 
### Close Your Eyes

An Original Novella

By Sara M. Garringer

Copyright 2013 Garringer Publishing

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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### Table of Contents

## Close Your Eyes

Acknowledgements

Excerpt from Hear No Evil

Excerpt from StarChild

About the Author

Contact the Author

###  Close Your Eyes

I'm dreaming about Marsha again.

I know I should do something about that –stop it or change the dream so it's not Marsha but Mila Kunis or something –but I don't. I let it wash over me, consume me, until I'm drowning.

I hate the way the dreams make me feel. Hate them because no matter how many times I remember all that's happened, I can't bring myself to hate them. Because not even the harsh pain of betrayal can erase the pleasant memories of all the good moments we shared.

Because even though the bad moments were as bad as they could be –worse even –they did not take away from the good ones, which were as good as good could be.

And as I lay on my mattress –one we'd bought together when we finally decided to move in together –I let Marsha do all the things she knew I loved to me. Her fingernails rake my back and I know I'll have marks that'll last for at least two days. Her hipbones grind against mine as she matches my every move. Making love was always a dance between us.

I wake up only after she whispers, "Now, you're mine forever, Kyle."

And as I do every time I wake up after a Marsha dream –I say "dream" because I cannot in good conscious call something I enjoy a nightmare –I look back at that moment and wonder how I could not have realized what an absolute fool I was.

A light tapping comes from my door a second or two before my sister's voice comes through. "Kyle, you up?"

Oh, I'm up all right. "Yeah."

She doesn't open the door, as if she can sense I really did not want her in here with me. "The taxi will be here in forty-five minutes. I left your suit on the bathroom door."

"Thanks, Katie."

I hear her footsteps grow fainter and fainter. The tacking of heels on hardwood –she's already dressed and ready to go. Meanwhile, her slacker younger brother is still in bed, dreaming when he really should be nightmare-ing.

Waiting until I hear her bedroom door close, I hurry into the bathroom and flip the shower nozzle to subzero freezing and hop in. It burns like fire but does the trick, washing away the phantom claw marks on my back. Once I can't feel them anymore, I allow myself the luxury of warmth.

I try not to stare at my body as I run the foamy gel over my chest and stomach. Closing my eyes, I let myself remember how it used to be. Firm and tan with the beginnings of a six-pack and thick muscles in my calves from running. I was never huge though I'd wanted to be. I tried lifting weights and going to the gym and all that. Not my bag.

Nothing beat the exhilaration I'd felt whenever I threw on a pair of Nikes and tore off down the street or through the dirt paths around the giant golf course behind my apartment or down at the beach and the pier. Racing along the sand, fighting for traction, while watching the sunset.

It's as close to flying as a person can get.

Those Nikes are in a box at the bottom of my closet, waiting for me to finally get the guts to throw them out. I wonder if I ever will. If that pathetic, microscopic hope I still clung to tightly will one day slip through my fingers. The hope that maybe someday I will be able to pull those sneakers on and fly again.

The hot water is making me dizzy so I turn it off instead of lowering the temperature. For a few seconds, I stand in the tub, watching the water swirl down the drain between my bony toes.

How can I feel so tired even after sleeping so much? I'd gone to bed before eight last night and it's almost nine-thirty now.

It's because I don't want to go. I want to spend the day in bed pretending today isn't happening –won't happen for years and years. Or that it won't happen ever.

But I will go. Because Katie thinks I should. Don't know why –I hardly know Joanna. We said "hi" a few times when we passed each other in the hall. And there was that one time she'd split a turkey sandwich with me when she couldn't finish it. But, really, that's it. Another body filling a chair in another room I never want to be in.

I step out of the shower, keeping my back to the mirror. I pull out the suit from its silver garment bag and take my time slipping it on. It's old –I wore it for my senior prom –but it's big on me now. I'm practically swimming in the jacket and I have to pull the belt almost to the last hole just to keep the pants up.

Maybe I can wear my Nikes with it instead of the glossy loafers Katie bought for me. I mean, I already look like a kid playing dress up in Daddy's clothes –can't possibly look any worse.

Again, I'm thinking about prom. I met Marsha there. She hadn't been my date but I'd dance with her a couple of times and she made me regret not having her on my arm. She was wild and sexy in a way I'd never seen before.

That's probably what drew me to her –the exotic newness of someone who wasn't from an upstanding, good Christian family living on the Bible Belt like all the other girls I'd gone out with. Not that I was one of them or anything –I've never even set foot in a church. But I was a nice guy and nice guys generally don't attract girls like Marsha.

I lace up my fancy shoes and come out of the bathroom amidst a plume of steam like a magic trick.

Katie's there and starts at my sudden appearance. "Oh, hey. I was just coming to ask you. Which one?"

She holds up two long ties. One is dark blue with silver diamond patterns. The other is a more greenish blue with four black stripes on the bottom that nobody will see if I button my jacket over it.

I take a moment to look at my sister. She has shoulder length blond hair that's thin and wispy, catching every non-existent breeze and fluttering. Her bangs hang sideways over her eyes but she never brushes them away –once in a while she flicks her head to allow her blue eyes to see better. She's wearing a dark pantsuit with thin white vertical stripes.

"Hello, Earth to Kyle." She shakes the two ties in front of me. "Pick. Now."

Knowing she wants me to choose the lighter of the two, I aim a finger at the dark one. "That one."

"Is a very poor choice, I am _so_ glad you agree, Kyle." She tosses the rejected blue tie onto her shoulder then loops the green one around her neck to tie it. Katie is the only girl I know that can only tie a tie if it's on her.

When she's done, she loosens it enough to slip over her head and over mine. Flipping up the white collar of my dress shirt, she positions the knot perfectly then tightens it, leaving an inch or two in the neck since she knows I don't like the choking feeling of these stupid things.

Two courtesy beeps sound from outside.

Katie smiles up at me, pulling her jacket down to smooth wrinkles that aren't there. "Ready?"

I think about telling her I don't want to go. Then I imagine the discussion that would follow. Katie never fights. She'll debate her side, let you explain your side then come to an educated decision based on all the presented facts. It's always a long process and with how tired I am, I don't have it in me.

Besides, then I'd have to tell her the real reason I don't want to go. And I'm not ready to say that out loud.

So I just nod and follow my sister's noisy shoes out the door and down to the yellow cab waiting impatiently patient at the curb.

Where we're going isn't far. Probably could've walked and saved the fifteen bucks and the ozone or whatever. I might have enjoyed the walk.

But I don't point this out. I only sit there and stare through my gaunt reflection and watch everything pass by.

The cab can't drop us right at the entrance on account of all the other cars and vans dropping people off. People in wheelchairs and dragging oxygen tanks. People who need to be closer then Katie and me.

I stare at the oxygen tanks, follow their rubber tubes where they end in noses or masks covering people's mouths. They don't look that heavy to me but I bet those folks are thankful for the little wheels on the bottom. I wonder how it feels knowing your life literally hangs by a thread and seeing that metal cylinder reminder everywhere you go.

Katie pays the driver who takes off as quickly as possible, wanting to be as far from this place as I do. She goes at my pace even though I know it's uncomfortable for her, so used to rushing back and forth between appointments and places.

Somebody coughs nearby. Just a cough. Nothing wrong with coughing. Probably clearing their throat or something equally insignificant.

Katie immediately pulls me to a stop to let the cougher get a little ways ahead of us. He doesn't cough again making all the more certain of my throat-clearing theory. But Katie won't chance it. She wraps her hand around my arm –almost all the way around –and tugs me gently along when she feels he's far enough away from me.

For the barest of moments, I let myself hate my sister then. Hate her for always keeping an eye out for stuff like that. Impulsively, I want to rip my arm free from her grip and turn around.

An instant and it's gone, like the flash of a camera.

Sometimes I can hate Marsha like that, in brief spurts. I can hate her for what she's done to me, all the lies and manipulation that seem laughably obvious to me now. But it never lasts.

The path inclines sharply and I find myself losing my breath almost immediately. I don't let it show because I know Katie will make me stop and rest and I'd much rather get this over with.

Besides, I don't want to show up right in the middle and have everybody stare at me as I bumble to find an open chair.

We reach the top of the hill. There's already a small gathering ahead of us. I recognize a few faces and nod back when they do. I don't know them any better then I know Joanna.

I move ahead of Katie so I can snatch up a seat at the far back corner where I won't have to sit next to anybody but her. She scowls at my anti-social behavior but doesn't resist, folding herself down elegantly in the metal chair beside me.

As I watch Katie silence her cell phone –after answering about half a dozen text messages from her assistant –I spy Tiny Tim being pushed up the hill by his caretaker. His name isn't really Tiny Tim but that's what everybody calls him for obvious reasons. I think he's about five or six but he's no bigger then a toddler. His smallness is further accentuated by the large oxygen mask covering half his face.

I hope he doesn't park next to me, pray he doesn't. I don't think I can get through this with him next to me. If he does, I might have to fake nausea to get Katie to take me home.

Although, as my stomach churns uncomfortably, I may just need to wait a minute or two and I won't have to fake it.

Thank god, the caretaker parks the wheelchair up in the front corner, as far from me as can be. She pulls up Tiny Tim's blanket and tucks it beneath his chin before settling herself in the chair next to him.

My eyes linger on his tiny, emaciated body before I force them away.

Slowly, the seats around us begin to fill. People in all shapes and sizes and colors –young and old, sick and healthy –occupy every chair until there aren't any empty ones left. It's as if they'd all RSVP-ed for the occasion. Maybe they had and I didn't know I was supposed to. Oh well, Katie probably took care of it.

A few more nods in my direction. I stop answering back. The constant movement coupled with my imagined-turned-real nausea is making my head hurt. I want to rub my temples but I can't figure out how to do that without Katie noticing.

It's colder then I thought it was going to be. I wish I brought a coat. But after glancing around at the people around me, seeing the sheens of sweat plastered over foreheads, I realize it isn't cold. I'm cold. Me and maybe Tiny Tim over there.

Minutes before eleven, a tall man dressed in a black suit with a while shawl approaches. He walks with a woman that looks a lot like Joanna –her mother, I assume –and a man who shambles along behind the two like he's auditioning for a part in the next zombie flick.

Joanna's mom and dad sit with a group of people positioned in another set of chairs to our right. Tiny Tim is right next to her. I watch her not look at him.

The guy in black and white stands in front of us. It brings my attention to the long, cherry wood coffin I have been avoiding since sitting down.

From back here, I can't see inside it and I'm glad. I remember how Joanna had looked the last few weeks and I don't want to see her. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

The priest starts by thanking us all for coming. He says it's heartwarming to see how much Joanna was loved and that she's watching us from heaven right now. Then he opens his small bible and starts to read.

I don't listen. I can tell Katie is hanging on his every word. I don't get religion but I know Katie is really into spirituality and faith and all that stuff. Probably has something to do with her fiancé, Ray –he's very Catholic.

"You'll be in my prayers tonight, Kyle."

That's the last thing Ray says to me everyday. Like clockwork. I honestly don't feel the day's come to an end until I hear "goodnight, Kyle, you'll be in my prayers".

So I spend the entire service not listening and not watching the priest make his speech. Then I do the same when Joanna's mom and friends go. Her dad doesn't stand. He looks like he's using all his energy just staying upright in his chair.

The only thing I do watch is the coffin lower into the ground. It seems like such a long, painful process to go only a few feet.

When it's finally down there, people go up one by one to drop roses onto the coffin below. I get stiffly to my feet but I don't follow them. I'm already close enough to that hole in the ground then I want to be.

As Katie and I walk down the hill back to the street, I make the decision not to have an open casket. I can barely look at myself in the mirror and if I really am looking down on everything from heaven or wherever, I still don't want to see me.

We walk in weighted silence. I glance over and see Katie on her phone. She's trying to angle the screen away so I can't see what she's doing but I catch a glimpse of the app as she's closing it. Her calendar.

Joanna died almost exactly three years after she hit Stage IV. I'm nearing my fifth year.

There were extenuating circumstances between the two of us. I'd been diagnosed sooner and thus began treatment earlier then she had. And she always said she had a pretty crappy immune system even before contracting.

Joanna had also been eating whole grain nutritious organic foods her entire life. Her parents are dietitians and health experts.

Me? Well, I hadn't been in _perfect_ health. Sure I ran six miles everyday but I still ate red meat and carbs and empty calories like any other nineteen year old. People had to explain to me that the mound of grass clippings and tomatoes in the bowl in front of me was called a "salad".

"You're shivering," Katie points out.

"It's cold," I say even though we both know it isn't.

She lets it go, no doubt weighing the options in her mind and realizing arguing is illogical. That's my Vulcan sister.

We cut through a couple of alleys and come out several blocks away. There's a Denny's at the end of the corner. Katie told Ray to pick us up there at two since he couldn't make it to the funeral.

Even though I haven't eaten all day the sight and smell of the food around me makes me sick to my stomach. I order anyway because I know Katie wants me to eat something. To honor Joanna, I order the turkey on rye and I only eat half.

Right on time, as always, Ray shows up. He's the tall, dark and handsome type and the total opposite of my petite blond sister. And I swear I've seen his picture on some of those Harlequin romance books you see at grocery stores.

"Hey, you two," he says, bending down to give Katie a kiss on the cheek before sliding into the booth next to her.

I lift my hand in a haphazard wave. I can't find any energy left for more.

"How was it?" he asks me, stealing a sip of water from Katie's glass.

"It was fine," I tell him. What else am I supposed to say about it? That it made me decide I really don't want a funeral at all? Do people still do Viking funerals? That sounds cool. I can go to Valhalla and hang out with Thor. I should write that down somewhere. I hear if you write it down they have to do it.

Sensing I'm not in the mood to chat, Ray reaches across Katie and plucks a menu from behind the napkin dispenser.

I don't offer him my sandwich half even though I haven't touched it. I don't want to hear the excuses. Although, I'm sure Ray would be a lot nicer about it then my old college buddies had been a few years back. Should've seen the look on their faces when I dipped my hand in the communal pretzel bowl.

Ray orders this barbeque chicken burger thing. The smell hits me and I start sipping water to keep the sandwich down.

Once he's finished, we pile into his car and head back home. I'm resisting the urge to lie down across the back seat. My headache is getting worse.

