by Lisa Graves
“Yes.” His face scrunched up. “Each time you have made the jump, your energy gets lost and I have to wait for you, your soul and energy, to cycle back. But it’s not a quick process.” Elliott sat up and held me. “I love you so much Miele, and I don’t think I can handle losing you again. I will figure this out, promise. Just wait for me please.” He held my face in his hands as he used what energy he had left on a kiss before fading away.
For some reason, when he was gone I felt totally and completely alone. My mind raced at all the things I had learned today. I was trying to make some sense of everything, but there was a nagging in the back of my head. How on earth could I know what I apparently kept doing wrong on my astral leap of faith when I can’t remember more than the jump…
Being alone didn’t feel right at the moment. I needed to be with someone else. Someone that could ground me. I was running in the direction of Nicholas’s before I even consciously made the decision to go. In less than five minutes, I was tucked in the trees behind his house, looking at the solid wood door of the cellar I knew he would be hiding in.
The creak of the door was loud as I slowly walked into the darkness.
Chapter 3. Paper
“Shut the door, hoe. I need to talk to you.”
I pulled the heavy door closed behind me. My hands grazed the shelves of the cellar as I felt my way towards the back. Towards Nicholas.
“I needed to see you,” I said. “Or talk at least,” I added, since I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face in the darkness.
Nicholas chuckled.
Inching forward, I eventually felt the end of the shelving on my fingers and the start of his quilt on the floor. Using my hands to see, I sat down on the blanket. The moment I was sitting, I was clobbered from behind by a pair of familiar, strong arms. He held me close and spooned me as I lay captured.
“Nicholas!” I yelled in protest, but he didn’t let go. After I quit struggling, I realized his body was convulsing in a peculiar manner. When he took a broken breath in, I realized he was crying.
“What’s the matter?”
He buried his face into the back of my neck. “Lilly. Please, just give me a minute.”
“Kay?” I was so confused as I waited.
Apparently Nicholas couldn’t tell time. We lay like that for awhile. I’m not going to lie, it felt comforting and safe their in the protection of my best friends arms. It gave me the security I needed to try and figure a perspective from the morning I’d had with Elliott. I let Nicholas hold me, listening to our breathing, as I tried to grasp what I was going to have to do in order to have what I wanted, no needed, in this world. Eternity with the one I loved was going to come at a price, but would I have the courage to pay? My heart fluttered in my chest at the thought of being without Elliott. At least that’s why I think it fluttered. I was unsure.
The earthy scent of dirt and the rhythmic sounds of our breath calmed me down enough that I ended up falling asleep. Nicholas did too.
I woke, who knows when, having to pee like nobodies business. His arms were still tight around me. Elbowing him awake, “Nicholas, I need to go. I have to pee.”
“No. Don’t go!” Why did he sound so desperate? It’s not like we wouldn’t see each other again.
I went to get up. He held my hand, holding me back. “Restroom Nicholas.”
“We didn’t get to talk yet.” There was clearly panic in his voice.
He helped me numerous times, the least I could do was hear my friend out. “Kay, but I really, really have to go to the bathroom.”
“Just go in the bushes.”
“Ew. No. I’ll just run home. Be back in a sec.”
He mock scoffed at me. “Girl.”
I made my way towards the door, and Nicholas was like velcro following me. “Sorry. I require plumbing,” I pressed as I pulled him from the cellar.
“Just run in my house real quick. No one’s home.”
Out of the cellar, darkness still engulfed the world around me. I looked at the unfamiliar trees, trying to make out the shapes. It was all just varying shades of grey. Nicholas’s hand in mine, calmed my escalating heart rate, as he led me through the unfamiliar shadows to his house.
He waited on the steps while I ran in and took care of business.
Nicholas was drumming his hands on his knees when I came out of the house. Zipping up my hoodie to warm myself from the cool fall air, and taking a deep breath in, I could practically feel autumn and the change that was in the air. I tried to embrace it. It was what I wanted. Of course there where people I would miss: mom, Sophie, and Nicholas.
