Chasing After Infinity

by L. Jayne

  In front of us, the stoplight turns orange and instead of pressing on the brakes, I feel the car speed up. Orange turns to red and at the last second, Adrian slows down. We slam to a stop, the car jerking forward just as some people pass.

  Adrian fists his hand and hits the wheel hard. It’s so silent in the car that I hear the choked sound in the back of his throat.

  “Let me look at your cheek,” I insist, reaching up to touch his left cheek which is turning a deep red.

  Heat burns in his green ember eyes but a second later, his tense stance softens as if a fire had gone out. He says, “I can’t go back. No one wants me there.”

  He drives the car to the side of the road on the local where we then get outside and sit on the hood in silence, watching the other cars whiz by. The windshield wipers are still furiously going, the snow falling over the top of our heads.

  Adrian lights a Camel and begins smoking, his eyes blurry and filled with shadows. I watch him, my voice numb. I sense that all he needed was someone beside him.

  “I found out that I was adopted when I went through my parents’ personal papers and found a file on me that contained all the adoption info,” Adrian tells me, his voice detached. He snorts. “I remember asking my mom where I was born and she lied to my face, telling me the wrong hospital.”

  I can’t imagine what the pain must’ve felt like when he realized this. That everything he believed in were just lies. “How old were you?”

  He shrugs, stubbing the cigarette out. “Maybe ten or eleven.”

  His fingers follow after mine, along the car, our hands barely touching. A flood of heat rushes through me. I weave my fingers through his and I allow it, feeling the warmth of his palm against mine. Then I realize that I’m holding on to him just as tightly as he holds on to me. We’re holding onto each other as the world unravels around us like falling snowflakes.

  Afterwards, when we’re cold and shivering, we drive to my house where my dad is off to work once again. We warm ourselves up by making some hot chocolate in the kitchen. We both needed to concentrate and turn our focus on something else.

  “I didn’t know you knew how to make hot chocolate,” I say, raising my eyebrow as Adrian pours the chocolate powder into the hot milk, mixing it with a spoon. “I thought you only ordered them.”

  He flickers a look at me, smiling. “I’m a person of many hidden talents, hm?”

  Adrian leans against the fridge, clinking his mug with mine. “Cheers.”

  I take a deep sip, the marshmallows floating to my nose. The drink almost burns my tongue but it’s delicious. I sit back against the countertop, drinking heavenly hot chocolate. “Mmm, pretty good for an amateur.”

  He suppresses a smirk as he watches me. Conscious of his eyes, I look at him. “What?”

  “You have something here,” he says, using his finger to tap my face. Then he laughs suddenly. “You look like Hitler Junior.”

  I swear that my eye just twitched. “I do not look like him,” I reply, huffing.

  He hides a grin. “Similarity in the nose…oh and maybe the voice too.”

  “Hail Hitler,” I say in a poor German accent.

  Amused, Adrian gets out his phone and before I can protest, he snaps a picture of me. I blink from the flash. “Hey!” I say, wrestling it from him as he laughs. On the screen, I have a huge hot chocolate smear all over my upper lip.

  “See, resemblance,” Adrian says and he leans forward. “This is going in the time capsule.”

  I let him sweep me into his arms, curling one hand through his thick hair. I bury my face into his shoulder and suddenly, we can’t pretend anymore. All those long-buried emotions are rising up and churning around but I can’t seem to hold on to a single painful thought. Pain is something that dulls over time but will never fully go away.

  I inhale in his familiar apple-cider and the scent of his skin mixed with his leather jacket and everything just drops away. “Adrian,” I whisper into his hair.

  “Shh,” he says and it’s the crack in his voice that breaks me. “Can I hold you for a minute?”

  I look deep into his eyes-pools of chlorine. I can see my reflection in them, solid and looking far, far away. He still is gazing at me, his eyes at half-mast.

