Flint

 

I turn the small metallic wheel under my thumb and look out on the garden. I’m looking for her. I can’t be sure that she wasn’t just a figment of my imagination. The medicine they give me makes it hard to tell sometimes.

“Hey, F..F-Flint. Having a nice day, f…f-freak?” I close my eyes at the guard mocking my stutter. Always mocking, always teasing, always beating. I close my fist around the lighter in my pocket and let it comfort me. If they knew I had it they would take it from me. They would lock me in that room again. The one where the silence burrows into your brain. I open my eyes and then I see her.

Avalon. My Avalon.

She’s sitting on a bench under the shade of a tree, staring down at her feet.  I clutch the book under my arm and walk over to her.

“H..h-hi. I’m F..f-f-ffflint.” Nothing. No response from her aside from the soft humming escaping her lips. She’s swaying to the tune of a song only she knows. “C…c-can I sit here?” Humming. Swaying.

I sit down beside her and look down on the book in my lap. I look at her from the corner of my eye. At all those glorious strands of fiery red hair. My fingers ache to touch it. To twirl it around my fingers and find out if it’s as soft as it looks. I reach out to touch but stop when her body freezes. I drop my hand back in my lap and she starts her humming again.

“H..h-h-how d..d-d-did…” I close my eyes in frustration, clenching my fist I try again. “W..w-what s..s-song a-aa-a-are..” This is impossible. My stutter never really bothered me. Apart from the teasing and abuse, people tend to leave you alone when you can’t speak properly, and that was fine by me. Only now, when I’ve finally found someone I want to talk to, I can’t.

“Y..y-your hair, i..i-it’s p-p-ph,” I pinch my thigh. “Pretty.” There. Sometimes a distraction helps.

I look at her again. Still humming, still swaying.

I wonder what kind of meds they gave her. If that’s what is making her this way or if she is just this way. No. The girl who fought those guards in the hallway is not the one sitting beside me. What did they do to her?

Avalon. Like the island King Arthur was taken to, to be healed from his wounds.

I sigh and open my book. The Legend of King Arthur. I find the page about the Island of Avalon and tear it out. I listen to her soft humming as I carefully fold the page into the shape I want. I smile as the last fold reveals my paper hummingbird and I hold it out to her. Her eyes flicker to the bird but then they’re trained back on the grass again.

I turn the bird around in my hands and put it down on the open book in my lap. I dig out the lighter from my pocket and turn the wheel thirteen times. Her eyes flicker to my hands and this time I find a spark of interest in those empty depths.

“Do you l…l-like my lighter?” A single nod, her eyes fixated on the white plastic in my hand. I strike it again and watch the flame flicker to life. Her humming has stopped. She must like fire too. I hold the lighter to the bird still lying on the open pages of my book and watch as the flames turn the edges black.

She giggles. A wonderfully melodic sound.

I can’t stop the smile on my face as the bird lights the rest of the pages on the book. Flames licking over the pages, turning everything to ash. She looks at me and the look of happiness on her face steals my breath. She’s laughing now. But not at me like everyone else. She’s laughing with me.

“What the fuck?!” I only barely register the guard’s shout. I’m too lost in the sound of her laughter.

“Flint, you crazy fuck. Where the fuck did you get this lighter?!” The lighter is ripped from my hands and I’m pulled to my feet, but still my eyes are only on her. A fist goes into my stomach but I hardly feel the pain, I’m too lost in how beautiful she is. Those eyes of hers trained on mine. She hasn’t said a word to me but I don’t need words. Her eyes say everything.

She’s for me.

I’m for her.

My Avalon.

My Thirteen.

I hold her eyes until I’m dragged off into the building. I dig my feet into the ground to stop them from pulling me away from her but the baton behind my knees causes me to fall down and the connection is broken.

They stuff me into that room again. The quiet one with the grubby walls. The one with the musty smell. But this time I don’t care. The silence doesn’t bother me because all I hear is her laughter, over and over in my head. I don’t see the faded blood stains on the padded walls because all I see are those eyes and the tattoo on her neck.

Thirteen.

She’s for me.

I’m for her.