Smoking Embers, Clay Whelan

Impact Award for Prose Writing Smoking Embers Clay Whelan, Class of 2024

The phone in Elio’s hands clatters onto the tile flooring in front of them. They press into the wall at their back, hard. A breath shudders through their lungs and sticks at their throat, burning a fiery chasm through their esophagus. There’s a noticeable tremble in their fingertips as they struggle to pick the phone back off the floor. That message is still there, right in front of them, words glowing white against blue. For a wild second, Elio considers retracting everything they’ve said; tell Bay that it was just the moment, they were just upset, they want to keep trying to make this work.

“Delivered” is replaced by “Read” and Elio bites their lip to stop the tears welling up in their eyes. It’s too easy to imagine Bay, gasping in disbelief. Maybe they collapsed, are screaming in agony on the floor, maybe they’re cursing Elio’s name. Maybe they regret everything now, the way Elio does. Or… or maybe they don’t, maybe they’re reading this and nodding slowly the way they do sometimes they realize they can’t do much but accept something. They made it clear that this didn’t matter as much to them as it did to Elio, didn’t they? That the whispered “I love you”s were simply the words you say to suspend the fantasy of a good time until you’re ready to go home?

Elio rubs at their temples with the heels of their palms, letting the phone settle on their lap. There’s no reply. There haven't even been dots to show typing. A surge of something white-hot and terrified jolts through Elio’s insides. What if… what if Bay just never says anything? They could leave this open wound festering on the table and never seal it up. Why, really, wouldn’t they? It’s their fault, after all. All of it, everything, all of the shouting and the world up in smoke. All of the kisses that left Elio’s mind scrambling to make sense of betrayal in the daze. It would make sense for Bay to do that. To leave Elio floating lifeless in the once-beautiful river they built together. Because maybe it isn’t Bay that didn’t know how to let go, that held on too long even after everything crumbled. Bay lost feelings. That was the justification. “I lost feelings but I didn’t want to hurt you. And I see now that I did that anyway, probably worse that I would have. But I don’t want to let you go.”

And Elio wants to scream so loudly, so horribly that their vocal chords never recover. What is the use of speech when the one person who you want to hear it has disappeared with the imprint of their hand still warm in yours? Elio had kissed Bay through the tears. They had kissed them and didn’t even care that both of their noses were all gross with snot. At each breath, Elio had said they didn’t want to let go either. “It’s okay, it’s okay, I don’t hate you. I don’t understand, but I don’t hate you, and I never ever want to lose you.” Hadn’t Bay kissed back? Hadn’t they said that those weeks afterwards, when the two of them didn’t talk, were the worst of their life? That they’d thought that feelings had dried up when it was more like they had been hidden from view? “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The pulse in Elio’s wrist thuds at double speed. Air shoots through their nose. A hand reaches into their stomach and churns into a whirlpool. How sorry could Bay have been? Two weeks of coffee dates and a “No holiday, I just wanted to get something for you” book later, and Ami sent another photo like the last one. Bay, with their fingers up in some girl’s hair. Not even hiding. The door to the biology classroom that the two of them had had together Freshman year was clear enough in the background. How cruel, to join that memory with this one, from before Elio’s things had been shoved into a moving van that they hadn’t even been told was coming before it did. The worst part about Ami’s fuzzy little iphone photo was the smile that danced at the corners of Bay’s lips. The kitchen tiles are hard under Elio’s legs. They’ve been sitting for so long that their feet are not even tingling anymore, they’re just numb.