Swoon
A Silver Sun Novel
by
Jacqueline Sauvageau
Smashwords Edition
****
PUBLISHED BY:
Jacqueline Sauvageau on Smashwords
Copyright ｩ 2011 by Jacqueline Sauvageau
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1 - The Day The World Went Away
Chapter 2 - We're In This Together Now
Chapter 6 - The Way Out Is Through
Chapter 7 - Please
Chapter 8 - Something I Can Never Have
Chapter 10 - Every Day Is Exactly The Same
Preface
I had never given much thought as to how my life would end. In all of my meandering existence, I had always presumed that my final breath would have been taken by the sudden impact of head-on collision, by old age, or by a slow sickness. The kind of sickness that leads you to the white-washed walls and the hospital bed, hooked up to wires and fixed with a cocktail of painkillers. Yet, I had never imagined that my final moments would have taken place in the back seat of a limousine amidst the screams of thousands and the bright, white lights of the flashing cameras.
It was me that they wanted, that they craved, that they cried for. It was my voice. My voice that had ravaged the world. My voice that would be burying me.
Evading the crowds of wailing, flailing people, I was forced down the sidewalk path by my bodyguards - two towering giants in black suits and dark glasses. They were finely tuned weapons that at the single wave of my hand could snap limbs. Their gazes were cold, and their eyes hardened by the city and the smog. With each step I came closer to the certain death that in some ways, I knew I had been facing all along. In that single, fleeting moments of time, I was pushed forward and into the leather and liquor of the glossy black-stretch limo. The door closed behind me, and I braced myself, my hands gripping the fabric of my chiffon gown, while my perfectly perfumed waves fell delicately over my shoulders. Outside, the screams of the fans shook the limousine greater than their fists against the tinted glass. I tried to remain calm, to maintain my composure. But there was no way that I could hide the trembling.
The hunter's eyes were black with hunger, wide and quivering as I turned my head to finally meet his gaze. Slowly, he edged forward, and I could feel the blood in my veins run cold. I sat frozen, wordless, as the figure's hands slipped behind my neck, and the feeling his lips brushed against the soft, malleable flesh. I could hear only the faint sound of his breath in the silence.
So this is how it ends, I thought. This is how my life will end. In the back of a limousine, in a sea-foam green gown with the sounds of a million screams, like an orchestra echoing around me. In the arms of a faceless, cold, shadowed creature..
The vampire.
The vampire...I loved.
“Please...” I whimpered softly, feeling the warm stream of tears run silently down my cheeks, my lips quivering as I sat still, like a china doll in my rouge and painted lips. My heart beat heavily, like a voodoo drum within my chest.
“Don't worry,” he whispered, his lips like frozen petals against my skin. “This is only a dream.”
Only a dream.
Only a dream...
With those words, I opened my eyes, my body rigid, like the limbs of a marionette. I expected the hunter to be at my beside, his golden eyes beaming down upon my small frame, waiting for the moment to lunge. Yet...I found myself surrounded only by darkness.
1
The Day the World Went Away
My brother stood at the kitchen sink, with his arms crossed. He leaned against the granite counter-top, his gray T-shirt wrinkled from a restless night's sleep. I watched him as I sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of oatmeal that he'd only just bothered to whip up in the five minutes time since he'd stumbled into the kitchen. It hadn't been stirred, and the milk swirled around the oats in a way that resembled rivers of water around clusters of hills, or little islands. The morning sun streamed through the bay window and over the granite counter-tops, casting a warm light over the dark-stained wood of the kitchen table. My hands rested in loosely-clenched fists, with a spoon at my right. I was tired, sitting there in my jeans with the fraying knees and my favorite jade-green sweater with the crudely woven fibers.
“You need to eat something,” he pressed, his fingers tapping on the black granite. He took the bowl that had been sitting by his hand and ran it under the water in the sink, putting it down, then flicking the droplets of water off of his fingertips. After a moment, he then turned, squinting back at me with same paternal look of concern imprinted on his face.
“I'm not hungry,” I replied, pushing the bowl away as a child does to a plate of vegetables. My brother shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.
“Fine,” he said, “see if I ever bother to make you breakfast again.”
“You made me instant oatmeal,” I countered. “Maybe if was bacon and eggs I would have been a little more interested.”
“Maybe if I had the time,” he shot back. “For now, as long as I'm paying the bills and you're wanting breakfast from me, you're getting oatmeal, kid.”
I groaned and spun my spoon around on the table, watching it spin in a blur under the light from the sun. I squinted my eyes and looked over at the bowl of lumpy oats.
“I'm just tired today.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” my brother grimaced, rubbing his eyes. “Do you have any plans today? Maybe some job hunting?”
“Ha,” I grinned. “Don't you think you make more than enough money with your fancy degree and your award-winning books to support the two of us?”
“That's not the point,” he said agitatedly. “It's about developing a sense of work-ethic, which you lack, dear sister.”
“I have plenty of work-ethic,” I said, picking up the spoon and tapping it against the table. “Not to mention I'm going to school like you wanted me to.”
“You're going to school part-time,” he said. “At a community college, nonetheless.”
“Sorry, Dr. Greene.” I said, squinting my eyes at him.
“Holly,” he said with a sigh. “One of these days you're going to have to realize that you'll have to put your dreams of becoming the 'next big thing' in the music industry aside for a more...stable career.”
“Because a stable career is what's made you so happy,” I said, standing up and wiggling my toes over the cold tiling of the kitchen floor. “Holden, I think you need to get laid. When was the last time you were even dating anyone?”
“I'm not having this discussion with you right now,” he said, pursing his lips. “Do you need a ride to school?”
