It was none of his business! If he hadn’t butted in, everything would be all right now. No, not all right. Perfect. She’s angry. She’s angry with him, but angrier with herself. She hates herself. His name can’t seem to come to her lips, but his face is the only thing she sees. His smile with the slightly crooked front tooth. His shocked face in the last days when she swept by him in the hallways.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHc38IgAlW5
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjOiBdvV0Ke
He’s the first person she’s ever shown her world. She let him come over and led him to stand under the person-sized rectangle in the ceiling. She jumped up and grabbed the screen, so the panel opened downward and a jagged ladder descended to them. She’d always liked that panel. It was a secret room, her secret.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9xc60iHz9S
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZK4ejl2CEh
She had to go first, turn on the electricity and see his reaction. She was apprehensive. This project of hers had become such a part of her that any judgment on it was a judgment on her. It turned out she didn’t have to worry.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcHOaksYrrA
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT294pVOsuq
The lights turned on in minute buildings that she’d carefully made herself. Realistic stoplights flicked from green to amber to red in front of cars that never moved. Electric trains whirred on tracks, through the little town, over miniscule bridges, around plastic trees and Lego people. He stood there, awed, his body still, but his eyes flickering, taking in everything. Then he raised his eyes to hers and smiled.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7DxM3JBOIQ
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRouaO7kf1M
She never would have even done that much if she hadn’t seen him drawing a ninja in chemistry. He wrote neatly over the top “FUTURE JOB.” When she glanced back at his desk, the picture had vanished. In response to her quizzical look, he’d mouthed, “Ninjas don’t stay out in the open.”538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwsYoAhOTbE
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFPpVv4bZS2
And that was that.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKkSxnFGOFI
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4NL8ize3H4
Although they’d gone to the same school since kindergarten, they had never spoken before. They were completely different. Yet after his first time in her house, when he saw her attic, she was filled with him. His butterscotch hair, his eyes like the foggy San Francisco sky. And all he wanted was to be with her.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEm4pdgSfZv
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDGNAkGTDDG
He was the one who taught her to play the guitar, patiently showing her over and over until his fingers bled. Then he bandaged them and continued with the lesson until she got bored and moved onto something else. He was always doing things like that, just for her.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSmuS6mvuwY
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA5FRj38mZm
She imagines she’s sitting in her attic, surrounded by her little world. In her mind’s eye she lifts a toy car and passes it between her palms. It was when she was in an airplane that she got the idea to make it – when she saw the sprawling city beneath her, aglow with the light of the setting sun. It’s comforting somehow to have a world that she can control. She’s the God of her own little world.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxB7655F2Vb
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9oG5PvAkSw
“Dancing Queen” was written for her, according to him, which has always been strange to her. She listened to artists like Radiohead, Avenged Sevenfold, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Queen. But then she also started listening to artists like ABBA and Taylor Swift, just to hear what he heard and to try and see herself through his eyes.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDWQgbZH9yK
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWmk0nZUOeq
She was up for everything, afraid to try nothing. He doodled and read literature, inscribing notes into the margins. They complemented each other perfectly, but she wasn’t as wild as everyone saw her and he wasn’t as quiet, especially not when they were in each other’s arms. They could lie for hours just taking in each curve on each other’s faces and speck in each other’s eyes as their breathing synchronized perfectly, their chests rising and falling in rhythm.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJtJkm5ALeE
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaPNnrJPz8A
He forced her to read the classics. She’d always had a sort of romantic notion about reading, but she was too lazy to do it and she got so easily bored. But he acted out scenes for her, brought in his favorite film reproductions. Her read to her in a British accent, a Scottish one, French, Australian. Or he read in his own voice and still she was mesmerized.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZYYyoH0WnW
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8WD2g04nbp
If only he’d kept his nose out her business. She could have dealt. It was just two more years. She’d have been free.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBApU6RATpa
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡko2OJcPl9r
He was the one who had found her that day and driven her to the emergency room, face pale, eyes lit and frightened.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2faiAM6HLS
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF8hoRrPXBm
That had ruined everything.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmzIgJ9av5Y
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcXebXEDLUq
How did it feel? Did you raise out your arms, begging to be carried away? Did you feel the wind sweep under your arms and lift you up? Did it hurt? Did the headlights blind you? Did you think of me?538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcPTMHYlJ3y
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUlOw4dCmeQ
He’d met her dad once and only once. He had seen what everyone else saw. A mild-mannered single dad who was involved just enough in his daughter’s life.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyFg3DSegWA
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR09QTcuuTo
But then he’d seen the bruises on her back. She’d lied about them at first, the way she always had, but it didn’t take long for him to figure it out. When she was rammed into a table hard enough to break her ribs, his suspicions were confirmed.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3D5thoJkf4
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyxGnpbfc5z
“You need to get away from your dad,” he told her, although she could see behind his eyes that he couldn’t reconcile the polite man he’d met with the purveyor of the bluish-purple splotching her back or stretching across her chest.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ607Uv9USXU
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ15RIth8acZ
