by R. M. Webb
I just settle for the truth. “Thank you for letting me stay quiet.” And now he’ll try to kiss me and I’ll have to kiss him back and any other night I think I’d like that very much. Just not now. Not while I’m already so confused.
Luke takes my face in his hands, gently cups my cheeks and jawline. The look in his eyes is beautiful and I let myself get lost for just a second. With Noah, I felt like he saw me, heard me, but the look in Luke’s eyes says he understands me. My lips part. Instead of lifting my face to his, Luke lowers my face and presses a kiss to my forehead. There’s no golden ping of anything. No purple creeping energy fog. Just Luke, bending protectively over me and the gentle touch of his lips.
“You’re stronger than you know, Zoe,” he says before giving my hand one last squeeze and leaving me to stare after him as he walks down the sidewalk away from my apartment.
Chapter 10
The apartment is dark and I leave it that way. I don’t need any more information, any more stimulation than I’ve already had. I’ve got enough to work through, enough to try to understand without taking in all the things I’d see with my senses on overdrive the way they are. I don’t even know what to think about this right now. I’ve had too much to drink and the only thing I want to do is sleep. I’ll try to figure this out in the morning.
Maybe, while my conscious mind is asleep, my unconscious mind can start uncovering a plan, kind of put the pieces of what I overheard together with the things I know, or at least think I know, about Becca. Maybe I’ll wake up in the morning and I’ll understand things like Becca as my guardian and tragedies regarding what I am. Maybe the conversation I overheard will have a meaning other than I lost my mind and started having auditory hallucinations in the middle of a double date.
I yawn and tuck myself into bed, pulling the covers up tight to my chin even though I’m a little hot already. Maybe the tiger understands everything that happened tonight. Maybe I’ll figure out a way to communicate with that part of me, that tiny flame of strength and confidence that no other introvert has ever understood. Hell, that part of me that even I don’t understand. I have no idea what the tiger is.
Something in the cadence of that last thought matched the cadence of Noah’s words:
The tragedy is that she doesn’t know what she is.
I sit upright in my bed and throw the covers off, swing my feet off the edge and rest them on the floor. Something’s clicking along inside me, thoughts and images from the last few days lining themselves up all nice and orderly and I can almost make sense of them. The tiger is on fire, flaming with anticipation and if I could just … think. The answer is right there. I can feel it. On the tip of my tongue or caught in my throat. Or my heart. Or my head.
There’s the golden pings of contact with Noah and his eyes the same blue upon blue shade of mine. There’s the creeping, rolling, purple fog of electricity that rolls up my arm from Luke. A rush of energy that started in my heart after my shower and left me stunned and sitting on my bed long enough for my hair to dry. There’s Luke telling me that I’m safe and it’s ok to relax and those words stretching out long and important in my head until I believed them.
There’s drunk Becca spewing strange words that bring scalding looks from this guy Carter that she’s supposed to have known forever and I’ve never heard about.
“I’ll tell you Luke, whatever magic you’re using on her is working.”
There’s flowers surrounding a tree that I didn’t see before I sat down and crinkled brown edges of a petal containing a black bruise of a thumbprint.
She doesn’t even know what she is.
My heart’s racing and my breath is rapid and my fingers are flexing and then balling up into tight little fists. The tiger roars and my head is filled with the sound and a great rush of power erupts from inside me and I know. I don’t know what I know … I mean, I don’t have words for what I know that don’t sound ridiculous. But I know what I am. Or at least I know what I’ve been ignoring.
I hold my hand out in front of me and in my palm, or rather, floating just above it, is a golden light. It swirls and pulses and illuminates my room. I imagine it growing and it does. I ask it to shrink and it does. I think about it swirling around my head like a firefly on crack and it does, leaving a trail of sparkles more beautiful than fireworks over water in its wake, only to return to my hand and wait. I look up and find the tiger stretched out on the floor at my feet. She blinks her bright blue eyes and dips her head.
“Hello.” I mouth the word. I don’t know why.
