by Azzurra Nox
Her soft features look confused, her eyebrows furrowed in a way that indicated she didn’t comprehend.
“You mean he’s dead?”
“No, I mean he’s gone. He disappeared. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive,” the alcohol made him slur his words a little. “We used to live in New York. Until my mom couldn’t deal with my dad still searching for my brother, so she divorced him and I moved out here with her.”
She chewed on her thumbnail thoughtfully. He could tell that she was trying to measure her words. Or maybe she didn’t know quite what to say to his confession. He shouldn’t have told her.
“I have something to tell you too.”
His ears perked up at the statement. Even in his semi drunk state, curiosity got the best of him. He nodded signaling her to go on with what she wanted to say.
“My mother….remember when I slipped and said she was dead? She was killed in a hit and run accident. She was coming to get me,” she stopped, her voice cracking.
Jon embraced her, knowing that it must be difficult for her to talk about it.
“My mom told me to always stay close to Robert, but I let him go out of my sight. It was all my fault,” he mumbled against her shoulder. Her arms wrapped around his waist as she buried her head in his chest. His hands stroked her long hair, he could feel her tears wet the front of his shirt. It pained to see her like this.
“I shouldn’t have gone back to buy that book. If I hadn’t, she’d still be alive today,” Lena sobbed.
“I want to show you something,” he told her, pulling away from her. Maybe if he weren’t intoxicated he wouldn’t have considered this, or maybe in lieu of their confessions, the sense of vulnerability was slowly fading or at least had been conjoined. He rolled up the sleeves of his black shirt. His arms were littered with burn scars.
“What…?” she looked upon his arms with wide eyes, tracing the red imprints left behind by all the cigarettes he stubbed unto his flesh.
“When I can’t sleep or when I want the pain to go away, I do this to myself,” he explained in a calm voice as though he were talking about the weather and not the fact that he was a self-mutilator.
“Does that mean that you tried to slit your wrists too?”
“No,” he quickly retorted, “That I didn’t do to myself. That creature attacked me like I told you.”
She nodded solemnly. He wasn’t sure whether she believed his version of events. No one would, and that’s why he hadn’t even bothered to tell anyone else. The last thing he needed was to spend his junior year locked up in a padded cell.
“After she died…I wanted to die with her. I yearned for death so much that I swallowed barbiturates.”
“Lena…that’s…horrid.”
“No. It felt normal at the time. What’s horrid is that I spent a year in an institute for troubled minds. They were supposed to fix me. But I couldn’t take it. So my dad moved us here. Now they keep me medicated on lithium so that I don’t feel the urge to do something like that again.”
“Geez, that’s…intense. When can you stop taking them?”
“When I can prove to the doctor that I won’t think about hurting myself. But I haven’t been able to prove him that yet. I only take them because it keeps me focused on my dancing, and ballet is the only thing that keeps me motivated.”
Jon took her hand. He wished he could do more but he knew that he would ruin the moment if he were to take advantage of it. So, like a sea urchin that retracts when it is touched, he removed his hand from hers, and cursed himself for not finding the perfect words.
“Isn’t your ballet show next week?”
She seemed relieved that he had changed the subject. “Yeah, it’s next week. You should come. Bring Sydney along too.”
“Will do.”
“Are you two dating?”
He shrugged, not wanting to offer a definite answer. How could he tell her that he loved her? Especially when he had told her and she had dismissed his feelings so easily. There was no way he could go through the pain of rejection all over again. If only he had the courage to tell her that he could be a better person with her. That he felt she was vital to his life, like a limb or an organ. His life wouldn’t be the same without her. How a simple smile from her could either break or make his day. How breathing had become that much more difficult ever since she entered his life, because when he didn’t see her, he was gripped with asphyxiation. The air was heavy with sadness without her there to cheer him up with her mere presence. She was the type of girl that he could see himself writing odes to if he were a poet. That she had brought a sense of completion to his life. The same way his twin brother used to complete him.
His thoughts were suddenly aborted by a strange sound that came from the bushes. Alarmed, he moved in front of Lena in a protective stance. The bushes rustled again. His heart raced and wondered if Lena was just as agitated. But by the way she gripped his arm he knew that she was equally frightened. His thoughts fixated solely on one thing; the black winged creature that seemed to follow them.
“Is it her?” Lena’s voice was small.
“I hope not.”
More rustling followed and then the first signs of black hair. His blood froze in his veins. Tiny icicles roaming his bloodstream that poked about and rose the hair on his arms on end.
“I’m sorry…”
Jon let out a big sigh of relief when he heard the shy, insecure familiar voice.
“Hope, you’re going to give us a heart attack one of these days! What are you doing hiding there?”
“Nothing,” she mumbled but he knew it was a lie because she was carrying a bag littered with contents and he noticed a knife in her hand.
“Why do you have a knife?”
“It’s none of your business,” she stated flatly, trying to walk past him but he stopped her in her tracks stepping in front.
“Don’t do anything foolish.”
“Oh, you mean like don’t get stuck in a flaming classroom?”
“Why do you need a knife?” Lena interjected.
“It’s not what you two think. I have a mission.”
