Sun Poisoned (The Sunshine Series)

by Rae, Nikki

  “That’s Skinny,” Manny waves and smiles, so I do the same. Skinny waves back.

  Behind him is a heavier man with poofy strawberry blond curly hair and an equally puffed out beard. “Bear,” Manny introduces, waving a hand in his direction.

  Bear steps between a stand that holds a trombone, trumpet, tambourine, and what can only be described as a huge brass bell to shake my hand.

  In the far corner of the room is a guy standing behind the xylophone with bronze skin and dark hair covered with a baseball cap, smiling though a five o’clock shadow and looking pumped.

  “That’s Pete Peebs,” Manny indicates. “But we just call him Peebs.”

  Just when I think there are no more band members to introduce, a guy in the opposite corner as Peebs with a bald head and a long, shaggy beard tucked behind his guitar strap waves a hand in my direction. “I’m Ewok!” he announces.

  I have to laugh. “Hi.”

  Manny gestures to the keyboard, and I walk over to it and sit down, trying to not let my nerves get the best of me.

  “So I thought we could just start playing,” Manny tells me, taking his place behind the microphone in the midst of all the instruments. “You can just join in whenever you’re comfortable.”

  I have to fight the urge to gulp. “But I have no clue what the songs are like.” Sure, I’ve heard a few of them at shows, but I don’t know them well enough to just play them by ear.

  They all start laughing. Really loudly.

  “Dude, relax,” Bear says, positioning a red sweatband onto his curly mop head.

  “Yeah,” says Peebs, smiling. “Manny never knows what he’s doing. Just improvise, and you’ll be fine.”

  So I nod and wave them on to start playing.

  Their chaotic music wastes no time slamming and crashing around me. They start off fast, slowing only a fraction when the rhythm kicks in. It’s punk gypsy music, and then jazz and blues when Manny starts singing the first few lines:

  Baby, when I see you

  I want to eat a piece of you

  ‘Cause it’s no fun

  Being on the run

  And falling apart

  The music begins to build and my hands start moving to the song on the smooth, cold keys. I play the low notes along with the drums while softer, lighter ones trail up and down, making intricate progressions that go alongside the xylophone and guitar. I find my place in this, stringing out complicated Jazzy trills and deep bluesy pounds.

  We go through this for the entire song. We each tell our own stories with the instruments as Manny sings his about a zombie boy searching for a girl, eventually eating her heart and then brain.

  When the song is over, I get nods and smiles of approval all around, so we continue through the next few songs.

  Then we’ve suddenly played them all: tales of zombies trying to find love without eating it, mermaids being ashamed of their fins, and aliens losing the keys to their spaceships.

  It’s eight o’clock at night before we come up for air.

  “Holy shit,” Manny says. “You guys hungry?”

  So after a stop at Denny’s and an hour of pancakes, waffles, and chatter, it’s decided that I will be playing with them on their night, two weeks from now. I head home trying to convince myself that yes, this is my life now, and yes, things like this happen. And yes, everything is freaking awesome right now.

  We make plans to practice again later in the week and we part ways, them going back to the apartments, me going back to the club.

  I work the merch of a techno/grunge/mathcore band while they play until about midnight, when one of the members relieves me to work his own booth.

  It’s twelve thirty when I’m back at my apartment and I’m too wired from my awesome music-filled day to go to sleep.

  I twist the keys in my door and before I have it all the way open, I hear Myles saying, “Sorry.”

  It comes from the kitchen and when I face it, he’s standing there.

  “I know I should have called before coming over, but under the circumstances, I thought you’d forgive me.”

  “Circumstances?” I kick off my boots and sit on the sofa, scooting over so Myles can join me.

  “Are we going to pretend that you didn’t wake up screaming this morning?” His voice is quiet and light, but it has an edge to it.

  I’m busy playing with a torn seam in the knee of my jeans, but I smile, trying to make a joke when I know he doesn’t find it funny. “Oh, those circumstances.”

