by Alisa Woods
What the hell just happened?
Chapter Two
I stare at my reflection in the mirror.
Normally, this is something I avoid at all costs. I don’t want to see the limp brown hair that Daniel used to love running his fingers through. Or the shadows under my eyes that just remind me of the darkness that’s haunting me. And I’m sure the gauntness of my cheeks isn’t the kind anyone would find attractive—more like a skeleton waiting for the grave.
But tonight, I’m craning my neck and staring at the smooth, unmarked skin of my neck.
Vampire. Life kiss. Angels.
No sign of any of it, not here in the real world… as opposed to the delusions my mind has apparently got on tap now. I step back and steel myself to look at the rest of me. My blouse and skirt are rumpled, but that’s standard. And I scrambled around on the floor at work, hiding from Rick and Sarah. I’m sure that was real. Did that shock—that jolt of life—kick off this delusional episode? Was my mind so desperate for some aliveness that it conjured this elaborate story? I mean, I was apparently down for making out with a creepy vampire sucking on my neck, and then two seconds later, an angel breathing hot life into me.
How is that not a sex dream?
I squeeze my eyes shut. Keep it together, Becca.
When I open my eyes, I carefully avoid the mirror.
Normally, I avoid this part of the house, too, but when I got home, I just stumbled to the closest bathroom. Daniel and all his money bought a mansion in the heart of Seattle—six bedrooms, as many bathrooms, cathedral ceiling great room, and a couple extra lofts/dens—and somehow the closest bathroom is still a mile from the front door. As I pass my studio on the way back, a flicker of something catches my eye. My heart stutters, and my legs lock to a stop.
It’s just a shadow.
My studio is really a giant sunroom which turns into a moon room at night. The silvery light coats the four easels, now draped in white sheeting, ghosts of my former life just sitting there, silent. A tree outside the domed glass windows of the south-facing wall sways with a gentle wind, casting a shadow across the covered canvas I mistook for… something. Just like I imagined an angel jumping out of the dark to kiss me.
I shake my head and trudge through the winding hallway to the kitchen.
I’m surprisingly hungry, but there isn’t much. Day old leftovers from last night’s takeout. I mechanically dump the noodles in a bowl and microwave them, watching the green numbers count down and spread their glow through the darkened kitchen. The angel’s kiss might have been imaginary, but there’s something inside me—some lift of spirit—that’s definitely real. Can delusions make you happy? I’m about three zip codes away from “happy, ” but the numbing darkness hasn’t seemed so bleak since I left the parking garage. Leftover adrenaline? I guess even delusions can pump up your brain chemicals—after all, that’s what happens when you wake from a nightmare in a cold sweat, right?
Right. I’m just… still coming down from the crazy.
I shake my head and actually sit down to eat, tucking into the noodles until they’re gone.
My thoughts keep drifting back to the angel.
I haven’t painted a thing since Daniel died, but wow, my imagination is apparently still intact. And capable of dreaming up hot men. He was nothing like Daniel—light brown hair where Daniel’s was black; blue eyes where Daniel’s were the softest liquid brown. I used to tell my husband the eyes won his cases. Charming and seductive while somehow still innocent. But the angel’s eyes blazed with righteousness… and a little alarm. Which is… curious. The brilliant blue in them was flecked with gold and rimmed with a darker blue that verged on black. I can almost picture the palette I’d need to mix to get the color right. And then for his body—
I jolt as a buzzing sound pings the air.
It’s just my phone, sitting next to the now-empty noodle bowl. I’ve been staring at nothingness and envisioning hot angels. The buzzing keeps on, and for some reason I can’t entirely explain, I’m picking it up and answering, even though I know better.
“Hi, Mom.” My voice rasps. I hardly ever speak. I screamed in the parking garage, but I’m not sure if that was a real scream or not.
“Rebecca!” She’s surprised. I never pick up. “Honey, how are you? I’m so glad I caught you. I thought maybe you’d be out somewhere…” She fades off because we both know I’m never “out somewhere.”
