the girl in the fireworks
[because this story won't leave me alone...]
Ages: 13; 14; 15ish, respectively
1.
“The first few nights in the city are rough,” and you thought they were lying when they’d said it, "but you'll get used to it soon enough." And you really hope your parents weren't lying about that.
Traffic sounds drill holes in your head through the night-what night? It’s five in the morning now and you barely slept a wink. Instead, you recall spending the better part of the night tossing and turning in white sheets that felt too hot or too cold in early spring weather.
You kneel on the mattress now, able to look outside your window. Expecting black and blue silhouettes of branches outside, you startle backwards from the dizzying heights and the sight of car headlights down below which appear to be no more than specks of light. If anyone was to fall from here, you wonder what kind of sound they’d make, a crunch or a splat, and with such bizarre hypothetical scenarios, you return to lie on your back and stare at the ceiling, waitingwaitingwaiting, for the sun to rise, for something, anything…
Ten or so minutes before your mother pounds on your door to wake you up is when you finally fall asleep.
-
2.
“What’s the one thing that scares you out of your mind?” he asks you once, purely for kicks perhaps, or maybe because that seems to be the subject matter presently being debated on TV. (You’d put more money on the former though because what doesn’t he do that isn’t purely for kicks?) This is all still back in the early days when you first move in, and just like old times, your parents dump you and your sister at your ex-babysitter’s house while they sort out the mess that is the new apartment.
As you sit and watch another one of those lame sci-fi dramas, you want to laugh at how this feels like an attempt to break the ice for the second time. Calling it the ‘second time’, however, made it sound as if some significant bond or other had actually formed the first time when in truth, you couldn’t have been more than eight when you both moved to your respective city and town. Moreover, last you remembered, he was a grass-stained little boy who didn’t know how to share and lived under the assumption that all girls had an infectious disease.
“Heights,” you finally provide him with an answer, mostly humouring him. Given how common the ridiculous phobia is, you think he cannot possibly take it seriously even if it's the truth for you.
“And how do you manage that, living on the fourteenth floor and all?”
“Easy," you lie. "I don’t look down.”
“That’s cheap,” he says into the orange soda can, sounding disappointed. Inwardly, you smile. If you close your eyes and block out the noise from the TV, you can easily hear the carbonated water fizz...and the echos of a seven-year old boy who swore he was better than you.
“Maybe. But it’s your turn now. You find yourself a new thing or are you still afraid of the dark?” you tease, knowing how much it always got under his skin. And here comes the defense...
“Shut up! That was ages ago!”
"Right." And it is to your advantage that the two of you are in his living room with only the flicker of the television as the sky grows darker outside. It is also to your advantage that you are no longer seven and much smarter now, even if it borders on cruel somewhat. In a swift motion, you grab the remote control and turn the TV off, leaving the room in near darkness. One…two…th-
And predictably, you hear a sudden rustle of movement, and then a click, as the lamp beside him is turned on. Before you can start laughing out loud like you sincerely feel like doing, the TV is also on again, and he looks straight at it with a grim look fixed on his face. Of course, it would have been too good to be true if he'd thrown in his seven-year-old tantrum as well. “Low blow,” is what you hear muttered instead.
“And you lied. C’mon! How old are we now!?”
“It’s not about the dark.” And you wonder if you're just imagining his fidgeting now and how it's gone up threefold.
“Oh yeah?” you grin, skeptical. “Then what?”
“I said, it’s not about the dark! Not in itself." He shoots you a look then, so quick that you can't quite make out what it means. And here, the dark doesn't help at all. "Anyway, are you hungry or what? I'm gonna go bug mom about dinner.”
-
3.
Another holiday brings with it more fireworks outside your window, dots and lines of scattered light that are seen before you hear the following crackle of the metal that burned for the sake of your entertainment. Self-pity will not do for tonight because at least you have the orange peels on your desk to keep you company as you gaze outside. They had asked you to come with them and you said no, and now who to blame but yourself when you find the quiet of your empty home more than a little unbearable.
There is no skyline is in sight anymore, too dark for that, just black, black, and black, with lights coming out of windows and corporate logos lining the tops of what-would-be-towers-in-the-light, and names in lights and lights in names...and you have to turn away and blink a few times for the afterimages to disappear.
By now, you know fairly well that the city air has a way of getting into your hair and making it stick but lately, you’ve started to wonder if it has a way of diffusing through your skull and into your head as well. Something feels off and has felt off for quite some time now and you know for a fact that it has nothing to do with your fear of heights. Halfheartedly, you make your way to your bed, wishing you would listen when you told yourself to sleep, but knowing you would not, again and again. Vaguely, you wonder when the fear of heights had turned into a completely unrelated fear of dreams and then the fear of sleep itself.
Your little sister had laughed when you'd told her. She'd said to check your closet and under your bed-“Oh wait, our beds have drawers full of socks and underwear, silly!”-making you regret confiding in the little brat in the first place.
What could you have said anyway? That some fears lay deeper than others, burrowed themselves elsewhere? That oak furniture and closet doors were not the worst of a one’s imagination?
“What now? Are you gonna go up to mommy tomorrow and cry about being afraid of the dark?” she had added, laughing as she’d left your room.
It’s not about the dark! you had wanted to yell then, over and over and over again. Instead, you now hold your head in your hands, understanding at last what he'd meant all along.