I catch Katie's eyes moving to the left as we drive past a familiar intersection. If I crane my neck, I can just make out the glass surface of the hospital I used to go to.

Is she thinking about the last time I'd come back from there? Almost three weeks have gone by. Yet I can still hear my doctor's voice in my mind clear as day. " _I'm so_ _sorry, Kyle_."

There is an unfamiliar car parked in front of the house. One of those ugly black box things they only made once before they realized nobody likes them.

When Ray pulls to a stop, the driver's side door opens and a long legged black haired girl steps out.

Marsha.

"Oh, hell no!" Katie hisses, all but ripping the seatbelt off her.

"Honey, wait –"

But Ray is much too slow. Katie already has the door open and is click-clacking away toward the other female. Ray quickly follows after.

For an eternal second, I simply sit there and do nothing while my head throbs and my overly full stomach twists. I enjoy the nothingness and wonder if this is what my end will feel like. Nothing, with a side order of discomfort.

Then the eternity passes and I'm fumbling with my own belt and door, hurrying to catch up with my freshly turned homicidal sister.

"Get out of here! You get the hell off my property, you murdering, lying whore!"

Ray cringes at his future wife's language but isn't exactly diving in to stop her. Guess Catholicism only goes so far.

I manage to catch up with Katie before she can leap on Marsha and rip her hair out. I take hold of her arm and say, "Katie, don't."

She yanks her arm free and turns on me, throwing a finger at the slightly stunned woman. "No, no, no –you don't get to tell me 'don't'. I am not letting this bitch get her claws back into you! Not after everything!"

It might be simpler to just let this happen. God knows I am in no mood to fight my sister. Even good ol' boy Ray is backing down. So why shouldn't I?

"Kyle."

I close my eyes at the sound of Marsha's voice and the flood of memories it brings.

"Kyle, I just... I need to talk to you. Five minutes –that's all I'm asking. Please."

I don't want to. I severely don't want to.

My eyes meet Katie's. I'm not entirely certain what I'm asking from her but she reads it on my face anyway and her pale brows narrow her eyes into rage filled slits.

" _Two_ minutes," she spits at Marsha. "Then I'm calling the cops."

Timidly, Ray guides my sister toward the house. She's not three steps away before I'm wishing she hadn't accommodated. If she hadn't, I'd already be inside lying down. What time is it? Don't I have pills I'm supposed to take?

Now I'm alone with Marsha.

She's not as thin as she was the last time I saw her. There's more color in her cheeks, too. Her slender, pale arms are exposed and I can barely make out the fading track marks inside her elbow.

Those are new to me. Back when we were together she hid them better.

"Special occasion?" she asks, gesturing to my suit with a flick of her wrist. She doesn't look me in the eye.

Loosening the tie further, I move over to the brick border surrounding Katie's yard and sit down. I don't offer her the spot next to me. I don't want her that close.

"Funeral," I answer, staring at my feet.

"I'm sorry. Somebody close?"

I shake my head. "Didn't know her that well. She's a member of this group Katie found for me." Something I understand less then religion: support groups. "Everybody went."

She nods, playing with the end of her long, black hair. It's something she always does when she's nervous. Such a familiar gesture, it makes something in my chest ache.

"You look..." She lets the sentence hang. She can't say "good". Not having lost sixty pounds I never had to lose.

"H-how are you, Kyle?"

I eye her, one of my instances of hate blazing through me. How does she think I'm doing?

I want to scream at her. At her healthy complexion, fuller figure and overall betterness.

But I don't. I'm still a nice guy and the moment –the hate –passes too quickly to act on it.

"I'm sober now," she says when it becomes clear I'm not gonna say anything. "Seventy-two days." She sounds very proud of herself. She probably should be.

"What do you want, Marsha?" I can't stand the way her name fits so perfectly in my mouth, like a key to a door.

Her head bobs and she runs her nails up and down her arm in a second familiar nervous gesture. I stare at the red marks, feel them once more materialize on my back.

"Okay, so, um, p-part of my recovery is going to people I've... you know, hurt and apologize."

An aura peeks at the corner of my right eye and stays there even after I close my eyes. My head is pounding. Without Katie here, I'm free to rub my temple, try to push the pain out.

Marsha goes on and even though I want to stop paying attention, I catch every word. "First I went to my folks. Then some of my old high school and JC friends."

The whole time we'd been together, this is the first time I've ever heard her refer to her dad and his wife as her "folks". It was usually her dad and that slut he married.

"Some, my family mostly, were quick to forgive me. Others... well, not so much."

Am I supposed to feel sorry she lost friends? I did, too. Not because they chose her side when we broke up. Because nobody did once they knew what happened.

It's because nobody wants to be where I was today; not listening to a priest and praying a dying child won't sit next to you.

"Kyle, will you look at me, please?"

Reluctantly, I let my eyelids peel back. She's closer to me and her eyes are swimming. It's hard for her to look me in the eye, I can tell. I can't imagine what it must be like to stand where she's standing. Staring in the face of the person you purposely condemned.

"I know there's nothing I can do or say to make any of this alright, but I need you to know how sorry I am, Kyle. There's not a day that goes by that I don't wish I could take it all back. Take everything back."

I watch as first one, then two, then three tears spill down her lovely face. It brings me back to the last time we'd been together. She'd been crying then, too. Crocodile tears as she screamed profanity at my back.

Her voice brings me back to the present. "I know I have no right to ask, but I... I have to, Kyle. I have to." She repeats it in a low whisper, eyes dropping to the ground before she makes them go back up. "Is there any way, any chance, you could find it in your heart to forgive me?"

She watches me, waiting, eyes flickering from my left to my right eye, as if she's trying to read my response.

I'm torn. I shouldn't be, but I am.

So many times I'd held her while she cried, swearing to her I'd never let her go, I'd always be there for her anytime she needed me.

If I give her a flat "no" would I be betraying that promise? Or since she screwed me over first, all bets are off and I owe her nothing?

I choose to be honest. "I don't know what to say."

She nods, knowingly, like that's the answer she'd expected from me. That makes me want to change my mind and tell her to go to hell.

Whipping her face clean with a palm, she slips a hand into the back pocket of her skinny jeans and withdraws a card. "This is the motel I'm staying in –room two forty-three. I'm here until Friday so if you think of anything before then, stop by. Anytime."

I take the card. I have no intention of stopping by but I take it anyway. She won't leave unless I do.

"I'd better go," she says, smartly. Katie's probably already got 911 dialed on her phone and is just waiting to hit Send. "It's good to see you again, Kyle. I've... I've really missed you."

Those words stir something in me. Promises of touch and sensation my body longs for against my will. Not only that, but a warmth and comfort I also find myself craving.

Marsha leans forward to kiss me goodbye. At the last possible second, I turn my face away, letting her lips touch my cheek instead. Right now, I know I can't trust myself. Especially when the scent of her hair draws me back into my dream from this morning.

"I hope I'll see you again, Kyle," she says, like she already knows she will despite me not letting her kiss my mouth.

I watch her make her way back to the ugly box, hypnotized by the sway of her hips. Remembering how I'd been hypnotized that first night I saw her.

After she's gone, I stay outside with my eyes closed, waiting for the aura to pass and my sight to return. My tongue goes numb and I know that means I'm about to get a migraine in the worst way.

I wonder if this will be the time when I don't get my sight back. They've told me it's a possibility. Don't worry, though, it'll probably only be in one eye, they told me. Probably.

A minute passes and soon my vision clears. I finally feel my teeth grinding into my tongue and stop.

I go into the house before the migraine reaches me. Katie stands at the window, staring out unabashed. Watching to see if Marsha comes back. Ray stands near her uncomfortably, still torn between morals and fear of his fiancé's wrath.

When I step inside, she turns on me and demands, "What did that bitch have to say?"

I can already picture her response if I tell her. Figure I'll spare poor Ray from having to watch his gal's head explode. "It's private."

Oh, she _really_ doesn't like that answer. "She is never coming back here, you understand? If I so much as see somebody who _looks_ like that skank, I'm calling the cops and telling them everything."

I sigh, leaning against the wall for support. That's something Katie's been on my case about for years. I know I can have Marsha thrown in jail for what she did and I'd be lying if I said a part of me doesn't want to. But it won't change anything. It'd just seem kind of petty.

"Here."

I look up. Katie holds a glass of water in one hand and a small pile of pills in the other. I take them, popping two at a time, and down the whole glass to chase them.

"Hang that up after you change –don't just throw it on the floor," she says, indicating the suit. "You'll ruin it."

I go down the hall to my room and slip off the clothes. For a second, I'm tempted to dump them onto the floor anyway. I won't but I think long and hard about it.

The garment bag's there so I stuff the jacket and pants in that and toss the shirt into the hamper.

The migraine hits me now. An ice pick hammers into my skull. I can barely yank up a pair of pajama pants the pain is so intense.

I've been here before, though. Curling on the very edge of my mattress, I rest a hand against the cool metal of the Raiders trashcan next to the bed. It's so I can grab it quick when the nausea inevitably comes.

My head is on fire but the rest of my body is incased in ice. I'm shivering like crazy, making my stomach lurch. Using only my feet, I maneuver a sheet up to my free hand and pull it all the way to my chin. This makes me think of Tiny Tim in his wheelchair and oxygen mask.

All I know about him is his mom died when he was eighteen months. She was a junky and OD'd. His dad never picked up the phone so he's been staying at the hospital ever since.

Nobody knows if he's had the disease since birth or if maybe he got it when she breastfed him. Whichever the case, everybody's surprised he's lasted this long.

Like I knew I would, I throw up. My foresight saves the mattress and floor from my assault. I'm trying to be quiet because I don't want Katie to come in, but it's hard. It hurts and I feel the sting of tears in my eyes.

It doesn't stop when my stomach is empty. That's always the worst part. When you suffer like this and don't see anything come up. Makes you feel like it's never going to end.

I'm praying for it to end. Not to any person or entity –just in general. I can't even be sure what I'm hoping will end: the dry heaves or everything.

Hour-long-minutes later, it stops. The migraine remains but it's receding into something I can tolerate.

I roll onto my back and throw an arm over my eyes. The frigid skin feels good against my inflamed face. I fall asleep like that.

The acrid smell of bleach wakes me.

My trashcan is there, cleaned and sanitized. That's where the smell is coming from. I have a wet washcloth on my forehead and a soft, wool blanket covers me. I'm almost warm beneath it.

I get up. My legs feel jellied and I stumble toward the bathroom. Brush my teeth first to get the acidic taste out of my mouth, then hop in the shower to get all the sweat off.

Katie and Ray are gone. There's a note. They went to Skippy's Pub for a get together with friends. I'm invited to join –Ray will be more then happy to come get me if I call.

I'm not going to. Not because their friends don't like me or I don't like them or anything like that. I'm just not in the mood.

I grab a banana off the counter because Katie's note tells me to. Throw it out after a couple of obligatory bites. I'm not as nauseous as I was and my head isn't pounding anymore. There's only this dull ache behind my eyes.

I go back to my room and take my Nikes out of the closet. A pebble is stuck in one of the grooves on the bottom of the right shoe. Other than that, they look pristine, just out of the box.

Back when I was running, I'd go through a pair of shoes about every three or four months. I preferred the rougher terrain over the smooth blacktop. Thus more wear and tear.

I'd gotten these less then two weeks before I first got sick. Naturally I'd had no clue just how sick I was. I figured it was a cold or that flu that was going around –there's always a flu bug going around.

When I didn't get better for a couple of months, I still didn't worry. After all, Marsha was getting sick, too. We were probably passing the same cold back and forth.

Katie's the one who made me get checked out. I can understand her reasons. Cancer runs in our family, after all. It killed my dad when I was fourteen and took my mom a week later as a consolation prize. It sounds cheesy to say somebody died of a broken heart. Until it happens to somebody you know.

I still remember visiting my parents in the hospital with Katie. She'd had to take a leave of absence from college so she could take care of me while Mom stayed with Dad.

I wasn't there when he died. Last time I saw him, he and Mom were fighting. It disturbed me. Mom was upset because Dad signed this special piece of paper that said the doctors weren't allowed to help him anymore. She just kept repeating, "How could you" until the words were garbled together with her sobs and incomprehensible.

He didn't last long after that. Neither did she.

I suppose that's why I took so long to get tested. I didn't want to know I had it, too.

It's weird; I don't remember the phone call. I know I got one. When a test comes back positive, they have to call. Have to make sure you know as soon as possible so you don't Outbreak Monkey the populous.

Telling Katie had been awful. She never liked Marsha and had been trying to convince me to break up with her for months. And I knew right after I told her, she'd hunt Marsha down with a fiery vengeance.

Since I'd gone so long without treatment, I was already in Stage III when I found out. If I'd been in Stage II I might've had a better chance of not reaching IV until I was much older.

With how healthy she looks, I bet Marsha is still Stage II. Maybe even I. That really doesn't seem fair to me.

I pull the Nikes on. They still fit. Snug, how I like it –I always got a half size smaller then I needed. I stand and for a while do nothing but feel them.

I think of Tiny Tim again. He's never walked before. Not once.

I can't run but at least I can still walk.

Pulling on a thick coat, I grab my spare key and head outside. Twilight is falling, painting the sky with rich colors. This is the time when I used to run.

I want to go to the beach. I want to run the four and a half miles there and sit on the sand and watch the waves ripple and crash.

I start walking. I have money for the bus or a cab but I won't use it until I can't walk anymore.

There aren't many people out walking and nobody gives me a second glance even though I'm the only one wearing a heavy jacket. They don't feel the icy tendrils of the cold in the breeze like I do. Their windbreakers and sweaters and long sleeves are more then enough.

I'm not going to make it before the sun completely sets but I didn't expect to. That's not the point of walking.

I'm just trying to remember how to fly.

Happy thoughts and pixy dust, that's what I need. Happy thoughts and pixy dust. If only the CVS carried pixy dust, I might be able to scrounge up one measly little happy thought. Not enough to get me to Neverland. As far as the beach, at the very least.

It takes me over four hours to get there. I had to stop a lot to rest and catch my breath. I also had to pop into a 7/Eleven for some Advil and water when my headache started to rise up again.

Red flags are waving on the guard tower near the entrance to the beach. There is a storm somewhere out in the open water, still miles from hitting shore but it causes a dangerous undertow.