“I can walk.”
“Will I be seeing you later tonight?”
“Key word being later,” I said, walking to the door and slipping my feet into the worn ballet-flats that sat precociously by the doormat. “I'm going to an open mic night at this new venue I stumbled into last week. It's a pretty chill place.”
“Alright...” Holden walked over to the kitchen table and picked up the uneaten bowl of oatmeal. “Be careful then, I guess. I hate the thought of you wandering the streets at night with all the fucking whack-a-doos out there. Do you have cab fare?”
I pulled out a few crumpled bills from my pocket and Holden nodded.
“See you later tonight, then.”
“Goodbye, Holden,” I said, grabbing my messenger bag. Holden smiled, and I opened the door as the warm sunlight poured into the kitchen. He turned on the faucet as I threw my long brown hair up into a loose ponytail. I walked out to the sound of water running, and Holden scraping the sticky remnants of the oatmeal into the sink. Maybe I should have just eaten it, but I was stubborn. Then again, there were bigger troubles out there that my stubborn behavior would send me spiraling into. Bigger than instant oatmeal, the framed diplomas hanging over Holden's desk in the study, or the way the sun shone through the bay window in the early hours of the morning. I just hadn't fallen into them yet.
You see, my parents are dead. Well, my mother is, at least. As far as I knew, my father was still alive, but after my mother's death, he had severed himself from the family, and this had immediately rendered him dead in my brother's eyes. I was only 5 years old, and Holden was 15. That being said, Holden remembered more than I do in terms of the events that led up to his leaving, but he didn't talk about it....and I guess I couldn't really blame him, either. Sure, there were times where I'd press him about it, and ask him to tell me something about my father. A story, or a memory of something that he could call upon in ways that I couldn't. From the vivid fragments of his own memory, I was looking for anything he'd be willing to indulge me with. Yet Holden always refused, brushing me off with the swat of his hand or by simply walking out of the room. He just didn't like to talk about it, and I'm not sure it was something he ever did. Not with his colleagues, his ex girlfriends, or his old therapist that he'd left after he'd claimed that she was getting too “close”. But despite his hardened gaze and obvious reverences, every so often I'd catch him looking through the old photographs of us when our father was around. Trips the carnival, and camping trips. Cotton candy, and boxes of popcorn. I could recall the sticky hands and the sweet spun sugar on my tongue. I could recall my father's face, and his rugged, crooked smile...but that was really it. It was Holden who remembered the remarks and the conversations over dinner and after school. He held the key that I had never been granted in my young, fragile age. Still, he never said a word, and if he were to say anything at all, it was usually very short, and calloused.
“His loss,” he'd mumble under his breath. Then, as if Holden had seen something out of the corner of his eye, he would pause for a moment, and his eyes would fall onto the swirls of white in the granite of the kitchen counter-top, or to the calendar hanging on the pantry door that depicted the changing autumn leaves. After a moment, he would shake his head, and walk away.
That the most I'd ever gotten out of Holden about our father, and the man that he was. The rest remained a collage of distant memories, sounds, and fleeting pictures.
While this may certainly come across as something of a sad scenario (and in some ways, certainly, it was) we were able to manage. Things simply were what they were. And at least I could always say that I had Holden.
Holden had a good job working as a professor at NYU. He'd published a few books and was raking in royalties from them as well. Of course, there was also the inheritance we'd both received after our mother died, and while it wasn’t much, it was better than the latter of having to take on her debt. We were lucky, I guess. My mother always payed the bills on time. Holden, in many ways, always claimed to be much like my mother...something that while I can't quite call upon to compare, I would never deny. Holden was meticulous with his money, and always careful. Something that I guess my father never was. From the bits and pieces that I was able to put together, I envisioned my father as someone clumsy and crude. Well meaning, but unreliable and often haste in his decision making. I wondered at times, if that was why he left...if not simply because of the unbearable heartbreak that had been thrust upon his shoulders after losing my mother. I guess it drove him to the brink, and to an edge that I could never quite comprehend. I could never imagine abandoning my children. Especially as swiftly as he had. Only four months after my mother's death, on Holden's 16th birthday, he had come downstairs and into the kitchen to get himself a glass of cider. After setting a glass down on the counter, his eyes fell upon a note on the that had been stuck onto the wooden cutting board. My father had left. For where? We never knew. I was upstairs, just a child, asleep within the cozy confines of my my room with the lavender walls and the paintings of teddy bears on bicycles and bouquets of sunflowers. Unaware as I slept that my older brother had collapsed on the kitchen floor, quivering in a state of tears and suffering an impenetrable loss that to this day I would never quite be able to grasp. Instead of cake and presents, he was left with a hole in his chest.
After my father's abrupt disappearing act, my grandmother moved in with myself and Holden, who had dropped out of our old high school to educate himself as a home-schooled student, where he received his diploma at only 16. She helped Holden to raise me until he had turned 21, graduated a year early from NYU, and was able to achieve a means of stability in income and residence. The income provided from a teaching position that awaited him at a local high school, making him the youngest teacher amongst the many faculty members, that had ever been awarded a teaching position. Balancing teaching with scholastic pursuits, he worked his way up towards his master's degree, and after achieving his MA, he went on to establishing himself officially as “Dr. Holden Greene.” Afterwards, during his transition into an open position he'd been offered as a professor of literature at NY U, he went on to publish three books, while I spent the time just trying to get used to growing up in my own skin as the kid without her parents. All I had was Holden, who stood as my legal guardian until reached the golden gates of my eighteen birthday...but for all paternal purposes, he was a very good guardian. There was always food in the fridge, and snacks in the pantry. He always made sure there was a liter of Coke in the fridge and a few cans of Red Bull. He'd leave a pack of my favorite cinnamon gum on the kitchen counter if he'd overheard me complaining earlier in the day about the missing back of gum that had “suddenly” gone missing from my purse. Holden didn't have to do these things, these small miniscule things that in many ways wouldn't really matter. But he did them anyway.
