Skin Nation
Page 26
****
I didn't plan on leaving the room that day, but Lary insisted on calling me out after an hour. Just when he called me, I remembered last night when he gave me the Verx. I could've been reading all this time. How could I forget something so important?
“What's goin' on?” I asked as I walked out of the room, rubbing my eyes.
“Sit down,” Lary replied with a bite.
I just knew I was in trouble, and I feared what for. I didn't attack Z or threaten him so I knew there was no way I could be getting in trouble for that, unless he lied. I feared my night adventure with Reno was the issue, and tried not to show it on my face. Yet, deep down inside, I knew it was nothing like that...it was something greater, more devastating. I wish it had been so simple, I wish it would've been anything else but what I was really being sat down about.
Lary lowered himself into the middle seat of the couch across from where I sat. The glass table sat as a barrier in between us. All of a sudden, he was giving me the most grievous face I had ever seen. It even beat the one my mother gave me when she told me my grandmother died.
“Bleu...remember yesterday when you asked me about...?”
“About...the news?”
“Yeah...there was a fire. It happened yesterday. Late last night...it happened somewhere on XYM Avenue.”
Immediately, the faces of every person I ever partied with, ever went to school with...ever loved flashed through my mind. “Oh, no. No.”
“It was a building full of YA students and...”
“Oh, no! How? How'd this happen?”
“Bleu, please don't make me say it.”
“Tell me! Tell me what you think! How is it that it happened? How is everything I ever survived for gone now?!”
Z looked me in the eye with his arms folded and stood beside Lary's chair. “Rebellion doesn't sit well with the Gov.”
The news struck me to the ground like a lightning bolt and suddenly, Lary and I matched facial expressions. I touched the deep scar on my knee, and braced myself for the flood of tears about to pour out. Josh was gone. Everything I had left. The cold carpeted ground underneath me never felt as comforting until then.
The news wiped me of every ounce of anything I had left to survive. I had no words, no energy, and no motivation to move. For hours, I dared anyone who came near me to try and pick me up. I wanted to stay there. I wanted to lay on the ground forever and turn into the dust in that very spot, but I couldn't. 990 had an SNR meeting to attend. It was gonna be a long night.
And, it was. I couldn't listen to a word coming out of Taurus and Brigg's mouth. All I could think about were the string of nightmares I experienced every night leading up to that fire, and the faces that burned in them. It wasn't until after intermission that I found a refocus in my attention.
“In a few short weeks, this will change in our nation. It's up to us now, people. We are keeping the recent surprise “communal Requestings” in mind and have decided to move this rebellion to next
week—”
“All are in favor?” Taurus interrupted.
Everyone raised their hands with their own approving retorts. From the responses I was picking up in the crowd close to me, a lot of people thought it was about time.
“Well, that's just the response we needed!” Briggs exclaimed. “As you all know, our plan is to rebel with the coup d'etat strategy. It's time we recapture our nation into our own hands. It's time we control how we survive and what we believe!”
Everyone agreed as always and I found myself waiving in and out of Brigg's speech for the rest of the night. I wasn't in the mood to riot, rebel, or be a Radical. I just wanted to go home, and wake up in CU. Or better yet, blend in with Josh's ashes and whatever else remained of the OYZ Stats street.
I turned my head sharply when a sharp pain shocked my arm. I rubbed my skin and glared at Reno beside me who straightened his elbow back at his side. “You paying attention?” he asked in a whisper.
I looked away and heard him sigh.
“Well, anyway Lary said if you want to leave, he's okay with that. He said I could take you home.”
“He said that? Really?”
Reno tried to reassure me, but I ignored whatever he said. I found Lary for myself and when he gave me the nod to leave, I walked away.
“Hey, wait up!” Reno hissed as he pushed through the crowd.
I didn't turn around or stop for Reno to catch up until I walked to the corner.
“What's up with you?” he exclaimed. “I mean, you lost your everything last night and all, but we clearly have our own problems right now!”
I stared him down and walked across the street. He called for me and this time I refused to stop again.
“Hey, seriously, Bleu!” he shouted evenly. Reno grabbed me by the shoulders and I shoved him off.
“Just leave me alone, Reno! Seriously!”
“What the hell, Bleu? What's got you so—”
“So what?”
“So...not you.”
The look on his face made me flashback to every time I had ever mistreated anyone, especially Josh. His face brought me so much joy and now so much pain. I ran to hide my tears and heard Reno swear when I took off. I didn't stop for what felt like days. Somehow, Reno Followed me around every corner and shortcut I had found on our walks to the SNR meetings and beat me to the corner where I ended up.
“You done running from your problems yet?”
I rolled my eyes and before I could walk off after giving him a dirty look, he took hold of my shoulder and pushed me back. “Not again. Talk.”
I tried to form the words to explain everything that I was feeling, how pissed he made me, how afraid Z made me, and how indecisive this Nation had created me to be about everything! But no words and no amount of time could've given me that chance. I didn't have it in me. Instead, I did the unexpected. I cried in his arms.