  We’re both quiet.

  “How was practice today?” he asks.

  I smile for real now, remembering just how awesome it was. “Amazing,” I say. “They really want me to play with them.”

  Myles’ hand finds mine. “That’s great.” We lean into each other. “It would be impossible for them to not love you.”

  I snort. “Yeah, okay.”

  Myles moves even closer. Our knees touch. I let them.

  “I missed you today,” he says.

  “What did you end up doing?” I lean my head on his shoulder. I missed him too.

  “I took Malakhi to the dog park.” I can see through the corner of my eye that he’s smiling. “He loved it.”

  I haven’t seen much of Myles’ dog lately. I haven’t even ventured into his apartment once yet. It’s really stupid, but I’m just more comfortable with him in mine; a part of the old Sophie clinging on for control.

  “I bet.” I yawn.

  Myles kisses my temple and I feel a gush of warmth pump from that spot and spread across my face. I kiss his cheek back, and the same sensation seems to flood his face.

  Before I can think about it, our mouths are touching.

  That saying, “Time stops”? They’ve got it all wrong. It’s more like time stretches. It’s a beating thing that moves with us. Pulses. Lives.

  His hand scoops my jaw, my hands are somewhere at the back of his head.

  The contest always begins somewhere about now. My lungs and heart and brain all start competing for the most attention. Part of me wants this to go on forever, the other one—the one that usually wins and gets freaked out—pulls away.

  Myles’ hand doesn’t leave my face. “You want to stop,” he says quietly. He already knows.

  “I’m sorry.” I don’t open my eyes, but I untangle myself from him.

  He kisses my forehead and hugs me. “I wish you would stop doing that,” he whispers in my ear.

  I clear my throat. “What?”

  Myles pulls away, still holding onto my hand, and I open my eyes to look at them both entwined around each other.

  “Apologizing,” he says it like it’s obvious, and it probably should be at this point.

  Not that Myles and I do this every day, but every time we have, I’m always the one who stops it. No matter if I’m uneasy or not, my body gets stiff, my heart pounds in my throat, and I end it.

  “You know I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Myles continues. “I want you to tell me when I am.”

  My eyes fix to the middle of the coffee table in front of us. “It’s not you. I’m just dumb.”

  Now his arm is around my shoulder. “No you’re not, Sophie. I understand.”

  If anyone could, it would be him. The guy who saw exactly what was done to me by Jack through Jack’s eyes. I cringe just thinking about it.

  He hugs me again. “I love you, Sophie.” His voice is soft. “Nothing else matters to me.”

  I change the subject. “Are you busy tonight?”

  “I’m yours.” He leans back on the couch and I follow, settling my head under his chin and closing my eyes. I start to feel warm again. My eyelids start to get heavy. And a blink turns into a jolt into another nightmare. This time, it’s one of my very own memories that come up from the darkness to bite me.

  ***

  “Please stop,” I said.

  We were in the van. The rusty bottom was digging into my back and arms. He taped my wrists together. “Why?” he asked.


  I saw the glint of the knife.

  My pulse, loud and desperate in my chest and throat and head.

  “I know you don’t like me or whatever, but you don’t have to do this.”

  ThudThudThud.

  His laugh, a feral fox choking on a bone. “It is not a question of whether I like you or not,” he said. “You simply cannot be a part of this.”

  A flash, then the backs of my eyes were on fire in the backseat of my car.

  I was screaming for it to stop over and over again.

  I can hear him but I can’t see anything.

  You are going to die. It could have been easy, but now I will make you suffer.

  ***

  “Sophie, Sophie.” I hear it, but I can’t find where it’s coming from. Everything is so dark.

  Arms around my wrists, holding me in place. No, wait. I’m on my side. The hands are around my own, held against my chest.

  My eyes open but everything is fuzzy. “It’s not real,” the voice says.

  I’m awake, but I still have to fight to keep things in focus, like at any moment I’ll be sucked back into the nightmare.

