It sounded like a thousand bees were nestling inside her brain.

      They relentlessly drilled and hummed; their wings beat against the frigid, salty air. Her chapped lips pressed themselves together in a thin, neutral line.

      Over – or perhaps under – the sound of the decrescendo, important people at an important dinner party (“Congratulations on opening the new orphanage!”) laughed daintily and tapped their glasses in cheers. But even past that, frat boys chanted about ancient Roman tunics as if they were warriors demanding higher food rations. Further still, girls giggled and cell phones blared their robotic melodies.

      Now it sounded as if all the air in the world was being sucked out by an enormous vacuum.

      Slowly, her eyes opened.

***

      Sobbing.

      Deep heaving and high-pitched whines reverberating from the wall on her left.

      They sounded small, uncertain, embarrassed.

      The rusty hinges of her neck creaked as she slowly turned her head to watch him cry.

      It was like watching a tiny rowboat struggle over waves and ocean currents, his body bobbing like the splintering wood and his curly hair left tossed by the unkind breath of giants.

      Upon catching her eye, the boy inhaled sharply, his eyes watering again. She remained unemotional. Unmoving.

      There was something in his defeated eyes that made her feel almost sorry for him.

      The boy sniffled once more, much like an injured puppy, and he scrambled to his feet in a childlike manor, his worn red shoes slipping on a few pebbles.

      It was only when he pulled her from the ground that she remembered she was laying like the horizon.

      With a steady hand, equipped with long, dainty fingers, he brushed off her baby blue dress as best as he could. Dried leaves peppered her blonde hair, dust and tiny concrete pieces peppered her legs.

      He dared not touch her there.

      What he did, however, was most strange and remarkable.

      He took her hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze (which was maybe a little more for himself than for her, because he sniffled again), and started to lead her from the blue-brown alley.

      Hand in hand, him leading, her following, they began to walk among the nocturnal. 

***

      The very pavement they walked upon vibrated as huge, angry buses roared by.

      Sniffle.

      Women on corners with silver tongues offered whispers of entertainment to lonely, well dressed men.

      Pip.

      One woman clopped down the street in cherry red high heels, her phone already dialed to the police, ready to hit “send”, keys in between her fingers like a bank robber unsure of his gun.

      Deep breath.

      Stray animals searched for a clean puddle to drink from.

      It was then that she glanced at her wobbling reflection and noticed their matching injuries. Identical bruises, scrapes, some that were even scabbing over already. Pomegranate seeds in vanilla ice cream. She stared at the hand she was holding. Slightly clammy, however not unwelcome.

      She stumbled, her bare feet catching on something sharp. Even though she uttered not a sound, he turned, sensing something was wrong. They sat right where they stopped, and they examined her feet for anything horrid or deranged; used needles, broken glass, mystery plastic.

      The second strange and remarkable thing he did for her that night; he removed his own shoes, and slipped them onto her feet.

      Hand in hand once more, him leading, her following, they continued to walk among the nocturnal.

      By the time they got to his apartment, his white socks had turned black.

***

      The bees inside her had grown weary, and were less diligent with their honey crafting.

      He had given her a dinner roll – she used two careful hands to hold it – and a narrow glass of water that she left untouched.

      She could see every little nick on the cheap round table. Each imperfection in the tree it was shaped from showed through the foggy gloss, each swirl and ring. She still thought it was good enough.

      “I’m a dime,” she suddenly mumbles, her concrete grey eyes glued to a brown spot. The boy stutters out a pained laugh, nodding. She takes a few more meticulous nibbles of the slowly hardening bread before he speaks.

      “Do you have a name?”

      “HmmFauzia…” It comes out as a delicate sigh.

      He nods. 

      “I’m Eli. Uh my mom and pop they uh, they thought they were gonna have a girl, right, right? So like, you know, they wanted to call me Ellie, right, but they named me Eli when they saw my, when they found out I was –“

      Eli coughed, Fauzia dipped her head.

      “My friend used to call me Fau-Fau.”

      “Oh yeah?”

      “Yeah, um,” she took a tiny bite before continuing, “sometimes she would call me Zia or Zee, but she liked Fau-Fau the best.”

      Eli dipped his head down. His hands were suddenly very interesting. “What, uh.” He paused, contemplating. “What happened?”

      Fauzia became serious. “I fell in love with her and she abandoned me at a party.”

      They sat in silence, sound waves around them ringing and bending. Eli gives a tentative laugh, however, Fauzia doesn’t return it. He clears his throat and looks at his hands again, biting his lip and letting out a soft sob. Fauzia continues eating without looking at him.

      Sniffle.

      Pip.

      Deep breath.

      “You cry a lot.”