Thrown into sharp relief in her mind is the expression when she had collided into him just two weeks ago. Disappointment. Disbelief. Despair. Two weeks ago he had been able to feel all those. Now he can’t feel anything at all.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡebA8AfU0QG
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFp8M5oXjGf
He was just trying to help. Was it really possible to love someone and still feel a vicious, vindictive pleasure when her classmates snubbed him? He had deserved it at the time. He should never have interfered.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrsd4YLJ3A2
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡw3c0kvSVu2
She didn’t need child protection services. She was sixteen, for god’s sake. She would be an adult in two years, go to college, and be free. She would have been able to put up with that bullshit until then. Her dad wanted her to go to Stanford. Every breath he breathed worked toward sending her to Stanford, but that was absolutely the last thing she wanted when she could see the lights of its football field out her window and hear the cheers. It was always more obvious when they were playing Berkeley, the air was more electrified.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhwNrQ9a4yE
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3WHGIc7MwY
He used to come over sometimes, during the football games and they used to try to guess from the yells which team it was that had just scored.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCBuQQhs3iF
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnijPFy71gw
She isn’t in her attic right now. She’s in a foreign room in her estranged aunt’s house, feeling out of place. She doesn’t belong here. It isn’t home. There’s no home anymore. And it’s all because of him. It’s his fault – not for calling child protection services, but for being gone.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBtGfUmkmir
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGL2Phhlvxy
She collapses backwards onto the bed, presses her palms against her eyes. She suddenly wonders if her dad smashed her world in the attic. The thought of that makes her finally begin to cry when she has been too numb to do so all this time.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqxwp90IjeX
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqnbLWBz5gV
There’s a story she read once in the news about how a man flew home, to be welcomed back by his wife and daughter meeting him on the runway. He swept his daughter into his arms and into the air, only to have her head sliced off by the airplane’s propeller. The story has haunted her ever since she heard it. It comes into her mind sometimes and sits there, an unwelcome squatter. She could never imagine how anyone could live with that guilt. All he’d wanted to do was celebrate being reunited with his beloved daughter and had inadvertently killed her. How do you move on from something like that?538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhc1R7omfbQ
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2LXkD9sl7j
She was pulled out of class by child protective services, so everyone knew. It happened to be chemistry, so she yanked her backpack and shot him the angriest glare she could muster. She hadn’t spoken to him after that, not once. She hadn’t returned his calls, had pretended he was invisible when he came to her in person.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZFJrfXVUTU
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLYZbzW2GoC
She had warned him it would happen. He had promised not to tell anyone and she hated broken promises more than almost anything else in the world.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡquuYo05JkX
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSE4KqsKIEk
Since she’d been pulled out of chemistry class in front of classmates, it wasn’t exactly a secret – everyone knew. Everyone also believed her adamant claims that he was wrong, everything was good at home. It was easier for them to ignore her injuries in favor the illusion of perfection. They hissed at him, tripped him, or booed him completely. At least in front of her they did.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaHBcjPt4Ny
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCqH23tQQUI
She didn’t lift a finger to stop them, didn’t even look his way.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4HZp6xo2lR
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQNcrcMvgqS
He stopped calling after a while and she found herself lonely. She had been irked that he dared to call after what he’d done. Now that he’d stopped, she found herself missing his voice, even in the form of firmly non-apologetic voicemails.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4cyiFQnvEa
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHTekotG0sO
She didn’t know what bothered her more – that he had the nerve to confront something that many others had probably known about but had averted their eyes from, or that he had loved her enough to risk alienating her completely.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrgfWPaIJAu
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV4tvtxbQjD
And then – and then the call. He had been hit by train, the conductor had called the paramedics, they were there, it was too late, he was pronounced dead at the scene, taken straight to the morgue instead of the emergency room. His blood alcohol level was precariously high, probably to dull the pain. Which indicated, of course, that he had committed suicide.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHFvtswdGm9
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ391XhJHALO
Suicide, they said, but she knows she might as well have pushed him herself. When the numbness goes away, how can she live with herself? His mother says he didn’t seem suicidal, but his mother wasn’t with him at school. She should have seen it in those eyes instead of looking down and away.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjgZrSZIQsf
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGreKhR7cnE
It makes no sense to her anymore. Why was she so angry with him? It made sense at first, but then again, he’s the only thing that has ever made sense in her life.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIfXWxOvUn1
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡniYawMjz5T
She is so fucking mad. She’s mad at herself for treating him like she did. She’s mad at him for thinking she’d never forgive him.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9VtHa2AJ8v
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3FuEiuBIBM
She stands up beside a bare desk beneath the window. Other than her textbooks, there’s one thing on it – a frame, tipped over so the picture can’t be seen. She lifts it up and lets her finger slide down the reproduction of a face that she will never see or touch or kiss again.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjl1ftVxaUN
538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBI2PS0h254
She was wrong all along. This whole time she’s been thinking she lost her home once she was sent to live with her aunt and uncle. The truth was, she truly lost her home the moment he jumped in front of that train.538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8dSNdBEqoG
Penana
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