by Rae, Nikki
***
Jade comes back earlier than he said he would and I’m grateful. Going from having him around 24/7 to not having him near for a whole hour is weird and I don’t know if it’s a sensitive vampire thing or because everything in my life and everything I thought I knew has changed. Probably both. But we hang around the house for a little while longer, catching up the best we can with Leena and Mom without actually telling them anything.
Then we leave, making excuses about having to be up early the next day. We don’t admit to each other the real reason: that it’s hard being around humans...humans who don’t know.
When we get back to my apartment, I lug the suitcase out of my closet, deciding that keeping busy is the best way to ignore the image of Ryan, the who that now has a face that looks a lot like mine. Green eyes, small nose. I’m half his and he’s dead.
Looking at my clothes proves to be harder than I thought. It’s not just picking what I should pack for a few weeks of touring around in a bus and it’s not trying to fit it all into one suitcase. It’s because these are all clothes I’ve worn tons of times before. Before I was turned. Before I came here. Before I was expected to act normal when nothing will ever be normal again.
“You still packing?” Jade asks from the doorway.
My hands are resting on the dresser. “I–” I swallow. “I don’t know where to start.”
Jade comes into the room and moves past me and into my sock drawer. “It’s not too bad when you just think about how many days you’ll be there, and how many times you’ll realistically be able to wash your clothes.”
I nod. “Right.”
He scoops up an armful of assorted colored socks and drops them on the bed. “That looks about right.”
“Great,” I say, letting myself relax a little. “Now my feet are covered.”
Jade goes into the closet and inspects the clothing hanging up in there. “Yeah yeah,” he says. “Just match around the same amount of underwear for me, will you? I don’t want to be touching that business.”
I do as he says, scooping up underwear and placing it next to the socks.
Jade returns to the bed with clothing on hangers, and they clink together as he drops them onto the bed. “There,” he says. “Now all you have to worry about is toiletries and extra shit like that.”
He sits on the bed so I do too. We start folding and rolling up everything so it’ll fit into the suitcase. “So,” he says after a while. “How are you feeling about all this?”
I shrug. “Nervous,” I admit. “Nervous on more than one level.” I think about telling him about the photo, about what Myles told me, about everything, but it’s so calm that I can’t bring myself to end the peace.
Jade smiles a little. “Yeah, me too.” He flips some hair out of his face. “Did you ask Myles about the whole...evil guy situation?”
I swallow. Yeah. Among other things. But I’m just barely hanging onto all of those other ideas myself. I can’t tell Jade. “Yeah,” I say. “Apparently, there’re people keeping watch.” I laugh a little. “And that maybe he just doesn’t want to kill me anymore.”
Jade organizes my socks in the corner of the suitcase as I start laying my shirts down inside. “Is he sure about that?”
I shrug. “He says so. But just to be safe, they’re having people protect the venues and hotels we’ll be at.” I explain it like I’m reading to him from a book. Some kind of fairy tale where no one ever gets hurt and everything is made out of candy and pixie dust
“Well good,” Jade says, for lack of anything better.
After we’re both done packing, the night is oddly peaceful. Jade and I hang in the living room, camping out with junk food and movies. We talk about normal things, like he’s my brother and I’m his sister. Not brother and someone who used to be his sister. It’s almost like nothing’s changed. We go to bed early and sleep on the couches, too afraid to leave each other.
And that’s where my night becomes less peaceful.
It starts the same way most of my nightmares do: I’m running away from or towards something. This time, I’m in the woods behind Jade and Stevie’s house. I can tell because it’s in the background, so far away that I can barely see it. I want to get there, inside, before something bad happens.
Yes, run along inside. Michael’s voice again. In my head and all around me. The wind is blowing, making the trees sway and shedding light onto my skin. My forearm is burning where the light touched it, so I keep running.
Run inside before the big bad sun hurts you.
I trip and scrape my knee on something rough. When I look down, expecting to see a tree branch beneath the dead leaves, there’s cement instead of dirt. When I look back up, I can’t see the house anymore and the trees seem like they’re closer together. Closing in on me and blocking out everything but the sun.
I can feel the warmth of it on my shoulder as it slowly starts to burn. I can’t stand back up and no matter which way I contort my body to try to protect myself, the light follows me and I can’t get away from it.
Suddenly, a shadow is thrown over me like a cool blanket. “You have to keep moving.”
It’s Stevie’s voice. And when I look up, he’s there, standing above me, protecting me from the light of the sun and smiling down at me. “Get up, Sunshine. You’re safe with me.”
I stand up and he wraps an arm around me. “Is this real?” I ask.
Stevie shrugs as we get closer to the house. The trees don’t seem as thick as they were moments before. “Define real,” he says. “Anything can be real if you stretch the meaning of the word enough.”
“Great,” I say. “This is one of those cryptic dreams.”
I hear Stevie’s laugh, as if we were both awake and alive. “I want to help you,” he says. “Don’t worry; you’re going to be seeing a lot of me.”
“Really?”
He ignores me. “Congratulations, by the way,” Stevie says. “I’m proud of you.”
“For what?”
