The Contradiction of Solitude

by A. Meredith Walters

  Reclaiming the Sand Series

  Reclaiming the Sand

  Chasing the Tide

  Twisted Love Series

  Lead Me Not

  Find You in the Dark Series

  Find You in the Dark

  Light in the Shadows

  Cloud Walking (A Find You in the Dark novella)

  Warmth in Ice (A Find You in the Dark novella)

  Bad Rep Series

  Bad Rep

  Perfect Regret

  Seductive Chaos

  Ian…thanks for the idea.

  See, I give you some of the credit.

  “…reality will take shape in the memory alone.”

  -Swann’s Way - Marcel Proust

  My first memories were of blood.

  Rivers of it.

  Running along the ground, soaking my shoes, sticking between my toes.

  I could feel its warmth around my ankles, gripping my skin like tiny fingers pressed into flesh.

  The smell of copper assaulted my nose and I gagged.

  The rushing of my pulse thudded in my ears.

  This was my fate.

  The blood.

  I couldn’t escape it.

  It was pulling me under, taking me into its violent, irresistible arms and promising me oblivion.

  I fought against it.

  I folded myself into it.

  I didn’t have a chance.

  Then I woke up. Sweat dripped from my face. My breathing was labored.

  And I longed for sleep again.

  Because I wanted to drown.

  I wanted to disappear.

  Because you see, I was already lost.

  Here you go. Seasoned fries with extra ranch dressing. Is there anything else I can get ya?”

  I looked up from the book I was reading and gave the waitress a smile.

  “Some more iced tea would be great,” I said before turning back to my food.

  I carefully dog-eared the page I was reading and closed the book. I pushed it to the edge of the table and picked up a fry, dipping it in ranch dressing.

  Mmmm. I had a serious obsession with Denny’s food.

  I sat in my booth near the front door and watched people as they walked in and out of the restaurant. This was my normal Saturday morning routine.

  In and out. Talking. Laughing. Shouting greetings.

  Normal. Together. They belonged.

  I would come in around lunchtime, find a seat near the door, order my customary food choice, and then I’d watch.

  People fascinated me.

  I could invent entire life stories for the complete strangers around me. I would go into concrete details in my mind about their past and present. I would create fantasy worlds that these people around me would live in. It kept me company.

  It was the only time I didn’t feel alone.

  I lazily swirled my fry in the white condiment on my plate, wishing, like always, that I were one of those strangers with the made up life.

  I stared at the blob of dressing, not really seeing it.

  Tick tock goes the clock…

  The sound of laughter a few feet away caught my attention. I recognized the two guys who sat in the booth across from me. The one with the light brown hair and dancing green eyes smacked his hand on the table and grinned at his friend.

  What were they talking about?

  The weather? Love or life and death?

  Most likely something as inconsequential as ballgame stats and sex on the weekends.

  The boy with the dancing green eyes put a handful of seasoned fries in his mouth. He ate them with ranch dressing too.

  One. Two. Three.

  I had been coming to this particular Denny’s for almost three months now. Almost every day. In rain or snow or sleet or hail. Like the postal service.

  I was there. Routine. Constant.

  And this guy had been coming in with his friend for just as long.

  Often enough that the sound of his laughter had become recognizable.

  Familiar.

  The sound of secrets covered in mirth…

  I liked the sound of his laugh. A hard edge disguised in smiles. It wasn’t genuine. It was slightly stilted as though he were trying too hard. His mouth stretched and strained under the force of his grin as though it were crushing him from the inside out. The effort too much.

  Like it was killing him…

  I continued to eat my fries. One at a time. Dipping them in the ranch dressing before popping them in my mouth.

  One. Two. Three.

  Our actions mirrored each other. I lifted my hand. He lifted his.

  I took a breath…he breathed out.

  In perfect synchronicity.

  Dancing Green Eyes and his friend were paying their bill. I knew they were about to leave. They always left their waitress a big tip, which is why the other servers fought over his table.

  But that wasn’t the only reason.

  I made a point to stare. Not hiding it. Reveling in it. I liked looking at him. I barely noticed his friend. I was transfixed by slightly wavy, light brown hair and eyes that crinkled in the corners when he grinned. His lips were thin but stretched wide when he smiled, with teeth that were a little too large for his mouth.

  He had broken his nose at some point and he sported an obvious scar along the side of his jaw that dipped into the collar of his shirt. Disappearing. Out of sight. And his neck. The shiny, crisscrossing of lines faded but present.

  Lines of destruction etched into skin…

  I thought about making up a story to go along with the scars but decided I didn’t want to.

  I was certain the truth would be so much better than the lie.

  Because it was the dishonesty on his face that intrigued me. I appreciated the ghosts that haunted him. The phantoms that shadowed his eyes even as they danced and danced and danced.

  He wanted to be happy. But he wasn’t. If you looked closely, you could see the misery. A devil could find the demons.

