Hollow Sight

by Kristie Pierce

  “Often after classes – after I was allowed back and of course after I purchased another car – I would drive around pointlessly and remember her face and her laugh.”

  I note to myself that Liam has never said her name – the one he had lost so tragically. I wonder if saying her name makes the memory of her more painful. As he continues, his voice remains just more than a whisper.

  “It made me even more depressed and one day as I was lost in dejected thought, I found that I was driving much too fast. I was on a back road that didn’t lead to anywhere in particular and when I snapped out of it, I saw that I was driving over two-hundred kilometers-per-hour.” He gives me a look as if to mean something but I have no idea what that means. It’s a math subject; metric versus inches or whatever, so therefore it’s not anything I recognize. “That’s well over one-hundred miles per hour here,” he says eyeing me. I feel my eyes widen in horror and when he notices my frightened expression, he laughs one hard laugh. “I know, insane.”

  I remain frozen in horrified silence. As scared as I am for his then safety, I want to know where his story leads. I hadn’t planned on getting so much information from my question. He shrugs his shoulders as if to play it off as no big deal and then surprises me by continuing.

  “I should’ve been terribly scared. I should’ve slowed down or maybe slammed on the brakes. But all I felt in that moment was the raw adrenaline rushing through my veins and I was anything but scared. Instead of slowing, I red lined the engine. I knew that my new car was fast much like my old one had been, but I’d never pushed it to its potential. I’m not saying that I hadn’t ever sped a bit, but never to this extreme.

  “After that night I set out to find other people that liked to drive the way I had. I’d noticed the local street racers around – and yes, they do exist – but never paid much attention. It’s a hard group to enter in to. They’re like a big family and when you’re an outsider trying to get in, well, it’s not an easy thing to do. I eventually was accepted, and after a couple of months of practice, souping up my car, and watching several races, I, too, began to race. That's also where I was introduced to bikes.

  “I put a lot of time and money into my car, making it faster and prettier as you once put it.” He’s smiling again in an effort to pacify me and I can’t help but to smile in return. “I’d sneak out of the dorms after curfew. I was quite crafty about it,” he laughs.

  “So you used to street-race?” I whisper. “That type of thing actually exists?”

  “Yes. I admit that it wasn’t the brightest idea. But at the time it was something that allowed me to break away from the depression I’d allowed myself to sink into. The desolation alone was exhausting. I was tired of dealing. I couldn’t handle my father’s accusations, my peers’ whispered remarks, and worst of all her parents thinking it was my entire fault. It helped me escape, which was exactly what I needed. It was almost like I could become someone else for that short amount of time.”

  I can tell that he’s leaving out a lot of detail and I figure that I probably don’t want to know the specifics and dangers to that particular chapter in his life. I realize that it’s in his past, but I can’t completely shake the unease that pools in my stomach from the thought of Liam putting his life in such danger.

  “Do you still… race?” I’m unsure if I really want to know the answer, but I blurt it out before I can filter what I say. But I have to know if when he’s away, is he being as callous about his wellbeing as he once had been?

  “No,” he snorts. “I don’t think there are any street-racing circuits around this little town. I have seen some Amish buggies out at night with neon’s lit under their wagons. That’s a bit comical. Oh, and the small children with their miniature horses racing small carts down the road.”

  His joking doesn’t distract me. “But if there were, would you?”

  He considers his answer carefully and he looks deep into my eyes. His eyes are like a deep pool, pulling me under with a strong inescapable current of desire and need. Whoa, that’s not something I expect to see while talking about fast cars.

  “No,” he says simply and seductively.

  I become lost in the trance of his stare and for a short second forget what we’d been talking about. I was going to let the subject drop, but something he said to me before piques my interest.

  “I guess I thought that type of thing was only in the movies,” I admit naively. “Better for a tantalizing movie script rather than real life.

  “Not so much. Trust me though; you’re better to think that way.”

