by Iris RIvers
Kai appeared from behind the curtain, his shirt faded and his pants tight. He looked to Lara, his gaze a poisoned loathing—and suddenly they were at the party again, surrounded by sweaty bodies and cheap liquor.
Lara watched as he took his place by her side. Watched as his eyes—stuck on her indifferent stare—flickered down to her lips, the memory of her full mouth on the girl coming to fruition in his aching mind. Lara bit them in compulsion, bit them so hard that she could feel the trickles of blood sweep down her bottom lip.
Kai watched as the blood dripped down—down to her chin—with a kind of miserable satisfaction. A crimson droplet fell to the toe of her slipper. Kai looked down—watched as the drop melted into the soft pink leather—and then away. His mouth sneered in distaste; his eyes echoed in familiarity.
Dunne clapped her hands, and the memory of the party—of Kai—dimmed. Lara turned her neck. She did not want to look at him, at his nauseating face.
“You both remember, yes? Lara enters from stage right. Kai sits on stage left while Lara begins her routine in the center. I know there are no props and the background isn’t set yet, but try to do your best. Just visualize.”
“Yes, I remember,” Lara answered, wiping blood from her mouth. Dunne narrowed her eyes but still turned away to control the music. Kai said nothing, only moved to position himself at his side of the stage.
Lara and Kai both shuddered in a collateral breath; the beats of their hearts stuttered in the silence before the music began. Lara straightened her neck as the set lights turned on, a foggy blue filling the stage. She ignored the sweat in her palms, the nerves clogged up in the back of her throat—she would do well this rehearsal. Better than well. She could not afford to falter in front of Kai.
And then it began. The piano swelled inside the near-empty auditorium as Lara rose on her toes. Her leotard stretched around her skin as she spun into a pirouette, stretching her arms over her head, feeling the wave of music fuse the pieces of her broken heart together. She cradled her body as she shut her eyes, letting the pain take hold of her face. She could feel the heaviness of Dunne’s eyes judging her as she leaped through the air, letting the intensity of the song bend her like a stringed puppet.
As the song progressed, turning dark, insidious, Kai rose from his position, spreading his arms around him like a blossoming flower.
“Very good, Kai,” Dunne appraised over the surge of music. “Just like we practiced.”
Like we practiced? Lara almost skipped a step. Had they been practicing together? Alone?
The two met at the center of the stage in a haunting embrace—their faces appearing anguished, like their love was the bellowings of a forest fire; like the very first moments in the dreary woods were also their last. Their final touches; their final words.
They circled one another, their palms held up before the other, moving in synch. When the cello began, Kai embraced Lara with the coldness of his arms. She nearly flinched at his closeness.
It was the first time they’d hugged. Lara’s hands tightened around the material of Kai’s loose-fitted shirt, pulling on it with such an incredible amount of intensity that Kai sucked in a shaky breath. His touch felt like a burden, like an anarchy waiting to exploit the very past Lara had tried so desperately to hide. Kai’s fingers buried inside the strands of her tied-up hair. His grip tightened on her skull—held her so hard that Lara almost yelped in pain before he slid his thumb over her bun and yanked it apart. Her hair fell around her face like spilled ink as she pulled out of his hold.
This was not choreographed.
The silk that had held up her hair was wrapped around Kai’s finger—bound so tightly that his skin had started to bruise, the circulation in his finger beginning to cut off—as he danced his way across the stage.
Lara ignored him. He was doing this to provoke her—to taunt her so miserably that she’d mess up and embarrass herself. Instead, she listened as the music began to fade away, completing her last twirl as Kai was torn from her gaze by dancers that were meant to play royalty. Lara buried her face in her hands as she lowered herself to a fetal position center stage.
The last chime cut off abruptly—the first dance of Act I was over. She lay on the ground, coaled hair stuck to the sweatiness of her neck, her breathing heavy, labored. For a moment, she wondered if her breathlessness had come from the touch of Kai’s skin against hers or the completion of such a rigorous routine.
The lights brightened as Dunne began clapping loudly. “So much emotion; so much passion. I’m impressed, truly,” she exclaimed to them both—though her eyes were only on Kai. Lara stood from the floor, eyes squinting as she wiped her hair away from her face.
“That grand plié—right before the end—was perfect. Really showing how it’s done, Kai,” Dunne complimented, handing him his water bottle.
“And Lara,” Dunne started, Lara’s pulse quickening its pace, “please use a better hair tie next time.”
Lara did not frown; she did not argue. As usual, there was no praise for Lara’s performance, only criticism.
Kai laughed at the comment—the sound cruel, blaring. A wicked man with wicked lips.
Lara clenched her jaw as she moved offstage, her shoulder bumping harshly into Kai’s as she neared the steps. “Are we done?”
