by Tatiana Vila
“I'm sorry I distracted you with all of this. You must be in a hurry to get the information for your article and be done with it—spring break rush,” she added with a knowing smile.
Still on a brain freeze, it took me a while to answer back. “No, it’s okay. I, uh, need to get back to my house. I forgot something.” I lied.
She cocooned her hand around the other one and flashed me an understanding smile. “No worries. I’ll be here until eight if you need me.”
I half smiled and walked to the doorway, all my neurons gathered in one particular thought. I was right. I wasn’t blowing things out of proportion. And with it came another idea.
Yes, I still had one more place to visit.
CHAPTER 7
“What do you mean?” I asked, catching my bottom lip with my teeth.
“Sales have rocketed up,” the cashier told me, glancing up at me from the thick stash of coupon codes he was counting.
A big bookstore like this needed to live up to its customer’s expectations and demands, and by the look of it, discount coupons were just the way to do it. “Even at our online store,” he continued. “It’s crazy. Frantic week, I tell ya.”
Given the thick stash of coupons he was holding, it didn’t surprise me. “Doesn’t all this book frenzy seem weird to you…”—I looked down at his name tag—”…Roman?” His mom must’ve been a fan of romance fiction. I could clearly imagine a muscle-bound, handsome hero with that name. If only the good-looking features had come with the name, though. The wiry, pimpled guy standing behind the counter was far away from owning the title.
“CD’s and movies, too.” he said, oblivious to my thoughts.
“What?”
He shoved the narrow papers into a box and proceeded to write something down. “The frenzy…is not only books.”
I frowned and remembered that half empty glass enclosure in the library. Books, movies, video games, CD’s—what was going on? I thought about the stored stash of coupons. “Roman…has there been a special sale or offer going on in here?” It could’ve been the reason behind those sky-high sales.
He stopped what he was doing and finally looked at me. “Are you a spy from another company? Because all of this inquisitive business is starting to sound like industrial espionage.”
I held back a roll of my eyes. He did belong to the bookselling world. “Please. Do I look like an industrial spy to you?”
“Why are you answering my question with a question?”
“It was just a rhetorical question.”
“But a question all the same.”
This guy was annoying.
“You’re being elusive—a typical trait of spies,” he added with pride, as if he’d discovered another reason to label me as an undercover agent.
This time, I rolled my eyes. “Ridiculous. I'm not a spy.”
He leaned forward and whispered, “I don’t care if you are though, as long as you let me give you my phone number. It’s not every day you stumble upon a hot, gorgeous spy.”
“Wha—”
“You don’t have to tell me the truth. I understand,” he said, leaning closer. I was too shocked to move away. “But, baby, together we can shake the sheets, if you know what I mean.”
Well, well, well. Who would’ve known our pimpled cashier boy had such a high opinion of himself? Low self-esteem was definitely not an issue. Good for him.
“Oh, I know,” I said, swallowing back a smile and feigning disappointment. “You would’ve rocked my world. Too bad I have a boyfriend.”
He crossed his arms over his narrow chest with suspicion dancing in his eyes. “A spy, too? I bet he is. Maybe you have something like Mr. and Mrs. Smith going on.”
This guy was seriously engrossed in fiction. “First, I'm not married. I'm seventeen. And secondly, not everything you see in movies is real.” It was about time someone told him. His sense of reality was completely warped.
His eyes narrowed and I could see I’d already lost the case.
“You know what…I really need to get going. My, um, bosses are expecting me at the…agency.” Playing along was the only way out, I guessed.
He thumped his chest with a fist in a way he’d surely seen in some warrior movie. “Your secret is safe with me.”
I gave him a nod and turned to leave the store. For his sake, I hoped he would land on earth someday. Losing himself to a fantasy world wasn’t doing him any good, I thought with a shake of my head.
I reached the glass door and slipped outside with what felt like an anxious bug eating my insides. The whole expedition had given me more questions than answers—not the result I was looking for. And something told me I wasn’t ready to find what I was looking for.
Yet.
Buffy’s door was open. The soft orange glow of her rice paper lamp on the floor, one she’d bought at a small store in Chicago’s Chinatown a few years ago, wrapped the entire room in warm luminescence. The dressmaking dummy in the corner, with a tape measure hanging around the neck and pins on both shoulders, cast an eerie shadow on the wall behind, like a humanoid creature from another planet.
Listening to music, with silver Skullcandy earbuds pressed against her ears, Buffy seemed more relaxed than I’d ever seen her in months. She was lying on the bed, legs crossed at her ankles and eyes closed, head swaying to the rhythm of the song. I stepped inside the room and sat next to her, noticing for the first time the creases and ripples wrinkling the sheets. The white feather comforter was shoved to the side.
She’d been sleeping.
At the slight tilt of her bed, she opened her eyes and surprise flickered in them when she found me sitting next to her. “Dafne,” she said, pulling out her ear buds and straightening up in bed.
I smiled. “You did say I could enter you room whenever the door was opened.”
“Yeah, of course. I just…it’s weird seeing you around here, that’s all.”
