Fear for the Ages

Carolynn

October 25th. The color of fall is orange--- Since I'm wearing a black skirt, black leggings, a soft black shirt, and wearing my hair straight down, I look ready to burst out with a trick or treating bag.

I hug the math sheets which sandwich my science notes to my stomach and rock back and forth on my toes. Although I think I should buy some snacks when I get out the doors, my feet are glued to a tile in the hallway.

Some water balances on my bottom eyelids, and I twist over my shoulder, stare four stories down to see the buses leaving and that water jumps out of me. My head bumps back to watch Nicolás and Sebastian carry a conversation longer than I carry my forty pound backpack. They can have another ten minutes to talk because even if I leapt out the window now, impossibly managed to survive, and sprinted on the road behind the bus begging--- The driver would drive on.

As I peeled away from counting tiles to the racing tick tock, Nicolás glared at me and I caught it in the corner of my sight.

"Do you mind? Bi..." Nicolás's voice hitched. He squinted, asked with a harsh tone, and pivoted to block my path if I were to go to my locker.

We held a staring contest for a second and I swapped my opponent to Nicolás's worn out sneakers so I didn't get embarrassed. Since I'm working on raising my voice, I tell him directly "This is my locker."

"Fu... off." He pushes Sebastian's back and walks to the side of another door in the hall.

Did I win the staring contest?

My knees plop to the ground like a strike of lightning, the bone knocks on the floor sounding like a note played on a xylophone. Because I donated the padlock to a girl that keeps her laptop in her gym locker, I swing the door of mine open. That's when I shove the papers into the red cage, smiling.

Nicolás pops up behind me and I get spooked like a horse, lurching forward to hug the lockers. He taps my shoulder, and a bruise slowly forms where his palm smacked. I swish around and my legs unfurl and crumple on the cold floor. Nicolás, who is crouched like a Spider-man pose, drones loudly, "Geoffrey likes you."

My lips mouthed, "Who?" But I pushed the door to my locker until I heard a soft click, I ignored Nicolás aside from making an annoying nod.

"Yeah, I don't know why," Nicolás commented. He swung my locker open again, and my spine curved back before the edge left a bruise on my face. A cold swoosh of air froze my eyelids, and then when I snapped my blue eyes open, Nicolás took the paper from the top of the stack.

He examined it, holding the scribbled and crumbly sheet above his head, under his eyes. I folded my arms to look tough, but as a result of them being tucked together, I started rubbing my long sleeves. I sighed, and my breath was the warmest thing I felt when the watery air melted on my leggings.

"Hey what's your name?" He asks waving the graded paper in front of my chest. He glints at my face, the light behind me is bright fluorescent and scorching white.

"Carolynn," I choke so far under breath that it sounds like I'm crying.

He lifts one eyebrow, and talks calmly with an "I dare you to say no" edge. "K so ''Carrie-Lina'; Look. I got math tomorrow. Can I borrow this?" Nicolás waits for my answer, he's sitting criss cross and eyeing the sheet, the A-, and me. My head lulls back and weakly falls down, but if there was a gif of a man nodding "yes" adjacent to me, I'd look like his in sync doppelganger.

"Of course you were gonna say yes. You know why? You're weaker than eggshells, bi...tch," Nicolás's voice wavers again, but the glare matches 90% of his tone. It's quiet, but dark like the sound you hear the moment before an inevitable death in Final Destination.

He flattened the paper against smooth ground, pounding the crumpled hills like clay. I slipped my hand on the steel school locker and pressed it back in place. I speed walked out of there, gripping my backpack straps and maybe stroking them as well. .....Down the hall, out the door, to the bathroom near the construction sight, and after I traveled to the store a mile away from the school, I met up with Natalia for two seconds, and walked straight home."

Carolynn, the world famous old actress, stared at us with runny mascara streaking down her wrinkly cheeks. Our little group couldn't offer her any more boxes of tissues so we stared at her, attempting a "tough love" technique. She shakily handed us the paper she wrote these soul words on, describing a memory selected randomly. Her hand writing sloped under the provided lines and ranged from semi-cursive to arabic style English.

"You can take her off Cerreo DockII," Someone tall in our group of scientists ordered.

A tube slid out of her ear, covered in chunky blood. Someone carefully pulled the end of the tube while another held old Carolynn's head still so she didn't fidget.

"That's the most vivid memory we've ever had been recalled by Cerreo D!" "We can sell this soon-" "Few more trials?" "Obviously." All new voices squealed as Carolynn passed out on the chair in the basement she was strapped to.

"Line formation. A5 grid," I shouted at everyone celebrating.