      “Yeah,” he inhales, “yeah,” and once more, “uh-huh. Mmm.”

      Fauzia looks at him for an explanation. He stumbles over the words and the pressure.

      “M-my doctor said he said I have a few variations of anxiety but they’re not bad, uh, they’re not bad,” his voice cracks. “Like, see, like, I have a pretty balanced blend of OCD and social anxiety, with a dash of uh, like, agoraphobia? Y’know? Yeah.”

      "Oh."

      Eli fumbled with the hem of his shirt.

      Fauzia coughed.

      "D-d'you like movies?"

      "I think so."

      "I have Willow, if you'd like to watch that. And The Sound Of Music."

      "I like both. I don't care either way."

      "I'm offering you a choice --"

      "Either of them is fine, whichever one you want to watch..."

      "W-w'yeah, yeah but you were you were just r--"

      Eli stopped short. Fauzia looked at him. "I was what?"

      "Y-you don't remember?" Eli searched her face, her grey eyes, for something even remotely okay. Her expression gave no sign of remembrance.

      Eli looked around nervously, as if the mere furniture were listening to their soft conversation. He lowered his voice. "You really have no idea what happened to you in the alley...?"

      Fauzia spoke not a word. The bread in her hands crumbled slightly, tiny speckles of plain snow landing across her lap.

      “I think I would like to watch The Sound Of Music.”

      “Fauzia…

      “Julie Andrews is one of my favorites.”

      “Fauzia.”

      Eli twiddled his thumbs, his eyes glued to a speck of paint on his pants. Fauzia again didn’t speak, staring at the glass of water to her left. They refused to meet each other’s eyes.

      “Please tell me.”

      “Well…I was at this party, right? Only it was really really bad, it wasn’t fun, and parties should be fun, right? Like, I saw some chick pissing in a closet, and that’s not fun at all, especially for girls, and there were these asshole who kept leering over all the girls and shit…Anyway, um,” Eli sighed, holding back tears. “I saw you kinda sitting around on this gross, broken couch, all alone and stuff, right? And I thought, hey, maybe she’s like me, right? Maybe she’s got issues with people and crowds and paying for food and talking on the phone…”

      Fauzia said nothing.

      “And-duh, you were swaying a little bit – in a sick way, so I thought you were high or something, tripping on acid, right? And right when I built up the courage to try to sit next to you, you shot up all quick and stuff and wobbled out the door.”

      “Did you follow me?”

      “W-well…” Eli shriveled up like a grape in the sun. “It wasn’t because I l-liked you or anything, I was just kinda worried, y’know, like, worried what would happen. I only followed you because the assholes from the party followed you out, too, yeah?”

      Fauzia examined the glass of water very carefully, as if checking to see if there were eels floating around inside.

      “So, I follow you. I-I wasn’t sure at the time if those guys were going home or following you or if they just wanted to make sure you were okay – though I think I’m the only guy who sees a pretty girl and wants her to get home safely rather than get to his home safely,” Eli shook his head furiously. “They were bumping each other and making noises, but they made sure to stay,” he paused to catch his breath, “far enough away so you didn’t hear them, right?” He swallowed.

      “For some…damn reason,” by now Eli couldn’t fight back the tears, and they poured over his face as if Brigid herself were watering the Earth from her holy pitcher. “For some reason, you decide to turn into this, this-this-this, this, alleyway…”

      Fauzia took the glass of water into her hands.

      “They…”

      She touched the rim to her lips.

      “They just…”

      Fauzia, finally, took the biggest drink of water she could manage.

      Suddenly Eli was in hysterics again, only this time, he was at his worst. He couldn’t speak. He shook and cried there like a child on the barstool.  

      “And and and they th-they wouldn’t stop! And and you were kicking! You wh, you were, you fought! You fought!” His voice kept rising and rising, breaking like glass, as unsteady and unstable as antimatter.
 
      Fauzia swallowed the water in one, painful gulp.

      “But eventually…” Eli’s voice slowed and lowered, his chest heaving, his eyes red again. He looked directly at Fauzia as she took another swig. “Eventually, you just…”

      “I just..”
 
      “You weren’t kicking anymore.”

      The silence in the room after that was like molasses dripping down a clay pot, solidifying as it went.

      The bees in her brain were screaming now. Bees don’t have voices. Their wings were beating so fast that they sliced each other. Honey was being flung everywhere, blood and stingers like grenades. Do bees bleed? Yes, bees bleed. Girls bleed, too. Girls bleed colors of periwinkle and mint and sunset and, most importantly, crimson. Even dimes? Yes, even perfect tens.

      She tumbled.

      She fell.

      Upon the floor she moaned. Upon the floor she gasped.

“I couldn’t kick anymore.”

~