by Melody Grace
“Ready for what?” I asked, skipping down the steps after her.
“You’ll see,” she said mysteriously, and stuck two fingers in her lips to sound a whistle that stopped traffic, literally—a cab pulling up beside us like it had been waiting for the chance. “Your parents gave you cash, right?” she asked when we had already tumbled inside, but I was already too full of anticipation for the night ahead to even care.
“How did you guess?”
“They have that look in their eyes, like they need to wrap you up safe against the dark streets and dangerous strangers.” She grinned, and I laughed with her, the neon city gliding past.
“Something like that.”
I’d lied to them about tonight, or at least, told only half the truth. I was celebrating with friends, I’d said, no big plans. I could see more questions burning on the tip of my mother’s tongue, but she let it go. It was hard for the both of us now—adjusting to my new independence with them back in my life, close enough to just drop by. For months I’d treasured the freedom of being alone: no curfew, no concern, an adult life for the first time. But to them, I was still their baby. All week, they’d been clutching me closer, but tonight, I was on my own terms again. I cranked the window down to breathe in the night, knife-sharp in my lungs. Kelsey wasn’t done with her own makeup, and as we sped across the bridge downtown, she painted on a perfect scarlet smile without even a glance in the rearview mirror. “Did you hear from Guy over the holidays?” I asked.
“Nope.” She blotted carefully.
“Are we meeting him tonight?” Something in my chest caught, that tell-tale flight of hope. If Guy was there . . . If Theo came along . . . But Kelsey shot that bird from the sky with another simple, “Nope.”
“OK.” I tried to get into the party spirit. “Just you and me then.”
“Not quite . . .” Kelsey grinned. I must have looked tremulous, because she laughed. “Relax, you think too much.” She pulled a slim silver flask from her coat pocket and offered it to me. I paused, but the rush of lights in the dark night had already ignited that spark in me again, and I took a sip, something sweet and strong burning down the back of my throat and pooling like fire in the base of my belly. “Atta girl,” she cheered, and took another, longer pull. “It’s time to leave this shitty year in the dust. To new beginnings.” She passed it back to toast, but I couldn’t cheer for the glimpse of the year ahead of me, not when I still needed to let go of everything I was leaving behind.
“To the end,” I said at last, and drank, fire burning in my veins as the icy wind slipped through the windows. Then Kelsey checked her phone and lunged forwards, between the front seats.
“Take a right here,” she demanded, and the poor driver tried to argue.
“There’s nothing here, look.” He pointed to the GPS screen.
“Trust me, take the right!”
I looked outside the window. We were slowing, crawling through an industrial area, half-hidden under the bridge. The streets were deserted, shadowed warehouse lots looming large with no comforting lights to point the way. I shivered. “Why do I get a bad feeling about this?”
She fixed me with a look. “Oh ye of little faith.” Kelsey checked her phone again. “Here! You can drop us right here.”
The cab stopped, idling alone on an empty street. “Umm, Kelsey?”
“C’mon, pay the man.” She was already scrambling out, wrapping her coat tightly, and even though I half-wanted to stay right there and direct the driver back home, I couldn’t leave her either. I quickly passed some cash and followed, hurrying after her down the dark alley.
“Wait, Kelsey. Where are we?”
She turned, still backing away. “No more questions,” she ordered me. “This is an adventure, OK? Wherever the night leads.” I looked at her, tempting with that reckless smile, and was hit by a déjà vu so strong it knocked my breath away.
That was Hope’s smile. God, I hadn’t seen it in so long.
“Tick tock,” Kelsey called, spinning on her heel again and plunging on into the dark. And even though we were stranded God knows where amongst shipping containers and empty stacked boxes, that glimpse of Hope was all I needed to find solid ground again. I didn’t just see her there in the lines of Kelsey’s face, I felt her, too. Felt her presences as strong as if she was right there with us, bickering with Kelsey and pushing my hair back in place, scooping us onward towards adventure and the unknown.