  His lips meet mine heatedly, my hands trail down to his back, and the usual knot in my stomach relaxes. My anxiety fragments into millions of pieces and glides away. The numbness goes away if only for a little while and I find myself melting into the hole that I promised never to fall into again. The same one that trapped me almost a year ago. The one that I just can’t shake away. But for now, I just focus on what’s really there: the light shining across his hair, bringing up flecks of gold-copper, his hands warming my skin, the familiar spark between us and our fiery kiss. I’m pressed against the granite, the countertop digging into my back as we kiss each other hard, and the fire between us refusing to be extinguished.

  The kiss is a wish itself, the wish to get away from where we are now and just escape from the world. To forget even for just a second. The moment lingers and I get pulled along with it, feeling just like that one fateful night in my house. Feeling like I’ll never have to face my deepest fears again.

  chapter twenty-three

  AVENA

  There’s something about looking back on the past that makes me reflective and nostalgic. I pull up pictures from a dusty box in the attic, sitting back down to absorb my beating heart. There’s one of me and Mom from when I was five and she’s holding out her arms, trying to chase me as I toddle down the street, the hurried smile on her face as the picture snaps. There’s another of us as a family with a reluctant sixth grade me in the middle of them wrapping me in a hug, trying to get me to smile. Dad looks ten years younger, the wrinkles in his forehead having disappeared and the smile looks genuine, unlike the ones that he wears now, all strained and tense. Then I see a Christmas picture of us all together and we’re beaming beside a tall tree filled with glittery ornaments. I still remember that Christmas.

  It was a white Christmas and I was ten. Both of my parents had taken a day off work and we spent the entire evening watching Frosty the Snowman, the old version. I helped Mom bake a platter of sugar cookies and the smell was heavenly; like white chocolate and freshly baked goodness.

  We didn’t have as much money then so I was pretty happy about receiving a handmade bracelet. I had made a scarf for Mom and a woollen pair of gloves for Dad. We had a good Christmas that year.

  After looking at a few baby pictures and more family portraits, I decide that I can’t take anymore and slowly put the box back where it belongs. In the dark.

  Being alone is difficult. In the house all alone, with no one to talk to but only empty white walls to stare at. When I’m not with my dad, or Kara and Hayden, I’m with Adrian. We spend the rest of December lounging in my room or skipping class to laze in the courtyard, him smoking and me staring up at the sky.

  It’s hard to distance myself from Adrian nowadays. It’s hard not to get my feelings tangled up. I look at him and feel the warmth stirring inside, my heart beating like the rhythmic and unrelenting pounding of drums.

  Sometimes I’d catch myself hanging off the edge of a cliff.

  Either I hold on or fall off into a never experienced abyss.

  “Christmas is coming soon,” Adrian says to me.

  We sit on the slushy beach, our jackets laid out beneath us, him smoking and me laying my head against his chest. We had driven to Verona Beach as soon as class let out, both of us tired of the stifling repetitiveness that is school.

  Even though Christmas is still a week away, people have already put up the decorative lights and plastic Santas and reindeers. Bright lights and cheerful Christmas carols can’t disguise the stark gloom in my home. The warm yellow lights and candles can’t block out the feeling of emptiness.

  I squint at the glaring sunlight reflected off the ocean, sighing. “Christmas sucks.”

  Adrian glances at me. “You don
’t like it?”

  “It’d be the first Christmas without my mom,” I try to explain. “I just have a feeling that it’d be a bad one this year.”

  “Yeah, I hate Christmas too, actually,” Adrian says, taking a long drag of smoke. “All the cheap decorations and loud fake laughter, it’s useless romanticizing.”

  “Celebrating it just makes me sad,” I admit. “It reminds me too much of what I’m missing.”

  Adrian nods, brushing his fingers through my hair, a calm and soothing sensation. I tilt my head so that I can look at him and he traces a line down my face.

  “I can’t think properly when you’re doing that,” I say.

  “Then don’t think.”

  “I just need you to make me forget,” I whisper. I tip my face to his and our lips meet, a spark coursing through me. Adrian grabs my face between his hands, forcing me to look up into his stormy eyes.

