1

Renowned British explorer and sea dog Sir Francis Drake’s motto was: “Sic Parvis Magna,” which meant “greatness from small beginnings,” if you managed to carve away the pretentiousness in using Latin to write such a phrase. Anyways, Drake’s [1] sentiment was noble and inspirational. He believed that no matter our backgrounds or where we come from, we can become great and successful. The inherent problem with this, however, was that there would always be a specific set of people who struggled much more than anyone else to be successful. More than they should ever have to if we’re being perfectly honest.

See, when you have a writer with severe dyslexia, it gets complicated to sit down and finish a novel. Even with all of my emotions organized into their neatly labeled boxes and not swirling around in my head like a hurricane trapped inside of a cage, getting any writing done was hard enough already. All my life I’ve struggled with this. My parents realized that I had dyslexia when I still couldn’t read a single word or letter at five years old. I’d told them that the letters and words seemed to float off the page and dance around, or, even worse, an entire page had turned into an alphabet soup, dumped into a blender and blended, and then regurgitated back out onto the page [2]. First, they took me to an optometrist to see if there was something wrong with my vision, then to a doctor to see what exactly was wrong, then to a brain surgeon to ask if they could remove the part of my brain that had dyslexia, and then finally to a therapist to get it assessed and fixed. The thing with dyslexia, however, is that it’s pretty much incurable. Sure, the effects can be lessened over time, almost to the point of being unnoticeable, but it’ll linger in the back of your mind like an embarrassing memory, or a compliment from a girl. Sometimes— more often than I’d like— it resurfaces, and then I have to deal with the consequences all over again.

Over the next decade, I managed to negate the worst parts of it. Letters and words stopped dancing and pages became fairly digestible. In that same time frame, I fell in love with reading and writing. Once I finally understood what I was doing, the things I read, the stories I experienced, the characters that I traveled alongside, I burned through books and stories, and reading became an all-consuming hobby. I lived behind a curtain of verisimilitude; Instead of sleeping, I turned pages with my bedside light on, escaping to the hundred-thousand different worlds stored between lines of dialogue, tucked under the dog-eared pages of used books, hidden beneath the imagery and syntax.

I wondered to myself: “Could I ever do what they did? Could I ever make something as beautiful, as touching, as vivid as them?” There was only a single answer to my questions. Writing. It followed behind my love of reading like a shadow. It pulled me in with the promise that I would discover those answers as I wrote. I had to write. I needed to write. In those early days, I was an abysmal writer. I didn’t want to show anyone anything, and I instead focused on honing my craft alone. But it wasn’t until the “greatest” four years of anyone and everyone’s life rolled around that I would finally find the confidence to share my writing with other people.

I went to a high school called Grand Oaks Academy [3]. Don’t let the name fool you, though. It wasn’t grand, it wasn’t academic— it wasn’t anything like a prep school or an actual academy. Much like Grand Oaks itself, it was probably the farthest thing you could get from grand. The walls were a yellow-plaster color, and the floors were tiled with a slate white but you could clearly see the grime and dirt between each tile, making it look more like a dirty plaid shirt rather than tile. Most of the lockers didn’t work, and the ones that did work often had a nasty surprise waiting inside. The classrooms hardly functioned, with most of the desks being half-broken and the seats being uneven in such a way that only three of the four legs were able to touch the floor at a time. Most teachers didn’t care in the slightest to keep their rooms clean and organized.

But there was one teacher who did care: Ms. Gina [4]. She put her name on the door to her room using cutouts of colored craft paper, along with a daily inspirational quote for students walking by to read if they were looking for something uplifting. She kept her desks straight, her floor clear of any trash, her whiteboard clean, and all of her classroom supplies on a rolling cart with neatly labeled boxes and a color-coordinated arrangement of markers and colored pencils. Her desk was always devoid of looseleaf papers, and she had everything she’d ever assigned or graded filed away into folders and binders that were also labeled and organized by year.

Ms. Gina, in terms of appearance, was a microcosm for everything about Grand Oaks. She had plain brown hair, a face that seemed almost perfectly imperfect, and hazel-colored fish eyes. She was average in every way, really. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. She was the English teacher for all four grades, and she also taught the Creative Writing class. I’d known her since freshman year, and while I wasn’t in her English class that year, I was in her Writing class. These days, aside from being in her English class and Writing class, I spent my lunches in her room.