I grew up like many children who come from empty homes...simply wanting things. Wanting things even if I knew I could never have them. My grandmother in her old age did her best to provide, but there wasn't much she could do. She was fragile herself, and while she remained a constant presence in our home, Holden did most of the physical labor. Helping my grandmother clean, wash the dishes, fold laundry. Holden had domesticated himself from a young age, and even presently still had those common “house-wife” tendencies about him. The laundry was always folded at the foot of my bed when I got home from class, even if he'd spent a full day in the classroom. The dishes were always cleaned, dried, and put away. The floors and tables immaculate and spot-free. How he managed it all on his own, I'm not sure. Looking at him, I knew one day he would make a terrific father, even if he insisted that he never wanted kids.
“They're too...sticky,” he'd say, crinkling his nose. Then, he would disappear into his office, leaving me standing in the hallway, listening to faint tap tap tap of the keyboard behind closed doors.
Truthfully, there were some days that I couldn't help but wonder if I was holding him back. If despite his youth and the simple fact that at his age, most guys were settling down, getting married, taking out a mortgage and buying a house, Holden was sticking around because he felt as if he couldn't leave me on my own. Deep down, I realized that was likely the case. Holden remained the father figure, the parental figure in my life, because I had no one else to fit that fragile mold...neither of us did. It was just the two of us, living in our parents' giant, empty house that hung heavily with the feeling of abandonment that we both felt. We just tried to push past it, and move on.
Be that as it were, I was always told that I wasn't one for getting things right the first time around. While Holden spent his time after the loss of our parents moving himself ahead in the world, getting his degrees and procuring a stable, respectable job, I passed the time slacking, skipping class, crumpling my homework assignments up and tossing them in the bin outside of school. Holden watched everything with a look of disdain in his dark eyes, scorning at my report cards and the messages that my teachers would leave on his answering machine while he was at work. I'd press my ear up against the door of his office, trying to speak snippets of the messages through the cracks of the heavy wooden door as he listened to them. Each time it was the same. He'd open his office door and catch me looking up at him, cross his arms, and shake his head.
“I hope you know that you're grounded.”
“You can't ground me,” I'd shoot back, spinning around the corner and peeking my head out from behind the wall. “You're not my dad, you know.”
Really, I meant the words to be a joke, and never anything serious. Each time I'd watch as Holden stared at me, his eyes hard at first, but gradually they would always soften after a moment, and a smile would inevitably, without fail, sweep across the corners of his lips.
“Go find something productive to do,” he'd say, walking over and poking my forehead with his index finger. “No video games, though. If I come upstairs and catch you playing video games, I'm going to yank that damn system out of the wall and give to the poor kids that don't have any toys.”
“Yeah, sure,” I'd say, running up the wooden spiral staircase and sliding into my room as my sock-covered feet skidded against the polished hardwood floors. After shutting the door, I'd stand in front of the vanity mirror in my bedroom on my toes, turn on the music, something subtle, and sweet...
….and I'd sing.
I'd been singing since I'd learned to use my voice as a small child. My mother had placed me into vocal lessons when she'd seen for herself that I was given a gift, and over the years, it had just kind of stuck. After she died, I stopped taking them, but my voice was still polished, clean and clear. I practiced on my own, turning up the music and singing until my voice strained, and my throat raw and sore. Sure, in some ways I wasn't much for making the honor roll when it came to my scholarly studies. Yet every so often, when the sun had set and Holden would be downstairs in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner, or putting the dishes away, he'd ask me to sing him a song. It was those moments where I felt as if I was good enough for something. My voice was my passion, it was the blood running through my veins. It kept the rouge in my cheeks and the heat lingering on my fair skin. I couldn't imagine ever being mute, and forced into signing with my hands as a means of communicating with others. Trapped inside my body, a silent shell, never able to sing, or cry, or even scream. I swore that if somehow, someway I had ever become mute, that I would jump off the Manhattan Bridge. It hadn't happened yet, though. I guess I've been lucky.
There were some nights that I'd look out the window of my room, opening it and gazing down at the city lights and and buildings, with the girls in their fishnets and guitars lamenting into their microphones and the open air, and I'd sit on the window sill and just listen. The sound would catch in the breeze and float up into my room, to where I was perched like a bird in a cage. Only unlike a caged bird, I wasn't trapped, I had my voice. I could run outside and kick up the pebbles on the sidewalk, buy an ice cream from the street vendor and watch as it melted over my fingers. I could run and yell and spin around on the streetlights. I could sing, and sing, and sing. That's what I wanted, was just to sing. If nothing else. Deep down, I didn't need anything else.
“Where have you been, stranger?” Laurel asked, twirling the straw around in her caramel macchiato. I sat down across from her in the small outdoor cafe, watching as the espresso and milk swirled around, blending together with the ice that clinked so pleasantly against the glass that Laurel sipped from.
“Oh, you know,” I said, shrugging my shoulders and brushing my hair back. “Holden was hounding me before I could even manage to get out of the house.” I could smell the scent of the warm, baked vanilla and coffee from inside the cafe. “...Man, I'm starving.”
“You haven't eaten anything yet?”
“Holden tried making me breakfast.”
“What did he make?” Laurel smirked, taking a sip of her macchiato.