“It’s not the easiest thing, coming back from the dead,” he says. “Even in dreams, it’s hard adjusting.”
The house is only a few feet away from us now. I can’t believe that when this dream started I thought there was no way I would be able to reach it. It seems so easy when Stevie’s here with me. I don’t want to leave or run anymore.
“So you don’t think it’s a terrible idea?” I ask, deciding to take advantage of this dream state by gaining all of the information I can get. “You don’t think I’m going to hurt anyone? You don’t think someone’s going to hurt me?”
Stevie smiles again but I can’t look up at him too long because I’m afraid the sun will come back into my line of vision. “You forget that I know everything now,” he says. “You’re forgetting that I’ve already seen everything and know how it all plays out.”
“So you’re here to warn me?” I ask. “What’s going to happen?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not supposed to say. Against the rules of how I’m supposed to live now.” He pauses. “…be dead now?” he asks himself. “I don’t know how to word certain things anymore.”
I wait for him to continue.
“Knowing how things play out sucks, Sunshine,” he says. “So I’m going to help you change it.”
“Wait,” I say. “You can’t tell me what’s going to happen, but you can tell me how to change the outcome?”
“I don’t know.” He smirks. “I don’t care either. I’m not letting that psycho hurt you. Any of you.”
After he says that, we’re quiet for a while.
“And you’ve been hearing him,” he finally says. “Right?”
I want to ask him what the hell it all means, but when I turn to look at him, everything’s begun to fade away. The house is a mirage behind him and everything is rapidly disappearing, like a photograph being developed backwards. I can feel myself being pulled away from him, toward something else. Somewhere dark and quiet. Stevie opens his mouth and says
something before the image of him is ripped away but I can’t hear what it is.
Chapter 8
Things Fall Apart
“They gave you life and in return you gave them hell.”—Tears for Fears
Jade is gently shaking me when I come back, his hand on my shoulder. He didn’t bother turning on a light but there’s a soft glow from the TV illuminating half of his face so I know it’s him.
“Hey,” he says, not even sounding groggy. He must have been awake for a while. I shrug him off and sit up slowly, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand. “What time is it?”
Jade turns his head to the kitchen. “Eleven-twenty,” he says. “You were asleep for maybe half an hour.”
I wrap my arms around my legs. “Was I screaming?”
Jade motions for me to scoot over, so I make room for him to sit down next to me. “No,” he says. “You were kicking your legs really hard though.” He places a hand on my back, probably afraid I’ll reject it. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Yes,” I say. “No,” I correct myself. “I–I don’t know.”
“Well,” Jade says after a long pause. “Let’s think about it.” I can feel his palm moving up and down my back, comforting me. The spot grows warmer the longer his hand is there.
“It’s just…” I want everything to spill out of me but my chest feels so tight at the thought that I chicken out. He deserves to know. Ryan was his father too. But if he knows, he’ll hate Myles and maybe he wouldn’t be wrong in feeling that way. Maybe I should hate him too.
“I keep having these dreams–like, hallucinations–and I don’t know if they’re real or something left over.”
Jade’s eyebrows knit together. “Left over?”
“Oh,” I say. “Blood carries memories.”
He doesn’t take his hand away from me, but I feel him shift next to me. “Okay…”
“Like things that happened to me can be known to Myles because he’s had my blood.” I don’t mean for it to come out so blunt, but there it is.
“Okay,” Jade repeats. “So you’re having...nightmares about things that happened to him?”
That makes me pause. I haven’t had a single memory that I could link to Myles, only Michael. What does that mean? For some reason, my chest hurts when I think about it, like I should feel guilty about something that’s not even in my control.
“They’re not from Myles,” I say, unable to explain it further.
Jade pauses like he’s trying to put it all together, then says, “Oh.”
“Yeah, and Stevie’s been trying to help me. Keep him out of my head.” I don’t mean to say it but when I do, it feels good to have it out. At least he can know some part of this new life right now, until I can tell him the rest.
“What?” I barely hear him at all. His hand leaves me, and I see they’re clenched into fists in his lap when I look at him.
“I’m sorry,” I say, already on the verge of tears. “I wanted to tell you...I have so much to tell you. I just can’t.” I heave in air. “This thing is so damn complicated and as soon as I have one thing to tell you, ten million more pop up.”
“It’s okay,” he says after a while. He rubs the back of his neck. “If you told me everything at once, I don’t think I could handle it.”
Those words echo around in my head. Isn’t that what I said to Myles when he told me about him?
“It’s just that I’ve been having dreams with Stevie in them too.” His voice cracks but he recovers quickly. “Up until now, I thought it was just because I missed him. Do you think…?”
I place a hand on his. “Death is weird,” I say. “There aren’t as many boundaries as we think there are.”
Jade shuts his eyes for a long time then, trying to keep tears from escaping. “I don’t know what to do with all of this,” he whispers, staring down at his wrist at the tattooed “S”. “I just don’t.”
I squeeze his hand.
He opens his eyes after we sit like that for a long time. “Anyway.” He sniffs. “About these dreams with Michael...do you think they mean anything?”