“Hayden,” she called as I stepped into her room during lunch. “Mind leaving the door propped open for me? A few students said they wanted to meet with me for Writing club registration.”

“I wasn’t aware we were getting more members.”

“They’re freshmen. Tressa and Isaiah apparently sang my praises at the freshmen seminar, so they were interested,” she explained.

I bobbed my head and did as she asked. It made sense. Tressa and Isaiah were part of a school organization that introduced freshmen to the school and its culture, and they were always on the lookout for potential members of the Writing Club. Today’s quote of choice was one from Kung Fu Panda [5], written in Ms. Gina’s impeccable handwriting: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.”

“Do you like the quote?” She asked.

“Yeah,” I said as I set the bento box [6] my mom prepared for me at my assigned desk and pulled a book out from my backpack, setting it beside my lunch. I kept my backpack right at the side of my chair. “I still think the day you used Yoda is my favorite.”

“Well, I can’t use Yoda every day,” she replied.

“I fundamentally disagree [7].” I glanced at Ms. Gina.

Ms. Gina rolled her eyes. We sat in silence for some time, eating our lunches, reading our books, waiting for classes to start once again. Just as I was getting to an interesting part in my book, four students walked through the door of the room, two of which were new faces, presumably the freshmen that Ms. Gina had mentioned before.

“What’s up, Hayden?” Isaiah asked as he walked up to me.

“Not much,” I said. “Just eating lunch.”

He spotted the cover of my book. “You already finished Scythe?”

“Two days ago.” I bit into my onigiri, chewing on it for a bit before continuing. “I thought about waiting until you and Tressa finished, but I couldn’t.”

“Boo.” Isaiah stuck his tongue out at me. He fished out his notebook and laid it out on the table beside mine as he took a seat. “Anyways, I got around to revising that poem I had you read last Monday.”

“Finally defeated the procrastination demon?” I teased.

“Slayed it proper,” he countered wittily with an exaggerated British accent. He flipped to the corresponding page of the notebook, handing it to me. “Give it another read for me.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Structure.”

I nodded and began to read:

He is the blooming spring.

He is the clean air after the storm,

the sweet scent that fills his nostrils,

the scent of drying rain and

blossoming flowers, fresh-cut grass and

dandelion seeds blowing through the wind.

He is her dream of chaste kisses as cherry blossoms fall around him,

he is the warmth that soaks into his skin to cease his shaking body.

He is so ethereal,

and loving him finally feels like he can breathe. [8]

“Isaiah,” I said quietly, almost shuddering from the poem. “This is amazing.” It was nothing at all like the first poem that he’d shared with me. It was beautiful, impactful; his emotions were written plainly onto the page, clear and well-worded, translating from his mind directly into mine and touching my heart.

“Is the structure fine?” he asked.

I reeled my thoughts back in. “Let me read through it again,” I said, more to myself to remember the original reason why he’d given the poem to me in the first place. In truth, the poem had a decent structure; it revealed what the subject of the poem was like for the narrator— that they were like spring— and what else the subject could be compared to. The order of the list of comparisons was consistent with the tone, and when the narrator realizes that he loves the subject, the poem ends as if there was nothing left to say. Nothing more beautiful than the subject could ever be described as.

“It’s good,” I decided to say. “I don’t think you need to change anything.”

“Really?”

I nodded while handing Isaiah back his notebook.

“I told you,” Tressa added as she and the new students finished talking to Ms. Gina. “The poem’s probably good enough to win a Pulitzer Prize or something.” She smirked.

“Thanks, guys.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Tressa’s smirk grew into a grin as she cleared her throat. “Anyways,” she began, stepping to the side and waving her hands to the freshmen. “We have two new members of the club!”

Both of the freshmen were girls. The one on the left— who introduced herself as Elizabeth Liot— had neatly braided blonde hair and stunning blue eyes, and the one on the right— Laura Beckingham— had pixie-cut brown hair and piercing hazel eyes. They seemed like quite the characters, even from first impressions, which meant they would fit right in with the Writing Club.

“Nice to meet you,” Isaiah said. “My name’s Isaiah Arceneux.”

“Like he said,” I added. “I’m Hayden Keir.”

Laura’s eyes shot open. “Wait, Keir, like the sculptor?”

