Crashing Souls

by Cynthia A. Rodriguez

  I blew a kiss to the sky and dropped the urn into the river. I wished he could tell me how it felt to be finally free.

  Chapter 32

  Seattle hadn’t missed me, but I sure missed it. I wrapped myself in my blanket and pulled back the curtain, looking out into the city night.

  Christmas with Phoebe had been fun in the way that children brought wonder and excitement. She’d received more than enough dolls and knick knacks, but everyone had been surprised when she opened the gift I’d managed to sneak off and get.

  An easel and paint. All different kinds: sparkly, neon, basic, and even glow-in-the-dark. She’d been delighted, and I even offered to have her come to my studio with me, my sacred place. Dexter loved it. And if I had any second thoughts about that fact, he’d proved it that night. I still felt his hands all over me as I leaned my head back with a sigh. I missed him. It was strange. Different from missing him before.

  Dexter was a ghost before. Sometimes I’d wondered if I’d made him up, a figment of my imagination. I missed the idea of him. But now, I was missing the familiar things. His smile, his love. It was almost tangible. And I missed the way he would slowly build me up and bring me back down. I shivered, bringing the blanket closer.

  My phone rang from across the room, and I hurried over to it. Since Tim’s death, I’d begun answering all of my calls. Even if it was a small side effect, it still felt like I was picking up some of the figurative rubble of what peace I thought I’d had left.

  “Hello?” I answered the phone sounding breathless, having been caught fantasizing.

  “I can feel you missing me.”

  Ah, my inspiration.

  “Where are you calling me from?” I asked, not recognizing the number.

  “My hotel room.”

  I switched my phone from one hand to other.

  “I thought you went home, Dexter.” There was silence on the other end of the phone, and I was about to check if the call dropped when he spoke again.

  “Something told me not to.”

  “Come over?”

  He made a sound of quick relief.

  “I thought you’d never ask. I’m on my way.”

  He hung up, and I sat down before jumping back up to spruce the place up. I changed my clothes and took my hair down. For once, I wanted to look nice. And when Dexter knocked on my door, I was ready for him.

  I’d always thought of my vulnerability as a curse. I hated how I was a prisoner to every emotion. And after I moved away, I settled for a life without passion, a life without urgency or sensation. Only when I was painting did I let those things rule. Until him. When I was in his space, everything was available to him, laid out like a feast. My heart, my body, my feelings. They all belonged to him.

  And the best part about it was that I knew he belonged to me as well.

  When our bodies were spent, resting in a heaping mess of limbs and sweat, I picked my head up to look at him. His lips were parted and his features relaxed in that way that showed me he’d been thoroughly pleasured.

  I fell asleep in my bed with Dexter’s body covering mine.

  •••

  “Wake up, Blue,” Dexter whispered in my ear. I blinked and sat up groggily. When I looked out my window, I saw it was still dark.

  “Everything okay?” I asked him, looking him over for any signs of distress. He was sitting back, his bare chest on display.

  “Yeah. I just felt like we were wasting time.”

  “Sleep is not a waste of time,” I said, throwing myself back on the bed and looking at the ceiling. When he leaned into my line of sight, I giggled. “Fine. What do you want to do?”

  “Take a walk?”

  I rolled over and grabbed his watch from the nightstand.

  “It’s midnight,” I started to say before I caught myself. “Sure. Let’s get dressed and go for a walk.” I hopped out, dropping the blanket and heading to my dresser. I didn’t buy lingerie. Before Dexter I had no reason to. Now that Dexter was here, I was sure he’d rather see what was underneath anyway. I pulled on plain black underwear and a bra and dug through my drawers for my favorite pair of jeans. As I shimmied them on, I noticed Dexter smiling at me, already dressed.

  “What?”

  He walked around my bed, looking at the pictures I looked at during my lonely nights and touching the things I touched.

  “You’re so direct. No frills, no games. It’s nice. I feel like I can trust you.” Luckily, I was turned away from him when he said this. I frowned and closed my eyes momentarily. “I realized that when no one told me about Greg. They kept it from me. But you were the only honest person, the only one not keeping anything from me.”

  I pulled a blouse on, buttoning it as I faced him. When he handed me my coat with a kiss, I knew I’d have to tell him sooner rather than later.

  We walked, mostly hand in hand, for a half hour, Dexter making me laugh most of the way.

  “So, you have to tell me. And be honest. I refuse to believe you haven’t dated at all for seven years. What gives?” His smile was innocent, and his eyes sparkled with curiosity. I tried to fight my smile but was unsuccessful, of course.

  “Sure, yeah. I went on a few dates. I even kissed a few of them. But it’s like…wearing clothes that aren’t your size. Or, I don’t know, like Goldilocks.” I laughed when I realized how ridiculous I sounded. I was relating love and sex to a children’s story.

  “No, no. I know what you mean. It wasn’t right.” He pulled me against him, and I kissed his chin. When I stepped back, I looked past him at the neon sign practically screaming for my attention. A snap judgment had me grabbing his hand and leading him toward it. Once we stood in front of the building’s door, he peered down at me, his eyebrows drawn together.

