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“NO.” He’s in my face, his hot breath on my closed eyes. “I don’t want you here.” Every word is a stinging lash to my already bleeding heart. “It’s over, Noel. Go. Home.”

Sitting by the window on the airplane, I look out across the gray clouds obscuring the horizon. My small carry-on is overhead, and on the outside, I appear like any other traveler. But in my heart, a tornado has touched down, and it’s spinning and demolishing everything. With the speed of sound, his voice digs deeper, ripping trees from the ground, tangling its fingers around my soul an

d pulling by the roots…

My brother puts his arm around me and drives me home from the airport. My vision is clouded by the storm raging in my chest. It won’t stop until everything is destroyed.

The house is dark. My brother speaks, but I can’t hear the words. I go to my room and shut the door.

Aftershocks

Noel

I sit in the chair facing my window. Akela puts her head on my lap, but I don’t lift my hand. Inside the tornado has passed, but it’s silent.

No survivors.

So she drops down to the floor at my feet, waiting like a sphynx, her eyes fixed on the window where he’d come, guarding me as if she knows I’m not here.

Inside my chest, the path of destruction is miles wide, splintered throughout, written in his hand, with his words. I can’t feel my heart beat. I only feel sharp stabs of broken wreckage. A wasteland where my dreams once grew green and thriving.

Empty.

Ravaged and torn.

The sun still rises, shining through my windows as if I don’t exist, as if the world has forgotten what once flowered here. I’m left to fade away like a house covered in vines and shadows, better things to think about, happier things to see.

Inside is silence.

My brother comes to me. His face is worried as he sits beside me and holds my hand. He knows I’m not the same. Does he know my heart is missing?

I think it stopped beating.

I think it was destroyed.

Souls, bones…

“You’ve got to get up, Noel. You’ve got to keep going.” Sawyer’s voice is quiet, strained.

Do I? Why?

More time passes, I don’t know how much. I lose count of the times the sun appears in my window, the indifferent sun. The hateful day. The cold night.

My best friend comes. She talks to me. She helps me in the shower and waits as I move my hands and arms, washing away the invisible dirt.

She brushes my hair and talks to me about school and the holidays. She talks about going out and football games and the old lady I used to visit.

I’ve grown old. On the outside I look the same, but inside is old and dried out. Gray wood, brittle to touch and covered in cobwebs.

Akela stays at my feet watching the window. Waiting.

Leon brings me food. He talks to me about the weather. He says when it’s not so cold, he’ll take me outside. The warm air, the sun will help me feel better. He’s afraid.

“You need to get up now.” Leon stands in front of me, angry in a way I’ve never seen. “This isn’t who you are.”

It’s not?

My father lived for love. I lived for this love.