Ashes of Life

by Erica Lucke Dean

  “Suit yourself.” He dropped his feet to the floor then stood and folded a pad of paper—mystery item solved—in half and shoved it into his back pocket.

  I caught Brody’s eye, and he held up a finger.

  I jumped again as corner guy leaned into the light to whisper in my ear. “They’re picking rooms upstairs to make sure they don’t bust in on each other.”

  I noticed the cheekbones first. The guy could have been sculpted from stone for all I knew. But the smirk definitely screamed “human,” and I most definitely recognized that. “Grey Daniels?”

  “Madison Barrett.” He drew out every syllable.

  “No offense, but what are you doing here?” Of course, I knew Grey. We had class together—he was my damn lab partner. But seeing him outside of class… outside of school seemed… weird.

  “Haven’t you heard? Every party needs a creepy guy in the corner to give the pretty girl crap.” I couldn’t tell whether he was mocking me or calling me pretty. “Sorry about your parents, by the way. But there are a lot better ways to deal with that kind of pain.”

  Yeah, but I don’t have a razor blade handy, and I’m not a fan of my own blood. I prefer the less messy cutting, the kind that happens on the inside where no one can see it. But of course, Grey couldn’t read my mind. “Thanks for the tip, but I know what I’m doing.”

  “Sure you do.” He shot a glance toward Brody then sauntered out of the room as Brody handed me my drink.

  Did the school loner really just warn me about the school golden boy?

  “What’d Daniels and his broody eyebrows want?” Brody stared at Grey’s retreating figure through the crowd of partygoers. “I seriously don’t get what girls see in him. Does anyone actually believe that tragic hero vibe he gives off is real? I blame those stupid vampire books.”

  “Oh, please. He’s more the sensitive artist type. Don’t tell me you’re jealous.” A jolt of giddiness flowed through me. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  “Good.” Brody brushed my hair from my shoulder, spreading the tingles like hot butter. “Let’s keep it that way.”

  I turned to see if Grey lingered on the fringe of the room, but I couldn’t see him. “Does he come to all your parties?”

  “Nah. I mean, we give an open invite to the entire swim team, but he rarely comes. Dude’s a freak. Kelsey dragged him here tonight.”

  “Oh.” I glanced down at the cup in my hands. How ironic… the freak was sitting alone in the corner while the nice guy was trying to get me drunk. “What’d you put in my drink?”

  Brody winked. “What makes you think I put something in there?”

  I crossed my arms and waited.

  “I didn’t put them in your drink. I’m not that kind of guy, but…” He pulled a small white capsule out of his pocket. “It’s molly, and I’m willing to share.”

  I hesitated for a moment, then a flash of my parents in their caskets crossed my mind. I took the pill from his hands and held it up in a mock salute, popping it in my mouth before bringing the plastic cup to my lips for a big swallow. “Here’s to forgetting.”

  I rolled onto my back and draped my arm over my eyes. The smell of sausage drifting up from downstairs did nothing to help the queasiness. Not that I had anything left to throw up.

  Haleigh’s mom banged on the door. “Time to get up, girls! Breakfast is ready.”

  “Why is your mom yelling?” I hugged the pillow to my face, taking cover beneath the downy stuffing.

  “She’s not,” Haleigh snapped.

  What crawled up her butt?

  I uncovered my head and gaped at her. She sat cross-legged on top of her faded old Hannah Montana sheets as if she wanted to strike me down with laser beams. “Why are you pissy?”

  “You don’t remember any of it, do you?” She shot up and swung her legs off the bed. The movement made me dizzy even though I was lying down. I had to close my eyes.

  She’d had twin beds as far back as I could remember, and I’d always considered the one on the left to be mine, my home away from home—or lately, the only place that felt like home. “I remember Brody getting me a drink and dancing with him. And I remember Grey Daniels being a creepy jerk.”

  “So you don’t remember that creepy jerk saving your butt or you doing your darnedest to get Brody Allen to take your virginity… or breaking your promise to me.” She mashed her hands to her hips, staring at me as though I’d given her father a lap dance.