“I’m good,” I say, starting with the first question and hoping she’ll forget the rest.
“Oh, that’s good to hear.” And the relief is real in her voice. Then there’s a muffled sound like she’s covered the phone. “It’s her.” I can hear it even though she’s whispering. My mom never did learn how to run her phone. “So what are you up to, sweetie? Is work keeping you busy?” There’s a strain in her voice that’s hard to miss.
Could be the last seventeen calls I haven’t returned.
“Yeah,” I say, dully standing to put the noodle bowl in the sink. “Really busy.” Why did I pick up? This is a mistake.
“Well, I hope they’re not working you too hard.”
That’s not what she’s worried about. We both know that, too.
“It’s fine, Mom. I’m fine.” The lie is thick on my tongue. I need to find an exit to this conversation, but my head is still buzzing from the adrenaline of my delusions, and now the carbs from the noodles are hitting my bloodstream.
“Well, that’s good to hear,” my mom says again. Her Kansas accent has always been strong, but I hear it especially then. Like Aunt Mable and her tight-lipped, “That’s nice, dear,” when she means exactly the opposite.
I’m not surprised to find my hand reaching to grab a bottle of Merlot from my well-stocked cabinet. I’m slowly depleting Daniel’s vast collection. “I should go, Mom.” I should go drink this whole bottle. I don’t say what I mean either, I suppose. I have a flash of the angel with his blazing blue eyes. Fear not. I mean you no harm. He meant that. I guess delusions have no need for small white lies… or big dark secrets.
“Wait! Honey, your… your father wants to speak with you.”
Oh, God, no…
“Mom, I have to—” But she’s already handing over the phone.
“Becca, it’s me.” His rich baritone voice rumbles in my ear.
I have to stop my fumbling for a corkscrew and glass because my vision is suddenly blurred with tears, and I can’t see a damn thing in this dark.
“Hey,” is all I can manage. I avoid my mom’s calls because I know she can’t help it, and she just wants me to come home. She fusses and worries, and that just makes things worse. But my dad… he never calls. He came for the funeral and never left my side. He held me up the entire time. I can’t… I can’t talk to him, or I’ll be right back at that sodden grave…
“Becca, listen to me,” he says as if I’m not. Or maybe he thinks the silence means I’ve hung up. “You need to come home. It’s… it’s the holidays, and your mother wants to see you.”
Christmas. It’s Christmas, and he can’t say it either. I don’t know much about living—not anymore—but going home will break me. It’ll be giving up. It’ll mean I’ve stopped waiting… waiting for what, I don’t know. For life to come back? For something to happen, some miracle that will erase all the pain?
Instead, I’m having delusions of angels in parking garages.
“Working,” I mumble. I grab the bottle, corkscrew, and glass in one hand and stumble toward the bedroom. My bedroom. It’s really the guest room—one of five, sterile, never used—but it’s where I sleep.
“Now, see here,” he says, his voice gruff. “They can’t make you work over the holidays. I’ll talk to whoever I gotta talk to—”
“Dad.” My feet find their way to the bedroom in the dark. “I just… I just have to, okay?” It’s the truth. I don’t take days off because vacation means more time in the house. Weekends are bad enough. The four day holiday over Thanksgiving was not a good thing.
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“You need to come home, Becca.” There’s a break in his voice that I can’t handle.
“Yeah, okay. I will,” I lie, easy and fast. “Soon. I’ve just… got some things I need to finish up at work. Maybe New Years.” My throat is closing up. “Okay, talk to you later. Bye.”
I hang up.
I just hung up on my father. I don’t think I’ve ever done that in my life.
I drop the phone on the bed and sit. The glass goes on the nightstand, the bottle braced against my leg, cold and hard, and the corkscrew glints in the moonlight. My gaze is drawn to the window. I’m back in my routine, sitting on my bed, staring out the window and about to start the bottle that will end the night for me, blurring out the pain for a little while.
But the bridge outside has me transfixed.
