Roof Thoughts

If you asked me what my greatest regret is, I would tell you that it’s being angry the last time I looked at my home town. Driving in the backseat of my mom’s baby blue pickup truck, grumbling to myself about Gecko and how she never stopped playing poker with the prison escapees under bridges long enough to hang out any more. I was grumbling about how, ever since she discovered she could hide a reasonably-sized knife under those plaid tennis skirts she always wears, she has barely spoken to me. I remembered when it was me and not strangers who stood by her side when she was shooting targets in alleyways, or sitting with her legs dangling over rooftops. It used to be us, and not just her, having all the adventures, most of which involved a generous helping of danger and required nothing more than a healthy amount of disregard for the law. 

I didn't know it would be my last time getting stuck in tourist traffic (or, rather, what's left of tourist traffic under the Administration), and running out of pretzels before we’d even left the city. 

If I'd known at the time that I would never see my Downwater, New York again, I might have looked out the window. Taken a few pictures. Cried a little, even. I don't know. But I would have done something. I would have told Downwater I loved her before she left me. Comforted her, on her deathbed. Or let her comfort me, at least. 

Almost as soon as my mom walked out the door of my room this morning when she dropped me off, my phone went off with a notification from my news app. My town was was gone, apparently. Over. snuffed out. A bomb, it said. In the early hours of the morning. I had just lifted off, been flying over the english channel for less than half an hour.

I didn't believe it.

I know the Administration control the news- it's common knowledge. But the one thing they don't do is outright lie; I know that for a fact. They talk about honor too much, and the Administration are many things (most of them bad) but they aren't hypocrites. 

I didn't believe it, until I saw the video. Old, grainy cell phone quality, but definitely, undeniably primary footage. The top of the State House tipped over. It free fell, noiselessly, into the streets below. All we could hear on the recording was roaring wind and deafening commotion, so I turned the volume on my computer off. My room was silent. The world was silent. I was silent as I watched the edges of my city glow. Watch the flames start, eating my town from the inside out. Smoke swept out and down the street, towards the shaking camera, and it seemed to grab the videographer and throw them backwards. The footage was an upside down sequence of flashing colors for a second as the phone was flung out of the hands of its owner. The screen went black, and returned to the Administration newscaster speaking in thickly accented english. “In zess veedeo, we can see zee explosion consuming zee mountain city of Downwater in what is reported to be an Administration response to rebel activity in zee area. Zees ees one of three coordinated Administration-executed explosions across Europe, designed to keep zee citizens of the zee area out of harm's way by eliminating dangerous and unpredictable anti-government activities, zee osers taking place just outside of zee neighboring cities of-'' I had shut the top of my computer then.

I remember feeling cold. Chilled, from the inside out. All my emotions had shut down. I still couldn't fully wrap my head around the fact that Downwater was gone. I wonder if Gecko’s family was there. I would contact my mom to find out, but she wouldn't be on wifi while she was flying. She couldn't pick up. I don't know who else to call.

And it dawned on me that, for the first time, as I was sitting on the floor of my tiny dorm room that I had made a terrible, awful, expensive, irreversible mistake. I was not supposed to be here, in Scotland, across a whole freaking ocean, in a brand new school I knew nothing about. This was not where I was supposed to be. Everything was going wrong, and I hadn't even been away from home for a full day. I was alone- truly alone- for the first time in my life, in a place I literally couldn't leave. Even if I could leave, I don't know where I would go. I could go to Gecko’s grandma’s house in Bristol, but I know I'm being irrational.

Even worse than these feelings was the realization that I wasn't supposed to be having them at all. I'm the kind of person who gets off on the fact that I don't know what will happen next. I'm known as the kind of person that travels the world and parachutes out of planes and lives to be spontaneous and irresponsible and enthusiastic, and, most of all, doesn't mind being alone. It seemed the person I thought I was had vanished in a puff of smoke the moment Gecko’s and my plane hit the tarmac. And, from that moment forward, every time I think about who I am (or, rather, who I thought I was), it feels like i'm describing a stranger. I don't know what happened to me, but something definitely did. Maybe this is what people mean when they talk about starting over. Im a blank canvas, yet to be painted on. When your home is just made of memories, can it still be called a home? 

The roof of North Dorm was easier to get to than I thought it would be. It's Gecko that has all the roof-climbing expertise, not me. Regardless, all I had to do was crack the letter combination lock at the emergency exit, and take the fire escape to the top floor. From there, I just stepped up onto the grey stone windowsill of an abandoned room and jumped until my chest and arms were over the edge of the roof. From there, I could pull myself up as easily as anything. Being friends with Gecko taught me too much about how to break into places. 

Gecko always had a certain affinity for rooftops. She would sit for hours with her legs dangling over the edge of apartment complexes and shops and whatever else she could find her way to the top of, just for the thrill. She did a lot of things just for the thrill. 

I made it up here just in time for the sunset as well. Although, there isn't much to see. I was all excited to see the sky now that I've moved out of the city, but it turns out the sky in Scotland is normally just clouds. It's just clouds now, too. I can see a border of slightly muffled light around the bottom of the sky, which is rounder here than I've ever seen it. The sky here is properly curved- you can see the clouds streaking around it, spiraling into a dome above my head like I'm a pastry on a glass display tray. Or a specimen under a bell jar. Something trapped under this holy firmament, suffocating in all the empty space between the ground and the top of the sky. 

I wonder if gecko is on the roof of her dorm. Probably. I still can't fully accept that the school had the audacity to separate us into different dorms. Being away from home is hard enough without being away from my sister as well. Even if Gecko isn't technically my sister. She is more a sister to me than any sharing my own blood. Gecko was the one who taught me how to fall in deep and passionate love with simple acts of rebellion. Rebellion against the Administration, rebellion against our parents, rebellion against whatever she wanted to rebel against that day.

What do I want to rebel against now?

Myself.

The world.

This brand new place I have to make mine, now that it's the only place that CAN be mine.

All of it. All of it. the whole idiot universe.

I want to go home.