second hour

"How long do you think we'll be stuck here for?" He looked up at me through his dark curls. He stretched out his legs every so often, but there wasn't much room to do so.

"I have no idea." 

I was itching for a cigarette, horribly. I could feel them in my pocket, burning a whole into my side. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to ignore the feeling pulling at me. I couldn't smoke right now.

But I needed to so badly. It was a dull ache inside me that was becoming more powerful as the seconds ticked by. 

Maybe, if I just put one to my lips but didn't light it, that would be enough to make this feeling go away.

It was like a hunger inside of me, a natural physical reaction. Smoking was like eating, it was something  I had to do.

And the anxiety I was feeling right now from not smoking was ridiculous. I felt like I was going in for a job interview.

I knew I should have had a cigarette before I left.

I shakily reached into my pocket and pulled one out of the pack, Tanner's eyes on me the whole time.

I put it to my lips, and even just that made me feel so much better, relieved almost. Even if I couldn't smoke it, having it there was good enough. Like chewing gum to satisfy your hunger.

"Wyatt, what are you doing?"

No, no. Go away. I begged the memories as they came flooding back, but they didn't listen. They never listened.

"Wyatt, what are you doing?!" Dad yelled, rushing to my mom's side next to Lynn. I tried to breathe, but I couldn't find air. I backed up until I was standing in front of the fire place. 

"Call the police!"

Mom continued to sob hysterically, while I stood there frozen. My brain couldn't interpret words, my eyes didn't blink. I didn't understand English. What was happening to me?

"Wyatt!" I didn't hear him, I was lost in my world. My chest ached, I needed to breathe or I was going to pass out. I could see spots in front of my eyes.

He yanked my chin roughly, and suddenly I found oxygen. I heaved a deep breath and then ran to the kitchen to get the phone.

I punched in the three digit number and waited for the person on the other side.

I didn't explain what happened, I just whispered out the words "my sister" and our address. It took them ten minutes to get here.

Ten. If she had been alive, she would be dead by now.

Past tense. I hate past tense. Lynn was my sister, Lynn was beautiful, Lynn was so young. Only minutes ago it was Lynn is. Minutes can change everything.

It was there, in the kitchen, with the phone still clutched to my hand, that I fell apart. I sank to the ground in a hysteric mess of tears and sobs.

I was never able to put myself back together.

"Wyatt?!" Tanner called out again. My eyes shot up to meet his, that stick still dangeling from my lips.

"Huh?" 

"You're not going to smoke that, are you?" He looked angry, enraged almost, as he pointed to the cigarette. I played with the box in my pocket, shaking it around and hearing them rattle.

"No," I snorted. I didn't plan on killing us in the elevator. I'd hurt enough innocent people for one life time.

"Give me that packet!" He crawled across the floor of the elevator and knelt over me threateningly, with his hand out stretched. He wasn't small, but he definitely didn't have the scare factor. I may have been a little intimidated, but not scared.

"Why?" I smiled a little at his annoyed expression.

"Give it to me!" He practically reached into my pocket and tore it out, throwing it to the opposite corner or the elevator, where his brother's jacket was. He was seething with rage at this point. I didn't understand.

"My brother killed himself with these. Lung cancer at twenty, doctors had never seen it before."

"I-" I stuttered, but he didn't let me talk. I didn't have anything to say anyways. I didn't intend on telling him it didn't matter because in a few hours I would be gone. That was just a conversation I would never have with anyone. No one understood me.

"You have to quit eventually. They will kill you. Even if they only get the last five or ten years of your life, they will kill you."

Not if I kill myself first.

He pulled the one that was dangling off my lip out and mushed it in his hand. He slumped back on the opposite wall of the elevator. Tanner's eyes were fiery, I felt like they could pierce my skin. I just stared back at him, wide-eyed and open-jawed. 

"One day, you'll thank me for this." I highly doubted that though. There wouldn't be a day after this one for me.

"Have you ever wished you could forget everything?"

There it goes again, my mouth speaking without my brain allowing it to. It was really starting to get on my nerves. Did I just have all these built up emotions and questions that I had resorted to this? No, I was in control of everything.

"What do you mean? Like, my brother?" I wanted to take the question back, but that was impossible. So, I nodded instead. He didn't get misty eyed or annoyed, he just got this expression, one I'd never seen before. It looked part relieved and part depressed.

"No, that's just the easy way out. I want to remember him and all the fun we used to have. Not wanting people to die is just selfishness. Us, as humans, are naturally selfish. We don't want to have to miss people, the easiest way to do that is for them to be immortal. Or for us to die first."

I wanted to say something, at least to agree with him, but that would be admitting that what I was about to do what completely selfish.

I hadn't seen it that way before.

"Don't you find it bizarre how everyone always tries to comfort people by saying 'they are in a better place'? I mean, how the hell could anyone know that? It's like God. It's something we've created to answer questions, give us hope and fate and certainty in the uncertain," Tanner continued on the verge between a rant and a tangent. Neither of which I had a problem with, at least it wasn't silence.

I wanted to hate him, hate him for starting to make me unsure. I was so positive about my plans for today, to the point where nothing could have stood in the way.

Except, of course, a seventeen year-old boy in an elevator.

"You're just a depressing philosopher, aren't you?" I sighed, trying to hide my annoyance and internal conflict.

"Eh, I like to think of it more as a cynical sight."

"I'm starting to get antsy about getting out of here. It's been two hours and once my phone dies we are stuck in the dark."

He stood up from his corner and climbed on top of the metal handle that stretched along the elevator.

Tanner felt along the ceiling, as if trying to pop it out.

"This isn't James Bond. Even if you do get that open, what are we going to do? Climb the cables?" I laughed and he jumped down defeatedly.

Then he began pacing again.

"Tanner, sit down-"

"No! I need a calculator and a ruler or something to measure the dimensions and find out how long we can survive." He threw his hands into the air and ran his fingers through his hair a few times. He was on the verge of hyperventilating. I could tell, I'd done it enough times.

"If you stopped talking there would be more oxygen." I pointed out, and he laughed a little. I just needed to calm him down before he had a panic attack or something.

"This is like a horrible version of the Titanic 2."

"You say that like Titanic 2 wasn't a horrible version among itself," I snorted. I watched him begin to relax more, leaning against the wall again.

"You've seen it?" Tanner raised his eyebrows at me and I suppressed the blush that was fighting it's way across my cheeks.

"Yeah."

Tanner sat back to the ground and held his brother's jacket close to him like it was teddy bear. I watched as he breathed into it, like it still smelt like his brother.

"We should go for coffee or something when we get out," he whispered into his jacket. I nodded, though I knew I wouldn't.

I wanted to, I really did, but I couldn't. He couldn't stop me from what I was going to do, I couldn't let him.

He coped, I wanted to cope like he did. But it was different, he didn't kill anyone. He wouldn't understand.

By the end of the second hour, I considered us friends.