Unsurprising, the beach is relatively deserted. Far, far in the distance I can see the flickering of an illegal bonfire. Other then that, I'm alone.

Awkwardly, I make my way across the dry sand toward the water. With nothing else to cover it, the sound of the waves hitting the earth is near deafening. You can feel the awesome strength and power with each crash echoing through your feet and up your legs.

I pretty much just collapse down onto the sand and rearrange myself so I'm sitting up. I stare out into the near-black water, watching the sudden emersion of white seconds before another thunderous crash.

I'm remembering the hospital and the last time I was there. The time without Katie. It almost makes me laugh when I picture the look on my doctor's face when I gave him my answer.

I don't laugh when I think of Katie's face when I came back from that final appointment. Anger. Denial. She's so much stronger then me now, I almost couldn't pry her fingers from the phone before she could dial the hospital and talk to my doctor herself.

She never cried, though. I can't seem to recall ever seeing my big sister cry. Not even when our parents died. I'm not sure how to feel about that. Was she a big crier before, when we were kids? It's not important enough for me to remember.

I'm lost in the not thinking. Why I don't see her coming until she's already run past me.

I jump, startled by the sudden presence of another human being. It's a girl with dark hair chopped close to her head wearing a short skirt and spaghetti strap shirt. She's running full throttle toward the water, showing no signs of stopping.

Before I can shout a warning about the undertow, she skids to a stop in the wet sand and hurls something though the air. The lights from the parking lot glint off something sleek and black before it plops into the water behind a massive wave.

"Yeah! Three points!" she shouts, throwing up her arms in the air. "Suck on that, Stephan!"

The wave smashes down in front of her, nearly knocking her off her feet. She laughs manically and backs up, extending her arms to keep her balance as she fights the ocean's pull.

Once free from the water, she flops down on the sand right next to me, panting but still giggling.

She turns to face me, a big goofy grin on her young face. "Did you see how far that thing flew? It is gone for good, baby!"

Now that she's closer to the light, I can see she's a teenager –seventeen, maybe eighteen but that's a _big_ maybe. Her hair is black with blue highlights and she has a ring in her bottom lip and four or five dangling from her ears. There's a spiked leather choke collar wrapped loosely around her throat, sharing occupation with a long corkscrew necklace about the size of my hand.

"Man, that felt good," she says, leaning back on her hands and crossing her ankles. Her feet are covered in sand, both wet and dry. "Cathartic. That's the word. Looks like those vocab words really do come in handy."

I don't know why but I feel like talking to this strange girl. "Ex-boyfriend?"

She shakes her head. "Nope. He's the scumbag that stole my girlfriend right out from under me. Well, ex-girlfriend, now, I guess. Still not sure about that. Throwing his five hundred dollar phone into the ocean was about as far as I planned this whole thing out."

She extends a hand to me. "I'm Roxanne. And if you so much as hum, I'll toss your ass in right after it."

I stare at her hand, thinking maybe I should let her know before she makes the decision whether she wants to touch me or not. Even though everybody knows you can't get infected by touching, it still makes people nervous to shake my hand.

"Kyle," I reply, keeping my hands in my pockets.

She lifts an eyebrow. "They don't shake hands on your planet, Kyle?"

"I'm sick." It's true, more or less.

"Nothing like a moonlit stroll down the beach when you're feeling under the weather, huh?"

I can't tell if she's being sarcastic or not. I stay quiet.

Roxanne lies back against the sand, resting her hands on her stomach. "Wow. Look at those stars. You really can't see them like that in the city."

Her position reminds me of Joanna lying in a coffin even though I never actually saw her. I lay down, too, so I can't see her.

She's right about the stars. Up over the water, they cover the sky in sparkling dots. But once you look back toward the pier or the parking lot, they begin to disappear like they're afraid of the light.

"I saw this video once, a while back," she says. "This guy bumps into a blind girl in the middle of a big city intersection and makes a comment about how pretty the stars are. Blind girl says everybody always told her you can't see any stars in the city but he assures her he sees them right now.

"The girl is getting ready to have surgery to get her sight back and she's really scared about it. But the guy tells her everything will be okay and when she's all better, he'll meet her back at that intersection and show her the stars."

"What happens?" I ask, not all that clear if I really want to know. Something tells me this story doesn't have a happy ending. Might just be me being cynical.

Roxanne lifts a finger to the sky and starts connecting the dots. "The surgery goes fine. She gets her sight back. But the guy never shows. When she goes to the intersection where they met, she sees a billboard painted to look like a starry night sky."

Lots of questions buzz though my head like annoying mosquitoes on a humid summer night. Why is she telling me this? Why is she even talking to me?

And how is it I know without a shadow of a doubt the guy didn't meet the blind girl because he died?

"Can I say something?" she asks, suddenly pushing herself back up.

I doubt I can stop her even if I really wanted to. "What?"

"Your aura is _supremely_ dark right now."

"My aura?"

She rolls her eyes at my skeptical tone. "Just trust me on this. There is something severely weighing you down."

I swallow an uncomfortable lump in my throat. As though it knows somebody is talking about it, the headache begins to pulse angrily again.

She locks eyes with me as if she can see the thing pressing painfully against my skull. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

One of the main reasons Katie makes me go to that stupid support group every week is so I can talk. I never talk to her about Marsha or being sick or anything. She thinks it's because of her, which is why she found some other unfortunate folks I can spill my guts to, judgment free.

Except that I don't. Each week I sit in that hard plastic chair, watch people pour their souls out and, more then once, have a full-blown meltdown. And every time our group leader asks me if I have anything I'd like to share, I only shake my head until he moves on to somebody else. I never saw the point in talking about something you can't do anything to change.

But for one crazy, impulsive moment, I almost consider it. I have no clue why but I'm nearly chomping down on my tongue to keep quiet. The walk must have drained me more then I thought.

"No, thanks. Not really looking for an Oprah moment," I reply, not unkindly.

Roxanne doesn't drop her intense stare. "Kyle, you're sitting here on a beach in the middle of the night talking to a freak like me. That doesn't exactly scream Mr. Stability to me."

My eyebrows shoot up and I almost burst out laughing at the irony. "You jacked a person's cell and threw it in the ocean and you're calling _me_ unstable?"

She's not reacting to my sarcasm. I get the impression the piercings and freaky hair aren't just for show or attention or whatever. Given my current state, I'm sure she probably _can_ chuck me in the water after the phone if she really wants to.

"Okay, Stable Boy, let's go."

At first, I think she means, "let's _go_ ". But then she gets to her feet and grabs hold of my wrist.

"Come on!" She tugs sharply almost bringing me to my feet in one pull.

"Hey, I told you I'm sick!" I protest, fighting a wince at the way her fingers are bruising the skin around my wrist. Is she really that strong or am I that brittle?

"So what? You're not planning on coughing in my face or spitting on me, right? Let's go –my car's over there."

Reluctantly, I let her pull me to my feet. Fighting through the sudden dizzying head rush, I begin trudging after Roxanne.

"Where are we going?" I ask her back.

"You, my friend, are in desperate need of letting out some frustration," she declares, speaking over her shoulder to me. "Now, I can either jump your bones right here, right now –which I am willing to do –or we figure out another way to let off some steam."

My aching brain tries to work through what was just said to me. "Wait, what –I thought you were gay."

She throws me a disapproving look. "Please. Where's the fun in limiting myself to only one group of people. I'm a pansexual. If I find somebody attractive, I'll go for it."

Her car turns out to be this old beat up jeep. She sits sideways on the driver's seat, pouring water from an Aquafina bottle onto her feet.

"Door's open."

I get in. A bad idea, I'm sure, but come on, what do I really have to lose?

Once she gets her feet as clean as she can, she pulls on black and red striped thigh-high socks then puts on two-inch-thick black combat boots covered in silver buckles.

Pulling the door closed, she jams the key into the ignition and twists. It takes a few pumps of the gas before it turns over.

"Last chance for the jumping your bones option," she warns, smiling at me.

I'm still having a hard time judging if she's being serious or messing with me. "No offense or anything but I think I'll pass."

She brushes off my rejection like it's no big deal.

As I'm wondering if _I_ should be offended by that, Roxanne backs up and guides the sputtering vehicle out of the parking lot.

I don't ask where we're going again. She could be getting ready to drive us off a cliff in a Thelma & Louise moment and I'm not even nervous about it. I'm oddly finding Roxanne incredibly fascinating. I'm also scrutinizing the side of her face carefully, still trying to figure out her age.

We're on the freeway almost forty minutes before she exits and takes a sharp right. Next light, she turns left and then another left into a parking lot.

I read the sign. "Boomers?"

She shakes her head like I've mispronounced the name. "Spiritual healing."

Boomers is this family fun center that has an arcade, go-kart racing, mini-golf, Laser Tag –that sort of thing. Since it's mainly for little kids too small for a decent place like Six Flags, it's obviously closed at this time of night.

Roxanne gets out of the car and stomps purposely up to the entrance. Suddenly, I feel this whole thing was a big mistake but I unbuckle my seatbelt and follow after anyway.

"We're not breaking in, are we?"

To my surprise and relief, she produces an official looking key ring covered with at least a dozen keys. "Relax. I work here. Manager doesn't mind if I come in after hours so long as I leave the place cleaner then when I came in."

She pops a key in the lock and pushes the glass door open. A beeping sound immediately follows our entry and I'm anxious again. Picturing Katie's expression when I have to call her to pick me up from jail. But Roxanne moves to a small white box to the left of the door and punches in a six-digit code that silences the noise.

Looks like she really does work here. Or she stole the keys and code from the same schmuck currently trenching the ocean for his phone.

"What are we doing here?" I demand, my voice turning into a childish whine as my head throbs worse.

"I already told you, spiritual healing," she chides, leading me through the dark, quiet arcade to another door leading outside. She unlocks this and leads me once more into the cold night.

I wonder if she's planning on taking a spin in the go-karts or the bumper cars. That doesn't sound very cleansing to me.

Instead, she guides me around the main building. The first thing I notice is cages, five or six of them side by side roughly the size of a long hallway. On the ground there are old markings drawn with white chipping paint.

Each cage also has this weird machine that looks like a leaf blower with a plastic container attached to the top.

Roxanne flips a switch. Lights spark to life, one overhanging lamp to each cage.

It's a batting cage. I've never actually seen one in real life until now.

She pulls open the nearest cage door and cocks her head toward it. "Get in," she orders me.

I'm not entirely sure I should let myself be locked in a cage with this girl. I go in anyway.

She comes in behind me without shutting the door then gestures to a wooden rack with baseball bat handles sticking out. "Choose your weapons."

"What are we doing?" I ask again, not getting this at all.

Her hands drop to her hips, annoyance coloring her face. "Will you just trust me?"

Blowing out a petulant breath, I shed my jacket. The cool air –so much colder to me then to the half-dressed girl beside me –immediately raises goosebumps on my arms.

I pluck the first bat my hand comes into contact with and pull it out. It doesn't come easy, just as iffy about whatever the hell's about to happen as I am.

"Stand over there behind the white line."

"Left or right?"

"Whichever way you swing."

I take up my position in front of what I've now deduced is a pitching machine. Roxanne is dragging a blue plastic bucket toward the device. When she hefts it up to the clear bin on the machine, dozens of very worn baseballs drop into it. Once it's about halfway full, she sets the bucket down then begins working her fingers over the machine where I can't see what she's doing.

The machine starts to hum menacingly at me; she lifts her eyes to meet mine. "Okay, you're going to see a red light come on. Let me know when you see it."

A beat passes. "It's on."

"Wait to the count of five."

I count to five in my head. A ball comes shooting out at a million miles per hour past me. I flinch back even though it doesn't really come all that close to me. It flies through the air and hits a soft net set up behind me.

"This is your spiritual healing? A concussion?" I challenge, frustration replacing my annoyance. Why did I ever come here at all with this freaky chick?

She breezes over my hostility. "Here's what you're going to do: when you see the light, you'll have about five seconds to say your problem –whatever your problem is. Then, when the ball comes out, you hit it as hard as you can. And watch your problems go sailing away."

I let my arm drop so the tip of the bat scrapes the cement. "This is stupid."

"Just try it once. Say something lame, like your foot itches, and try it. If nothing happens, I can always still hump your brains out instead."

For an impulsive second, I want to hurl the bat at her. I'd never do anything like that, but it pops in my head for a fraction of a second and my muscles tighten as if they think that's exactly what I'm about to do.

"One time. And if it hits me, you're the one who's gonna have to deal with my sister."

A sinister smile pulls at her ringed lip and her eyebrows bounce up and down. "She cute?"

"Just throw the damn ball."

Roxanne presses more buttons then leaves the batting cage, pulling the door closed. I watch the machine until I see the red light flash.

"My head hurts," I mutter, bringing the bat up to my shoulder, ready.

One. Two. Three. Four.

On five, I swing the bat as hard as I can.

The crack is deafening. It echoes against the silent, dark night. I can feel the impact vibrating through the wood and up my wrists and arms. The ball makes a muffled pfft sound when it hits the net on the other side of the cage.

Damnedest thing, my head isn't hurting as much anymore.

Reading the shock on my expression, Roxanne comes back inside and gives me a knowing look.

I shrug like whatever but I put the bat back up on my shoulder. "One more time."

More button pushing and switch flipping and she's safely outside the cage. The light comes on.

"My ex came to see me today."

The ball comes rocketing out and I hit it. Another sonic boom explodes and a pulse races up the handle and through my arms. I'm really starting to like this feeling.

Just as I'm about to ask Roxanne for another swing, the red light comes on again. She must have already set it to auto, knowing she's got me.

"She cheated on me when we were together. A lot."

_Crack_!

"She was also a heroin addict."

_Crack_!

"More than once she slept with her drug dealer when she couldn't get money to pay him."

"And when she tested positive for HIV, she didn't tell me."

"She kept sleeping with me, hoping I'd catch it, too."

"And when I confronted her about it, she said she did it so I couldn't leave her."

"If we're both damaged goods nobody'll ever want us, so we'd have no choice but to say together."

"By the time I finally started getting treatment, it was too late to stop me from reaching Stage IV. AIDS."

