by Ashley Grace
But that day, for the first time in a year, I'd slept deeply, solidly, without interruption and without the rough edges of medication.
I credit Anne for that.
Ever since the moment I first laid eyes on her, I felt different. She made me feel more in sync with the world than I'd felt since Lucy died. And strangely enough, having her by my side even helped me when I wasn't awake. She helped me rest.
But when I woke up that morning, the day after meeting her, I found myself alone in the bed. Anne was gone.
I opened my eyes, looking at the pillow beside me, which still bore the imprint left by her resting head. I reached out my hand, touching the spot where she'd lain, as if the sheets would reveal some proof that she'd been there, that she wasn't just a dream.
The sheets felt cold against my hand. She'd been gone for a while, if she'd ever truly been there.
I felt the coldness seeping into me. She was gone. I knew it in my bones, somehow.
I sat up in the bed, looking around the room. Sunlight seeped in around the edges of the curtains, but it was a fog-filtered light, the marine layer scraping all the warmth and color out of the sunshine. It just made the room feel colder.
I put my feet on the floor and stood up, looking around the room. There was no sign of Anne—no note, no forgotten piece of clothing, no piece of furniture moved out of place. The only object in the room that wasn't an impersonal part of the hotel was my suitcase, waiting near the wall facing the foot of the bed.
I made my way to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and stepped in as soon as the water felt warm. I stood there for a long time with the water cascading over me, waiting for the warmth to sink into my skin, to drive away the cold. Finally, I gave up. The chill I felt came from so deep inside of me, there was no way the water's heat could reach it.
The hotel towels were thick and white. I grabbed one, dried myself off, and dropped the towel on the floor. I walked out of the bathroom naked, the air cold and uncomfortable against my skin. It was like I was moving through a fog, as if the air itself was tinged with sadness and that sadness was seeping in through my pores.
I went to the suitcase, zipped it open and dragged out a change of clothes—black jeans, black shirt, black sweater.
Anne had come into my life like a ray of sun cutting through a hole in the clouds. For a moment I'd stood in her light, bathing in her warmth. And now she was gone, and I felt even colder than I'd felt before.
I opened the small pocket of my suitcase, pulled out the antidepressants, gulped down my morning dose without even bothering to wash them down with a drink. The pills caught in my throat, nearly choking me.
Despite the hopelessness crushing down on me, growing heavier and heavier with every beat of my heart, I made myself wander down the hall toward the party suite. It had cleared out except for Micah in the living room, spinning his fucking knife.
"Micah, have you seen Anne?"
"Who's Anne?"
"The girl I was with last night. Short, pretty brunette, with big brown eyes."
"The fat girl?"
I nearly winced at that, despite the apathy flowing through my blood from the pills digesting in my stomach.
"I wouldn’t call her fat," I said. "Maybe curvy."
"Whatever," he said, spinning that knife again. "Yeah, I saw her. Couple hours ago, right here in this room."
For a moment I wondered how long he'd been sitting in that chair, spinning that knife. And then I decided I'd probably rather not know.
"Did you talk with her?" I asked. "Did she say anything about where she was going?"
"She asked where her dorm-mate Becca was. I told her to check the front room." He gave the knife another spin. "To tell the truth, she didn't looked very happy. Kind of freaked out, if anything. Like someone had walked over her grave."
Another little twinge of pain cut through the fog, making me wince. I'd known it in my heart—there was something wrong with me, something toxic—but it still hurt to have that knowledge verified.
"Shit," I said.
Micah watched me a moment longer. Suddenly I didn't want to be around him, to be around anybody. But I couldn't quite find the motivation to turn around and go back to my room, either. I couldn't find the motivation to do anything.
He glanced over to the kitchenette, then looked back at me.
"It's nine o'clock," he said. "Bernstein's got a Lear jet chartered for five, but he's not gonna collect us until three. Maybe you should go back to bed, Trace. Get some more sleep."
