To Burn In Brutal Rapture

by Nyla K

  I don’t want to talk about my mom, but I don’t want to not talk about her. It doesn’t make any sense. Try being friends with that.

  It’s hard to go on with my life, acting like she’s still around. Or that it doesn’t affect me that she’s not. And I’m not the only one who feels this way…

  Dad hasn’t been doing well at all. He says he’s working from home, but I don’t think he really does that much either. He’s practically inconsolable. I’ve walked in on him crying a few times, and each time I have to witness it, small chunks of my heart are chipped away, brutally, like someone is hacking at it with a machete.

  Lazarus has been coming over every day to keep my father company, but he hasn’t spoken more than two words to me here and there. And I don’t speak to him either, because I don’t quite know what I would say, or what the point would be. Lazarus is here for Dad, not me.

  I spend all my time alone in my room, with Mom’s things. I was able to salvage some of it before Dad gave away the rest to Goodwill.

  It’s not that my father wants to forget her. The opposite is true. I think he spends every waking minute remembering her, and it’s too painful for him.

  The whole thing has me considering a vow not to fall in love, as long as I live. I never want to experience this pain. And clearly the happiness and joy Dad experienced with Mom wasn’t enough to lessen the pain of losing her so soon.

  Pain is always stronger than the pleasure of joy.

  I can’t see the future, so I’m not foolish enough to say I’ll never fall in love. But if I can help it, I’ll try not to. Because if this is what inevitably happens, like Lazarus said, then I want nothing to do with it.

  In my bedroom, I curl up in one of Mom’s sweaters that still smells like her, my hand brushing against something in the pocket. Reaching inside, I pull out an old iPod, instinctively running my thumb over the screen. The battery is dead, but I waste no time jumping up to locate the proper charger.

  I’m sure I know which one this is. Mom used to make playlists on here, of all her favorite songs. She would hook it up to the speakers all over the house, depending on what she was doing, and blast her favorite songs, spinning me around with her.

  A tear sneaks out at the memory and I swipe it away furiously. I’m sick of this emptiness. I’m sick of the loneliness. At least Dad has someone to talk to; someone who keeps him company when he’s spiraling out of control with grief.

  But I have no one. No friends that I could vent to about this pain. No one to lean on.

  As it would seem, when my mother died, she took everything else I had along with her.

  And now my life’s an empty husk.

  “Fuck!”

  I drop my forehead onto my opened pre-algebra book and yank my hair at its roots.

  “Tracien. Language,” my father grunts at me, then mumbles the same curse word I just shouted under his breath as he tries to figure out how to work the stove.

  “Dad, let’s just order pizza or something,” I sigh through my splitting headache.

  I’ve been getting migraines more and more recently. At first I thought it was from the incessant crying at night, but I haven’t been doing that much lately and I’m still getting them, so your guess is as good as mine.

  “We can’t order food every night. That’s not practical,” Dad retorts. “I’ll have to figure out how to use this thing, eventually.”

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe hiring someone could spare you the hassle… At least for now.” Lazarus’s voice prompts me to peel my eyelids open and risk the light worsening my brain pain.

  He’s leaning against the marble island, watching my dad with worry all over his face. It doesn’t look right. Then again, I’ve gotten used to Lazarus looking marginally less scary and a tad more empathetic in the past few months.

  “You sound like my parents,” Dad scoffs while filling a pot with water.

  “I’m just saying…”

  “I know what you’re saying, Laz!” He snaps and I cringe. “And I don’t need to hear it, okay? Ophelia didn’t want to hire chefs and all sorts of people to help us around the house, and neither do I. I’m not some useless rich asshole who throws money at all my problems.”

  Lazarus steps up to my father and places a hand on his shoulder that seems to call him down and hurt him at the same time. Dad drops his head and rips at his hair, the same way I was just doing moments ago.

  Lazarus’s words come out hushed, “I know you’re not, Day. Just let me help you. Is that alright?”

