A Neon Darkness
Page 26
* * *
Neon doesn’t want to get back in the car and go home. Back to the loft. Is that home now? Still? Was it ever? Can it ever be? Can Los Angeles ever be home again?
“Nee?”
She looks around to see Indah—her beautiful, warm, soft, good Indah—sitting next to her, toes dug into the sand, her brow furrowed in that adorable way that has become so familiar to Neon. Neon wants to smile at her, assure her everything is okay, but can barely muster up the energy to keep her eyes focused on Indah’s face.
“Yeah?” she says in response, turning her face back to look at the broad ocean.
“How are you feeling?” Indah asks, her arm reaching across the sand to rest near Neon’s ankle. Neon’s own arms are around her legs, hugging her knees to her chest, hoping she can become a ball of light and energy and not have to feel things anymore.
“How do you think?”
“You haven’t forgotten yet, have you?” Marley asks from her other side. She glances over out of the corner of her eye to see him in the same position—arms wrapped around his legs, trying to make his enormous body as small as Neon’s.
“No.” Neon shakes her head. “Have you?”
They both respond the same, their voices tight and quiet. The three of them have been sitting here, silently on this beach, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for something to happen that they wouldn’t even notice if it did.
“Guess he didn’t want it enough,” Marley adds, and Neon’s throat tightens at that. Damien—Robert; he doesn’t get to keep the name that Neon gave him, not in Neon’s head at least—he wanted Neon to kill someone but couldn’t muster up some genuine desire to have her forget about it. Not that she wants to. Well, she does, but she doesn’t think she should. She knows she has to remember. She knows that’s the right thing to do.
“At least he seemed to think it worked,” Indah says softly. “Now he won’t come back.”
“He wanted to believe that he could be free of the guilt,” Marley scoffs. “I bet he’s halfway back to Vegas now, his stupid emo haircut blowing in the wind.”
Neon can picture it perfectly. Robert with the window of his Plymouth rolled down, the desert breeze moving through his hair, the wide open road in front of him. It makes her stomach churn, a sob rise up in her throat, and before she knows it, she’s crying again, her forehead resting on the tops of her knees, tears falling into her lap.
She feels two hands on her back as Marley and Indah move to comfort her, and that makes her sob harder. There’s so much that she can do with these two—can be with them—that she never could with Robert. She can cry and scream and laugh and be the whole person she is, not just the person he wanted her to be. And she can still trust them, can still rely on them in a way that she’s not sure anyone will ever be able to rely on her, especially not now. She’s a murderer, a dangerous thing that can never be fixed.
But the harder she sobs, the closer Indah and Marley lean into her, the tighter they hold her. She softens into her friends’ embrace, her hard edges rounding out in the way that they only ever could with these two people. She’s not the monster. The monster is gone, carried away in a big black car, and Neon is still a person. And she has her people—people who met her when she was already broken, when she was different and strange and frightening, and they loved her anyway. They’ll love her still. They’ll love her because she’ll try. With every day she’ll try to repair things, try to trust other people again, try to trust herself again.
Neon’s wanting never meant much, not like his, but that won’t stop her from wanting all the same. It won’t stop her from having. Having a good life, with good people, whom she chooses.
That’s all she can do. She can’t fix what Robert broke, could never fix Robert if he didn’t want to fix himself. But she can try to be better. And, later, when the tears have dried and the love of her two friends has started to heal the broken places in her heart, she’ll find the hope that Robert will someday choose to be better too.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I had thought that the acknowledgments for my second book would be easier, but the beautiful thing about joining the publishing world is that my community has expanded beyond my wildest dreams. There are so many people who contributed to this book and who contribute daily to my continued existence.
