As days go by the Negative Projection is increasing and more nightmares are surfacing. She looks to Daine to keep her sane. Then she loses him in a bit of rage and turns to the church hoping a little prayer will save her. But there are some people who threaten her very existence. Some want the mirrors to stay open while others want to steal her for their own personal gain. Valen begins questioning everything. Her sanity and her family
1
The First Time
Sleep
Deprivation: The condition of not having enough sleep.
“No shit Sherlock. Tell me something I
don’t know.” I kept staring at the book shelf in the room for quite some time
and decided I’d help myself to Dr. Peculiars collection, thinking what harm
would come from it. There were plenty of books I read, but this was the first I
picked up that would be useful.
How long had it been? Four, five days? I
had lost count after my eyes stopped stinging. I hadn’t seen the inside of my
eyelids for weeks, were they still black. Stupid
question. I thought. Did side
effects of sleep deprivation include moronic moments because I’d been having
those a lot. Then again, I wasn’t going to act smart for anyone.
C’s and D’s was who I was. On occasion
I’d bring home a B if I really tried. And by trying, that meant I was stuck in
my room for hours flipping through stacks of index cards and I rarely did that.
It was too time consuming and taking in too much information was sure to give
me an aneurism.
I licked the tip of a finger and turned
the page on its corner.
Memory
problems—check.
There were times when I couldn’t remember how I got to work and other times
piecing together parts of my day was how I spent it. Depression—no. Feeling sorry for myself wasn’t in my programming. Weakening of the immune system—another check.
I did come down with a cold a few days ago, but it didn’t last more than an
hour or so. Hallucinations—double check.
At least I eventually started questioning if they were hallucinations.
The office door opened and in walked Dr.
Peculiar. He had long legs and long arms to match. The briefcase he carried
caused the stretching of one side. I called him Dr. Peculiar because he had one
eye that looked sideways when he stared at you and the white hair sticking up
at the top of his head gave him that Albert Einstein look. He wore his glasses
where his hair started to recede and he forgot they were there…a lot. He was
around dad’s age. Forty, only wrinkled all over. It was hard to think that he
was once cute, but I had seen his high school photos on top of his desk the
first time I took a good look around. The only other decoration in the office
was his license framed in mahogany positioned on the wall behind him, directly
above his head.
“Hi, Dr. Rison.” I said not looking up
from the book.
Dr. Rison marched over to his desk and
set his briefcase by the foot of his chair. “Do you make it a habit to go
through people’s belongings without their permission?”
I closed the book and placed it back
where I had gotten it from—between a vegan cookbook and an old beauty and the
beast coloring book—after I determined I’d get nothing from reading it.
“I’m not much for boundaries,” I
announced, walking over to the green chair that oddly matched the ugly
bookshelf and sat down, “unless it has to do with my own. I try to get mom to
respect my privacy, but anything I say to her goes in one ear and out the
other.”
For a while now we had been playing cat
and mouse. Dr. Rison would ask me questions and I would try anything to avoid
answering them. He kept insisting we “share our feelings”. Only I’d be the one
sharing while he took continuous notes. And if he wasn’t going to contribute, I
wasn’t going to open my mouth.
Like I said, I won’t act smart for
anyone, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have common sense. I knew that’s not how
things worked with shrinks, but I didn’t even want to be here. I had some conspiracy
theory that mom told him to kidnap me and not let me go until I talked. In my
world, everyone was against me.
It was pointless me being here. For what?
So that they could tell me again and again that the spiders was just one
spider. Or my favorite, my mind was playing tricks on me. That one had to be
the icing on the cake.
It wasn’t just Dr. Peculiar. Granted he
added fuel to the fire. My parents made me come. They said it would be good for
me to talk to someone. I had a great solution when they had brought it up. That
was talking to Sarah and best part was that it cost zilch. But I was becoming
reclusive. They would go as far as to call me a hermit.
Plain and simple, I was hibernating.
I thought as long as I stayed clear of
people than I wouldn’t have to worry about accidently making one of them jump
off a bridge or get buried alive. Whatever they were scared of. They were
starting to worry. They were probably thinking I was losing my mind.
My parents had never been open-minded.
If they sent me to a psychiatrist for saying that I made spiders attack some
kid I couldn’t stand, I could only imagine what they’d do to me if I told them I
was off to a Marilyn Manson concert, who they said was the devil in sheep’s
clothing. They would probably demand I have an exorcism or something. I could
see it now. God praising priests and their mumbo jumbo. They thought because
they had something to believe in that they were free of sin. From what I knew,
they were the biggest sinners of all.