Nicholas? I pondered how I would survive without my rock as I looked at his face looking up at me, shining in the moonlight. Just thinking about all the goodbyes I would have to say, I started to cry.
The silent tears dripped down my cheeks before I’d even realized they were there. My emotions were literally overflowing.
Nicholas’s hand caressed my face and wiped the tears from my cheek. “Why are you crying, hoe?”
“I don’t know.” I couldn’t tell him the truth. And for the first time ever, Nicholas didn’t catch my lie.
“If anyone should be crying today, it’s me.”
I blinked through the tears trying to focus. Taking a deep breath in, I managed to say, “Huh? What are you talking about?”
Nicholas grabbed me in his arms and held me close. I was so confused by his emotions that I didn’t fight him.
“It’s okay Nitch-o-las.” What was his deal? “What’s the matter?”
I could feel his chest rise and fall, it was just like earlier in the cellar. We were quiet as he tried to regain control. Nothing shook him, usually. Something was definitely up.
His breathing started to slow, but he didn’t loosen his hold on me. We sat on his porch, under the stars, hugging. Finally he whispered in my ear, “My parents are getting divorced.”
Now I hugged him back. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay? No wonder you are upset.”
Nicholas kissed my cheek and I instinctively pulled away. “Whoa there.” I looked up into his sad brown eyes, “That wasn’t an opening, Nicholas.”
“I know. I just don’t know when I will get a chance to try and kiss you again.” His face was so sad.
“Hey. We’re friends, right? I guess I’ll quit avoiding you. Sounds like you could use a friend right now.” I tried to stress the friend part. Knowing Nicholas, he would just disregard it as flirting.
Nicholas tried to force the usual jokes and laughter into his voice as he said, “Sure. Now that I won’t get to see you everyday you decide to consent to quality time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re looking at the unfortunate product of joint custody.” Nicholas paused. “I’m moving to Oregon with my mom. We’re going to live with my grandma. I won’t be back here until Christmas.”
My heart sank deep in my chest. Claustrophobia started to set in, as all the walls collapsed around me. First Elliott drops major news, and then when I go find my best friend for some sort of normal perspective, whammo! I’m instantly a friendless wonder.
Nicholas could read the panic in my eyes. “It’s okay Lil. I’ll write. There’s still the phone, e-mail. And with senior year starting up soon, Christmas will be here before we know it.”
My anxiety skyrocketed, and my heartbeat pounded in my chest. I’m sure it was all over my face. “You can’t go!”
Nicholas smiled back at me. He misunderstood my need for him.
Desperation in my voice, the question, “When are you leaving?” left my lips before I consciously meant to speak them.
His eyes wandered far from mine. “Tomorrow.”
“What!” That wasn’t enough time. I needed more time.
The sky was starting to lighten, though the sun was no where in sight. Nicholas noticed, “Well, today actually.”
“Today!”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I would have,
I think…”
“You think?”
“Well, I don’t get that much quality time with you these days.” His eyebrow raised as he referred to my avoidance. “I didn’t want to ruin our time together with my family drama.”
There were no words to describe the desperation I felt in my heart. I always had Nicholas there. He was a sort of fixed feature in my life. I could count on him. And in a few short hours my rock would be gone. Relocated.
I felt sick.
There was nothing I could say to change it. I sort of fell into Nicholas’s big, waiting arms, and he held me close until the sun started to come up. I don’t know if he wanted to tell me anything else, it had sounded like it, but there were no words.
Reluctantly, Nicholas broke his hold on me. Rubbing my back, he nudged me into letting go. I looked up, his shaggy blond hair in his face, and he said, “Can I walk you home?”
“Do you really have to go?”
“Yep.”
