Overexposed

Despite What You Think

Chapter 6: Despite What You Think

“A chat?” I repeat her words tentatively, feeling my mouth go dry.

Tess gestures for me to follow her into one of the rooms and I comply, not knowing what else to do. Haz is nearby, I try to console myself; if anything happens, all I’ll have to do is scream.

We enter another office, this one with a white board screwed into the wall above a massive, L shaped desk that cuts into a fourth of the space. Much like everything else around here, it’s dingy and dusty. A rusted, dented, metal fold out chair sits behind it and I have an inkling that I’m supposed to sit there, but I don’t move beyond the center of the room.

I note with a small amount of pleasure that as Tess moves past me, she leaves the door open.

Still listening to the ominous, metrical clicking sounds emanating from the switchblade each time she clicks it into and out of place, I watch as she sits on the desk. Even in our current positions, Tess is taller and is by no means letting the opportunity to look down on me go to waste.

“Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?” Tess motions for me to take a seat and I do, attention not leaving the blade in her hand. She’s not wielding it aggressively, but casually, much like Tommo did with his gun on that fire escape when he pulled me fully into the gang.

I understand that it’s a scare tactic, but it’s STILL WORKING.

My heart hammers in my chest and my mouth has gone dry, yet I’m somehow able to keep a cool demeanor.

“Why?” I dare to inquire. “I don’t know anything about YOU.”

Tess gives me an uncannily friendly smile, “Well all you had to do was ask.”

As soon as she says this, all of the questions I have that are not bomb related flee my mind. I WOULD inquire about the explosion, but even if she IS guilty, she would tell me otherwise. So, what ELSE do I want to know…?

Everything. But I can’t find the words because, let’s face it, “who are you?” is a very vague question.

I search through the labyrinth of my thoughts desperately, FEELING the precious seconds of time sensitive importance melt away. The more I try to concentrate, the more jumbled my thoughts get, the more the ideas race, and the less I’m able to latch onto anything coherent.

So I do what I, observing from past experiences, apparently do best.

I STOP thinking.

“How do you know Tommo?” I’m initially surprised by what comes out of my mouth, but am ultimately happy with it. Why not start at the relative, relevant beginning?

Tess leans forward a bit, clasping her hands in front of her knees casually, as if we were old friends talking about boys or embarrassing things we did as teenagers. A sickly feeling rises in my throat, tasting like soap with the texture of pasty, over boiled pasta.

Her slightly less impacted than normal, New York accented voice is quiet, shy almost, a complete foil of her established character in my mind, “Believe it or not, when I found him curled up at the back of an alley, pretty much frozen solid and starving, he was the scrawniest little thing. He looked up at me with the saddest eyes you could possibly imagine, trembling, spirit broken, shattered by someone or something so badly that he could never be put back together, and whispered, ‘What the fuck are YOU looking at?’”

She takes a moment to laugh and I join her nervously.

Despite the laughter, Tess’ eyes are still narrowed, or maybe they’re just like that naturally.