Take Father McGuire of our parish. He
likes to sneak shots of bourbon after each confession. He couldn’t take
everyone loading off on him and the feeling of the liquor burning the back of
his throat was a good stress reliever. Still, isn’t drinking something you’re
supposed to swear off once you take that holy vow? I kept asking myself that
question more often than I wanted. Religion wasn’t a subject I excelled in.
Maybe that’s why I refused to step a foot in the church when my parents dragged
me along. Instead I’d sit in mom’s car and listen to Sugar Ray on her new
stereo. Seeing if God really condemned me wouldn’t be so satisfying.
“Have you given some thought on what we
talked about last week?” Dr. Rison asked pulling out his yellow notepad from
his briefcase and grabbing a pen from the candle holder sitting on the window
sill. It was a strange place for it, but I learned over time that strange, when
it came to Dr. Rison that is, you had to take it as normalcy.
“I tried what you told me, the warm milk
and sugar.”
“And how did it go?” He kept spinning
the pen between his fingers like his son Brady did when Mrs. Clark’s lectures
took forever to end. Sometimes Brady would even keep himself entertained by
placing the pen between his lips and nose. Another slacker in Norwood high’s
expanding list of underachievers. We had one up on the good doers that
constantly reminded us we’d never amount to anything. I’d agree, if we didn’t
go around swearing that they would live boring, uneventful lives. When Dr.
Rison tried, he failed when the pen kept hitting his desk with a clank from the
metal casing.
There
was an old couch behind me. It had three humps with a pearl trim, but it had holes
patched up with duct tape, so every time I bowed out for the itchy chair. He
needed new décor since forever and knowing how much he was charging my parents,
he definitely could afford it. He was pretty much robbing them.
I kept flicking my finger against the
Bill Clinton bobble head on his desk to keep from saying the wrong thing. “I
got some sleep.”
In the end I ended up lying. I snuck out
and spent my night in an old Cadillac at Ray’s junkyard. Ray was never around
and I found comfort writing in the old car. I rolled down the windows and let
the night sounds seep in because they were so much more soothing than home.
Sarah liked to sleep with her radio on and it always distracted me. One minute I
was writing in a verse of some poem that had been taking me weeks to finish
because I couldn’t get the words right and next thing I know, I was singing
along to the music.
“What about the nightmares, are you
still having them?”
He had his yellow note pad sitting open
on top of his crossed legs. For some reason, seeing him jot down everything I had
been saying had me thinking he was reporting back to mom. After all, Mildred
was the respectable townie and mostly everyone tried to please her. I never
understood the power she held over everyone.
I nodded.
“So no spiders?”
Spiders were the last thing on my mind.
Before I’d dream about them twice, maybe even three times a night. But that
wasn’t the problem. It was everything else; the guns; the dogs; the old man
from across my house that spent his days on his stoop. Those were the things keeping me up.
“No more spiders.”
“How about Daine? Any more nightmares
with him?”
I didn’t even want to think about Daine.
The last time I saw him was
I lifted myself in my seat looking to
see what Dr. Rison was scribbling down.
I read off the words disconnected and restless. Everything else was chicken scratch.
“Do we really have to talk about this?” I
tried shifting the subject onto something else. “Can’t we talk about school or
home life? I’ll be glad to share about that.”
He slammed his pad shut and threw it on
top of his desk. The name plate on his desk falling over when the pad hit
it.
“I’m trying to help you Valen, but if
you don’t cooperate there’s not much I can do for you” He clipped his pen on his shirt where the
collar came so far down that I could see the grey hair of his chest.
Eww.
That’s something I didn’t want stuck in my mind all day. I thought
squirming in my seat.
“We’ve been at this for nearly two years
and there’s still no progress on your part. You keep dodging me every time I
try to make a breakthrough.” He lowered his voice. “Mildred won’t be too happy
to hear that.”
Mom again. Couldn’t we go one session without dropping her name into it?
I snuck a peak at my watch. 3:30. Time
to go. “Looks like our time is up. It was nice working with you. I believe this
is our last appointment, right? Don’t worry, I’ll let mom know that you were
awesome.” I’d forgotten to breathe in between, but I figured if I kept going, Dr.
Rison wouldn’t get a word in and I’d be able to dash out of here. “You might
see a big bonus in your mail box.”
I threw him one of my innocent relaxed
smiles. Then I tried making a break for the door.
“I’ll see you next week.” Dr. Rison’s
voice trailed after me.
Damn. I cursed. I
knew it wouldn’t be that easy. I wasn’t the type to linger. My motto was “If I
don’t have to be here, I’m out” and I was out of the place like the floor
beneath my feet was on fire.