  “So did you do all the extra work on your car then?” I ask innocently. He furrows his eyebrows, as if I showing any interest in car detail is beyond his comprehension.

  “Most of it, why?” he questions carefully.

  I sit up. “Soooo, you probably know quite a bit about cars then. Like if something were to go wrong… you might know how to fix the problem?”

  “Probably.”

  I nod and look back to the television as Liam turns to his side and props himself up with one elbow. I can see that he’s looking at me from my peripheral vision, but I don’t turn to meet his eyes. I’m hoping he’ll catch on to the fact that I’ve just busted him.

  “Do you care to tell me where you’re going with this?” he asks when the silence becomes too much.

  “I was just thinking about that day in the parking lot – when you took me home. Do you remember?” I smirk.

  Liam raises one eyebrow. “What about it?”

  “I was just under the impression that you didn’t know much about cars.” I say as I eye him playfully. Then with abrupt realization, Liam bursts out with loud laughter. He slowly sits up to sit next to me and reaches one hand over to stroke my cheek.

  “You looked so adorably helpless,” he says while still laughing. “I was headed out to practice and saw you sitting all alone in your car, and as I got closer I could tell that you were upset. I couldn’t get to you fast enough.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s sure to get someone’s attention. I’m a regular ol’ damsel in distress.”

  “Breckin, you do not damsel well. Distress you can do, but not damsel. I was eager to get to you because you were crying, not because your car wouldn’t start. I didn’t like seeing you like that. Of course I couldn’t understand why it bothered me so much at the time, but I realize now it was because I was falling in love with you,” he finishes matter-of-factly.

  I smile. I’m glad to hear that I wasn’t the only one to fall so quickly. Liam answers my smile with a quick kiss.

  “So, what is your favorite kind of day?” he asks suddenly.

  “I’m kind of boring.” I admit. “Nothing too exciting.”

  Like me, Liam waits for me to elaborate. I furrow my eyebrows and stick my bottom lip out as I think. What could I possibly tell him that will be very interesting? Nothing compares to what he’s just confessed.

  “I’m like Evel Knievel and jump helicopters with a motorcycle on the weekends.” I say with a mischievous grin. “My bike makes your bike look like a Tinker Toy.”

  “Is that right?” he chuckles.

  “Yep.”

  “Is your bike a Suzuki? Or perhaps a Yamaha? Oh, or a big bad Harley? I'll bet you look real sexy in leather chaps.”

  I’m slightly sidetracked by the word “sexy”. No one has ever used that word while describing me. I bet he’d look sexy in leather anything.

  “Ummm, it’s the kind with two wheels and a motor. I told you, I don't care about make or model.” I can't respond to his comment about the sexy and chaps part yet. I’m too busy not letting him see my pink cheeks as I overthink it.

  Liam lets out another loud laugh. He keeps his smile after he finishes laughing and whatever smart-alecky comment I was going to say next catches in my throat. I lose all train of thought for a moment and find myself leaning into him unintentionally, ignoring my hot cheeks, and Liam opens his arms for me automatically. I could spend the rest of eterni
ty lying in his arms and be perfectly content.

  “Are you going to give me a serious answer now?” he asks while I trace shapes on his stomach again.

  “I told you, I’m boring.”

  “And stubborn,” he chastises.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you every mind-numbing thing there is. Strap on your seatbelt, this ride could get crazy.”

  “Ooooh, okay. I'm ready.”

  “I like music, no kind in particular – whatever fits my mood at that moment. But what I love most about music is that it can fit any situation perfectly. Kind of like a soundtrack to your life. I like to draw or paint or sketch. I like to read, as Elly does. Most of my childhood memories are of Elly reading to me or of her relaxing with a good book. I love getting sucked into a good story. You can travel anywhere with a book. Metaphorically, anyway.”

  “What's your favorite type of book?”

  “Fiction, mostly.”

  “Any storyline in particular?”