“What sort of mission?” he couldn’t quite grasp this new piece of information.
“To try to protect everyone.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re going to protect us all with a knife?”
“It’s part of my protective spell.”
“Oh my god, the rumors are true!” Lena exclaimed astonished as though she couldn’t quite believe that something like that was possible.
“Come on now, you can’t really put spells. Let alone protective ones.”
“You’re a man of little faith,” she told him.
Jon rubbed his temples, the alcohol was giving him a numbing headache and making his vision blur. He was about to say something but noticed Michael approaching. He was annoyed by the way Lena’s eyes lit up at the sight of him, like he were some kind of Greek God strolling down a golden path. It made him sick to his stomach.
“Lena, I’ve been looking for you all night,” he told her, ignoring that Jon was there and took her hand. Jon forced himself to look away at the interlocking of fingers.
“I was just talking to Jonny,” she told him to excuse her absence, and at the mention of him, Michael turned his attention in his direction. Jon’s blue eyes glared back at his. They seemed like tiny icicles penetrating deep into his core. He silently wished they could cut him like daggers, so that everything could be as it used to be. So that Lena could be his. There was something about Michael that Jon didn’t trust. It wasn’t a tangible ill feeling but it was just as palpable.
Hope walked by Michael. The two exchanged a look that seemed to signify something that neither he or Lena understood. His focus was back on the knife she carried. It gleamed menacingly in her hand. The blade looked sharp, just as the nails of the black winged creature had been when she slit his wrists. A shiver ran down his spine remembering the moment. His wrists were still bandaged, and
although some time had passed he could feel the itch of the stitches underneath that reminded him of that night no matter how much he tried to remove it from his memory.
“Hope, don’t do anything stupid,” he cautioned in a slur.
“She won’t, I trust her,” Michael interjected, and Jon couldn’t help but wish he could just disappear from the scenario.
“What are you doing out here? Dior hosted this party just for you, hero,” Jon mocked.
Michael’s skin was eerily white beneath the moon. It almost seemed translucent like that of a marble statue. No veins were present beneath, or at least that’s how it seemed. His emerald eyes peered into his, and for a moment he thought that it had no iris, but he the alcohol could have something to do with his false perception.
“There are many things you don’t understand,” was all Michael said to him, as he walked away, taking Lena with him, and Hope walked right beside them. A sudden anger took hold of him. He could feel it growing at the base of his stomach and rise up his throat and down into his arms. Without a second thought he ran after Michael, took hold of him, and in a swift movement punched him in the face. Michael didn’t seem to be fazed, whilst Jon crumpled to the ground in agony. A fierce pain shot through the side of his hand. He was confused. He had punched other guys before, but this had felt like he had rammed his hand against iron. Tears stung at the side of his eyes, and he closed them trying to will them away. He was a mess.
“Jonny!” Lena rushed to his side trying to take hold of his injured hand that he cradled against his chest like a wounded baby.
“Go away!” he shouted, pulling free from her. His eyes were wild now. “Go back to your lover!”
An awkward silence followed as he saw that she tried to grasp for words but knew that her bank of perfect phrases had been used up for the night and now remained uncomfortably speechless. The present clung to him like an ill-fitted shirt that smothered him like a straight jacket. Before anyone had a chance to say anything, Jon stood up, and ran. For just a short minute, he wasn’t even sure where he was going. He only knew that he needed to get away from them all. Get away from Lena, from Hope’s strange desire to protect everyone with spells, and Michael whom had become an intolerable presence in his life like an inkblot marring a white parched page. His hand throbbed, shooting spirals of pain. The night was going to be his companion. Maybe tomorrow he could find a better reason to go on, but right now all he craved for was some tranquility. Some alone time, away from everyone and everything that were driving him over the edge. Lena’s shouts for him to come back were drowning out in the background as the sound of his beating heart grew louder and louder in his ears.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The stage lights shone down on Lena’s cream tutu as she danced. Tiny white rose buds and little rhinestone stars adorned her hair. The stage was appropriately decorated to evoke an opera house, with thick red velvet curtains and balconies overlooking the stage. Red rose petals were spread across the stage floor and she had to be careful not to step on them. Remembering in her head where the teacher had placed X’s to mark where they should place their feet during the show. She tried to remain focused but couldn’t help but notice that Jon wasn’t in the audience. Not that she should be surprised considering how things went after the last time they saw each other. The following week at school she noticed that he no longer sat next to her. He must’ve told Sister Agnes that he wanted to change seats because now he sat in the front. She often saw him staring out the window, trying to write with his left hand, seeing that his right had been put in a cast.
Her heart dove a little when she saw Michael in the audience and found herself smiling to herself, but quickly recalled that she couldn’t show any emotion that wasn’t that of her character and tried to look past him to keep her concentration. Lena’s movements were languid and graceful like a weightless flower petal being blown gently in the wind. She tried not to look above as the scene of the chandelier crashing was approaching and the young man playing the phantom, Erik, whisks her away to his chambers. By the end of the act, everyone was applauding. She walked backstage to her dressing room, knowing that she would have to quickly change into her next outfit and had to be fast. The curtain would rise in a matter of minutes.