I spilled out of
the building, ran to the alleyway between the converted firehouse and a liquor
store, and fell to the ground. I could feel the warmth from the dirt through my
jeans. I had told Anderson I was going to call him to come pick me up and made
sure I had stopped by Alice, Dr. Rison’s secretary and dialed him. I didn’t
drive my car, moms or Sarah’s because I didn’t want to have to hear that
everyone in town was going around saying that I was a lunatic, or worse,
getting shipped off to some insane asylum. If it was Mary Maroni—professional
gossip and social life murderer, or even Lilly Harding who saw my Chevy parked
in front of Dr. Rison’s office, then I knew I would be committed.
I threw my head
back against the bricks, not caring if it pulled my hair. The stinging had come
back yesterday and no matter how many times my eyes begged for my bed, I
wouldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to sleep. If I even closed my eyes for a second,
I knew I’d accidently manifest another nightmare.
Daine. He kept
invading my thoughts. Where was he? What had happened to him? I hadn’t seen
Daine since our experience together. It felt like he went and dropped off the
face of the Earth. I looked for him everywhere, to try and see if I can get him
to keep what I did quiet. Around town, school, the stadium he was known to
loiter around. Then I passed by his house and saw some movers unloading furniture
into his house and some guy I hadn’t seen before sitting on the porch staring
at me.
It wasn’t something I ever intended to
do and I never wanted to scare Daine out of town. I don’t want to scare anyone.
Actually when I had first done it, I thought someone was playing one massive
trick on me.
It had happened two summers ago when I was lugged up to The Island up in Maine for Gramps’
funeral. We’d spent a few good summers up there with Nans and Gramps. Dad and
mom never made trips to the Island. Mom would only drive us as far as the ferry
and even that seemed too much for her. Every time we came close to the boat,
the car went extremely quiet. Mom kissed us goodbye, waited until the ferry
took off then I’d watch her speed off. She didn’t break once.
That’s
where I ran into Daine Connor’s. Talk about adding salt to my wounds. I was
already down about Gramps dying and him adding on to it, I was ready to burst.
What
you’d come to find about our swanky little town was that no one rarely got out,
so you’d be in preschool through high school with the same people. It was only natural
for me to know him most of my life. He was what you would call future King of
Norwood High—good looks, great physique, a legacy in basketball and it didn’t
hurt that old man Connor’s was principle.
Nans’ house had officially turned
into a crying fiesta. Dad was sitting in a chair by the food and beverage
table, hugging Nans’ urn and giving anyone looking to pay their respects a
short hand. He was the softy of our family. It was sure hard to believe when he
stood a good six feet seven inches and he had been pure muscle since his
wrestling days in high school. Mom and Uncle Uriel were trying to keep cousins
Clare and Tyler from killing each other. And Sarah was too busy talking on the
phone to notice any of it.
There was too much mourning going on
and I remember Nans mentioning that when she died she wanted us to go out and
buy the best fireworks we can get and throw one big party because she had a
good run.
“When my time comes I will take in
every smell and every taste of what I’m leaving and gladly leave, like I’ve
only been visiting.” She had said when Gramps had kicked the bucket.
So in the spirit of Nans, I hiked
down to the beach. I parked myself by the lifeguard station because that’s
where it was less crowded and it didn’t hurt that that summer, Lars was
lifeguarding.
“Well, well, well, little Valen
Grace.” Lars leaned over the station low enough so that I could get a good look
of his green eyes and how much older he had gotten. “I remember telling you two
summers ago not to be a stranger and look at how much you’ve changed?”
“I don’t have much control over
puberty.” I never had problem speaking with guys before, unless it had to do
with someone I was crushing on, and then I stumbled on every word, forgot to
breath and drooled because I was too nervous to swallow.
“You were what, twelve the last time
I saw you and short and now your about,”—he cocked his head to the side and
made a so-so motion with his hand, “—thirty?”
“You have to work on your
complementing if you don’t want to stay single for the rest of your life.”
He laughed throwing his head back.
He took everything in stride. And I was sure that that’s why we got along so
well. If I was even gloomy around him for a second he would make some kind of
joke to get me smiling. But his laugh did that most of the time. It was kind of
contagious.
“How’s your sister?” Apart from
flirting with me—at least I assumed it was flirting, most of the time I
couldn’t tell that apart from being nice—he had a thing for Sarah.
“She’s got a boyfriend now.” I let
him have it.
“Any one I could compete with?”
Not likely. Simon was…perfect. And
that was saying much because I found a flaw in everyone. But not Simon. It was
like he was pulled off an assembly line programmed to be the perfect specimen,
and boyfriend.
“I doubt it and even if you could,
today probably wouldn’t be the best time to do it.”
“I heard about your Nans. I’m
sorry.” He was sincere, but I didn’t want to hear it.
“I had to get out of there. Nans
would probably tell them all to stop with their blubbering. You met her. She
wouldn’t want anyone to be sad.” When I finally settled in, I pulled out my
notebook. It was bound in a leather twine and was completely bare on both
covers. There was nothing in the least interesting about it, but I couldn’t
stop writing since I got it.