My fears slipped away. This was right where I was supposed to be: on the edge of something, out reckless in the night. Right now, my heartbreak didn’t matter, or the empty days waiting to count down on the other side of dawn. I had tonight, that was something. My last New Year’s Eve. I had to make it count.
I strode after Kelsey, rounding the corner to find her checking her phone again, lost in the maze. “Do you have directions?” I asked, taking her phone, and control. There was a message on her screen, co-ordinates it looked like, and Kelsey looked around, frustrated.
“Whatever happened to ‘be here at this address,’ none of this treasure hunt bullshit?”
“Wait, listen.” I caught her arm. Down here, there was noise from the city, but something else too, a steady beat. A deep bass that rippled through the still of the night. I looked around, trying to pinpoint the location. “This way,” I decided, and we hurried on, breaking into a laughing run as our footsteps pounded, and we slipped down the alleyways following the ever-closer beat. Louder, louder, we skidded around a final corner, and then we arrived: a massive warehouse looming out of the shadows, spilling thunderous music and laughter and party-goers out into the dark. Kelsey pulled me on to join them, bathed in the pulses of neon green and diamond yellow that pulsed from inside. We cut through the lot, already crammed with cars and trucks parked haphazardly like their passengers had abandoned them at will, and then we were up the front steps and inside, the music so loud it hit like a weapon, chasing the last thoughts from my brain and blissfully swallowing me whole.
This was a party.
The cavernous room was crammed with a wild mass of bodies, lights swooping overhead in a glittering constellation as the crowd dipped and thrummed. It smelled of smoke and dampness and beer and sweat, like promise and possibility, a thousand strangers strung out on the edge of infinity, lost in the magic of their own design. Kelsey shed her coat in a heap in the corner, and I followed suit, ducking through the throngs, until she found us a spot in the middle of the room amongst the sweat-damp revelry. The music was slipping from hip-hop beats to dance and back again, but whatever skittered over the treble line, the beat remained the same. The beat was all that mattered. It demanded surrender, and seized our heartbeats without remorse. It left no room for doubt or rejection, or the hundred other self-loathing disappointments still lingering in my broken mind. It was simple and intoxicating.
And finally, I let go.
We danced for hours, until my lungs burned and my heartbeat crashed louder than even the deep, smoky bassline. Breaks for water, gulped ice-cold from a bottle; breaks to gasp the cold night air, to fix our sweat-drenched makeup and squeeze tight in the snaking line to a dirty bathroom stall—and then back to the music, every time. Kelsey kept her magic flask full all night, of what, I’ll never know, but I drank all the same, fire burning through my body, a giddy high, and by the time midnight ticked closer, I was ready for it, ready to put this year behind me and fall, reckless, into the next.
“Water!” I called to her, hoarse over the music, then mimed a drink, a nod to the edge of the dance floor. Kelsey shook her head.
“You go!” she yelled, leaning closer. Her eyes slid to the guy dancing nearby, his gaze on us. Tall and lanky, with a smile I would have thought too sweet for Kelsey, but midnight was coming and she was assessing her prey, so I left her there spinning into his embrace and fought my way to the edge of the chaos. A guy was selling drinks just outside in the chill of the parking lot, overpriced sodas and beer from a long-melted cooler, and I peeled off fi
ve bucks to claim a lukewarm bottle.
“Mystery girl.”
The voice from behind made me startle, choking. I spun around, spluttering water and coughing for air. “Clara, right?”
It was the boy from the party, a lifetime ago, that first night out with Tessa and her friends. The dark-haired one who’d wielded words like offensive weapons, trying to argue and cajole. Now, he was watching me, amused, his pale skin sweaty from the heat. “Claire,” I said, recovering.
“That’s right, the waitress.”
“Barista,” I corrected him, sharper.