  “I almost what?” I sat up, and the whole room spun. “I seriously feel like the entire football team walked over my stomach.”

  Haleigh made a huffing noise then stomped to her dresser to grab a hair tie from a Mason jar and pulled her curly hair into a messy ponytail. “Serves you right,” she whispered.

  “Please, Hale,” I whined. “Tell me what happened.”

  “Fine.” She plopped onto her bed. “I was in the living room, and you stumbled in with Brody. You were completely out of it. I tried talking to you, but you blew me off. You were too busy dancing—if you can even call it that—with him. You had a drink in one hand and the other one under his shirt. A while later, I went to find you, and you guys were headed upstairs. I tried to stop you, but you told me to find my own guy. Grey was coming down the steps with Kelsey Monahan, and you called him a freak and then…” She caught her bottom lip in her teeth.

  “And then what?” Like one of those Facebook GIFs playing over and over in my head, I saw myself puking on Grey’s black Vans. Though why could I remember that of all things was anyone’s guess. “No! Not his shoes!”

  “Ah, she remembers. Brody and Kelsey both got grossed out and left you there on the steps. Grey helped me get you to the car, but not before you puked a bunch of times. Then he followed me home and helped me sneak you up here. I cleaned you up as best I could, but I think your dress is ruined. And you are totally washing those sheets.” She nodded toward the Nutcracker bedding her mom had gotten me for Christmas a few years earlier.

  I realized I was still wearing the black sweater dress, and the smell of my own vomit hit me like a punch in the face. I covered my mouth and nose then tried to pull the dress off one-handed. Haleigh sighed then grabbed a pair of sweats and a T-shirt for me as I shoved the dress into her garbage can.

  “My mom’s going to—” I stopped, half-naked, and stared at the dress in the trash. My mom’s going to… nothing. She’s not going to ground me for getting drunk. She’s not going to lecture me about my poor choices or how she was my age once. She’s not going to call my dad to say, “Deal with your daughter.” And she sure as hell isn’t going to get mad about a stupid dress. Not ever again.

  Haleigh took a step toward me, but I waved her away. “Maddie, I—”

  “It’s fine. I’m fine.” I felt the blood draining from my face. I had no idea where it had gone, though, because I was suddenly cold all over. “We’d better get downstairs, or your mom will come back and wonder what’s going on.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  I snatched my clothes and marched into the bathroom to wash my face and rinse out my mouth. My toothbrush sat beside Haleigh’s in the holder, and my favorite toothpaste lay alongside it, courtesy of Mrs. T., who knew I hated the blue gel kind. A few minutes later, I sat with Haleigh, her mom and dad, and her little sister at their kitchen table, pushing sausage around my plate and nibbling on a piece of dry toast.

  “You two are awfully quiet this morning.” Mr. Thompson didn’t look up from his morning paper. He held it up so the real estate section faced the table, but we all knew he had the Sunday comics open on the other side. “How was your movie?”

  Haleigh cut her eyes toward me. “It wasn’t my kind of show.”

  “Maddie, you’ve hardly eaten a bite.” Mrs. Thompson fretted over me like the second mom she’d been since my presch
ool days.

  I blinked back tears and forced a smile to keep from hurling. “I’m not really that hungry.”

  “Okay, sweetie. I understand.” She practically had “worried” tattooed across her forehead.

  The grief card worked in my favor, but using my parents that way made me even more sick to my stomach. “I think I’m going to take a shower.” I pushed my plate away and stood.

  “Haleigh, where’s the boy?” Hannah—her incredibly perceptive four-year-old sister—asked.

  Haleigh and I shared a glance. Her parents stopped eating and stared at us.

  Mr. Thompson’s fork clattered to his plate. “What boy?”

  The color drained from Haleigh’s already pale face. “Dad, I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “But I saw him go in your room.” Hannah shoveled another syrupy bite of pancake past her lips as if she hadn’t just dropped a major bombshell on the breakfast table.

