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Rain splattered against the windshield, drenching and pooling until his vision blurred and the arms of the wipers scraped the glass clean. Red lights filled the road, the line of traffic stopping them in limbo above the distant river below, the dark skyscrapers of the city ahead blurred and hidden in the fog of the storm.

Music he didn’t recognize played over the speakers, soft jazz, just the kind of thing his mother would listen to. It was calming.

“So what kind of idiot thing have you done, now?”

He wished it was a little louder, though.

“I already got the call, so don’t try and play dumb like you do. I keep on telling you, the school doesn’t care how smart you are- and I certainly don’t, either- you are going to be kicked at this rate.”

The rain kept on splattering, pooling, though it was definitely getting worse. The glass blurred between each cycle of the wipers. The noise the water made against the metal shell of the car was nice, though. A dull deluge, just outside.

“Talk to me.”

His throat had suddenly become very dry. But as he felt the glare on the side of his neck, goosebumps forming on his back, he opened his mouth.

“...It’s just been a little stressful, recently, you know?”

“-So do I need to take your phone away? I’ve seen how much you use it, it certainly can’t be good for you, I’ve heard about the stressors kids can get from the media. Or are you getting bullied?”

He felt a rush of heat rise in his chest, flushing his cheeks. But he kept it in, kept it down.

“No. I’m not dealing with anything like that, It’s just… I’m not going to class. I walk to the cafe or something- get food.”

He risked a glance to his left, catching the sharp lines of the woman beside him. She was staring forward into the traffic, sitting up in her seat, eyes hard, her face flooded by the red lights of the cars ahead. It was with a pinched expression, like a string wound tight, that she turned and caught his eyes.

“Why?”

He wet his lips, his voice caught in his throat. He wished the car could move a little faster.

“...I don’t know. It’s hard to get to class, sometimes, you know?” As much as he wanted to avert his eyes from her gaze, he forced himself to speak. “If it was just the work, or something, it would be easier, but it’s not just the work. It’s… everything else. It’s the other kids, I guess. I’d much rather go somewhere quiet than deal with all of, that, in there.”

Her reply was quiet, but it wasn’t kind.

“That isn’t something I don’t understand. But I need you to do well, okay? You can’t keep doing this. You just have to learn to ignore it, and ignore them, if you have to.”

The cars ahead began to pick up speed, and his mother turned her attention back to the road ahead. He kept on staring at her, though.

The gray steel and stone of the bridge below seemed to creak and groan as they turned off it, along with all the neighboring cars, separating off into the side streets of Manhattan proper. Enormous towers of glass and steel rose up into the clouded sky. There were fewer cars than normal in the city, but there was always traffic that time of day, no matter the storm.

“I don’t know what else to say, hun. This can’t keep happening, though- do you think you need a therapist? I’ve heard they’re not all bad, but I’m not sure I’m okay with some person just validating everything you want to do. I think you need to learn how to deal with things yourself, instead of ignoring your problems. I think that’s the cause of all this.”

“Right.”

The rain soon disappeared as they pulled beneath a parking garage entrance, spiraling up the smooth lane to a higher floor. But he could still feel the water coming down, the storm just outside, still growing. Beyond the concrete walls, outside the building in the open air, he could hear it.

“-You hear me?”

“What?”

His mother held up a phone she had scrolled through quickly as they walked away from the car.

“Some things are closing down now that the hurricane’s getting closer. The worst won’t get here for a few hours, so we should be fine. School’s canceled, so tomorrow we’re going through all the missing homework.”

He breathed deep through his nose, but nodded.

The two of them got into an elevator, taking it down to the ground.

Even in the shaft, he could hear it. The rain.

But he shook his head, grabbing the hood of the thin coat on his back and pulling it over as they emerged onto the street, his mother rushing ahead in that slow, half-run of an older person. It made him a little sad whenever he saw her moving like that.

There weren’t many cars on the road, by that point. It was an interesting sight, seeing the streets of the city so empty. No matter what time of day or night, usually, everything would be so much louder.