“Instant oatmeal,” I said, laughing lightly. Laurel raised her eyebrows and tapped her straw against the rim of her glass.
“So...he's quite the chef, huh?”
“You know it,” I joked, standing up. I went inside and bought myself a blueberry scone and a white chocolate espresso, then sat back down beside Laurel. I picked at the scone, rubbing the crumbs between my fingertips as I felt the light breeze run like gentle fingers through my long, dark hair.
“Are you going to class today?” Laurel asked, setting aside her drink and lighting a cigarette. I watched as the cherry burned and the ashes fell onto the table, only to be blown onto the sidewalk by the autumn breeze.
“Yeah,” I said. “I have to. I don't exactly have a viable excuse to just not show up today.”
“Has that ever stopped you before?” Laurel smirked, and I shot her a grin. She was right, it had never been something that would have stopped me before. That being said, I needed to salvage a passing grade.
“Holden's paying my way this semester, so I can't let myself bomb it,” I said, “besides...that just wouldn't be fair to him.”
“How's his gig going at NYU?” she asked.
“Long,” I replied, taking a sip of my espresso. The creamy liquid burned deliciously on my tongue as it slid like sweet, smooth velvet down the back of my throat. “Long, and tedious with never ending hours. Still, he manages to make it home, make dinner, wash the dishes and fold the laundry. How he manages to balance everything is beyond me.”
“Your brother is so hot, too,” Laurel giggled, taking a long, slow drag of her cigarette. “I'd be jealous of any girl that manage to snag Holden.”
“I swear, he's celibate,” I laughed, crinkling up the scone wrapper and tossing it into the nearby trash bin. “He hasn't managed to stay tied down in one relationship for the past two years.”
“Has he ever brought anyone home?”
“One or two that I've actually seen,” I replied, running my fingers over the rip of the Styrofoam cup. “But I mean, it never lasts. They'll go on a few dates, he'll take her out to dinner or something, bring her home a few times, and then she just... disappears.” I snapped my fingers and watched as Laurel tossed her cigarette onto the cement, snuffing it out with the pointed-toe of her black leather boot.
“Well, that's a shame,” Laurel said lightly, tying her blonde hair into loose braid. She stood and grabbed her book-bag, glancing down at me as I sat with my hands flat on the smooth stone table. “...you ready to go?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to swallow the yawn I could feel building up in the hinges of my jaw. I grabbed my drink and the two of us walked. There were puddles on the sidewalk from the rain we'd had last evening, and the bikers peddled over them, spraying water onto the passerbys who tried to dodge the droplets. I smiled, shaking my head gently. The air smelled wet and damp even though the sun shone warmly through the strands of my hair, and the breeze was soft and temperate. The buildings stood tall, and looking against the two of as we walked. The buses, cabs and cars crowded on the streets, slamming on their horns, skirting around each other like some strange, intricate dance. Each person trying to get to their own destination all at once. This was the city.
“Do you ever think Holden feels like he has to play your dad?” Laurel asked, straightening her persimmon skirt with her hands. “I mean, do you ever feel sorry for him?”
“That's a strange question,” I said quietly, resisting the urge to bite my bottom lip as I often did when I didn't want to actually think about something. I looked at Laurel, who skipped over the cracks of the sidewalk, as if stepping upon one would cause her to fall into some kind of black hole.
“Really though,” she said, popping a piece of bubble gum into her mouth and moving the wad around on her tongue. “Do you think if your parents weren't gone that he'd date more, if he didn't have to take care of everything at your house and stuff.”
“Probably,” I said, subtly indulging her the answer that I knew she was picking at. Laurel stopped mid-step, her long side-bangs falling to her shoulders in a pale blonde wave.
“I'm sorry, Hols,” she said. She scratched her head and I saw as the gleam in her green eyes softened. “I guess I just have a hard time processing it. Not having my parents around, and all. Jesus, I just can't imagine.”
“It's hard,” I admitted, giving in and biting down on my bottom lip. I stopped, feeling the skin having split ever so slightly. The sky had opened and the clouds overhead moved slowly through the dark blue smears of color above my eyes. I sighed, feeling my hands swing like pendulums by my side as I walked alongside Laurel down the bustling sidewalk. Despite the crowds, things were unusually quiet for a moment, and I was relieved to have a few moments of silents save for the impenetrable sounds of the city of which there was simply no escaping. I thought about Holden, scraping the oatmeal I'd refused to eat into the kitchen sink. Holden adjusting his tie as he got ready for work, lacing his shoes and grabbing his briefcase. Holden sitting in traffic with his cup of coffee, cursing at the clock on his dashboard. Holden sitting at his desk, Holden lecturing to students who sat alert, and focused, and eager to lap up whatever it is that my brother had to say regarding all that was literature, and those that couldn't give two “expletives” as to whether they were sitting in class or out on the steps smoking a joint. I thought of Holden grading papers, attending meetings, shaking hands. Holden on his drive home, and Holden making dinner. Dinner that sometimes I ate, and sometimes I didn't. Holden cleaning up the mess in the kitchen, folding laundry, watching TV. Holden brushing his teeth, and turning out his bedroom light. Holden in the darkness, with only the light from the moon passing by his bedroom window to keep him company. Holden asleep to the sounds of the cars and yells of kids in the streets. Always alone, and never once complaining. I wondered then, really wondered, just how lonely my brother was. I was filled with sadness, and a certain anger towards myself at the fact that I hadn't just eaten the damn oatmeal he'd made for me that morning.
But I didn't.