First of all, I’d like to thank everyone at Tom Doherty Associates, Macmillan, and Tor Teen for believing in me and my stories and giving me a way to tell them: Devi Pillai, Fritz Foy, Eileen Lawrence, Sarah Reidy, Lucille Rettino, Melanie Sanders, Jim Kapp, Tom Mis, Dakota Cohen, and Tom Doherty. An enormous thanks to the incredible marketing and publicity team who come up with the most fun and inventive ways to connect with our audience and for keeping me company on tour: Saraciea Fennell, Anneliese Merz, Becky Yeager, Isa Caban, and Anthony Parisi. Thank you for being such bright spots in my world.
Most of all, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my editor, Ali Fisher, who makes me a better writer with every note. Thank you for your patience, for your gentle reminders that there are other punctuation choices beyond em dashes, and for helping me navigate such a tricky character who messes up so much. Knowing you were on the other side to help us gave both Robert and me the room to make the interesting mistakes.
To Matthew Elblonk, my north star in publishing and beyond. Thank you for being a sounding board, a stalwart advocate, and, most of all, a friend. Thank you for sharing in my love of Harrys, both Potter and Styles.
A deep thanks to my sensitivity readers, Dee Hudson and Sahrish Nadim; for your invaluable insights and wonderful words of encouragement.
As with anything I write, this book would not have been finished without the playlists that I put on repeat. So thank you to sixteen-year-old me, for having so much music from 2007 for me to pull from and for the bands that define that era for me: Motion City Soundtrack, Mute Math, Cold War Kids, Franz Ferdinand, Boy Kill Boy, The Starting Line, Gogol Bordello, Muse, Maroon 5, Keane, People in Planes, Sugarcult, Paramore, The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, Lovedrug, and, of course, Panic! At the Disco.
I am so lucky to be surrounded by my own ragtag group of weirdos with superpowers of their own. I would be nowhere without the original cast and crew of The Bright Sessions, especially Charlie Ian, whose voice I heard in my head throughout the writing of this book. My team at Atypical Artists—Jordan Cope, Briggon Snow, Evan Cunningham, and Lillian Holman—are the best support team and friends anyone could ask for.
Los Angeles has given me so many experiences and people that have shaped me and the stories I tell. From FTH to my Glow Up Crew to my Time Stories team, I wouldn’t change my life here for anything. I’m so grateful to all of you and for Los Angeles for giving you to me. To Meghan Fitzmartin—thank you for showing me the beauty of this city we call home, for showing me the humanity in Robert and loving him as much as me. Thank you for being the first person to read this book and see the bits of me in it and being my best friend anyway.
Thank you to the people who have been with me since the beginning, through all the ups and downs. Mom, Dad, Betsy, Don, and my little OWL—I love you all so much.
To B—for always listening to me, for asking me questions, for challenging me and comforting me, and for feeding me endless mac and cheese. You are my favorite person.
And to all of you: Thank you for continuing this journey with me. Thank you for caring about Robert, for seeing something more in him, and for demanding that he be better than he is. That’s something I want for all of us—for us always to show compassion and empathy, but never stop pushing each other to be better. We can all do better.
Stay strange.
READ ON FOR EXCLUSIVE NOTES ON DAMIEN
[Notebook entry from Dr. Crane]
1/5/07
New patient: white male, late teens/early twenties, indicators of anxiety and depression. He left before giving his last name or insurance information, but I’m confident he’ll return. Though he was reluctant to share the spec
ifics of his life with me, I would wager that he’s the child of a well-known industry figure, or on the way to enormous fame himself. Cagey and private, he seems terrified of emotional intimacy and expresses the kind of listlessness common in the privileged class of this city. Though it had been my first instinct to ask about his parents, the time never seemed appropriate. Despite his reluctance to share, he was surprisingly talkative and each time I thought about bringing it up, there was something else to discuss. At his next session, I plan to focus my efforts on learning more about his family life.