I shrug, releasing his hand so I can sit on both of mine. “I think there’s more of a chance that it means something than that it doesn’t.”
He swallows. “What should we do?”
“I don’t know.” I feel like that’s all I say now, all I think. My life is one gigantic question mark.
We don’t say anything for a while. “Stevie’s helping you?” he asks. “How?”
I shrug. “He said he’s not letting him hurt us.”
Jade cracks his knuckles. “I think I need some air,” he says finally.
I stand as soon as he does. “You want me to come with you?”
He smiles but it’s small. Barely there. “Nah. I think I want to be alone for a little while.” I want to stop him as he walks out the door, but I can’t. I can’t try to hold him here with me when I’m the one making him uncomfortable.
I sink back into the couch, not knowing what else to do besides stare at the TV until my skin starts crawling and my palms start sweating. Stupidly, I thought that turning meant that I wouldn’t feel this way anymore. I need to be alone too, but not here, where Myles’ broken painting is behind me and my packed suitcase is sitting in the hall. Things are too real here.
I know it’s probably a lost cause going down into the practice space but I head downstairs anyway. It’s some sort of special miracle the room we usually use is open.
Stepping foot inside there is like slipping into warm bed sheets. Familiar and comforting. The red and white stripes on the walls don’t look any different. The piano still has the assorted lights hanging from it. It’s as if the entire place has stood still, unchanging, waiting for me to return.
I open my notebook, set it on the music stand, and sit down at the bench. My hands hover over the keys and my fingers shake like they hold the weight of the past two days and the only way to relieve it is to play.
I test out a note with my left hand and it comes out high pitched. It’s over too soon. I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe that it would sound different. Maybe the instrument would crumble under my fingertips.
But it’s the same as it’s always been. I take what’s inside and bring it out. It’s safe here. Nothing has to matter. My other hand plays with the keys on the lower register, and my foot presses down on the damper pedal. I make the notes last as long as I want. I’m in control here.
I am darkness, I decide where the light gets in and who goes blind.
No. The dream shouldn’t be here, now, when I’m supposed to be safe.
Everything I did, I did to keep you safe.
My hands stick to the keys too long. The sound I want to make is too drawn out. When I try to fix it, go back and play the note the way I want it to come out, it doesn’t sound right either.
I may have lied but I never lied about how I felt.
My head feels hot like someone’s set fire to my insides and the only way for the heat to escape is through my scalp and out of my eyes. I keep my hands moving against the keys, faster, faster. I need to it to be louder, so I can hear the sounds over my own breathing. Over my own heart beating. Over the sounds of things I hear but shouldn’t be hearing: In the practice room over, there’s someone tuning a guitar. Up, up, the wire getting tighter and tighter. I can almost see the person’s fingers pinching the tuning pegs, strumming the string with a pick. I can also hear people as the walk up and down the stairs. Some greet each other casually while others don’t say anything at all but I can hear their legs rub together and their shoes on the stairs as they walk. And my heart. My lungs. Things I can still feel as they expand and contract. Things I shouldn’t have to use anymore now that I have this new, strange life. My hands are warmer now and I can’t tell if it’s because my fingers have been going for so long or if the heat in my face has spread downward.
The notes swirl around me, only adding to the chaos of endless sounds. I float here for m
inutes, hours, days, it doesn’t matter. Maybe if I play long enough, if I stay here a while, I’ll hear the sound of dark waves in a vast sea. Maybe I could go back for a little while without worrying about whatever this life means anymore. I hear someone talking, but I can’t tell if they’re in the room with me or if they’re here, outside, or in a different practice room.
“Sophie?” Their tone is strained, like they’ve been trying to get my attention for a while. My shoulders ache because the fingers are digging into my collarbone. Right next to my mark. Myles’ mark. That’s what makes me jump and the music stop. I’m filled with the instant and unwavering thought that no one should be touching me there. No one but Myles, not that it’s even a far off possibility for him to do that.
Though the music has stopped, the other sounds haven’t. They’re only intensified by the beating of another heart. The air whistling through another set of expanding lungs. I’m slightly aware that my head and hands are shaking now too, not just hot. I can’t stop any of it. Not the lies, not what’s happening to me, not any of the thoughts or emotions. None of it is going to stop.
Some rational part of my brain is still working, though I have to dig past all of the noise to find it. This is part of adjusting. It has to be. There’s no other logical explanation. Maybe it’ll stop happening when I just wake up one day wanting to drink blood. Maybe after my brain and body have been turned for a certain amount of time, it will all stop; at least the things going on with me physically. I don’t think I can ever stop wondering about Myles and me. Us. When everything is clear again, will I ever be able to wipe the smudge off of our relationship?
“Sophie,” The voice is closer now. There are arms wrapped around me and my head is against something that’s hard yet soft at the same time. “C’mon. Open those eyes.” I recognize the voice now, but I can’t move on my own just yet.
“Can you talk to me?” Manny asks. “Even just a little bit?”
“No,” I say. I want to move away from him. He’s too close.
Manny laughs and his chest moves up and down. The sound of it is also loud. It’s a lot like the sound that lungs make; only it stops and starts rapidly. “That’s real good, Pinky.”