I walked into town, knowing exactly where I wanted to eat with the amount of money my mom gave me. It was a special place, one I visit a lot. I would always choose it, when I had the choice of any restaurant in the town. It was a business similar to my own, a family run, one that always greeted their customers with a genuine smile. It was a simple sandwich shop run by a kindly middle aged Italian couple, Leonardo and Romeo. The store is called “The Old Sliced Bread.”

 As I approached the store, I saw one of the owners Romeo through the large window. He was ringing up a sandwich for another customer. He looked up from his work to ask another question when he saw me approaching through the window and he first looked surprised by my presence before raising an eyebrow at me. Understanding the signal, I nodded at him to which he responded with a head nod of his own. After ringing up the customer for their order, he started to work on my sandwich. 

I've been going there for years, maybe for as long as I've been in Canada. The first time, my mom took me so I could practice my English, which even after about two months of work was still awful. I struggled to translate the right words, constantly overpronouncing vowels and stretching the words many syllables than necessary. By the end of the ordeal, I was drowning in embarrassed tears. But it was completely worth it, when I was finally able to order what I wanted to eat. It was so good that for the next six years, once a week, I would order that exact sandwich.

As I entered the store I was greeted by the warm smile of Romeo. “Hello Ink, it's been too long since the last time you stopped by. Your order is almost ready.” 

“Thank you, Romeo, I guess it has been a while. Sorry about that.” I apologized feeling genuinely bad they were family friends after all.

“It's alright, me and Leo thought you were dead! At least until we went by your shop for some new chairs and asked your mother about you.” 

“I thought they looked familiar,” I exclaimed as I glanced around. “Wait, but why did you assume I was dead and not just I don't know... busy?”

“Well, because of the others of course! Whenever we brought you up to them, they always had such a grim look on their face. We assumed the worst and figured you died.” 

“Well, in the others' defense, we had a bit of a falling out.” 

“What happened?" 

“They destroyed something incredibly valuable to me and I snapped at them, and we haven't spoken in three months.” I explained with difficulty not liking remembering what I had done.

“Well, that's too bad you always seemed like such good friends.” He sympathized as he started to punch in my order. “Then you wouldn't know about... no, no, don’t, it's nothing,” he muttered to himself.

“What is it?” 

“It's probably nothing, but Brad, he was in here earlier today and he just looked shaken, like he saw a ghost. He also kept on muttering to himself about a book and fire? I know the answer is probably, no but do you know why he might've been like that?" 

“Sorry, but I have no idea. I haven't talked to him in a long while," I answered as I handed him my payment. 

“I figured you would, but knowing something happened between you guys I guess not.” 

“Yeah sorry, but I don't have a clue. I mean the only thing Brad is afraid of is spiders but even then, it's a scream and find higher ground kind of fear, not a colour drain from your face kind of fear,” I grabbed my sandwich and started to walk towards the door. “Well, either way, tell Leonardo I say hi and that I'm not dead,” I requested as I headed out the door. 

As I walked home, I considered my conversation with Romeo. For some reason, Tyrone might have been able to scare Brad, which I always thought was impossible just on principle. But there were two other words that struck me as odd, fire and book. Was Tyrone responsible for the fire? Were Antonio and Guams involved too? It did not make any sense, there was no conceivable reason why every textbook could simultaneously catch on fire and the sprinklers only hitting the books. It was a freak accident. Antonio was smart, but he wasn't that smart and all of them had enough common sense to not try and kill the entire school.

As I continued to become more and more lost in thought a certain someone caught my eye it was Tyrone. He was walking towards me listening to what I could only assume was his favourite jazz playlist, he had a bag from the local party store in one hand and that wretched book in the other. Our eyes met and we both stopped, remembering our last conversation and the emotions we felt during that we began to have another verbal brawl, he spoke first he always did.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Ink,” the word said with pure bitterness and spite I hated how it felt when he used that name, “what are you doing out, in the land of the living, I thought the workshop would become your tomb.” He mocked, his grip tightening on his items.

“I still need to eat, somethings never change Tyrone, just like how you're still wasting your time and money buying junk and reading useless books, as if their knowledge will help you escape your fate.” I spat before we both realised the streets bare of anyone else it was just us no need for a show. For the first time in months we had the chance to talk with no one else watching or pressuring us to a conclusion and we both realized it. “Look man I'm sorry for calling you out during class that was ... rude.” I struggled to come up with any meaningful words.