Though it was only quiet beneath the rain, of course. Because the water slamming against the city was the only thing he could hear.

His hood, and his black hair beneath, had been plastered flat by the time they made it indoors, to the small apartment lobby. The pair of glasses slipped down his nose fogging over. It had only been a half-block walk, but his mother was already panting for breath- more due to the strain of the water than anything else, though he knew she never went running anymore.

The apartment was small. It had no need to be bigger, since it was just him and her for the most part, but even with just two people, it was small. The view was normally decent- their building was at the end of a straightaway road, and they could easily look down and see all the passersby in the early morning, walking to work, the coffee shop, the park, anywhere.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The taller skyscrapers still stood far, far above them, but he always had time to sit by the window in the early morning, curtains still drawn, watching the miniature people below him.

But with the storm just outside, the rain coming down in sheets, it was impossible to see far, even without the strips of duct tape pinned to the glass. There was a hurricane coming- his mother had said- and they didn’t want the windows to shatter in on them.

The microwave finished quickly, the pre-bought, pre-packaged meals steaming in minutes, and the door to his mother’s room shut.

Then, he was alone in the apartment.

He ate slowly, quiet besides the battering of the wind just outside. It was getting worse, worse than even tat storm against the window and the wailing of the rain only rising in anger, curling and winding in the air of the city.

He was a normal kid, for the most part. His life had been exciting so far- as far as “exciting” could be a good thing, and as far as “exciting'' could be bad. In the end, he was fine with his life. He was fine with the way he lived, and they way his mother lived.

There was stress, and there was sadness, to be sure. But what was he supposed to do with the emotions all rising in his chest; the strange sense of danger, when he was surrounded by all those people in the school, or in the street? He couldn’t do anything but run, in whatever way he could.

But when he ran- when he turned his back- he always felt the stares on his skin, itching and crawling in that way he could not escape. So he couldn’t run.

During the day, under the sun, under the heat, he was only able to hide.

In school, he did everything he could to keep himself away. He hunched his back, he kept his head down, he strayed far from the clutches of kids filling the halls, finding himself alone. Alone where the heat wouldn’t reach.

In class, he sat in the back. He kept his legs together, kept his arms on the desk. He sat where nobody could look at him without notice, without turning around and staring in his face.

The classes with the pre-assigned seats were always hell, though. He didn’t have good luck with seats; he always sat in the front. Right where he could feel all the eyes behind him, maybe not looking at him, but near enough. He could feel the icy hot points of his sweat pinching his shirt, he could feel the tremors in his fingers, clutching at a pen, taking notes for distraction more than anything.

There were times it all became a little too much- times in between the constant classes where he would find some rare place that was quiet and cool to stay. He would read, sleep, grab his phone and do anything but look around and possibly catch someone’s eye. Those were times he always regretted, wasting the day away to hide from the heat.

But he was happy with his life. In their small, two-bedroom apartment, things were always quiet. Even the sound of the storm outside, throwing itself against the glass with so much vitriol he could hear its screams, was dull from where he sat. Even in those car rides home that were so often full of stress and anger, he was glad he was away from it all.

Of course, he sometimes wished for a little bit more- a way to hide from the heat forever, or a way to leave forever. But there wasn’t.

He would take a bit of solace from the hurricane. He would take the days off from school, appreciating the refuge for a while. But he had a hard time thinking in the present, no matter when that present was. He knew, just as soon as this vacation would end, he would go back, but only after days -maybe weeks- cooped up with his mother, working in tense silence.

At that moment, he sat quietly, eating the pre-packaged microwave pasta, picked up on the way back home.

The door to his mother’s room was closed, after all.

He sat there, from the small table in the kitchen, just next to the window looking out to the rest of the city (though without a view on that afternoon, because the storm), eating his microwaved, pre-packaged food, staring at the closed door that led to his mother’s room, in silence (besides the rain outside) and thinking in silence, thinking about himself.

There was a strange feeling he noticed as he sat, chills rising across his ribs and his spine, even beneath the bulky sweatshirt that was still dripping from the rain. But the chills in his body were almost hot, and the water dampening the cloth almost seemed to steam.