I sighed and it felt as though it reverberated in the hollow empty loneliness of the morning. I forced myself to stand. Holding my hand, Nicholas led me home. We both shimmied up the roof to my window. I climbed inside, and he sat under the ledge outside. He couldn’t hold still. Fidgeting, he said, “Lil, I have something for you.”
I moved back towards the window.
“I really think you’ll like it.”
“Okay?” I looked around for a mystery present, but I couldn’t see anything.
He laughed at my confusion. Reaching into his back pocket, Nicholas pulled out a carefully folded piece of paper.
“Oh, paper!” I winked at him. “You know what I like,” I teased. It was hard to try and act normal, but in all honesty I didn’t know if I would ever see him again, and I wanted my last memories with Nicholas to be happy ones.
Quietly confident, he replied, “Actually I do.”
I looked again at the paper he held with more interest.
“Hold out your hand please.”
I held my hand out and he placed the note on my palm, but instead of letting go, he held my hand in his.
I looked down. It looked ordinary enough. “Thanks?” What was he up to?
“I just want you to promise me, you won’t throw it away.”
“Why would I throw it away?”
“That’s not the question. Just promise me, Lil.”
I looked him in the eyes. “I promise.” I then retook to looking at the paper.
Preoccupied and confused, Nicholas pecked me on the mouth before I realized what was going on. I pulled away into the safety of my room. He wasn’t fazed at all. Instead he winked at me as he started to scoot down my roof towards the ground. Before jumping to the grass, he looked back one more time and said, “Remember, don’t throw it away…. especially until after you’ve read it. I love you, hoe.” He pushed off the edge and landed on the ground with hardly a thud.
“Bye.”
“Bye,” I whispered back. Just like that, Nicholas was gone.
I lay on my bed, and fell fast asleep before my head hit the pillow. The unopened note from Nicholas held tight in my hand.
I noticed the movement before I recognized, or even heard, the voice. My body was being jostled in a strange, yet familiar way. It was as if the ground were uneven and moving.
“Wake up, fishy!” The spring on my mattress sprang up with her jumping. I rolled over.
“Soph!” I half growled.
She kept pretending my bed was a trampoline. “Wake!” Jump. “Up!” Jump. “Fishy!” Jump. Jump. Thud. She catapulted herself across the room as I went to grab her. I only half opened my eyes as I saw her eying me from the door. That’s when I noticed it.
Holding up my note from Nicholas, Sophie waved it at me. “What’s this?”
“Give me that.” I looked at her, then the paper.
“Why? Is it a loooooove letter?”
Probably. I didn’t know yet. But it was mine.
I was across the room in seconds. However, Sophie was a little sister pro and was safely locked in the bathroom two doors down before I made it into the hall.
“Give me my letter,” I growled through the door as loud as I dared to speak. I didn’t want to get my mother involved.
Sophie sat calmly on the opposite side of the door. “Why is it sealed all funny?”
“It’s sealed?” I hadn’t really looked at it. I had been too emotionally exhausted to even read it before I’d passed out. Crying tended to do that to me.
I could hear a weird cracking sound.
“You better not be reading my letter!” It was hard to sound stern and foreboding when I was practically whispering through a door.
I listened and could hear her unfolding my letter. I couldn’t believe my little sister was reading my first love letter before I could! Before I whispered another scolding threat at her, she opened the door with a disappointed look on her face.
“Why was this folded up all fancy if it’s blank?” She held up the creased page.
I took my opening and snatched it out of her hand. “You are in such big trouble!” I went back to my room and locked the door behind me. Now what was she talking about?
I propped myself up on a pillow and promptly perused the paper.
And it was blank.
There was nothing except a cracked wax seal that Sophie broke when she opened it. I tried to fold the note back up as to realign the wax pieces. Maybe the seal was the message. It wasn’t difficult to refold, but the stamped image in the red wax looked like a lemon.
Random. Then again, it was from Nicholas.