  “I’m okay,” finally leaves my mouth.

  Myles lets go of my arms and a light flips on. I’m in my room, in my bed. He’s sitting on the edge, like he put me here when I fell asleep and came back when I started flipping out. I lean back on my elbows, sitting myself against the headboard. Myles is staring at me.

  “I’m fine.” I try to sound sure of that fact. I swipe a few sweaty strands of hair back and I smile weakly at his worried expression.

  “Sophie,” he starts, but then he closes his mouth.

  I reach for his hand on top of my comforter and after a few seconds, he grasps it.

  “I don’t think you understand how helpless this makes me feel.” Myles looks at me now, waiting for some type of a response.

  “I just don’t want you to think that you have to fix all my problems.” I shrug. “You don’t have to be responsible for what goes on in here.” I gesture with my free hand to my head. “It’s a mess in there. It was like that before, and it’s getting better because of you. I mean that. It’s just…I don’t want you to feel like I’m making you speed up the getting better.”

  I trail off. I’m exhausted, my head hurts, and now I’m having trouble forming thoughts that make sense.

  Myles lightly traces the edge of my jaw with his finger and I look back at him. His expression is calm now, the concern faded.

  “You can always tell me no,” he says. “But I wish you would let me help sometimes.”

  I know what he wants to do in order to help and honestly, I don’t want to fight him even a little bit on this.

  I place his hand on the side of my head. I have no clue if this is how he does it, but I hope he gets the idea. I add on, “Okay.” Just to be sure.

  Myles’ eyebrows knit together for a second, but he says, “Get comfortable.”

  I scoot down and lie on my side again, my head sinking into the pillow. I inch my body slightly backwards so there’s more room for him. I nod when I’m done and he situates himself on top of the blanket, his face in front of mine.

  “So…” I say, “You’re just going to make me super tired until I black out, right?”

  He laughs lightly. “Only if that’s what you want.” One of his hands reaches to the back of my head, cradling it. The other holds onto my forearm loosely. “I had something else in mind.”

  I close my eyes.

  I wait for that heavy, tingly feeling.

  And it starts where his hands are; in my arm and at the base of my skull. Then it begins to spread over my face and down my legs. Until I’m finally floating into sleep.

  A few minutes pass before I open my eyes to find myself in the same place. Myles is next to me on my bed, smiling. The only reason I know it’s a dream at all is because of how distorted everything appears. My curtains look like they’re made out of liquid, and I’m sinking into my bed like it doesn’t want me to leave.

  “Hold on,” Myles says, and his voice echoes around me. I’m still staring at the curtains; they’ve stopped swaying as much and become less fluid-like and more fabric-like. “Is that better?” he asks.

  The comforter starts to move on its own like it’s breathing. I begin to hear music playing, soft and far away, but growing in sound. I stare back at Myles, who is patiently waiting for his answer.

  “This could work,” I say, and my voice comes out light and swirls between us before disappearing under the sound of low piano keys and a rhythmic, even drum beat. When I turn my attention back to my breathing bed, the black and white stripes on the blanket have become soft, fabric piano keys that play on their own. The drums sound closer now too, but I can’t find where they’re coming from.

  I search for Myles again, and he’s standing, his hand outstretched toward me, so I take it and stand with him. The music gets even louder, and he starts twirling me around slowly; we’re dancing. My eyes move slowly, taking their time to absorb every detail. I stare at my black sweat pants, my old Rush T-shirt, Myles’ jeans, his plain grey V-neck.

  I lay my head on his chest as we move around the floor. When I glance back up, we’re no longer in my room, but in a forest of red and orange leaves.

  The drumming becomes louder, almost drowning out the piano altogether. I now realize that it’s coming from within Myles’ chest, bumping beneath my ear.

  “Did you write this song?” I ask, but I don’t remember opening my mouth.