Squinting my eyes, I caught my reflection in the black glass of a building as we passed, walking slowly, steadily on our feet. I stopped and looked at myself for a moment. My long, sweeping ash-brown hair and dark eyes that were very much like my brother's. My mouth that always formed into a pout, even if I was happy. I was skinny, and small-framed, my arms and legs too thin for my body. I felt like a twig that would blow away if a strong enough wind happened to catch me.
“Are you alright?” Laurel asked, her voice like comforting hands on my shoulder. I looked at her and gave her a faint half-smile.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I'll be fine.”
The truth was, though, that I wasn't quite sure.
I never liked being confined to a desk. In fact, it was in the top 5 list of things of which I utterly loathed. Right below flossing and just above humid, sticky summer days when it's just too damn hot outside to enjoy even walking to the corner store to buy a soda.
I sat with my lower back pressed against the backseat of the metal chair, feeling the knobby bones in my spine rubbing uncomfortably against the hard, cold surface, all the while listening to my English professor ramble on about an essay in our textbook that I hadn't bothered to read that night. I sat with my chin resting on my hand, while my elbow rested on my desk, as I attempted to feign a look of interest in hopes that she wouldn't call my name.
The bright white lights illuminated the many flaws in the interior of the classroom. The water stains on the walls, the small cracks and tilted wall-hangings depicting messages of encouragement. The paint was chipped in places, and at the front of the room was a black board as opposed to the whiteboards that I much preferred. I hated the feeling of chalk dust between my fingers.
I looked out through the classroom window as the clouds began to roll in. I wondered if it was going to be raining again, though I hoped the rain would wait into the later evening, or early hours of the morning. The last thing I wanted was to show up at the venue that night with my hair a mess of unruly waves, mascara running, and my clothes wrinkled from the damp air. I pursed my lips and watched as the gray colors swirled into the white wisps like cotton candy, or cotton balls when you pulled them apart between your fingers. I sighed, tapping my finger on the desk and letting my eyes flicker back and forth between the window and the chalk board in front of me. I listened to the sound of the stick of chalk as it scraped against the blackboard, each swipe leaving it's mark in pink and white dust.
Then, just then...something happened as I'd sat longingly gazing at the turning leaves of the maple tree just beyond the glass. A blur of golden light sped past the window. My eyes widened, and I found myself dropping the pencil I'd held loosely between my fingers, as Laurel did with her cigarettes. I swiftly turned, looking back at my professor who stared at me intently, her perfectly pinned bun bobbing as she tapped her foot against the cheap, linoleum tiled floor.
“Did you happen to see something of interest, Miss Greene?” she asked. I found myself stammering, my tongue glued to my cheek even though I wanted so badly to point to the window and ask if anyone had seen the golden light that had just sped past us. Surely, I couldn't have been the only one to have seen it...
Professor Elaise crossed her arms, her expression curt and sour.
“No, Dr. Elaise,” I said quietly, reaching out with my foot to wrangle in the escaped pencil. I picked it up and placed it gingerly back on my desk, smiling through closed lips. When she turned around I found myself wanting to look back out the window, and I wondered what the blur of light could have possibly been from. Maybe I was simply tired, and that the golden light was likely just a mere reflection from the sun streaming through the window. I pressed my lips together, wetting them, and rested my chin back on my hand as I continued to listen to the warm, familiar hum of the voices within the confines of the classroom walls.
It had started to rain by the time I'd made it the venue. I'd spent the afternoon after class had ended hanging out with Laurel in the backseat of her old Mustang, smoking a joint while Gish drifted through and soaked into our pores, like the steam on the mirrors of a bathroom after you'd just taken a hot shower. My skin was red and raw, my fingernails bitten down and the sparkly canary-yellow nail polish tasted bitter against my tongue.
“You're coming tonight, right?” I asked Laurel. She took a hit, and held it in, coughing while the smoke seeped out through her lips in a thin white line, like a ghost drifting up towards the heavens.
“Coming to what?” she asked, covering her mouth as she erupted into another fit of coughs.
“I'm singing tonight,” I reminded her, feeling slightly peeved that she'd been so quick to forget. Or maybe it was the hash. I rubbed my eyes sand shook my head, smelling the salty-sweet baked smell of the leather in her car and on her boots. She knocked her heels together and grinned, her two front teeth slightly crooked even though despite the small flaw, Laurel was undeniably beautiful.
“Oh...yeah,” she said, popping her tongue against her cheek. “The open-mic gig. Are you singing with anyone else or is it just going to be you flying solo?”
“Just me,” I said, stretching my arms above my head.
“You nervous?”
“Nah,” I said with a smirk.
“Well jeez, I would be, that's for damn sure...” Laurel said as she held a cigarettes to her lips and lit her lighter. I watched as the flame danced against the tip of her cigarette, kissing it gently. The cherry burned red and the thin white paper burned away, revealing the charred gray ash. “Then again, I don't have a voice like you do. Hell, I barely have the balls to stand up and sing in front of my dresser mirror. I don't know how you could possibly do it in front of a crowd.”
“It's what I love, I guess,” I said. I could feel the drug in my veins and I tilted my head back, waiting for a bout of dizziness to subside as my lips parted gently. “It's my passion. When you find something you love, and you make it your passion – well, what's there to really be frightened about?”
“Being in front of a crowd, for starters,” Laurel chuckled, ashing her cigarette in the metal pull-out ashtray that was already caked with old ash. “Aren't you ever worried you'll get booed off stage or something?”
I took a moment to absorb the words. Laurel had a point, though it had never happened before. I guess with enough positive reinforcement the initial butterflies eventually fade away. The fear becomes the adrenaline, the fuel that pumped through your veins. I couldn't recall the last time I'd felt a pang in my chest when I stepped on stage. I looked at Laurel who's gaze was fixed on me, her green eyes heavy from the hash and hazy melodies.
