Everly After

by Rebecca Paula

  EVERLY AFTER

  Copyright © 2014 by Rebecca Paula. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher, Rebecca Paula.

  Excerpt from Between Everything and Us copyright 2014 by Rebecca Paula

  Cover design by Jonathan Paula

  ISBN: 978-0-9907395-0-0

  Everly After is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For information about the author, visit www.RebeccaPaula.com.

  EVERLY AFTER

  By Rebecca Paula

  To the girl who didn’t think this was ever possible, and to the boy who always did.

  Mad Girl’s Love Song

  I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

  I lift my lids and all is born again.

  (I think I made you up inside my head.)

  —Sylvia Plath

  Beckett

  I don’t want to fucking be here.

  I don’t have a scene. Those are for hipsters. Even if I did, it sure as hell wouldn’t be a crowded rager in some stranger’s flat. I suck it up anyway and follow my friend Oliver through the oddest crowd I’ve ever seen to hunt down a beer.

  “Where’d you hear about this?” I yell into his ear.

  His answer is drowned out by the bass shaking the packed room. It’s dark save for some disco balls and black lights. Everyone’s glowing neon. I thought I saw someone wearing a unicorn mask when we first arrived.

  Ollie grins at me over his shoulder, almost clotheslining a guy when he raises his arm and points across the room. He says something again, but I can’t hear, so I follow his gesture to a group of half-naked girls holding a photo shoot with giant balloons and a confetti gun. They’re jumping in front of a strobe light so it looks as if they’re floating as confetti rains down.

  I rub my eyes, a little freaked out. It’s too loud. My palms are sweaty. I never did this scene in university, and after being stuck in war zones for so long, I hate pointless shit like this.

  “I need a drink,” I yell to Ollie.

  I’m too late. He’s already making a beeline toward the topless birds. Not that this surprises me.

  Ollie’s on his own.

  I shove through the crowd, tensing as some girls start shouting about who likes the song playing, their voices pitched in an earsplitting shrill. My mouth goes dry.

  I suck in a deep breath, elbowing my way to a door across the room, and I pray it’s the damn loo. If I can find a small corner and have room to breathe, I might not knock someone out.

  When I open the door, a girl in a neon bikini and a giraffe mask is lounging in the bathtub. At the opposite end is another wearing an Indian headdress, covered in body paint. Between them, a girl sporting Ray-Bans is stuffing a block of cheese into her mouth. A discarded pizza box is tossed on the floor next to the empty champagne bottles rolling at my feet. Lipstick hearts are smeared over the tiled wall behind them. The girls look up and laugh, waving for me to join them.

  Not a chance in hell.

  I back out, my hands held high in surrender, and weave through the horde of stupored idiots until I’m in a bedroom. People are jumping on the bed, spraying silly string and glitter everywhere. It’s the strangest fucking party. It’s as though I tripped and fell into a neon hell full of ravers.

  A bottle of something is sitting on a dresser. I can’t make out what it is, but the noise is gnawing at my nerves. I cave and swipe it, and then I climb out the opened window on my left, out onto the fire escape. It’s old and rusty, and I’m not sure it’s going to stay attached to the building. I race up the rungs until I reach the brick ledge that circles the slopped rooftop, and then I jump over to the other side, looking out at the lights of Paris. I concentrate on breathing in and out the way the shrink told me, but my heart is racing and I feel like I’m going to puke.

  After you see the things I’ve seen, you can’t unsee them. The sounds of screams and mortar shells exploding, the smell of burning flesh, the images of desperation—they root themselves into you like a damn thorn. They’re stubborn and sticky, always a pain in the ass when you crave normalcy but end up snapping. Like now. My boss insisted I go to therapy after what happened or I’d lose my job. So I go. But it’s not helping. Obviously.

  “You might not want to drink that.” The smooth French voice startles me. My knuckles whiten; my hands grip the ledge so tightly I might crumble the old brick.

  Someone from the next flat over throws on a light. It filters out onto the roof, flooding over this woman who’s leaning against the building, half-hidden in shadow.

  I can’t form the words for what I see at first. It takes a minute for my mind to catch up.

  Fucking perfection.

  There’s nothing girlish about her, even if her face is soft and innocent.

  “Why not?” I grasp for French. I spent seven years here—I’m fluent—but her eyes, wide and doe-like, steal the words away. I’m standing here, looking like the biggest prat.

  She takes the bottle and holds it up to inspect it. “It looks like one of Demi’s creations,” she answers in English. She’s American. I narrow my eyes at her, scrambling to find some footing. “And you don’t seem like the kind of guy who chases after that.”

  I spin around and lean against the ledge, folding my arms. It’s cold for spring, and if I’m cold, she must be freezing. She’s not wearing much. Her skinny legs are bare except for the tiny, black-sequined shorts. Her white top is backless. And she’s not wearing any shoes. I can’t explain, but I want to pull her into my arms and warm her up.

  I scuff my boot back against the wall, unsure of what to say. It’s been a while since I’ve met a girl I wanted to talk to, spend time with. I’m better with quick, nameless hookups.

  I reach my hand out. “Beckett.” I want to know her, to hear her speak again.