“Relax.” He grinned. “I didn’t mean anything by it.” Jamie was his name, I remembered now. He’d disappeared into the background the moment I’d seen Theo at the party, and even now, that memory—Theo and I on the back porch, trading junk food and swear words—danced brighter and more vivid than the guy standing close, a couple of feet away. My heart ached to think of it, but I pushed the hurt down, determined. Fresh start. Blank slate. My heart was still pounding, and my blood still sweet with adrenaline and alcohol, and I focused on that instead, and the cold night around me, right here.
There was no going back.
“How’s it going then, Claire?” Jaime asked. “I wondered if I’d see you again.”
“Really?” I arched an eyebrow. “You knew where to find me.”
“True. I guess I’ve just been busy, with school.”
“Good for you.”
My tone was light, and anyone else might have been deterred by the edge of steel just beneath the surface, but Jamie’s lips curled in a slow grin. He moved closer, and took the water from my hands; drinking a long gulp. “Happy New Year,” he said, like a challenge.
I took the bottle back from him. “Not yet. We’ve got another . . . four minutes to go.” I checked my phone.
“It’s already tomorrow in Papua New Guinea,” he replied. “And for all we know, that countdown is wrong.”
“Way to take the fun out of it.” I gave him a pointed look. “Let me guess, you don’t celebrate the holidays either, because they’re just a testament to crass commercialism.”
Jamie laughed. “They are. You seem too smart to buy into that bullshit.”
“Lucky me.”
Jamie was even closer now, leaning against the wall, my body half-shielded from the party by his lean frame. I could smell him, feel the heat of his skin and the focus of his attention. I glanced up and caught his gaze, full-tilt. Dark eyes, laughing at the edge. “You look different,” he said, still watching me. He reached out, and touched the edge of my hair. “Something’s changed.”
“You like doing that, don’t you?” I didn’t flinch from his stare. “Trying to make me guess what you think about me.”
Jamie’s smile cracked into a laugh. “Someone’s on edge tonight. I thought I told you to relax.”
“And you’re going to help with that?” I asked.
He grinned. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
I opened my mouth for another quick retort, until the truth cut through me like ice. This was what I’d judged Kelsey for, wasn’t it? The game-playing, the arch replies. Using words as weapons, not offering them like revelations, trading people’s hearts as conquests, not precious, treasured gold. It was a way to pass the time, sure. A mouth on mine as the final moments of the year slipped past. But I knew what it was to taste real love, and I didn’t have time to waste.
I didn’t have the luxury of a cheap, empty mistake.
I turned away from him, just as the countdown started inside. Ten! Nine! Eight!
“Claire?” Jamie sounded confused, but I was already walking fast away from him, and I didn’t look back. I needed to get away, somewhere to take a breath and hold the sadness flooding through me, the cold empty truth of the end.
Seven! Six! Five!
I saw a fire escape just ahead, a rickety iron frame barely bolted to the wall, but I lunged for it, my boots clattering as I hurled myself up, gripping the railings tight. I cleared the top and emerged on the rooftop, gasping, a flat plane overlooking the dark river, and the humming neon skyline beyond.
Three! Two! One!
Liftoff.
And just like that, it was midnight. I was alone on top of the world as the celebrations exploded in the party below, cheers and whoops and sirens, Happy New Years drifting out into the night. I sank down on the low wall by the edge and hugged my knees to my chest, breathing it all in as my pulse raced to catch up. The sky was dark and clear, and down on the water, a lazy barge drifted by. Across the river, somewhere, a distant burst of starlight suddenly dazzled in the sky: fireworks swooping up, then shimmering as they dissolved back to earth.
Should old acquaintance be forgot . . .
The old song slipped into my mind, and just like that, she was there beside me. Hope. Hair falling out of a messy braid, in a sweatshirt and jeans and that bright pink lip gloss. Scooching in close, her arm linked through mine, head on my shoulder the way she’d curled up so many nights.
“This is it then,” I whispered, tears stinging my eyes.
