Walking Away (scene 16)
- J ze Morrell
- Oct 16, 2017
- 2 min read
I find myself walking away from school towards the shops. I buy a 'Masters' chocolate milk and some chewing gum. I walk out to find Dean shuffling his feet.
'What are you doing here?'
'What are you doing here?' he says.
'I had to get out of there, fuck exams.'
He laughs.
'Well?'
He shrugs.
'I saw you leave from the window and thought maybe you wanted to smoke some of this?' He pulls out a little crushed rolled up cigarette-looking-thing.
'Okay, where do you want to go?' Dean lights it as we walk.
'Park?' I smell the burning scent of herbs and cough vigorously until my eyes well up. Dean howls. I punch his arm and shove him out onto the road.
'Shut up.'
'Sorry, sorry,' he splutters.
Reaching the park we sling our backpacks onto the gravel. I sit on the swing. Dean sits on the climbing frame. I swing and exhale and swing and inhale.
'Are you worried about the exam?' He asks. I stop swinging and walk over to him, giving him back his smoke.
'Don't talk about the exam please.' He raises his arms.
'Sorry man, sorry, just making conversation.'
'Why'd you leave?'
'Get real Reilly, as if you don't know. I'm naturally gifted. I'll ace the exam.' He smirks. I shake my head and scoff at his cockiness: wishing I had half of his confidence. I go back to the swing, sinking into the spin going on inside of my head.
I squint at the sky and let myself roll with the clouds. I lean that far back, my head is inches from the ground. I gargle and laugh. Sweaty palms, slip from the swing. I crumple onto the floor in a heap. After a minute, Dean finally wobbles over to help me up, but trips on his feet instead. I'm struggling to breath from the pressure pushing onto my ribcage. We sit on the floor until the funny subsides. Dean's laugh is close to my face. It's in my mouth. I push him away.
'What are you doing?' I jump up. He rubs his eyes and swears.
'Sorry.'
'You're Tara's boyfriend.' He says nothing. I grab my bag and go.
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