“Yeah. Your Nans was a hoot. We used
to fling our baseballs into her yard just to get a free bag of popcorn.” He threw
me a smile. It was different then his laugh. Kind of forced and filled of pity.
Knowing Lars he probably didn’t mean for it to come out that way. I brushed it
off and started writing.
Today was a bad day
Tears everywhere
Hope lost
Happiness
Where is it?
Escape, how can…
When I brought the pen to my
notebook to write the last few words I saw Daine cross Lars’ path and walk up
to me. He grabbed my bag and took a hold of my arm. Then he snatched up the
towel I had been sitting on and dragged me away from the crowd.
There was a part of the beach shaded
by a good amount of trees and was, for the most part, secluded. He guided me
there and all the while I could feel Lars’ eyes fixated at the back of my head.
Daine dropped my bag on the ground like he could care less if there was
anything fragile inside and tossed my towel over it.
As I looked up to throw him one of
my death glares, he winked a coal looking eye at me. The tweety bird swimming
trunks he was wearing kept coming lose. That would have been perfect to tell
Mary Maroni. But if word got out that I said anything to her, Anderson would
rip me a new whole for doing it. And if I knew anything it was to not suffer
the wrath of Anderson. So I ruled against it.
“You’ve been avoiding me. After everything
that happened I thought you and I had become closer” He said blowing a piece of
my plum colored hair out of my face.
Plum? What kind of person has plum
colored hair that wasn’t dyed? Me. Mom had black hair framing her squared face,
as did Sarah. And dad, he had red hair that flowed into his beard when he
didn’t shave. I was a weird plum color.
I put my hand over Daine’s and
peeled his fingers off my arm.
“I feel like I’m missing something.
What’s with all of the grabbing and clinging?” I asked him. He’d been acting
weirder than usual. Ever since school let out he had been trying to find a way
to get on my good graces. There was the muffin he had bought me one day when I
was waiting for Cheryl to open the Diner. He obviously didn’t know enough to
learn that I preferred doughnuts over muffins. Watching my figure involved
starving myself and I wasn’t about ready to do that. Then there was the lift he
offered to give me when my car stopped running when he clearly knew that I had
other means of transportation. And Daine wasn’t anywhere on my list of
potential car poolers.
“We kissed.” He whispered into my
ear, sending a shiver straight down my spine. And not a good one either.
It took me a second to get passed
the thought of us being together as other than our occasional greetings for
when we were forced to work together during lab. I nearly chucked my lunch all
over the sand thinking about us holding hands, worse when the thought of us
kissing again crept in.
“Let me shed some light on your little
fantasy, Connors. You kissed me and I was mortified.”
“I thought you’d be flattered that a
guy even took a liking to you.”
“Ha, as long as that guy isn’t you.”
I had been trying to forget about
the whole incident. Our lips locked at some college kid’s party we’d gotten
invited to. We had devised a plan to stick together, not because we got along, but
for the simple fact we were fast thinkers and if someone got out of hand I
wasn’t too scared to throw a punch, even though I never fought a day in my
life.
Daine had gone a few rounds on a keg
stand and I was the first girl he saw, so he planted one on me. At first it
took me all of a minute to react. If I didn’t know who I was I’d think I was
enjoying it, but I was caught so off guard that I had to regain my composure
and push him off.
“You need to get one thing straight,
once I let it slide because I know you were drunk, but a second time you’re
asking for a beating.”
“And what would you do if I told you
the first time I was as sober as my mother before Parker?” Daine wasn’t as flawless
as some girls like to think he was. Perfect life and family to boot? That was
all a ploy his father made up to keep his good name clean. His mother was an
avid drunk who finished off two bottles of tequila daily all thanks to Parker
McLaughlin. Daine didn’t really know the guy, but the moment he shook Parkers
hand, he knew something wasn’t right about him. Worst part was his father
didn’t care how many affairs his mother had, so long as the affairs were kept
quiet and they were never brought to their front door. That led Daine to
believe his dad never really loved his mom to begin with.
He leaned in even closer leading me
to get a whiff of the mint off his breathe. Daine went around chewing mints.
I didn’t know about his acrophobia.
I’d accidently held on too long to Daine’s gaze. This was what it was like for
me. At the surface I saw Daine cocky as ever, but then reflecting back at me
was a swarm of spiders attaching him. All of them crawling up his legs and sinking
their fangs into the jugular in his neck.
