by AJ Brooks
“We still on?”
< - - - >
In art, I stare at his face on the canvas and spend all hour working on his eyes. Now that I've actually seen them, I obsessively mix the paints to get the right shade of gold, but there is no replication of those eyes. I’m not sure if I should crack his face or not. He didn’t have cracks when I saw him last night. Or this morning.
Maybe no cracks for now. My body shudders as I think about how I nearly painted over him in white to start over.
Bonus for the day? Mr. Tanner leaves me completely alone.
< - - - >
Taylor jiggles her leg as I finish rubbing the blue dye through to the ends of her shoulder-length hair. Her big eyes dart around my apartment like they always do and she chomps her gum like she’s trying to kill it with her molars. At least I don’t have to worry about getting hair color on anything—paint splotches the floor everywhere in the open space.
“You guys have the coolest place. Too bad it’s always so damn cold in here.” She gives her bony knee a scratch, making me wonder where she finds her crazy eighties style acid washed jeans, or if she makes them herself. Probably something I should know as the girl she hangs with most often. Although judging from this morning, I’m not overly forthcoming with details of my idiosyncrasies either...
“Okay.” Crystal steps down her steep stairs with loose curls and an excessive amount of make up. “I’m going out with Tennyson. I’ll see you later.”
I give her a wave as I blow dry Taylor’s hair in the kitchen trying to get the dye to really set.
“What kind of pretentious asshole name is Tennyson?” Taylor asks the second the door’s closed between us.
“No idea who that is.” I shrug.
“When will she be home?” Taylor asks.
“I’m never sure.” I run my fingers through Taylor’s hair again. “Sometimes a few hours. Sometimes a few days.”
“Has she always been like that?”
“Yup.”
“Even when we were in high school?”
“Yup.” I mean, what else am I supposed to say? I wasn’t planned. Crystal never wanted a kid, and then seventeen years after she left me with Dad, she gets a phone call. Taylor doesn’t totally get that my situation could be a million times worse.
Taylor turns to face me, her jaw dropped wide. “That’s kind of crazy, Z.”
I shrug. It’s so many miles better than my drug-addled Dad, I don’t know what to say. “I think we can wash out the blue now.”
Taylor watches me for a moment in a weird mix of disbelief and pity. Her pierced brows fall down as the sadness spreads over her features. “Zarah...” she starts, her voice too full of apology. Taylor knows very little about my life before this one. She pities me for now. Over my mom. I hate pity. Now is relaxing and feels a million times better and safer than I ever thought my life would ever be.
“Don’t.” I turn off the blow dryer and back up. “I’ve never had a curfew. There are worse things.”
Her face changes as she snorts, maybe sensing what I need. “Definitely. Because in about five minutes I’m going to have to call my mom to check in, even though I’m graduated. Because if I live in their house, I live by their rules...” She rolls her eyes.
Taylor’s parents look like drugged out rock star groupies with their tattoos, piercings, and punk clothes, but she gets away with nothing. And it’s probably very weird that I envy her for it.
I laugh a little and turn on the sink, motioning for Taylor to come my way. We start rinsing, my hands getting further discolored by the blue. Once I’m done, I hand her a stained towel and pull open the fridge.
Crystal did get some food today. Not a lot, but at least there’s snacks.
Taylor’s kneeling in front of the paintings I have stacked up against the wall, her new hair wrapped up in the towel. “Is this one new?” she asks running her finger along the edge of the couple Crystal wants me to sell.
There’s so much sadness in that picture I think I’ll move it to the back of my stack so I don’t see it. “Yep. A new one.”
“One day I’m going to make you spread all these out for me because I’m thinking there’s a crazy story unfolding that brain of yours.” She snaps her gum a few times as she runs her hands over the top of the stacked canvasses.
“Well, I don’t know their story, so I can’t imagine how I’d let you in on anything.” I shake my head, forcing down the hammering in my chest. “They’re all a feeling, and then a picture to go with it. Nothing more.”
