“Whew!” She collapses beside me, grinning despite the rapid breaths pushing through her lips.
“Finally worn out?” I ask, tucking away my notebook.
“I think so.”
“You ready for music?”
I reach for the guitar, but she grabs my hand. My pulse pounds at the change in her eyes. It’s been a while since she’s looked at me like that. Days that have felt like months when you factor the time lost.
“Don’t move.” Her voice is soft, which gives the command more power.
I laugh, nervous, because my body is already responding to the way her fingers skim up my arms. She’s looking for something again. Studying me in a way that makes me feel like her private sculpture.
She shifts in the wrong direction though. I want her close, not further away as she tilts her head, slowly scanning my hair and my face.
“I said don’t move,” she scolds, even issuing a warning finger.
I surrender with a grin, holding up my hands. My amusement fades when her eyes fill with something else. Something lonely and dark I never want to see on her.
“You have your drawings of me,” she whispers finally. “What do I have of you?”
“You—”
She silences me again. “What I mean is, I want this moment forever too. Right now. The way the light brushes a shadow over your eyes and makes them so dark it’s like they reflect the acres of depth in you. Your hair and the waves you tuck back while you’re concentrating. Did you know you have this one strand here that always falls right back?” She reaches for the stray lock and doesn’t back away this time. “And your lips just…” Tears gather in her eyes as she traces soft lines. “You’re so beautiful. So, so beautiful,” she whispers. “I had to come back.”
I blink. What?
Confused, terrified, I stare at her, not understanding what’s so suddenly lucid.
“Rachel, what are you—”
She cuts me off again. This time with her mouth, and I’m no match for that. Her hands grip my hair like it’s the only thing keeping us here. Like I need to be convinced of our connection when I can’t imagine being in any other place. I’d give up everything else for another second with her. And the next. And then we’re on the blankets, tearing at clothing and skin alike, just desperate to be together again. To sing that song we’ve invented in a way no other pair of souls could do. She’s the harmony to my melody, half notes to my whole, and right now I just want to be fucking whole. In response, she drinks me in like I’m the light and she’s the void. The starving wanderer craving a scrap others wouldn’t touch.
I had to come back.
I shove the words away. I ignore red eyes staring up from two planes. Lifeless bodies and angry tubes. I fight against everything that isn’t Rachel and I connected in one moment of perfect ecstasy.
I let her feast on me while I drink her in, rediscovering every inch of her in a new way. My name breathes from her lips as I rock over her. Eyes closed, face yearning for me and everything I am, she’s the picture of angelic expression. I want to memorize it, imprint it deep inside, and I start to understand her pain a moment ago. I do have my sketchbook to capture and preserve these moments of pure splendor. What do others do with beauty of this scale? How do they survive a frail memory, forced to watch it fade into nothing?
Her fingers reach up, brushing my cheeks. I balance over her, studying every line and feature of her face, her neck, the delicate contours of her chest. She doesn’t smile as she waits.
“I’m scared, Milo,” she says finally, almost in a whisper.
I nod, swallowing the terror venting from my own chest.
“When I left the other day, my body was still here wasn’t it. It was also there. It was everywhere and nowhere because my soul…” She shivers, her light fading in waves.
“Where’d you go, Rachel?” I ask.
Her eyes clench shut.
“Rachel, where were you?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
I barely hear her response and lean as close as I can without crushing her.
“It’s okay,” I say quietly. “It’s okay, angel.”
I push off and settle beside her in time to gather her trembling body into my arms.
“I don’t want to go back there, Milo. It was so dark. I was so scared. I don’t want to go back there.”
I breathe in the scent of roses and sunlight as I hold tight. I let her cry, remaining still until I feel her pain start to ease into me. I know where she went. I’ve been there too. The difference is I belong to the dark and she doesn’t. She went there for me, and now I want it all, every last stab of the pain inside her. Let it bleed out. The fear, the anger, the agony. It should be mine, not hers, because I’ve been molded my entire life for this moment. My role, my purpose, my calling that didn’t make sense until now.
She may have been sent to love me back to the light. But I was sent to love her into death.
Rachel wakes the next morning perfectly beautiful with red-rimmed, swollen eyes from a night of tears. I brush the hair from her face as she stares back, searching my gaze for judgment.
“I’m sorry for ruining everything last night.”
I bristle at the apology. “What did you ruin?”
“I just wanted to be close to you.”
She closes her eyes, and I continue moving my thumb over her cheek. “It’s not even possible for you to ruin anything,” I say quietly.
“It is. There’s more.” Her lip quivers, and my heart races at the impending confession. I force myself to remain still, readying myself for what I have feared for days. “That day I collapsed, I think it happened because I was supposed to go.” Her eyes grow as she locks them on me. “I’m supposed to be gone, Milo.”
I release a heavy breath. It sounds different coming from her. Final in a way I hadn’t expected.