  His personality was clearly infectious. Easy. Deceptive. He flirted readily and often with the middle-aged waitress who made every excuse to check on him throughout his meal.

  Slight touches. Loud laughter. Words coated in sugar and warmth.

  He was irresistible. Fascinating.

  Mine.

  I tapped my fingers on the table to music only I could hear.

  Then Dancing Green Eyes was on his feet, pushing his arms through the sleeves of his coat. Tattered. Stained. It had seen better days. He dressed without care of his appearance. Not a priority for the man with the fake smile.

  His friend said something that made him laugh again, and this time I found myself laughing too.

  Tangling myself in his façade.

  The sound of my rusty and ill-used chuckle caught his attention. He looked at me, seeing me for the first time even though we had sat across from each other for months now. It was a moment unlike any other.

  Buzz…

  It was the one I had been waiting for.

  Depended on.

  Desperately needed.

  His lips quirked as he looked at me, and I knew he liked what he saw.

  Most men did.

  It was easy to be attracted to me.

  With my long, dark hair and equally dark eyes, I was pretty, just on the verge of beautiful. My lips were full and my face symmetrical. I had a smattering of freckles over my straight nose that I had been told gave my appearance just a touch of innocence.

  I laughed harder.

  I knew what Dancing Green Eyes was thinking when he looked at me.

  His eyes flickered down to the book on the edge of the table. He walked toward me, and I found that my
heart started beating in overtime.

  This. This. This.

  Now. Now. Now.

  He put his finger on the ragged cover, holding it down with firmness.

  “Interesting book choice,” he said, his smile ever present. The crinkles at the corner of his eyes telling their lies.

  I slid my worn copy of Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust out from beneath his finger and nodded, looking up at him through my lashes.

  We stared at each other for a time, the air electric between us. I almost forgot to breathe.

  Stay…

  “Come on, Elian, we’ve got to get back to the shop before George has our heads,” his friend said, his voice harsh and unwelcome in our comfortable silence.

  Elian blinked, as though clawing his way to the surface. My head buzzed louder. Ever louder.

  “See you around?” he posed the statement more as a question.

  I nodded again, never giving him words. Holding them close to me for later.

  Elian cocked his head and regarded me and my body started to tingle.

  Buzz…

  “Elian, seriously dude, we’ve got to go. You can eye fuck the hot chick another time,” his friend said crudely, elbowing him rather viciously in the back.

  Elian flushed in what I can only assume was embarrassment. I laughed again. I couldn’t help it. It was all just too perfect.

  He gave me one more of his smiles, bestowing it like a gift, and then left.

  My hands closed over my book as I watched him walk out the door.

  I took my time walking back to my apartment.

  Not home.

  Just a place I slept.

  I had only lived in the tiny, sleepy town of Brecken Forest, Virginia for four months. It was a quaint village of a place with a main street straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting with colonial features and polite neighbors

  I chose Brecken Forest carefully. For reasons that were my own.

  I walked up the steps of the two-story brick house where I rented the bottom floor. I waved to Mrs. Statham who lived upstairs. She was petite with stooped shoulders and grizzled white hair. She spent most of her time baking cookies. I hated the way it made the house smell like Christmas.

  “I put some cookies outside your door,” the sweet old lady with the gnarled fingers and furtive smile said, sweeping steadily with the broom in her hand.

  I looked at Mrs. Statham, the crazy old lady with cat hair on her clothes, and I wondered what places she had been and experiences she had had. What stories she had to tell.

  I could have asked her about her life. I could have sat down with a cup of tea in hand, eating her snickerdoodles, and let her tell me about the secrets behind her grin.

  But I didn’t.

  Because I wanted to imagine her truth rather than hear it.

  I didn’t need any more than that.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Statham. I’ll bring the plate back when I’m finished,” I told her.

  “And when you do, you can tell me about that new job of yours.”

  I didn’t reply. I didn’t wonder about how she had discovered this detail about me. She existed as any old woman without family nearby. Completely invested in strangers that weren’t in any way invested in her.

  I walked inside, making sure to take a deep breath, pulling the sweet smell of baking into my lungs, feeling sick on it, before picking up the waiting sweets on my welcome mat.

  I balanced the plate in one hand and closed the door with the other. I kicked off my shoes and headed into the narrow, galley style kitchen just off the living room.

  I dumped the cookies I would never eat into the trash and placed the now empty plate in the sink. It wasn’t rude not to eat them. I didn’t indulge in false generosities.

  I looked around the small, cramped room and felt no connection to the shabby furniture and random knick-knacks. None of it was mine. Every single piece belonged to someone else. Another family.

  Another world.

  I made a point to bring little with me. Very few ties. Only the ones I could bear.

  I carried only small things from one life to the next. Some clothes, my green notebook, and the old book with the blue cover that had become my constant companion. Words that struck a chord and dragged me on.

  And the photographs.

  A row of framed pictures lined the windowsill. Beautiful faces immobilized forever.

