He closes the distance with intention, and I swallow nervously as he presses firmly against me and reaches down to slide my dress up to my knees. I watch as the palms of his scarred hands move slowly up my bare thighs. When I look into his eyes, I feel my resolve shatter. He’s watching me with such fervent need—a need I didn’t know I was capable of producing in another human being. Wrapping his hand around my waist, he pulls me impossibly closer, his face inches from mine. My eyelids flutter and then close completely just as his lips feather mine.
“I’ve wanted to do this since I caught you in that Elite house,” he whispers. I taste his breath on me, and that mixed with the heat of his body sends a shudder down my spine. I lean forward and kiss him. The kiss is soft at first, innocent, but all of that is soon stripped away the second he runs his hands through my messy hair and slides his tongue against my lips. I’m only marginally concerned about the red lipstick.
Feeling light and dizzy, heavy and rooted all at once, I move my hand to his neck, deepening the kiss as his body pushes against mine again. I moan into his mouth, and I feel him smile. There’s no way to describe how he’s making me feel, except that I want more of it and I never want it to stop. He kisses me with conviction, with apology, with acceptance, all wrapped up in the perfect duo of tenderness and roughness. I pull away.
Gasping for air, he sets me down softly and pulls me close. I rest my head against his racing, wild heartbeat.
“I’ll help you,” I concede, wrapping my arms around him and inhaling the scent of tobacco and vanilla. “Let’s go see my father.”
Epilogue
ONCE THERE WAS, one day there will be: this is the beginning of every fairy tale. Except this is the beginning no longer. There is no if and no perhaps, so we shall conclude with the unconditional truth by saying this. Far away and into the future, in a land rebuilt and healing, through clear skies and the promise of beauty, utopia, and hope, lived two Marauders who saved the art for all humankind. . .
Also by Amanda Richardson
Contemporary Romance:
And Then You
The Realm of You
Between the Pages
Tracing the Stars
Heathens (Coming 2017)
All We Had (Coming 2017)
The Year We Met (Coming 2017)
Romantic Suspense:
That Which Binds Us
*As of today, all titles are available on Kindle Unlimited (KU)!
Amanda Richardson is an award-winning travel writer turned indie author living in Los Angeles with her husband and two cats. When she’s not writing or reading (which, let’s be honest, accounts for 95% of her free time), she can be found Googling cheap flights to places she’s never been, talking to her cats, or obsessing over the British Royal Family. Fun fact: her first novel is about the Tudors. One day maybe, after a lot of wine, she might find the courage within her to publish it!
Find out more here:
http://www.amandarichardsonauthor.com/
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A TALE ABOUT a man who wants nothing more than to die, and how he saves the life of someone who is dying to live.
Permission must be granted by the author prior to any reproduction, distribution, or transmission of this work in any form or by any means. All characters, places, and names are a work of fiction and based upon no truths. Any similarities between persons and places are coincidental.
Copyright 2017 Hayley Stumbo.
Editing by Elaine York, Allusion Graphics, LLC/ Publishing and Book Formatting
www.allusiongraphics.com
Prologue
I REALLY BELIEVE that the loudest parts of sound, are the ones we can’t hear. They’re the parts of sound that stick with us long after the noise is gone. Those easy feelings that pass through you after a song ends, and you find that it means more to you than it should. The way a howl in the night can linger so long that you’re glancing over your shoulders for days. It’s not just your ears that perk up when something radiates through you so passionately or deeply, but all your senses react at once. It’s a heavy feeling, one you shouldn’t take for granted.
But back to sound; it is such a loud thing, even when you can’t hear it.
Did you know that the world bends when something crashes? It does, I assure you, and the result is more than explosive bursts of screeching tires, metal being crushed beneath glass, and screams. Screams are hard to ignore, even ones you don’t hear, but rather feel.
It doesn’t take the ability to hear or feel a scream of terror ripple through your bones and come to rest on your skin. There are some senses we never lose, and one is the sense of danger, or fear. It’s that feeling that creeps upon you when you’re least expecting it, like now, when all I’m trying to do is enjoy a lukewarm cup of coffee as I walk home. I wanted nothing major to ruin my night, I just want to get home, thumb my way through a good book, and sleep off another miserable day of life.
But my senses have another plan, and I catch a glimpse of a woman crossing the street in front of me, her face contorted into some wave of grief, as a car barreling through the intersection with the teenagers packed inside of it doesn’t stop or slow as it approaches her. I swear I feel the ground shake beneath me as the car spins and water sprays from the pavement. The woman freezes and several onlookers cover their eyes and open their mouths. Goosebumps raise on my arms underneath my spring jacket and I know without a second thought, that those ripples of emotion are forming from impending screams.
The woman’s eyes collide with mine, terror, anger, confusion, all three emotions mar the outline of her eyes but there’s something else there, too, familiarity, maybe? Without thinking I dive toward the moving vehicle, my coffee splattering my jacket along the way, and I don’t know if there is more screaming or honking, or if there is anyone yelling for my attention, but I shove the woman away, trip over my feet and land quietly against the pavement, the lights of the car blinding me before something cold snatches me and I pass out.