“And this shit just comes to you? Like, you close your eyes and paint these?” Taylor runs her finger over the bumpy paint of the girl’s shoulder and I shudder.
“Basically.”
I don’t want to talk about my paintings or why they are all so lonely, or the fact that all I feel while I paint them is broken and loveless.
Completely unbalanced.
V
Cassius
< - - - >
"You’re the one in charge of love?" she asks so unbelieving that it makes me smile. We sit across from each other on the closet floor, me with my arms wrapped around my knees, and her huddled with a blanket in the corner. She rests her feet on mine because she says it calms her to touch me. Slows her world.
I want to try to explain but leave out the part about my mother cursing me.” Most people are pretty good at finding their own love, but I'm here for those who are lost. For people who need help."
She cocks her head to the side in the darkness and pulls her brows down low.
"I don't want to find love. I don't want help finding a guy," she says resting her head back against the wall. The defiance in her tone pushes my lips into a smile.
"You’re not who I'm here for, actually."
She lifts her head from the wall and stares at me. "But..."
I follow her eyes around the dark closet as she thinks about my words.
"I wasn't sent here for you," I repeat. "But I stayed for you."
“Why?” Her former strength has left her, and I wish she could hold onto it for more than a few moments at a time.
“Because you asked me to.”
< - - - >
Today, I’m not simply surveying my assignment, I’ve become my assignment. I am less than impressed about it, too. After my stunt with the blond on the bridge the Moirai have been watching me closer than I’d like. They decided I’m not putting in enough effort and maybe a little mortal body-snatching would help me understand my target better.
I’ve been watching him with feigning interest for only a couple weeks and I thought he was boring before, but now that I’m a part of him the only thing this guy thinks about are those digital games and his girl. Who is not Venia.
I should not have been so relieved to find out it’s Venia’s friend Max is into. Someone small and feisty and still completely out of his league. The girl he ran into weeks ago in the exact spot I’m standing in.
I lean awkwardly against the brick wall of the cafe, absorbing the rare rays of sun and drinking some tall double espresso drink with a load of sugar, while my leg twitches with nervousness. Knowing Venia is no longer my target is only a small comfort at this point. The girl spends all her time with Venia, this inseparable female bond that makes it impossible to really get a sense of her. Not to mention Venia can see me, and when she does, my whole world slows to a stop making me forget everything but my name.
The biggest problem I have now is that I, Cassius, bringer of love, have been stuffed in a fleshy sack of weakness for two days. Forty-eight hours in a mortal body and I will hate every second of it. Max is so genuine and calm that it unnerves me, making me completely unsure as to why he was chosen as my last assignment.
As I watch people, they return my gaze and no matter what look they give, it bothers me. It’s absurd, but I can’t help feeling like I’m trapped and on display. At least as a mortal I don’t turn to stone.
Leaning over, I tuck my empty coffee in a trashcan a
nd the lid slams down onto my finger. The clang makes me jump, but I’m quickly overtaken by a hot searing pain that that is so foreign to me it makes a long, loud modern curse slide from my mouth. I begin to bleed and a wave of nausea passes through my stomach. So human. So weak.
A woman at the table three down on the long patio café turns to glare at me with pursed lips and a can’t-you-see-my-children-are-with-me-you-foul-mouthed-heathen look of disapproval.
I hate mortals.
I’m about to leave the café, when I come face to face with a girl.
Panic consumes me as I realize it’s Venia, but I remember that I’m not me. I’m Max. Or I look like Max.
She passes by and looks directly at me. I instinctively look away, but force my eyes back to hers when I remember I won’t turn to stone.
She’s tall, but I’m taller and she has to tilt her head to look into my eyes. I suppose I always saw her in that closet sitting down. These details wouldn’t have been easy to notice about her.
