by Kristie Cook
For some reason, though, I’d had no desire to drink myself to oblivion, my nerves too high on anticipation. Of what I didn’t know. But whatever I’d been expecting, it hadn’t happened, and the desire to go home grew into a desperate need. I was two hours away from campus, though, and my ride planned to stay until the last song finished. I totally should have driven, I thought as several people came bouncing through the door.
I watched for Bex, wondering if I’d have any chance of talking her into leaving early, although I was pretty sure of the answer. At least, until I saw her new boyfriend—what was his name? I couldn’t remember—stumble outside, his arms around two chicks and their mouths all over his neck. Neither of them were Bex. In fact, where was Bex? Still in the bathroom, where she’d gone when I came outside? My gaze flicked between the door, still watching for Bex, and the boyfriend with his bitches. They huddled together near the wall opposite me, not even trying to hide their mini-orgy.
“Oh, hell no,” I muttered, pushing myself off the wall I’d been leaning against as a light drizzle began to fall.
Maybe I’d had enough beer for liquid courage after all, but probably not. All I could think about was seeing Bex’s face when she came out. Although she asked for most of her boy troubles, the poor girl didn’t deserve this. Edgy, disappointed, and now completely pissed off, I stomped over to the trio.
“What the fuck, you dickwad?” I yelled as I grabbed the collar of one girl’s jacket and, ignoring the pierce of the metal studs in my palm, yanked her away while my right hand swung, nailing what’s-his-name in the jaw. While he gaped at me, stunned and rubbing his face, the other girl stepped into my space, her flabby boobs nearly touching my chin as I glared up at her. The ring in her nose wobbled as her lips lifted in an ugly smirk.
“What are you—psycho?” she snarled. “Well, you picked the wrong bitch to mess with.”
Her hands twitched at her side, but not waiting to be hit first, I drove my knee into her stomach. She doubled over briefly, but before I could punch her in the head, her hand came up with a knife in it.
“Bring it on,” I taunted, my hands out, fingers wiggling at her. I rolled my shoulders, trying to ignore the icy drizzle making trails under my coat and down my back.
The girl swiped her knife out, the streetlight bouncing off the silver blade as it swung toward me. I jabbed my fist out to knock it from her hand, or at least to keep it from slicing open my face. The knife never connected, though. Something yanked me backwards, out of its reach.
Not something. Someone. And as soon as the large hands clamped onto my upper-arms, the breath flew out of me. As though I’d been socked in the stomach, but nothing had hit me. I gasped, trying but unable to catch my breath as those hands dragged me farther down the alley, the touch searing through my leather jacket, into my skin, down to my bones. Every nerve zinged in my body like they did when I touched one of Pops’ badly wired lamps. The pounding in my ears barely drowned out the stupid tramp screaming at me, the sound of her voice fading as someone dragged her in the opposite direction. But the pounding didn’t drown out the word, “dyad,” a voiceless whisper floating around my mind as if I should have known what it meant.
My body finally stopped moving, and as the hands turned me in place to face their owner, my fists balled, and a whole slew of profanities prepared to launch out of my mouth.
But they never made it out.
My breath caught in my lungs once again. My brain went numb, any thoughts becoming an incoherent jumble. The whole world disintegrated around us as my gaze met the darkest, most haunting pair of eyes I’d ever seen returning my stare, filled with the same expression I must have held. One that said with no trace of doubt, as if it were a self-evident, unquestionable truth decreed by the gods (if they actually existed):
“I. Know. You.”
I know you. The words almost tumbled from my mouth, would have if my tongue hadn’t been so tied.
Except . . . I’d never seen him before in my life. Trust me, I wouldn’t have forgotten this face. A perfect, heart-stopping, I-want-to-know-what-it-tastes-like face framed by chin-length, wavy hair as dark as his eyes. My lips ached to brush over his chiseled cheekbones, and my fingers twitched with the thought of tangling themselves in his silky locks.
Oh, for God’s sake. What is wrong with me?!