The tiger nudges my bare foot with her great head and nuzzles against my calf. The golden ball of light in my hand flares and brightens. Now what? What am I supposed to do? I have more questions than answers and the real tragedy is that I still don’t know what I am.
The roar of an engine pulling into a parking spot sounds through the apartment and I hear the click, click, click of Becca’s heels coming up the sidewalk. The tiger stands and snarls soundlessly, lifting its great lips to expose long threatening teeth. She flattens her ears against her head and moves between me and my bedroom door.
Becca’s key slides into the lock without even the smallest bit of trouble. If she were as drunk as I thought she was, as drunk as she pretended to be, I’d have heard it scraping and scratching as she struggled to get the key in the hole. “Zoe?”
Her voice fills the apartment and all the corners echo with it and I tighten my hand as if I’m gripping the ball of light and all I want is for this to be over. Since when am I the kind of person who has bad things happen to her? I wish I could just close my eyes and disappear. I just want to be safe. The ball of energy jumps out of my hand and I gasp. Starting at my head, it circles around me, making tight spiraling circles around my body until it disappears at my feet. The tiger flattens herself to the ground, muscles taut, ready.
The Zoe Tate that Becca knows would be kept awake by all the nervous energy the evening at Flannigan’s had caused her. The Zoe Tate that Becca knows would call out, invite Becca in, talk through all the things she thought she said and did wrong. But hey, the Zoe Tate that Becca knows wouldn’t have a tiger in her bedroom and be able to conjure a bright ball of golden energy from nothing.
I look at the tiger with my mouth open, every second that goes by without me answering Becca making the situation more and more strange in her estimation. “You should go,” I whisper to the tiger and I shit you not, she shakes her head. She stands and she paces the tight space that is my bedroom, her body constantly in between me and the door.
Whatever all of this is about, I’m either losing my mind or my entire world is about to be turned upside down. Either way, I’m not so sure it’s going to turn out well for me. If Becca is my guardian, then maybe I’m safe with her. But Noah said I don’t deserve what’s happening to me so maybe I’m her captive. But how could I be her captive when I’ve just been living my life like any other girl, rooming with her best friend and laughing about boys?
There’s the familiar clunk of Becca kicking off her heels. She’s sure to be padding towards my door in her bare feet, coming in to check on me. She’s gonna find me, sharing my room with a tiger, wondering what I just did with that ball of light and I’m not going to know what to say to her.
Maybe she won’t see the tiger. I mean, maybe I’m really just sitting on my bed, in the first stages of losing my mind and I’m one step away from a padded room. I don’t know which scenario I’m hoping for more. The one where there’s tigers and magic — ‘cause that’s what all this is … magic … the word sounds dumb but there’s no denying it — or the one where I’m hallucinating. Like I said, either way, I’m not sure this is going to turn out well for me.
“Zo?” Becca’s just outside my door, trying to sound normal but all I hear is threat, gunshots off in the distance and huge clouds on the horizon.
Maybe I can play this off and she’ll go away. “I’m up, but I don’t want to talk. I’m worn too thin as it is.”
That line wouldn’t have worked on Becca before tonight. I have no idea why I thought it’d work tonight. She kind of giggles and there’s the rattle of the doorknob as she grips it. I’ve heard people say that life isn’t like the movies. That when something tragic and stressful happens, it’s not at all like time slows down. There’s no slow-mo scene with glass glittering through the air and explosions made beautiful by special effects artists. Of course, who am I to ever follow what other people experience?
It’s like my super-senses stress reaction is in high gear because I have time to notice every last detail of the scene. The tiger leaps to her feet. The door cracks open. Becca steps through. Light flares from my chest. I close my eyes and wind lifts my hair and the edges of my skin crackle with energy.
Dark matter circles Becca’s hand. It has a light of its own and seems devoid of all light at the same time. A black hole. A universe. The beginning and the end.
My door swings open and Becca’s face is a mask of concentration and intensity. My friend looks older and harsher and the soft lines of her face have grown hard and dark. Her tiny frame seems inappropriate now. Someone who looks like that should have a bigger body to house all that power.