“But I held on, and then the doctors brought me back and… I can’t even imagine what that must have done to my family. To bring me back to a corpse on life support?” She starts crying again, shedding tears for others.
I let the silence settle over us, my own confession hanging on my tongue. I could tell her not to worry about what her rebellion did to her family. Hell, I want to. Everything in me wants her to believe she made the right choice because those few hours of losing her were an unbearable fucking hell I can’t imagine going back to. I could admit it’s partly my fault because I refused to let go as well. I could make her choose me. She already has, hasn’t she? Chosen the lonely rocker boy who didn’t discover life until his death. What it means to be human until he wasn’t.
But I don’t. I say nothing as she shatters, because she’s right to have faith in who I’ve become. She did fall for a man who’s more than he should be and who loves her enough to keep his new calling private. It’s my burden to bear, because if I have any hope of convincing her to let go, she can never know the way my insides shred at the thought of losing her.
I close my eyes and hold her for now.
Chapter Twenty-Three:
Shining
“Sit still, will you?” I laugh.
She casts me a look that makes it obvious she’d rather not be posing for me at the moment.
“You promised you’d teach me more of ‘Haunted Melody’ on the guitar.”
“I will! Just give me a few more minutes.”
“But I’m ready now. Did you see my fingers? I have a callous on this one!”
I snort another laugh. Oh my god. Did she just give me the finger? Yep, she definitely did when she adds a sly smile.
“I’m almost finished.”
“You’ve been saying that for hours,” she groans.
“It hasn’t even been hours. You were the one who wanted me to draw you a picture.”
“Of you! Not me.”
I smirk at the thought. “I haven’t looked at myself in ages. I couldn’t do that if I wanted to.” I smudge over some of the shading around her face and lean
back for a full view of the image. Yeah, that will work. I love the way it captures her playful impatience. If I thought she wouldn’t murder me for delaying things further, I’d add the hand gesture too.
“Okay, finished.”
She jumps up from the chest and snatches the page from my hands. After a brief survey, her eyes crinkle into a grimace.
“What?” I ask, amused.
“I do not look like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like…” She shakes her head, staring at her reflection. “You always make me look like a princess or angel or something. I’m not this perfect.”
“Fine, then give it back. I’ll keep it.” I reach for the drawing, and she jumps away.
“No way!”
“You said you didn’t want it.”
I lunge again, this time capturing her in my arms. She laughs as I twist her through the air.
“Put me down! Milo!”
She’s still giggling when I finally obey and set her gently on her feet. Her eyes change as they stare up into mine. “Is this really how you see me?”
“No. I’m not a good enough artist to fully capture that.”
She swallows, the mood settling as she absorbs my words. “I wish I could express how I see you. I want you to know. I tried but…” Her face flushes.
“You tried what? To draw me?” I feel like mush right now, and she seems to relax a little at my goofy grin. Sorry, but I can’t help it. How cute is that?
“No, silly. I can’t draw. I tried to… well… I wrote a song for you too, I guess.” Her blush turns deep red.
“You did?”
Her teeth sink into her lip as she nods. “It’s not like yours. I mean, it’s not good, but all those times I was dancing around I just kept thinking the same thing. And it started to flow and rhyme and I realized it was a song. About you.”
“Sing it.”
She looks away, and I gently tug her back.
“Please, Rachel. Please sing it for me?”
Maybe I’m begging. But is there anything more important than a song she wrote for me?
“Promise you won’t laugh?”
“How…” I can’t even finish the sentence, it’s so absurd. “Please?”
She lets out a breath and steps back, shy as I watch in silence. She blinks and meets my eyes again. And then she opens her mouth.
He’s king of the moonlight but calls me the sun
He says I’m his angel but I’m the lucky one
I’m the eyes that get to see his shine
I’m the hands that get to feel his skin on mine
I’m the ears that hear his voice call my name
And the tongue that tastes the sweetest kiss, the softest lips
He’s the man he’ll never believe he could be
Too good to see how far he’s run
Too strong to break from what he’s overcome
He’s my rock and my anchor, my saint and villain
He’s the reason I’m free to dance
To sing
To bring light to his world that just needed a spark
He’s far more than these words can express
He’s the reason I fly and fall so hopeless-ly
In love with a rocker boy from the shadows of death
The gates of Hell
The tolling bells he insists are his prison
I fell fell fell to that place
Where light meets dark
Where my tiny spark
Cast a glare so alive, he saw a sun
When I, I saw the one
Who set this star free to shine
I’m frozen when her voice fades into timid silence again. She’s too far away to touch and keeps casting curious glances to gauge my reaction.
“That was…”
Beautiful.