  I opened my familiar copy of Swann’s Way, flipped to the first page, and ran my finger over the now barely noticeable script that had once been so vibrant.

  For my little, Lay ~

  There’s contradiction in solitude.

  Daddy

  A cryptic message from a man I could remember in excruciating detail. Except for his face.

  He left the book tucked away for me to find at the most opportune moment. When he was gone and I was supposed to never, ever want him back.

  In his aftermath, I poured over the pages of the battered Proust, thinking there was a sign in there somewhere. A secret message amongst the self-indulgent ramblings.

  Eventually I stopped looking.

  Eventually I stopped caring.

  Mine wasn’t a story of a poor girl abandoned by her father for reasons so horrific they shouldn’t be talked about. It was so much more than that.

  I had no real memory of him going away. A therapist would say it was a repressed memory. I was protecting myself from something that would only cause me pain. Yet, it burned into my subconscious in the manner that all life-altering moments do.

  The book didn’t matter. My father’s reasons for leaving it for me—inconsequential. It wasn’t what lay sleeping in the pages that had come to define my life.

  It was something so much more. So much deeper. So much darker.

  I shut the book and put it down on the small end table. Next to a framed picture of people from another time. Not one of those I kept by the window. This one sat separate. Not to be confused with the others.

  Smiling faces of a happy family. Strangers behind glass.

  I didn’t know those people. This photograph was a testimonial to a bitterly happy time. Snuffed out. Should be forgotten.

  But never forgotten.

  I was adrift. Lost in the wind unable to find purchase.

  I thought of Dancing Green Eyes who had a name.

  Elian.

  Thoughts were funny things.

  Sometimes they blossomed out of nothing and took over your entire world.

  Elian.

  I knew he was my purpose. My sense in a chaotic universe. It wasn’t sudden. It wasn’t abrupt. These feelings, these thoughts had gone on and on and on…

  Before I even knew his name.

  Elian.

  See you around? A question. But was it really?

  Did I dare to accept his innocent invitation?

  He couldn’t possibly know what his simple words meant to a girl like me.

  I picked up the photograph of the smiling family.

  I stared down at their uniformed contentment that I both envied and despised.

  I ran my finger down the smooth glass, almost wishing, just for a second that I could touch them.

  What a foolish thought. Illogical. Ridiculous.

  I lifted my arm, as if in slow motion. I threw the picture frame across the room, watching with a sick satisfaction as the glass shattered and rained down on the carpet.

  The shards piercing the smiles that lingered like ghosts.

  I liked the vintage bookstore where I worked. The smell of ancient pages mixed with dust was almost an aphrodisiac. I would walk into the front door, my heart would start to race and my palms would begin to sweat. Euphoria.

  “Layna! There you are! I have to get my son to a doctor’s appointment. Are you okay to close up tonight?” Diana Felts, the owner of The Lion and the Rose Bookshop, was a frazzled woman who always spoke as if she were running a marathon. Quickly and out of breath.

  I nodded my head. Diana gave me a strange look wh
en I didn’t open my mouth to answer her. She didn’t like me. I knew that. I was comfortable with her disdain.

  I slipped behind the counter and started straightening the pile of bookmarks into neat, concise piles. Diana lingered for a minute, as though waiting to see if I would ask her questions about her day. She wanted me to tell her about mine. To wear the costume of friend.

  I didn’t.

  Most would call me ill-mannered. Maybe they were right. I had lost the basic skills necessary to engage in social niceties. It was difficult to find ways to connect with people you didn’t care about.

  I used words sparingly and only when needed. I didn’t waste them on people who had no place in my every day. Or even my right now. I despised people that felt the need to fill calm silence with empty words.

  Words mattered. When spoken they couldn’t be taken back. So it was important to make them count. Each and every time.

  “Okay then, thanks again. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Diana said finally and left me to the store.

  I could hear the floorboards above my head creaking and groaning as people walked amongst the stacks. Customers lounged on the overstuffed chairs in the corners, reading a book and drinking their overpriced lattes. They looked deep in thought, a finger to their chin as though a copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time made them that much smarter than the rest of us.

  I didn’t judge. I was a keen observer of people. I knew that the guy in the corner with his hipster beard and lip ring yelled at his girlfriend when she didn’t text him back right away. He was a condescending bully that hid it under pseudo-intelligence.

  I knew that the woman trying to be discreet as she read the sex scenes in the erotica books stepped out on her husband. She met an older man upstairs in a private reading room three times a week.

  These random people with their random lives hid nothing from a woman like me. Bloated on secrets. Bingeing on lies.

  They were all the same.

  I pulled out my notebook with the clean, green cover. Pristine as the day I had bought it. I paused briefly, reading the stories scribbled on the pages.

  Her name is Fiona. She lives her life on the edge of a blade. Running, running, running. From the people who want to keep her. To trap her. She searches for things she will never have.