like you, who really gets it. For the most part, at least.

"What happened with you guys anyway?"

He waves his long fingers at me, fanning the question away.

"Okay..."

I don't say anything for a minute, and Matt is just picking up two coffees.

I bite my lip.

As the light grows stronger, Peter's sweater fades into softer maroons, his chest rising as he breathes slowly, hair fluttering, like an old photograph brought to life. Everything about him sits in the depths of my heart in one fluttering breath, something I hadn't felt in a long time.

"Peter," I whisper, clearing my throat a little. He peeks a glance at me with raised eyebrows. "Last night..."

He closes his eyes a little and breathes out a sigh. "I'm fine."

That has to be the worst lie in the English language.

"Coffees," Matt grunts, and from the way he perches on the edge of his chair and bounces his knee, he looks for all the world like a horse ready to run off at any moment.

Peter sips his coffee, Matt gulps his, then Peter drums his fingers on the table and Matt bounces his knee with growing aggression, and I'm still debating how to small-talk with two attractive strangers when in the same moment Matt coughs something about his girlfriend and Peter just bolts upright in his seat, and they're on their way out the door before the quarter Matt dropped on the table can stop spinning.

"Sam! Hello dear, how's the group?" Ms. Henderson blocks my path with her curly-haired and smiles, pinning me in the doorway like a blinking deer.

"Great, thanks," I chirp out, trying to casually duck around her. She doesn't get the hint and stretches out with a hand braced on the wall, yawning in a way that made her no less beautiful. I can't quite tell her age, with a few wrinkles around her eyes (from years of laughing no doubt), but with smooth, dark skin and a gaze that could make a monster bashful.

She gives me a long look, those eyes like an inky night, and for once it's not a smile, but a slight nod of her curls that keeps me frozen in place. We stand together at the empty front of the classroom, for a minute that spans an infinity of moments, with a leafblower yelling from far away, with our black and gold eyes locked, and with some sort of understanding crossing the narrow chasm between our breaths.

"I know," she breathes. 

Then she pats my shoulder and bustles around me, out the door.

I try not to be too creeped-out as I slide into my usual seat and bite my lip. As the lights hum from above me, I fight to avoid thinking about what she meant, what she 'knew', but of course that just makes me think more and more about it in a paranoid spiral. I pull out my laptop and smooth out a sticker. Whatever. I'm fine. 

And then, suddenly, I'm not.

The loneliness comes, with no warning, no invitation. It barges into my consciousness, with the pain, with the hurt, with the big dark thing that only comes out on nights when the light of my computer is the only thing to keep it at bay.

Ms. Henderson saw it. That thing in me that I smother in smiles.

I blink furiously and retie my ponytail. It hisses for attention.

No, this is not happening now, I am strong and funny and happy, happy, happy; the word rewinds in my head like a broken recording in a horror movie. It pulls on my heart with lion claws.

I try to make myself smile, but it's like trying to breathe inside a crashing wave.

The pounding comes, the pain of my mom and my dad and Astell and Peter and Matt, and I can't swallow. Can't breathe. Just. Can't.

There are lots of ugly four letter words in the English language. But "can't," is always the one that hurts the most. Because when it's used honestly, with all its simplicity and finality, it slams the door of hope so hard the windows break.

I focus on the wood on the desk, counting the stripes, breathing in the smell. The monster in my mind just burrows a little further. Not. Now. Please.

Then memories of Matt's half-grin and Peter's warm shoulder swim into view. I think about my mom's insecurities, my dad's regret, Astell's anger, Peter's fear, Matt's helplessness, all the other problems I can try to fix. All the problems that I can fix because none of them are mine. And as my mind flees into their worlds, the monster in me retreats. I remember how to sigh.

By the time Peter slips in the room, I'm smiling again.