As I fell, the entire scene proceeded in slow motion. The horrific, hazy outline of a massive shadow flew toward me like a giant, black bat with wings outstretched as pain shot up my arm and shoulder amidst the sickening sound of flesh grinding against asphalt. Bits of gravel embedded themselves underneath my skin, and drops of blood easily found exits and rose to the surface as if hurriedly trying to escape my looming fate.
The bat-like shadow was a mere five feet away and moments from surrounding and entrapping me, when a bright flash of light dived in between us, blocking my view. I had just enough time to realize the bright flash of light was the glowing man selflessly jumping between me and the shadow before everything went blindingly white and I woke up.
As I lay in bed panting and sweating, an unusual realization began to creep into my mind about the glowing man from my reoccurring dream. I had seen him hundreds of times in those dreams, and every time there was always a strange recognition as though I knew him. But it was different now. I couldn’t get the image of him running beside me out of my head. I kept replaying it over and over until it finally clicked. The glowing man from my dreams was the same glowing man I had seen talking with Kyra and Patrick.
But how could that be? I had been having these dreams way before I ever saw him in real life. I had no explanation.
I was so anxious to see Kyra and Lexi, I actually got to school early in hopes they’d be early too. They weren’t. In fact, the room was quite desolate with only three single students in the back, slouching in their seats as if they had hangovers. So I just sat and waited in the cold silence of the empty room.
The last time I had seen either Lexi or Kyra was New Year’s Eve last week. It had been a measly little party at my house and honestly felt less like a celebration and more like an awkward family gathering after a funeral where there’s food and time for fellowship with people you haven’t seen in a while, but nobody is sure how much “fun” is acceptable.
The bitter suffering of my sister Jenny would have been bad enough. She was now staying with us and remained in her room all the time. Her raging shadow had become so overwhelming and overpowering, though, I could still sense it behind her closed door.
Disappointingly, the two people I would have counted on to liven up the party, Kyra and Hanna, had also added to the heavy mood in their own ways. Kyra had seemed somewhat distracted with her parents remaining in the hospital and her younger sister at the party with her. Also, for some reason, Hanna was incredibly tired and weak. She didn’t even stay up for the countdown. I’d asked her if she was getting sick, but she had brushed it off as nothing and tried to act more energetic. She had obviously just been playing it off so we wouldn’t make a big deal about it.
Lexi was the only one who had been her normal, easygoing self, and I was highly grateful for her constancy in my inconstant life.
“Iris!” As if on cue, Lexi’s high-pitched, excitement leaped across the classroom and lifted me from my melancholy musing. With arms outstretched, she rushed to me as I stood up and opened my arms just in time to receive her.
She pulled away and grinned sincerely. “It’s been forever! Or it at least seems that way…How’ve you been?”
Her last sentence was full of meaning I wasn’t comfortable discussing out loud in front of the three early-comers in the room who had been partially revived to life by Lexi’s loud entrance. I glanced around anxiously and then indicated for Lexi to sit down in the desk beside me so we could talk quietly.
Once seated, she leaned in toward me and whispered, “So how’s Jenny?”
“Still bitter and grumpy…and depressed…and determined to stay that way.” I smirked cynically and shook my head. “I feel really bad for her, but I don’t know what to say. Even if I did know what to say, I don’t think she’d listen. It seems like she’s made up her mind about leaving Austin and hating his guts for eternity, even though he’s called several times to try to talk to her and apologize.”
Lexi looked at me questioningly, so I clarified. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I know how much of a right she has to never want to see him again. But I at least think she should hear him out. I don’t know if getting back together with him is the best idea or not, but maybe if they talk they’ll either work it out or he’ll stop calling.”
“Do you think he wants to work things out with her?”
“I don’t know. It sounds like it. But I don’t see that happening right now. Not with Jenny’s attitude toward the whole thing. She tries to act all tough like she can live without him and doesn’t need him, but I know she’s hurting.”