I did my best to smile and keep my tone straight. “Yeah. My dad is Renault Kier. World-famous sculptor, the new Michaelangelo, blah-blah-blah.[9]”

“That’s so cool!” Laura bubbled. “My mom is really into the arts. She never got into sculpting too deeply, but she’s always loved your father’s works. Same with my dad, surprisingly.”

The response wasn’t what I expected at all, but it was a good subversion of my expectations. One that I welcomed wholeheartedly. “I’m glad. I’ll let my dad know he’s got a big fan in town,” I finished with a small, genuine smile.

“Thanks.”

As Ms. Gina grabbed the attention of Elizabeth and Laura, Tressa sat down to focus on her writing, and Isaiah set about revising his poem once again, I refocused back onto my book and my lunch.

There was a rustling of movement at the classroom door, and Ms. Gina spoke up, her surprise clear as day even if she tried to hide it. “Jane… What can I do for you?”

Jane Marceline stood at the door, her black hair tied up into a ponytail and her backpack slung over a single shoulder. She was what many people at Grand Oaks Academy perceived to be a pretty girl. Her face was well-sculpted, and she had the most captivating green eyes. She locked eyes with me, pinning me down before looking over at Ms. Gina. “Can I borrow Hayden for a sec? I need something.”

My blood ran cold.

“He’s eating lunch, Jane,” Tressa cut in.

I shook my head and began to pack up. “It’s fine. I’m already full anyway.” I stuffed my bento box into my backpack along with my book. Slinging it over my shoulder, I laid a hand on Isaiah’s shoulder. “Good luck with the poem.”

“Thanks.” He smiled. Then he continued, much quieter. “And good luck to you too.”

2

I followed Jane out of the main campus building to the track and football field. She walked on the border of the track opposite the football field, closest to the bleachers, lining her steps up with the white boundary line of the dusty orange track. When she stepped out of the line, she momentarily paused, sighing quietly and clenching her hands, which were stuffed into the large pocket of her oversized hoodie, in frustration before continuing with her little game.

I made the mistake of letting out a small chuckle as I watched her.

“Something wrong?” She immediately questioned, as if I was accusing her of a crime.

“Nothing,” I said. I motioned my head towards where she was walking. “Just… You still do it. That’s all.”

Jane clicked her tongue and stepped off of the lines and onto the steps leading up to the bleachers. Once we were hidden from the sightlines of people just entering the field, Jane stopped. She sat down on the bleachers, motioning for me to sit on the row below her.

“What now?”

“My lighter,” Jane said as she produced a pack of cigarettes from her jacket pocket. She pulled the final orange and white stick out, then crushed the box and tossed it over her shoulder.

I reached into the depths of my backpack and fished out her lighter: a dark blue Bic with my signature scrawled on the bottom side. There was a Grand Oaks Academy sticker on it, placed there to cover up a few of the dents and scratches on its otherwise smooth and shiny surface.

I ran my thumb against the wheel, igniting a thin and small plume of flickering red-orange flame. Jane pressed the front of her cigarette to the fire. Burning embers formed against its surface, and Jane swiftly placed it between her lips.

She took a long drag.

Then, for a moment, she glanced at me— almost as if she was going to exhale right in my face, but she moved her head away, a cloud of black smoke billowing out from her mouth. I put her lighter back into the depths of my backpack inside of a hidden pocket.

“Good to see that you still talk to them,” Jane said.

“Thanks?”

“Think they’re better than me or something?”

“No, I never said that.” I stared at her incredulously. Of all the things she could’ve said, of all the things to accuse me of, she chose that.

“You didn’t need to.” Jane crossed her arms. “Probably thought it or something.”

“You know that I would never think of something like that. You know me.”

She shrugged. “Guess I never knew who you really were.”

If she wanted to be that petty, I opted to be just as petty in return. “That goes for the both of us.”

“God, you are such a bitch.”

“Excuse me?” I rose to my feet and faced Jane Marceline. She stared up at me— even with her sitting on the row of bleachers above mine, I was still taller than her. “What did you say?”

“All of this happened because of you, and you know that—” Jane murmured.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“What? The verbal abuse? The bullying? The extortion? The smoking addiction?” I pressed. Anger and frustration surged through my bones like a tsunami. “All of that is my fault?!”

“Yeah, it is.” Jane took another drag. She exhaled right onto me and my clothes.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. I was too furious to even try and get out of the way or stop her or something. “How?” I dared to ask.