The second tutu was similar to the first in color but with a slightly lengthier hem to give the allusion of the outfit being ripped during the kidnapping scene. The young man playing Erik was tall with dark hair, and with a mask covering half of his face. When she first saw him, she let out a short breath, thinking that he almost resembled Jon. Her eyes were naked of the usual dark liner. Her lids were washed in a soft white eye shadow to create luminance and a doe-eyed expression. In contrast, her lips, usually devoid of any color, were a lush red hue. As the dance progressed, there were few occasions where the dancer’s tortured features who played Erik seemed to mimic those of Jon. When he got to his knees before her, professing his love, she felt a sharp strike to her heart like when a cat surprises you and slashes your flesh with its claw. Suddenly, she could understand Jon’s pain. The way the dancer personified the aching of an unrequited love reminded her too much of her friend that it broke her heart in two. She couldn’t stop the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. The audience looked at her, captivated by the performance, thinking it was part of the show, whilst the other dancers looked at her a little bewildered by her show of emotion. When the phantom kissed Christine, she couldn’t help but think of the time Jon kissed her in the theatre. How happy she had felt, although there was the underlining guilt of doing something hurtful towards Amelia. But ever since Michael entered her life, he had blown all of her affections away. He was like a cyclone that tore down all her good intentions towards Jon, and left her wanting to be with him and only him, despite knowing that Jon was suffering because of this.
When the curtain dropped in the final act, Lena could hear the audience cheer and when she peeked behind the curtain she noticed they had a standing ovation. Even Bethany couldn’t help herself in commending her for her incredible performance. She smiled. Her father came to see her backstage, handing her a bouquet of pink and white roses. “You were amazing, sweetie,” he told her. “I’m so proud of you,” and gave her a hug, although it came out a little awkward with her holding unto the bouquet. In the corner of her eye she noticed a young man dressed in a black shirt and torn jeans. She almost thought it was the one who interpreted Erik in the play, but then to her surprise she saw that it was Jon. She pulled away from her dad, telling him that she’d see him in the parking lot in a few minutes.
“You came!” she exclaimed loudly enough for him to notice that she had seen him. He looked at her with a deer caught in the headlights expression, as though he didn’t quite wish for his presence to be noted. Then she watched him reluctantly walk towards her.
“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” he told her, handing her a bouquet of red tulips. They were her favorite flowers. It must’ve slipped when they spoke during those afternoons he’d come to see her rehearse, she was touched that he remembered.
“They’re beautiful. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. I’m not really the ballet type, but your performance blew me away.”
“Thanks.”
“Okay, well, I have to go now,” he spoke fast as though he was in a hurry and his body turned as though he couldn’t wait to escape, much like a robber getting caught red handed and attempting to slink away from the police.
“Jon…it was good to see you.”
“Sure,” he dismissed her comment. It seemed to slide off of him like water on a duck. She didn’t even have a chance to reply, for he was already walking away from her. A girl was waiting for him near the exit. The only thing that was visible amongst the crowd and from that distance was a black veil. Sydney. Of course, she was stupid if she figured he had come alone. A strange sense of irritation lingered, and she couldn’t quite grasp why. She should be happy that he was trying to move on. Tha
t he was attempting to be autonomous without her or Milly. But it left her with an indescribable feeling of sadness. Before, he had always spent his afternoons with her. They’d drive around Venice Beach with the windows rolled down and the radio turned up to 97.8 FM where usually a Florence and the Machine or Arctic Monkeys song would come up, or he’d switch it over to 93.1 Jack FM where rock hits from the 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s flooded the airwaves. Sometimes they’d go to his house and watch Asian horrors. She’d joke about how she was starting to learn Japanese from watching the films and no longer needed the subtitles, while he’d state that he wasn’t learning a damn thing so he might as well keep the volume mute and his stereo at full blast playing Nirvana because they didn’t need the dialogue if they could simply read the subtitles. She hadn’t really felt close to anyone before, the way she had felt with Jon in terms of friendship. He had become the brother she never had, the inseparable best friend. Too bad that all good things always seem so short-lived, she thought.
“How shall we celebrate my prima ballerina?” Michael’s voice interrupted her thoughts about Jon. Her frown quickly turned into a smile. There was something about him. She always felt this pull, as though he were a magnet attracting her to him, and she didn’t even attempt to resist. He was narcotically beautiful, and his presence held that sense of power that made him even more beguiling to her. She simply couldn’t help herself when it came to Michael.
“Come in my dressing room,” she pulled him towards the door. He too had brought her flowers, white orchids. She was still dressed in her stage clothes, the cream tutu and rosebuds in her hair. He secured the door shut behind them, and soon his lips were on her and everything else that she might have had bothering her were soon forgotten. Even now, he had this ability of obliterating everything in its wake. She dropped the three bouquets of flowers on the floor, not caring if they crashed haphazardly on the tile. His kisses seemed to invoke a feeling in her that ran on instinct and fire. She had never felt this way before about anyone. Usually she was guarded, and letting someone get this close to her physically was almost unimaginable. He broke the kiss, and she caught her breath.