“I know.” I dropped my gaze. Maybe it had something to do with all the strange events that were taking place, but I felt the need to be with my sister. For the first time in two years, I wanted to drop the walls between us, be near her, talk to her, and know what was on her mind. I wanted to take advantage of the time I had with her, not the other way around.
I glanced at the long working desk with the sewing machine and drawers, where I knew she kept all sorts of fabrics and threads and zippers. The eyeball pincushion I’d given her for our fourteenth birthday—in my opinion, the coolest pincushion—was tucked against a wooden pencil box Gran had brought her from Germany. A black folder with what might’ve been dress sketches sat in the middle of the table.
“Are you still planning to go to AI in New York?” I asked.
“I…yeah. Yeah.”
Noticing her hesitation, I turned to look at her. “You’ve always wanted to go to that school.”
“I want to,” she said with a hasty nod of her head.
“Then why do you get so nervous about it?”
“I'm not.” I gave her a look. “Really. I…I just…”
A long pause followed.
“Buffy?”
She rubbed the back of her neck, reminding me of Ian, and dropped her hand with a strong sigh. That’s when I knew where things were headed. “I’m thinking about going to AI in Chicago.”
“Chicago? Why?” I knew the answer but still wanted to hear it.
“You know I love the Windy City and…and it’s closer to Berryford. I could visit Gran on weekends. I could visit you.”
“You could visit Ian on weekends.”
“No.”
“No?” Did she think I was stupid? Why else would she want to stay close to Berryford?
“I won’t have to visit Ian on weekends because…I’ll see him during the week,” she said, studying my face with worry, as if my reaction frightened her.
“What do you mean?” I didn’t like the sound of this at all.
She took a deep breath and said, “Ian will go to Aremihc. He
just got the acceptance letter today.”
My eyes almost bugged out. “What?”
Aremihc was the most exclusive and selective art academy in the world. Its grounds were located in the surrounding underground area of the Water Tower in Chicago, but nobody knew its exact location or its exact size. Rumor had it the founder, Vincent d’Azyr, had built the academy with such ground-breaking technology that space shuttles looked like plastic, cheap toys next to it. The place was almost like a ghost, untouchable and invisible to anyone but its staff and students.
Even if it was practically impossible that an academy that big, with dorm rooms and dining halls and libraries, dwelled there amid subway railroads and tunnels, with no underground topographic maps showing any sign of it, the students coming out of the Water Tower every so often were clear evidence of its presence in the city.
Aremihc was a mystery, and everyone loved good mysteries.
But that mysterious fog enclosing its dwelling wasn’t the only thing that made this academy unique. The rate of success of its graduates was unequaled. The world’s leading artists were born in Aremihc. An acceptance letter from this academy was the golden ticket to a very promising future, a winning lottery ticket of sorts. Ian could consider himself already a star.
“It’s the one you applied to, right?” Buffy asked to break the silence. “The one you’ve always dreamed of.”
Yeah. Every artist dreamed of getting into Aremihc. Hard not to. But just a few—and I say few, as in two dozen in every program—actually got the chance to get that heart-stopping letter. I’d sent my portfolio a month ago and was still waiting. Not that I expected a quick response. It’d taken two years to Ian to get a smoke signal from them—a heck of a smoke signal—and some people waited even longer, with no luck.
I was hopeful and I was determined to gain an acceptance. But with Ian now in the panorama, I wasn’t so sure anymore. I wasn’t sure about anything at that moment. A whirlwind of confusing emotions was turning inside of me. And I hated it. I hated he could change our lives and decisions so drastically. Why did he affect us both so much? Why did he affect me so much?
“I know you’ll get it, Dafne,” Buffy said as if trying to reassure me. She thought my lack of words had something to do with nervous jitters. “You’re an amazing painter. They’ll have to be blind to not see it.”
I snapped out of my inner storm and looked at her. “There are a lot of amazing painters in the world, Buffy. I’m just a grain of sand amid a beach.”
“But a worthy grain of…”
“Stop trying to turn around the conversation.” I cut her off with a shake of my head. “The point here is you can’t leave your dream for the moron of Ian.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That moron is my boyfriend and I love him.”
“So? Are you telling me you’re going to follow your hormones instead of your dreams? Don’t be stupid, Buffy.”
“I’m not following my hormones. I'm following my heart. Why is that so bad?”
“Because you’re changing everything you are for a piece of ass, that’s why.” I pulled myself up off the bed and stopped before her working desk. “Our dreams are what define us in life,” I said while tracing her sketches. “Do you want yours to be defined by some hot, spur-of-the-moment choice? You’re going to regret it your whole life.” I frowned. What was really going on in here? Why was I so mad? Was it really because of Buffy's decision or something else?
“I will not,” she said with so much certainty that it put a match to my contained fire. I was all flames now, searing and sharp.
I locked my eyes with hers and without thinking said, “Think about Mom and Dad.” Buffy’s eyes widened, as if she’d been slapped. “Think about what they would’ve said. Do you think they would be proud?”
“Shut up.” Her voice wavered.
“Or do you think they would be ashamed?” I ignored her. She swallowed and a tear escaped her eye. “Think about it. You know the answer.”
