Boy

Brandon stared at his blood covered hands, then punched in the brick wall next to him as he stood there in an alley. This time, it hadn't been anyone that important, and authorities wouldn't make such a big deal out of it, but regardless, another life had been taken.

He couldn't help it.

Bad things came with the gifts he'd inherited, like voices. Voices that told him it was fun to pull a man's heart directly from his chest and grip it in his hands. But of course it's not, after it happens.

Brandon would constantly tell himself that he was a good person, and that he didn't mean to kill his grandmother, who was still in the freezer by the back of his trailer home. Eventually Ryan would smell it, but he'd try not to think about it. He told himself he didn't mean to kill Vino, the owner of that convenient store.

Sometimes, though, he wasn't himself. Because he would never do those things. Whatever was inside him was doing them.

"Ryan, can we talk please?" Eric asked. She'd found him sitting on the stoop when she was leaving her apartment.

"Sure, Eric," she said, sitting next to him. She couldn't really stay mad at the guy who had been her best friend since pre-k.

"I'm sorry about how I acted when I came over," he said, staring at the stair below him. She nodded.

"It's okay."

"Are you going to see your boyfriend today?" Ryan couldn't see how it was possible that Eric, of all people, would like her. Especially because he said that sentence so comfortably.

"No. I was thinking we could hang out," she said smiling.

"Really? I'm touched," he said, looking at her finally. He had leaves in his red hair, but Ryan decided not to tell him. For some reason, she liked it like that. Maybe because their auburn colors matched his hair in such a cool way.

Eric and Ryan decided to go up to the cliff and just talk up there like they always do. When they hit the top, Ryan ran over to the edge, because clearly, she hadn't learned her lesson from last time. Teenagers.

The breeze hit her directly and flew threw her hair. She closed her eyes and smiled as Eric just watched her.

"I love this feeling…" she said out loud.

"What? Being on the verge of plummeting to your death? It's a rush I guess…" Ryan turned around and rolled her eyes at him.

"I meant the wind up here. The nature. It's like everything is one with you, you know? It's as if…"

"You could paint with all the colors of the wind?" he said, finishing her sentence.

"Yeah!"

"And why take the smoothest path? Steady as the beating drum?" he continued.

"Yeah!" Ryan said, smiling wider.

"Should you marry Kokoum?" She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, until she realized he'd been quoting from the Disney film, Pocahontas.

"Very funny."