I should fold the notes and put them with the flyer.
I cannot let my anger get the best of me, but it burns, too. A deep and steady burn that, when it flares, eviscerates everything in its path.
And the people around me are laughing and talking like the world is still the same as it was three months ago, as if nothing at all has changed.
I crumple the notes further and stuff them into the pocket of my jeans.
Once Zoe is on her way back to volleyball practice, I dig my lighter out of my coat and let the fire lick up the notes. I’m sorry, Z.
I scatter the ashes on my way home.
*
When I’m home, Dad sits on the couch. He stares at me, and I drop my backpack on the floor. He doesn’t comment on it. It’s such a flashback to our conversation this summer, and I’m sure something must have happened.
For a brief, irrational, awful moment, I want him to tell me it’s Grandpa. It doesn’t have to be something bad; maybe the bank decided not to take his house. Maybe Aunt Beate has decided she can take him in after all. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. I just want him gone.
“Dad?”
He runs his hand through his hair, and it sticks up a little. He’s still wearing his tie and his jacket. “Jenna, your mom called me, and she believes we should talk.”
My stomach drops, but when he indicates I should sit on the couch, I do. In the farthest corner. He looks nothing like Grandpa, and it may be a small mercy, but I’m forever grateful of it.
“Your behavior this last couple of months has been unlike what we’ve come to expect from you, Jenna. I know Grandpa’s presence has required all of us to adapt, but I thought you and he got along. He’s been trying, and this . . .” He gestures at me, at my hair. “Your acting up only makes things worse.”
I open my mouth and close it again. The words stick in my mouth. They claw at me.
The first time I tried to tell Dad. I told him Grandpa scared me.
He told me I just needed to get used to him.
The second time I tried to tell Mom. I told her Grandpa touched me.
She was too busy with preparations for her PTA meeting. It wasn’t her fault. It was far easier to tell her when she wasn’t paying attention to me.
I just wish she had been.
“Work is sending me to Chicago after the weekend. An impromptu meeting at HQ. Mom is coming along. It’ll only be for a day or two, but I expect you to take that time to sort out whatever is bothering you about this arrangement. We expect you to pull your weight at home. We expect you to raise your grades. And we want to know how you plan to do it by the time we get back. Talk it through with Grandpa if you want. He’ll be here, and he volunteered to help.” Dad reaches out to take my hand, and I let him. I don’t know what else to do. “We don’t care about the green hair—which is to say, Mom will get used to it. You’re fifteen—you’re supposed to experiment and we want to give you that freedom. But we have to be able to trust you to be responsible, okay?”
Silence falls heavily between us. Then I do what I’m supposed to do. I nod. I’m a good girl who listens to her parents. Even when they don’t listen to me.
“Yes, Dad.”
I get up from the couch and start walking.
I start walking, and I don’t stop.
*
If you keep feeding the fire, it will grow and wait to devour you. You don’t realize it until it’s too late.
*
I don’t know where to go. I could go back to the empty office building, but afternoon leads into dusk, and dusk leads into late night, and too many people will be there. I can wander the streets, but as my parents have taught me time and again, it isn’t safe for a girl to be out on her own at night. But then again, when home isn’t safe either, does it really matter?
Without consciously making the decision, my feet take me in the direction of the office building. I felt comfortable there. Perhaps I can squat there. Or disappear. Perhaps I can light the whole thing ablaze and dance with the flames.
I walk to the very edge of our neighborhood. The office building is haphazardly planted between it and the business park another mile or so down the road. Perhaps that’s why renting the floor space never caught on. Or perhaps they always meant to build it as a teen playground of sorts.
I sneak around the fence, but at night the building is nothing like the one I know. There are lights inside, and faded music drifts down from the roof. A few yards away from me, someone laughs. I step back.
A beer bottle smashes against the concrete walls.
Then the yellow beam of a flashlight suddenly shines in my direction. I raise my arms against the sudden brightness.
“Who d’we have ’ere?” someone slurs.
A guy steps into the light. He’s blond. Black-rimmed glasses. Maybe a few years older than me. He clings to a beer bottle, and it looks like it’s all he can do not to stagger.
The light beam moves, and another guy steps closer too.
I freeze. I push my hands deeper into my pockets, and my heart picks up the pace.
“What are you doing here, little girl?” the first says.
The second guffaws. “Are you going for the Big Bad Wolf aesthetic, dude?”
“She looks lost,” Bottle defends himself.
“Am not,” I mutter, but probably too quiet for anyone to hear. Still, the words matter to me. And the guys are too wrapped up in their fairy tale.
“Oh Grandmother, what a big mouth you have.”
“All the better to eat you with.”
The beam shakes as the second person laughs. The two reach out and bump fists because they’re drunk and gross and teen boys through and through.
Bottle steps a little closer again. “Come here, little girl, I’ll show you something big.”
I want to move. I don’t move. I can’t move. And I hate myself for it. What am I if I can’t even protect myself from this?
But deep in my pocket my fingers curl around my lighter. I play with the spark wheel, and for a moment I think I could accidentally set myself on fire. And while I can push lit matches against my arm to remind myself to feel, I can’t do that. I will burn down the world before I burn with it. I can blaze this path too.
I turn around and start walking. One step before the other. Slow at first. Faster.
“It’s just a game, little girl,” one of the guys jeers. His feet crush glass, and a moment later, another bottle smashes against the outside of the building.
I keep walking. I don’t look back.
It’s just a game. It’s not just a game.
It’s the first time I’ve ever been able to walk away, and if it’s also the last, it will still have meant everything. But even fractals start at a random point. Perhaps, eventually, patterns will emerge.
*