The emotion in my voice explains the sudden burn in my eyes I have to blink away. Her eyes lift to mine, the shyness giving way to something deeper. I study the change, absorbing it as confirmation of everything she just sang. It can’t be true, and yet here’s the proof, still shaking from her exertion of spilling it out. Only one thing seems appropriate for the moment, so I pull my gaze away and reach for my guitar.
“Sing it again?” I ask.
I’m not surprised that her melody fits a solid chord progression or her lyrics hold a cadence that easily molds into place. She may not believe she has the music but I’ve known since the first time I heard her voice that she bleeds it like I do. After only a few run-throughs we have a viable song to add to our repertoire, complete with a tight harmony for my vocal. I start showing her how to play it as well, and love every second of watching her come alive from the song within her. She is my sun and to think she credits me with evoking her shine is an honor I still can’t comprehend. When she finally exhausts the music from her system, we settle on the blankets for a rest.
I love the way her body molds to mine whenever we touch. It doesn’t matter if we’re lying down, standing, cuddled on the blankets, or dancing over dirt floors. When we come together, it feels instinctive and eternal. Like time, space, and even spiritual planes can’t break the two pieces apart.
Maybe I snicker at that—this strange poetry that flutters through my head now. How my former bandmates would laugh. The king of death and destruction lyrics now composes sonnets to twinkling stars. They didn’t know Rachel though. If they had, maybe everything would have been different. Would we be here now? I shudder at the thought of anything taking away this moment.
The blankets appear particularly worn today as I stare over them. They should be brighter, fresher, given the beauty they’re supporting. I pull Rachel closer and relish the natural reaction of her head burrowing into my chest. Her hands snake around me, absently running over my side and back beneath my shirt.
“How is your room today?” I ask, still studying my disappointing flooring.
She tilts her head up with a smile. “My room? Fine. How is your basement?”
“Ugly. I’d rather be on your shaggy rug.”
“We are in my mind.”
“Yeah, but…” Flashes of a sterile bed rush into my head. Grieving parents. A small… no, wait, I never turned around to view the rest of the space. I wish I had. I’d do anything to have a complete image right now. I also realize I never told her about that day.
“Are you okay? What is it?”
I take a deep breath and lean my head against the wall. “I have to tell you something. It’s about the day you were here but gone.”
She tenses just as I feared.
“I had a vision.”
“Oh no! Again? I thought they stopped!”
“They did. I mean, not that kind of vision. I saw… you.”
She freezes, still staring up at me. “What do you mean? What did you see?”
“Your room. You in your hospital bed. Your parents standing beside you. I think somehow I was in your plane instead of mine.”
A chill rushes over me when she pulls her warmth away. “You were? How?”
“I’m not sure. Charles and Violet, they’re your parents?”
Sadness springs to her eyes as she nods. Then something worse, and I wish I could take it back. “Then you saw… everything?”
I swallow at the look on her face. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I didn’t realize until then. I mean, I knew, but I didn’t.”
She quiets, something flashing over her face as she considers my words. “You came to my room.” It’s not a question so I can’t argue.
“Yes.”
Her brow creases in thought. “Do you think that means I can come to yours?”
We test several theories: some strong, others silly, all sincere. We try wishing really hard, asking really hard, and even some weird roleplaying game Rachel dreams up, but no matter what we do, I’m still in a rotting basement and she’s still in a sterile hospital room.
“I don’t get it. Why isn’t this working?” She crosses her arms with a look that makes
me fear for whatever higher power orchestrates all of this. “What were you thinking and feeling when it happened?”
I shrug. “Actually, I was arguing with Roy. You’d been gone for a while, and I was in no state to deal with him. We were going at it, and next thing I know I was in your room.”
“For how long?”
“Just a few seconds. I barely had time to figure out where I was before you sat up and…” My voice trails off. “Wait, you sat up. Maybe you brought me there. What if we have it backward?”
“You didn’t go to my plane; I brought you in?”
I nod. Seems as likely a theory as any.
“So if I want to see your world you have to pull me to it.”
I curse and shove a hand through my hair. Are we really having this conversation? Being dead used to be so simple. “Hell, I don’t know. None of it makes sense to me.”
“Then try it.”
“What?”
“Pull me to your world.”
“I have, right? Wasn’t that the whole thing where I couldn’t see you until I wanted to?” I wave my hand, grimacing at my dark, dirty surroundings. “Besides, you don’t belong in this shithole.”
“Like I didn’t want you to see my real condition?”
I glance over at her, startled, and she returns a satisfied smirk. “See any patterns, rocker boy?”
“We want to be together but don’t want the other person to see our reality.”
“Right. Until I got so scared that I did apparently.” She closes the gap between us and takes my hands. “I showed you mine. Your turn.”
I sigh and glance around the basement. “Rachel… You don’t—”
“Will you stop telling me what I do and don’t want? Where I do and don’t belong? What I want is for you to let me in and be a part of your world while I still can.”
Haunted Melody: A Ghost Story Page 16