  “You want to forget everything?”

  Before I can nod, his mouth captures mine, kissing me violently. Briefly our teeth collide, and then his tongue is in my mouth. Desire bursts throughout my body, and I’m kissing him back, corresponding to his passion. My hands thread into his hair, grabbing some, pulling it hard. He groans, a low sound in the back of his throat that resounds through me, and his hand moves down my body to grip my thigh, his fingers hiking my leg onto his waist. He rolls on top of me, pressing me down on his jacket lying in the snow, pulling me into him as our mouths fight for dominance.

  All of the sadness and angst is drenched into our kiss and then I realize something. We’re both hurting. He feels what I feel. All this sadness is churning and surging around and I’ve got nowhere to run but only to run to him.

  I hook my hand around the back of his neck, parting my lips, pulling him even closer to me. I taste cherries and smoke in his mouth, our kisses rough and white-hot.

  He breaks off the kiss, out of breath. His eyes are shimmering with desire, flushing me with heat.

  “Tell me that this is real,” I murmur into his mouth. “Lie to me.”

  Adrian moves his lips. “This is real.”

  I believe him.

  I don’t believe him.

  ***

  As the sun is setting and the hours at the beach seem to melt away, Adrian and I decide to wade into the water. It was a stupid decision because the temperature is hardly above zero and we’re wearing our jackets and jeans. But we live life only once and the icy water would jolt our senses to full awareness instead of feeling the numbness.

  It was him who suggested the idea first and I decided to go along with it because the ocean sings to me, beckons me over with an open hand. The dimming sun drenches us with sunshine as we skitter to the edge of the water.

  Adrian takes off his leather jacket, until he’s only in a white long sleeve shirt. He gives me a grin as I dip my boot into the water until it’s up to my ankles. The soft drawing waves overlap over my feet, as I twirl in the water, smiling.

  He wades to me, smiling wickedly, shivering slightly as the wind blows across us. The exuberant dark blue ocean fans out under me, the deep waves sifting through. The eyes of the ocean beckon to me, its calm waters stretching out into infinity. My face is lifted skyward, letting the sun pour warmth onto my skin and wash away what is there. This is what I feel. The cool, slightly icy water lapping against me as I pull into the water until it’s got me waist-deep, grains of sand still sticking onto my boots. It’s freezing as the water licks against my jacket but I feel refreshed.

  The lack of feeling from the cold water is soothing. But when I’m in the sea, all of my past pain dissolves away until all there’s left is a numbing sensation.

  The salty air wafts around me; I close my eyes and just breathe in.

  Then I feel Adrian’s hand grab mine tightly and I hold on as he runs deeper, farther into the cold water, taking me with him, both of us stumbling over each other, yelling and laughing.

  When I glance back at him, a half-smile poised on my lips, I can’t look away. The white shirt that he’s wearing is soaked through, revealing his toned hard lower stomach. The muscles are rippled and he comes closer until his arms are around me, holding me to his chest.

  I breathe in his spiced and sea salt scent, closing my eyes. The rush that comes along with being held by him is something I can’t describe. His lips graze my hair and I exhale.

  I lift my eyes to his lustrous green eyes, him locking me with his gaze.

  The feeling of adrenaline is exhilarating and I have to bite back a gasp.

  Our mouths just a breath away from each other, my lashes almost brushing his cheek, I feel like I can’t breathe. But he still doesn’t kiss me. Instead, he laughs and takes a step back, splashing me.

  “Hey!” I yell. Our earlier awkward moment is broken. My hair is now dripping with seawater.

  I splash him back but he ducks under and I chase him deeper into the water until it’s almost chest-deep. He turns and taunts me with his usual smirk.

  “You can’t get me.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  I creep up to him and finally just as he turns around, I lean over to kiss him. He holds my face but before my lips meet his, I jump back and splash him, a great big tide surging over his body.

  He curses and his shirt is fully drenched now. I stifle a laugh and biting my lip, I wade away from him and into the deeper waters where the magnetic forces call to me. My boots are filled with thick water now.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Adrian calls out teasingly.