They appeared from a thin layer of
purple smoke by my feet. At first glance they looked like flowers blooming in
the spring. For about half a second I had to convince my mind that they were
real, that there was no way they were figments of my imagination when I could
feel the rub of their hair against my leg. Like dogs with their teeth barred
ready to attack, they waited for my command. I saw Daine shuffle back and for
the first time I didn’t want him to get hurt. My eyes fell on him nervously and
the spiders took that as an order. They rushed him. But when I yelled for them
to stop, they didn’t listen. The more spiders that chased after Daine the more
appeared through that smoke. I was sure one of us would die from shock, but I closed
my eyes and begged over and over again for them to disappear.
They stopped, but only for a minute.
Daine saw my control over the
spiders. It was the first time that I couldn’t predict what he was going to do.
Would he start running or would he tackle me down because he knew it was me who
made them come?
I didn’t wait to find out.
I grabbed my bag from the ground and
started booking it. I was a few feet away and couldn’t fight the urge to look
back. Daine was swatting away the spiders, stepping at the ones who hissed at
him. Purple mist was all around him.
Daine looked at me after killing the
last spider and I could’ve sworn that behind those cold black eyes he was sympathizing
for me.
I
heard the buzzing horn of Anderson’s jeep and opened my eyes. I shot to my feet
and ran to his car, almost forgetting to open the door and sunk into the
passenger seat. Last thing I needed was for someone to walk by and see me
sleeping in an alleyway. Then I’d be called homeless too.
I
looked at the watch on the dashboard.
Five minutes.
That’s
all I got this time. Sometimes I was able to squeeze in a few minutes of
shuteye, but a whole night sleep? I don’t know the next time I’d be able to get
that.
“Aunt
Sorsan’s. I could really use a sugar rush right now.” I answered, sinking even
deeper into the seat.
Anderson
said nothing else and pulled away from the curb. Before he would ask me about
my sessions, but stopped after he accidently asked in front of Sarah and she
told him it was my business.
I
had planned on bringing up the incident with Daine to my parents that same day
at dinner, but it wasn’t exactly the right topic for a how-was-your-day
conversation, so I steered away from it. I did manage to sneak it in when they
started talking about back to school shopping.
It
was a power I never wanted. The ability to turn anyone’s worst nightmares into
a reality. I only recently named it Negative Projection after I was fed up of
walking around on eggshells and decided I would figure out what was happening
to me. What I found out, I didn’t like. Apparently I had a jealousy vendetta
going on with everyone I didn’t know about.
Obeying
my parent’s words I kept it to myself, but I didn’t know how long that would
last. Especially when things were getting progressively worse.
Last
week I accidently made a girl’s boyfriend leave her at the theatre for her best
friend. Before that, I caused Mr. Jerome’s house to be invaded by some thugs. I
had made the mistake of looking at him for too long, like I did with Daine and
when his reflection came back at me, he was wrestling a knife out of some
hooded teenagers hands. The teenager shifted his weight onto him and slid the
knife clean into Mr. Jerome’s chest. Mr. Jerome didn’t make it. That entire
night I camped out at the hospital hoping that Dr. Hass would let me in way
past visitor’s hours. It wouldn’t be the first time he did it. But this time
was different. I knew it before he even turned me away.
How long? I asked myself. How
long would it be until I looked into the mirror and finally seen my own nightmare?
2
The Empty Mirror
“How
about him?” Anderson sipped his latte, the oversized jeans and t-shirt wrapped
around his stick figured body made him look ten times smaller as he pointed at
some guy in a rangers baseball cap. He looked around twenty, could be pushing
twenty-five. He was cute and I had been debating whether he fell under my type
or not. Then for a second I looked down at my half eaten doughnut and realized,
I hadn’t specified what type of guy I actually liked.
Was
I into the jocks? Maybe I was into the drama nerds. There was one time in
kindergarten when I had a crush on a blonde god, but I was six. I don’t think
that counts. At that age you can’t distinguish between love and admiration.
“No.”
I finally decided. He just wouldn’t do.
“Why
not? He fits every girl’s lists of perfect boyfriends—cute, athletic, older and
popular.” Anderson counted off on his fingers and then pointed a hand at the
Ranger’s guy flirting with the counter girl.
“I’m
not into a ladies man. Besides he’s a diehard Rangers fan and I’m a Red sox
fan. It wouldn’t work out.”
Anderson
skimmed the rest of the café with his hazel eyes. The way he licked his lips I
knew his patience was weighing thin. “What do you say about him?”
This
time it was some book worm picking crumbs of what looked like a cranberry
muffin off his shirt. He wasn’t all bad. The glasses he was wearing did suit
him and he definitely knew how to style his hair, but he was lacking in the
fashion department. A burgundy shirt, sky blue slacks and docks didn’t scream
fashionista. But I guessed that was a good thing.
“I can’t handle a guy smarter than me. Just
thinking of him talking about quantum physics or Shakespeare, puts me to
sleep.” It was still a no.
