Bridge: A Shade short story
Page 4
K&K: Speaking of conversations, Mickey, why weren’t you able share your feelings with your family or your girlfriend, Megan? They all lost Logan as well. Was it easier to finally let it all out to a stranger, Krista?
Mickey: I think it was because they lost Logan that I had trouble talking to them. I didn’t want to be all, “poor me, my grief is so special” when they were hurting too.
It’s just easier to close yourself off. It’s not right, but it’s less painful. Talking about Logan with my friends and family is like looking into a mirror—not a regular mirror, but one of those magnifying mirrors that girls use to put on makeup. What are they called?
Logan: Dunno. Makeup mirrors?
Mickey: Whatever. It’s like every bit of sadness and anger gets blown up and distorted. I just can’t take it.
It’s also hard to be “weak” around people you know. I think instinctively we pretend we’re stronger than we really are. At least guys do. But with a stranger there are no long-term consequences. You don’t have to worry that the next day they’ll treat you differently or tiptoe around you or ask embarrassing questions like, “How are you feeling?” It’s like when you’re in the hospital and the nurse comes in every two hours or whatever to check your temperature and blood pressure. You feel like you’re being examined and judged, and when you say you’re okay, there’s this relief on their faces, and you want to keep seeing that look, you want to make them happy, so you keep saying you’re okay.
Logan: And you’re not okay. Is that what you’re saying?
Mickey: That’s right. I’m sorry. But I’m starting to suspect that some things hurt forever.
K&K: That’s quite a declaration.
Mickey: Yeah. I once read a book by Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box. It’s about an ex-rock star who’s haunted by the ghost of one of his ex-girlfriends’ fathers, a girl who he thinks killed herself because he broke up with her.
Anyway, there’s a line that’s kind of a refrain: “The dead pull the living down.” At first it creeped me out—I pictured a corpse literally reaching out of the ground and dragging live humans down into the grave.
But when the line was repeated, I realized it’s metaphorical, too. The dead pull the living down. They keep us from moving forward. They keep the living from living.
And Logan, please don’t think I’m saying that to guilt you into passing on. Whether you’re here or…beyond, it doesn’t matter.
Like I said, some things hurt forever. There are some voids that can never be filled, because there’s no one who can fill them, no one who fits that slot. I mean that as a compliment, not a fuck-you-for-leaving-us.
Logan (whispers): I know. But I still hope you’re wrong about some things hurting forever.
Mickey: Me too.
K&K: Well…I’m glad to tell you guys that “Bridge” isn’t the final chapter. Since your short story takes place about halfway through Shift, which is only Book 2, you both still have time to find the peace you’re searching for.
Logan: Cool. Um, since you see into the future, can you tell me if the Ravens ever win a second Super Bowl?
K&K: In which universe, yours or ours?
Logan: You just answered my question. (pumps fist) YES! Dude, up top. (raises hand for high-five from Mickey, who misses him by several inches)
K&K: Thanks for this exclusive interview, guys—wait’ll we tell our friends we got to sit down with the Keeley Brothers! (does victory dance)
Lyrics to “Forever”
If you’ve read Shade, you know that Logan wrote a song to sing to Aura on the night of his birthday, the night of the big gig, the night they were supposed to consummate their love. The night he died.
Logan wrote “Forever” just the week before, on that afternoon when they...didn’t. As you’ll see from the first verse, he started writing in his head that very moment.
He never got to play the song for her, but he did sing it for her near the end of the book. That’s when Aura realized what they lost when he died. They lost forever.
“Forever”
by Logan Keeley
October 18, 20xx
Verse:
Lying beside me in the failure of flesh,
You wait for the words that will let your mind rest,
But I’ve already left you—I’m inside this song,
I’m chasing the rhythms that split right from wrong,
Forming chords on your shoulder, tracing notes on your hips,
I can’t hear your thoughts as they fall from your lips, and
Bridge:
Every day I give away
A piece of me all torn and frayed—
What I can’t keep, I sell for cheap,
Til nothing’s left for you and me—
Chorus:
How can so much love feel like nothing at all?
How can so much nothing leave me dying to crawl
To the foot of your bed,
I should be with you—instead,
I walk away, stumbling, waiting, always waiting to fall.
When you look in my eyes, can you see I’m not there,
Just skin over bones and this flesh that I bear,
And there’s no room for you, and you know I can never
Get out of myself, get over myself,
For even one moment, much less for forever.
Verse:
They all take their shares and they all think they see
This stranger inside who pretends to be me.
