Citrus | ONC 2024 ✔️

3: Ever After

Clacking suitcase wheels and jittery tones clutched my ankles. My feet were cement blocks, the patterned kind you put as steps to a garden. Those steps piled upon the tops of my sneaker-covered feet, growing heavier and planting me on the newly waxed floor. The ceiling expanded into an open sky, and dirt rounded between my toes, around my shoes, and mounded perfectly with the grayish-red blocks.

"Pop!" Morgan's call chilled me.

Leaves drifted from my branches, withering. Although, the winter weather was warmer here, supposedly.

If I didn't look, nothing happened. If I didn't know, nothing happened. But nothing would stop the sounds fluttering through the thick air or old red and gold leaves drifting toward me, a clear vision of the past intact.

Heart playing a game with the wind, I bent over, adjusting the blocks scattered about my feet. Shoelaces trapped themselves between my fingertips. Loops formed, knots too, a bow the result. Staring at the ground, the earth closer, the smell invading my nose, I didn't need a jungle, only head to—

"Get up, Oren!" Morgan shouted. The hour was too early—maybe something after ten in the night—for his enthusiastic cries, but I couldn't bring myself to say so. He had a reason to be happy. I needed to let him slurp up the experience in peace. "We're going home!"

Orange tang captured my nostrils; my senses flared.

The thrilled eleven-year-old gripped my arm. With all his might, he uprooted me.

Fixing my vision, I kept blinking, wondering if this was all a dream: the hour-long drive to the nearest airport, the wait, the flight, the absentminded sign following...

"How are you feeling?" I knew the voice immediately. Pop. No, Mathew.

My chest ached. I wanted to wrap my arms around him, forget everything, what happened, what I didn't know and would probably never know. I couldn't, though. Forgetting meant bad things, wrong things.

I rung my stare up, at the night sky, the clouds, the stars, the moon. The ceiling was a curved landscape, an endless feature to watch, to wait for a shift.

Yet, I looked away.

Bringing my gaze to his clear green eyes, a tingle rapped in my lungs. The beat was frantic, with no rhythm to it. I imagined his heart was too, frolicking about just as mine was, an unpredictable dance. As I inhaled, I saw the beat alive in his eyes, the pupils darting about, his toffee-colored hands clenching and unclenching. My hands mimicked his, and I pocketed them in my jacket, red rushing to my cheeks.

"I..." I tried to find the word lost in the wind. I'm okay. Tired.

Tired. Dad would still be awake now, already back at the house, maybe trying a new recipe at this hour, checking his watch more than he would for any regular cook time. He would be pacing the worn wood floors of the apartment, opening and closing the only kitchen window at every whim. He would say the same thing. I'm okay, just tired.

Mathew ran his hand through his thick black hair, the same shade mine used to be. "How was the flight?" He smiled broadly, so similar to Morgan.

My chest clenched. "Okay..."

"Amazing! I got to see the cockpit!" Morgan grinned.

If I wanted to say something more, I couldn't now with Morgan chirping over any beat of suitcase wheels or tapping shoes. I wasn't complaining.

The crowd dispersed and us with it. I trailed behind Morgan and Mathew, a tight-lipped smile on my face and my phone clutched in my sweaty palms. Messages flashed on the screen.