  She flashes a small smile, her lips full and heart-shaped, but she doesn’t shake my hand or tell me her name. I drop my hand, defeated, clutching it into a fist at my side.

  She turns and walks back into the dark where she was first hiding, and I curse under my breath, bracing my hands on the ledge. At least I can breathe up here. At least I didn’t snap and take out a room full of ravers because I’m a freak like that now.

  “This looks more your speed.”

  My chest tightens. Slowly, I turn back around, tapping my fist against my mouth. She holds the bottle out, waiting for me to take it, her hip popped to the side.

  I drop my hand, my curiosity piqued. “You must be cold.”

  Shut your fucking mouth, Beckett.

  Her dark eyes narrow before she shoves the bottle at me. “Are you going to warm me up?”

  The tightness in my chest shifts to pain at her bitterness. I grab the beer from her, careful so our fingers don’t touch. I hold it up as a silent thanks, then lower it to my lips for a long sip.

  I’m making a mess of this, so I stare out at the city again. I feel her next to me, keeping a distance that says she doesn’t trust me. It’s happening a lot now that I’m back in France. I’m tall already, but now, after trekking through bombed-out villages and dodging bullets and explosions, I’m a wall of brawn. I’ve been made into the image of something deadly, even if that’s not who I am. Before I left for my assignment with the foreign bureau, I was just another gangly reporter with stars in his eyes.

  “Why are you here?”

  I look over, meeting her suspicious gaze, and realize my beer is already drained. Dubstep fills up the silence between us, its tran
scendent drum weaving up from the opened windows of the flat below, out into the empty Paris night.

  I set down my bottle. “I’m here for the party.”

  She disappears again and returns with two more beers. She sets mine on the ledge and then climbs up after it. I hold my breath, waiting to reach out and steady her, my reflexes still tuned to move quickly. She lowers herself and dangles her feet over the side, the street below quiet except for the music. That’s the only thing around us. The music and the bright night sky. It’s never truly dark in Paris.

  “It’s downstairs if you’re lost.”

  I rest on my arms, my fingers wrapped around the neck of the bottle. I get the feeling she doesn’t appreciate me crashing her private party. “I came with a friend.”

  That’s all I really want to say. I’m regretting the decision to come as it is. I only wanted a fucking beer. Eventually, I’ll brace myself to plow through the neon human crush downstairs and leave.

  She leans backward so her long hair sweeps against the small of her back. My eyes rake down her face, the perfectly pale skin of her neck, the way her nipples are pebbled beneath her top. I don’t pull my gaze away when she turns and pins me with her stare.

  It’s quiet. So damn quiet between us. I should be a gentleman or some shit and avert my eyes. I can’t. I can’t stop taking her in. I want to pull her against me, wrap my arms around her, and kiss her until she confesses her name. I want to know all of her.

  She grins back, as though she knows what I’m thinking.

  “You want to get out of here?” I’m not sure why I bother. She doesn’t trust me enough to even share her name.

  Her shoulders shake in a small shiver, and her feet stop swinging. She breaks our staring match to gaze back out over the city.

  Around us, life continues. Things move forward. But the two of us are suspended, waiting.

  “I wonder what it would be like to fly,” she whispers.

  She doesn’t say any more, doesn’t answer me. She just throws out a question like that and lets it sink into the darkness between us. Her hands grip the ledge, and she bends forward as if she might push off and test her question, like she believes for a minute she has wings.

  She nods toward the street below. “What would your last thought be if you fell?”

  Her face is a mask of peacefulness, but I know the truth. I’ve spent too many years reading people. Too many years deflecting other’s opinions of me and my circumstances—the boy with the sad story.

  “There wouldn’t be time,” I say. “It’d be over before it even began.”

  She faces me, the corner of her mouth tipped up in a smug smile. “It wouldn’t have just begun. There’s always more.” Her fingers run through her hair, tussling it until I smell her perfume—pears and vanilla. “Sure, I’ll go for a walk.”

  I don’t want to leave with her anymore, but I don’t think I should leave her alone, either. Her question still rings in my mind, and the damnedest thing is I can’t think of an answer.

  I pull out my phone to text Ollie that I’m bailing, but she grabs it away.

  “What are you doing?”

  My hand flexes as I push down my temper. “Texting a friend.”

  As I soon as I explain, she shakes her head, a dry laugh pushing over her lips. “Of course.” She waves me off, then hands it back to me. “Sorry.”

  Obviously she’s a bit skittish. And untrusting. I should head out without her, but when she looks at me again, I can’t. There’s too much about her I don’t know. She spins around, crouching on her haunches, nothing behind her except a yawning distance between this building and the next. And the street far below. I wait, stuffing my hands into my pockets, fighting back the urge to hand her down from the ledge. She’s not the type to want help. I’m not the type to offer. Usually.

  When she swings her legs out to step down, her knees graze the brick. The knobby curve of one beads with blood, her skin scraped raw.

  She’s quiet, staring at her knee as if she can will it from bleeding. I’m not sure why I do it or why I care, but I step forward and lift up the edge of my T-shirt and press it against her knee, soaking up the blood. She keeps her head tucked down and her hands at her side as I inch closer. My free hand settles by her hip, her hair brushes against my arm.

