Wherever I sat – on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok – I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.

~Sylvia Plath

It’s something in her head; a bug that climbs around inside, burrowing inside her brain matter, controlling her thoughts and feelings. Anyone who tells her that love trumps fear can shove it up their ass. She remembered that Keats’s poem she read in Lit. class, Ode to a Nightingale. Her teacher made them memorize pieces of it and recite it in class, as if it would some day come in useful. As though Mrs. Hildner expected her to recite it while in the throws of passion, the words tightening the bonds of her sacred love.

Mrs. H with her bad hair and long skirts, no doubt always shopping for one, her cart filled with TV. Dinners, coffee cake mix, mineral water, and trashy romance novels that she hides underneath a carton of eggs in the top basket.

She raised the flame to the tip of the paper, watching the corner curl upwards, turning a crispy black, the flame slowly engulfing the parchment. Ashley’s words smoldered and blended together, no longer making sense. She dropped the burning paper into her empty metal trashcan and watched the tiny flames pop and crackle as the love letter broke apart, tiny pieces of black ash fluttering above the metal rim, then slowly descending onto the gray carpet.

She leaned over the can, inspecting the remains. She pinched her lips together, allowing a thick wad of spit to drip down onto the blackened mass. The saliva hung on by a string, swaying side to side like a pendulum, until the weight broke the line and the liquid splattered onto the ash, a faint sizzle sound echoing through the can.
Her bare feet shuffled along the carpet, fuzzy pieces pushing up between her toes.

She lay on her back on the bed, the lighter still clutched in her right hand that rested on her rising and falling chest. Tiny droplets of water pelted her window, as another night of rain had taken over LA. She hoped it would rain all tomorrow, as she would tell her mother she felt ill and needed to stay home. Her chemistry professor had let her go home early, having discovered Spencer had, “…a vicious stomach ache and really needed to go home and lie down.” Mr. Galvin agreed, suggesting some 7-Up and crackers, to which Spencer promised she’d consume, only to find they didn’t have any soda, or crackers, so she settled on a couple beers and one of her mother’s Xanex.