I turned to leave. Before reaching the threshold, her broken voice stopped me. “Why are you being like this? Is it because you blame me?”
My throat clenched painfully and I felt as if jagged rocks were piercing the skin of my esophagus. The breath under my nose was shaky and heavy with emotion. I couldn’t speak. I wasn’t ready to speak of this yet.
Not now. Please, not now.
Buffy carried on, like an executioner with a death sentence to complete. “You blame me for what happened, don’t you?”
I forced the words out of my mouth, deep and croaky. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I wanted to leave. I wanted to run away as far as I could, but for some reason I couldn’t. The water had been boiling for years and the lid had finally given in, the air pressure too high.
I felt as if I was on the edge of a precipice, one foot in the air and about to fall down a cavernous height of thunderous consequences.
“You know better than anything what I'm talking about,” she said, her voice fading to a whisper. I heard the gentle creak of the bed and a few painful heartbeats later, she was behind me, drilling a hole in the back of my head with her stare.
I shut my eyes, readying for what was about to come.
“You blame me for their deaths. You blame me for their plane crashing. If it hadn’t been because of me asking them to get those crystals, they wouldn’t have taken another flight and they would be here. They would be here with us.” She let out a sob.
I gulped, the swallow chocking my constricted throat with pain. My eyes wouldn’t meet hers. Hot tears threatened to slide down my cheeks and I still couldn’t share that hollowness in my chest with her. I couldn’t let her see that.
She sniffed. “Please, Dafne, don’t hate me.”
My heart strings untied and I’d had enough. I needed to leave.
I rushed out of the room and left her crying. Alone. My feet turned into buckets of cement, weighting down my footsteps down the hall, and making something as simple as walking a strenuous action. It hurt. Everything from head to toe hurt. The snap of a door reached my ears and no more than a labored breath later, mine followed.
Instead of flopping myself on the bed, I started pacing the room, rubbing my chest as if the motion would ease the ache inside. I continued walking back and forth, taking deep breaths to hold back the explosion that loomed beneath my skin.
The light outside my window faded into the horizon and still a relentless despair clutched my heart. I felt like I couldn’t think properly unless I was moving. Moving. Moving. Keeping my feet going to the beat of my strangled heart.
It wasn’t until my room was covered in shadows that I stopped in front of the window and let the first breath of emotion burst forth, and as if a dam had been broken, a torrent of frustration and helplessness and sadness streamed down my face, leaving the sheer skin of my core exposed.
Buffy was wrong. I didn’t hate her. I didn’t blame her for our parent’s death. Perhaps at the beginning, wanting to blame someone for what had happened, she’d been the one that had first come to mind. But I’d quickly realized what a selfish and foolish thought that was. It was nobody’s fault, even if Buffy thought otherwise.
She’d asked Mom and Dad for some crystals that were cheaper in Brazil—for some dress she’d been sewing at that time—but they’d been so caught up in their trip that they’d forgotten all about the crystals and hadn’t looked for them until their last day in Brazil. The crystal hunting had taken more time than expected, so they’d taken the next flight.
Nobody had expected the sudden storm that’d wrapped the plane in a cocoon of dark, rolling clouds and lightning. Not even all the technology had prevented its happening.
Mom used to say things happened for a reason. That a greater purpose always stood behind an event, waiting to get out and unleash the consequences they were supposed to generate. And though I understood her reasoning, I didn’t understand the reason behind her death and Dad’s. Was it a punishment from God? Was
it a way to make us see how lucky we’d been to have such a wonderful life? A way to make us learn that not everything was that easy and bright?
The only thing I knew for certain was that Buffy wasn’t guilty. And I hadn’t had the strength to tell her. She’d needed that truth and I hadn’t given it to her.
Once the tears dried out and no liquid in my body seemed to have survived the outpouring, I stared numbly at the stars pricking the black velvet above. Millions of diamonds sparkling in the endless sky like little beacons of hope. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that the door opened behind me. Someone flicked the light on and stepped inside. Guessing it was Gran, I didn’t turn. I was tired. Drained and tired.
“What did you do?” the deep, familiar voice said, ripping me out of the zombielike state.
Startled, I turned around and shifted my gaze to the surprising figure across the room.
Ian was looking at me through narrowed eyes, one of his hands busy holding a beautiful bouquet of daisies—Buffy’s favorite flowers. I’d certainly spoiled any plans he had for tonight, and it showed on his face.
“It’s none of your business,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. He had every right to be angry with me, but he had no right to lecture me in the sanctity of my own room.
He pulled the door close and dropped the daisies on top of the dresser. “She said you hate her, that you blame her for all that happened. Is it true? Did you tell her all that?”
I shrugged. “Why don’t you go and ask her?”
“She doesn’t want to open her door. I barely got her to speak to me through it.”
“Sorry for ruining your special evening, then.” I waved my head to the flowers and looked at him. “I heard you’re an Aremihc student now. Congratulations,” I said, even if my voice was completely void of happiness.
He stopped and looked at me ponderingly, as if a new thought was flapping in his head. “Is this what your bitchy outburst is about? Jealous you still haven’t got an answer?”
“Don’t you dare tell me what I’m feeling. You have no idea.”