“So your sorry for making a scene but not for losing your mind at me?” He said taking full offense to my half-hearted apology.

“Look you knew what that meant to me, you've known me for years, how did you think I was going to rea---I THOUGHT I WAS DIFFRENT!” He screamed even now after everything those and the words he was to say next hurt more than any fire could, because he was right.

“I thought after everything we’ve been through, I might've mattered more than that stupid statue! Or I don't know just enough where you could see past your anger even for a moment but no you couldn't! And you know I could get over the assault but to see how little I meant to you that, that's what hurt Ming.”

“What do you want me to say Ty I'm sorry for how I reacted I'm sorry for how I blew upon on you I'm sorry for everything because the truth is I'm not you ruined my life there's nothing you or I can do to fix it. There's no point we both know it's too late now nothing either of us can do can fix things clearly. So, let's stop trying to be involved in others' lives stop trying to fix things or act like it's going to get better because it's not. Let's just push all our feelings deep where we will never have to confront them, trust me its easiest that way. I said storming past him not being able to stand him or the conversation or any longer not wanting to have to watch either of us cry.

“Ink”, he yelled I turned with a heavy sigh “If there's nothing anyone can do to fix it then why do you keep trying?”

“Because I'm hoping I'm wrong! Because more than anything I'm hoping that I'm wrong and I can still fix things.” I admitted continuing to walk away. As I did, I couldn't help but let my thoughts come back to the idea of Tyrone being about the possibility of them being behind the textbooks, but I quickly shook away those thoughts. The worst thing that there capable of other then screwing me over of course, is building a makeshift car out of spare parts from Tyrone's Dads Auto Shop and driving it around until we crashed it and had to hide it in the forest. But that’s a massive leap from mass arson. There was no way they could do that.

As I finished reassuring myself, I entered my home to see my mom sitting at the counter. “Hi, Ink, what did you get?”

“Same thing I get every time.” I explained trying to get the thoughts of Tyrone out of my head, nothing would be worse than having to have a conversation about Tyrone with my mom. 

“Beef and ham foot-long with melted cheese, green olives, lettuce, hot sauce, onions, salt and pepper. Served with a chocolate cookie and a half a liter of chocolate milk.” We answered in complete unison, her having a cheeky grin. I just looked at her half-heartedly and whimpered, “I thought you promised you would stop doing that.” 

“I know, I know. It's just been so long.” She admitted.

“Yeah, I guess that's true,” I admitted rubbing the back of my head. “Oh yeah, did Romeo and Leonardo really think I was dead?” 

She made a face halfway in between sadness and constipation. “Yeah, I had to correct them when they came into the shop and ordered a couple chairs and told me how they were so sorry for my loss. I mean it's not like I can blame them.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“Ink, you haven't left the house for three months unless it was to take out the trash or go to school. They were not the only ones, a lot of people from around the neighborhood asked me.” she said genuinely confused on how I couldn't notice.

Hearing this now made me think my commenters on my Instagram account weren't that out of line or farfetched. “I'm gonna eat my food and then head over to the shop to work on my sculpture some more.” I needed to fix the sculpture as fast as possible time was running out.

“Ok well, have fun” she said with a smile I could tell was forced, as I headed upstairs into the kitchen. 

I ate my sandwich before back heading downstairs to the workshop to try to recreate my work. I spent maybe seven hours, and it wasn't even close to done. The angles were off, the house wasn't properly aligned, and the texture wasn't convincing enough. It was all wrong. I can't remember a lot about the rest of the day but when talking to my mother weeks later she told me what was wrong with the sculpture. It had no soul. I was baffled how I hadn’t seen it sooner. I wanted to win to be able to get the scholarship so I could get out of this small middle of nowhere town and make something of myself. Instead of carving for the sake of carving because it was fun. 

I remember going to bed that night at what I think was at a reasonable time. At least compared to the night before. Looking back, I wish I could have rested longer, I wished that when I went to bed that night that I never woke up. Because March 7th was the last normal day I ever really had. The last normal day where I wasn't doing some insane blood ritual. The last normal day where I wasn't risking my life for people I didn't even know and certainly don't care about. The last normal day where I didn't constantly see the ghosts out of the corner of my eye. If I could go back, I would only change one thing. I would have slept longer, that I could have stayed in blissful ignorant sleep for as long as possible.