  Dad tilts his face toward his best friend and nods slowly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not necessary.”

  My father releases the panhandle he was gripping to death and blows out an uneven breath. He hasn’t been doing great whatsoever. Really none of us have, but my dad is definitely struggling.

  Mom was his everything, and now she’s gone. He’s stranded and shipwrecked in the middle of the big blue sea.

  “Why don’t you go lie down?” Lazarus whispers, and for some reason I feel like I’m intruding. I’ve never heard his voice like that. But before I can think about it, he turns to me and says, “You like Mac n cheese?”

  I nod as my lips try to curl into a smile my mind doesn’t remember how to form. Tears push behind my eyes, and I have no idea why I want to cry over something so stupid, but I’m just grateful that Laz is here. He’s been taking care of Dad and me, I suppose.

  Not that we’re useless without Mom, but the sudden absence of her from our lives makes even the simplest of tasks feel impossible. It’s as if the universe is off-kilter, and things that once seemed so easy and regular are now incredibly daunting. Like cooking dinner and doing homework.

  “Good.” Lazarus pushes Dad toward the living room. “I’ll make it then help you with that.” He nods toward my open workbook.

  Relief instantly floods me like a rush of endorphins. Laz is good at math. It’s his thing. He’ll help me figure out this gibberish I’m supposed to be studying.

  My father leaves the room and I can picture him collapsing on the couch, which gives me some more solace. He still isn’t sleeping well, I can tell by the ever-present circles under his green eyes, which weren’t there before Mom’s diagnosis.

  History lesson: Damien Wright met Ophelia Landon at New York University sixteen years ago. According to both of them, it was love at first sight, and I don’t doubt it for one second. It was obvious in the way they looked at each other all the time, right up until the very end. Those stolen glances, and hands that never wanted to stop touching one another, even for a moment.

  I was blessed. My parents were so tragically in love with each other, I should’ve known it would end in heartbreak.

  Nothing works out. Life is a fucking asshole.

  I know kids my age shouldn’t think this way, but I lost my ability to give a shit when the one person who truly understood me was ripped out of my life by a disease that kills millions of people every year. It’s disgusting.

  I’m sucked out of my disparaging thoughts at the sound of things shuffling about in the kitchen. Looking up, I squint at Lazarus as he glides around, straining macaroni and adding things to the pan.

  Lazarus Weston isn’t someone you would expect to see cooking. He’s very much the rich asshole my dad was referring to earlier, who hires people to do everything for him. Granted, he’s not married and has no kids, so he has nothing to prove, while Dad has everything.

  I guess it’s a good thing he doesn’t have a family of his own, because I’m not sure how my father would survive without his best friend’s nonstop support at this point. Lazarus is the only person who can get him out of his head.

  Once the food is done, Lazarus sits down next to me with two bowls, placing one in front of my face, handing me a fork. The smell fills my mouth with saliva.

  “Thank you.” The steam doesn’t deter me from shoveling in bites before I can care that it’s still hot. I guess I haven’t eaten in a while. />
  Lazarus makes this little chuckle noise and I glance over to see if I can catch one of the elusive Lazarus Weston smiles. No such luck. It’s barely a lip twitch.

  “Alright,” he sighs out his boredom before taking a quick bite himself. “What do we have here?”

  Peering over at my book, his eyes scan the page, and I just watch him, fascinated by how good he is with numbers. He reminds me of a robot.

  The few times Lazarus and I communicate are instances when he helps me with my math homework. I never ask him for help outright, and in no way is he doing it to be caring. But I’ve come to realize that if I huff and puff in front of him about how hard it is, he’ll usually roll his eyes and force his assistance upon me so he doesn’t have to watch me struggle. I suppose because numbers come easily to him.

  He’s the CFO of Westright Holdings, the company he runs with my father. Dad is the relationship guy; the face of the billion-dollar company, who makes the needed connections. And Lazarus is the one who ensures they’re continuously rolling in green.