  Mrs. Thompson jumped up, clearing dishes from the table with what could only be a burst of nervous energy.

  My skin prickled as I dissected the expressions on their faces. I loved Haleigh’s parents—they’d taken me in when my world was crumbling—and I hated lying to them, but I didn’t want to see Haleigh get in trouble for helping me. “She probably saw me come in with Haleigh last night. I had my hair up.”

  “Like I’d be dumb enough to try to sneak a boy in here.” Haleigh took a huge gulp of her juice, probably wishing it was spiked. “Not a chance.”

  Mr. and Mrs. T glanced at each other but dropped the subject… for the moment. “Maddie.” Mrs. Thompson stopped me before I could get out of the kitchen. “Bring your dress down. You’ll probably want it cleaned after wearing it all day, and Haleigh can take you to your house today to get a few more clothes. There’s a winter storm warning, so I want you two to go first thing.”

  Shit. “Okay.” I went upstairs and grabbed the dress out of the trash then found a plastic bag under the bathroom sink. There was no way I wanted Mrs. Thompson to get a hint of the vomit stench, so I tied the bag closed around the dress and figured I could drop it at the cleaners myself.

  Just before noon, Haleigh and I headed out. We didn’t talk much, and when we got there, she stayed in the car while I ran into my house to get more clothes. Several of the things I wanted to wear were dirty and mixed in with my mom’s in the hamper. I froze, staring at the blue blouse Mom had worn the day before the accident. I shivered, telling myself it was from the cold, and jammed what I needed into a duffel bag and ran back out the door.

  As an afterthought, I grabbed the mail. I had no idea what to do about it or who was going to handle that stuff, but I didn’t want it sitting in the box. We stopped at the only dry cleaners open on a Sunday on the way back to Haleigh’s house then spent the rest of the day catching up on the last season of The Vampire Diaries on Netflix. I couldn’t help fantasizing about sharp fangs sinking into my throat and hot blood oozing out of me, drop by drop, until there was nothing left but never-ending darkness. Thankfully, the subject of a boy in the house never came up again, and I went to bed shortly after dinner.

  I heard Haleigh come into the room and crawl into the other bed about twenty minutes later. “Maddie?”

  I rolled over and hugged my pillow, blinking against the blackness. “Yeah?”

  “You should thank Grey tomorrow. If he hadn’t helped me, I never would have been able to get you home.”

  “Sure.” My eyes drifted shut.

  “And I don’t think I ever told you this, but…” She shifted on her bed, making the mattress creak.

  Despite the darkness, I sat up to face the sound of her voice. “What?”

  “I’m glad you weren’t in the car with them.”

  That made one of us.

  “I guess you just scared me last night. I know it sucks that they’re gone, but I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Thanks, Hale. I love you, too.”

  Chapter 4

  Alex

  “David?” I nestled my face into my husband’s pillow, drawing in his scent—the faint blend of eucalyptus, leather, and clean sweat—as the alarm chased away the last vestiges of the dream. For that brief moment, he was still there beside me. The feel of his arm tucked around me faded as the incessant beeping echoed off the walls.

  After fumbling along the top of the nightstand with my eyes closed, I managed to slap a hand down on the button. I ached from being in the same position too long—curled into a tight ball in the center of the bed—and stretched my limbs, relishing the cracking in my bones. I kicked off the flannel sheets cocooning me and sat up.

  The house was too quiet. No water running in the other room like most mornings when David would beat me to the bathroom, saving me just enough hot water to grab a quick shower before work. No eighties tunes sung off-key with gusto as he went through his morning ritual. No David.

  He was gone. My heart skipped a beat before setting off at a thundering pace. My skin prickled as if I stood too close to an open flame. Not just not here but never coming back. Gone. I couldn’t catch my breath and felt as if a heavy rope had been tied to my waist, dragging me under. How would I ever really breathe again without him?