I turned the seal a full circle to the left, then a full circle to the right. I ran my finger over it for a hint of a clue. But no matter how I looked at it, it was still a lemon. Lemons were never a significant part of our friendship. What did it mean?
I unfolded it again and looked closer for miniature handwriting, anything. He did say to be sure to read it. Read what? I crumpled up the note and tossed it across the room. It hit the wall and rebounded under my bed. My emotions couldn’t handle frustrated right now. Elliott basically told me I had to jump off a cliff to be with him, which I was glad to do but hesitant since he said I had done it wrong in a previous lifetime. Correction: lifetimes. Nicholas was currently on route to his new Oregon home far far away. And he left me with a blank piece of paper. Great.
I needed some way to get myself back. I was like a stranger in my own body. I felt the desperate need to be alone. And yet now, more than ever, I felt alone. Completely alone.
My head was overflowing with the uncertainty and confusion from the last twenty-four hours, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to take anymore. There was no one to talk to.
The crumpled up mystery letter stayed under my bed. I didn’t need this right now. I left my room and went and locked myself in the bathroom. Running a hot steamy bath seemed like the best way to ease my troubled mind. Being a little over-generous with the vanilla bath salts, I stepped into the sudsy water, and lay my body down.
I practically melted into the porcelain. The bath was doing wonders for calming my body, but my mind stayed uncomfortably full. I tried to let the thoughts pour out of my head and into the water, but they seemed to be lodged in place. Maybe some tunes would help.
“Soph!” I yelled out.
A minute later I heard her try the locked handle. “What do you want?”
“Will you please grab my stereo?”
“You’re not mad?”
“Nope.” Technically, she didn’t read anything.
There was a sort of relieved silence. “Sure. Just a sec.”
Sophie was a little sister of many talents. Her main pastime was drawing, but she dabbled in lock picking also, and it came in handy when it wasn’t being used against me. She didn’t even ask, she just picked the lock. I could hear the soft scraping of metal over the slow popping of the bubbles that covered me. She was great. She even brought a couple of c.d.s that she sat down with the old player.
“Thanks, sissy hoe. Lock me in, k?”
All was better between us. That’s just how it was with sisters. One minute you’re mortal enemies, the next you’re fine.
“No prob.” The door was shut and I was alone again.
I hit play. The music already in it would be perfect, old waltzes. The rhythmic counts and structure was better than a sedative. I closed my eyes as I lay back in the tub. I absentmindedly twisted my opal around my finger in the bubbles. Before I knew what had happened, or how it happened, I found myself in a ghost-like state somewhere far away from the vanilla scented suds I could still smell around me.
I tried to open my eyes to the bathroom, but being already open to the unknown dark room around me, it didn’t do any good. Then I heard a noise. It was like muffled footsteps, and they were coming closer.
I tried to hide, but there wasn’t really anywhere to go. Any moment I would be face to face with someone. Hopefully they wouldn’t mind my unintended intrusion.
The candle the person was carrying entered the room first. Slowly their face came into focus, and the person was Elliott!
“Elliott! What are you doing here?” I asked, but he didn’t even acknowledge me. He acted as if he didn’t even see me. It was as if I was a shadow.
His free hand was behind him and so was his gaze. He only had eyes for this other girl. My heart sank. I felt a little hurt and betrayed until the flickering candlelight allowed me to focus enough and I realized that the person Elliott was so intent upon was me. But it was the long-haired me that was reminiscent of the memory dream I had about Italy.
Maybe I had stumbled into another memory?
“Please listen to reason, Miele.” Elliott was speaking to the other me.
“Elliott. Mio amore. I know in my heart I am right. We need to jump,” the past me argued.
He took her hand, and I noticed the opal shimmer. “There is no way to know for sure Lillianna. The risk is too great. I don’t want to lose you!”
“I know, Elliott. I wouldn’t do anything intentional to lose you either. I love you. But I know I am right. I know that it is the key to our being together forever, just as I know the sun will rise again in the morning.”