Suburbia

The air has that strange almost intangible feel to it as I walk back home - where you can feel the final droplets of sun melting into the air as it falls out of sight behind the horizon, leaving a peachy haze draped behind it; cloaking everything in a layer of muffled calm.

I wonder if it always felt like this when the sun was setting behind the sycamore trees, like the whole world was settled in place for just one moment of quiet - that maybe I just had never noticed. Or whether the world around me had settled only when the waves that were constantly breaking against my chest had subsided, at least for now.

Either way, my breathing was easy, no weight resting upon my lungs for the first time in longer than I can remember. My eyes looked down to the steady rhythm of my feet moving across the pavement, rubber to tarmac. I try to make each hit fall upon the beating of my heart, to feel my body in time with itself – each movement a reaction to my heart.

Suddenly, the rhythm falters and the haze surrounding me solidifies and shatters as my feet stumble upon another’s.

I look up to see Riley, his face inches from mine – his eyes are creased exactly the way they used to when he didn’t know exactly what to do. We look at each other for a few moments, neither saying anything until eventually he broke the silence.

“Hey” his voice cracks slightly as if all the memories flitting before me are playing behind his lids as well.

I just nod before I try to move around him.

“Thanks about today.” I turn to look at him.

“What?” I ask him, his shoulders are hunched and his hands are in his pocket: his stance when he isn’t sure where he stands.

“The whole thing in the wood, I don’t know what he would have done if you hadn’t been there, I’ve never really seen him like that I guess I froze.”

“Right.” I didn’t want to listen to him as a real person, to be the Riley he used to be. I wanted him to be the Riley that Craig and I invented, the one we could hate without any
repercussions or sentimentality.

“He’s really not all that bad,” his voice was getting quieter as his brow furrowed, “I know you guys never really understood why I would hang around with him,” his mention of Craig hung heavy in the air between us, “but he’s really not so bad when you get to know him, he just has to have his guard up because- because-“

He trails off as he looks self-consciously around him; I just look at him, waiting for him to find some guts.

“Well, he- he’s had to be able to defend himself for a while, I mean, his dad is- he’s… well, he’s not too nice.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Riley?” I sigh as the sun vanishes quietly behind the horizon, ebbing everything it had brought me away with it like a tide.

“Just- just he’s not such the bad guy you all think he is, that’s it I guess, he’s had a hard time.”

I look at Riley as he runs his hands obsessively through his hair.

“Yeah but you haven’t, have you?” He at least has the decency to look ashamed

“You never forgave me did you?” His voice is quiet and husky as he searches my face for the emotions I am trying desperately to hide.

I think carefully about it and try to come up with what I think is the truthful answer, “I tried to, but he never did.”

Then I head back on home, making sure to not look back in case his face gives away something I don’t want to know about myself.