  “What’s your name, pet?” My words are barely a whisper.

  Her fingers hover above my hands on her knee. I keep my eyes anchored there as she slowly entwines them with mine. That spark people talk about when two people touch—apparently it’s not a heap of shite because it happens right at that moment and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know anything. Why I’m here with her. Why we’re not kissing. My name.

  “Everly.”

  I don’t want to shake off her touch, so I stay still. I want to hear her whisper again. That soft, lovely voice, nothing like the loud American girls I’ve known. This one smells like sugar, and her voice is just as sweet.

  I should say it’s a pretty name, but I don’t. I pry my eyes from the sight of our linked hands and meet her gaze. “Hi,” I say lamely.

  She’s still, so still that I’m not sure she’s heard me. Her face is the perfect mask, not revealing if she’s feeling what I am. My world’s just been inverted.

  I lift up the corner of my shirt to see if the blood has stopped. Everly doesn’t wait. She jumps down and throws back the rest of her beer as she marches toward the fire escape.

  “The party…” she starts.

  The words die out between us.

  “I’m leaving, unless—”

  “No, I can leave. I want to leave,” she says, speaking over me. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  That’s the most she’s said all night.

  “Not your scene?”

  She makes an odd noise in her throat. “I don’t want it to be.”

  I follow her down the fire escape, back into the crowded flat. I’m waiting for her to glow neon like the others, but her skin is smooth under the black lights, untarnished. Her top is illuminated to an electric blue, and her shorts spark with dancing light. I’m too distracted to notice she’s slipped away.

  “Have you seen her?” a girl asks in French, throwing herself at me. Her hands tighten over mine as she tips forward. She’s wearing Minnie Mouse ears and giant furry boots. I thought people knew how to dress in Paris. “Have you seen her? I swear she’s here.”

  My mind is repeating her question when she curls her hand over my shoulder and brushes up against me. Her blinking, glow-lit earrings are freaking me out.

  “Do you know?” the girl asks again. Her voice sounds warped, like someone’s messing with the playback of an old French pop cassette. “Hello?”

  My palms are sweaty again. I need air. I need to breathe.

  A hand reaches back into the crowd and circles my wrist in a tight grip. The music pulsates around me, the room stifling. A glitter cannon shoots off across the room, raining silver over the dancers, disco balls, and black lights. The hand never lets go.

  Everly breaks our touch and sprints down the hallway as soon as I emerge from the flat. There’s glitter and confetti scattered in her hair. Ridiculously large sunglasses cover her face now, and she’s still not wearing shoes. She waves for me to follow, but I don’t understand the rush until the door opens up behind me.

  “Her,” someone yells. “I swear it’s her.” A small crowd spills out into the hallway, snapping pictures with their mobiles.

  I rush forward and throw Everly over my shoulder, racing down the stairs until we’re outside and around the corner from the building. I take another corner and another, until my lungs are burning. The city starts to fade back in around me like the lines of a coloring book, and my heart stops drumming.

  My body does this sometimes. It moves without my mind catching up. It’s survival. Did I need to throw a complete stranger over my shoulder to escape a crowded rave? No. But I haven’t adjusted yet and this is what happens. I make an idiot of myself. No
one is shooting. There aren’t roadside bombs here by a shitty flat in Montmartre. No one is going to hold a gun to my head and threaten to kill me as they duct-tape my mouth shut.

  I’m safe now, here in Paris.

  I unfold her from my shoulder, lifting her straight out from my body so she doesn’t slide down my front. I’m not about to torture myself.

  Everly peeks over the large rims of her sunglasses at me, one side of her mouth kicked up.

  “What the hell was that about?”

  She ignores my question. Again. “Want to get coffee, Beckett?”

  I’m not waiting to wrestle out another detail about this girl, who she is, who she’s not. I’m not sure I care. I want another beer, my flat, the sound of typing while I write.

  I brush my hands over my T-shirt, trying to clean off all the glitter, but it won’t budge. It only covers more of me now. “Goodnight, Everly.”

  There are beautiful lies in this world, and it takes me being chased through a hallway at a rave to decide this girl is one of them.

  But even the most beautiful lies aren’t worth chasing.

  Everly

  I’m staring into the bottom of my empty cappuccino cup. Again.

  It’s getting to be a terrible habit. I can sit forever, watching the shadows change over the café table, listening to the busy sidewalk as the rest of Paris lives life. All while I stay rooted in my seat, staring into my empty cup as though it’s a busted Magic 8-Ball, refusing to give me an answer.

  All truths burn bright and clear, but they won’t be in the bottom of this cup, no matter how long I sit. I’m still waiting in the dark.

  I tap my cigarette over the ashtray and take another drag. A red scooter rushes past. The rumble of its engine fills me with energy, my heart racing in anticipation as if the driver will loop around the block and drive me far away. I still haven’t been to bed since last night’s party. It’d be great if he could take me back to my apartment. I’m glued to this seat instead, unable to shake the memory of a stranger’s touch.