“Work
with me here. I’m willing to check out guys, so that you can get over Mr.
Wonder-man.” He told me. There was one thing I knew for sure by now—no matter
how outrages, how so out of his comfort zone things got, Anderson stuck with
it. He didn’t need to be doing this.
He
could be out dating Tania Cardoza or some other chick he had his eyes set on.
Anderson was downright adorable. He had a childlike quality that made girls
want to shrink him and jam him into their pockets. He played the sweet
nurturing friend until he found the perfect moment to turn it into something
more. He cared, I can’t lie about that. He was probably the only straight guy I
knew who did listen. Even if he did
have hidden intentions, if he thought the time wasn’t right he’d stay a
friend.
“Let’s
forget about this. All this guy scouting is a big waste of time. You and I both
know they won’t meet up to the hype that is Simon Miller.”
“No…no…no.”
He banged his finger against the plastic table top. “We are not leaving this
spot until we find you a boyfriend. Do I make myself clear, Valencia?”
I
was practically spitting out the sip of coffee I had inhaled when I heard my
full name leave his lips. “I know a lot of girls who’d be interested in your
dating games, so if you ever call me Valencia again, this mouth will blow up.”
He
didn’t say anything else and finished up his coffee.
We
were sitting in our favorite spot at Aunt Sorsan’s café. She was Anderson’s
aunt, not mine. But I had known her for so long that eventually she became Aunt
Sorsan to me too and everyone else who she told to call her that. We were both
born and bred right here, but Anderson wasn’t in a hurry to escape as much as I
was. Sometimes I think he likes this whole small town crap and that everybody
knows him.
“It’s
the closest thing to famous I can get.” He said once after I brought up taking
off after high school graduation. I didn’t care where I went. Egypt. London.
Hell, I would even settle for nowhere North Carolina. As long as it wasn’t Norwood.
Anderson
wanted to be the next Al Pacino, has since we were kids. He used to drag me
along to his house and had me help him put on plays. I was always understudy,
leading lady, mean girl, sometimes even Anderson’s love rival while he reveled
in leading man. We never had an audience other than Aunt Sorsan and Bucky,
Anderson’s English Black Lab. But the thrill of being on stage was enough to
satisfy his fame thirst. Acting was definitely not my forte, but hell, Anderson seemed to make life that much more
entertaining.
How could I leave without him?
Our table was in perfect view of the door.
Smack dab in the center of an alcove. It made it easier for Anderson to point
out guys. The green walls bounced off the lights and turned the place into one
giant kiwi. We would always have the same thing. Anderson stuck with his
caramel latte and strawberry scones. I had an eye for iced coffee and cinnamon
doughnuts, like my mom. Free of course. And everything always tasted better
when it was.
Today
Anderson had a plan. Exactly why we were sitting at Green Café checking out
guys.
“What
about… no. That’s a definite not going to happen.” Seeing Anderson turn down a
guy as a potential “buyer” as I assumed he would say because I was on the
market, I knew who had just walked in.
After
all, he was the reason I went along with this whole
there-are-other-guys-out-there plan. Anderson said I needed an older guy who
had a good head on his shoulders. Someone to appreciate me and who could cook
up a storm, so that when we got married Anderson could come over every night
for dinner and didn’t have to be subjected to my possibly poisonous food.
He
was determined to find a guy that I found more dazzling than Simon Miller.
A
lot of college guys from the community college made stops at Green Café for
coffee before class. Anderson spent most of his mornings and weekends lining
them up and then knocking them down. The best ones so far was a hippie, a
rocker who had a tattoo covering the left side of his neck and some baseball
player. I wasn’t sure that the hippie or the baseball player would do it for
me, I had high hopes for the rocker, but he spent most of his time tuning his
guitar than trying to get me to forget Simon.
Digging
my face into the last bit of my doughnut, I stole a quick glance of Simon
through the corner of my eye. I didn’t want to get caught salivating over what
Anderson called “my forbidden fruit”. Simon was Sarah’s boyfriend. They hadn’t
been together long, but they were one step closer to becoming engaged. He was
the only fresh face in this town in a little over a year. His looks were rather
unusual. His chestnut hair fell over his ears. I constantly asked myself where
a guy like him inherited pristine clear eyes where the pupils was the only
thing you could see. Most girls shied away from short guys, but on him it
worked.
Simon
walked across the café, every stride more confident and stronger than the
other. I already knew what he was going to order. A medium French vanilla iced
for Sarah and a regular small coffee for him. He wasn’t too fond of caffeine,
but he bought one for himself because Sarah loved it.
Sarah, everything was for Sarah. What exactly was so great about her? We looked alike
because we were sisters, so I never understood why he just couldn’t have chosen
me.
“Valen?”
