The windows collapsed in on themselves. In her mind at least, they shattered, releasing flying shards of sharp imagination her way. She dodged them, like every time this tremor ran through her body, this wave of feeling she never knew how to control.

The window would never break evenly, not in real life, the peel off stick on stained glass pattern would just allow the glass to crack and crumble.

The only thing that Stevie could do in that moment was hide under the iron protection of her bedsheets. She didn’t want these thoughts in her head anymore, but she found herself unable to stop herself from whirlpooling into the depths of Charybdis.

The wind was unfamiliar to her that day, as the majority of it was spent in the confines of her room. Stevie was barefoot on the cracked sidewalk, with fading red leaves stuck to the bottoms of her feet. Fresh air was the only thing to pass through her brain and make an impact, circulating through her and taking up space instead of passing thoughts.

It was a little too early for Halloween decorations, but a skeleton or gravestone popped up every few houses. Stevie reached out her hand to lean against a tree. Her fingers picked a stick from in between her toes. She found herself to be so frantic about so many things that it was a relief that the biggest problem she had at the moment was this. She had one of her earbuds shoved in her ear, and had the other dangling beside her, hitting her leg as it swayed. She continued walking, combing her fingers through her hair, pieces of tangled strands leaving from her fingers and limply following the command of the wind. She studied the ends of them carefully, making a checklist in her mind to put re dying her hair on her calendar so she could consider doing it. She knew her busy schedule consisting of self pity wouldn’t let her. Stevie’s skin had gotten too pale because of this, her veins especially prominent. The look of them somewhat disturbed her without explanation, so her hands got a limited amount of attention, and her palms grew flakey skin around her heart and head lines. The cold caused her to rub them together, and dead skin fell from them.

Stevie continued to walk.

She hadn’t gotten to the last house on the block in her previous walks. This time was different, she craved to feel more of the outside. The door of this house opened. It was nicely crafted, almost too nice for the house, and the wood was somewhat warped around the rusty hinges, and caused the creak which caught Stevie’s attention through the one ear she allowed herself to hear through. An old dog bounded towards her, pulling back slightly, realizing a cracked leather leash restrained it. Stevie’s eyes were guided towards the liquids seeping from its eyes, and how they slightly dropped at the ends. The hair was slightly too long, and clumps formed around its feet, dragging in the dirt of the under watered lawn. Regardless of its lagged speed, which didn’t seem to be affected by the leash, its tail was wagging, and the pink tongue hung out of its mouth. It probably had a few teeth removed, Stevie thought, the spaces between each were a little too big.

It was an ugly dog, but in an intriguing way, like the strained barks had meaning.

“Can I pet your dog?” Of course I can. May I.

“Go ahead.”

She didn’t look up to the owner of the voice. The dog licked her wrist, nudging it with its nose. It was warm and cracked, not wet and cold as she expected. Stevie moved her hand to the top of its head, and it cocked his neck, wanting her to move her scratches downwards. She looked up to thank a young girl, Stevie’s age.

She was Tuesday, a fairly thin girl, and was dressed in clothes that swallowed her. Stevie brushed the slight amount of oil left over from petting the black dog onto her shorts. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem. He deserves the attention.”

Tuesday was avoiding eye contact, looking above, beside, and below Stevie’s irises. It seemed like her eyes never wanted to stay still, and her fingers fidgeted with the leash. It was also the first time Stevie had noticed the similar peel off, stick on stained glass on Tuesday’s window.

Stevie started walking back to her house. She knew it was time because even in the cloudy sky, her skin began to become sensitive due to the sun peeking through.

Tuesday walked down the street, slightly behind her with the dog pulling on the leash to unsuccessfully get to the back of her heels. Conversation was limited, as both of them seemed to lack the bravery to begin anything.

“Sorry I’m kind of following you. This is the way I usually go.”

“It’s ok,” Stevie responded, quickly passing over the word it’s. Her speech was strangely impaired around others, it just seemed to be even worse around Tuesday.

More silence followed. She kept her eyes on the cracks in the grey concrete.

Stevie’s head started spinning again, the fresh air now incapable of freeing her from the stuffy atmosphere. Unusually, there was a prevalent thought among the rest.

Her house was a shade of beige, one floor, not something she had flaunted to others. The paint was chipped in on particular spot on the wall, a result of her brother angrily swinging his baseball bat when he came home from losing to his cousin’s team.

She also remembered that the hose was laid limply over the front porch.

Stevie stopped.

“I live here.”

The house she had picked was two stories, with a nicely placed brick path dotted with muddy footprints. It was almost six houses away from where she needed to be.

“Nice house. See you later?”

Stevie smiled. “Sure.”

Tuesday started to walk away, but the dog continued to look back, his droopy eyes almost empathizing with Stevie.

Pretending to look for her keys, she rested on the red curb, next to a fire hydrant with brown mud splattered, sullying the bright yellow. She constantly looked up to see Tuesday walking farther and farther away. Stevie let out a breath when she was finally out of sight.

She started by getting up slowly, picking up the pace when she started walking again and let more houses pass by quickly. She stopped suddenly at the familiarity of her front yard, the tree crowded with too many leaves, and the puddle sitting in the dip in her driveway.

As she entered, the dim light greeted her again, with diffused sunlight leaking through the windows.