I'm no longer aware of Roxanne or the cage around me. My world has shrunk down to the bat in my hands, the fastballs, and that light. That red, hypnotizing light that keeps digging more and more secrets from me.

"Last month, my doctor told me I have Microglioma."

"An inoperable tumor lodged deep in my brain."

"He says Chemo is an option and will buy me between ten to twenty-four months."

"Without it, I'll get maybe two."

"My sister and her fiancé have been engaged for four years but they can't get married because all their money is tied up in my medication and treatments."

I'm crying now. Blinking my eyes clear so I can still see the ball coming. By some miracle, I'm still catching them. Hours of Wii Sports and MLB2K12 paying off at last.

"So I lied to my sister and told her Chemo isn't an option. That there's nothing anybody can do for me."

"And I know she knows I lied about it. I know she's called and got a second and third opinion and knows there's another option."

"She's letting me make the call. She probably thinks I'm ready to die and that's why I lied."

"But I just want her to have to her wedding."

The machine has stopped pitching but I'm not done. I turn to my left and hit the cage wall as hard as I can. This brings a painful vibration up the bat but I keep swinging and counting to five as if that light is still coaching me.

"I never got to rent a car. You have to be twenty-five to do it and I'm only twenty-four."

"I've drank, voted, gotten into clubs and rated R movies and got my driver's license but I've never rented a car."

My final swing hits weird and the bat drops from my grip. I want to pick it up and keep going but my hands are red, blistering and shaking too much to make them grip anything.

Hands find my shoulders and turn me around. Roxanne gently pulls me down to her height and wraps her arms around me. I cling to her, bury my face in her shoulder and sob.

As Roxanne holds me, I become aware that I'm talking, telling her more things. It's like eavesdropping on somebody else's conversation. I hear Marsha's name a few times. Then I just start saying one phrase over and over.

"I don't want to die."

Eventually, I have nothing left in me to come out. Dehydration jackhammers my skull making my head throb horribly.

Now I can feel embarrassed at my breakdown. It's funny –everyone always told me how much better I'd feel if only I'd open up. Right now, I feel like a pathetic loser.

Unable to meet Roxanne's gaze, my eyes skirt the ground and land on the bat I'd bashed to hell. Large pieces lay broken and scattered at our feet.

"I broke the bat," I say, my voice still thick with emotion.

Roxanne pulls back slightly and rests both her delicate hands on my face, forcing my eyes to hers.

"See how much I care?"

She draws me to her again. This time our lips touch. I'm so surprised it takes a good five, ten seconds for me to kiss her back.

It's been a long time since I've been kissed like this. She releases my face and winds her arms around my shoulders. My hands explore her body, too. Catching her narrow hips and bringing her closer. Our bodies press tightly together.

God it feels so good to be touched like this again.

Roxanne suddenly giggles against my mouth and leans back enough to say, "Somebody's _definitely_ happy to see me."

Like I said, it's been a _really_ long time.

When I feel her hand run down my stomach and hook into my jeans, I freeze.

"We –I –I can't." The words are painful to me because I don't want to have to say them. I want nothing more than to be able to throw this girl to the floor. But I can't.

More important, I won't.

Roxanne doesn't move away. Her fingers are running back and forth across the top of my jeans. Her nails tickling the flesh of my stomach, making me shiver.

"I have condoms in the jeep," she murmurs. "I'm not daredevil enough for full on sex but I have quite a few tricks up my sleeve that'll more than make up for it. I want to make you feel good, Kyle. Let me make you feel good."

I have no doubts about her skill set. I hadn't noticed the tongue ring until it was in my mouth.

"How old are you?" I have to ask.

Roxanne throws her head back and laughs heartily. "I just turned nineteen three days ago. If you don't believe me, you can card me."

I'm not a hundred percent certain I do but at the moment, I'll take her at her word. I give her a nod and let her tow me back to the arcade by my pants.

I don't last long –neither of us expected me to. But Roxanne wasn't exaggerating about her talents. I doubt I would have fared much better under any circumstances.

She lets me take care of the clean up, providing me with an old white cotton t-shirt she finds in the back seat. While she Purells her hands, I stuff everything in a grocery bag that I toss in a garbage can outside.

When I get back in the car, Roxanne is staring at me. "What?" I ask.

"Nothing. Just admiring my work," she says, looking very pleased with herself.

She must be talking about my "aura" again. I wonder if it's still "supremely dark". I doubt it –I haven't felt this good in quite a while.

"Thank you, Roxanne."

She laughs. "Always nice to be appreciated for a job well done."

It's my turn to laugh. "No, not for... I mean, thank you for treating me like a person. With everybody else, it's always the disease first then me. I had to stop hanging out with my friends because they always gave me these looks, you know? Like they were either waiting for me to drop dead or lunge out and bite them like a crazy zombie or something.

"And Katie, my sister, she's always hyper-aware of anything that could potentially harm me that it's like she's purposely making it impossible for me to ever feel normal for even a second."

I look down at my hands as I say, "I didn't want to go to Joanna's funeral today, not because I didn't know her that well, but because I know her _too_ well. I am her or I will be and soon. And I know there's nothing I can do about that but still... every now and then I just wanna pretend..."

Roxanne reaches across the front seat and sets her hand on mine. I grip it tightly, trying to keep from crying again even though I know she shouldn't mind.

"There's one more thing I need to do for you, Kyle."

I frown at her until she asks in a gentle voice, "Which motel is Marsha staying in?"

A wave of cold floods me and I feel more goosebumps beneath my recovered jacket. My headache –which had finally seemed to go away –comes back now, tapping at the door to my brain, waiting to be let in. I don't realize I've pulled away from Roxanne's touch.

Almost reading the thoughts on my face, Roxanne says, "You wouldn't have mentioned her so many times if it wasn't on your mind. You need to talk to her, hash things out."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to say to her," I admit. Even so many hours later, I still have no idea. And I have thought about, if I'm being honest.

She lifts a thin shoulder up and twists the key and pumps the gas. "When the moment comes, you'll know." The jeep roars to life with extreme reluctance. "Now, which way?"

Against my will, my hand searches my pocket for the card Marsha had given me earlier. Then I remember I'm not wearing the same pants. Fortunately or rather unfortunately I'd looked at the card and recognized the place. We'd been there before when our building had to be fumigated.

I give Roxanne directions to the dumpy little inn. It's right off the freeway across the street from a trucker's stop and a pathetic looking liquor store with only the first three letters working, spelling out LIQ. A dilapidated two story building that holds maybe twenty or thirty shabby little rooms.

Marsha's number is upstairs around the corner. Roxanne pulls up in front of an open-air staircase and shoves the gear in Park.

I don't get out and Roxanne doesn't make me. She sits beside me, idly tapping her fingers to the beat of some song in her head. Like she has all the time in the world to sit here while I get up the nerve to do something I'd always known I would do.

"She wants me to forgive her."

"Do you?"

I rub my forehead with my fingers, hard. "Part of me wants to because I feel sorry for her. Even after all this. I should hate her, I really should."

Roxanne shakes her head firmly. "Nobody should live with hate in their heart, Kyle."

I stare at her. "Aren't you being a tad hypocritical?" I ask, referring to her chucking the expensive phone into the pacific.

"No. Sure I'm pissed at them for hurting me, but I don't _hate_ them. Big difference. If you give hate even a small, tiny piece of yourself, it'll swallow it whole and start infecting everything around it."

"Like a cancer?" I ask with a sardonic laugh.

She nods anyway, not like the irony is lost on her but more like she chose her words in spite of it. "Exactly. Only this is a cancer you're inflicting upon yourself."

Pulling in a long breath, I sigh and look away. "You're saying I should forgive her."

"I didn't say that. All I'm saying is, even if forgiveness is impossible, that doesn't mean all you're left with is hate."

The words swirl around my head but don't really sink in. I pop the handle on the door.

"Hey, Kyle, what's your last name?"

I pause, looking back at her. "Why do you want to know?"

She shrugs. "I dunno. Maybe I'll look you up again sometime."

"It's Knight –as in The Round Table."

Her mouth stretches wide, pulling against her lip ring. "Oh, please tell me you're middle name is Kevin or Keith."

I laugh when I realize what she means. "Sorry to disappoint, but my initials are not K.K.K. But thank you for hoping for years of childhood torment for me."

Her smile never really goes away as she blows me a kiss. "See you around, Kyle."

I shut the door and watch her drive off, wondering if I really will see her again. I think I'd like to and I'm regretting not asking for her last name so I could try looking her up on Facebook. Then again, I do know where she works.

As I walk up the steps, I feel my body hurting. My feet hurt from the long walk to the beach and my arms, hands and back are aching. But it's a good pain –like when I used to run. I've missed the sensation.

A sudden breeze hits my back and my shoulders instantly pitch up to protect my exposed neck from the onslaught. I shiver hard and keep shivering as I step up to Marsha's door.

I still don't know what to say. I'm still trying to make sense of Roxanne's words. I mean, they sounded smart and wise, even coming from the mouth of an alleged nineteen year old.

If I don't forgive Marsha it's 'cause I hate her, right? Except I don't and it's not for lack of trying. There are instants when I feel that hot surge of hate at her memory. But that's all they are, moments. Fleeting and by no means everlasting.

Hating her would be so much simpler.

Because if I hate her then I can stop loving her. Stop missing her.

If I can't hate her, then my other option is to forgive her. Forgive everything and let her back into my life. Like she wants. Like I...

Or is Roxanne right and there really is this mythical third option I can't see?

Man, I don't know. I'm so tired. I just want this over with, however it's meant to end.

Lifting a stiff hand, I tap my knuckles against the door. I hear movement and I can picture her in there: leaning in the stare through the peephole. You have to in this neighborhood –not that this flimsy door would offer much protection if whoever is on the outside really wants to get in.

I hear the sharp intake of breath when she sees me. A moment's hesitation before the tiny clinking of a chain and the door opens.

Marsha hadn't been sleeping but she's already dressed for bed. And she still prefers to wear long, baggy shirts with skimpy shorts to sleep. It's distracting because I recognize the Ghostbusters shirt she's wearing. It used to be mine before she'd deemed it too comfy for me to keep and stole it.

"You really did come," she murmurs, lips stretching wide. "I'm so glad you're here, Kyle." She circles her arms around my neck and presses against me.

She's happy to see me but not surprised. She knew I'd come, expected me to come. That's why she's still awake in spite of the late hour.

My mind flashes back to that moment I dragged my suitcase out our apartment door for the last time. I'd planned on abandoning everything but the clothes and things in that. Later, Katie, Ray and some cops would collect it all while I'm away during one of my HART sessions.

I remember the word missiles Marsha flung at me. Screaming at me, telling me I'll never find anybody who'll take me now. That it was only a matter of time before I crawl back to her.

At the time, I thought the drugs were making her say those cruel things. Now, I'm not so sure anymore.

Her lips brush my cheek as she pulls away. "Come on in."

She pushes the door wider and turns around, walking back into the room while she speaks. "Are you hungry? I don't have much but I'm pretty sure I can find you a candy bar or something. Otherwise, there's a vending machine down..."

She finally notices I haven't moved. I'm still standing at the threshold as if an invisible barrier is barring me from entering.

"Kyle?"

And suddenly, the words are there, right on my tongue, waiting to spill out. As if someone is hiding around the corner and feeding me lines like in that one play –I can't remember what it's called.

"I don't hate you, Marsha. I've tried but I don't. Never have.

"Truth is, I get why you did it. Everybody you've ever loved bailed on you –your mom, your sisters. You assumed I would have, too. You were just scared. And I can't hate somebody for being afraid; I'm just not that guy."

Marsha's face lights up like I'm that dude from Publisher's Clearing House and I've got a big check with her name on it. Elation. Contentment. Joy.

But still no surprise.

We really are in a play, and I'm saying all my lines perfectly, exactly the way she wrote them.

Her hand extends out to me, beckoning me to come inside. To go to her and continue playing out our scene.

Only I've just realized something. I don't miss Marsha. I miss the idea, the memory, of the woman who'd danced with me then disappeared when my date came back from the ladies' room. The one who made me regret not asking for her number then feel excited to see she'd written it on the back of my car in cherry red lipstick.

The person Marsha had pretended to be. She's the one I miss. Not her.

She takes a step toward me. My next words freeze her in place and finally reveal the shock I've been waiting to see.

"But I can't forgive you. Because you never gave me the chance to show you I was different from them. Because I would have stayed with you, Marsha, whether I'd gotten sick or not. If you'd just been straight with me from the beginning, I would have stayed. Been there for you every step of the way. Helped you get clean and sober.

"Instead you just kept lying and manipulating me. For some reason you thought that was the only way to keep me from leaving. And that's the part I can't forgive. Not the cheating, not the drugs. That.

"The truth is, I pity you, Marsha. I really do. You hated yourself so much you never let yourself believe any of the thousands of times I told you I love you. And from what I can tell, that hasn't changed.

"So now I'm going to do what you always expected me to do. I'm walking away and I'm not coming back."

Marsha's face is in her hands now. She's weeping loudly and I watch her fall to her knees on the carpet below. Every other sob sounds like my name.

That's how I leave her.

At the bottom of the steps, I take a break and lean up against the wall beside the aforementioned vending machine. I'm beat and not looking forward to the long journey home.

But Roxanne was right. I had needed to do this. And I don't regret it even as I stand here still within earshot of Marsha's crying.

The sounds don't affect me anymore. I don't hate her. I don't forgive her. I... I nothing her.

Stepping away from the wall, I huddle in my coat and head across the parking lot and onto the sidewalk.

Guess I probably should've asked Roxanne to wait for me so I could bum a ride home. That's okay. I think I know a bus stop that'll get me close enough to walk the rest of the way. If I get lost, I'll just find a payphone and call Katie.

"Get your goddamn hands off me!"

My foot stops mid-step. I have to think for a moment whether that really is my sister's voice or if I'm imagining it.

Then comes a scream and I start running.

Even after so many sedentary years, I'm still remarkably fast. I clear the block in the blink of an eye, following the sound of my sister's frantic expletives. Trying not to remember she only curses this much when she's furious or terrified.

Another block and I see Katie struggling with some big guy who's trying to drag her off the dimly lit streets and into a dark alley. The streetlight catches on something in his hand but I can't see it clearly enough to assess how much danger there is.