“You know how,” Jane spat. She finished the rest of her cigarette, flicking it— along with the still-burning embers— onto my closed book. It singed the cover, blackening its surface as she rose to her feet and grabbed her backpack. “Meet me at the usual spot after school today.”

With that, she walked down the bleachers and back towards the school.

She took my silence as an agreement.

As she always did.

3

I didn’t get the chance to talk to Tressa or Isaiah for the rest of the day. And thanks to Jane’s decision to smoke onto me, every student I walked past gave me a weird look. Ms. Gina spotted me as the final bell of the day rang and all of the students were making their way to the school’s parking lot.

“Hayden,” she called. “Mind stepping inside for a moment?”

I nodded, following her inside her classroom.

“Close the door behind you.”

I shut the door. My heart hammered within my chest.

“Come and sit.” She waved me over to the chair in front of her desk.

I sat down, dropping my backpack between my legs. “Why did you call me in here?”

“Just wanted to check in on you. You were pretty quiet during class today. How are you feeling?”

“I’m… alright,” I answered.

Ms. Gina didn’t look like she believed it for a second. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Hayden,” she pressed, crossing her arms. “I’ve noticed something different recently about your friendship with Jane. Is everything alright between the two of you?”

“I can handle her,” I replied.

“Hayden,” Ms. Gina pleaded. “Please let me help. Please. I hate seeing you or any of my students hurt.”

“Then what about Jane?” I countered. “If I told you, what would happen to her? Isn’t she another one of your students?”

Ms. Gina, who had been slowly leaning forwards in her chair as she spoke, fell back, too stunned to speak.

“For my sake, Ms. Gina, just… drop it. There’s a lot more to Jane than she lets on. She’s complicated. Everything that surrounds her life is complicated.”

“But her complications don’t excuse how she treats you,” she explained. “And you two used to be so close—” [10]

“I know.” I stared down at my backpack, wishing that my lips would move for me and explain everything about my relationship with Jane that I so desperately wanted to explain. To let out. But I couldn’t. “That’s exactly why I don’t want anything to happen to her.”

“Hayden…”

“When we graduate, all of this will be behind us. I won’t ever have to talk to her again after graduation. I just have to hold on until then.” The lie was bitter as it escaped my lips. We both knew— Ms. Gina and I— that the memories of what Jane did to me would remain long after graduation, hanging behind me like a shadow, haunting me across my entire life and everything I would ever aspire to be. [11]

Ms. Gina didn’t press the issue any further. Instead, she slowly nodded, accepting my words at face value. “Okay,” she said quietly. “You can go.”

I stood up. “Thank you, Ms. Gina. For everything.”

I reached for the doorknob, taking another look at the classroom as if it would be my last time ever seeing it. I gave a small wave to Ms. Gina. Her gaze was full of purpose and meaning.

It scared me.

As thankful as I was for her efforts, she didn’t know Jane like I did.

No one knew Jane like I did.

4

Everything about the city of Oaks— that was what we called it, and anyone who called it Grand Oaks was ridiculed on the school bulletin board for a week [12]— was mediocre. It had four cafes, (one of which was a Starbucks), five restaurants, three grocery stores, two shopping centers, two libraries, two gas stations, and all of the administrative buildings required for a place to declare itself an actual city. The restaurants sometimes served average food, the coffee from the cafes was “okay” at best— especially the coffees from Starbucks, the shopping centers sold “clothes only a senile person would wear,” according to the girls, and the grocery stores… Well, they were probably the only upside of Grand Oaks. Everything was incredibly fresh, and the city prided itself on their goods [13]. The libraries didn’t have the greatest collection, but they were still places for me to rent and read books that weren’t already in my house. When you walked downtown, you couldn’t go more than a block without seeing a row of oak trees lining the streets. The center of town even had a monument of an oak tree. It was like the entire city was built by someone with too much money and an obsession with oak trees, and they just decided to build a town here, funded its construction, and then promptly abandoned it after four generations. I think the most apt description would be an old-young town, but not the kind where it attracted people, just the kind that confused people.

Jane, however, dragged me with her to one of the gas stations as soon as she spotted me slipping out of the school’s central classroom building. See, the grocery stores, the shopping centers, and the gas stations all sold cigarettes and tobacco products. All of them checked for I.D., of course, but the owner of the gas station we were going to— Jim [14], I think his name was— didn’t care in the slightest who bought the cigarettes, only so long as they were paying full price for them. The other gas station actually did care and used to be a cop, so he knew what fake IDs looked like.