  “Bad idea?” I asked, the words coming out in a nervous huff.

  “Only if you aren’t completely sure.” His frown was adorable. Focus.

  “Are you completely sure?” I shoved my hands in my coat pockets.

  “Without a doubt. So completely sure that there isn’t any more room for sure left.” I threw my head back and laughed. He ran his fingers down my face, bringing me back to him. “Are you completely sure?”

  “I’d rather show you than tell you,” I whispered before taking his hand again and opening the door. We were greeted by the sound of buzzing and a bored looking young woman fiddling with one of her many piercings. It made me miss the metal I’d had lining my lobe. I touched my ear, my fingers on the few studs I’d kept. Her eyes brightened significantly when she saw us, and I couldn’t help but think how fun it would be to paint her. I wasn’t known for portraits, but one of her would totally be worth it. All of that ink covering her skin…beautiful.

  “What can I help you guys with?”

  I looked up at Dexter and he smiled, telling me to go on.

  “We want to get tattoos.” I grinned. “Well, obviously.” I gestured around the room.

  “We do piercings too. But we only have one artist on,” the woman said with a small frown as the buzzing paused.

  “I’m almost done, Frannie,” said a deep male voice from the back. “Get everything ready for them.”

  Frannie clapped her hands and I turned to Dexter. Before I could ask, he leaned down and whispered in my ear.

  “I’m sure. Remember?” I nodded and started looking at the tattoo designs. I didn’t want something that meant nothing, and as I looked at these pictures, I realized that’s exactly what they were. Pictures that meant nothing.

  “I think I know what I want. I love you, but I don’t want your name. It’s cheesy. I already know you’re mine and you know I’m yours. But I think we should get something that reminds us of each other. Almost like a secret. No one else will know what they mean.” I looked back at Dexter, who was looking at me with the same adoration I’d been used to in high school. I stuck my tongue out and settled down with Frannie to look at fonts. Once I picked one, I whispered what I wanted in her ear and she clapped her hands agai
n. I was beginning to love her overzealous personality. We went over the size and placement of it, and she ran to the back to start the design.

  “So, no names? But something that reminds me of you. Any place in particular?” He sat beside me and flipped through the font book.

  “Wherever you want.” I sat back content. Until I started second guessing. “Unless you don’t want one about me. You can get whatever—”

  He grabbed my hand, silencing me with a look.

  “Don’t do that. I love this idea—us having something that means something and no one will know it. And I love that tonight it feels like we were never apart.”

  Frannie came back, breaking me from my Dexter Andrews-induced hypnosis.

  “Yours is ready to go. What about you, handsome?” She went through the book with him as I walked through the parlor. I was looking at the piles of tattoo magazines when heavy boots made their way toward me. Accompanied by a busty blonde stood a god of a man. A very tattooed man. He was slim and his hair was slicked in the way that reminded me of leather jackets and combs in the back pockets of Levi jeans. The woman turned toward him, giving him a peck and bouncing out of the door, a bandage over one arm. He watched her go, looking rather pleased. It was only once she’d gone that he looked at me.

  Not busty, although my C cups were nice enough in my opinion. Not blonde, but I never wanted to be. Blue hair had been fun enough.

  “You next?” he asked me, walking toward Dexter, who’d been left alone after he told Frannie what he wanted.

  “That’s me,” I said, trying not to sound nervous.

  “Nervous?” The man looked up from the counter he’d walked behind. Apparently I wasn’t good at pretending I wasn’t a chicken.

  “Trying not to be,” I replied as he walked back toward the back of the parlor. He waved me over and I followed him. He’d grabbed the design Frannie made, and when he asked me where I wanted it, I pulled my hair up, securing it, and pointed to the back of my neck. He ran his fingers over the skin.

  “Don’t be nervous,” he said as he examined my neck. From where I stood, I could see Dexter’s shadow. He hopped off the chair, following Frannie back toward us.

  “Here’s his.” I averted my eyes, knowing I wouldn’t want to see it until it was on him. “Did you want him in here with you?” she asked me.

  “As long as he doesn’t see what’s being done.” I lifted a brow, trying to seem daring when really I was near pissing my pants.

  “He can sit facing her,” the tattoo artist said and pointed behind me, ordering me to sit on what looked like a hospital bed. A black leather one. I sat with my back toward the artist and facing Dexter, who’d pulled up a chair. I shivered as the man sprayed something on my skin and wiped it. He told me to drop my chin, and I felt him place something on the back of my neck. Like paper. He pulled it away from my skin and stepped off. He came back with two mirrors, one he held up and one he handed me. I made sure Dexter wasn’t looking, and I checked it out.

  Small and precise. What I wanted. I told him it was perfect and I tipped my chin again, reaching for Dexter’s hands. The buzz of the tattoo machine didn’t scare me as much as it should have. I knew the mechanics and that it’d basically be stabbing me over and over. But when he began, and the sting was only an annoyance, I looked down at Dexter’s hands. Some things were worth everything. The weight of his hands in mine, thrumming with his pulse, was worth it all.