If this is death, I’m ready.
I’ll take it. Lukewarm, like my coffee, and garnished with just a dash of fear.
***
It’s not death that snatched me that night in the street, but something more sinister with a wicked sense of humor. Life. And I’m still living it just like I was before I decided to collide with a car full of kids who just wanted to “have a good time.”
I’m confined to a hospital bed in a private room where the view is less than pleasant. I’ve got a lovely glimpse of the building next to me, and the renovations taking place there. There’s no shot of the sky or the spanning lake beyond the city. I’m bored, restless even, and I’m sick of being bothered by visitors who want to talk to the man who pushed the woman out of the way of danger, where Elm Street crosses Pine. I could see the headlines of the stories already and I roll my eyes.
They call me a hero.
Several reporters have peeked their heads into my room to jot down notes on their scratch pads or take pictures with me for their columns and blogs that I could care less about. I smile in none of the photos and shake my head continuously at the nurse who offers to translate my thoughts for me.
No, thank you. I motion to her, but she urges me to talk. I ignore her push to answer the same questions as the reporter before the one cramping my style now, and glance back to my window and my mediocre view. She leaves me to my silent rage and I’m sure she will complain to the other nurses about my demeanor, and then one of them will remind her of my condition, and she’ll feel bad about the life I’ve lived, and the years ahead.
I lost the ability to hear when I was ten years old. I’d have much rather been born deaf, because being stripped of the beauty of music, or the call of a bird is devastating, especially to someone who spent all their time mastering the art of the piano or hiding in the woods beyond their father’s estate and just taking nature in.
The doctors informed my p
arents I had a rare form of a neurological disorder that would eventually strip me of my major senses. Hearing loss went first, and it wasn’t a slow disease where sound slowly dripped off the edges of the Earth, no, I simply woke one morning and couldn’t hear a thing. I couldn’t hear my mother’s cries or screams as she shook my shoulders along with her head. I could feel them though, rippling through me like the aftermath of a tsunami. Her shakes were coated in shame and worry, and it doesn’t take being able to hear to know how loud disappointment can be. Once the hearing was gone, my ability to speak, went too. One day there was just no sound coming out of my mouth when I opened it, at least according to my mother that was the case, I couldn’t tell either way.
Several years later, once I had mastered the art of sign language, I lost the ability to smell, and not three months after that, taste was wiped entirely. The doctors couldn’t slow the disease, and instead tried to keep me happy while I waited for sight and touch to be removed from my life next.
That was ten years ago, and every day I wait.
I wait for the sun to never come up because I wake up blinded.
I wait to roll over and reach for a blanket, only to find my hand already gripping one. When touch goes, that’s when all of me goes. I’ll be nothing more than a an empty vessel living an eternal life of silence because even if I were surrounded by people, I wouldn’t know the difference.
My moment of despair is interrupted by a nurse sticking her head in with a smile. You have a visitor her lips say and I imagine my mom has come back for the thirteenth time to dote over me and thank God, I’m alive, even though she still wears shame in her eyes every time she sees me. I press my head into the pillow and roll my eyes before waving her in. The door opens slightly and I’m met by the same fierce gaze I saw the night on the street. The gaze of the woman I pushed out of the way.
I sit up a little straighter and rake a hand through my hair. It’s difficult to meet a stranger when you are unkempt, for anyone, even an empty pile of nothing like me. I adjust the cheap hospital gown and do my best to seem awake, even though the morphine has other plans for me.
The woman shuts the door and offers me a glimpse at her face. I notice a few scrapes, likely from the pavement when I saved her from a fate I’d gladly welcome, but other than that, she looks fine. Her cheeks are flushed and I can’t decide if that’s from being in a hospital room with the stranger who saved her, or because she stained them with rouge. She stares at me for a moment, and then sits down in the chair next to the bed.
I glance at the closed door, wondering why the nurse didn’t stay. My gaze focuses back on the stranger next to me, her eyes decorated with specks of honey that almost match the highlights in her hair. I take sight very seriously considering it will be taken from me someday. I look at everything like it’s art, and maybe that’s a bad thing. Maybe that will make me miss this world even more when I can no longer see it, but for now, it keeps me occupied.
She smiles softly at me and her lips move slowly. I follow their movements and make out her words.
Thank you.
The right thing to do would be to smile and nod, tell her it was no problem, but I do none of those things. Instead I stare at her, eyes wide, and shrug my shoulders. Her eyes narrow at me and her eyebrows furrow. She glances down at her hands for a moment before looking back at me, waiting for a response.
Inside I curse the nurse for not staying here and translating my words so she can understand them better. Now it’s going to be a game of lip reading and writing down my thoughts. I stretch and reach for the paper on the table next to my bed, but something in my arm snaps and I think I let out a garbled sound. I wince and fall backwards onto the pillow. The stranger stands and presses her hands against my shoulders. She shakes her head at me and looks at the table, her eyes rest on my pad of paper and the pen laying on top and then make their way to my own.