“The money.” Jane extended a waiting hand to me. Her foot tapped against the pavement in front of Jim’s gas station in time with the traffic. The windows were dusty and unwashed and filled with a visual bombardment of deals, sales, and special offers regarding every possible product inside of the gas station. In the same little plaza as Jim’s gas station was a grocery store, though a less popular one because of just how far it was from the center of town.

I pulled out my wallet and handed Jane thirty dollars in cash.

“More.”

I stared at her dead in the eyes. “Jane.”

Her foot stopped tapping. She rushed forward and hooked her arm under mine, pulling me to the side of the gas station that was hidden from the street. She managed to drag me there, not because she was stronger, but because I was too stunned to even try and fight back. Jane freed her arm, shoving me backward. I slammed into a wall but managed to catch myself before I collapsed to the ground.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I demanded.

Jane closed the distance between the two of us— her face a hair’s breadth away from mine and her teeth bared like fangs. I could still smell the smoke in her breath. “Give me the money, Hayden,” she hissed.

“I already gave you eighty dollars on Sunday,” I argued. “I can’t give you any more.”

Her expression shifted like a chameleon, and she pleaded, “Just twenty more, Hayden.” Jane stared up at me. Her emerald eyes gleamed, light twisting and fracturing within them. “Please. My mom— she got laid off this last week, and—” [15]

Worry and concern cascaded over my anger and irritation. Why didn’t she tell me that sooner? I fished out twenty dollars from my wallet and placed it into Jane’s hands without another moment’s hesitation.

She counted the money, then, once she was satisfied, she stepped away. Jane shoved the cash into her jacket pocket. “Thanks,” she mumbled.

I nodded once, not trusting my voice.

Jane disappeared towards the gas station.

I leaned against the wall, slowly falling onto the asphalt. I wasn’t sure how long Jane was gone for, but it was long enough that I fell asleep, slumped against the back wall of the gas station. And when I awoke, it was to someone shaking me.

It was Jane.

Her black hair was pulled into a ponytail, and three plastic bags were sitting beside her. Two of the plastic bags were filled with fruits, vegetables, a few cuts of meat, and other groceries. The last one, a much smaller one, was tied shut, though the outlines of small boxes were telling enough. She untied the smaller plastic bag and pulled out a cigarette pack.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She asked. “I woke you up. I did you a favor.”

I slowly rose to my feet, slinging my backpack over my shoulders. “You’re the reason I’m here in the first place.”

“Back to square one, then?”

“Sure.”

Jane rolled her eyes. She reached into her pocket and handed me back five dollars in change. “Thanks. I…” She glanced at the plastic bags, then back to me. “It means a lot, Hayden.”

I didn’t give her a response. She didn’t earn one from me.

Jane held her waiting hand out to me. I passed her lighter to her.

She lit a cigarette and began to smoke it. Once she was done, she tossed it onto the dirt and began to smoke another one. Jane smoked until she finished the box. She smoked until nothing but the scent of cigarettes filled the air around us. With every finished cigarette, she let out a wretched cough and hawked up a globule of spit on the ground. [16]

She crushed the box, threw it on the ground, and reached for another before pausing, her hand in stasis, hovering above the opening of the bag. She glanced once again at the grocery bags. With a sigh, Jane tied up the bag of cigarette packs and stuffed it into her backpack. She passed the lighter back to me.

“I…” She began again. Jane looked at me, meeting my gaze. Her lips curled into the smallest of smiles. But it still didn’t reach her eyes. I used to know, better than anyone, how Jane used to smile, but I suppose she was right earlier when we were at the bleachers. That I didn’t know her then, and I sure as hell didn’t know her now.

I stuffed her lighter into my backpack. “You?”

“Nevermind.” Jane glanced away. [17]

I began to walk away from her.

When I was a few steps away, Jane found the confidence to speak up.

“Hayden—”

“Goodnight, Jane. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

5

Jane wasn’t completely wrong about the wealth of my parents. They were rich. Obscenely rich, by the standards of Grand Oaks. The reach of their property tripled every other house in Grand Oaks. Their house— estate, rather— dwarfed the size of the town hall. It looked like an abandoned building, with vines and greenery that crawled up its walls and in the way the front gate creaked when you opened it. The gravel driveway zig-zagged all the way up to the porch of the estate and its large double doors.