I don't stop. My feet pound on the sidewalk, closing the distance before Katie's attacker even has a chance to look up. I dive forward, wrapping my arms around his neck and shoulders, dragging him to the ground with me. My elbow hits first and I lose all feeling in my right arm.

Using my feet to shove the guy away, I awkwardly get myself vertical again, waiting for my arm to come back to life. He stands as well; a red trail drips from his nose and over his mouth.

I can see what he has in his hand now even in the shadows of the alley; a switchblade. Never seen one out of TV before. It seems small to me but it might just be dwarfed by the massive hand wrapped around it.

He's taller than me, I think; it's hard to tell with how much he's slouching. I watch his eyes rake over me, assessing me, determining if I'm a legitimate threat to him in spite of my surprise attack.

I'm not. I know it and it doesn't take him long to know it as well. I barely break a hundred pounds and this guy looks like a first draft pick for any college football team. He has no qualms about throwing down with me.

But I'm not afraid of him.

Adrenaline has little to do with my bravery. He means to harm my sister and this is something I cannot allow. Not after everything she's done for me. Katie deserves every single bit of happiness she's sacrificed in order to take care of me.

I will beat him. And if beating him means the cops finding my cold, dead, rigor mortis stiff fingers wrapped around this son of a bitch's throat, so be it.

He lunges for me. Instinct screams for me to move out of the way but Katie is right behind me, yelling things I can't hear above the noise of blood pounding in my ears. Dodging would put her in his path.

There's no other choice; I let him come at me.

I don't actually see the knife stab me –I'm looking right into his eyes. Yet I have this clear mental image of the blade slipping through my shirt, almost like I'm having this weird out of body experience.

Pain hasn't found me yet so I move as if nothing's wrong. I clock him in the jaw with my right hand even though I still can't feel it. Then I bring up my knee and slam it as hard as I can into his solar plexus. It staggers him more then any other blow I've dealt so I keep at it, going lower and lower each time.

One hits home, right in his crotch, and he shoves me back, hard, before dropping to a knee. I hit a wall and can't seem to push myself away from it. I'm suddenly very aware of a hot wetness soaking into my shirt and dripping down my stomach.

Meanwhile, the guy's hand has landed on the strap of Katie's purse. He eyes me murderously before gripping it tight and pushing up to his feet and darting to the back of the alley, vanishing into the dark night. A beat later, chain link rattles in protest and I know he's gone, slipped over the gate and pounding pavement.

Without the helpful distraction of the assailant, the pain finally reaches me. Flaming agony explodes from my stomach and sets my whole torso ablaze. My legs buckle and I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the ground.

"Oh my god, Kyle!"

Katie reaches for me but I shove her hands away. I can't let her touch me –there's too much blood.

The sudden motion makes the pain scream and I double over, clutching at my gut. My hands are soaked in red almost instantly. That can't be right –it was such a small blade. I don't think I'm supposed to be bleeding this much.

Katie's in the middle of the street now, waving her arms frantically at headlights, begging for them to stop. I watch her, fascinated by her movements. I feel really tired all of a sudden, like I could just close my eyes and fall asleep right here and now.

A station wagon pulls over. The window buzzes down revealing a young couple, not much older then my sister or me.

Katie tells them everything that happened, gesturing to me a few times. They pass over a cell phone so she can call 911. They don't offer a ride and I won't take it even if they do. There's a Baby On Board sticker on their car.

As I watch Katie misdial twice, I find I'm sort of okay with this situation. Discomfort and pain are nothing new to me, I've endured it all before. And if I do die here, now, it won't be because I'm sick. Marsha won't be my murderer –some nameless, faceless thug will be. And I can be a hero. Being a hero is a good thing, isn't it?

"Kyle! Kyle, I need you to move your hands."

I can't do that. She can't touch me -it's too dangerous.

She grips my hands and I can see she's wearing gloves. They're not the white latex gloves she keeps all over the house and the car and her purse. Thin, tight tan leather gloves that go down past her thin wrists.

I let her pry my hands away. The knife isn't there anymore –must've dropped at some point while we were tussling. Blood flows freely from the perfectly even horizontal stripe in my shirt.

Katie rips the fabric out of her way and presses a white cloth against the wound. It looks like a diaper or one of those burping towels.

"Katie –"

"Shh, don't talk, Kyle," she interrupts, pressing harder. The cloth is already soaked through. "The ambulance will be here in five minutes. You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine."

"What are you doing here?" I ask anyway. I like hearing her voice right now.

"Well, you –you weren't home and you didn't take your phone. I was worried. I found that whore's card in your pocket and I thought maybe you'd come here. When she said you hadn't been by I started walking around the block, seeing if I could find you."

"Where's Ray?"

"At home, in case you called or came back. Seriously, Kyle, stop talking. I think you're making it worse. Just..."

She doesn't finish.

Two cop cars pull up first. Three officers hurry over and crouch down beside me. None of them try to touch me.

They ask me a bunch of pointless questions like my name and birthday, as if that's what's really important right now. Shouldn't they be more concerned about the douchebag that stabbed me and not in what my astrological sign is?

An ambulance parks behind the black and whites. Two guys approach, carrying a big black bag, wearing purple gloves. I've never seen purple gloves before.

Gently moving Katie aside, they cut away the rest of my shirt so they can look at the wound. I glance down, too. It really doesn't look that big –maybe an inch, if that. With the way it's gushing, you'd think I was run through by a sword.

The EMTs ask me a bunch of ridiculous questions, too. I answer but I'm starting to wonder if anybody here is qualified to help me if all they're concerned about are the names of my parents and their ages when they died.

Another two techs come running up, pushing a gurney with them. They drop it to the ground then help me lay on it.

Moving around makes the pain worse. It's like this constant pressure, the feeling of someone punching you over and over again in the same spot. Every now and then a surge of fire would ignite as if somebody replaced the fist with a burning bat.

They load me into the back of the ambulance. One guy sits down right next to me, holding a mess of gauze against my stomach. Outside, I can see another tech placing Katie's borrowed gloves in a yellow plastic hazardous waste bag. He takes this big bottle of liquid and starts rinsing off her hands.

She follows a second EMT into the ambulance with me. The doors close and a second or two later, we're moving.

I keep trying to close my eyes and sleep but it makes everybody lose their minds. Apparently I'm not allowed to fall asleep yet. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I agree that would be bad but I'm not entirely sure why.

I check out when we get to the hospital. It felt like they were spinning the gurney around and around and I couldn't take it.

I'm not sure how long I was out but I wake up in a bed, cold and shivering. My stomach is numb –I poke it a few times to make sure it's still there. My fingertips brush against a thick mass of bandages. When I move, I can feel a slight pinch. It doesn't hurt, just feels really bizarre.

I'm alone in the room. Beeping and whirling machines are my only company. There are two IV bags suspended on hooks above me, the tubes curving down to the spot in the crook of my elbow. Both clear.

The door slowly, carefully opens and Katie and Ray come in. Katie has a blue thermal blanket draped over her arms. They're whispering to each other but stop when they see me awake.

"Hey, little brother," Katie greets me, giving me a soft kiss on the forehead. She quickly lays the blanket over me. It helps a little.

"How are you feeling?"

"Been better," I say; my voice is hoarse like I've spent the last few hours screaming.

Ray appears beside Katie holding a plastic cup of ice water. Tubes tie down my left arm and my right hand is wrapped in a beige brace. He helps me position the bendy straw so I can take a few grateful sips.

"What's the word?" I ask.

"Well, they caught the guy," Katie tells me. "Dumbass used my debit card to buy a carton of cigarettes not even two blocks away from his house. I already ID'd him and stuff. Good news, right?"

I nod even though that isn't what I'd meant.

Just then we hear two sharp knocks at the door before it opens. A doctor steps in. I'd have known he was a doctor even without the white coat and pocket protector full of medical stuff. After the dozens of medical professionals I've seen, I'm pretty much a bloodhound when it comes to identifying them. Plus they all have this walk –the same way a cop sort of swaggers. Dead giveaway.

"Hello, Kyle. I'm Dr. Kaushik."

And I know.

One simple greeting like we're just two people meeting at a barbeque for the first time and I know.

Katie steps forward, extending a hand. "Dr. Kaushik, I'm Katie Knight, Kyle's sister. This is my fiancé Ray Compton."

She pauses while he shakes hands with Ray before saying, "We were just wondering when we might be able to take my brother home."

I hear it in her voice. She'd noticed the tone, too. What she's really saying is "please tell me I'll be able to take my brother home".

Dr. Kaushik looks between Katie and me, not sure who to address. Finally, he settles on a spot where he can sort of look all three of us in the eye and starts talking.

"We've closed and stitched up the knife wound. The excessive bleeding was partly due to Kyle's preexisting condition and the prescriptions he's been taking –they tend to thin the blood."

Katie moves close to me and takes my hand. She's shaking. She may not already know what I know but she's beginning to guess.

Dr. Kaushik takes a deep breath and continues, somberly. "Unfortunately, an infection has settled in. We've been treating it with a cocktail of anti-virals and anti-bacterials but with how depleted Kyle's T-cell count was to start with, they aren't getting the chance to fight. It's spreading far too rapidly."

Now he looks at me directly. "We can continue treatment but in the long run... I'm very sorry, Kyle, but I'm afraid, there's nothing we can do."

Ray has one hand on my shoulder and his arm around Katie. Katie's still gripping me tightly but her other hand is pressed against her mouth. Tears are streaming down her face.

It's the first time I've seen her cry.

I wait for it to hit me and for tears to come to my own eyes like they had back at the batting cages with Roxanne. But they don't. I don't really feel anything, good or bad. I'm just very aware of my heart thumping in my chest and the air flowing in and out of my lungs.

For the first time in my life, I am acutely aware of how it feels to be alive.

The doctor explains more about what's going to happen to me. He talks about kidney failure and respiratory acidosis and other things I don't understand. I wish he would stop talking. I don't really want to hear this.

"I can assure you, Kyle, that we will do everything in our power to make this as comfortable as possible for you."

I nod, still waiting for panic and horror.

"This hospital offers grief counseling, if you'd like," he says, looking up at Katie and Ray. "Or, if you'd prefer, we can ask our pastor to come by and speak with you."

It means nothing to me but I know it's important to Katie and Ray so I ask Dr. Kaushik to make arrangements.

"There's something I need to sign," I add, suddenly remembering. "That thing where if I... you can't bring me back when I..."

I can't say it.

Dr. Kaushik offers, "A DNR?"

"Yeah. I wanna sign that."

"Kyle, you don't have to do that right now," Katie tells me, her voice thick and her face a mess of colored streaks and smears. "I-I can take care of that later. Don't worry about it."

I shake my head sharply. "No, I wanna do it now. Sound body and mind, right? Give it to me."

Because I finally understand why Dad had been so quick to sign his own DNR. He didn't want Mom to be the one to do it. Plus, without that piece of paper, it leaves room for that tiny spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, your loved one won't die.

I don't want to put Katie through that either.

Dr. Kaushik again offers his condolences then leaves. A few minutes later, a scrub-clad nurse comes in with a clipboard. I don't read it. I just sign it and hand it back.

I thought that might be the hardest part of all this. It's not. Waiting, that's the worst. Knowing it's coming like a stealthy deadly assassin but not knowing when –it's enough to drive you insane.

Over the next few hours, nurses come and go. They change out the IV bags and the catheter bag. I try not to look but I can't help it. A few times, it looks more mustard brown then yellow. Other times, it's barely half-full.

Katie has to ask the nurses for another blanket. For some reason, I'm absolutely freezing. Teeth chattering, shivering like mad. The hand that's bandaged up aches constantly. Ray brings me tea that burns my lips and tongue and hurts going down.

The priest comes in sometime after the sun comes up. I feel bad dragging the poor guy out of bed so early but he doesn't seem to mind. He looks completely refreshed and well rested in his black ensemble.

The stark whiteness of his collar is all I can look at as he reads from a ratty looking bible. Like with Joanna's funeral, I'm not listening. I play along this time, bow my head when he indicates, pretend to pray. Mostly, I'm just trying to suck in the warm of my sister and her fiancé's hands clenched tightly around mine.

Ray and I chat a lot especially for the hour and a half Katie is passed out in a chair in the corner. I don't think I've ever talked like this with him before and I regret it. I know he's a good guy and I've always liked him. I should have done this sooner.

He's a big Boston Red Sox fan. I'm suddenly interested in baseball and listen intently to him tell me about games he's gone to and players and stats.

I'm coughing a lot and wheezing. When I talk there's this whistle coming from my throat. It embarrasses me. I have this impulse to crawl beneath the bed and hide from everybody.

I'm really tired. It's hard keeping my eyes open. Looks like this long night is starting to get to me. My body feels so heavy and swollen.

Someone puts this plastic thing on my face. It's like being outside, standing in the middle of a fresh breeze. Reminds me of being at the beach. Only there's this funny taste to the air that I can't place. Oh well, it's covering up the sound of my teeth chattering. I'll live with it.

God, my eyes hurt. They're burning from exhaustion. I'm just going to rest them for a while. Only a second or two.

"Kyle, wake up!"

I jerk awake, startled, gasping for breath.

Next to me, Marsha sits up and switches on the lamp on the nightstand beside her. My pilfered Ghostbusters shirt slips off her shoulder as she twists to look at me.

"Are you okay? You were tossing and moaning a lot. Were you having a nightmare?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess I was." I'm having this strange sensation of being someplace I'm not supposed to be. A naughty child slipping beneath the metal bar and getting a much ill advised closer look at the lion exhibit. It's difficult to shake.

"What was it about?"

"I..." I frown. "You know, I can't remember."

"That's probably a good thing," she says through a yawn. "You'd better get back to sleep, Kyle. Katie will never forgive you if you look like hell on her big day."

She's right. Tomorrow is Katie's wedding. I'm supposed to walk her down the aisle. Not even a white flowing gown will stop her from beating my ass if I show up thrashed.

Stretching again, Marsha clicks off the light, plunging the room into darkness. Anxiety surges through me in a sudden rush. I'm afraid but I'm not sure why.

"Marsha?" I ask, thinking she's disappeared with the light.

"Yeah?" comes a sleepy reply.

"Can we rent a car?"

"Rent a car?"

