• She still considered herself as normal, even now. Ten fingers, ten toes. Two arms, two legs. Even her eyes were symmetrical to her face. Her auburn hair, damp with sweat, stuck close to her face, invading her mouth with its tendrils. Slowly, she stood up from the cold cobblestone and addressed the pair of golden eyes amidst the shadows of a deteriorated townhouse, “It’s too late to kill me now, everything is lost already.”

    The orbs remained unfazed as they stared on, like Charon’s lights ready to grant safe voyage across the river Styx. Insomniac birds berated each other with screeching accusations with the sporadic shaking of leaves as their only background. The girl bit her bottom lip, as she often did when irritated, and fisted her hands, forcing her body to remain where it was. She silently cursed herself for having worn her special bra under her party clothes, it being a great enhancer of her special features but tightening enough to make her breathless after a couple hours. The lack of oxygen would surely negatively affect her in this encounter.

    “I didn’t come here for that.” His voice was a low, sweet baritone. She had always likened it to the smell of musk in the city air. For a moment, she recalled rose-tinted city streets and subway trains, gentle smiles, and childish touches before the all-encompassing obscurity befell her again. Hot rivers caressed her cheeks as they went down her neck and into her collarbone to reside there.

    She didn’t move. Not even to wipe away the trail of tears that had become even more uncomfortable with every passing second. Time moved on marked only by the beating of her heart. Soon, the seconds could even be counted by the throbbing of her hands, which had synchronized with each rhythmic thump. Darkness gained form before her and black gained many shades.

    Finding her voice under a pool of saliva, she said, “Why did you come back then?”

    Her words worked like a magic charm which awakened memories she had sworn to seal away forever and all of eternity. The smell of homemade brownies burning to a crisp inside the old oven. The static of the neighbor’s television set and a whispered goodbye. The flashing of a plaid shirt as it raced away in a ford too old to make it across the Stateline. And a name that never ceased to resonate in the back of her mind, Jared.

    The taste of iron flowed inside her mouth. Her knuckles turned white.

    The orbs vanished for a moment, only to reappear closer to where she stood. She fought the urge to turn away from them, imagining them to be messengers of darkness who possessed a lethal touch, but she knew that if she left now she would never get the answers she sought and which had always been denied her. She could see his face now in the high-definition darkness. Soft locks, which she knew to be brown, framed a gaunt face of high cheekbones and strong deep-set eyes. An angular nose and full-lipped mouth had brought his features into the realm of mythical beauty back when she first met him. It was not so now; life had caught up with him, with them.

    “I came to take you back,” he finally said.

    His faced betrayed no emotions. She wished she could say the same about hers. Biting harder into her now blood-drenched lip, she snorted as she shot back a reply, “I will never go back. Never!”

    “What about Charlotte? Will you leave her alone again?”

    His words stung. Charlotte, such a sweet name for such a nice girl. Too nice in fact. They had become friends the instant their eyes met each other and had spent every waking hour in each others company since then, until he left. Even now, she considered her a friend, but could never face her after that. There was nothing she could do for her, nothing she could do for anyone.

    He didn’t need her to answer; he saw the answer in her eyes. He sighed and leaned back a millimeter before assuming a casual tone. “I wish I could be like you, uncaring towards those that had once cared for me, but I can’t. I can’t even believe you to be heartless enough to be able to do it. Especially after all they’ve done for you.”

    He looked down on her again but this time she did not meet his eyes. Instead, she focused all her attentions on a flying speck of white that had recently entered her vision, making it grow and dim with the amount of concentration she mastered. Scrunching his nose, he finally snapped and bent down placing a rough kiss on her wet lips and uttering a breathless, “You have to come back Sam. Come back with me.”

    Sam punched the right side of his head before she fully realized what had happened or what she was doing and sprang to full height. Only after blinking four times did she see the image of the boy sprawled on the ground after having contact with her fist. Dizzying thoughts banning and justifying her actions rushed through her mind before setting on one sentiment, “I wished I could say you deserved this Mathew, but it is too late for regret now.”

    Before her words could be drowned by the darkness, she pivoted on her heels and ran all the way home in her skinny black heels.


    TO BE CONTINUED…