Noticing Kyra’s stoic expression and inactivity, Lexi called her out. “Earth to Kyra.”
Kyra’s eyes flew open and the fluttering stopped abruptly as her glow retreated back to its source. Kyra turned to Lexi with a forced smile similar to Mr. Delaney’s. “Sorry, I guess my mind kind of took off on its own for a minute.” She promptly got out her worksheet and began studying it, pencil in hand, making it appear as though she were actively working. After several minutes of not marking anything on her paper, however, I easily deduced her mind was still elsewhere.
I considered saying something to her, but what was I going to say? “So I noticed when Mr. Delaney looked at you, you freaked out and spontaneously combusted. What’s that all about?”
I sighed. Resting my left elbow on my desk and my forehead in my hand, I marked another answer on my paper.
There was a knock at the door.
Most everyone perked up and took notice of the welcome distraction from their work. But my eyes were locked on Kyra and Mr. Delaney who were staring at the door from their desks with steady apprehension like armed military personal waiting with guns aimed at a closed door.
The student nearest to the door got up to open it, and a petite girl walked in with a note. As Mr. Delaney rose from his seat to accept it, he glanced at Kyra with the same grim expression as before. It wasn’t until he actually took the note and read it that he said her name. “Kyra, you’re being dismissed.”
Kyra took a slow, deep breath and then swiftly put her things away. As she scooted to the edge of her chair with her bag ready to leave, she put a hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eyes, and continued in a whisper only I could here. “Iris. I can’t explain everything to you right now, but I need you to listen to me. I won’t be around much over Christmas break. I won’t be able to be there for you for a little while. I need to you to watch out for yourself.”
I would have been insulted at the implication of my needing a babysitter, but her earnest concern and sincerity forced me to push that aside and realize greater things were transpiring than I had the ability to understand. Amid all the craziness that had happened and was going to happen, Kyra was a friend I could trust.
I swallowed uncomfortably. “Okay.”
“Brace yourself. Because it’s just going to get worse.” On that optimistic note, she stood up, slung her bag over her shoulder, and marched to the front. Pausing in front of an apologetic-looking Mr. Delaney, she accepted the note with a determined nod and confident smile and headed out the door.
I wasn’t sure exactly what Kyra had meant by things getting worse or how she knew they would, but I had a feeling I should trust her premonition. For one thing, she seemed so confident and believable when she said it. For another thing, she oddly seemed to know about her parents’ car accident even before receiving the note from the office. I figured if she could sense that, she could sense other things as well.
Sadly, I would have to wait by myself for the obscure tragedies to come. Lexi usually traveled for the holidays, and Kyra would be busy taking care of her little sister and visiting her parents in the hospital over Christmas break. They both had broken ribs and other internal injuries that would need to heal for a few weeks in the hospital. This left me to my dismal family and its joyless family members…well, except for Hanna. But she was often gone for work and various holiday parties and charity events she took part in over the break.
Being around my mother was the worst. It was awkward because of what she didn’t know I had seen (or hadn’t seen herself for that matter). It was also depressing because of the somber attitude she had adopted since then. Most of all, though, it was uncomfortable because of the foggy shadow that now surrounded her everywhere she went.
The only thing worse than spending Christmas with my severely depressed mother, whom I felt sorry for but knew I couldn’t help, was spending Christmas Eve with my self-absorbed, non-committal dad. I had to do that as well. It had become something of a tradition for Hanna and me since our parents got divorced. One short visit at Christmas, one slightly longer (but not so long that it’s inconvenient) visit in the summer, and maybe one other visit from him during the year if it was a special occasion.
As Hanna drove the two of us on Christmas Eve morning to Cloverdale where we all used to live, I envied Jenny, wishing I was married so I could also have the excuse of spending Christmas Eve with my husband’s family.
It wasn’t even so much that I hated my dad or resented him for leaving my mom when I was ten, although there was some of that. It was mostly the fact that we would have to spend time in my old hometown—the town we left in order to get away from bad memories and people who knew the origin of those memories.