I leap to my feet and more words come streaming from my lips. “Sanitas valitudo. Incipere memoria plenus manere.” I don’t know these words and I do know these words and I see … everything. I see it all. I know Becca. Not the Becca I thought I knew, not the one I trust, the one I live with, not the Becca that is my seeing-eye dog. I see her for what she is and I’m afraid. And whatever it is that’s been blocking my words has been dislodged and for the first time in my life I know myself for what I am.
“Oh, shit, Zoe. Don’t make me do this.” Becca shakes her head and lifts her hand, dropping great purple clouds of smoke-like energy. The tiger launches herself at Becca. There’s this … tug … on my heart? Head? I don’t know. Like … there’s a question and I don’t have an answer.
Becca spins her hand and flares her fingers. The dark matter spills into the air, a lance heading towards my tiger. There’s the tug again, a question, more frantic this time and I can’t quite understand what I’m supposed to do.
Becca mutters through clenched teeth. “Somnus mors dormir exitus.” The voice isn’t hers. It’s too heavy with authority to belong to my disco-ball of a friend. The word ends just as the magic she sent from her hand strikes the tiger and wraps around her like some terrible constricting snake. There’s a roar and a whimper and another terrible tug that feels like it’s trying to wrench my soul out from inside me and then my tiger falls to the floor. There’s gold smoke wrapped in dark ashes and she fades and collapses inwards. And then she’s gone.
I’m halved. All the power and realization I’d won in the last few minutes deflates and it’s just weak old Zoe standing next to a strange woman wearing my best friend’s clothes and I want to fall to my knees but I don’t even have the ability to do that. It’s like my inner fire’s been on a dimmer switch and I’d just managed to turn it all the way up only to have it turned back down to just barely on. I can’t see myself through the shadows.
I am more than…
I should be able to…
I’m Zoe Tate and I want to speak.
But the words I should speak hold too much power.
I look at the space where my tiger used to be and crumble from the inside out.
I can’t speak.
This is what happens when I do.
At some point, I actually do fall to my knees. I look up at Becca, my mouth slack. To have known everything and now to know nothing is the greatest tragedy of my apparently tragic existence. She’s standing over me, this dark, hard version of my friend and I can’t see one trace of apology in her eyes. All I see is purpose and power.
“Plenus memoria.” Dark waves of dripping and dropping power seep from her hands, move through the air, roiling and boiling towards my chest. “Manere tigris.” Her voice hisses all snakelike from her tight mouth and I’m struck by her magic. It touches my skin and sucks my breath from my lungs. I’m on my knees, eyes closed, mouth open. Devastated. Ruined. I am … nothing. “Leniter plenus potestas.”
All that I’ve remembered I’ve forgotten.
“Come on, doll.” Becca bends over and helps me to my feet. “We’ve both had way too much to drink.” Her eyes light up but I’m dizzy so I just do my best to help her help me to my feet.
“Have we been home long?”
“You’ve been home longer than me, remember?” No. I don’t remember a damn thing. I’m just an empty husk. “I’m just glad I thought to check on you or you’d have slept on the floor all night and been double miserable in the morning.”
“Hmmmm?”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it. Come on. Off the floor. Into bed.”
I slither off the floor and make it under the covers. “I’ll just sleep in my clothes.”
“Ok, babe. It’s gonna be ok.” Becca’s closing the door behind her and it’s really weird but I’m oddly comforted by the barrier between us. I’ll never drink this much again.
Sleep blurs my edges but takes a long time to claim me. Lying in bed, the world spinning, I’m overcome with grief. Hot tears squeeze out of my eyes and I sob into my pillow and I don’t know why.
Chapter 11
Days and nights pass in a steady stream of the same. We avoid Flannigan’s. In fact, we avoid going out at all — which is fine with me. I don’t remember much about that night Becca and I met Luke and Carter, but I think I used up all my desire for crazy, out of control fun for the rest of the year. I’m good with staying in. It’s way out of character for Becca to want to stay home, though. I guess things must have been really rough with her parents. I can’t imagine what it was like for her, helping her mom move out and set up on her own. She’s just not been the same since.
