A Flame

 

Something kept pushing at her, nagging her. It wasn’t a matter of strong will, but a matter of who she was. A girl, just merely seventeen who could hardly fight that oppressive force that kept pushing at her to cross. Cross that edge, an edge that even she did not know where it could take her. But sometimes it got too hard to fight it and she would lie there trying to find a way to stop it. Many nights lying in bed she would ask herself, “Am I crazy?” nobody would ever answer her. That made her question it even more and at times truly believed the idea.

Most people live with this feeling every single day. They wake up with it always there in the back of their minds. In most days it stays in it’s place, in a small taped box and doesn’t move. But some days, there is something in the air that loosens that tape and it starts roaming around your mind trying to find something there. What you may ask? I don’t know, nobody does. But even as hard as that treasure hunt might be, there is always a possibility that one word, one movement might cause a spark. A spark that could easily light up a flame, and that flame will just stay lit and slowly die down as we ourselves calm down and move on.

That’s not the case with her. That small taped up box opened in her mind, and all the small things she endured everyday and kept piling up in one corner suddenly seem like a pile of matches ready to be lit by a flame. But instead of becoming a flame, they became a large flame, soon building up in a fire which could always find something to keep it going and getting larger. Finding those small events that furnished the fire, and in a normal person that fire would soon die down. Instead imagine, the fire and instead of giving it water to die, feeding it alcohol which made it even bigger. Every single day something fed it, it never truly died down and went back to its box. That box was now completely burned to ashes, and that flame one day exploded. That day was today.

“Serena, are you ready?” The girl looked herself in the mirror trying to fix her appearance one last time before heading over to her mother’s call.

“Yes mother.” Neither of the two women looked at each other. Neither wanted to remember that awful incident from two nights ago.

“Then let’s go, before you’ll be late.” She watched her mother get her bag before interrupting her.

“No its okay, I’ll take the bus.” Serena’s voice was cold, she hadn’t meant for it to sound that cold and empty. But in truth that was exactly how she felt. Turning around she grabbed her school bag and slammed the door behind her as she got out without waiting for her mother’s reply. Walking to the bus had seemed the best way to get away from that woman. She knew that her mother had nothing to do with it, and didn’t deserve to be blamed for her reaction. After all it was all her fault not her mothers or anybody else’s.

Serena shook her head quickly getting rid of all the thoughts. The bus had arrived and she watched her reflection pass by. Sighing she made up her mind to walk into the bus and head to school. Her most dreaded moment was walking through those doors.

They looked at that girl with pity. Nobody came up to her, she was glad for that. Most people look at her with eyes that told that they felt bad for her, how could she blame them? It was true. Any other girl would have grieved and stayed home in this situation but she faced the sentence of going to school. How much it could look like she was facing life on, maybe the truth was that she feared staying home more than she did coming to school. Now she had become the whisper of the school. How much they thought they knew everyone they never knew who the driver had been.

“Hey,” She looked up and saw my friend, Anna. She could’ve said best friend, but in this place that doesn’t deserve to be called school, Serena had no interest in gaining a best friend. A simple acquaintance was fine. Anna had short blond hair and had a petite figure, she was stunning and had the sweetest personality anyone could ever know. Sometimes it would happen that Serena would wonder why Anna even bothered being friends with her at all.