  “Yeah, the ones with hot, seductive vampires.” I wag my eyebrows.

  “Oh, you’re one of those people.” Liam smirks.

  “You bet’chya.” I give a cheesy smile. “I've read other stories, too, but those are my favorites. I lost count on how many times I’ve actually read them. But I’m not a snob, I read all sorts of things.”

  “Okay, what else?”

  “I like quiet time. I love my swim time as you well know and I like to take Abigail for runs, which I’ve already told you as well. Morgan and Claire are my closest friends. I daydream a lot -”

  “What do you daydream about?” he asks with interruption.

  I feel my cheeks instantly flush again. I can’t remember a recent daydream that hasn’t included Liam. It’s been so long since I’ve had a musing fantasy that took me to another place without some kind of influence from him that it’s embarrassing. I can’t confess how much I think about him, even now. He’ll for sure think I am some kind of crazy, stalker person.

  “Are you embarrassed?” he asks in surprise.

  “No.” I say too quickly. “I mean… nothing in particular. You know, random things.” This just makes his interest pique even more.

  “Like….” he probes.

  I sit mute. I begin pulling at a loose string on one of the many blankets we’re laying on, trying very hard not to meet his stare. I can feel that he’s looking at me even though I’ve averted my gaze to the television.

  “I’ll just assume it’s something bad if you don’t tell me,” he whispers in my ear.

  “Oy. You, okay? I daydream about you.” I admit as my cheeks turn from pink to deep red. Why oh why does this beautiful boy make me feel so self-conscious? I never have embarrassed easily and now for some reason Liam can do it with just a look.

  His response surprises me. He takes my face into his hands as I’m purposely looking the opposite direction now due to the fact I’m completely mortified, and waits until I look into his hypnotic stare.

  “Me too,” he says tenderly.

  “You do?” I ask in disbelief.

  “Of course I do,” he responds without any hint of humiliation.

  I think about that for a minute as I lie back onto his chest and wonder why I seem to become so uncomfortable when he’d asked me and why he appears to be so cool and comfortable confessing it. He’s just so much more confident than I am.

  “What else?” he asks, not letting me get hung up on my reverie.

  “I don’t know. What about you? What else should I know?”

  “I like music, too. And like you, I like most types of music. I’ve tried my hand at the guitar and I found that it had been a good stress reliever. It somehow relaxed me. I started when I was around twelve.”

  “You play the guitar?” I ask with over-exaggerated interest. I sit back up so that I can see him.

  “Played. Past tense,” he says in a stern voice.

  “Why don’t you play now?”

  His eyes tighten just the smallest bit and he lifts his shoulders and lets them fall in an obvious attempt to let the subject stay light. I wonder if there’s more behind it – something that he isn’t willing to tell me.

  “I just lost interest.” He says then. Liar. But I won’t push it.

  “Oh.” I say instead.

  Liam and I spend the rest of the day like this, asking any question we can think of and I find myself going into great detail with each story even though I still think myself to be a big snore. He seems to have a way of getting me to particularize every account of my life. But the best part, Liam is never without touching me. As I go on about childhood hobbies, he plays with my fingers. When I tell him about my try at ballet as a child, he draws patterns on the skin of my arm. He’s surprised to find that I abruptly quit after making it all the way to point dancing, but I was too focused on swimming at the time. During a story I tell about skinning my knees after a bad fall off my bike that required stitches, he twirls a piece of my hair. His simple touch never fails to send hot shivers up my spine and when I manage to look into his deep aquatic colored eyes, I lose all train of thought and have to start over with my story. I’m afraid that I’m boring him after the umpteenth time I’ve answered one of his many questions, but he reassures me that he finds everything I have to say very interesting. I think that very hard to believe, but he seems sincere enough. I, too, ask him hundreds of questions, but his answers always seem a lot vaguer than mine. I’m hoping that he’ll go into as much detail as I seem so willing to give, but he never does. It always seems like there’s more to tell, but he’s unwilling to elaborate. I especially notice this when I ask about his family and I wonder why that is.