L. S. Crane
[Email from a doctor in St. Louis]
6-10-09
Dear Dr. Wu,
I hope this email finds you well. I’m writing in regards to a patient of mine, a young man who goes by Damien. He moved to St. Louis four weeks ago and has been seeing me three times a week the past two weeks. His next scheduled session is this coming Thursday at 2:00 p.m.—would you be available to sit in? Damien is a curious case—I think most of what he’s told me is fabricated, but I find myself unable to push him to truth during his session. He seems to be extremely skilled at manipulation and evasion and I’m not too proud to admit that your assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Let me know.
Sincerely,
Dr. Sandra Black
[note to Damien from a NY therapist]
8 August ’11
Damien—
My secretary called me yesterday to let me know that you’ve been stopping by the office every day for the past week. As I told you in our last session, I am at a family reunion upstate and will be returning to the city on Monday. As you’ve refused to give me your phone number or email, my assistant has been instructed to write out this note and give it to you next time you come by.
While I understand that you are eager to continue our work, you cannot show up unexpectedly. Max mentioned that you’ve been talking to the other patients who come to the office—I would appreciate that you not intrude on the other doctors and patients in the building. This was particularly disappointing to hear given how much we’ve discussed privacy and boundaries. You’ve continually said that respecting others’ space is something you want to work on, but your actions suggest otherwise. I know that separation anxiety has been a significant issue for you in the past and I would like to keep working with you on it, but if you continue to cross the line like this, we’ll need to discuss finding you a different psychiatrist.
Thank you,
Dr. Silverman
[Dr. Bright’s personal handwritten notes]
January 24th, 2014
It’s been a while since I’ve hand-written notes, but I can’t simultaneously record myself and listen back to a session recording. And I need to listen back. To make sense of what’s happened. Even though Damien only left twenty minutes ago, the memory of his visit is already hazy and confusing. I wonder if he would have let me record if he’d known that my recorder was still on. Something tells me no. He seems … secretive, even though he was clearly desperate to talk to someone.
He’s a mind manipulator. I’d heard of them, vaguely, at The AM, but I never dreamed … it was so much more terrifying and thrilling than I ever could have imagined. Even with my most volatile patients—the pyrokinetics, the weather manipulators—I never feel unsafe. And working with Atypicals who have powers of the mind is always jarring, whether they’re telepaths, psychics, or dream-walkers, but all my patients trust me. They respect me. And I trust and respect them in turn. I know there’s always the possibility that I could get hurt, but it’s a risk I’ve always been willing to take to help people. I don’t know that I’m willing to take this risk.
Why did I invite him back? No—insist on him coming back? Does my curiosity really have that strong a hold? Was he influencing me, pushing his deep, unvoiced desire to be heard onto me? I don’t know where to even begin with someone like him, how to help him, if he even needs or wants my help. But I know already that I’m going to keep seeing him. If he comes back.
He’s going to come back. I can feel it in my bones.
J. Bright
ALSO BY LAUREN SHIPPEN
The Infinite Noise
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAUREN SHIPPEN, author of The Infinite Noise, is a writer best known for her work in fiction podcasts. She is the creator of the popular audio drama The Bright Sessions and its spin-offs, The AM Archives and The College Tapes. She coproduced and codirected the #1 podcast Passenger List, for which she received a BBC Audio Drama Award. She also wrote Marvels, an audio adaptation of the popular comic. Shippen was named one of Forbes’s 2018 30 Under 30 in Media. She grew up in New York, where she spent most of her youth reading and going to Panic! at the Disco shows. She now lives in Los Angeles, where she does the same thing.
Visit her online at LaurenShippen.com, or sign up for email updates here.
Twitter: @laurenshippen
Instagram: laurenshippen
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Prologue: The Fire
Part One: The Sunset
Part Two: The Hills
Part Three: The Loft
Part Four: The West Side
Epilogue: The Water
Acknowledgments
Read on for Exclusive Notes on Damien
Also by Lauren Shippen
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A NEON DARKNESS
Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Shippen
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Victo Ngai
Cover design by Esther S. Kim
A Tor Teen Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10271
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-29754-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-29755-6 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250297556
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First Edition: 2020