"Yeah." I'm more insistent than usual, petulant. "I want to rent a car."

"Why?"

"I don't know but it's really important to me. Please?"

She groans and I feel her rolling over beside me. "You sound like a brat, Kyle."

Sitting up, I tuck my knees under me and start bouncing the bed saying, "Please, please, please, please, please –"

"Knock it off! I'm trying to sleep!" Marsha yells but she's laughing so hard she can barely get the words out.

"Alright! Alright, stop!"

I stop and wait for her to get a hold of her giggles.

It's not as dark as it was before. Rather, my eyes have gotten used to the dark. Now I can see Marsha's smiling face with almost perfect clarity.

"How about this: after the wedding, we'll rent your precious car and drive up to Vegas for the weekend. How does that sound?"

I'm grinning stupidly. "That sounds perfect! I love you!"

"I love you, Kyle," she says.

Only it doesn't sound like Marsha. It sounds like my sister.

The anxiety is back. A cold shiver attacks my spine and I feel my body spasm beneath it.

Marsha lifts a hand and touches my face. "What's wrong, Kyle?"

"I'm cold," I say, honestly.

"Come here. You'll warm up, soon."

I lie down and rest my head on her stomach. She strokes my hair and rubs my arm. "Better?"

"Almost."

"Go to sleep, Kyle. You'll get warm after you fall asleep."

Something is pressing down on me, on my chest. I'm having a hard time breathing.

"Can we catch a ball game?" I ask quickly, hurrying to get the words out. I feel like time is of the essence.

"Since when do you like baseball?" Marsha asks, incredulous.

"Since now. Can we?"

She laughs softly, making my head go up and down. "Sure. We can see a ball game. We can do anything you want, Kyle. But you have to go to sleep now."

Her words calm me, ease the tension in my chest. I'm not cold anymore. But I do feel tired. So very tired.

"It's time to go to sleep, Kyle."

She's right. It is time for me to sleep.

"Close your eyes."

I close my eyes and

###  Acknowledgements

I'd like to thank my friends and family for taking a chance on this and letting me tell Kyle's story. It's been in my mind for quite a long time and though it was, by far, the most difficult thing I've ever written, I am glad I was able to finish it and share it with all of you.

###  Excerpt From _Hear No Evil_

### Chapter One

Melanie Grace was talking to me.

At first, I assumed she'd mistaken me for someone else. But then I dismissed the theory immediately. After all, nobody would ever mistake The Grim Reaper.

Melanie Grace was the complete opposite of me in every way. Her hair was the color of golden honey and shined wherever the sunlight touched it. Her eyes were large and very round, twin bright hazel jewels. She was one of those girls that looked beautiful without having to try.

I on the other hand, with my deathly pale skin and pitch black hair, looked very much like the nickname entailed. Even my eyes freaked people out -a deep ocean blue color that nobody could believe was real. Everyone assumed I wore contacts.

Even our clothes contrasted. Her lacy pink sleeveless top made my black turtle neck stand out even more than usual.

Her full ruby colored lips were moving at me but I couldn't hear a word she said. Pressing pause on my player, I pulled an ear bud free and waited for her to repeat what she'd said.

"You're Simon, right? Simon Cain? I'm Melanie."

She held out a hand and I cringed. I couldn't stand being touched; even something as innocent as a handshake was enough to send my pulse racing. It was one of the reason I always wore long sleeves even in the scorching summer.

Melanie stood there awkwardly with her hand out before retracting it, adjusting the strap of her bag as if that's what she'd intended in the beginning. I wished she'd leave and let me get back to my music.

"Um, listen, I hate to bother you but I was wondering if you'd mind giving me a ride home today. My car won't start."

"Don't you have friends?"

I hadn't meant for it to come out like that -I wasn't used to interacting with people. Usually the only time I opened my mouth was when I was called on in class.

When you answer a question, you don't have to worry about phrasing or hurt feelings.

You just say the information that pops in your head verbatim.

But Melanie didn't seem perturbed by my bluntness. "You mean why am I asking you?"

That's exactly what I meant. I was a pariah, the one even the kid that got his head dunked in the toilet every day avoided at all costs. The fact that Melanie Grace was the most popular girl in school might not be enough to protect her. Especially since I could see plenty of kids in the parking lot staring at us openly.

Melanie said, "We both live on the same street, right, so it makes the most sense that I'd ask you."

It did but it didn't. Any guy here would foam at the mouth at the chance to drive Melanie Grace home even if it was grossly out of their way. She could take her pick.

"You don't even have to take me to my house; just drop me off at your place and I'll walk. You're going there anyway, right?"

We both lived on Mariner Street which was shaped like a giant U. My house was third down on the left from the first turn off and hers was toward the center of the curve. I'd seen her drive by almost every morning on my way to school. It's at least a ten minute walk.

"I could give you gas money if you need it. Please," she added, biting her lip anxiously.

I did the math in my head. Fifteen minutes from here to my house without traffic. And unless this was some cruel joke on the freak kid the worst thing I'd have to worry about was small talk. That wasn't the end of the world -I put up with it every day with my foster parents.

Besides, I'd be lying if there wasn't a part of me that was thrilled with the idea that Melanie Grace chose me to drive her home. Guess I really wasn't that much different from the other guys here after all.

"Okay."

"Really? Oh thank you, so, so much! You're a life savior, Simon!"

She was bouncing up and down like I'd just told her she'd won the lottery. Once or twice she bounced closer to me and I flinched.

"Sorry," she said embarrassed, calming down. "It's just, if you hadn't said 'yes' I would've had to ask Trisha Tumbler for a ride and her driving scares the living hell out of me. She's had, like, three fender-benders in the last month already."

I had nothing to say so that's what I said.

Gathering up my backpack, I got off the bench and headed into the parking lot. Melanie followed step beside me, a grin stretching her lips. Did she notice every single pair of eyes was locked onto us like crosshairs in a scope? I kept waiting for a shot to ring out and drop me where I stood.

I made the mistake of looking up from the ground and meeting some of those eyes. Disgust, anger, bewilderment. Clearly I had done something horrible to Melanie in order to get her to come along with me, hypnotized or black mailed her in some way. There was no possibility of her ever voluntarily choosing to be anywhere near me.

I thought about just giving her the keys to my car and bussing it home.

We reached my grey Hyundai located at the far end of the parking lot. Still feeling the weight of everyone's glare, I unlocked her door first then circled around and unlocked mine, trying very hard not to run.

Once inside, I breathed a little easier, happy to be free from all the stares, until Melanie slid into the seat beside me. I'd forgotten just how small my car was –her proximity was so profound I thought I'd choke on her perfume.

Buckling my seatbelt, I waited for her to do the same then turned the car on. Harsh, loud drumming and screeching electric guitar blasted through the speakers at full volume. Melanie jumped and cried out in surprise, gripping the door as if to escape the sound.

Quickly, I flipped the dial all the way down, muting the stereo. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay," she said, not sounding okay at all -her chest was moving up and down rapidly. "I just wasn't expecting it. Do you always listen to music so loud?"

"Yes."

"Aren't you worried you'll go deaf?"

Going deaf would be a blessing but I didn't tell her that. That might lead to more questions, more talking.

Popping the brake, I put the car in reverse and began to back out of the spot. I wasn't used to driving around with the lot still so full -most days I didn't leave until the teachers were making their way to their cars -so I had to concentrate a lot more than normal on my driving.

I made a right turn out of the school then pulled all the way over to the left lane and waited at the light.

"So, what song was that anyway?" Melanie asked when the light turned green.

"I don't know."

"Oh, I thought we were listening to your iPod -I didn't know it was the radio."

"It is my iPod. I just don't know the song."

She frowned her confusion at me. "How does that work?"

I wished I knew how to lie -or at least, how to be better at it. Hell, I'd even take not saying the first thing that popped in my head whenever somebody asked me a question.

"My parents gave me a gift card for fifty bucks for iTunes for my birthday. I knew they wanted me to use it so I just picked some albums. I didn't pay attention to what I got."

"Don't you... like music?"

Another red light stopped us. That was going to add another minute or two to the total driving time.

"I like sound. It doesn't matter what it is just as long as it's loud."

She nodded like that made sense to her.

Green light. I moved forward slowly, allowing a few cars to merge ahead of me when the right lane ended. There's another thirty seconds.

"You live with the Consuelas, right?"

Everyone knew Mr. and Mrs. Consuela. After they got married and found out they couldn't have children of their own, they started to collect orphans. I was number eleven.

"Yes."

"I hear they're really nice."

I stopped again. A red light on Green Light Street -how's that for ironic?

Melanie shifted in her seat, reaching a hand to fiddle with her sandals. The action brought her a few inches closer to me and I stiffened, moving my hand away from the gear shift and onto the wheel to take back those inches.

I glanced over at her and found her staring at me. I quickly moved my eyes back to the Buick in front of me.

"You know, you remind me of this cat I had once a few years ago."

Confused, my eyes flickered over to her again. She was sitting up straight again but this time her body was moved all way to the right in her seat -as far away from me as the tiny vehicle allowed.

"I named her Bootsie 'cause she had these white paws that looked like little boots. My dad brought her home from the shelter. Her last owner had abused her really bad -starved her, hit her, kicked her and stuff like that. She didn't like to be touched either."

My shoulders pitched up to my ears. I kept my eyes on the road.

"I know the last thing you probably wanna do is talk about it but I'm a volunteer at the Teen Help Center and I'd never be able to live with myself if I didn't at least ask.

Is it happening now -with the Consuelas -or is it something that happened before you started living with them?"

Never would I have ever imagined I'd be sitting in my car with a girl talking about this -let alone Melanie Grace.

A volunteer at the Teen Help Center; was that the reason she'd asked me to drive her home? Helping the school freak become more normal was probably good padding for a college application.

But looking into her eyes, those big round earnest eyes, made me think she was legitimately concerned for my safety.

"Before," I whispered, my chest tightening. Please don't ask anymore.

She nodded as if she'd heard my silent plea. Still keeping her distance, she reached for the volume dial and turned it back to the right. Slowly, music filled the car -not as loud as I normally listened. I felt myself relax a little as I let the pounding beat fill my ears and erase everything else.

I turned left at Apache Street and then the first right on Flower Road. When I turned onto Mariner, I drove past my house and followed the bend until I spotted a familiar red Toyota I'd seen her drive a few times. I pulled over against the curb and turned the music down again.

"Thanks for the ride, Simon," Melanie said, pulling her bag from the floor onto her lap. "I really appreciate it."

"You're welcome."

Her fingers closed around the handle but she didn't pull it. Her teeth were pressing into her bottom lip again.

"Can I see your phone?"

I didn't see a problem with it. I plucked it from the cup holder and held it out to her. She took it carefully from me, making sure our fingers never touched.

"I'm giving you my number," she explained while her thumbs rapid-fired against the keypad. "If you ever wanna talk or anything, call me."

"I'm not suicidal," I told her. I couldn't blame her for thinking it though, I'm sure I fit the profile.

Melanie smiled kindly at me. "I didn't think you were. That's why I'm giving you my number and not the number for the Center."

A girl was giving me her number. And not just any girl, Melanie Grace. I had Melanie Grace's number in my phone.

When she was done, she set the phone on the dash so I wouldn't worry about fingers brushing. Giving me a sweet smile, she opened the door and stepped out.

Before she closed it, she leaned down and poked her head in.

"You know Wright Field out by Route 12?"

"Yes."

"Every Saturday they have this little festival thing with live bands –strictly amateurs. Have you heard about it?"

I had. There wasn't much else to do here in Dante's Cove so everyone at school wound up at the Field Saturday nights. Well, almost everyone.

"Little known fact, you can hear the bands all the way up to the water tower on the hill." She lifted a shoulder. "Maybe if you don't have anything else planned, I'll see you up there this weekend."

I didn't realize my mouth was hanging open until I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror.

Melanie tossed me another smile then pushed the door closed and walked up the drive. I watched her swaying hips for a few seconds then quickly averted my gaze and stared down at my steering wheel.

Not only had I gotten Melanie Grace's phone number -a shock in of itself -but it seemed like I had a potential date with her for this Saturday.

As I maneuvered the car into a perfect three-point-turn, I allowed myself to fantasize. I pictured showing up at the water tower, bringing her flowers or something. Her face breaks into a wide smile -she's actually happy to see me.

We sit together, listening to the horrible music wafting up from the bands below. My dream-self is not afraid of being touch. He snakes an arm around her slender shoulders and she leans against his chest, closing her eyes, content.

What would it be like to kiss her? To mold my thin, pale lips to her full pouty ones? The thought horrified and intrigued me. I couldn't figure out which emotion dominated.

I drove back down Mariner and parked in front of my house. Sticking my buds back in my ears, I headed up the walkway and entered the two-story. For the first time since I could remember, I hadn't had a completely miserable day.

The next morning there were three police cruisers parked up the street down the U bend.

Melanie Grace was missing.

To read more _Hear No Evil_ , check out your favorite eBook Store!

###  Excerpt from _StarChild_

### Chapter One - A Very Unhappy Birthday

On that day, the world was painted in pinks and purples,

a day of celebration ended in tears.

I was baptized in a red ocean.

I lay awake at night and wonder:

can you hear my voice

past the clouds, immersed in the stars?

I miss your voice as you sang to me,

velvet hair twirled in my tiny fingers,

crimson eyes, wide and beautiful

sparkling whenever you laugh.

My heart calls for you and shatters like glass.

I want to feel your arms around me again.

On that day, the world was painted in pinks and purples,

at that time, my favorite colors.

Now the world is painted in black and red-the

colors of pain and blood.

I miss you everyday,

I love you.

I reread the last few lines of my poem, twisting the cap back on my glossy gel pen. Yeah, it was a little morbid, but I usually felt morbid around this time of year. Today was October first.

My birthday. I was turning seventeen today.

I know, I know. Everybody hates their birthday. Nobody wants a surprise party with gifts they don't need given by friends they don't even like. Who was I to think I was any different?

Well, unlike all those other people, I'd be spending the bulk of my birthday at the cemetery.

Sighing, I closed my eyes then titled my head back against the plastic coated metal bench I was sitting on. I could already feel a migraine coming on as I tried to push out the bad thoughts threatening to consume me.