Another symptom of Becca not being Becca is Carter’s continued presence in our lives. At first I thought it was just because Carter came hand in hand with Luke and since I’m in the market for as much Luke as I can handle, Becca’s been choosing to be all self-sacrificial and deal with hanging out with Carter. But Becca’s not really the self-sacrificing type and those two have been heading off and doing their own thing in Becca’s room more and more often, leaving Luke and I control over the living room.
Like I said, I think it’s some kind of crisis because Carter is so not Becca’s cup of tea. He’s all dark and broody and fuck the world and Becca is bright and shiny … my little disco ball. Although not as much as of late. I don’t know what’s gotten her so upset, but she’s a little harsher than she used to be. She’s even been — gasp — putting her hair into sports buns rather than spending the time with her curling iron.
Luke and I have been awesome though. He totally gets me and I can’t believe I actually get to be with him. You know how I used to feel this pull, this, like, inner voice that kept urging me to do things and be things that made me uncomfortable? You know, the tiger? Well ya, that’s totally gone. It’s just me being me and sometimes that means I’m weird and that pretty much always means I’m quiet, but Luke’s cool with that. When I’m disappearing inside my head, he draws me out, but when I really just need to be quiet, he does the talking.
It’s nice.
And kissing him? Or rather, being kissed by him, ‘cause Luke definitely takes control in those situations … well, anyway, that’s way more than nice. That’s … ummm … delicious and wonderful. It’s like he consumes me, but doesn’t take anything from me. Like he claims me, but in that, he’s giving me back to myself. It makes very little sense, but I guess all you need to know is that there isn’t one part of being with Luke that I don’t enjoy. Immensely.
We’ve all turned into these hermit type people, night after night after night spent in the apartment, just hanging out and chatting or watching movies or playing video games. I like it. I don’t crave the energy of many people sharing a space anymore because I have Luke sharing my space and
he’s got all the energy I need. Even if I do worry about Becca getting colder and darker and harsher.
“You think she’s ok?” Luke and I are battling it out on the Xbox, a new feature here at the apartment ever since we started having the guys over on a regular basis.
“Becca?” He mashes some buttons on his controller, sucking his lips in between his teeth. It’s what he does when he’s really focusing on the game and I don’t think he has a clue he does it. “We’ve been over this, babe. She’s fine. Maybe she’s working through some stuff, but I don’t think it’s as big a deal as you seem to think it is.”
He’s probably right. I just worry too much. I really should work on trying to believe him. I just know her so much better than he does. When you spend a whole lifetime with someone, you kind of learn to read the signs when something’s even a little wrong. That’s the other discussion Luke and I keep not really having. I still don’t know how Becca even met Carter. Luke’s been so vague and I don’t think Carter really likes me much, so I wouldn’t dream of asking him. He just kind of stares at me when I talk. It’s fine. The feeling’s mutual.
“What about you?” Luke pauses the game and turns to me. “Are you still having nightmares?”
Ya. Lucky me, I traded my imaginary tiger for nightmares about tigers. And dragons. And snakes. And sometimes there’s this voice, calling my name over and over. Ugh. The voice is always so frantic and desperate … it makes me upset just thinking about it. “Had one last night.”
“First one in a while?”
I hate hearing the hope in his voice because I’m just going to crush it here in a second. “No. Every night. I still have them every night.”
That’s one of the other things that changed about me since that night at Flannigan’s. Not only do I have a big gaping hole in my memory starting right around the time I caught Noah watching us at the pool table — apparently I got back from the bathroom and had more than my weight in margaritas — but now I wake up, sweating and shaking and out of breath. Heart racing. Palms sweaty. It’s awful. It’s the same dream, or at least the same elements over and over and over again. There’s a tiger being swallowed whole by a snake and a dragon lighting the world on fire. Sometimes I watch. Sometimes I’m the tiger. Sometimes I burn, too.