It was past dark by the time I finally saw my house. But I still wouldn’t be heading inside just yet.

I skirted around the back of the estate, to the forest behind it. In that forest, there was a lone tree situated next to a pond, and hanging from one of the branches of that lone tree was a small kerosene lantern— an antique. Underneath the lantern rested a small park bench, one that was stolen from one of the many parks in Grand Oaks. I reached up to the lantern and twisted the handle, watching the light come to life and illuminate the surrounding area of the dark forest. I was surprised to see that it still worked.

I sat down on the bench, laying my backpack between my legs. I unzipped the top and took out Jane’s lighter. I held it before me. I stared at it, almost as if it would come to life and speak to me, providing me with the answers to the multitudes of questions that I had no answer to.

“What am I supposed to do?” I quietly asked it. “I don’t know if I can even continue being her friend like this. Not with how she treats me. But I know that she needs me, even if she doesn’t say she does.”

The more honest part of my brain decided to wake up at that moment.

Or are you just thinking that?

It posed an honest possibility. Jane and I… our history was just that— history. It was in the past. All of it. And if Jane wanted to act like that past never existed, then who was I to stop her? She’d made it clear that we didn’t know each other like we used to, that we weren’t as close as we used to be, and that somehow— through some magical, mystical way— it was my fault that we ended up like this in the first place.

My hands gripped tighter around the lighter. It made me angry. Furious. It was so unfair of her to pin everything on me. I had half the mind to toss the lighter into the pond, but before I could, another question slipped into my thoughts and froze my entire body.

That doesn’t change how you feel about her, does it?

I took a deep breath. “No,” I murmured. “No, it doesn’t.”

I pocketed the lighter and stood up from the bench. Staring into the orange light of the kerosene lamp, I reached up, touching the handle.

I slowly twisted it.

I watched the light die.

As it burned away, I stood up and began to walk back to my house, leaving the tree, the bench, and the lamp behind. [18]

6

I opened the creaky front gate and made my way up to the porch. Before I could even put my hand on the doorknob, my mom pulled it open.

Her black apron and her frizzy black hair were stained with flour. A blazing accusation burned within her brown eyes. “You’re home late again,” she stated. “You missed dinner.”

“I stayed after school for something.” I pushed past her and through the doorway.

The foyer of the house was massive, and its scale only took away from its homeliness. A thick red rug covered the center of the foyer floor. At its end, the foyer opened up into a large central room that contained two hallways, the left hallway led into the kitchen and living room, and the right hallway led into my father’s workshop. On the opposite side of the double doors, leading deeper into the house proper were a set of stairs that wrapped up and around one of my father’s marble statues.

It was an inspired work, based on Michaelangelo’s David. According to my father, it looked nothing like the original David— not that I could tell, they looked the exact same as each other. [19]

“I got a call from Jameson,” my mom said as she followed behind me to the kitchen. “He said that you weren’t at your therapy session today.”

The smell of sourdough bread wafted through the air. Baking supplies littered the marble surface of the kitchen counter, baking soda, yeast, flour, salt and pepper, the works, really. I popped open the fridge and scanned it for food. It was filled with my mom’s usual snacks, a few rolls of onigiri, a container of her curry, and a saran-wrapped plate of karaage.

I shut the fridge, suddenly not feeling so hungry anymore with my mother looming over me like a hawk. “I already told you: I was busy.”

“With?”

“Stuff.”

“Hayden.” My mom marched towards me. “Answer the question!”

“I had a meeting with Ms. Gina,” I lied, still not meeting my mom’s gaze. I stepped away from her. I didn’t want her to catch a whiff of the smoke that I knew my clothes smelled like.

But it wasn’t enough.

As with most things, my mother immediately caught onto my bullshit.

“You—” She cut herself off. Then, she leaned towards me. An eternity passed in a minute as she breathed in the smoke that stained me and my clothes. “Why do you smell like cigarettes?”

I glanced at her.

The fire in my mom’s brown eyes turned into smoldering coals.

“I…”

“Is this what you’ve been doing?!” She screeched.

“Mom, I—”

Smack!

My cheek stung with red-hot pain. I flinched when my mom raised her hand at me again, but the hit never came.

