Starry Eyed

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The skyline was still smoggy outside, making me miss the cloudless blue of the morning. I sat myself up in the secret room, tucked away on the teacher's floor, on the dusty bed squashed up in the corner. It had only been a few days, maybe weeks, since I last visited. And yet the return felt like a family reunion after years alone. There were still strange, dustless spots on the duvet I decided to again ignore. My eyes were shut. It felt dizzying just to look around.

In my hands, my phone was shivering, in the middle of dialling the home number with no reply so far. Every shake made me feel sicker. But maybe if someone answered, maybe I might feel a little bit better. The walls were still adorned with spiderwebs and grime, even after the clean-up I'd conducted during my last visit. With my eyes now open I felt like I was sitting inside a haunted hotel room. The thought sent an icy shiver rushing down my spine.

"Hello?"

I let out a gasp that I hadn't known to be holding in. Her voice splashed across the dark room illuminated every hollow, every corner of the walls, and I couldn't find the words to say a thing. My throat was dry, croaky, and it seemed to scratch just bothering to speak. I forced something out, simple, stupid, spontaneous.

"Mum."

"Luca? Are you okay? Art! Luca's on the phone!"

The flood gates burst open, and I was crying right there on the bed, stranded in an empty room. The urgency seemed to ripple as Mom spoke. The conversation was already dark, heavy on our shoulders. It would have been a better conversation to say face-to-face. But a cellphone and a haunted dormitory was all I had.

"Luca, are you there?"

"I'm here, Mom. I'm here," I choked out through my dry throat. It felt pathetic to cry. But there was nobody to stereotype me here. "I just... I wanted to talk to you. Just to hear you."

That might sound romantic written down on paper, but it sounded pretty ridiculous out loud. Of course, Mom didn't judge me. On the contrary, she was fretting and panicking on the other end of the line. "I'm putting you on speaker. Hurry up, Art!"

The crackle of my end of the line being plugged into the home phone speaker fizzled from my own. Then Dad burst into the discussion. "Luca! You haven't called in weeks. What's wrong?"

"He's crying," Mom piped up, sounding almost as hysterical as me. I smiled in spite of myself, and a broken laugh escaped my lips. "Talk to us."

I gasped, a shuddering, sobbing breath that seemed to calm my nerves a little more. Through the chink left open in the curtains over the window, I could see the fog still draped over the school. It looked like grey water, filling up a bath. I blinked twice, as if it could make the illusion disappear.

"I feel sick," I said, surprisingly calm into the phone. A salty tear splashed out onto the screen and I brushed it away urgently, terrified that I'd lose the other end of the line.

"That's all? Why are you crying? Why are you calling?" Mom asked, distraught. I could hear Dad's quaking breaths fogging up the receiver.

"Fire," I murmured. It was all I could manage to say. Unfortunately, one word alarmed my mother much more than the full explanation ever could have.

"Fire? Are you trapped? Oh my God, hang up! Call for help!"

"No, no. Mom. Jesus." I laughed again. "Is she always like this now I'm gone?"

If it was possible, I could hear the frown on my father's face without even having to see it. "When you give an explanation like that, kid, it's understandable. Fire? What's that supposed to mean?"