A couple of giggling girls strolled through the door, rattling the silence with their laughter, which seemed as out of place and rude as cackling at a funeral. I pushed aside my unwarranted indignation, ignored them, and leaned in closer to Lexi.
“What’s worse is that my mom won’t talk to her either. So the only one she shares anything with is Hanna who’s too tired lately to give her much undivided attention.”
“Why won’t your mom talk to her?”
I hadn’t told Lexi the complete story of how I had broken the news to my mom and Hanna after finding out about Austin. I sighed and stared dismally at the floor. “When I told my mom what I had seen, she started bawling. Do you remember that guy she was dating for a while?”
“Tom something, right?”
“Right. Well, apparently he was married.”
Lexi reacted just as I thought she would. Jaw to the floor and speechless.
“Yeah. I know. She didn’t know he was married while she was with him. I guess when she dumped him a while back, that was why.”
Lexi closed her mouth slowly as her face melted into an expression of pity for my heartbroken mother.
“Anyway, that’s why she’s been so upset lately. But hearing about Austin being with another woman brought out that guilt she’s been carrying around about being the ‘other woman’.”
“But she didn’t know that when she was with him!” Lexi said adamantly.
“I know! That’s what Hanna and I keep trying to tell her, but she won’t listen. Of course she pretends she does, but I can tell she doesn’t believe it by the way she’s still moping around all depressed.”
Lexi frowned and sank in her seat just as Mr. Delaney walked in with his briefcase in hand. “Good morning, girls. You’re here early.” He smiled, but it wasn’t his usual, melt-the-ice-in-the-room and make-everyone-warm-and-comfortable smile. I could tell there was some turbulence just beneath it, part of which he seemed almost purposeful in revealing to me as he gazed at me with compassion and pity. But the other part was off-limits, guarded by his eyes as they deflected to his desk under furrowed eyebrows. It was almost as though he felt sorry for me for something I only knew so much about, and he wasn’t planning on enlightening me.
As several other students waltzed in and took their seats, Lexi and I sat in silence—Lexi in solemn meditation and me in anxious paranoia. I glanced at the clock. It was three minutes to the bell. I was beginning to wonder if Kyra was ever going to make it to school.
I plopped my elbows on my desk, closed my eyes, and began rubbing my temples. I was attempting to drown out the chaotic noise of the hallway, push back and quiet the unanswered questions bouncing around obstinately in my head, and focus on class after two long weeks of no school. With the lapse in school work and all the trauma I had experienced over the break, I was beginning to think my brain would continue recoiling into itself until it hardened into a stiff rock. I was doing my best to massage it into moldable putty again.
I hadn’t made much progress when the faint padding of ballet flats lightly entering the room accompanied by the swish of an oversized bag brushing against a slender body made me pause. It was undoubtedly Kyra.
I was about to holler her name but hesitated after seeing her reaction to Lexi’s prompt hello. She merely waved with a slight smile and trekked straight past us to Mr. Delaney who was sitting at his desk, scanning some paper
s. He lifted his face to hers as she sat down in the empty chair by his desk, and they immediately began conversing with each other in hushed tones as though picking up a conversation they had paused just moments earlier.
My feelings would have been hurt were it not for the gravity in their faces. Whatever they were discussing, it was serious. A minute after the bell rang, she eventually shuffled over to us to take her seat, looking completely worn out. Her appearance and expression reminded me of an athlete whose training had caused her to exert more energy than humanly possible and to get much less sleep than humanly needed. She had been busy taking care of her sister and house while her parents were in the hospital, but surely all the responsibility and extra work couldn’t take that much out of you.
“How’s your sister?” Kyra asked as she slumped in her seat with a sigh but with genuine concern in her eyes.
“She’s all right, I guess.”
Lexi lifted an exaggerated eyebrow at my massive understatement.
