Because I feel it. I feel the clicks and the turns and the creaking of a million keys unlocking a million doors in my mind. It’s like I’m finally allowing myself to see what I really think, how I really feel, like I’m discovering my own secrets for the first time. And then I search his eyes, search his features for something I can’t even name. And I realize I don’t want to be his enemy anymore.
Like the pain has disfigured her.
She gets me. I give her a lot of crap for being emotional all the time, but I love how empathetic she is. I love how she feels things so deeply that sometimes even joy manages to wound her. It’s who she is. She’s all heart.
Sometimes I think the loneliness inside of me is going to explode through my skin.
Oh – don’t worry,” he said quickly. “I’m like eighty percent gay.
My greatest wish for you,” he says, “is for you to see yourself the way that I do: as a brilliant, handsome, compassionate young man who would do anything for the people he loves.
You don’t see yourself around her. Your feelings are obvious to everyone. From anywhere.
I push the walls back, making more space in the room until I can finally breathe. Until I’m able to stand.
My heart aches. For both of them.
I don’t understand this. I don’t understand why she’s treating me like this. And I open my mouth to say exactly that when she says – “Never mind, I don’t want to talk to any of you. Please go away. Or maybe you can all go to hell. I don’t actually care.” I flinch. Her words land like physical blows. She’s talking to me like I’m the enemy, and I can’t believe it. “Are you – wait, are you serious right now?
It was the end of August, all volatile heat and the occasional breeze. I was surrounded by starched backpacks and stiff denim and kids who smelled like fresh plastic. They seemed happy.
Like a little bird with hollow bones.
Fear will learn to fear me. And I’m leaving my gloves behind.
I don’t think you’re weird. And i don’t know why you think I’m going to have a sudden epiphany that you’re weird and start freaking out. I’m not. Okay?
I feel her finally relax. I feel the exact moment when the tension leaves her body, when she collapses fully against my chest. Her tears soak through my shirt, hot and unrelenting.
In a strange way, it makes me sad that they’ve been able to find happiness in this life. They have no idea what they’ve missed; no idea what the world used to be like.
She looked like she’d disappeared into herself somewhere – like herself inside. It took a minute to coax her back out again.
Your powers make you functionally invincible.
I remember you every day forever in every single broken moment of my life.
I focus on the window between me and my freedom. I want to smash this concrete world into oblivion. I want to be bigger, better, stronger. I want to be angry angry angry. I want to be the bird that flies away.