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Chimes

by Shi Y, Arizona, USA, Age 16

The storm started while I stood pounding on Greg’s front door. I stared at the sky bleakly as it rumbled at me, grateful for the fat splats of rain drumming on my head in a syncopated rhyme: one, three; two, one. My tears kept time with the symphony of storm, and I hummed along softly in a broken voice.

Greg opened the door to find me and the orchestra; my face was tilted heavenward, my tears mixing with the sky’s and running down the street in harmonic rivulets. “Laurie!” he exclaimed, worried. “What are you doing here? God, its freezing. Come inside before you get sick.” That was Greg. He kept me around, he said, because I took his mind off thing like that: things like responsibility and expectations. He couldn’t hear the music outside, but he loved me because I could, and because he wanted to.

I sat patiently while he asked me his million questions: Why are you here? Are you okay? Will this shirt fit you? Do you want some hot chocolate? Are you having problems with your mom again? I smiled softly as I answered: yes, yes, no, yes, yes. The answers stacked up neatly and evenly. I organized them in my head.
Greg was talking. “This is the worst storm I’ve seen in a long, long time,” he said. He frowned slightly. “I’m not sure if it’s good right now. I mean, rain is always needed for hydration, but it’s just so sudden and so sever. People disappear in storms like this,” he finished.
“Sometimes people want to disappear,” I replied.
“Well, I guess so, and sometimes they don’t but they do anyway. They can’t help it, Laurie, Not everyone is as invincible as you,” he teased.
“I want to disappear,” I announced simply.
Greg stopped smiling. “I know things are difficult with your mom, Lor, but—”
“No,” I said firmly. “I can’t help it, Greg. I’m not invincible.”
Greg opened his mouth searchingly. He scanned the rafters for the right thing to say but I cut him off again, even before he could fill the silence.
“Come with me, Greg.” I suggested it plainly, obviously, calmly. “We can leave right now and never look back. We’ll just walk right out your door and straight into the clouds. Come on, Greg,” I looked into his eyes, mine pleading, his opaque. “I can show you how to really live, like you so wish you could,” I said. “I can show you the sheet music for Life, and I promise it’s a beautiful piece. And we can make the composition for Love, you and I! Come, Greg!” I turned and ran nimbly to the door. “Come,” I repeated as I flung it open. “Come for the crescendo.”

He stood. I beckoned. He walked. I watched. There was a smile of disbelief imperceptibly curling his beautiful bowed lips, widened by all the possibilities tumbling in his head. He reached for my hand, and we paused in the doorway for a moment before stepping out to embrace the future. Before we left, before the past was forgotten, before our beginning was renewed, but after the present had passed—in that one, fleeting nanosecond, I glimpsed Greg with only truth in my eyes, and he was beautiful. We stepped out, two souls united in the freedom of the squall.