This is not good.
I wonder how many have jumped now. I kept count for a while, but then I stopped. Because that wasn’t good for me, either. But it’s a lot of jumpers—I know that much. Daniel’s beautiful house has a beautiful view of a beautiful bridge… where lots of beautiful people die.
Not Daniel—other people.
The bridge is shiny black against the gray-black of the haze over the water, a beacon of sturdy construction and elegance. Strength and harmony. Slightly gothic with its sweeping black-steel arms, but still modern.
You’d never know, if you didn’t see it happen. Unless you read about it in the news or were one of the horribly unlucky ones who find the body. The ones who jump—are they already in the grave before they leap? Are they like me?
It’s easy to picture.
It’s like this every night. I stare at the bridge outside my window. Watching. Waiting. Again, I don’t know for what. The bridge stares back, neat triangle eyes like demons.
Some nights, I stare at that damn bridge until I’m out.
I could choose a different room. A different place to sleep. But I don’t. Because the bridge reminds me of the one thing I need to know—I haven’t died yet.
I break my staring contest with the demon girders and look at the bottle and corkscrew in my hands. The adrenaline from the parking garage—that burst of excitement or surge of lust or whatever that was during my hallucination—is still singing through my body. I can still feel the touch of the angel’s lips on mine like it’s been seared in. I can perfectly see every detail of his white feathers, the toga, the humming blade in his hand…
I set the wine down.
Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m running through the house. When I reach my studio, I grip the sides of the doorway with both hands, chest heaving. I haven’t had the urge to paint since… I swallow and stumble forward. Some things shouldn’t be questioned. They just are. And right now, I need to paint a certain hot-as-sin angel.
I tear off the draping over one easel. The canvas is blank. I run to the cabinet that holds my tubes of paint and brushes, and I grab everything I need. Then I drag a stool across the room, screeching a demon wail of metal feet across stone tiles, but that’s unimportant. My mind is alive with this image, and I’m driven to render it. The light is barely there, just the moon spilling in through the skylights and walls of windows, but it’s enough. I’m half in the dark, but the canvas is bathed in an even ghostly white. I scramble to mix the colors, blending and reblending, not even using a charcoal pencil to outline, just pouring the image out my head and into long brushstrokes. First, the wings, brazenly pure and white, stretched the full width of the canvas. Then his body. In my mind, it’s all hard planes and muscles and raw, sinewy masculinity. Under my brush, he comes out softer, a blurred image of flesh rendered against white. I dress him even more naked in the painting than he was in my fantasy—the drape of his toga reveals his entire chest, and the short hang below his waist barely covers his manhood. Which is clearly visible under the fabric. Very much… erect.
I just stare at that. Then a flash of heat runs through me again as I remember—while he was giving me the not-kiss, the Life Kiss as he called it, his erection had pressed against me along with the rest of his hard-and-perfect body. Of course. It was an erotic dream, right? A sex-starved hallucination. So naturally, he would be…
I swallow as realize how well-endowed my fantasy angel is.
There’s a different energy now to my work.
I paint his face, bringing the bright blue eyes into a sharp dazzle amongst a face carved with beauty. I cannot do justice to my imagination. I can’t render his lips with the blunt instrument of my brush. Not given that it’s been three years since I last touched one. I’m clumsy and artless. My frustration builds. I leave the face and finish the rest, angry brush strokes coming out uneven and jagged on his blade, creating an effect that almost mimics the vibrating essence. But the face is still marred by a reality that’s nowhere close to the fantasy.
I want to fix it.
I want to change it.
I want it to be real.
I grip my brush like it’s a weapon and have to step back before I slash through the entire thing. My chest is heaving again. Frustration knots my muscles. I’m going insane with hallucinations, and I’m agonizing that I can’t paint them properly? I walk with extreme deliberation to the sink and wash the paint from my skin, my brushes, my palette.
I may be going crazy.
But this is the most alive I’ve felt in years.