I didn’t know how long we stood there, staring at each other, that zing sparking between us. Seconds? Minutes? Longer? No clue. The sound of flapping wings and the sudden rising of black shapes from the shadows around us jerked me back to reality. Too big to be bats, some kind of huge black birds rose to the sky, and I stared after them, my jaw hanging open.
“Jacey,” Bex snapped from behind me, “what the hell is wrong with you?”
I spun around and blinked at her. “Did you . . . where . . . I mean . . .”
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, and water spattered outwards.
“Why are you still out here?” Bex demanded. “It’s fuckin’ cold! And wet!”
My eyes took Bex in for real now. Her hot pink Mohawk was beginning to droop, some strands already plastered to her head, and her black eye makeup made trails down her powdered-white face. She looked like the poster-child for teen runaways. Water dripped from my own bangs and slid down my nose and cheeks. The drizzle had turned into an all-out downpour. When had that happened?
I glanced around, looking for the crowd that had just been out here, who had surely witnessed everything. For the guy who had turned my body into a vibrating thrum and my mind to mushy oatmeal. Who I felt like I knew almost as well as myself, but didn’t know at all. But everyone had disappeared. Bex and I were the only idiots standing in the freezing rain. How long had I been out here, apparently alone?
“I’m totally ready to scat,” Bex said. “If this gets any worse, the roads will be hell, and I don’t want to deal with it. You ready?”
“Um . . . yeah,” I mumbled as my ears ached with cold and my teeth began to chatter. I followed her down the street to her hand-me-down white Pinto we called Beanie, both of us silent as we slid into the car, and she cranked the engine over. We sat there shivering as she let the car warm up. “Bex?”
She looked over at me. I couldn’t tell if the streaks on her cheeks now were still from the rain or from tears.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “About, you know . . .” I squinted. “What’s his name again?”
She swallowed, and I saw a brief flash of a thank-you in her eyes before they turned hard. “Who the hell cares what it is? We’ll just call him ‘asshole’ from now on. Or even better, let’s never talk about him again, okay?”
I nodded. I’d known Bex since move-in day of freshman year. Her room had been down the hall from me, but since my hair was jet black, I wore Doc Martens, and I hung a poster for The Cure over my bed, she found me in the sea of chunky sweaters and pegged jeans on our first day. We simply didn’t fit in with the rest of the girls on our floor. We had even bonded over our names, somewhat unusual among the Trishes, Susans and various forms of Michelles. I couldn’t imagine Bex as a Rebecca or even Becca, and she loved the story of how I’d insisted on being called Jacey ever since Pops moved me right before seventh grade. Altering my name had been my first act of rebellion, although he wouldn’t let me change my last name. He told me Burns, both the name and the scars, were badges of honor—an honor to my parents. They were more like painful reminders. Anyway, Bex and I had pretty much clung to each other ever since.
I knew her well enough to know she didn’t need a play-by-play of what happened.
“So, is he asshole number eight or nine?” I said as we pulled onto the highway. “Just so, you know, if you do ever talk about him again, I know which one you mean.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve lost track myself.”
We broke into laughter, wh
ich helped to lighten the mood, at least for a few minutes.
“What you did tonight was totally bitchin’,” she said.
I stared out my window, not wanting to make a big deal out of it for Bex’s sake. I was surprised she’d even said this much. “You would have done it for me, right?”
“Damn straight,” she said. “But you never need it.”
“Someday I might.”
“I doubt it.” She let out a sigh, then muttered, “What the hell’s wrong with me?”
I could tell she didn’t want an answer, so I remained silent.
Somehow Beanie got us back to school in the cold rain that turned to sleet, but I barely remembered the ride. Strange, yet familiar mocha-brown eyes haunted me all the way home, and still as I changed into sweats and climbed into my top bunk, finally able to snuggle under the covers.
“Bex?” I said right before falling asleep.
“Yeah?” she asked, her voice muffled as it came from her bed underneath mine.