A light breeze made my hair dance and softly tap my cheeks. I opened my eyes and stared up at the puffy clouds, tinted pink because of my hair.

Let me explain. You see, my hair is actually two different colors; the bulk of it is black, the sort of black that gothic kids spend hundreds of dollars to get their hair that dark (doesn't matter -it always looks fake anyway) but my bangs are a dark pink and hang just past my eyes, hugging my cheeks.

Here's the weird part, though, this is actually my natural hair color. Seriously- my hair _grows_ like this.

Apparently when I was a baby I got really sick and they gave me this new experimental drug that affected the pigment in what little hair I'd had at the time so now half my hair comes out this fuchsia color. I used to dye it when I was a kid but now I just let grow out naturally. I like it this way.

That weird drug stuff also affected my eyes because instead of the hazel, which was what they probably would've turned, my eyes are a really bright emerald green color.

I got tired of trying to explain to everyone I met about being sick and the medicine and all that so I just let them think I dye my hair weird colors and wear contacts. It's just easier that way.

Sigh, again.

With my index finger, I traced the line of the silver chain around my neck then pulled the necklace free from beneath my blouse. My most prized possession; a gift I got from my mother a long time ago.

Hanging from a silver chain was an onyx crystal about the size of a quarter with a gold outline of a pyramid at its center. By far my favorite part of the jewel was what happened whenever I lifted it up to the sunlight and looked through it. With the sunlight streaming through it, you can see a tiny cross in the middle of the pyramid outline with a heart attached where the two sections met.

Time after time I've had people beg me to tell them where I'd gotten it so they could purchase one for themselves. They always think I'm lying when I tell them I don't know where it came from; like I'm so superficial that I don't want anyone else to have a necklace as beautiful as this so I purposely sabotage everyone. Yeah, right.

So wrapped up was I in my own little world that I didn't notice anyone approaching me until it was too late. A long, slender mocha-colored hand seemed to appear out of nowhere and snatched the spiral notebook from my lap.

"Hey!" I cried in horror, whirling around to face the thief. I sighed when I realized who it was. I should've known.

Cleo, Lexi and Marisa were all standing with their backs to the sunless sky, staring at me.

Cleo was holding my notebook by two fingers as high as her incredibly long arm could hold it.

She just loved to show off her five foot ten inches of height.

"Give it back, Cleo," I forced my tone to remain calm. It was just some insignificant notebook, after all. No need to open it up and read the rantings of my dark and twisted mind.

"We always see you scribblin' away in this thing, Jewel," Cleo said, flashing me a sinister smile. "What could you possibly be writing about?"

I opened my mouth to lie –nothing of interest, really –but Lexi interrupted me. "I bet it's a love letter." She extended the last two words out in a mocking singsong voice.

I rolled my eyes though I guess they weren't that far off. "Whatever, and who would the letter be for, huh?"

"Jeremiah," the three girls all harmonized together automatically without hesitation.

My cheeks flared. No, I hadn't been writing a love letter to the gorgeous, wonderful, sweet, all around perfect Jeremiah Parker, but the fact that that was where their minds would automatically go was a little embarrassing. Was I really that obvious?

Jeremiah Parker was the smartest guy in our school; a shoe-in for valedictorian, hands down.

What was uncharacteristic was the fact that he was also the best quarterback our meager Cougars had ever had since the founding of the school who knew how many years ago. Brains and brawn put together beneath a flawlessly smooth complexion, ice-blue eyes and golden hair cut short and gelled into perfect, pointed spikes all around. And -as if that all wasn't enough -he was incredibly nice and friendly with practically everyone at school from the most popular to the band-geek, audio-visual nerds.

God could there be a more perfect soul on this planet?

"You guys are so lame," I retorted, trying to force the blood out of the cheeks and not give me away. "I don't even like him. We're just friends."

"Sure you are," Cleo rolled her eyes at me although with a little more flare than I had. "Why don't we just take a little peek and make sure."

She started to thumb through my notebook. Repressing a squeal that would most likely just egg them on, I instead pulled out my trump card.

"Drop it right now, or else, Tasha-"

"Shut up!" Cleo shrieked, her head whipping around frantically for onlookers. For a moment I was actually worried about possible whiplash. "Say another word and I'll kill you. Seriously, kill!"

Cleo's real name obviously wasn't Cleo. Unfortunately for her, her parents were major nerds, "Trekies" I suppose is the proper title. They met at some Star Trek convention in San Diego and actually got married at that exhibit in Las Vegas. No joke, they said their vows in front of Captain Kirk's chair and everything. Because of that, Cleo's real name is Tasha Lall

Hope, a name that mortified her. But she didn't suffer alone; her older brother's name is Scotty Riker Hope though he stopped going by "Scotty" when he turned thirteen.

The reason we all call her "Cleo" was because she dressed up as Cleopatra for Halloween Freshman year and looked so totally rocking that pretty soon everyone was calling her Cleopatra.

It had gotten to the point where she even went to the salon once a week and got the hairstyle and everything. Even the teachers all call her Cleo.

"I swear, Cleo," I made my voice sound menacing; I wanted her to believe my threat. "If you don't give that back to me in the next two seconds I'll go on the P.A. and tell everybody to start calling you Tasha-"

"Shh!" she hissed through her teeth at me, her face going white –an interesting trick for a half African-American. She knew I'd do it if she pissed me off enough. She held my book out to me. "Cheater," she grumbled.

Before I could reclaim my property, Lexi snatched it out of Cleo's hand and started backing up.

"Lexi!" I moaned.

"Hey, you've got no dirt on me, girlfriend!" she laughed, still backing away from me.

Drat, she was right about that. Groaning again, I vaulted after her, reaching out for the book she now held over her head, laughing at my futile attempts.

Lexi was, by far, the childish one of our group. Her parents had gotten a divorce when she was really little and it hadn't been a clean break. To this day, they still bicker and fight and do everything in their power to get a rise out of each other. For years, they both battled over who could buy Lexi's affection. As a result, Lexi was a spoiled little Princess and wasn't shy about acting that way in public.

"Arg! Knock it off, Lexi!" I growled. I was starting to get mad. "What are you, five? Just give it back!"

She ignored my protests and kept dancing just out of my reach, giggling like she really was five. Dark thoughts began to fill my mind. Would it be so bad if just decked her right across that perfect, painted-on face?

Suddenly, she came to such an abrupt halt that I almost smacked right into her. When I finally noticed the reason behind her stop, I felt all the color wash out of my face.

Jeremiah Parker stood in all his glory blocking Lexi's escape. One of his eyebrows was pulled up in obvious confusion but the lovely smirk on his face was one of humor.

God he was so hot!

"May I?" he asked, already slipping the notebook out from Lexi's suddenly frozen hand. He stepped around her gawking face and approached me, handing the book out. "I take it this belongs to you."

Not trusting my voice for one microsecond, I merely nodded and took the book, hugging it to my chest to insure its continual safety.

"I'm actually glad I ran into you, Jewel," he continued, his smirk turning to a wide grin.

I tried to keep myself calm despite how wonderful it felt to hear him say my name. "Y-you were?"

"Can we talk?" He inclined his head at my three nosey and so obviously eavesdropping best friends. "Alone."

I was suddenly wondering whether someone my age could have a heart attack; it felt like my heart was going to explode. "Sure. Um, I just need to get my bag."

Smiling again -oh, that smile -he nodded and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I can wait."

Practicing deep, calm breathing, I turned my back to him and headed back over to the bench where all my things were scattered. My friends all surrounded me like giggling vultures.

"Oh my god!" Marisa gushed in a whispered squeal. "What do you think he wants?"

I knew better than to guess. When Marisa was concerned, less was more.

Marisa was the Queen of Gossip; once she'd heard it or even thought she'd heard it, it lapped around the school in less than an hour. Twice. The phrase "off the record" meant nothing to this girl.

"You know he's single now, right?" Cleo chimed in, doing a slightly better job at concealing her excitement.

I did know that. Everyone in school knew that. But that didn't mean anything.

"Guys, chill, alright?" I snapped in a low voice, shoving everything back into my bag carelessly. I'd hate myself later if anything broke. "He probably just needs to borrow a book or something. No big deal," I added to Marisa who'd opened her mouth again.

Before anyone could say anymore, I swung the strap over my shoulder and jogged over to Jeremiah who stood waiting patiently, the sun choosing that moment to peek out from behind a large cloud, bouncing light off his blond hair making a sort of halo around him.

"Call me!" Marisa called.

I waved a hand behind my back frantically when Jeremiah turned around and began walking. The girls all flashed me thumbs-up and other annoying encouragements. Why was I friends with them?

"So," I began nervously once I was sure we were out of earshot of the Three Stooges.

"What did you want to talk about?" My heart started pounding even harder than before and I could feel butterflies in my stomach.

"Um, have you finished the reading yet for English?"

Dead butterflies all fell into the pit of my stomach, all assassinated by disappointment. Of course, I chided myself. What else could he want with me? Other than him, I was considered one of the smartest kids in our school. My GPA was nearly perfect and probably would be if Jeremiah would stop setting the curve. Not that I minded.

"Jewel?" he asked, eyeing me confused.

Great. I'd been staring up at his perfect face like an idiot instead of paying attention. Cheeks blazing, I cleared my throat and answered his question.

"Yeah, I wanted to get a head start on it. It's sort of a lot, isn't it?"

He smiled good-naturedly at me. "I thought so too. Mr. Stillman always seems to forget that we've got other classes besides his. How are we supposed to read six chapters in less than two days with everything else we've got?"

I matched his smile though nowhere near his magnificence.

This was nice; Jeremiah and I were in a few of the same classes together this year and we've had lots of opportunities to talk but never one on one like this. Usually the most I could get with him was group study and things like that. Sometimes Advocacy on Mondays but he was often too surrounded by other friends and admirers for me to get anywhere near him.

We kept walking and talking about schoolwork, heading toward the front of the high school campus where the parking lot was. His shiny black Mustang was parked toward the front but he walked past it and headed for my green Malibu at the end of the lot.

What a gentleman! He was walking me to my car.

I stopped once we'd reached my car and started to browse through my bag for my keys with little enthusiasm. I didn't want our one and probably only chance of talking alone to be over so soon. Maybe I could fake car trouble or something. Would he offer me a ride? If only...

"Listen, I've got something I wanted to ask you." Jeremiah suddenly sounded nervous.

"You can ask me anything," I told him and meant it. Fly to the moon? No problem –as long as it's for him, I could probably do anything.

"Do you want to go to the movies with me tonight?"

My heart stopped. Literally stopped. For a moment, I completely forgot how to breathe.

Jeremiah Parker, the hottest most unbelievably perfect guy in the entire school –probably the world for all I knew –was asking me out? _Me_? Jewel Grey, the girl with the weird hair and weirder eyes? Did he lose a bet or something?

"Why?" I asked before I could stop myself.

His smile faltered at the edges a little.

I quickly amended the question. "Tonight, I meant. Um, why tonight? I mean it's a little sudden." Liar. He could ask me to run away to Canada right now and I would.

"I just thought it'd be kinda nice, you know. I'd heard you didn't have any plans so I wanted to take you out for your birthday."

This time, my face fell. I really, really didn't enjoy having this conversation with anyone let alone Jeremiah.

"Um," I chewed my lip, trying to organize my thoughts –a difficult task whenever I was near him. "I really don't celebrate my birthday at all. It's sort of... cursed."

He chuckled, a light laugh that would've normally made my heart lose its natural and healthy rhythm, again, were it not for the topic. "Come on, don't be like that. What possible reason do you have to think that your birthday is 'cursed'?" I could practically hear the quotations when he said the word.

I sighed. _Might as well just get it over with..._

"My mother died on my sixth birthday. Murdered, actually."

Poor Jeremiah paled on the spot. I had the feeling that had been the furthest thing from his mind. Instantly, I wished I could take it back. Wished I had just lied to him. It probably would've been better that way.

I kept talking just to fill the silence. "It happened during my party. I don't like to tell people about it so that's why you didn't know. I had to tell Cleo, Lexi and Marisa so they'd quit bugging me about my birthday in Junior High and they swore never to tell anybody."

If I continued speaking I would start babbling nonsense so I closed my mouth and allowed the silence to build like a mountain between us. I debated on just getting in my car and taking off so I could escape this horrible moment. Maybe have a good cry on the way to the cemetery.

Then Jeremiah spoke. "Um, I-I'm really sorry."

I shook my head, smiling up at him reassuringly. "Don't even worry about it. It was a long time ago. I'm fine."

"Do you remember? I mean –what happened?"

Of course I remembered. How could I ever forget that day? Mom smiling, beaming with warmth and life, going into the kitchen to get the golden butterfly birthday cake she'd hidden away. But I'd peeked into the box when she wasn't looking. Glass shattering. Something loud hitting the floor. Then the screaming. God, the screaming.

"She was in the kitchen..." My voice sounded as distant as I felt. "Somebody broke in and shot her. We never found out who."

More silence, making the mountain grow steadily bigger. _See, I knew this day was cursed. Dangle a potential date with the guy of my dreams in front of me like a carrot then once I'd almost touched it yank it away so I'd fall flat on my face. Thanks a bunch, God._

"You know what?" Jeremiah said, breaking the silence. "I think I'm gonna go and find a crowbar so I can dislodge the foot from my mouth. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

He turned to leave but I grabbed his arm to stop him. "Wait!" Maybe I could salvage this disaster. "If you still want to see a movie, I wouldn't mind. Just any night but tonight."

I waited for the carrot to be pulled away from me again but to my utter shock, Jeremiah turned around to face me with a wide, almost excited smile on his face.

"Great!" he said enthusiastically. _Enthusiastically_? "Um, I'm kinda busy with practice tomorrow and Friday there's the game. How about Saturday? Does that work?"

"Totally!" I fought to keep myself from bouncing up and down with joy. Even if Saturday didn't work, I'd freaking _make_ it work. "What movie do you want to see?"

"Lady's choice, although I do reserve the right to groan and roll my eyes at least ten times during any chick-flicks. Twenty if either Matthew McConnehey or Kate Hudson star in it. And I'm gonna have to veto it completely if they're both in it."