  “These are integers. Do you know what that means?” He lifts a patronizing eyebrow at my face, to which I scowl.

  “Yes. I know what it means,” I answer petulantly, though I barely remember what a goddamn integer is at this point.

  My mother died six months ago. That’s what I’ve been concerned with. And it’s been taking over my brain even before that, while she went through the chemo, and the radiation, hanging on for me and Dad like the goddess she is. But in the end that bitch cancer took her, like it does so many others. And since then, I’ve focused my attention on not losing every semblance of sanity I have.

  Not fucking algebra.

  “Okay, so then why don’t you know how to solve this one?” Lazarus speaks again after swallowing his bite of macaroni n cheese. “It’s pretty basic.”

  “I didn’t ask for your help. So if you’re gonna be a dick, feel free to bother someone who gives a shit.”

  My eyes widen. I have no idea where that outburst came from, but it’s highly irregular for me, especially when speaking to an adult. I was raised with more manners than that, and if my mom heard me talking to a grown-up this way, she’d be taking away my phone for a week.

  But she’s not here, and Lazarus quirks the tiniest grin, still focusing on the book, so as not to give me the satisfaction of seeing him smile from something I said. That’s what I suspect, anyway.

  “Okay then, hotshot,” he taps his finger on the page. “Solve this one.”

  Burying my pride since, honestly, it doesn’t do much for me anyway, I do as he says, taking my time to solve the equation. It takes me a moment, and some erasing, but eventually I get it. Or at least I think I do.

  Peeking up at Lazarus, I hold my breath while he checks my work. He takes several leisurely bites of his food, looking over my math.

  “Eat, Traci,” he instructs before raising his eyes to mine. His are a deep shade of gray, with little blue speckles around the pupils. Such a captivating color, and looking at them now reminds me of how I’ve never truly looked before. “Good work.”

  I release a breath, relieved that I got the problem right. My confidence is instantly much higher as I continue my homework in between bites of delicious Mac n cheese.

  Lazarus helps me, with as few words as possible, and I practically clean my plate from how good it tastes and how apparently hungry I was. We’ve been ordering takeout every night for months, all much fancier than this run-of-the-mill box macaroni, but this tastes better, and I think it’s because it was homemade, with love.

  Well, maybe not love, since Laz made it and I’m sure he’s incapable of such things, but still. I forgot what it was like to eat a hot meal prepared by someone at home.

  Suddenly, the memory of Mom floating around the kitchen, chopping and mixing things while blasting and singing along to her favorite songs from when she was younger, tackles my brain like a linebacker. It hits hard, stiffening my muscles.

  I rub my temples in an attempt to push away the migraine and Lazarus’s forehead lines.

  “You okay?”

  I drop my head into my hands. “Can you get me the Excedrin from the medicine cabinet please?”

  Without another word, he gets up and dashes away, coming back with two of the familiar pills and a glass of water. I toss them back, praying for the medicine to work its magic.

  “How long have you been getting migraines?” His tone is more stern than anything.

  “Just… a few months.” I blink at him and his lips flatten in understanding.

  “Why don’t you go rest? I’ll check the rest of your work make sure it’s all set.” He nods toward the stairs, and I don’t have to be asked twice.

  Rushing off to my room, I close the curtains first to prohibit light from getting in, though the sun set hours ago. Then I grab my headphones and Mom’s iPod, plugging them in and queueing up one of her playlists.

  It’s all nineties and early two-thousands pop, mostly love songs and alternative. My mother always loved music. She couldn’t do anything around the house without blaring what she would call throwbacks to her teen years and belting them out loud. I loved it, so much so that I barely care about any new music. I only want to listen to reruns from my mom’s personal collection.

  Maybe to someone my age they’d even be considered oldies, but I don’t care. I like the sound of it. The upbeat rhythms, the poppy melodies and all the love stories, good and bad, sung out by pretty voices. Although now I hear only one voice singing these songs when I listen…

  The same voice that sang me John Mayer and Justin Timberlake lullabies when I was little.