“There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just too good for all those jerks.”
She didn’t answer at first, unless you count a sniffle. Then she said, “Yeah, you’re right. I deserve better. We both do.”
I didn’t expect a thanks from Bex—that was as close as I would get—but I hadn’t expected those last words either. I’d never really thought about what kind of guy I deserved. I’d had one on-again-off-again boyfriend in high school, but he’d been killed in a car accident, taken away from me like everyone else in my life. Except Pops and Bex. At least I had them. Unlike Bex, boys weren’t a top priority for me as I tried to figure out my place in this cruel world.
The next morning, I awoke to snow on the ground and a strange ache on my left wrist. I massaged it as I stared out the window from my bed, trying to remember what had happened last night that would have caused the ache. The brief fight with the slut? The mysterious guy? I glanced down at my wrist and gasped. The outline of a flame was . . . tattooed . . . on the inner edge, right below the wrist bone. It was light, barely visible, but there nonetheless.
“Is this some kind of sick joke?” I muttered as I licked my fingers and rubbed at it. It still didn’t come off. A few minutes later, I stood at the sink in the communal bathroom for our hall, washing it with soap.
“What’s that?” Bex asked, peering at it closely. “Ah, man, Jace! You got a tattoo and didn’t tell me about it? We were supposed to get our first ones together, you skank. When did you do it?”
I shook my head and tried to explain I hadn’t, that it had shown up overnight.
“Whatever,” she said with a snort. “But if Joe did it, you better pour some alcohol on it. His needles are dirtier than Jenna’s cootch.”
Jenna, Bex’s old roommate, came out of a bathroom stall right then and glared at Bex. She didn’t say anything, though. Probably because one of her hands held a tube of prescription-strength anti-itch ointment and the other a pregnancy test box. With a huff, she turned for the bank of sinks.
Ignoring my denial about the tattoo, Bex made a face behind Jenna’s back, then left me in the bathroom. I stared at the stubborn mark, finally admitting to myself it wouldn’t wash away. Where did you come from? I tried to think if I’d been playing around with permanent markers last week. I had a habit of drawing on myself when I was bored . . . although the skin around the mark was slightly raised, like a brand-new tattoo. So weird. Besides, not in a million years would I draw a flame, of all things. Not on myself. I hoped it would fade. At least winter meant I could wear long sleeves to cover it without looking suspicious. But then I couldn’t help but pull up the sleeve enough to stare at the flame because every time I did, those dark eyes came to mind, perfectly clear.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the guy and why I’d felt so strongly that I knew him. Every time I made my way across campus to classes and while sitting in the dining hall, my eyes roamed, constantly looking for him. As I walked the halls of our dorm, I would glance into open doors, hoping to find him sitting at a desk inside one of the rooms or splayed out on a bed. Something, anything, that would explain why I thought I knew him. He consumed every waking thought for nearly a week.
Then I got The Call and totally forgot about him and pretty much everything else in the world.
Chapter 8
“Jacey, I hate to be the one to tell you this,” Trudy, Pops’ neighbor, said on the other end of the line, “but your grandfather has left this world for the next one.”
Why do people say such stupid things when someone dies? “Moved on.” “Passed on.” “Gone on to the next life.” They’re dead. End of story. They didn’t go anywhere except six feet under.
That’s what I thought about when Trudy dropped the bomb on me. The stupid phrases had irritated me as a little girl when my parents died, and now they abraded me like a cheese grater, shredding me into ribbons. And the reality of her words, no matter how nice she tried to make them, pushed me to the dorm-room floor and folded my body into a tight ball, wrapping itself around my heart and shielding it from the pain. And my brain—it refused to process her meaning. It only wanted to focus on the stupidity of hope for another life after this one.
Because to understand the true meaning behind her words—my grandfather was dead, gone, only a memory now—meant also understanding how completely alone I was. Pops had been the only family I had left. Now I had no one. Nineteen years old and no blood ties to this world. How does someone cope with that?