  “Tell me a secret,” he whispers as he plays with my fingers, lining them with his and running the pads of my fingertips against his lips.

  “What do you want to know? I can’t imagine after today there would be anything that you don’t know about me.”

  “Something no one else knows about you.” His accent is intoxicating. The way he murmurs the words makes my head spin.

  I think about what he’s asking and really can’t come up with much he hasn’t already inquired about me today. I glance out my window and see that the sun has begun to set behind the tips of the trees toward the west as the remainder of the rain clouds melt away. Where has the time gone? I continue to stare while I think – trying to come up with something I haven’t already told him and something that I’m willing to confess. I’m not ready to throw out the ghost card yet – he doesn’t need to go screaming into the night – so I remain quiet as I contemplate something to say. He’s still playing with my fingers, and as I start to zone out, Liam lightly bites the pad of my pinky finger causing me to gasp. He gives me a wicked smile and now has my full attention.

  Sera pops in then, smiling a huge smile as a hint that I should tell him about her. I shake my head infinitesimally while giving her a hard look.

  Not a chance, I think.

  She juts her lip out while making it tremble and then disappears. Oy, she can be so dramatic.

  “Is it that bad?” he asks playfully after a long few minutes. His whisper is so seductive it serves as a spell. The words swim around in my head like water lilies fighting an angry tide pool; my thoughts the delicate, innocent lilies while Liam’s seductive words act as a hypnotic current.

  I shake my head.

  “Tell me,” he breaths heavily into my ear. I shiver in reaction to his hot breath against my skin. “You can tell me anything.”

  “I know that.”

  He lightly trails his fingertips along my arm, back and forth, while I sit thinking over what to tell him. I idly wonder if he knows just how good he is at driving me crazy. But then I think, of course he knows. He’s obviously better at this “love” thing than I am. This then causes my thoughts to sway down a different path. A very unfamiliar path for me.

  “Breckin,” he says more seriously now.

  “It’s really not that interesting,” I answer finally.
r />   “That’s okay. Tell me,” he murmurs again.

  “Haven’t I talked enough today?”

  He makes a face as if to say, please.

  “Okay, good grief. Well,” I begin in an offhand voice. “I used to write…” There. That’s something I haven’t embellished upon to day.

  “What did you write about?” Liam seems just as interested as he had before when I was telling him about my childhood Halloween costumes.

  “Poems mostly. I haven’t written one though since…” I was going to say since before I was with Ben, but I don’t want to bring him up. I don’t even enjoy the fact that he’s popped up unwanted into my head. So I change my sentence at the last second. “I’ve been so busy with school and swimming.”

  “How long would you say?”

  “I’m not sure. A couple years, maybe?”

  “Hmm.”

  “What?” I ask after a few moments of silence.

  “I was just pondering what you might write if you were to write a poem about me.”

  I laugh uncomfortably to try and hide my embarrassment. I don’t know what I’d write, but it would probably be gushier than I’d like to admit.

  “So…?” he hedges, while letting the full force of his eyes bore into mine.

  “Roses are red, violets are blue,” I begin with a more genuine laugh.

  “Original,” he scoffs playfully.

  “I’m not sure. Probably something unbelievably mushy and corny. You know, the usual lovey-dovey stuff.”

  He laughs, too, and it appears as though he’s willing to let the subject drop. I had warned him it wasn’t that interesting.

  Liam stays late that night and when I walk him to the door, he kisses me so sweetly I feel my knees buckle. He seems reluctant to go, but I reassure him that we have all day the next day, and he agrees with another swoon-worthy kiss.

  We spend Sunday again at my house, but this time we make sure to dedicate some time to homework. When it comes time for our Calculus assignment, he notices my less than enthusiastic attitude toward the subject.