mask fatigue // coley+open

coley.

Ms. Munroe's calm tone echoes in my head. When you're stressed in your life, you might find it helpful to talk about your roses and your thorns the day before. Roses are the good things that happened: the boons, the accomplishments, the things I take pride in. Thorns are the times when you fall short or when your flaws are on full display.

I pick at the skin underneath my fingernail, hoping that the dead cells might turn into a petal of good. But it just bleeds instead, stinging as I uncover another thorn beneath the leaves.

The cafeteria is silent outside of the occasional younger kid who uses it as a shortcut to get to the playroom quicker. Food is in short supply because of the blizzard. No more shipments coming in and none of us are allowed to leave to find food for ourselves. I make do better than most living off of half rations and watered-down soup or apple juice. I haven't had much of an appetite since Alain and I started fighting. Regretful thoughts and what-ifs on the tip of my tongue are savory enough to hold me over.

I'm fine. I know I'm not, and judging by the poked-out heads when Alain and I did our room swap, most everyone knows I'm not, too. But I mask it with a rehearsed smile I spent an hour in bed molding across my cheek. I'm not letting Alain win. Giving in and saying I'm sorry is just what he wants: to prove that I'm weak and dependent on him to survive.

My quiet is disturbed by the turning of wheels in the cafeteria. I fold my hands together, angle my head, and rest my eyelids slightly. The slamming of wheels as they fall from midair back to the tile floor is the signature of the one and only Robey. Never subtle, I can feel him watching me as the skateboard clicks between tiles.

"Um, you good man?" I catch a glimpse of his piercings through the corner of my eye. Always the kind to take the road less traveled between all us seventeens. He calls me out for being off, almost immediately. Never one to dance around the subject, either.

"No, dude," I can feel the depth of my throat lower my tone by an octave. Whenever I'm alone, I feel vulnerable. That's what made Alain and I so great together. I never felt vulnerable and neither did he. "I was just enjoying the peace and quiet before the chaos."

I look around the empty cafeteria. "You can hang out here, though. I don't mind. I'm just trying to think about some good things. It's been hell lately." I clear my throat immediately. "Because of the blizzard." It's a correction that I think anyone would know is untrue.

Truth is, I want him to ask about it. I need someone to vent to and tell me that I'm doing the right thing.

Affirmation seems like a good enough rose to me.