Whistle in the Woods | Teen Fic ✔️

10 : Fireworks

Festival no doubt brought disasters. Traffic lined up like a train carriage that seemingly reached the horizon. It still hadn't broken near an hour later, when the evening fell. And Meldei disliked the evening's semi-darkness, so she was glad to follow her mother on foot for the rest way home.

Her grandmother was assembling chairs around a table on the porch by the time they arrived. Meldei's ears still rang from a construction drilling they'd passed just now as she went inside. There were sands all over her shoes.

She showered and quickly dressed. Her mother was already outside as she reemerged, dressed in a plain evening dress. Beside her, the table brimmed with offerings: coconuts and fruits piled high on each plate, and a bowl of hard, pounded rice. Her grandmother was setting lotuses into a pair of vases. The petals looked like cold porcelain in the candlelight.

"What do you wish for, child?" her grandmother asked when Meldei was lighting a handful of incense sticks.

Meldei watched the sticks combust, bright and beautiful in the falling dark. Smiling, she handed some to her mother.

"What do you wish for?" she asked.

Tevi's face was serene, but Meldei couldn't stop a flicker of worry. She'd never noticed that her mother's eyelids sagged like that at the corner. Candlelight did not lie.

"For my daughter's intelligence and my mother's health," Tevi said, raising the incense. Keeping three for herself, Meldei gave the same amount to her grandmother. Then together they prayed.

Meldei stared at the moon, the incense sticks held at her chest. The full moon was tomorrow, but it nevertheless looked full from where she was, like a golden star. Her mind was quiet. At times like this, it was always quiet. The voice, the longing. She was never really brave enough to wish.

I wish… I wish to dance.

I—wish to dance.

I wish everything to be as it was.

She shut her eyes against the cold black sky. Surely, there was someone up there listening to her wishes? She was taught to believe it.

Meldei went to set the incense into the ash bowl, feeling like she'd done a confession, a little spun out of her head.

A steady roar resonated from the distance. Not long, she saw a familiar green of the trash truck approaching. People who were also praying on their porch hurried inside to avoid the stench.

"Dei, bring some cash," Tevi said instead, stuffing the ash bowl. "They're working on holidays to keep our street clean. We should encourage them."

Meldei went to gather a sum before coming back out just as the truck steered past, oozing rot and decay. Holding her breath, she approached the person who was walking back with their house's bin.

"Bong," she said, but her voice was swallowed by the truck's old engines. The man appeared much younger than she expected when he turned. She politely handed the money. "You may split it with everyone if you'd like," she said after the truck went further.

"It's fine," he said as he repositioned the bin. Meldei was surprised—he was the first to ever turn down tips.

"Wait," she called. The truck was rounding the corner now. "It's a small token from us. We'd like you to have it." She offered it again.

After a moment of hesitation, the boy wiped his hand against his side before accepting the cash. He wore a black mask and a matching hat, so Meldei could only see his eyes. "Orkun," he said.

But then, as he rejoined the group at the corner, Meldei saw him handing all the money toward another guy. He took nothing.

What a strange boy. She'd never seen him before.

"I'm going inside," Meldei said. Her family was talking with their neighbor.

If her feet could sigh, she would hear it when she climbed on the bamboo bed in the living room. The pillows under her back felt like bliss. She grabbed her phone.

That's right. She meant to reply to Youhei before her mother suggested that they walked home an hour ago. It was now 8 pm.

Really not changing your mind? was his latest text.

He told her that they wanted to watch the boat race, so his birthday party was moved to the next day. She wrote: About now or going to your actual birth-day party tomorrow?

His response came so fast her chest skipped a beat.

Botb, he wrote.

I thought you were getting smooched.

Smooshed? Then—Caspian always finds the best spot. You could’ve come. And not get smooshed.

Through the window?

Don’t worry. I’ve had good experiences with catching from basketball, he wrote. Meldei's smile deepened.

And a dislocated finger.

You knew?

It could be your profile.

My pride is dislocated, he replied. She laughed.

When she confronted him about his empty profile, he said that he didn't know what to do with his hands around cameras.

"What are you smiling at?"

Meldei was startled when her grandmother appeared at the bed—she didn't hear the door open. Meldei cleared her throat and decided not to answer.

Her grandmother switched on the television. The first channel broadcasted about the evening's race. Hundreds—if not thousands—of people swarmed the riverside. Some with lightsticks, they cheered the boats prepping on the Mekong river. Meldei expected to see brown hair and a pale face among the crowds, but that was silly.

"If your father was there, he might win the race," said her grandmother all of the sudden.

Meldei lowered her phone. Her grandmother's gaze was fixed on the television screen.

"I heard that's how he got mak to marry him," Meldei said.

"Yes. He was relentless." Her grandmother almost smiled. "So then, your mother challenged him to row through Tonle Sap and be back before sunset."

"He came at midnight and brought her boat-full of fishes," Meldei said with a smile. She also knew about how they first met, when Tevi was on a cruise and her father on a fishing trip. She heard the stories before, but she wanted to hear them again. Her mother would not mention him.

"They were young once," her grandmother said. A pause ran between them. Meldei couldn't tell what she was feeling.

"Mak yey," she began, lower. "Do you hear about him? Since—since that day?"

"He never went home, child. Nor to his family," her grandmother answered. "Nobody knows where he is."

"But where could he have gone?" The closest people her father had to family were very distant relatives. After the Khmer Rouge massacred his real family, he had survived with the other orphans. And those orphans grew up to be his sworn sisters and brothers.

"I tried calling him," Meldei continued quietly. "Nobody answers, but it rings. The number would've been unavailable if nobody uses it for three years. But it rings every time I call. I—I don't understand. Does he not want anything to do with us anymore?"

Her grandmother stroked her hair. "No father would want nothing to do with their children." She spoke very gently. "Someday he will come back. When he's a better father, he will do it for you."

Her lips trembled—Meldei clenched her jaws to keep it back. Her phone vibrated on her lap again.

The firework men said it’s starting soon.

Tevi came inside. Meldei inhaled a wheezing breath and climbed down the bed toward the stairs. "Where are you going?" her mother asked.

"See the fireworks."

Tell them to shoot higher, she typed as she reached the rooftop.

The winds sent her hair flying in all directions as soon as she stepped out, blowing her face cold. She laid her hands on the iron railings, letting the coldness seep into her skin. Far away, she could see the heart of the city, where lights swarmed brightest. The sky was streaked with rays of light from the tallest casino building near the riverside. If the fireworks came from that direction she could see it.

I’ll record if you can’t see, Youhei texted. Meldei waited for a moment. The cool air was like a refresher washing down the strain from the earlier conversation. She couldn't imagine how cold it'd get at the lake at school.

Her phone vibrated again. She picked it up to reply, thinking the fireworks weren't high enough after all when she saw the message was from Noleak.

Lea sent a photo. Meldei imagined her somewhere grand when the picture finally loaded.

Except, it wasn't Noleak smiling with her family in the picture. It was two people, one boy one girl, sitting near the lake with the boy's head on her shoulder.