101 Words

I stood on the edge, staring down into an abyss of adult life. Of deadlines and work meetings, of rent payments and electricity bills. Messages left on the noticeboard instead of paintings hung up on the fridge.

It shouldn’t have been so terrifying.

Wasn’t it supposed to be easy? I’d always thought it would be. My birthday would arrive and I’d smile because turning twenty-one would include a manual on how to cope with everything growing up entailed.

The clock turned midnight. I didn’t get a manual.

Instead, forced to stare at the abyss, all I received was a whisper: “Jump.”

“It’s your decision,” she says, scratchy pen hovering over photocopied paper. A narrow stare of pity and judgement.

I look at my fingers, scratched and bloodied. My lip feels fat against my teeth. My ribs protest as I shakily inhale.

I think of the apologies coming my way; the love, dropping like a nuclear bomb, saturating me in radiation. Will never happen again. Never. Just love you too much. Please.

My breath settles.

I made my choice before she walked in. She knew my choice before she sat down.

“Your decision,” she says, again.

“I fell down the stairs,” I say.

“No! I told you, ‘Grazie’ means thanks,” Jamie said. “‘Scusami’ is excuse me.”

Tanya sighed. Rome’s bustling station and Jamie were too much. “Scusami,” she mumbled.

The small crowd parted.

“Grazie,” Tanya said, sidling past, her boyfriend following.

“You really should’ve learned Italian, like I did,” he said.

“I know a little…”

“Just leave it to me.” He patted her arm. “Now, where do we get our tickets?” He gazed at the booths. “Wow, a lot of trains are going to Chiuso, aren’t they?”

Tanya gasped.

When she’d finished laughing, she said, “I know one word for sure. ‘Chiuso’ means ‘Closed’.”

Devansh and I got into a fight during freshman band. In our defense, we didn’t like each other. The teacher had no idea, but still, she should’ve noticed how the two of us glared at each other every day.

We argued, and Devansh snapped. He said I was done for.

“Meet me in the parking lot after school. We’re gonna fight like men.”

I took the bus home, watching the spot where the teachers parked. I was too good for fighting. Or too scared. I didn’t care. I just didn’t want to get hurt.

Devansh was sitting two seats behinds me.

Her cake died.

She could see that as she opened the oven. It deserved its fate. She had slammed her oven door on a screaming, seething mess, begging her not to be baked.

The cake was conceived as butter, sugar, flour, and eggs lying dormant in a bowl. She’d dipped her hands into the batter, melded, moulded, breathed into it the air every cake needs. She hadn’t intended to give it life. A hideous seething, uncompromising life. Rare but possible.

She baked it anyway. It swore vengeance on its maker and vengeance it achieved. She wouldn’t eat it. Now or ever.

My bracelet caught on the cracked vinyl seat just as the bus doors opened. You looked down at me struggling to move our bags from the aisle, sitting monk-still as people unceremoniously squeezed past us.

Wool knotted in my stomach as I tried to free myself. “You goin’ to help?” I asked. But no, you just sat with a hand on my thigh, rusty wedding band reflecting the artificial light.

My bracelet freed and I moved the bags. You tucked my hair behind my ear and kissed my neck with chapped lips. “I love you,” you said. I turned away.