INDEPENDENT

You open your arms and I don't even need it, except I'm already squeezing as hard as I can.

I hold on because there is nothing else to hold. Everything is falling away, everything is lost, and you are the only thing left.

You are wearing a suit. I haven't changed. I toweled off some, but I'm sure that I'm still a little sweaty. I'm sure that my sweat will seep into your silk tie. I'm sure that the droplets on my face brushed against your lapel—but you don't seem to care, so I squeeze hard and I can't let go.

I can't believe I lost and I can't believe how I lost and I can't believe this is real. This isn't real. I didn't even know that I cared that much until right now. I don't understand why my face is warm and why my eyelashes are wet. I don't cry.

You don't say anything. I don't want you to.

I can keep it together as long as I'm alone. Once they start comforting me—and they all do—I can't stop letting it out: the fear, the disappointment, the aching pain. I kept it together for all that time, but now... now it hurts, now I feel it, now it's real, and I wish they would just leave me alone so that it can stop being real.

You're just here, and you squeeze as hard as I do, and my legs are weak, and I feel nothing. I want to feel nothing.

I think for a second how awkward this has to be for my friends, if they're watching. I've seen this kind of thing in movies, and it's always so awkward, it's weird to see people really emotional, weird to see people having a moment, but I ignore that feeling because I need a moment. I hope my friends are watching.

You are giving me a moment. You are the only one who can.

I feel okay again. I hope I can feel okay again. I hold on, just keep holding on, until at last something says that this is good, this is enough, I'm ready and I'm okay again.

I swear I'm okay and, thank God, I don't cry.

Abigail M. Chao is a rising high school senior in Chicago, IL, where she tries to convince her peers at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy that there is beauty outside of particle physics. This is her first notable publication, and she is currently working on other short fiction pieces.

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