There was an invisible hand clawing his neck, an invisible foot pressing his chest, pushing down and further down.

His vision blurred as his eyes squeezed shut, his teeth grit tight and his hands grasping for the edge of the kitchen table. He bent over, over the cold table, slightly damp from the water still dripping off his sweatshirt, and he cried.

He cried silently, even with the rain outside, but he did cry.

It wasn’t the type of crying a boy did because they were sad, it was more of a frustration, a burning fire in his chest that forced the tears to well up. It was an anger, or maybe a fear, and a feeling of wishing himself to do anything at all. In that moment of sudden emotion, he hated himself dearly.

He didn’t move, though. He sat there in the quiet of the apartment, hunched over, holding onto the edge of the cold kitchen table, gasping for air to keep in his lungs, wiping at his wet nose, wiping at his red eyes.

He was happy with his life, for the most part. He was grateful for the small things that made up his day. He enjoyed the morning just before school, because of the calm air of the city and the buildings. He enjoyed the fresh smell of the park on a saturday- the rest of the city was so stifling in comparison. He loved napping beneath the sun, his legs crossed and his heart calm, because for so few moments of the day could he live like that. He loved his mother, with her worrying and her love that was so tight.

But he couldn’t help from wanting it all- the stares and the people, the thoughts and the feelings, and the rain- to burst into flame, caught in the heat of the sun, and burn across the world, all away.

He did not know how long he cried. It was always difficult to tell the time that passed when he burst out into that emotion. The trembling in his arms and his fingers, and the blurred vision going dark as he cried, were the worst for that.

He stood up from the small kitchen table, the microwave meal gone cold, and started to clean up, dropping the plastic bowl into the garbage, placing the small glass into the empty sink, flicking off the lights that brightened the kitchen. Quietly and calmly as he went, breathing deeply and wiping away the extra dampness of his cheeks and his lips.

He tugged off the damp sweatshirt, its sleeves darkened from the snot and the tears, dropping it in a heap on the table, just next to the window, the wild storm just outside still hammering for an entrance. He still felt hot, even in the featureless white T-shirt he wore beneath.

He wiped at his face one last time, staring out into the blurred darkness one more time, turning to his mother’s door, and breathed deeply. In that small moment of calm, his eyes caught on some flash of light just outside, in the storm, past the window.

Like a bolt of lightning in the darkness, coming from the sky, but something about it seemed off. It seemed... green. Unlike the grayness of the storm and the city.

Soon enough, though, he turned away. The kitchen was clean- she was probably still eating, but he didn’t want to disturb. So he walked into his room, a small thing with a bed and a desk and a fan sitting in the corner, and closed himself in.

The fan was already on; he must have forgotten to turn it off that morning, and it had lasted through the entire day.

His mother wouldn’t notice, but he cringed at his own waste, even as he let himself fall down onto the low bed beneath him.

It wasn’t much, without a bedframe, just two mattresses- the top with sheets- laid against the wall on a carpeted floor, but he preferred it that way. He liked lying close to the floor, against the fan as it blew in the night. It always got too hot in the night, he felt, but that breeze helped. And he was already hot, even in the thin undershirt, after his outburst.

He sighed as the wave of cold air hit him, staring up at the ceiling.

The rain was deafening, then, laying in the empty room. He couldn’t even hear the fan beneath the roaring wind rattling the walls. He couldn’t even hear the neighbors- they always seemed to get in around that time. They were probably already trying to sleep. Everything was closed by that point, surely, with the hurricane coming closer.

He closed his eyes. Not enough energy for brushing his teeth or showering before bed. The door was closed, so when his mother went to the kitchen for some midnight snack he wouldn’t be disturbed by the lights flickering on.

Of course, the storm would make sleeping a challenge. He would try, though. He liked his sleep, no matter what form it came in. His dreams were always nice, and even the nightmares could become exciting, once he figured out the trick to them.

With that thought, comforting him greatly, he fell asleep quickly.

He would not wake for a very long time.

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