“Okay, she’s not so good. She hates Austin’s guts and won’t talk to him or anybody else right now. She’s miserable.”
Kyra smiled at me sympathetically, gently patted my hands folded on my desk, and looked me in the eyes. “I’m sorry to hear that. Just know you’re doing all you can do for now. I know it’s hard to believe, but she’ll eventually be okay.”
The way she said, “for now,” confused me, but she didn’t pause long enough for me to question her about it.
“But actually,” she continued, “I was asking about Hanna.”
That took me by surprise. Of all the people she could have asked about (my mom, Jenny, Austin, me) her first question had really been about Hanna. I had to pause for a second to remember what was even wrong with Hanna.
“Um…well…I guess she’s okay. I mean, she still acts kind of tired and not like herself. Our mom thinks she’s starting to get the flu.”
She nodded slowly and stared past me at the wall, chewing her bottom lip as though she were debating whether or not to tell me something. As Mr. Delaney got up and walked to the podium to address the class, she finally snapped out of her stupor and turned to me with an irresolute smile. “Well, just keep an eye on her. Sometimes those things can get out of control.”
I had forgotten Kyra’s words until Wednesday morning when I had noticed Hanna’s pale face and sluggish movement as she sat barely touching her breakfast. When I asked her how she was feeling, she just nodded feebly and said she was fine. Naturally.
As I sat in my sixth hour, eyeing the clock, Kyra’s words came to my mind again. Sometimes those things can get out of control. I hoped it wasn’t some horrible prophesy and wondered what on earth I would do if it was.
School had been boring all day, and I was distracted with way too much on my mind. It felt as if my brain was a small table with piles of junk covering every square inch, and that it was my job to carefully examine, question, worry about, and fix every little piece. If one more thing was added, I just knew stuff was going to start falling off and crashing on the ground.
Because of all the seemingly larger and more demanding pieces covering my table lately, Josh and Nicole had been somewhat pushed to the side. But as I sat in Science and glanced over at them, both with faint, hazy shadows hovering overhead, I couldn’t help but wonder where I went wrong. Surely there was something I could have done to prevent them from being sucked into Mike’s gang of drunken idiots with their resultant shadows.
The last bell blared over the speakers, announcing I was free to go home. For some reason, though, I didn’t want to. Maybe it was because the shadows that tormented my mother and Jenny were plaguing our home, making it less of a safe refuge and more of a haunted house of horrors. Or maybe because school was the only place I occasionally saw Patrick, now that he was back from suspension. Even though he never spoke to me and we didn’t share third hour anymore with the semester change. It was stupid and foolish, but I kept kidding myself that someday he would turn around and realize he legitimately cared about me after all.
I picked up my things without saying a word, walked out the door, and began meandering in a daze down the hall to my locker. Once opened, my locker door became a makeshift shield as I stuffed my head in the familiar metal box. I was in no mood to deal with people or their shadows.
“Hey.”
A familiar male hand lightly touched my lower back which sent an electric shock through to my stomach and revived my dormant butterflies. Correction. I was in no mood to deal with most people and their shadows.
I spun around and crashed my back against the locker next to mine in surprised excitement. The loud, tin bang echoed in the awkward silence, and I laughed nervously to cover it up.
“Hey, Patrick.” I smiled warmly at him despite the fact that his shadow had returned. Only now it was hovering off to the side a few yards away, looking as though it were monitoring Patrick’s every move, but for some reason keeping a distance.
Instead of melting his cold, standoffish exterior with my warm compassion as I had hoped, my smile seemed more like a knife in his side. Pain flooded his eyes and he ducked his head.
He sighed, but then shook his head decisively, looked up to his left with tightly pressed lips, and finally shifted his gaze to me. “Iris…I’m…I’m not worthy enough to stand in front of you right now. I don’t know why I’m even here talking to you. I’m no good for you, and you know it. You really should just leave me alone.” His tone was harsh and borderline malicious, but it sounded forced and fake.
