The Way This Feels

Chapter 19: Petals

He's still hovering in the alley behind me as I exit it. I dart away through side streets, down more alleys, making as much space between us as I can muster. As soon as I know I must have lost him, I feel the beginnings of that dark cloud once more. Shame, back again. I handled that terribly, Micah literally saved my life and I abandoned him. Left him standing there, wilted. What's wrong with me?

The cloud of shame is met with red hot anger. It's his fault, and Echo's. If it weren't for them, there'd be no guys to have to stop from beating me to high hell. My hands scrabble for my pack of cigarettes again, but still they come up empty. My chest tightens, where are they? I search my jacket again and the pockets of my jeans. Nothing. When was the last it time I smoked??

I speed up, the sooner I get home, the sooner I can get ahold of the precious pack of Pall Malls. Then I'm hit with another pang. I got the Pall Malls with Micah, who I just left behind in an alleyway. I was just trying to not make this any worse than it already is, I remind myself. I consider going to The Monolith instead, getting a pack of American Spirits so I won't have to think about it, but my house is closer, and my fingers are itching to get ahold of a cigarette. Maybe it's the pain, or withdrawal, or the shame, anger, and grief brewing up in me that is making the craving just that much more poignant. 

I hear footsteps and freeze. I feel like an animal, looking nervously around me, eyes narrowed. I'm nearly to my neighborhood, there's houses ahead of me, and behind me is the back of a few tall rectangular downtown shops. I'm still on cobblestone. There's no one around me, I'm completely alone but for some stray shoppers, and they're just faintly visible nearly an entire street over, it wouldn't have been theirs. These were a lot closer. I keep watching, trying to see around a couple more dumpsters, and a pickup truck parked against the store, but there's nothing.

I keep walking. I only go a few paces, when I swear I hear it again and freeze. The slapping of soles against stone, echoing in the still afternoon. What if it's The Bikers? Back to finish me off? Nervous, I quicken my pace, taking off up the slight slope and delving into my neighborhood, ducking catlike through side yards and hurrying across streets until I'm at my house. 

Part of me expected my street to be up in arms when I arrived. Cops lining the curbs, my neighbors out searching the hedges for me. My day went so horribly sideways, it feels like someone should have thought me in danger. But really, I've only been gone a few hours, not weeks as it feels in my brain. So, dutifully, I cross my short yard, and unlock the front door with my key dangling on the long stretch of red yarn, wondering vaguely why I have it and not my Pall Malls.

I'm only thinking of the Pall Malls as I enter. I stride directly to my room and throw open the drawer by my bed and.... it's empty. I sift through the random objects, coins, pencils, junk I've hidden away in there, but the pack isn't there. I slam it shut, and dart to my desk, sorting angrily through the piles that have accumulated on it, but I don't see my cigarettes. Not anywhere.

More drawers. Nothing. The laundry that litters my floor. Nothing. I start tearing up my closet after that, and my bedsheets, and my tiny bookshelf. Nothing nothing nothing. By now I'm nearly hyperventilating. Why is it that everything's happening all at once?! These unfounded rumors come out about me, a couple guys jump me in an alley, I end this... whatever this is with Micah and leave him standing there, I fucking fell down while I was running earlier, AND NOW I CAN'T FIND MY CIGARETTES!

I tear up my room, throwing things and yelling. Not even the empty case, though I know it wasn't empty, is in this room. So where is it?? I need to calm down, I need to calm down. Of it's own volition, my mind starts going through the things that would calm me, the first being a cigarette to which I let out another scream of agony, then Micah swims to the forefront of my mind. He would help, and I would be absolved of the shame of abandoning him at the same time if I spoke to him. Without thinking about what I'm doing I jam his name on my phone and I'm calling him.