“Not really,” I said, “at least, it's not something that's ever happened before.”
“I get it,” she said, a smile forming from the pout of her petal-pink lips. “Who knows, maybe one of these days you'll make it big, Holly Greene.”
“Don't hold your breath,” I said, smiling slyly back at her. It was a rare thing that anyone made it big in the music industry. Holden had a point about that. At the same time, I found it difficult to grasp the reality of eventually settling down into some mundane, monotonous job where I was stuck at a desk, or glued to the phone all day, patching calls over and taking messages. Filing data, filing folders and mountains of paperwork. The prospect of it seemed dreadfully dull and boring.
I knew that Holden was passionate about teaching, and just as passionate about writing, but even I saw the fatigue in the lines of his face, the shadows under his eyes. The frustration in his clenched fists when he sat in his dimly lit office trying to finish grading papers and editing his many, many manuscripts. If I had to choose, though, I'd rather be fatigued and overworked doing something I was passionate about. I knew that Holden understood, Holden had worked until his knuckles bled getting to where he was now. He'd defeated the statistics, the ghosts and the weights of carrying a dead mother and estranged father that he'd spent the past 16 years carrying alongside him like a heavy chain tied to his ankle. Yet he'd made it. He'd made it. And I wanted to make it, too...still, I wasn't holding my breath.
“I should get going,” I said, sitting up and listening to sound of the leather against my denim jeans. I fumbled with the door handle until it clicked and with a heavy push the door swung open.
“See you around, then,” Laurel said, mashing her cigarette into the metal tray. I winked at her, pulling my coat around me tightly.
“You know, you can still come if you want.”
“Next time,” she said, sliding like a serpent into the driver's seat. Tristessa drifted from the speakers and I looked down at my tattered shoes and the little cracks in the pavement. “Hey, I promise,” she added.
“Alright then,” I said, deciding not to nudge her. I watched as she pulled away, her car driving off into the slick, back road as the buildings waved their distant farewells. The streets were lined with cars parked, waiting patiently for their owners to take them home. I opened my hands, and felt the tiny droplets of rain as they fell into my palms.
The venue was packed and smelled of stale beer and cheap cigarettes. The strong kind. Seated at the bar with my lips wrapped around the neck of the bottled Evian I was drinking. The water was room temperature and hardly refreshing. I still felt parched, and thirsty. My tongue still dry as it stuck the roof of my mouth.
I peered over at the two men who were seated beside me at the bar. They wore leather jackets with skulls on the back, although they didn't appear to be the biker types. They drank their beer out of frosted glasses and laughed and punched each other playfully. They seemed full of themselves, their voices loud and booming... louder than the bass and the music, almost. I sipped at my water and tried to avoid them, casting side-glances every so often as I caught them looking at me from the corners of their eyes. Finally, one of them turned, and I could feel his gaze pressed onto the back of my neck, causing my face to grow hot. Uncertain, I turned and looked at him, feeling a lump form in my throat.
“Can I help you?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. One of the bikers, a bigger guy in a green bandana with a salt and pepper beard grinned at me, his eyes like white marbles under the black lights of the bar.
“What's a pretty little thing like you doing in a place like this?” he asked. I looked at him and took a swig of my water, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
“I'm singing tonight,” I said, smiling politely and crossing my legs. The two men burst out into laughter, pounding their fists on the counter. I turned, feeling sheepish and suddenly quite wary of the place I'd stepped into, wondering if it was worth it, or if I should just go home. Outside, the rain was pouring, blowing over the streets and sidewalks, the lamps casting their faint yellow-white glow over the slick, black roads. I looked down at my feet, propped up on the bars of the stool, and tried my best to ignore the bikers who sneered at me over their drinks. I chose to keep my head low until my name was called and I could step onto the stage. Around me sat slinky, skinny girls in latex and leggings, combat boots and bleached hair. I felt straight and foreign in my denim jeans and stretchy black top. As if I wasn't edgy enough, as if I lacked something. My natural black eyeliner and plum lip stain seemed so gentle and clean next to their black lipstick and neon green stiletto lashes. I tilted my head back and let the rest of the water run down the back of my throat, wiping my lips with the thin fabric of my shirt.
“You want another?” the bartender asked. I shook my head, keeping my eyes on the stage. I was waiting to see what the others would be doing, and who I'd be up against. I watched as a pudgy girl with short black hair sang with a skinny guy that appeared to be her boyfriend. He was decent with guitar but otherwise was nothing fantastic, and hardly anything to rave about. I saw a girl with a pink pixie-cut shriek into the microphone until she was finally yelled off of the stage. When it came to be my turn to step up the wooden steps and onto the stage, I could feel my knees buckle and the beads of sweat begin to gather at my temples.
“Holly Greene,” called out a blue-haired boy who stood on the stage, smiling as he read off my name from the crumpled piece of paper in his hand. I jumped off of the bar stool, crushing the plastic bottle in my hand and throwing into the garbage bin beside the bar. I climbed up the stage and told him to play Billy Idol's “Rebel Yell”. He grinned, and I could see his teeth light up under the purple white lights. Grasping the mic in my hands, I listened as the music began to play, stepping to the center of the stage and into the whirl of colored lights. The music poured from me, from my veins and throat and fingertips, and I sang with the fervor and passion that I had been holding inside of me like a chained-up animal since I'd stepped foot through the doors from the pouring rain. I could feel my body grow light as air, and for a moment, as the colors blended and merged around and within me, I felt as if I were floating on a cloud of music and smoke and screams of applause. I threw my hands up in the air, feeling my heart pound and my chest tighten.