I still sometimes felt bad for being the cause of our family’s move to Lafayette, though they would all tell me that Lafayette was much better than that old, gossiping, small town anyway. But I wondered how much the gossiping would have bothered them if a member of their own family hadn’t become its source.
The minute we drove into town and began passing some of the recognizable landmarks, my heart started beating faster as anxiety pushed its way into my chest and began to take over.
“Hey, our favorite coffee place shut down! Great!” Hanna slammed her hands on the steering wheel melodramatically. “This trip is totally going to suck now!” She peered over at me slouching pitifully in the passenger seat. “Hey, I’m just kidding. Lighten up.” She pushed my leg playfully and grinned at me.
“We can always stop by somewhere else for coffee later,” she suggested, smiling at me reassuringly, though we both knew the loss of a coffee shop was not the cause of my sharp mood shift.
It was nearly noon. The streets were less busy than in Lafayette but still bustling with last-minute shoppers and travelers. Snow was on the ground everywhere but not falling, making the quaint, older part of town look picturesque and merry like a Christmas postcard. It didn’t seem fair somehow. Such bitter memories didn’t deserve such a cheerful setting.
When Hanna’s car approached the city hospital on the right, anxiety gripped my heart and refused to let go. The pressure on my chest made it difficult to breathe. I closed my eyes and then dropped my head toward my lap, as though closing my eyelids wasn’t enough to keep out the sight of the hospital. I tried to breathe slowly.
Hanna’s hand touched my back and remained there for a moment. Then as she gently began rubbing and patting my back to comfort me, her soft, sweet voice reached my ears. “It’s okay, Iris. That was a long time ago. It doesn’t define you.”
I took one more deep breath and slowly opened my eyes while I lifted my head to the right where the hospital had already disappeared. Letting out a heavy sigh of relief, I turned to my left in order to smile at Hanna. I wanted her know how much I appreciated her compassion, however undeserved, but my smile was cut short by a quiet gasp. I hadn’t prepared myself for the faint light figure that often graced Hanna’s side. But there it was, hovering behind and around her and very close to me.
I recovered from my shock in time to flash her another quick smile, and I was relieved when her relaxed expression assured me she hadn’t seen me panic.
We’re almost there, I told myself. Just a few more minutes. I can handle being around this without freaking out.
Chapter 22
BACK AT HOME AFTER a depressingly dull dinner with our dad, I sat down to my mother’s six o’clock Christmas dinner and gazed around at all the somber faces. I began to wonder if there was anyone in my family besides Hanna who wasn’t depressed.
Yet if one would have simply plucked away all the dinner guests, our home and dinner table would have actually appeared quite festive and cheery with all the bright white lights, greenery, and glittering red decorations hung or set anywhere my mother could have possibly put them. The traditional Christmas dinner that was spread neatly over a red tablecloth set with fine china, and tall gold pillar candles only magnified the extravagant charm and splendor.
; My mother had been busy working all day on setting the table, adding last-minute decorations, starting the fire and preparing food. She had completely worn herself out with work, much of which I deemed absolutely unnecessary for our small family of five. I was starting to wonder. Was she was trying to occupy her melancholy mind by staying busy? Or was she trying to compensate for the heavy, depressed mood that had gripped our house the last few weeks by transforming our home into page thirty-two of the Better Homes and Gardens Christmas issue?
“Everything turned out great, Mom,” Hanna said emphatically. She sat to my right and her subdued bright light hovered beside her. I marveled at how she managed to keep it near with such company. “The house, the table, the food…everything!” Hanna smiled at my mother, who beamed in reply.
“Thanks, Hanna.” They held each other’s gaze for a moment, and as the glow of my sister’s light grew, the shadow over my mom faded and began to retreat slightly. My hope that had begun to expand in unison with the light, however, was quickly extinguished when my mother’s smile disappeared, her eyes dropped to her plate, and her shadow snapped back to her side like a rubber band.