When my hands are dry, I stumble in a haze back through the house, heading for my bedroom. I don’t look at the bridge out my window. I don’t touch the wine on the nightstand. I just fall into bed and lay there, spent.
Sleep rushes up at me, grabs me, and pulls me into the darkness with her.
Chapter Three
I’ve been doodling angels all day.
On post-it pads, my legal pad, my planner, and even the leftover receipt from lunch. No one’s said anything, but then again, there’s hardly anyone in the office.
Christmas Eve.
Most people left the party last night and won’t return until after their vacations.
Christmas Eve, and I’m drawing angels.
It started this morning. I slept hard all night—not the wine-soaked sleep I normally have, but a true rest. I woke up early and couldn’t wait to get back to my easels. A dozen renderings of my sexy angel later, and I was nearly late to work. It would seem I’m fascinated by his male member, given how every one had an impressive erection. Each had a different pose—striking the vampire, held up tight against me, half-disappeared—but my hand wouldn’t let me paint him with anything other than full-standing arousal. My real frustration, however, lay with his face—I just couldn’t do it justice.
By comparison to that fresh start, the day has dragged on, and I’ve been mindlessly doodling. I don’t even realize how late it is until I fill up another page with faces and look up.
Not a soul in sight, and it’s after five.
No sense in staying any longer. And strangely, I’m eager to return home. To paint. That’s like a miracle unto itself, and I’m holding on and riding it for as long as I can… until the darkness returns. I grab my purse and clear my desk of the half-dozen disposable coffee cups. My Starry Night Mug has been MIA since I fled Rick and Sarah. It wasn’t by the potted plant when I returned this morning, and I already searched the break room. Since the place has cleared out, I poke around each of the cubicles, peeking inside to see if someone has adopted it. I could get another one, but this one was a gift from Daniel—and those are the only things that have meaning for me anymore. I work my way toward the break room, but there’s nothing on my co-workers’ desks. The office is already half-lit with the “energy saving” mode it goes into before it hits full-dark—I’ve spent plenty of nights working late, dreading the return to the house, such that I know all the quirks and patterns of the nightlife of the office. Like that the janitorial staff comes precisely at 7pm. The night guard does a sweep around 8pm. And another at 11pm. I usually force myself home before the overnight guard arrives.
I re
ach the break room empty-handed, but I figure I’ll take one more look.
I’m bent over, checking the low cabinets, when a male voice behind me makes me jump. “Looking for this?”
I wheel around, heart pounding. It’s just Rick. I guess junior VPs work late on Christmas Eve, too. He’s standing in the doorway, a hand on the doorknob and a smirk on his face… and he’s holding my mug.
“Yes!” I smile. “Where did you find it?”
His smile broadens, and he steps the rest of the way in, casually swinging the door shut behind him. He holds it out to me, but he’s still by the door. “Found it next to the potted plant.”
I flush and give a quirk of a smile. “Good thing you saved it from being lost.” Something’s raising the hair on the back of my neck, but I step forward to take the mug from his outstretched hand.
Just as I touch it, he pulls it back, out of my reach. “What’ll you give for it?”
The raised hairs bristle further. “What do you mean?”
He grabs my hand still suspended in the air and brings it quickly to his lips. His grip is hard, and I can’t pull away until he’s pressed his lips to my palm. Then he releases me, and I pull back, cradling my hand as if he’s wounded it. Which is what it feels like. A sickening dread fills my stomach. This is no fantasy. No hallucination. And I’m trapped in the break room with Rick the Sleaze.
“Oh, don’t be that way,” he says his smirk dropping into a pout. He steps forward, offering up the mug again. “I was just joking around.” He holds it out.
I slowly reach for it. This time, he lets me take it. “Thanks,” I whisper. “I should be going.” I move to dart around him, but he’s fast—his arm is around my waist, and he’s got me pressed up against him before I can even blink. Then his hand is on my wrist—the one with the mug—so I can’t bludgeon him with it. And his mouth has crashed down on mine, forcing my lips open with his invading tongue.