lewis

I lay in the grass, listening intently to the loud sounds of nature, my eyes fixated on a plane that made its’ way slowly through the dark blue night sky. It blended in perfectly, the only thing that gave it away were the bright and artificial blinking lights, much brighter than the small barely twinkling stars.

I could count those stars in the city sky easily. So many man made bright and raucous city lights.

A cool breeze rustled my hair and my dress, evaporating the drops of sweat that had gathered on my forehead, my arms and the backs of my knees and leaving me cold, the small hairs on my arms standing. I had long ago shed my shoes, had I left them in my car? Had I even put them on before I left the house?

Cicadas, the symphony of the south, the number one biggest hit of hot, muggy and humid Houston summers. It wasn’t Houston if the night wasn’t accompanied by the cry of a million cicadas. I closed my eyes as I listened to them in the background, I felt my mind drifting, drifting.

Why was I here?

When did I leave?

Was it when the phone rang or was it after I hung up?

After I got home from school I did what any normal high school junior would do, collapsed on my bed and rapidly texted my friends to see if there was anything happening tonight. I didn’t want to be home, not again. Every night spent at home was a youthful night wasted. Why marinate in my own loneliness when I could be out wrecking my liver and experimenting with my sexuality? But instead of a text back, I got a call.

You won’t believe this. I’m still in shock. (this was said by my bestest of friends who, while still in the same grade as me, was two years my junior) I just got out of an AcaDec meeting, you know the one you refused to go to, when Chris started yelling at on his phone and ran out. No one really knew what was up but I just got a call from Chris’s best friend Dylan, you know the super tall red-head guy with the mustache who’s in band with Chris, and apparently Chris’s little brother committed suicide!

Lewis.

Tall, dark hair that obscured equally dark eyes, but they twinkled, like the stars that were in the polluted Houston sky. He had this smile he’d flash whenever he was up to something mischievous like breaking open a school vending machine or sneaking a cigarette behind the Band Hall during lunch. His laugh that showed me he appreciated my silly or lame joke, even my occasional clumsiness or my stupidity.

Dead.

I made another call before I left the house, because I just couldn’t believe it, to a friend from my math class. But when she answered she was in tears. God, oh god, please tell me it’s not true, she sobbed into the phone. Elizabeth, it’s not true is it? He called me this morning. He asked if he could come over but I said no because my dad was in town. They said he did it with a shotgun.

God, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god!