It wasn’t until Anderson called my name that I knew I was standing. I pivoted a
few times on my heal, deciding that the best thing for me was to get out of
there.
“I
have to bounce. Tania will kill me if I’m late for work.” I swooped up my
coffee and didn’t bother looking at Simon.
Lately
I had been doing a lot of that. Avoiding and Dodging. Frankly I was getting
sick of it.
Outside
of Green Café seemed a lot friendlier than inside, less suffocating, if that
makes sense. Usually I felt calmer indoors. I flew through the café door and
crashed my forehead on what I thought was a wall at first because the stone
feeling had me rubbing the pain away.
“I’m
so glad you’re the first familiar face I run into.” Daine’s voice rang in my
ears. Not hard like it used to, but sweet, new. “Did I give you a concussion or
something?”
I
straightened myself out when I realized I had been staring. Weirdo was a new
nickname Daine would surely pick up, right beneath freak. Every minute I was
around him, I was reminded that things weren’t as under wraps as mom and dad
wanted them to be. If I could go back, no one would know about my ability, not
even mom and dad and they were the ones I was supposed to trust the most. They
hadn’t given me a concrete reason on why I should keep my mouth shut in the
first place.
“What
are you doing here?”
“I
wanted a little slice of home. Aunt Sorsan has the best chocolate cupcakes and
you know how I’m a sucker for those.”
Where have you been? Why didn’t you let me
know you were alive? That’s what I wanted to ask, but then he smiled and my
words got mixed up.
“No,
I don’t know.” I honestly couldn’t be thinking that I was glad Daine was back. Those
two years of not having peace were gone.
I
wanted to run both my hands all over his body to make sure I wasn’t back at
home tucked under my comforter. I didn’t do it though. I dug my nails into my
palms to stop myself.
Daine
peeked through the frosted tea kettle in the window. “Don’t tell me you’re
still waiting for good old Simon to make a move?”
Subtlety
wasn’t one of his strong suits. He had made it clear that summer that he had
been interested in me and asking about Simon was his way of finding out whether
we had moved passed the acquaintance stage.
I
walked up to him, stood on my toes because that was the only way I was tall
enough to be at level with him and tried to keep my lip from quivering. He
still chewed on mints. I could smell it on his breath when my nose almost
collided with his lips. His scarlet hair used to be curly growing up, now it
fell straight, but short. From this closeness I could see that his eyes weren’t
the black I thought they were. They were chocolate. Big, round truffles I would
love to sink my teeth into. And his lips, they were pink and…
Snap out of it, Valen. I thanked to god my brain was there to stop me from doing
what my heart wanted.
I
cleared my throat. “None ya.” I simply said.
“We’re
not in sixth grade anymore!” He yelled after me as I stomped away.
Get a hold of yourself Valen Grace. I peered back and noticed Daine’s tall frame and how his
hair shined in the sun. All I thought about was grabbing ahold of the back of
it and sinking my nose in it so that I could smell his herbal shampoo all day
while he supported my weight on his feet, holding my back and demanding I get
closer. But I shrugged it all off. This was Daine. The
always-made-my-life-miserable-Daine. The same Daine who used to pull at my
braids in middle school.
I
saw Daine smile at me as he caught me staring and I quickly turned away.
I’d
kicked out any thought of Daine that snuck into my mind and tried my best to
focus on work. Tania gave me an earful because I showed up late. I ended up
having to run all the way here because I wasn’t going to make Anderson drop me
off when he lived on the other side of town.
So
my punishment was mopping off the gunk on the floor that some baby from one of
Tania’s tables left behind. Drooling babies and negligent parents were the kind
of people Tania like to stay clear of. Right next to undecided dopes who stare
at their menus for too long. And she got a double whammy today. Karma at its
finest work.
Tania
rested a hand on her bony hip— which was what she was mostly made of, bone and
ten percent flesh. Put some meet on her bones, as my mother would say when my
cousins Poppy and Riley came over. They were fit enough, but mom thought
anything under 140 was too skinny. She force-fed me and Sarah for years and we
managed to turn out okay. We weren’t huge, but I wouldn’t call myself entirely
skinny either. Filled out would probably be a better term.
With
her other hand, Tania flipped her pink hair. I was sure with the hand on her
hip she was going to say something like “buddy how long does it take to decide
you’re going to have a burger”. She was overly-opinionated which led to a lot
of unsatisfied customers, a tyrant mother, and a room of speechless waiters.
But this time, she was starting to get down to her flirting stages.
Stage
1) the hair flip. Stage 2) the giggle. Which she managed to slide into
perfectly even with the guy not saying one word, so there was no way she could
play it off as laughing at one of his jokes. Stage 3) the pat and slide. She
patted him on the shoulder to show him she was invested then her hand would slide down his arm to show that she
was interested. Finally, stage 4) the
number. She’d take down his order then wrote her number on the next empty order
ticket to slide it in next to the plate.