  Time passed quickly enough and the buzzing stopped altogether. He wiped at my skin, and I picked my head up to look at Dexter. His mouth moved, speaking silently, telling me I was amazing.

  The tattoo artist handed me the mirror, and this time, Dexter looked too:

  Unending love.

  The words were tidy and in a simple font that reminded me of a typewriter. Dexter said it aloud to himself and I smiled. He likely didn’t know where I’d gotten the idea. To be honest, it had jumped in my mind almost of its own volition. The old poem should have been written by the Angel of Death, with us in mind. It was either that or Rabindranath Tagore knew, as I’d learned, of soul mates and the like.

  Dexter didn’t ask. The tattoo was bandaged, and I was given monotone instructions on how to care for it. Then it was Dexter’s turn. When he took off his shirt, I began to experience that giddy feeling of realizing he was mine. He turned away as the design was pressed against his skin and when he laid flat on the leather, his eyes looked at mine. Without words, we were saying so much to each other. He grabbed my hand loosely, and when the machine touched his skin, he didn’t flinch the way I was sure I had. Not much of a reaction from him. Finally, after torturing myself with my lack of patience, he sat up and turned to me. His left pectoral was an angry pink, and I read the words he’d chosen:

  She only seems free…

  I didn’t stop my frown.

  “Huh?” I tipped my head to the side, inspecting the tattoo to make sure I was reading it right. “But…what does it mean?”

  The tattoo artist stepped in between us, bandaging Dex. I moved, desperate to be in his line of vision. I had to know.

  “Soon,” he said as he kissed my forehead and moved past me, putting on his shirt and heading to the counter to pay.

  I was still frowning when we stepped out into the night. It’d started snowing and Dexter cursed, bringing me closer. We made it all the way to my apartment, shaking off our coats and hanging them to dry before I asked.

  “Does that mean I’m a prisoner?” I knew I’d always been and I knew that Dexter was astute, but that wasn’t what I had in mind when I suggested tattoos. Something to remind me of how withdrawn I’d become? Certainly not.

  “No. I used to think that about you in a sad way. That you seemed so free and exuberant, except beneath it you were weighed down by your fears. I used to also think that you were a free spirit who would float away if I didn’t keep you with me, where you so desperately wanted to be. So, that’s what it means. It means, even though you think you want to fly away, you don’t. You don’t want to die, Noa. And though you’ve come close, I hold onto you too tightly. Right next to my heart.”

  Chapter 33

  Dexter turned away, heading toward the kitchen like he hadn’t taken what I thought was an insult and flipped it into the loveliest thing I’d ever heard. He was onto me. He knew I was battling something. At times, I was on the losing end. Still, he loved me. I stalked after him. He was leaning against my counter when I found him making a pot of coffee. Always fucking coffee with the Andrews clan.

  “Don’t you want to know what mine means?” I walked over, trying to remain aloof when I was actually freaking out. Words like those sounded like forever. And though I’d said I’d be around as long as I was alive, a small part of me was still counting the hours, savoring each second, until Dexter left me again. I held back, I refused to let myself be in the moment. But in that moment, it was all I wanted to do: play forever with Dexter Andrews.

  He poured himself a cup and walked into the living room.

  “If you want to tell me,” he answered as he sank onto the couch, fiddling with my remote before settling on a channel.

  “You don’t care?” I was trying to challenge him. There was a flaw. There was something that was going to take him away from me. Yeah, you. I ignored my inner thoughts and placed one hand on my hip. He set down his mug and stared at me with practiced patience. He knew I was about to hound him about something neither of us could control: my constant anxiety and his constant perfection.

  “All I care is that it reminds you of me. Even when you aren’t thinking of me, it’ll always be there. In your heart and in your skin. That’s what’s important to me.”

  “First of all,” I began, snatching the remote from his hands and straddling him, “I’m always thinking of you. So far, life has been impossible to go through without you on my mind, since the moment you bumped into me when I was seventeen. Secondly, I want you to want to know about my choice. I don’t want to be the only one who asked.”
I didn’t want to pout, but it was happening regardless.

  “Why did you choose those words, Blue?” He kissed my collarbone, a place I was beginning to think he rather liked, and whispered, “I’m dying to know.”

  I struggled off his lap and grabbed a book from the pile beside the couch. I’d known it would be there because I drowned in the beauty of it many nights. Pining and poetry tend to go hand in hand. After turning to the right page, I handed him the book and walked to my bed, peeling off my clothes on the way there.

  Tomorrow I would paint. Miranda hadn’t contacted me yet, but I knew I had a project to get a grip on. Which reminded me….

  “Those paintings,” I said as I glanced at him, “what’s the story?”

  He shushed me and pointed to the book in front of him. I stood where I was, looking at him. He murmured the words to himself, and when his lips lifted slightly, I melted. I was a handful, a crazy woman. But if I was crazy, what did that make him for staying with me? For loving me? After all of this time?