“This is it,” she agreed.
We sat there together, watching the fireworks pulse and fade. They were beautiful: blazing for an instant, too bright to last for long. Maybe that was all we could hope for in the end. A moment of brilliance. A chance to burn, wild in the night. I loved Theo with everything I had, but nothing lasts forever, no matter how hard we try: the earth kept spinning its slow, lazy arc as we lived and loved and felt our hearts swell and bloom and break.
This was all we had. This was our beautiful world.
And I was finally ready for the end.
I wiped my tears away and took another breath, fogging the crystal night air. Then I slowly climbed back down to earth again. I called a cab, drove back across the midnight river, and climbed out onto the dark sidewalk in front of a door with peeling blue paint. I climbed the dark staircase past stacks of junk mail and old flyers, until I opened the door on the third floor and stepped into the studio.
My studio.
I looked around, just feeling the peace there, the possibility. I’d moved my canvases in that week, my paints too, and cleared aside the previous owner’s things into neat boxes in the corner. Now the walls were clear, the tall windows shining from the streetlights outside, and my easel waited, brushes lined up on the table.
I slipped my coat off and let my mind open.
It was the new year, and there was still so much to do.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
After weeks of being held hostage by limbo and sluggish grief, I was suddenly a whirlwind. I cut my hours at the café, telling Mika I was taking some classes and could only cover a couple of shifts a week. I couldn’t bring myself to give it up completely, but my body was rebelling, faster than my prescriptions could keep pace. The headaches were raging, deeper and sharper every time, and the painkillers that numbed the chaos left me drained and sleeping, curled through the afternoon in my parents’ apartment with a cold compress numbing the fire. After that afternoon with Kelsey, trembling on the bathroom floor, I knew I couldn’t hide it for much longer, but I couldn’t bear to give them the truth, so I faded out, instead: turning down invitations to drinks and movies, and politely blowing off Tessa’s suggestions for a group trip out of town. I hated the duplicity, but I was sparing them and me both. I didn’t want their sympathy and sadness, not when I had so much work to do.
I spent my time at the studio, instead: every stolen minute, hours I snatched fiercely, forgetting food and plans and even sleep to pour my heart out on the waiting canvas, the kind of frenzy of creation I couldn’t even put into words. My work consumed me, pounded through me in a heartbeat drum, claiming every moment of my imagination as my brush moved and my soul poured out onto the waiting page: over and over, and still it wasn’t enough. My mom didn’t understand, but Dad did. I heard them arguing one night after I showed up on their doorstep, half-delirious with a migraine attack I’d ignored for too long, caught up
in a half-finished canvas that was so tantalizingly close to being done. I lay there, soft in the folds of those sweet hydrocodone clouds, and heard their voices slip under the door, dancing lightly on the outskirts of my pain.
I don’t understand why she’s hiding herself away, not now.
It’s not hiding. Don’t you see? This is what she needs to be doing. She wants to make a mark, somehow. She knows she’s running out of time.
He was right. My art sustained me now, it was the only thing that mattered. The only thing I’d get to leave behind. The studio became cluttered with sketches and oils and torn canvases daubed with my midnight fever dreams, so I started giving them away. I left them at Goodwills and thrift stores and even street garage sales, slipping them unseen onto the shelves for some stranger to discover and take home. They were pieces of me, every last one, and I sent them into the world with a prayer. I wanted my work to travel, to be hauled into shiny new apartments and old dorm rooms. I wanted to sit, propped on the mantle to watch over the moments of someone else’s life, bearing witness to the days I wouldn’t have to come.
I wanted to last another decade, a century, if only through the smears of paint trickling over a foreign page.
“Sure you can’t stay another couple of hours?” Mika looked harried, brushing back his copper curls as he fought with the temperamental espresso machine. The line at the counter was six deep, and every table taken. School was back in session again and everyone was working hard with bright resolution. “All my covers are out sick, and just look at this place.”