They’re a roomful of mirrors in this funhouse of fame,
I shrink and I grow, I am wild, I am tame,
But when I stand before you, I can pause, I can heal,
Because you make me matter—you make me real.
Bridge:
Every day they took away
A piece of me all torn and frayed—
What I couldn’t keep, I sold for cheap,
So now what’s left for you and me?
Chorus:
How can so much love feel like nothing at all?
How can so much nothing leave me dying to crawl
To the foot of your bed,
I should be with you—instead,
I walk away, stumbling, waiting, always waiting to fall.
So I close my eyes, fill my hands with your hair,
It’s your skin and your bones and your flesh that I bear,
If I could be part of you, if we could come together
I could find myself, I could lose myself,
Just for one moment, or maybe forever.
They always say that nothing lasts forever
Well, can this nothing last forever
Now?
Chorus:
When you look in my eyes, and this time I’m there,
More than skin over bones and this flesh that we bare,
When I’m getting worse, when you make me better,
We’ll find ourselves, we’ll lose ourselves,
We’ll take this one moment…and make it forever.
Pages from Logan’s “Forever” Songwriting Journal
These are scanned images of the actual notebook pages from the composition of “Forever.” Here you can see how Logan’s thoughts progress:
From a spew of self-loathing…
… into semi-coherent concepts…
…and eventually real lyrics:
Deleted Logan interludes from Shift (Shade trilogy Book 2)
It was tough to cut these pieces that gave Logan a voice, but ultimately the story was Aura’s, so the novel needed to keep to her point of view. I’m glad I can finally share these pieces with you here.
I. Intro
While I was a shade,
I could see everyone
and no one.
An empty eternity of souls,
alive, dead, crying, laughing.
Once
I thought I saw her face,
but it was devoured by the dark.
While I was a shade,
I we
nt everywhere
and nowhere.
Following the shrinking shadows
like stepping stones across a rising river.
Once
I thought I found her bed,
but it was lost in the light.
While I was a shade,
I heard everything
and nothing.
All sounds in the world,
whirled inside me at once.
Once
I thought I heard her voice,
but it was swallowed by the silence.
Until now.
II. Interlude #1 (between Chapters 10 and 11)
While I was a shade,
Aura started sleeping
on her right side
on the right side
of the bed,
so she couldn’t see the empty space
where I used to lie.
Now that I’m a ghost,
she still sleeps on her right side
on the right side.
So I lie here talking to the back of her head
Until she sleeps.
Then I walk the streets of Dublin
or New York
or Washington
or even here in Baltimore.
But it’s not the same as before,
when I knew I’d return to her side.
Now I’m just killing time,
Since time can’t kill me.
III. Interlude #2 (between Chapters 21 and 22)
While I was a shade,
my family pictured me in hell.
I wasn’t, not really.
But that didn’t stop some of them
from trying to join me there.
I watch Mickey and Siobhan
walk across our high school stage
where we once performed.
The adoring crowd whistles and claps.
But my brother and sister
hold no instruments
and sing no songs.
They collect their diplomas
and stride into the future,
on a path I can never follow.
IV. Outro (at the original end of the book)
While I was a ghost,
I wanted nothing more
Than to live again.
She gave me that chance.
But to take it,
to remain in this world,
knowing her secret,
one I couldn’t keep,
was a chance I couldn’t take.
Never.
Ghosts can’t lie.
So the moment she told me
her father was a ghost,
I knew I would leave.
I would take her secret
to a world where no one can pluck it out of me,
where no one can hurt her.
Ever.
In her world,
only he knows her secret.
Now that I’ve looked him in the eye,
I know it’s safe with him.
I know she’s safe with him.
Forever.
Thank you for spending time with Logan! He’s always held a special place in my heart, so it makes me happy to share his story, both on the page and behind the scenes.
If you want to read more about him and his world of ghosts, check out these novels available on Kindle:
Shade
Shift
Shine
And look for Zachary’s and Martin’s stories later this year!
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Digital Edition 1.0 © 2013 by Jeri Smith-Ready
“Bridge” first appeared in the anthology Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions, edited by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong, Harper Teen, 2011.
Cover design by Reece Notley © Jeri Smith-Ready
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Where such permission is sufficient the author grants the rights to strip any DRM which may be applied to this work.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Bridge
About Bridge/Shade, with links
Interview with Mickey and Logan
Lyrics to “Forever”
Logan’s songwriting journal
Deleted scenes from Shift
A brief “Thanks!” to readers
Copyright