I
couldn’t understand Tania’s craving for every guys attention or wanted to for
that matter. Like get a clue, he’s not interested. His eyes never left the menu
and he had been sitting for nearly an hour without throwing a compliment her
way.
If
she didn’t find him so good looking she’d probably toss him out of here. He
looked like the older, loner type. A small loop earing clasped to the ear I
could see. I think it was his right. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in maybe a
day, but it looked more like a filling stubble than a full on beard. And he’d
been dressed from head to toe in a pair of black jeans and a black jacket,
embellished in silver zippers. The yellow t-shirt he wore underneath his jacket
was the only color I could see. Even the muddy Nike’s was an unbearable shade
of black or navy.
He
finally whirled his head around to look up at Tania. The first glimpse of his
eyes was of a lifeless blue. Then he turned his gaze to me and pointed.
“I
want her.” A raspy deep voice came from his mouth and I’d officially been
creeped out.
“Story
of my life.” I heard Tania whisper, folding her pencil into the book and
nodding me to go over and take his order.
I
placed the mop into the bucket filled with dirty water and slid it to lean against
the wall. I reached into the pocket of my apron for my own order book and made
my way up to him in slow calm steps, as to not reveal how uneasy he made me.
“What
can I get you?” My voice was unshaken, but it was so low I wasn’t sure if he
had heard me or not.
“One
of your chicken melts. Extra mayo.” He folded up his red menu that Tania’s
mother thought would look perfect against the gold and platinum walls. His
smile revealed meticulous white teeth that had me covering my mouth because of
the braces I had to wear due to my years of sucking my thumb. “They should have
hid you better.”
“Excuse
me?” I said through my teeth.
“I’m
Reagan. I’m a friend of Daine’s.” Reagan gave me a twice over almost like he
was assessing my worth. “He failed to mention how normal you look.”
The
way he said it, I didn’t know if I should have taken it in as an insult or a
compliment. Either way, it didn’t sound good. Like being normal was something I
should have been ashamed of.
“How
is good old Daine?”
Great. Cute. Tall. These were the kinds of thoughts I had been fighting off
all night and leave it to Reagan to bring them back.
“Shouldn’t
you know that? You’re his friend.” I told him defensively. There needed to be a
distance between me and any subject that involved Daine.
“It’s
been a while since me and Daine caught up.” He crossed his arms, leaned them on
top of the table and kept the smile he had on since he first started talking to
me. “Do I make you nervous?”
“Why
would you ask?”
“You’ve
been standing there for five minutes and you haven’t looked at me.”
“Yeah
I have.” Now he was being a annoying.
“You’ve
glimpsed, but you haven’t really looked at me!” His voice rose with the last
three words.
It
was knowing what would happen if I stared at him for too long that kept me from
looking, but it was my inability to accept someone calling me out that made our
eyes connect. When they did, the world around me disappeared. Tania standing by
Mercedes, gossiping about how many guys I had been playing; Rufus sitting at
the break table picking his boogers when he thought no one was looking (he had
always been a bit of a pig. I just hope he washes his hands before returning to
work); then the walls collapsed. They hit the floor hard like stone hitting
stone and I braced myself for the impact aware that it was all in my head. That
when the walls melted into the floors and turned black, it wasn’t actually
happening.
The
floor smelled of metal and sulfur. And when I bent down and took an even better
look, it wasn’t black at all, but burnt amber. Thick, burnt amber that stained
my fingers as I swirled it.
A thousand human lives. I continued to think. That’s how many lives the mirrors
had to take to create its river. A million nightmares let loose. That’s how
many I would take, twice as much as I
would have to release if I willed myself to give in to the death.
I
couldn’t breathe. The mirror swirling around me, claiming every breath as it
encased me in a wormhole of wind had an old look to it. The tops looked like
vines looping in and out of each other with candles lighting the base as they
sat in two candle holders on either side. It stopped too close, knocking me to
the floor. Then it pulled back and sat where Reagan was in real time. The
mirror rarely strayed too far from its Dreamer.
What
I’d give to just once be able to run away. I couldn’t. I’d just end up right
back here, doing it all over again. Eventually I learned that there was no
escaping the mirrors.
I
pulled my sneakers out of the blood river and reached out for the legs of the
mirrors canvas and watched as icicles grew at every corner and the mirrors
clear surface frosted over and turned to solid ice. I got off my knees. I
brought my hand up to the mirror, waiting for my eyes to unravel the nightmare
hidden within. I expected for the frost to retract and open the nightmare to
me. And when it did, there was no nightmare. No insects. No knives. Just a
reflection looking back at me.
My
own.
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