As she steps in close to me the world around me slows to a crawl, but only for a second. For one second somewhere deep within me I’m washed over with calm. It’s weaker now that I’m in a mortal body but one second is all I need to recognize the peace. In one more second the feeling disappears.
My heart jumps like it did in the alley. Weeks ago. I haven’t been this close to her since then.
Max would look away here. Look at his feet. But I’m here and I overpower him and lock eyes with her again.
The corner of her mouth pulls up in an unpracticed way, and I force Max to smile back. It’s strange that a smile can look so awkward on someone as unique looking as she is. Everything about her screams intense, from her dark features to her thick hair to the seriousness of her heavily lined eyes.
Suddenly she points and tilts her head to the side in a playful way. It throws me completely off balance. I have never seen this look on her.
“Hey,” she says lightly waving her finger. “Don’t you owe my friend a coffee?” She doesn’t take her gaze off me, and I might as well have turned to stone because I can’t force myself to say anything. I can’t even count on Max to help me. He’s more hopeless than I’ll ever be. The most I can do is nod and smile. A frown replaces her attempt at a smile, until the door of the café jingles and she disappears inside.
I roll my shoulders, overcome with this intense desire to get out of here before she comes back out, and I can't tell if it's me or Max making that decision.
We’re both idiots.
I reach into the pocket of my jeans and grab the wallet in there, flipping it open. I check the little class schedule. If I have to be mortal for two days I might as well go to class. At least there I can’t embarrass myself further… or get this guy killed. Which would cause a world of problems with the Moirai.
VI
Zarah
< - - - >
My body shakes like it always does when I’m coming down, but I’m determined to stay in my closet until it’s over. If I let myself back in my room, I’ll end up in the bathroom, and then I’ll be tempted by the stock in the medicine cabinet. I slide my fingers through my thick hair, braiding and pulling it loose again and again.
I’m choking on want and need and the nausea that’s tearing through me. Sometimes I wonder why I even try to stay sober. Dad doesn’t care.
But I care. I don’t want to, but I do. There’s a fight somewhere inside me that I’ve wished away again and again.
“Where are you?” I whisper, knowing my hallucination will sit with me through this. I’m not sure when he first showed up. Everything since I was ten and Mom died is hazy. The time when Dad started feeding me pills has become more dream than reality. I have no idea which is which anymore. I fight to remember my age. “Sixteen,” I whisper because saying it out loud will make it more real. Concrete. Something tangible enough to hold on to and remember.
“Venia?” He appears and sinks to his knees, opening his arms, and I already know how he makes me feel. How the calmness of him helps me come down faster. I don’t want to be an addict. I don’t want to be high anymore, but I don’t know how to stop.
He always waits for me to touch him first. Or he asks. Today, I reach out and clutch his shirt, pulling myself into his chest. His touch is as addictive as anything I’ve tried. I crave the calmness that follows him.
“Why are you shaking?” he asks as I settle into the crook of his arm.
He’s the only good part about the drugs. Even the patterns of blackness in my dark closet act weird when I’m high. He’s not real, but he’s real enough for what I need. “Dad likes me high.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t like to be alone.” Because he lost his wife and doesn’t know how to deal. Because he thinks I’m masking my pain in the same way, when really it’s him I’m trying to hide from. Because I’m starting to need the pills or the syringe or the smoke as much as he does.
“Venia.” He strokes my hair again in the perfect, gentle way because someone I created in my mind would know exactly how to touch me, and how not to.
“I don’t know how to stop...”
I nearly give in as I fumble with grasping the closet doors to unfold them, but his voice stops me. “Can I tell you the story again? About Lena...”
My breath echoes in the small space as I force my hands away from the doors and lie back down with my imaginary comforter.
His sad story always puts me to sleep and helps me realize that maybe everyone has a sad story that’s made them who they are--even people who aren’t real.