My sister Jenny and her husband sat across from me, so there weren’t too many safe places I could look besides my plate. If I looked to my right past Hanna, I beheld my mother and her clinging shadow. If I looked straight in from of me, the view worsened to the mild fog that enveloped my sister and the inky-black darkness that shrouded Austin.
His murky shadow had amazingly become worse since the last time I had seen him in the coffee shop and definitely since the last time I had talked to him at Thanksgiving. His attitude had changed entirely as well. He had gone from lighthearted and goofy to angry and jaded after the miscarriage to now awkward and distant.
Jenny accidentally dropped a roll on the floor and shifted to pick it up. Her chair’s squeak pierced through the stifling quiet like a fork scraping across a china plate. Nobody said anything. My mother and Hanna looked up from their plates, but Austin didn’t even act as though he were in the same room with any of us. His aloof silence agitated me for some reason, so much so that I wanted to reach across the table and slap the sedated expression off his face. Perhaps some of my rage was being misdirected from his leech. It was one of the most pretentious, foul representations of what I despised over everything else in my life. These shadows had ruined half my friends and most of my family.
I was fed up with them. They were the cause of all of my problems…my mother, Jenny, Nicole, Josh…Patrick. The shadows manipulated and now dominated nearly everyone I cared about. I glared over Austin’s shoulder into the depth of the nebulous blackness and glared so intensely that I hardly noticed its slow, ameba-like slithering away from Austin and down the wall behind him. When Austin’s suspicious eyes finally flashed my way, I jerked to my senses and realized his shadow was now in a crouching position against the wall, three feet away from him.
I hid my shock and transferred my attention to Austin, managing to twist my mouth into a feeble smile. He returned it with a nervous half-smile that seemed awkward and unnatural, even painful, as if he wanted to either puke, pass out, or scream but was trying to keep it all bottled in.
I looked away and he quickly did the same. He avoided me the rest of the night.
I had slim hopes that a grande mocha latte would warm up not only my hands and my body, but also somehow my frigid spirit. Nevertheless, I figured I would attempt it anyway. I was having Kyra withdrawals. Just her presence always managed to lift me up and make me feel as hopeful and optimistic as a nine-year-old child. Going over a week without her felt like denying myself water. Her brief, intermittent texts and occasional short chats were mere drops that only teased my parched tongue.
I needed to be near her. Why was that? I felt foolish for relying on my friend so heavily. I still had Hanna, but she couldn’t be around all the time to hold my hand. Therefore, I was alone for the snowy Saturday late afternoon. What better way to spend it than going through the drive-through for coffee. I would have gone in and sat down, but I was already lonely enough without having to proclaim it to the entire coffee shop by sitting all by myself in a corner with a book. I could perform that lame activity at home…and I probably would.
I pulled up to the squeaky intercom on the giant metal box, advertising various options for coffees, lattes, frappuccinos and teas in playful, colorful letters, and rolled down my window to order.
“Welcome to Coffee at the Ritz. What can I make for you today?” It was a girl’s voice that still managed to sound annoyingly chipper through the intercom.
“Can I have a grande mocha latte, please?”
High-pitched giggling shot out through the speaker, and for a moment I thought she was laughing at me. But it sounded less like mocking and more like the type of laugh one might hear from a teenage girl flirting with a cute boy.
As her giggling trailed off, she eventually replied, “That’ll be three twenty-five. Pull up to the next window, please.”
“Well, at least somebody’s having a good day,” I muttered to myself as I drove up to the window to pay for my over-priced beverage so I could go home to read and drink in peace.
The bubbly young girl who opened the window to take my money looked oddly familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her face. It only took one male voice in the background to immediately jog my memory.
“Now don’t spill the coffee again like you did the first time we met.” Austin’s voice was flirtatious and intimate. It was playful and even charming, completely unlike what I’d witnessed just days ago at our Christmas dinner.
