expired

Chapter 4, Part 2

"Eva, why didn't you stop me? This is going to ruin my life!"

"Eva, this is all your fault! Why didn't you use your gift?"

"You did this."

Voice continued to pile on, drowning me.

"Eva, Eva, Eva..."

My eyes snapped open and I pulled my arms inward, away from whatever was shaking me. "Eva?" The last voice spoke again.

I took deep breaths in and out, orienting myself. The events of the previous evening played back in my head. Matt, Jane, baby, Clay... Clay!

"Yeah?" Clay said. I hadn't realized I'd been speaking out loud.

"What time is it?!" I ran over to the vines and parted them to see the darkness of night had blanketed the town, and with it the chill of the evening air. The grass was still damp from the rain, and the dew from outside the tree seeped in under the vines and into my shoes. I shivered and let the leaves of the Tree fall, retreating to the center.

"It's one in the morning," Clay said, standing up from the chaise and crossing his arms. "I used your phone--" I immediately tapped my pockets in search of the device, which Clay pulled out of his pocket. "You're a heavy sleeper," he chuckled, handing the phone to me before continuing. "Anyways, I called your parents and told them you had come over to my house for dinner and we watched a movie and you fell asleep and I didn't want to to wake you up. I think they had more important things on their mind anyways," he raised an eyebrow, cracking a smile.

I began to laugh, but stopped myself. "It's not funny."

"No, it's not," Clay said, suppressing his smile, but failing miserably.

I joined him in laughter, saying, "Okay, maybe it's a little funny. Well, it's not. But it is."

"Exactly."

We looked at each other in awkward silence, and I assumed we were both realizing whatever moment had happened between us just a few hours prior.

"Are we going to--" Clay said.

"No."

"That's what I--"

"Yep."

I gathered my stuff to leave. Pleasesaysomething, pleasesaysomething, I thought as my feet squished through the grass. My hopes fell as I made my way down the street and eventually was well on my way to my house.

It was kind of weird walking home at night at this hour. Every single light in each house was out, all the television sets were turned off, everything had fallen still. I could hear a car whizz by on the main road in the distance every once in a while and see its bright headlights illuminate everything in its path, but other than that it was just me, the hum of the cicadas and the moonlight.

In truth, it was kind of weird. Not only was there the stillness of the world, but it felt like there was the stillness of time. Every day it always feels like there's tens of ticking time bombs surrounding me and I can't shake the awareness of them, and I always feel like I have to do something about it or they'll never leave me alone. I've never really get out by myself much at one in the morning (read: I'm a teenage girl), but the feeling was surreal, like I'd slipped into some sort of alternate reality. A world that felt like it shouldn't exist because it was too easy, but that I wanted to stay in forever.

It felt like the world was a glass container and all the clocks were beads, and I was screwed down in the center of the box unable to move, surrounded and drowning in all these beads, and when my world was so still like this it was like someone had tilted the box and let all the beads roll to one side, freeing me and allowing me to actually see the world for what it was. It was like someone had blinded me, but had also somehow allowed me to see clearly my world for what it was.