“Is this how you’ve been using Dad’s allowance? You avoided your session with Jameson to smoke after school?” She howled every word, her voice reverberated around me like the screeching of a fire alarm. “He’s trying to fix your stupid brain, Hayden! Do you understand how much money it is to have those sessions?”

“No, it’s not me smoking, it’s—”

“Give me your backpack.” She latched onto my backpack with an iron grip.

I threw her hand off of my backpack. “Fine! Fucking take it.”

“Don’t use those words—”

I ripped off my backpack and let it drop to the floor with a dull thud.

I just wanted her to leave me the hell alone. Her accusation about me smoking hurt, my cheek still stung from her slapping me, but nothing hurt more than her saying that she wanted to fix me.

Like dyslexia was a disease meant to be cured.

I started to make my way out of the kitchen.

“What the hell is this?”

“What—”

My mom stomped over to me. She raised her hand in front of me. Trapped between her fingers was a dark blue Bic lighter.

“That— that’s not mine.”

“Really?” She flipped it around so the bottom faced towards me.

My signature stared me straight in the face.

“How is it not yours when it has your signature on it?”

“Mom, that— that’s Jane’s lighter—” My words caught in my throat.

She slapped me again, her palm cracking against my cheek. “How?! It has your signature on it, it was in your backpack. How could it possibly be hers? She’s an angel, Hayden!”

“She’s the one that’s been using my allowance from Dad, she uses it to buy groceries for—”

Another slap. I foolishly thought that each one would hurt less than the last. I was wrong. As my mom’s palm impacted my cheek for the third time, I keeled over and clutched the side of my face. It stung. It stung so very badly. My heart hammered against my chest and my lungs stuttered, my mouth haggardly pulling in air like I was drowning.

“Not only are you incurable, but you’re also a pathological liar?” My mom asked. She loomed over me, her hand still raised in the air. “Is this your lighter?!”

“It— it’s—”

My mom slapped me again. “ANSWER ME!”

I broke. I snatched the lighter from her hands. “It’s mine!”

“What..?”

“It’s mine!” Tears streamed down my face, staining my bruised cheek and dribbling like water down my neck and onto the floor. A sickness— a freezing cold sickness— coiled around my stomach like a worm. “It’s mine! It’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine. Please don’t hit me again, I’m sorry. It’s mine. It’s mine. It’s all my fault. Please— please don’t hit me. I’m so— sor— sorry. Please. I’m sorry— It’s my fault— I—”

I felt my lungs fill with water— no, it was air— no, it was— Water flooded every one of my senses, and I surged to my feet. I stumbled, crawled, and paddled away from my mom.

“Come back here—”

Every nerve was alight with madness. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please, Mom, I’m sorry— I’m—” I managed to pull myself to my feet, rushing up to my bedroom, and shutting the door behind me. I grabbed my desk chair and shoved it underneath the door handle.

“Hayden!” My mom’s voice penetrated through the walls. She banged her fist against the door. I flinched each time she did so.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I— I’m sorry,” I repeated it over and over and over again. They were the only words that I could say, they were the only words that felt right for me to say.

I apologized for everything. I apologized for smoking. I apologized for lying about whose lighter it was. I apologized for not going to Jameson’s therapy session. I apologized for not doing well enough in school. I apologized for being myself. I apologized for wanting more than I should have wanted. I apologized for being dyslexic.

I apologized for being born wrong.

I apologized until my throat burned and my lungs and heart and brain begged for air. I apologized until my mom finally— finally left. I apologized until nothing but my haggard breathing could be heard.

It felt like hours had passed. I wasn’t sure. My legs felt like water as I pulled myself to my feet. I opened up my closet and grabbed two empty duffel bags. I stared at my open dresser for a moment, debating what exactly I was doing. Running away… It would be hard for me. Almost impossible, even; I was seventeen, I could get a job somewhere and work to carve out a living for myself. I wouldn’t have my parents’ money to help me. But I didn’t want it in the first place. The only thing their money brought me was insecurity and pain and more problems than I ever realized at first.

I stared at the lighter in my hands. The Grand Oaks Academy sticker, the dents, and scratches, my signature… I laid the lighter on my desk. I opened my closet and drew out two duffel bags, stuffing them full of clothes and anything and everything I needed to survive alone. Once I was done, I wrote a note, tucking it under the lighter.

With my entire room packed into two duffel bags and the place that I’d once called home behind me, I ran away.