My hand wavered as it stretched out with the money across the vast chasm between my car and the window. It was as if my car and I were in our own remote, little bubble drifting farther and farther away from what I didn’t want to believe was reality. My sister’s husband was clearly flirting, and it wasn’t the first time with this girl. He had alluded to that himself. What I didn’t know was how harmless or serious the situation between the two of them was or had become.
I grabbed my latte, slammed it into the drink holder, and sped around the corner, whirling into the open parking space right up against the glass front where I could easily gawk at Austin and the female worker. There were no cars behind me in line for the drive-through, so for the moment her attention was focused solely on Austin, who was leaning enticingly over the counter, his face less than a foot from hers. His pitch-black storm cloud hovered over and around him, half of it stretching out to the girl and seemingly drawing her even closer to him. They were both smiling as they gazed into each other’s eyes, oblivious of the sinister shadow. I got the feeling they would have leaned in for an impassioned kiss if the entire place had been deserted.
An unpleasant thought suddenly shot into my mind and rocked my unstable world. What if they had already kissed? What if they had done more than that? I was sick to my stomach. I drove angrily and carelessly away, spinning the tires on the icy pavement as I went. An investigation was imperative. I had nothing else to do, so I might as well play Nancy Drew on my sister’s behalf. If he was cheating, she deserved to know.
I surmised that my best bet would be to go back to the coffee shop in an hour and drive by discreetly to see if he was still loitering inside. I assumed if they were both still there, it wouldn’t be too much longer until she got off work. My plan was to follow him—or them—from the coffee shop.
The problem was neither of them was there when I returned. There was no telling whether he had left before her or if they had left together. Of course, I could be nosy and go in and ask one of the employees, but I didn’t know how successful I would be with such an inquiry. How much did coworkers truly know about each other’s personal lives anyway?
Frustrated, getting nowhere, and not quite sure what to do about it, I buried my hands and face into my steering wheel and let out an exasperated sigh. In the silence of my car with nothing else to occupy my anxious mind but the whistling wind and muffled rush
of cars outside, my mind began racing with possible scenarios, each one progressively getting worse.
I imagined them going somewhere to eat, talking and flirting, playing footsie under the table, and exchanging a kiss with their goodbyes. I imagined them going back to her place, hanging out on the couch watching TV, him giving her a foot massage that led to a thigh massage, and eventually getting caught up in the moment. I imagined them going to my sister’s house while she was at work, rushing in, and going straight to my sister’s bed with the fervent intensity of knowing they could get caught if they didn’t hurry.
That last particular scene lingered in my mind as I then imagined my sister coming home from work early and catching them in bed. In my vivid imagination, the look on my sister’s horrified face as she walked in on her husband and his mistress was so realistic. It was as if it were actually happening and I was viewing the scene from a window outside their home.
It was more than I could take. With my face and hands still pressed hard against the steering wheel, I let the tears fall. Tears for my sister, tears for everyone close to me who had suffered because of the shadows’ manipulations, tears for my repetitive failure at helping any of them overcome what only I could see. Sniffling, I tried to regain my composure enough to drive home, but an unexpected, loud knock on my passenger window made me jump back in my seat and gasp in surprise.
I jerked my head to my right and saw a familiar torso—dark-wash jeans and an open, black jacket exposing a form-fitting T-shirt over sculpted abs. Just in case I didn’t recognize him by only his mid-section, Patrick leaned over and peeked in the window with a sad but imploring face. For some mind-boggling reason, he wanted to come inside my car.
I would have questioned his motives, but a few obvious facts made me guess his intentions weren’t all that bad. I was in control in the driver’s seat in a parking lot full of people, his eyes revealed he was clearly dejected, and I couldn’t find his shadow anywhere. Besides, I had been dying to resolve things between us somehow ever since the party, even if I had no clue what to say to him.
Shadow Eyes Page 24