I nodded my head.
"Yeah," I said. "Sure."
I took a deep breath, turned around and shuffled toward the door. Slowly, I made my way down the hall, back toward my room.
The sheets were rumpled and unmade. I didn't try to straighten them, didn't even bother to take my clothes or my shoes off. I just laid down on the bed and rolled onto my side in a fetal position.
But this time, without Anne, I couldn't sleep.
Chapter 4
Anne
If downtown felt empty, the campus felt utterly deserted. There were a few groundskeepers strolling through the main quad—picking up litter, laughing at some private joke—but other than that not a single soul. I made my way to the far side, where the dormitory buildings huddled in a quiet corner away from the main grounds. My keycard let me in, and I took the elevator up to level four.
The elevator doors opened, and I came face to face with the display board for our floor. The R.A. changed the theme every few weeks. Usually it was some educational service announcement about the dangers of drugs or of excessive alcohol consumption. This time it was about sexually transmitted infections.
Halfway out of the elevator, I froze. Posted right at eye-level was a photo of a girl's face, digitally altered to illustrate the ravages of a whole host of STIs. Her eyes looked bloodshot and sore, sunken into her head so that her face looked like a skull. Her skin looked sallow, her open mouth was ringed with weeping sores, her exposed tongue covered in a fuzzy white fungus.
Above the picture, in huge paper letters that stretched from wall to wall of the fourth floor lobby, were the words: "Don't get sick. Bag that dick!!!" A box spilling over with free condoms was on a table in front of the display.
My stomach went sour, and the room seemed to spin. Suddenly, I was worried that I'd throw up or pass out, or both.
And then the elevator let out a ding, and the doors closed in to bang against my shoulders.
I ran to my room, grabbed my towel and my shower slippers, and then went straight to the showers. Someone was in a shower stall already—the water hissing against the tiles, the steam thickening the air. I found an open stall, turned the water up as hot as it would go, and waited. When the steam was billowing up I jumped into the scalding spray, and proceeded to scrub myself raw and pink. After I'd taken a loofah to every square inch of myself, I stood under the water's rush, letting it wash over me, wishing it could clear the worry out of my mind.
But when I got back to my room again, I almost cried. The room felt cold and lonely, the walls concrete, the floor covered just by a carpet so thin it seemed miserly. I looked over at Becca's unmade bed, my eyes stinging, and wished she were in it. I wished somebody, anybody, was there. The idea of being alone was almost unbearable.
The clock by my bed said 7:10 a.m. I didn't have my first class until nine. I was so tired that my brain felt raw, my nerves frayed, and I considered trying to catch a little more sleep. It didn't seem likely, but I figured I'd give it a try.
But when I got in the bed, and put my head in the pillow, I found myself looking up into Trace LeBeau's eyes. Well, a picture with his eyes in it, anyway—the poster of the Belletrists that I'd had hanging on the wall above my bed since the day I moved in. Trace in the middle of the group, his eyes framed by his dark eyelashes, his wrist marked with that vivid tattoo: Bleed Blessings.
I'd seen that tattoo just a few hours ago, but it didn't look the same anymore. The end of each word, t
he "d" and the "s", had been severed by a ghostly scar from when Trace had tried to kill himself by cutting his own wrists. The image of that scar came to me, blotting out everything else.
I closed my eyes, feeling a crazy whirling starting in my head. Just a few hours ago I'd been laying in bed with Trace above me, his dark eyes looking into mine. Now I was back in my own bed, and Trace was still above me, looking down. In the hotel I'd wanted nothing else but to get lost in his dark eyes. Now they made me feel even more panicked, like something I wanted to escape.
I rolled over onto my side, pulling my knees up in a fetal position, and covered my head with my blanket.
-
My alarm woke me up, blaring, at 8:45 a.m. I looked over at Becca's bed. She still wasn't home. I wondered where she was, what she was doing.
Sergio and Angel, probably.