< - - - >
I sit up and gasp at the reality of my dream. My mouth aches inside it’s so dry. I work my tongue a few times to try and get some moisture back. The house is dark and quiet enough that I know Crystal’s out with that Tennyson again, probably spending every dollar she made off her new commissioned painting. I slide out of bed. The cold air hits me hard, forcing in a breath. I’m sure running around this part of Seattle in the dark isn’t a smart thing to do, but I’m also sure I don’t care. I ache to get high. The burning rips through me like it did this morning. Like it did yesterday.
Like it has since that day I saw him in the alley a couple weeks ago.
I thought I was doing better. My cravings were supposed to get better not worse. Sue said they would. Everyone at the institution told me that since I wanted to stop, I’d make it. And the constant need to get high had gotten better. Way better. But now I feel like I did when I first was taken from Dad and still coming down.
A walk in the cold will do me good.
My eyeliner’s still intact from my day, and I slide on my black leggings and boots, pulling a sweater over the striped tee I was attempting sleep in. I grab a hat and my glasses on my way out the door. I pause at the bottom of the stairs again and squint into the deserted alley looking for him.
I walk toward the park near the waterfront. The lights from downtown sneak this way, the Ferris wheel to my right, the lights from the container ships to my left. The empty baseball stadium. A few small drops of rain hit my face and I wonder if it’ll be a regular downpour or one of those misty rains. My hair hangs down my back and I pull it over my shoulder again sliding it into a braid, even though I don’t have a tie and it won’t stay.
A grey hood catches my eye around a tree and a familiar sinking, fluttering feeling fills my stomach. My heart jumps. It’s him. “Hey!” I yell, but he continues to walk. It’s that the trail behind him feels right. Comfort. Balance. It has to be him. My heart thumps because the closer I get, the stronger the feeling is.
I run around the wide tree to get a better glimpse, but still can’t see his face. “Hey!”
I push harder, and grab his arm, which spins him around to face me with wide eyes.
The wrong eyes.
“Shit.” I step back, and gasp for air as I try to catch my breath, wondering how I could have been so confused. “Sorry.”
He holds up his hands between us th
en pushes his hood back, his hair flopping in his face. “It’s fine. No harm.”
“Wait? I know you,” I say as I place him. The guy from the coffee shop. I spin around quickly, expecting my Monet to appear. To accompany this feeling flowing through me. I turn back to fluffy hair. “I didn’t know you could talk.”
I tease him because I don’t know what else to do. It’s the middle of the night and I’ve run into this guy twice in two days.
He doesn’t say anything so I try again. “Why are you wandering around in the middle of the night?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” His tone is biting and accusatory, but at the same time concerned. Like I’m some fragile flower. It’s so him. As soon as that thought passes through my head, I dismiss it, because I don’t know him.
“Uh…” I belong on rough streets in the middle of the night way more than his skinny ass does. “I can take care of myself just fine thanks.”
I walk past him, or try to but he steps in my path. It makes my paranoia rear up and sets my nerves on edge.
“No. Ve–” He grimaces and steps out of my way, which sort of adds to his nerdy quirkiness. “Oh, hell. I’m such shit at this.”
“What is ‘this’?” So weird how he feels. Even now that he’s walking next to me.
“Talking to Mort–, to… Ah, merda–”
“What was that?” I stop at the corner of the park under the stoplight figuring there’s enough traffic here so that if he tries something I can get help. Though, as I run my eyes down his trying-too-hard grey skinny jeans, and his chucks that haven’t seen enough wear, and a button up under his hooded jacket... Nothing sticks out as screaming ‘dangerous’. Actually, he looks terrified.
“I’m…”
And so freaking lost.
“Look. Whoever you are. Thanks for being worried, but like I said, I’m pretty sure I can take care of myself.” Maybe he should be worried about himself. I mean, now that I’m closer he’s a little broader than I first thought, but my guess is I’m tougher than this guy—only because of the totally unsure way he carries himself.