  He strokes my hair. “No. This is your song,” he says. “The drum is mine, but it only follows the piano the way you wrote it.”

  So that’s how we spend the entire night. My subconscious writes us both a song that stretches on and on, and nothing comes out of the forest to grab me and drag us apart.

  Marker

  Chapter 3

  “Tissue and Bones. It was a Trick.”—Grizzly Bear

  The outside of White Dragon looks about the same as it did when I first came here four years ago. Jade's known Cookie since they went to Lucky High School, so when he first brought me here for Spring Break when I was fifteen and asked if she would be willing to tattoo me if he signed the release forms, she agreed. Cookie did my wings in two six hour sessions so it would be finished by the time I had to go back to school.

  Standing outside of the melon painted building sandwiched between a bakery and a clothing store, I'm kind of nervous. Cookie hasn't seen me since last summer, when she tattooed a tiny silhouette of a black cat on my inner right wrist. She asked to see how my wings were doing, as she always does whenever she sees me, and I showed her, only after she pulled my t-shirt away to look.

  Cookie has her own problem with sharp objects. She doesn't try to hide it; the thin lines decorating her inner wrists cannot be mistaken for anything else. If you ask her, she'll openly tell you when she did it, what she used, and why.

  But she respects my decision to keep it a secret. We're part of this club where only the members can recognize that you belong. There are these unspoken rules.

  I'm nervous about her seeing my scars. She's seen many before, some mine, some hers, some from other people that she's maybe only met once or twice. But she’s the type of person who likes hearing about how people get theirs. I like Cookie, but I’m not that close to her. The only person who knows about the memories attached to the ones on my back is Myles. I’d like to keep it that way.

  I take a deep breath. I didn’t save up all this money when I was working at the bookstore to back down now and buy something practical, like, say, a car, so I might as well go in. Stevie and Jade are already waiting for me on one of the leather couches when I open the door.

  “Hey, guys,” I take the few steps across the black and white checkered linoleum floor to hug them. “So what's this surprise you wanted to tell me about?” I ask, already tugging at the collar of my trench coat to yank it off. “You guys getting matching butterflies?”

  I to
ld them about this appointment weeks ago; they said they’d be busy, but suddenly this morning they wanted to meet me to get some mysterious tattoos.

  Stevie tucks a thick curl behind his ear only to have the black strand spring free when he playfully slaps Jade on the arm. “You told her,” he teases.

  “No, it was just a ploy!” Jade says in the same tone. “I knew she wouldn't pass up the opportunity to see that.”

  “Did I hear Little Miss Sunshine in the shop?” Cookie's voice echoes from down the hall. She emerges from around the corner soon after; her bright purple hair seems to appear before the rest of her. The only blue that remains in her short bob is at the very ends, where a light pastel form of it hangs on. Her septum ring wiggles when she smiles, closing in for a hug of her own.

  “Hey, Cookie. How've you been?” I ask.

  “Oh just awesome,” she says as she releases me from her bony arms. I try hard not to let my eyes linger on the three pink lines I notice on her inner bicep, one of the only places not covered in images of cartoon characters like Rainbow Brite, Care bears, and My Little Pony.

  “I've been looking forward to touching up those wings all week!” she says, her eyes traveling to Jade and Stevie behind me. “And of course, now these two want something.” Cookie steps around me to enclose them in a joint hug now.

  “Okay, so who's going first?” she asks once the hugging is over.

  “Actually, we have an appointment with Rocko,” Stevie says. “We figured Sophie's would take a while.”

  Cookie mocks offense by sticking her nose up in the air, but then smiles and giggles again. “Well, I guess that'll give us time to catch up,” she says, turning to me.

  Taking my hand, Cookie leads me back down the hall where there's a private room away from all of the open space of the rest of the shop. It's basically a closet with no door, but big enough for her station, which consists of a table that resembles one at a doctor's office, and a chair that looks like it would be more at home in a place where they pull teeth rather than a place where people make permanent art in skin.