I threw on some jeans and a big hooded sweater, pulling the hood up, hiding under it. And then I ran down the stairwell—not waiting for the elevator—and hurried through the now crowded campus to my class.
Political Science had never been my favorite subject, but I normally made an effort to pay attention anyway. I figured if I was going to be taking on the crippling debt of school loans, which were likely hang over me for the next twenty years, then I'd better take all of my classes seriously, even the general education requirements that have nothing to do with my actual major or interests.
But that day, for the life of me, I couldn't focus. The image of Trace kept appearing in front of me like a ghost. I kept thinking of the way his dark eyes had looked at me. I kept remembering how it felt when he had touched me, kissed me, licked me. I kept thinking of how it had felt to touch and taste and lick him, to bring him to orgasm with my mouth, to swallow him down like a sacrament.
And then the thought of that ghostly scar on Trace's wrist, and of the Belletrists’ keyboardist Sara Sounding telling me about Trace waking up next to his dead girlfriend, and then trying to kill himself.
It went on like that through the whole lecture, my thoughts turning either erotic or macabre, my emotions trending toward arousal or terror, my recent memories so vivid that I felt almost as if I were still living those experiences, and not actually sitting in the class at all. I couldn’t stop fidgeting and squirming in my seat, unable to focus. I didn't even notice the girl who sat down in front of me—I girl I felt friendly toward and sometimes compared notes with—until she took her jacket off and my eyes fell on the words printed across the back of her shirt:
My life and my love, I give them both
This is my heart's blood oath
Lyrics from one of the Belletrists' first hits, "A Heart's-Blood Oath." I hadn't even realized she liked the band.
Then again, a ton of people liked the band. They'd been at the top of the charts for nearly a decade, after all.
The memory of Trace performing that song—at the Hemlock Club the night before—came to me so clearly that I could practically see it. The passion he'd sang those words with, it had shown from his eyes like twin searchlights.
And he'd had that same look of passion and focus when he'd been alone with me, in that hotel room at the Fairmont. And he'd made me feel that passion and focus, myself. And not just last night. Ever since I was a kid.
I closed my eyes and pressed the heels of my hands against them so hard it ached. I needed to calm down, to get a grip. I needed to get Trace LeBeau out of my head.
But how could I do that when his music and his lyrics were a part of who I was?
Chapter 5
Trace
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.
Someone was pounding on the door, hitting it so hard that I heard the doorframe rattle.
I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn't stop. Finally, answering the door felt like it'd be less of a bother than listening to that incessant pounding, so I rolled over and got out of bed.
It was Joey, with a big grin on his face. The redness in his eyes didn't manage to defuse the bright fire shining in them.
"Trace, my man!"
"Hey, Joey."
"I'm glad you're up! Micah just went to sleep, Sergio and Angel are M.I.A., and I'm fucking starving! You gotta come to breakfast with me."
"I'm not really hungry."
"So what? I’m hungry, and you're not doing anything in here, so you might as well keep me company."
"I dunno. Kind of tired. Maybe I'll just go back to sleep."
"Fuck that, man!" he said, grabbing hold of my arm. "You've slept long enough. Who needs sleep when there's coffee?"
I let him drag me out of the room and down the hall. He didn't let go of my arm until we'd stepped into the elevator and the doors had closed behind us.
"I know this awesome breakfast spot," he said as we watched the elevator floor numbers counting down. "It's just a couple blocks from here, in North Beach. A proper diner that all the beat poets used to hang out at back in the fifties, but the owner's Italian and they do the coffee that way. Cappuccino like they make it in Florence, so thick you can eat it with a spoon."
I nodded my head, but didn't say anything in response.
When we came out of the front of the hotel, the first thing I saw was the stone cathedral I'd noticed the night before, when I was looking for Anne. A thick fog had come in during the night, and the cathedral's towers disappeared into grey mist. I thought of the three drunk assholes who I'd found harassing Anne, and the fight I'd had with them because of it. That had been less than twelve hours ago, but already it felt like it had happened in another lifetime… or maybe in a dream.
