firecracker // rodrick heffley

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sylvia wanted to run her hands all over Rodrick, wanted to explore him with her fingertips. He looked so damn good - so damn pretty.

OCTOBER 21, 2011

Rodrick got very much suspended from school today. He set off a firecracker in our chemistry class. He isn't allowed back for five school days, so this upcoming week will be very dull for me. We did hang out today, though. I put eyeliner on him. To me, it was a very emotionally-charged situation. I wonder if he felt the same way. On another hand, maybe it's not a tense romantic moment to hold someone's face as you paint artistic designs on their eyelids. Just kidding. Yes, it is. HE WAS SO PRETTY TODAY.

XOX, S.R. Melnik

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When his lights were on, she could see him from her window through his. She never felt like she could have enough of him - the charm he had on her was never too much, never wearing away. His bedroom (which Sylvia had deduced was in the attic) had a decently-sized window, through which Sylvia could sometimes hear faint music or see a shadow of Rodrick. 

Sylvia lay down on her bed, brushing her fingertips across her own body, imagining the touch were Rodrick's. Her own hand at her hip, she rested her palm below her ribs, still stealing glances to the house across the street, watching the silhouette of the boy - he walked across the room, lifting off his shirt and putting on a new one. Sylvia's voyeurism ended as he flipped off the light, and she could no longer make out the shape of him. She rolled over and pulled her covers on, letting her eyes roll shut and the warmth of her body lull her to sleep.

---

She knocked on the door at the end of an unfamiliar hallway. It creaked open, and Sylvia heard what sounded like her own mother's voice in the room in front of her, in a discussion with a voice that could only have been her father's. She walked in through the door to find herself in a doctor's office, despite the hallway she had come through seeming completely residential- it could have been the hallway of any given house. Confused, she called out, "Mom? Dad?" Neither of them were around. She was wearing a hospital gown, though she never remembered putting one on. Feeling an urge to lay down, she sat on the cushioned bed-like examination table. The door she'd come through opened again, and she saw Rodrick, dressed in an identical gown to her own. He didn't notice her, somehow, despite the limited size of the room. "Rodrick!" He didn't hear her. He sat across from her on an identical exam table. Lowering his face to his hands, he began to quiver and shake, seeming to Sylvia to be... crying? No, it couldn't be... She tried to call his name again, but her mouth had filled with water - no, cement - no, sand! Her mouth had filled with sand; it poured from her throat as she tried to scream out for him, a gurgled cough coming out instead. She struggled to breathe, struggled to keep her vision in focus - 

She woke with a start. Breathing raggedly, she sat up in bed and looked across the street. The familiar obscurity of her dream did not scare Sylvia, but she was rather off-put by the emotional charge of the situation. Surely the dream meant nothing; it was simply a manifestation of her feelings toward him. Right? Surely it only meant she worried for him the way anyone would worry for someone they care about. She cared for him as comrades do, as friends do, and an inability to comfort him was upsetting to her. Nothing more.

---

Restlessly, she looked again at the clock by her bed. It had been stuck on 4:52 for three hours, Sylvia thought, just as the bright red number switched over to 4:53. As she realized slowly that she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, she decided to get out of bed. She got dressed slowly, pulling on ripped tights under her black skirt. She opted to put on a large sweater; it was only getting colder as their town grew closer to the holiday season, and the sweater fell halfway down the length of her legs covered by her skirt. It would keep her warm, no doubt.