I stumbled back, and listened to the wave of erupting whistles and yells for an encore. I felt the beads of sweat run down my skin, my temples and neck, and hands shook deliciously as I swayed back and forth to the fading music. Then, as I looked up at the sprawling ceiling and closed my eyes...the lights went black.
Stepping outside, the air was cold and still. I wrapped my sweater around me tightly and looked around at the sidewalks and the empty streets. It seemed quieter than I would have expected it to be for the normal city nights. My heart was still beating heavily, my skin still kissed with the electricity from the stage and the thrashing, howling crowd.
“That was amazing,” the blue-haired boy had said, as I'd jumped off the stage. His emerald eyes gleamed under the white stage lights. I smiled at him.
“Thanks,” I'd told him.
“So you've been singing for awhile, I take it.”
“Yeah,” I replied, wiping a damp strand of hair back with my fingers. “Since before I can remember, really.”
“Holly Greene...” he'd said gently, saying my name softly as if were something fragile. “...is that your real name?”
“Mm,” I nodded, pressing my dry lips together. “Yours?”
“Vincent.”
“Vin-cent,” I repeated, tasting the name like a sour candy on my tongue. “Well, thanks Vincent. I guess I'll see you around sometime.”
“I guess so,” he said with a faint smile and a small wave. I turned and left, feeling light as a cloud of smoke although my clothes hung damp and heavy from the sweat and water. I longed for another taste, another bite into the forbidden fruit of the stage and the music and the lights.
Now I stood, feeling the cool air brush like fingers over my shoulders and through my tangled hair. I walked with my hands in my pockets cautiously, my eyes skimming over the street signs, the lamps, the building windows, wondering where the signs of life were in the strangely quiet city street. I took out my phone and glanced at the time, seeing that it was past midnight and that Holden was likely still up, sitting on the couch watching TV and staring at the clock on the cable box, wondering where the hell I was. Oh, Holden...
I took a few steps forward, feeling a sudden stillness in the air. I looked around at the quiet, silent streets. Not even the hanging leaves from the maple trees were quivering. The soft breeze had disappeared, replaced with only the smog of the city hanging in the black and grey smeared sky. I walked along, staying close to the light of the hanging lamps, until I had a reached the spot where I was forced to cross the street. Like what had been so engrained within me from a young age, I looked both ways before stepping my foot off the cement of the sidewalk and onto the street. The pavement was wet and slick form the rain, and my ballet flats slid with no traction to hold my step. I caught myself and held my breath, my breath, my heart feeling as if it had just skipped a beat. I wondered then where the cars were, where the taxis and buses and people had gone. The lights still shone from the windows of the apartments in the towering buildings. People still sat in the restaurants, mingling over drinks and appetizers. I looked down at my feet as I walked, the puddles of water in the cracks and tiny pot holes reflecting my disheveled hair and eyeliner. I was a hot mess, but it had been totally worth it. My brain and blood still buzzed with the music and smoke, Billy Idol still echoing in my head. I grinned halfheartedly at the thought, kicking a pebble across the street as I walked, while at the same time craving something salty and sweet. Like chocolate covered pretzels or french fries. My stomach tightened, and I stopped in the center of the dead and quiet road, turning my head to look out into the distance. It was then I saw a faint golden light heading towards me.
“Shit,” I murmured, kicking up my pace and hustling to get to the curb on the other side of the road. The light grew brighter and brighter, and it was then I realized that the golden light didn't belong to a car or a bus, but something much quicker. I froze like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck, my body overcome with the sudden rush of blood to the head. I saw the flashing eyes of something that belonged to a creature I couldn't name, and the sound of an engine revving like the screech of a wild, rabid animal. With the scent of gasoline and the wet pavement, I collapsed to the ground, consumed by a cold and yet welcoming darkness. All I could recall was the whisper of an unfamiliar tongue, and the feeling of the soft autumn wind against my skin.
2
We're In This Together Now
I awoke in a white room, wearing a hospital gown and squinting at the bright white fluorescence of the ceiling lights that hung above my head. A faint beeping noise caught my attention, and I looked over to see that I had been hooked up to an IV, the needle puncturing through the thin translucent flesh of my wrist. I examined it, my hand taped with sticky clear hospital-grade adhesive. My head ached, and I felt woozy.
“Hey...you're awake.”
I jumped, feeling as my heart skipped a beat while I turned to look at the strange voice that spoken out of nowhere. It was then I saw him, the creature with the golden eyes. Only it wasn't a creature who was sitting before me in that hospital room, on a tiny folding chair in the corner. It was a boy. A boy with raven hair and eyes that hung heavily with the gold that was pressed into them like two golden coins. He smiled at me, and I felt my skin grow cold.
“Who are you?” I asked, frantically searching around with my eyes in hopes to spot a nurse or a security guard. I felt my hand as it inched towards the remote by my bed, my fingertips lingering on the red “emergency” button. The golden eyed-boy's eyes fell upon my hand, and I could feel as the bones in my weak fingers began to shake.
It was then I recalled the blur of golden light from through the window when I was seated in class. I looked at him, and he gazed at me calmly, his eyes melting into mine transfixingly, hinted with a sort of intrigue and fascination, like a hunter examining it's prey.
“What are you doing?” he asked, a small smile forming at the corners of his lips.
“I'll call the nurse,” I said coldly, feeling as my voice trembled with each word that spilled from my mouth. “How did I get here? Who brought me here?”