  “Alex? Are you up, honey?” My mom’s voice came from the other side of the door. “We need to leave soon.”

  I forced my lungs to pull in air, choking back a sob before I could trust myself to speak. I cleared my throat. “Give me a few minutes to get dressed, and I’ll be down.”

  I dragged myself out of bed and into the real world. My arms weren’t long enough to hold myself together. I had no idea how I was still alive when inside, I was crumbling. Every intake of breath felt like a betrayal. And yet, I had to carry on. If not for me, for the baby. He would have expected that much. The baby. Not something we’d planned—we hadn’t even discussed marriage yet when I’d found out—but the minute I told him, he’d proposed. Not a second of hesitation.

  Somehow, my feet carried me to the closet. David’s battered green-and-white Spartan sweatshirt hung to my knees, and I had no intention of taking it off. Nor did I plan to bathe. And I didn’t bother with clean underwear because, in the grand scheme of things, no one really cared. I pulled out the first pair of jeans I could find—not what I would usually wear out in public, something I’m sure everyone in town would note.

  As I passed David’s dresser, his familiar smile caught my eye. He had his arm around Maddie in the photo—beaming at her in her frilly ballet costume. The picture couldn’t have been more than a few years old; Maddie looked around thirteen or fourteen. He’d been so proud when he spoke of her scholarship to the dance academy. And heartbroken when she’d given it up just after we’d gotten married.

  I forced my gaze from the happy father and daughter to the mirror. My reflection sneered back at me as I pulled my unwashed hair into a half-assed ponytail then twisted it around itself until I could tuck it into a messy bun. Even in my zombie-like state of mind, I was aware of my out-of-character behavior and complete disarray. I simply couldn’t bring myself to care. Instead, my heart ached for the pictures that would never be. Pictures of my husband with our child.

  I floated from the bathroom, down the stairs, and to the front window in a daze. A light dusting of snow covered the ground. Not enough to close the roads or the airport but enough to give me pause. Had the roads been worse on Wednesday? Was David distracted while he drove? What were his last thoughts before…?

  “Did you hear me, sweetheart?” Mom’s voice filtered into my consciousness, and I turned from the window to face her. She parked her rolling suitcase and an overnight shoulder bag on the floor by the front door.

  “No, I’m sorry. I was just thinking.” Thinking about how, no matter how cold it might have been outside, it had nothing on the chill in my bones. I could have climbed int
o the fireplace and still not felt the heat.

  “Don’t think today. Just get a little something in your stomach.” She patted the slight swell between my hips. The barely noticeable bump seemed to appear overnight. “If not for yourself, for my grandbaby. I’m getting too old to worry so much.”

  “You’re not so old.”

  She tilted her head and eyed me. “You can’t fool me, you know. You haven’t been eating, and all this stress isn’t good for either of you. And don’t try to pretend you’re fine. I heard you retching this morning.”

  “Just a little leftover morning sickness.” I picked up the white angora sweater draped over my mother’s suitcase. The light floral fragrance of her favorite perfume floated in the air as I folded and refolded it, only to toss it back onto her luggage. “It’s been a difficult few days, but I’m not the first person to lose—”

  “Hey.” My mother gripped my hand, lacing her fingers with mine the way she did when I was small. “I’m not worried about other people. I’m worried about you.”

  “Mom, I’ll be fine.”

  “Are you still planning on seeing the lawyer today?” She gave my hand an extra squeeze.

  I pried her fingers from around mine and took a step back. “Yes, I have an appointment this afternoon. I thought it best to get it out of the way.”

  “Well, I do wish you’d take a few more days to mourn before tackling the business end of things. I don’t like that you’re going alone. You know, I could stay for another—”

  “No, really.” My lips formed a grim smile. “I need to do this on my own, and you and Dad need to get back to California where the temperatures are somewhere above freezing. If you stick around here too long, you could get snowed in for the entire winter.”

  She waved a hand toward the window. “Oh, I don’t mind the cold that much.”