I take a few deep breaths as the pain dissipates. I punch the morphine pump excessively and once I let it go I point to my mouth and then cover my ears, while shaking my head. It’s a simple gesture but most people recognize it, and then I’m bathed in the pity and sorrow that crosses their face. I almost don’t want to look at this woman’s face. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m exposed severely in this hospital. Embarrassment floods my cheeks and I’m sure they’ve turned red.
Eventually my eyes find hers and she sinks back to her chair and leans against the back of it. She says nothing, at least her lips don’t move, and shakes her head slowly. She raises her hands to her chest and begins moving them quickly.
Were you born deaf or did this happen later?
For a moment, I think the morphine has gotten the best of me. But when I don’t answer right away, her hands begin moving again, quickly. She’s skilled.
I was born deaf, so I never really knew anything different than this. I’ve never heard the sound of music, or the scream of a child in a restaurant. That’s probably why I didn’t move out of the way the other night, I didn’t hear the car approaching like everyone around me probably did. Well, everyone except you. Lucky for me, you saw it. Or I wouldn’t be here.
Her fingers stop and she rests her hands on her lap. I don’t know where to start, so I raise my hands lazily and begin to move them.
You moved your lips when you first came in. You thanked me. Why not just go right into signing?
She smiled and began her rapid movements again.
I wanted to see how you reacted. The nurses said you were a real bear. For someone who saves the lives of strangers, I didn’t believe them.
I think she expects me to smile, but instead I just move my hands and stare into her eyes. That’s one thing I haven’t lost. Eye contact. Deep, intimidating eye contact.
They’re right.
She doesn’t raise her hands right away. Instead she pulls some lip balm from her purse and spreads it across her lips slowly. The morphine starts to coarse through my veins and I feel my eyelids droop. I blink a few times and move my hands again.
I’m not sure what you want me to say. You’re welcome.
She lets out a deep breath and the way her chest rises and falls makes me think she’s irritated. Good. I don’t need friends, especially a deaf girl who is grateful to be alive.
You can’t be a bear if you jump in front of speeding cars to save the life of a stranger. You are lucky to be alive.
If I could laugh, I would. I swirl my hands quickly.
Luck’s got nothing to do with it.
She narrows her eyes again and tucks her shoulder-length hair behind her ears.
You don’t seem grateful to be alive. You don’t even seem grateful that I’m alive. I walked away with a few cuts and bruises.
The morphine tugs at my eyelids again.
I’m not.
My movements have become slow and I seem to have offended the stranger. She pierces her lips together and rises quickly.
Which part aren’t you grateful for, exactly?
I shrug my shoulders and cushion myself farther into my hospital bed. She leaves the room in a hurry and doesn’t bother looking back at me. That’s how you know you’ve really pissed someone off, they don’t even give you a parting glance.
She disappears from my room and leaves me to my drug-induced sleep, for which I’m grateful. I silently chuckle at the realization that I didn’t even get her name, and she never even asked for mine, although I’m sure the nurses and doctors told her all about the man who “saved her.” I roll my head to the side as my thoughts become blurred and sleep pulls at me with her quick fingers.
Maybe I’m grateful that I saved her life and perhaps I should have been more clear about that, but I’m not grateful for surviving. I didn’t push her out of the way to save her life. I pushed her out of the way so that I could end mine. Yet here I am living, and trying my best to avoid life’s wicked smile.
***
I am released from the hospital a week later.
I have an air cast on my rig
ht arm and my whole body aches, but other than some minor contusions and the fact that I now walk with a slight limp, I would say I’m doing pretty well. My mom brought me to my apartment and before she left she made sure I was all set with food, drinks, medications, and promised that she would check in daily. There was an ache to her hug when she left, and it left me with a fleeting feeling of panic. It was almost like she knew I had jumped in front of that car for one reason alone, but she never said anything about it.
After she leaves, I rip off my air cast, and sleep for twelve hours straight.
The next morning I decide to go out for coffee. My favorite shop on Grimes Street opens early, even on Sundays, and I leave before the sun comes up. Even though I can’t taste their coffee, or their blueberry muffins with the crumb topping, the shop is dark and tucked away from the rest of the city. I can disappear in there for hours and no one bothers me, at least until the lunch rush. My leg aches with every step I make, but I push through it and try to regain normalcy to my life.
I duck into the shop and notice that I’m one of three people there, and a wave of peace spreads through me. I smile at Tanya, the dark-haired woman who has taken my order for years and nod when she asks me if I want the regular. I lay my cash on the counter and walk to my usual booth in the back. I sink in and wince at the momentary discomfort in my leg, but it fades just as quickly as it came on. Tanya brings my drink and slides me a piece of paper with her scribbled handwriting on it.
Beast: An Anthology Page 26