Page 118 of This is Me

Fireworks

“Hey.” Leroy’s voice was soft, and I was barely able to hear the word he spoke, and I felt Cooper shift beside me.

“Leroy, what are you—” Cooper started, but I finished.

“Doing here?”

“I want to, uh,” Leroy trailed off and his eyes lingered on Cooper, who looked at me.

“I think I’m going to leave you two alone for a hot minute.” Cooper nodded along with his own words and looked from Leroy to me.

“Thank you, Cooper,” Leroy said, moving a few steps closer.

Cooper gave Leroy a small smile before placing his hand on my shoulder. “There’s a lot of tension here, are you going to be okay?”

“It’s fine. This is where I wanted to be,” I whispered, and Cooper nodded again.

With that, Cooper dropped his hand back to his side and walked toward the school’s hall. As I watched, I caught him glance back one last time and give an encouraging thumbs-up before disappearing around the building.

“Did you tell him?” Leroy asked, his voice unsure.

“No. You told the other though, didn’t you?” I turned to face Leroy, who looked at the ground then back up to me.

“I needed advice. I’m sorry if—” Leroy began, but I raised my hand and stopped him.

“It’s fine. That’s your decision and… you shouldn’t be here, Roy.”

I wasn’t sure why I said that, considering I wanted to see him. To talk to him and tell him that I was wrong and an idiot.

“I know. But I need to apologise. Again,” Leroy added, taking another few steps toward me.

My heart started to speed up again, and I could feel it against my ribcage.

“You don’t need to. You don’t need to explain yourself anymore. I do—” I started but stopped as my eyes trailed down the boy in front of me. Sitting on the ground, next to where he had been standing, was a large gym bag. “What’s with the bag?”

“Oh.” Leroy turned his head to eye the bag for a moment before looking back at me. “It’s the last of my stuff.”

“What do you mean?”

“I went back home tonight because I didn’t want to be at Andy’s ‘cause he isn’t there.”

“Leroy…”

“Dad doesn’t want me at home anymore. He made me pack the rest of my stuff up.” Leroy nodded as he spoke and took another step toward me.

“I…”

“You told me not to fuck it up. But I did. Because I knew that if I didn’t, I would be fucking up something way more important.”

I had no idea how Leroy was keeping his composure. His voice remained stable, and tears were vacant from his eyes. He was doing much better than I would have been. But there was something about the look on his face that told me he had already accepted what had happened.

“Is there anything I can do?” I asked, unsure of what to say.

I mean, what do you say in a situation like this? What do you do?

“Can you just listen?” Leroy took another step forward so that we were only an arms-length apart. “Please.”

I had left the hall to go to Leroy and explain myself, but he had taken me entirely by surprise, and everything I wanted to say had seemingly been thrown out the window.