“I did,” the boy said gently, plainly. He set aside the magazine he'd had rolled up in his hand onto the side table next to him, and I watched as his long, slender fingers slid over the paper cover. He pressed his hands on his knees and blew a stray strand of jet-black hair away from his eyes, looking back at me with a sense of strange and uncomfortable warmth. Like a stranger I had met somehow, somewhere before. In my dreams, or in another life. “You fainted on the street and weren't responding. What was I supposed to do, just leave you there?”
“How did you bring me here?”
The boy grinned, his teeth brushing against his dark, full lips. “Does it matter?” he asked.
“I want my brother,” I said then, feeling as my chest ached beneath the flimsy fabric of the hospital gown that hung loosely off of my bony shoulders. “Where's my brother? Where's Holden?”
I covered my hands over my face, hoping when I removed them that I would be back in my own room, sitting on my bed and humming the sweet and intoxicating sounds from the venue that night. I opened my eyes, and saw that the boy was still staring back at me, his expression seemingly amused.
“You're very odd,” he said, breaking out into a mild smirk. He shook his head and chuckled lightly, stretching his arms above his head. He wore a form-fitting red t-shirt and faded jeans with black Chucks. I owned the same pair, though mine were certainly smaller. Looking at him, his limbs were long and sinewy. His skin was fair like roughed porcelain. I stared at him, feeling as my stomach dropped and my heart seemed to thrash from inside my chest. I felt as if I were going to pass out again right there on the hospital bed.
“It was you that drove – that flew by the window outside of my classroom, wasn't it?” I asked, sitting up against the pillow that was propped against my lower back. I pulled the gown tight around me and watched as the boy's eyes fell to the ground for a moment in thought.
“Yeah...” he said, and my jaw nearly dropped. I had expected him to deny my accusation, to look at me as if I had two heads, as it were me that was crazy...yet he simply shrugged his shoulders as if he believed his action to be...normal. “...that was me.”
“Wait” I said, then paused to allow myself to cough. I covered my mouth and the boy handed me a cup of water that had been sitting beside my bed. I looked into it, seeing the bits of ice chips floating in the clear liquid. I took a sip, and swallowed, feeling it ease into the dry and barren cracks of my throat. When I was finished he took it from my hands, and set it back down on the table beside me. “So you were following me?”
“Following you? Hardly.”
“Excuse me?” I replied, perhaps a little too harshly. “Hardly? Then why were you outside on the street while I was in class? Do you have an explanation for that, strange kid?”
Interrupted by the sweeping sound of metal hooks against the steel bars, I turned as a young woman with a short brown haircut drew back the fabric drapes that separated my bed from the other patients'. She smiled at me, her button-brown eyes bright and beaming.
“Oh my! You're awake,” she said, as if surprised that I had somehow regained consciousness, as if she'd expected a certain demise. “This young boy here brought you in, said that you were out cold on the street.”
“I guess so,” I said softly.
The boy chuckled under his breath, his hands folded delicately on his lap.
“Uh, could we maybe have just a moment?” the nurse turned and looked to the golden-eyed boy who nodded, and stood. I saw then just how tall he was. He had at least a foot over me.
“Of course,” he said, drawing back the fabric separator and stepping outside. I watched as his silhouette walked across and away from my vision. The nurse sat down at the edge of the bed and smiled at me again. Though looking at her, the smile seemed strained, as if she wore it pasted over her mouth.
“So,” the nurse cleared her throat and looked down at her paperwork. “Your lab results all checked out, but you were severely dehydrated, Holly. When was the last time you've had any clear fluids?”
I looked down at the woven blanket on my lap with a sigh, my hands feeling like heavy lead as they rested on my lap. “Earlier today,” I said, “at a bar I was playing at. But before that...” I thought for a moment. Hell, for the past month I'd managed off of Red Bull and shots of espresso. “...I honestly don't remember.”
“You really need to drink more fluids, Holly,” she said. “And had you eaten anything today?”
I thought about the bowl of oatmeal on the kitchen table, and Holden's sour expression as he stood at the kitchen sink with his arms crossed. I thought about Laurel in the cafe with her pale blonde hair and luscious smirk.
“I don't remember,” I found myself repeating, although I recalled the taste of flour and blueberries on the back of my tongue. The crumbs sprinkled across the wooden table.
“You need to eat, Holly,” she urged. She looked down at the clipboard and made a few notes. “Well...other than that, you aren't sustaining any injuries. Just some light bruising from the tumble. We ran a course of fluids, and as far we're concerned you're fine to go.”
“Alright,” I said, feeling embarrassed and exhausted. I fell back onto the bed as the nurse adjusted the pieces of paper into a small, neat pile.
“I'll go and get your release forms ready,” she said. “I'll go tell your friend that he can come back in to see you now, too.”
“He's not my friend,” I mumbled, burying my face into the pillow that smelled of antiseptic and cigarette smoke. “He's just the guy that brought me here.”
“Well, then,” she said lightly, drawing back the drapes. “You should thank him, in that case, for not leaving you on the street.”
I peered up at her, as she disappeared through the blinds. A second later, the boy appeared again. I stared at him, and he crossed his arms.
“Did you hear what the nurse said? You should thank me.”
“What's your name?” I asked, entirely ignoring his remark. The boy looked down at his shoes and ran his fingers through his fine, black hair.
“Anonymous,” he replied with a subtle sneer.
“I'm serious,” I said, sitting up and stretching out my legs. “What's your name?”
The boy was quiet for a brief second before he scratched his arm, and looked at me, his golden eyes like pools of amber under the florescent lights.
“You can call me AJ,” he stated plainly.
“AJ,” I repeated quietly. “What's that stand for, Alex, Adam, Andrew...?”
“Close, but no cigar.”
“Then what's your name?”