For a moment I felt another rush of the white hot rage that had possessed me when I found them harassing her. I clenched my fists so tightly at my sides that my fingernails bit into my palms, the pain sharp and bright. And then another thought came to me:
Had Anne come back to my room because she thought she owed me something for saving her? Had it been out of obligation, rather than desire?
A wave of sadness came over me, snuffing out the rage. I let it wash through me, and then felt the familiar numb apathy coming on in its wake.
"Hey Trace," Joey said. "What happened to your face?"
I looked over at him, saw the concerned look in his eye.
"You've got a bruise on your face," he said. "Right on the side of your jaw."
I shrugged my shoulders. "Dunno. Guess someone felt like my face needed to be punched."
"Well shit, I feel that way all the time, but that doesn't mean I actually do it."
I shrugged again.
"In fact, I'm starting to feel that way right now. Shrug your shoulders one more fucking time, and maybe I will punch you."
I raised my shoulders up in a shrug. Before I even had time to drop them back down, Joey's hand swung round and smacked me in the back of my head, hard enough to make my eyes water.
"Hey, asshole!" I said.
He feinted a jab with this other hand, and my hands came up to block it. But as my hands came up, his boot flashed forward, kicking me in the shin.
"Fuck!" I shouted, bending over to clutch at my aching leg.
He grabbed my hood, yanking it down over my eyes. And then he snagged the sweater's pull-cords, jerking them tight so that the hood contracted down over my face.
"What the fuck!" I screamed, swinging my arms out, trying to catch hold of him.
He skipped back out of the way. My hands went to my hood, pulling it open. The first thing I saw was his toothy grin.
"I'm glad you haven't lost all of your fire, you mopey bastard," he said, laughing. "At least you'll still react to physical goading."
I glared at him, but then shook my head. "All right, maybe I deserved that. It's just—"
"Hold on, Trace," he said, cutting me off. "Save it till I get my coffee, alright?"
I pressed my lips tight together, shaking my head. And then I let my face go slack, and shrugged my shoulders again. "Whatever."
The anger flashed back into his eyes, his face going hard. He rai
sed his hand to hit me again.
But before he could, I flicked my hand out and smacked him in the nuts, and then darted out of reach, laughing.
"All right, all right," he wheezed, hunching over with both hand hands grabbing his crotch. "I'll give you that one. Well played."
-
Not only did the café look like it hadn't been updated since its beat poet heyday in the fifties, it looked like it had hardly even been cleaned. The table had a coating of grime and grease so thick it was almost like a varnish.
Joey sat down with a smile on his face. He took a deep breath, stretching his arms out and then up toward the ceiling. He let out a deep sigh.
"You gotta love this type of place," he said. "Keeping it real. No fucking pumpkin-bread-latte bullshit in here."
"Yeah," I said. "Plus, if you run out of hair gel you can probably just rub your head on the table."
He gave me a look, but before he could respond, the waitress came up. She must have been over seventy, looked like someone's grandma.
"Alright, boys?" she said. "What can I get for you today?"
"Big breakfast, please," Joey said. "Eggs scrambled, bacon extra crispy, hash browns, and how big is the cappuccino in here?"
She pointed to an old guy at a corner table, reading the paper. He had a cup in front of him, small and white, maybe eight ounces.
"Alright," Joey said. "I'll take three of those."
"How 'bout you, son?" she said, turning to me with her pen poised over her notepad.
"One espresso."
"That all? You look like you could use a proper meal, son. Put some meat on your bones."
"Alright, I'll take a croissant, too."
"Good. I'll put in your order."
She came back a few minutes later with the coffee. Joey grabbed one of his cups and gulped it down all at once.
"Jesus," I said. "Careful you don't burn yourself. That's not a shot of whiskey, you know."