Slate | ✓

FIFTEEN | WILL

A new piercing decorates the top of Ella's ear. Well, maybe not new, but just one that I've never seen before.

The distinction hurts.

"Are you going to let me apologize?" Ella cups a hand over her forehead, which casts a shadow across her face as she squints up at me. The afternoon sun emboldens the haze of yellow within the light brown of her eyes. We sit together on a concrete curb out in the school parking lot. Heat reflects off the dry pavement below us.

She examines my face, and I force myself to not look away. We both know what she's seeing is a difference more dramatic than an ear piercing. "Do you really need to?" I ask, pulling an unlit cigarette out from where I've stored it behind my ear.

"I was afraid you'd say that." She sighs and tilts her head up at me. "We're not very dramatic people, are we?"

"Painfully boring," I say, twirling the cigarette between two of my fingers. "Like two old ladies."

Ella smiles and tucks a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "Please don't try to protect my feelings here, Will." She wears a bright pink bow on the top of her head. "If you're angry, then be angry. There's nothing I can do if you don't talk to me."

"Do you think I'm angry?" 

She stares back at me. Her gaze is soft with a mix of concern and warmth. "I can't tell. You seem far away."

It feels worse than anything else she could accuse me of. I had hoped she had some sort of meaningful answer or name to the strange expanse sitting on my chest. Right now, I feel more like a quantity than a person. Two panic attacks in four days. What am I supposed to do with that? It's like I've been thrust out into a minefield and told to distract myself from the danger with school work. The waiting— the expectation of when and where and how that number will go up has infected everything else.

Ella knows me best, but I feel like I'm in the process of changing. I just don't know into what.

"I'm not angry with you," I tell her, and it's true. "Trust me, I know better than anyone that anger makes people do dumb shit, and you had every right to be mad at me. You made a mistake, but that doesn't change anything about how I see you."

"I wanted to hurt you," she says, her voice thick. "You know that?"

I deserved it. "What do you want me to say?" I balance my elbow on the top of my knee and brace my head against my hand. "Don't protect my feelings, either. I fucked up things first, I practically ghosted you—"

"You were in a lot of pain in the spring." Her words slice through mine like butter. "I could feel it." Ella wraps her arms around her folded legs in a protective hug.

I shake my head. The sound of my own heartbeat drums throughout my body. "I don't want you to make excuses for me. I was unfair, and I was only thinking about myself when I broke up with you like I did."

"It's not an excuse."

"Fine. Pity, then. I don't want your pity." 

She surprises me by reaching over to take my hand. "Who said anything about pity? Don't let Athena get inside your head. You're the strongest person I know— you always have been." Her hand in mine feels easy and familiar. "I can't blame you for doing what you thought you needed to do. I'm just sorry you felt like you couldn't talk to me."

The back of my throat pinches, and I can't quite look at her. "It's not you."

"I know now," Ella replies with a certainty that's more comforting than I can say. "I know that, Will."

There's the weight again; the responsibility of bridging the gap that's grown so wide I've lost sight of the other side. The cycles that I've been drudging through in my head emerge now only as silence.

"I think you're in survival mode." Ella refuses to look away as her eyes shine with purpose. "I don't know entirely what that means, but I think it's become normal to you and that scares me."

I retract my hand to place the cigarette between my lips. "I got better myself," I say as I rummage for my lighter. "It was bad in the spring, sure, but I started feeling better when summer started. Maybe I don't understand what's going on in my head all the time, but I know myself, and I know what I can and can't handle." I locate the lighter. "I did it before, so I can do it again." Even as the words are leaving my mouth, it's like sirens are exploding within my head: Just stop talking already, you sound like a fucking idiot.

"Maybe there's another way, maybe there doesn't have to be a second time."

It's a nice idea, but I don't let myself believe it. Two in four, I'm remind myself, like it's becoming some horrible, backwards mantra.

"You've been having panic attacks?" Ella tentatively asks, somehow reading my mind.

I light the cigarette, careful to direct the smoke away from her. "Athena?" 

"Damien," Ella says. "He told me because he's worried about you. Don't be mad."

"I'm glad people are talking about me when I'm not there." I don't try to hide the bitterness that clouds my voice. It's better than her catching the sense of humiliation that underpins it.

"It's not like that."

I don't know what I plan to say, but I do want to argue. I want to defend myself. However, the next words are involuntary. "Look," I hate the way my voice emerges as a tight croak. "I'm terrified all the time, and I'm so fucking tired." I can't look at her, so I stare down at the smoke tendrils rising from the burning end of the cigarette. "I don't know how to be anything else anymore."

Ella leans over and cups either side of my face in her slender hands, directing my gaze back to meet her own. She's gentle and sure. "You're so loved, Will." There's a new ferocity in her words, an urgency that's been lurking under the surface. "Never forget that."

I can hear her words, but I don't feel them.

Her thumb draws small circles on my cheek. "You're not anywhere you can't get back from."

I don't know what to say so I drop the smoke and pull her in for a hug. My arms wind around her torso. She presses her face against my shoulder and within moments we're both clutching on to each other like survivors from a shipwreck.

I want to tell her how much I miss her, but I don't see how that would do either of us any good. Still, it's a truth I feel as a dull, steady ache in my chest.

Ella is the one to break the hug. She pulls away and rises from our cramped spot on the curb. She wipes at her eyes with the base of her palm, blinking rapidly. We both linger in silence for a few seconds longer as the world seems to rush back into whatever bubble we had created for ourselves.

Ella kicks the gym bag by my feet— the one Athena packed. "What's it for?"

"I'm staying with Damien for a few nights."

"This about Charlie?"

It feels like everything always circles back to Charlie. I squint up at Ella. "I shook his hand like a civilized person. Almost said 'nice to meet you.'"

"Jesus, Will."

I spring up from the curb. My legs are stiff as I adjust the gym bag over my shoulder. We walk back to the cafeteria doors, and the lunch bell threatens to sound any minute now. 

"Is my makeup smudged?"

I take a long, hard look at her. "I don't think so."

"Alright." She turns to open the door.

"Ella?"

"Yeah?"

"I like the bow, by the way," I say, pointing up to my own head. "It's a good colour on you."

She reaches a hand up to touch the piece of decoration wound into her hair, as if remembering it's there. "Thanks." Ella smiles at me, small but genuine. "It made me happy this morning so I decided to wear it."

I smile back at her.