  A familiar beat comes through my headphones and I squeeze my eyes shut, tears seeping from behind. My chest is still hollow, and I’m fearing I’ll never feel anything real again. The pleasure of happiness or the pain that comes along with it. There’s nothing more than a rushing chaos in my brain, while my body remains eternally numb.

  With the Goo Goo Dolls singing about bleeding just to know you’re alive, I crawl into bed and curl into a ball, keeping my eyes closed as I pray for somebody to know who I am.

  Chapter Five

  Traci

  I've woken up every day for the past eleven months to do the exact same thing.

  Whether it’s a school day or the weekend, I awake and stretch, then come downstairs. I wander out the glass doors to the backyard where I stand on the veranda and overlook our yard, full of plants and palm trees and beautiful flowers, begging myself to sit out there, on the stone tiles between the pool and the cabanas.

  I plead with my body to go out there and just sit; to breathe and meditate and finally pull my body into the familiar poses my mother taught me again, for the first time in over a year.

  Mom and I had been doing yoga together since I was very small. She was an instructor back in New York, which is where she and my father are both from. It’s where they went to college, where they met and fell in love, before getting married and moving down here to Miami so Dad and Lazarus could start their business. Mom always hated the cold winters in the Northeast. She said she’s happiest beneath the sunshine. No matter how humid and uncomfortable the heat can get in Florida, she said it felt good on her soul.

  The ocean, the sand and the sun were good for her, so Dad made her dreams come true and built her this castle in Bayshore, our opulent little hometown nestled along Biscayne Bay.

  Naturally, Mom brought her love, and knowledge of yoga with her here, and she taught me. We would begin each morning with meditation out in the backyard. Sometimes we’d even do it in the rain, unless it was really coming down, then we’d move our lessons to the pool house.

  But when she became too sick to get out of bed, it just wasn’t possible any longer.

  We still meditated, in her bedroom or in the hospital. But now she’s gone, and it’s not the same without her. I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it alone. Not yet.

  I keep telling myself, every morni
ng, that one day I’ll get over my hesitations and go out there. Whether I do yoga or not, I should be able to just sit, under the sun. To just be, with my thoughts and breaths.

  This is what my mother wanted for me, and I just can’t get there. I can’t see my way through this shallow, murky sadness that’s been swallowing me up like Artex in The Never-ending Story.

  I don’t want the grief to define me, but I also don’t know how to overcome the feeling that when she died, a part of me died with her, and unfortunately that part was pretty damn important. It’s the part of me that wants, and needs, and tries. I can’t stand the idea of never feeling excited or eager for anything again. I’m too young to lose that much.

  The sound of the front door opening startles me out of my head as someone walks through the foyer. From the sound of dress shoes on the marble, I’m willing to bet it’s Lazarus, here to get Dad for work. He’s been going back into the office for a couple weeks now, only two or three days a week, but it’s still progress. Being cooped up in this house wasn’t doing him any good.

  I watch from around the corner as Lazarus stops at the entrance to the kitchen, eyes locked on his phone screen while he types out something that seems important. I can’t help but stare at his face while he does this, and how intense he always looks, regardless of what he’s doing.

  Lazarus Weston has the kind of look you’d never expect to see on the CFO of a billion-dollar investment firm. He’s actually sort of scary, and I’m sure I would have been terrified of him as a kid if I hadn’t grown up with him present for every family function, and in our house constantly for miscellaneous reasons that rarely involved me.

  He has hair as black as coal, eyes that are this stormy gray and indignant, like that of a monster or demon. Not to mention that he’s covered in tattoos, and he never smiles.

  When I was much younger, all my friends were afraid of him. Laz would show up, and all the kiddies would scatter. Actually, I thought it was funny. I still do… And a smile tugs at my lips as I remember my best friend from elementary school, Holly, telling me she thought he was a vampire. I just scoffed because he’s too tan to be a vampire, and what the hell kind of vampire lives in Florida, anyway?