I laughed. "Actually, I'm not all that into lovey-dovey stuff." Okay, that wasn't entirely true; I seemed to be strangely attracted to them during a particular time of the month but I thought I should wait at least one date before I brought that sort of embarrassing thing up. "I'm sort of a horror movie or action adventure type. Anything with more than one explosion is always a hit in my book."

He pretended to stagger in surprise, clutching at his chest. "A girl after my own heart, too impossible to be real. I may just have to marry you, Miss. Gray."

Please oh please tell me he couldn't hear the boisterous sound of my heart smacking into my ribs like a jackhammer at the mention of marriage. Arg, I was such a girl!

"So, you'll be at the football game Friday, right?" he asked, breaking through my internal scowling.

"I'd been planning on it," I lied instantly. I wondered if I could still get tickets. Cleo had a couple; would anyone really miss her if she suddenly disappeared?

His lips pulled back into a wide grin. _Thump thump thump_. "Great. I'll see you tomorrow in class, Jewel."

I'd never loved my name more than when I heard it coming from Jeremiah's perfect mouth. "Yeah, see ya."

He smiled again then turned around and headed back the way we'd come, past his shiny mustang and into the school.

Once I was absolutely sure he was out of earshot, I put both hands over my mouth and screamed as loud as I could. A date! I had a date with Jeremiah Parker! Pinch me -I _had_ to be dreaming.

Before I could look anymore insane than I probably already did, I quickly got into my car and slammed the car door shut to hide my sudden hysterical giggling.

_Evanescence's Lithium_ suddenly filled the car as my cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I flipped open my _Razor_ and smiled at the display. I'd been wondering when he would call with an excuse.

"Hey, Dad," I answered, smiling. "How's work going?"

My dad's a lawyer, one of the founding partners. They mostly handled insurance claims, will disputes, divorces, that sort of thing. Every now and then they'd have to go to Sacramento for some big case but those didn't happen very often.

" _Oh, work's going great, baby_ ," my dad said in a cheery tone. He always tried to sound perky when he thought he was about to disappoint me. " _Listen, I've got to head over to Folsom to see a client so I'll be late getting home. Will you be alright without me_?"

Totally called it. "Sure, no problem, Dad."

" _You've got money for pizza_?"

I rolled my eyes. "Dad, I'm perfectly capable of cooking myself dinner. Without burning down the house," I quickly added before he could comment.

He laughed. " _Right, I know, I'm sorry_." He paused; I could almost picture him chewing through his pen cap. " _Say hi to Mom for me_."

"I always do," I assured him.

Dad took Mom's death really hard; he still had trouble talking about her. I'd read somewhere that the most devastating loss a person could ever go through was the death of a spouse. Sometimes I wondered what would've happened to him if he hadn't had me to take care of. Just the thought was enough to make me shudder.

" _Be careful out there_ ," he cautioned me in his best fatherly tone. " _And please try to get home before dark. I don't like you driving at night_."

Again, I rolled my eyes. "I promise, Daddy. I love you."

"I love you too, sweetie. Take care."

'Bye."

I kissed the phone loudly then closed it.

Don't get on my dad's case for not wishing me a happy birthday, okay? I actually preferred it this way. Besides, it just made him remember why we don't celebrate it in the first place.

Pausing to slide my seatbelt on, I started my Malibu, popped it into reverse and guided it carefully out of the parking lot with practiced ease. I drove past the plaza center and merged onto the northbound freeway.

The cemetery was located in Citrus Heights; about a twenty-minute drive from the high school then a forty-five minute walk to my mother's grave. I never minded the walk. That's why God invented iPods, right?

You see the reason for the long walk is because separating the parking lot to the graveyard is an enormous gully with a small creek at the bottom. It was about the length of a four-lane highway in width and stretched to both ends of the cemetery. There were two bridges on either side of the lot but we were unlucky enough to land the only gravesite that seemed to sit right in the middle making it impossible to avoid the tiring journey.

When I made it to my mother's grave, I did the usual. Cleaned the stray leaves off the stone plaque, pulled out all the weeds. Once it was as pristine as I could make it, I pulled out an envelope containing the poem I'd finished and a single red rose and laid it beside the plaque. The rose was especially of great importance to me.

Even though I was so young when she died, I could still picture my mother's face so clearly, like she'd only been gone hours instead of years. Her long raven black hair that matched my portion perfectly, the white porcelain skin of her heart-shaped face that always seemed to glow in the moonlight. All this Dad and I agreed on. Except her eyes.

Dad always told me her eyes were a warm brown color, like hot cocoa. Unfortunately, what few pictures we had of my mother were either in black and white or the weird sepia style that our family portrait was made of, so I have no real evidence to dispute him.

Except that that wasn't what I remembered. I remembered my mother's eyes being a deep, crimson red -the color of freshly spilt blood.

Which was my father's biggest argument. He thought I was too young to remember anything before her murder. There had been so much blood that day that that had to be the reason I would think such a strange thing. After all, nobody had red eyes.

But I believed my memories. I knew deep in my heart that I was right.

Knew it enough to spend over an hour in the flower shop this morning looking through rose after rose, trying to find the one that matched how I pictured her eyes perfectly.

I recited the poem I had written for her aloud. This was sort of tradition for us –every year I would write a new poem and leave it here with the special rose. Her plot was pretty much in a very isolated area so I usually had the place all to myself. No reason to be shy when it's just me and her.

After I finished with the poem, I began to sing, a wordless melody my mother used to sing to me when I was a baby. It was a soft lullaby that, despite all theses years, I still haven't forgotten. Whenever I was upset or lonely, I'd sing this to myself and instantly I'd feel better. As though my mom would come down from heaven and wrap her arms around me until I calmed down.

I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to the effects of the song.

Something wonderful always happens to me when I sing –sensations that I can never quite explain. It feels like tiny bubbles bouncing playfully against my skin or soft feathers lightly tickling me. If I concentrated hard enough, I can direct the feeling to various parts of my body or even make the bubbles swirl and dance on the wind around me. Such a warm and pleasant feeling.

I kept my eyes closed even after I finished singing the melody twice, just enjoying the lingering feeling until it evaporated from my skin into the air.

It wasn't entirely necessary for me to open my eyes to know that the sun was already beginning its slow descent. For some reason, I can always tell when the sun rises and when the sun isn't around. It's hard to explain but I feel different somehow when the sun isn't around. Not bad different, just different.

I glanced down at my watch –five-thirty. If I was going to keep my promise to be home before the sun goes down I needed to start heading out...like half an hour ago.

Oh well, it's not like there's anything out to get me in the dark. What did it matter if I got home late? Dad would never know.

I gathered up my things and readjusted the envelope and rose that had been blown over by a sudden gust of wind. Touching two fingers to my lips, I transferred a kiss to the plaque –to my mother –then began the long walk back to my car.

Hey, I was just glad it wasn't raining –sometimes that creek gets so full it floods the place. Nothing like trudging up to your mom's grave in the slippery mud for forty-five minutes.

My eyes were completely focused on picking an album to listen to for the walk on my iPod. That's probably the reason I didn't notice anyone approaching me from the long shadows cast by the giant trees and the seeing sun.

I was about to hit play on the latest _Nickleback_ album when I heard someone speak.

"Jewel Grey." The voice sounded deep, gruff and very aged.

"Yes?" I answered automatically, looking up from the player.

I expected to see some cemetery caretaker or something like that, angry with me for leaving stuff on my mom's grave that he'd have to clean later. Get over it; I mean everybody does it, right?

But no one was there. I craned my neck around the nearest tree thinking maybe I couldn't see him from this vantage point. Nothing. Behind me maybe. Nope.

Now I don't hear voices so instead of feeling worried or anything like that, I started to get annoyed.

"Is somebody there?" I asked, letting my irritation fill my voice.

A cool breeze blew several leaves across my path. Birds cawed loudly as they flew overhead. Something skidded up a tree making the branches shake.

Those were all that answered me.

Was this some jerk's idea of a joke? Come to a cemetery and try to freak people out by calling out to them then hiding like a coward? Is this how some loser got his jollies?

Whatever. I was so out of here.

I turned around and sucked in a sharp gasp.

A tall, stocky man stood in front of me, staring down at me from only a few feet away. He was dressed in a grime covered jean jacket that would've looked tacky even in the eighties over a red and black plaid shirt that hung almost down to his knees. A greasy baseball cap completed the outfit; the bill was pulled down so far that it covered the top half of his face.

I was about to run for the hills when I noticed his dirty gardening gloves. _Of course, this guy must be the caretaker_. That explained why his clothes were all mangy and disgusting.

Letting out a nervous laugh, I smiled brightly up at him and said, "Wow, you really startled me. I didn't expect anyone to be up here."

He didn't say anything, merely stared at me. At least, that's what I assumed; I still couldn't see his eyes beneath the cap.

I swallowed uncomfortably. "Um, is there something you needed or wanted? Is that why you called me?"

And then something inside my brain clicked and I felt my palms start to sweat.

"H-how did you know my name?"

Even before the question left my mouth, my feet were already beginning to slowly back away from this stranger.

"She is the one."

His voice made me jump in surprise. It was gravelly –a deep bass that sounded closer to a rumble than human speech.

More importantly, it wasn't the same voice that said my name before.

Slowly, it dawned on me that this guy wasn't talking to me. Either he was completely off his rocker, talking to himself or –I didn't want to think about "or". Dealing with one nutcase was scary enough without having to worry about the very real possibility of more than one.

Still backing away, I slipped my hand into my purse at my hip trying not to look obvious while I groped around for the cell phone that I had carelessly tossed inside. The small pouch on the front of the bag intended for cell phone storage seemed to be laughing at me as my fingers found one useless object after another. Why did I have so much crap in my purse?

"She is the appropriate age."

My heart about exploded in my chest at the new voice. I whirled around and almost bumped into a tall lanky man wearing a long black duster that fell to his ankles with the collar turned up and an old fashioned gray fedora hat tilted downward also covering his eyes.

"But how can we be sure?" the new man continued, not making a move toward me but clearly blocking my path.

Trembling now, I yanked the purse free from my shoulder and began pulling things out of it, still looking for that stupid phone. If I got out of this situation, I vowed to always use that stupid pocket in the front. Or better yet, to buy one of those ugly phone holsters that dorky business guys always wore on their belts. If it meant not wasting time throwing out lipstick after lipstick after lipstick while trying to find the tiny sliver of a phone, who cares who made fun of me?

"Do you doubt your own senses, Julius?" the first man demanded of the second. "You saw just as clearly what I saw. She's one of them."

"I agree, Malcolm," the man called Julius said in a tired tone. "But that doesn't mean she's the one we've been searching for."

Neither Malcolm nor Julius were trying to stop me as I altered my path and began rushing forward into the space between them. I still had my hand in my purse but I decided to just make a break for it instead. Maybe Dad could sue the makers of _Razor_ for making their darn phones so impossibly small.

As I was getting ready to bolt, another figure emerged from the shadowy trees and blocked me again.

He was the shortest of the three but made up for it by being the thickest and I don't mean fat. This guy had muscles those freaks at the gym would kill for.

He was dressed in a thick leather biker jacket that would probably break if anyone tried to zip it up over that wide, wide chest. He had black leather gloves on and sunglasses that were too dark to see through even in the full glare of the sunlight.

"Who cares if she's the one or not," he said in that voice which had said my name in the beginning. "It's clear she's one of them, right? All the more reason to stick around."

And then he smiled and it made my blood run cold. It was a smile that I had never seen someone give in real life but plenty of times on TV or in movies. Right before a really, really awful scene took place.

"Axel has a point," Malcolm said, his gravelly voice sounding a little eager now.

There was a loud sigh before Julius said in a bored voice, "I have no objections. Just make it quick; I don't enjoy being out here in the daylight."

I couldn't breathe; it felt like my heart was pounding so hard that it was smashing all the air from my lungs.

Horrified, I watched as Axel reached behind his back and withdrew a shiny, silver curved blade that had to be at least a foot long.

Desperate for an escape, I looked over my shoulder but all I saw was the gorge dividing the cemetery from the parking lot. Without realizing it, I had let these men corner me like a rat surrounded by three hungry alley cats.

The cat analogy fit Axel the best; hunger was the only emotion I could read on his expression as he closed the distance between us.

With my gaze so fixated on Axel, I didn't notice Malcolm until he'd already grabbed my arm in a vice grip.

"Get off me!!" I shrieked at the absolute top of my lungs.

That same bubble sensation suddenly flared to life on my skin but it wasn't playful and pleasant –it was hot and electric.

I felt it shoot to the arm Malcolm held and to my astonishment he jerked his hands away from me with a yelp. Flames lit the gardening gloves and he struggled out of them, stomping them out on the ground with a heavy boot. Steam was seeping up from his palms even without the gloves.

My lips parted trying to vocalize my amazement but all I could manage was a breathy "w" sound. Tentatively, I touched my own arm. My skin felt very warm and a little tingly but not uncomfortable and definitely not painful. What was that?

"Damn girl!" Malcolm snarled at me.

It was then that I noticed in his haste to get away from me his hat had fallen off –the entirety of his face was visible to me now.

For the second time that day, I forgot how to breathe.

Malcolm's eyes were blood red.

This stranger's eyes were the same color as my mother's were in my memories. That completely unnatural color that was impossible to find on a normal person. Yet I was positive that it was one hundred percent identical to hers.

Once again I was too focused on one thing that I wasn't paying attention to anything else around me. Axel and even the previously uninterested Julius had all come to back up their companion Malcolm who was glaring murderously at me.

Now that they were all so close to me, I could see that Julius had those same red eyes as Malcolm and my mother. Because of the dark glasses I couldn't see Axel's eyes but something told me they were just as red. What was going on?

Julius was holding a matching dagger in his hand now and as I turned back around to face Malcolm he pulled yet another silver blade into view gripping the hilt so tightly his still steaming hand shook.

"I'll skin you alive for that you damn Sunchild scum!"

_Sunchild_?

Before I even had a chance to wonder what that even meant, Malcolm grabbed me by my shirt collar and raised the dagger high. I sucked in a breath to let out my final scream.

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###  About the Author

In addition to writing, Sara M. Garringer also enjoys drawing Graphic Novels and Manga. She lives in Southern California with her son and husband.

###  Contact the Author

Twitter: <http://www.twitter.com/saragarringer>

Email: mailto:saragarringer@gmail.com