I took a deep breath. If I was ever going to suck up my anxiety and fear and attempt to reconcile our mess of a relationship, now was the time. The way he was talking, I wasn’t sure I would be allowed another chance.
“Patrick…” I squinted my eyes as they bore deep into his, trying to peer through the intense green portals of his soul to find the real Patrick. What I saw, or at least thought I saw, hiding behind his acidic shell was a guilt-ridden boy who needed to accept forgiveness.
“I want you to listen to me. And don’t just listen, but actually trust what I say. Because I mean every word.” I stepped forward and reached out both my hands to touch his arms. His shadow flinched. “I forgive you. I don’t know why you did what you did. But somehow, I know you didn’t want to. Now you need to forgive yourself.”
Patrick looked surprised and slightly hopeful, blinking a few times as if he were seeing me for the first time. He opened his mouth to say something and then shut it. The speck of hope remained in his face but appeared to be fighting against some stronger force. At last, he smiled sadly at me and moved to grab my hands. He squeezed them, staring fervently into my eyes while his glistened with repressed tears. His voice was a whisper. “I don’t want you to give up on me.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Then I won’t.”
He dropped my hands and turned to rush out the door.
I stood motionless as the door slammed open and then shut. To my far left, another familiar figure stood perfectly still down the hall and stared in my direction. I twisted my head slightly and his blurry image came into focus. Josh was glaring at me with disgust written all over his face. I had no idea how long he’d been standing there, but he didn’t stay for long. Once he saw me looking his way, he rolled his eyes and stomped away in the opposite direction.
It took a full minute for me to move, another two minutes to convince myself Patrick and Josh were both gone and it was safe to head to my car, and the whole ride home to shove the confusion and guilt I was still dealing with from both of them to the back of my mind.
When I got home and found Austin’s car parked in our driveway with him still in it, I cringed, wishing I had stayed at school.
As I walked to the front door and past his car, he stepped out and flagged me down. “Hey, Iris, wait up.”
He shut his door and wandered over to me, looking at the ground as his feet crunched the snow.
He didn’t know I was the one who had caught him and ra
tted him out. The memory made me sick and angry, but then I glanced up. Instead of his usual inky black shadow, the one over his head now seemed less vicious, more likely to represent depression than depravity…and it wasn’t alone. Entangled with it in a violent dance a foot above Austin’s head was a brilliantly luminous being that glowed and pulsated with powerful determination.
Austin lifted his head to me, and I attempted to hide my shock.
“I know Jenny doesn’t want to see me at all, but I need her to listen to me before she makes any rash decisions.” His eyes pleaded with me. “Do you think you could go in and convince her to come to the door?”
If I hadn’t seen the war going on over his head, I might have given some flippant response without thinking. But his tortured face and the intense battle at which I was trying hard not to stare transformed my mood dramatically. He obviously wanted a second chance with my sister, and I was confident this light figure would ultimately triumph over his shadow and keep him from screwing it up again.
“I’ll do my best.” I nodded encouragingly and rushed inside. Jenny and our mom were on the couch in the living room, mindlessly watching some daytime television show.
I considered talking to her there, but I thought my mother’s pessimism might sway her decision. “Jenny, can I talk to you for a second?”
Jenny sighed and rolled her eyes but got up and stomped to my room after me. I shut the door.
Immediately after shutting my door, I regretted it, feeling uneasy and intimidated by her overbearing shadow that had followed her in. They plopped down heavily on my bed, and I turned away to my dresser mirror. I began pulling out my makeup, pretending to touch up my face and hoping she wouldn’t ask why. My spontaneous plan was to fake putting on makeup in order to look at her through my mirror as I presented my case. That way I could see her without having my vision assaulted by her menacing storm cloud.
“Well?” Jenny glared at my reflection in the mirror.
This was going to be harder than I thought.
Shadow Eyes Page 26