  “Away from you,” I reply, grinning.

  I swim to the farthest rock I can see in the rough outcrop and the waves flip and flop me over slightly but I hold on.

  “Hey, come here,” I yell to Adrian, waving him over as he comes nearer, wading. “It’s fun, you get to ride the surfs.”

  The wind whips into my skin and my teeth chatters but in a good way. I’m used to the freezing iciness of the water and I laugh, surprised, as another tide threatens to bowel me over.

  “Come back,” Adrian says, beckoning me to him, his eyes filled with apprehension. “The waves get kind of rough at these times. Especially at high tide season.”

  Trepidation settles into me as the earlier high and adrenaline rush dissolves. I realize that this is getting dangerous. I start to wade back to him but another huge dark wave knocks into me as I start to swim. This time, I get a jug of freezing seawater into my mouth and I choke.

  “Avena!”

  I see Adrian coming over to me, his movements fast and swift but before he can get to me, an enormous tidal wave surges up. My mouth caught in an open yell, I try to duck under, but the wave immediately crashes into me, overwhelming me, and dragging me under. Bubbles fill up my sight and my head is underwater, the icy dark blue water enveloping my face.

  I try to surface, as I hold my breath, my heart nearly exploding in fear but another tide sweeps me over. This time, the force of the wave sends me colliding against a hard and jagged object.

  Dizzy and disoriented, blackness temporarily flashes before my eyes and I feel pain at the base of my skull, pounding. Screams form on my lips but only bubbles come out.

  The water slams me under and I can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. I struggle, hard, to reach the surface, kicking my legs, but the numbing effect of the water has dulled my senses and all energy has left from my body.

  Then I’m jerked back up and gasping, I finally break the surface. Cold air rushes into my lungs and coughing and wheezing, I try to expel the seawater from my throat. I’m being dragged by the arm to the shore where I tumble to the shoreline.

  “Avena!” Adrian’s face is above mine, his voice tight and gasping. “Avena, can you hear me?” He grips my face and tries to shake me.

  His eyes are completely filled with raw panic and he blanches, his face gone white as bone. I try to say the words but only more water is thrown up. His hands are shaking as they hold my face, relief in every carve of his body as all tension g
oes out once he realizes I’m breathing.

  I’m crying now, stupid useless tears that well up nevertheless from the earlier shock, and Adrian crushes me to his chest, pressing his lips to my gashed forehead.

  “You scared me there,” he whispers into my hair, his voice cracking. “I thought I was going to lose you.”

  I start to shake uncontrollably from the cold and he wraps his jacket around me, trying to rub some warmth into my aching bones. He touches the back of my head and when he pulls his hand away, there’s a small stain of blood.

  “You must’ve hit your head on a piece of rock.”

  He holds me tighter and I sink into him, resting my face into the crook of his neck. I say nothing. Then the anger comes in.

  His green eyes turn dark.

  “If you do something stupid like that again, I'm not going after you,” Adrian says, pushing me away, his voice suddenly rough. “I mean it.”

  I get up shakily, still clutching his jacket tight around me as he stalks towards the car.

  chapter

  ***

  The next day, I wake up with a pounding headache and a sore throat. I can barely get up from the bed but I hobble to the ground and slip my jeans on. Wobbling downstairs, I settle down in the kitchen with a bowl of cold cereal. As the milk go down, my throat tightens and I cough. I rummage in the cupboards and drawers until I find an Advil pill and swallow it down.

  Going to school in a haze, I rush to my first class which is calculus just as Mrs. Henridge calls out names to check attendance. I settle into my seat but don’t find Adrian anywhere in the class. As Mrs. Henridge lectures us on maxima and minima but instead of listening, I keep on replaying the scene from last night in my head. I can’t shake it away.

  The ice cold water suffocating me, Adrian’s pale face as he shakes me, the naked emotion in his low voice. And as I lie under him, I feel so safe and calm as if affinity has numbed my senses.