I didn’t. Bex found me crumpled on the throw rug next to her bed, a heaving, snotty mess. She enveloped me in her arms and rocked me back and forth. I centered on the pain of her metal-studded bracelet piercing into my shoulder, trying to ignore the agony of my heart breaking. She’d left our door open, as we and everyone else did when we weren’t naked or cramming for a test, and girls from our hall came and went, expressing their condolences. Some even stayed, sitting on Bex’s bed or crawling to my top bunk, or leaning against our desks and dressers, trying to come up with something to say to make me feel better. But it was all awkward shit, stupid words everyone says because we don’t know what else to say because, dammit, there just aren’t the right words to express ourselves when someone dies. Our brains and mouths aren’t equipped with the right tools to communicate what our hearts feel.
I wanted to yell at them, scream at the top of my lungs to shut the hell up, to get out of my room, to go to hell. To tell them that unless they’d lost their parents, and their Pops, the one person who had served as their parent and best friend for the last eleven years, the closest person in the world to them, then they had no effin’ idea what I was going through. I had no idea what I was going through yet, the only reason I managed to keep my mouth shut and tune them out.
Eventually our room emptied. Eventually my face dried and I could breathe without a hitch. Eventually the realization that I had to go home hit me. Needing something to do, needing to move, to not dwell, I began to pack.
“Take only what you need right now,” Bex said as she helped me. “The rest will be here when you get back.”
I nodded, trying not to break down again. “What am I going to do about school?”
She patted my hand, the motherly instincts I never knew she had kicking in. “No worries. I’ll take notes for you and tell your professors you’ll be gone a while, okay?”
I nodded again even as tears burnt the backs of my eyes. Pretending I would return in a few days or a week was just that—pretending. I wouldn’t return. Not this semester anyway. Somewhere in the recess of my mind, I knew I had things to do at home. Business to take care of. Pops had a house, belongings, things to be dealt with. But acknowledging this meant admitting to the terrible truth that I was the only one who could take care of the estate. That I was Pops’ only living relative and he’d been mine. And I still wasn’t ready to go there.
“Fuckin’ A, I do.”
* * *
The next morning I stared out the dorm window at the campus with its limestone buildings covered in ivy, the big clock tower rising above the quad, the freezing classrooms and cranky old professors. I would miss the energy found on a college campus, the buzz of youth as they lived new experiences, both inside the classroom and out, but as much I enjoyed it here, it would never be home. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever find “home,” a place where I truly belonged.
With a heavy heart, I said goodbye to the friends I’d made in the dorm, lugged my overstuffed duffle bag down the stairs and out to my Jeep. Bex followed me out, lighting a cigarette as we crossed the parking lot.
“Love ya, girl,” she said as she hugged me for the hundredth time in less than twenty-four hours. “I’ll see you soon, right?”
I gave her a weak smile. “Yeah, sure.”
After the four-hour drive home, I entered Pops’ house and the wave of grief I expected to knock me over didn’t come. In fact, I didn’t feel any different than I usually did when I came home from school—that I didn’t deserve Pops and all he did for me, including the home he’d tried to make for me and Sammy, my dog. He’d stayed with me in my parents’ house for a couple of years after they died, not wanting to bring on too much change at once, but before I started junior high, he decided it time to return to his own home. He tried to make it my home, too, but it never would be. I never let it be.
After growing up as a perfect child, never in trouble and always earning good grades, I was rewarded with the loss of my parents and then moving to a new town and a new school. I’d decided being good hadn’t worked out so well for me, so I thought I’d try being bad, which I excelled at, too. Besides my name, I took on a whole new persona at my new school—the cool girl who cared about nothing, especially not school. The wrong kind of boys liked my attitude, though, and I didn’t want them to see what was under my clothes, so I made myself ugly. Well, different. I chopped off my long, red hair, and eventually dyed it. Then, when I found a new group of friends, came the face covered in white powder, the heavy black eyeliner and the wardrobe change. Along with an even worse attitude. And drinking binges.