Dunne nodded. “We’ll rehearse again next week. You’re both dismissed. Again—great job. I knew you two would work well together. It’s amazing seeing your bodies blend with one another on stage.”
Blend. She and Kai turned their blistering eyes to each other at nearly the same time. She couldn’t stand the way he looked at her, like his eyes were telling her hateful stories that she could not bear to hear, like it was all he could do—look at her. He must hate me very much—for the number of times he’s stared at me, she thought. He must hate me enough to rip me apart.
Lara did not wait to hear another word. She turned on her heel and strode toward the exit, her palms sweating with anticipating need. When she met the double doors, she noticed Kai’s reflection on the two panels staring at her back; noticed the way his thumb grazed over the silk that had held up her hair—the one still wrapped around his finger, refusing to tumble apart.
She felt the touch against her own skin.
Lara pushed through the doors and ran—ran from Kai, from Dunne. From their expectations.
“Lara,” someone called out from behind her, stopping her from exiting the building. She turned to find Evelyn. Lara was painfully reminded of the bell tower—of its watchful eyes and scattering riddles.
“Yes?” she asked, her voice raspy. She should’ve continued running when she realized it had been Evelyn calling for her, but she hadn’t—and she wasn’t sure why.
“Do you have a minute?”
LARA WASN’T SURE WHY she’d succumbed, but she found herself sitting in front of Evelyn, a tea in hand, waiting for her to speak.
“So...” Lara said. The silence between the two had become suffocating.
“I want to talk about Lithe,” Evelyn expressed.
“Lithe?” Lara questioned. Was that what they called themselves?
Evelyn sucked in a sudden breath, like the revelation of their name was too sacred to say aloud. A look of hesitancy washed over her face, as if she was realizing that they couldn’t turn back now—that Lara had to join.
“I meant us. I need to talk about us—the girls you met that night,” clarified Evelyn.
Lara shot out a dark laugh and pushed away from the table. She didn’t want the conversation to further. Before she could take a step, Evelyn stood to her full height and grabbed Lara’s arm. Lara turned to look at her—her face soft, tired. “Please,” Evelyn said.
After a few seconds, Lara sat back down, dragging her chair toward the inside of the table. “This means nothing,” Lara asserted.
“Of course not,” Evelyn agreed, the sarcasm in her voice evidently apparent.
Lara sighed. “Well?” she said. “Say what you have to say
so I can leave. I’m not in the mood for this.”
Evelyn looked around the coffee shop before turning her gaze to the table. “We need you.”
“I’m sorry?”
Evelyn looked up, her eyes heavy. “You heard what I said,” she remarked. “At first, we only invited you because you saw Ana that night, but when you came, we all realized that you—you fit. In a way none of us can describe. Believe me,” Evelyn said, smiling, “we’ve tried. You’re the missing piece to our puzzle, Lara. And I know that sounds stupid and cliché but it’s true—nothing has ever been as true as this.”
Lara tried interrupting her, but Evelyn raised a hand. She was only beginning to realize that Evelyn had a strange, unexpected authority to her, like she was bathing in royalty. A runaway queen.
“I know we sound crazy—trust me, I get it. But you need to listen to me; you need to give us a chance,” she finished. Lara stared at her. “I know you feel it too,” said Evelyn.
“Feel what exactly?”
“Longing,” she answered. “Hunger. An itch in your body that you can’t scratch; an itch that has bothered you—gnawed at your gut—since you were a child. A teenager.”
Lara scoffed, shaking her head.
“Don’t play dumb—we all felt it. Some of us still feel it. It’s eating you alive. It’s stuck, and it wants out. This is the way—the only way.”
“You’re not making sense,” said Lara.
“Was it your mother? Your father?”
The question startled Lara. “What are you—”
“Did they hurt you?” Evelyn asked. Her face was so kind, so understanding, that it made Lara sick. She stood from her seat—again—with full resolve to leave. Memories of her mother cycled quickly through her mind—all too fast to comprehend, but she felt them. She felt the pain of her childhood in a sudden, insufferable rush.
“You have,” Lara said, fury taking hold of her, “no idea what you’re talking about.”
Evelyn grabbed Lara’s hand, tugging softly at her wrist. She realized there was something there—tucked inside her palm, away from Lara’s eager gaze. She placed the item into Lara’s hand. It was metallic. Cold.
“I’ll see you on Monday,” she said. The confidence—the determination—in Evelyn’s voice was overwhelming. Lara was left standing alone in the wooden café, her mind reeling. She turned her palm over.
It was a rusted locket, coated in gold. Navy spirals lined the front, faded from years of wear. They looked like melted stars. Frozen dreams. Lara gingerly clicked open the necklace, afraid it would fall to pieces in her hands.
There was a photo—an incredibly old photo, Lara noted—of a young girl, in college most likely, her hair falling in blonde ringlets down her shoulders. She was beautiful and, oddly, she reminded Lara of Evelyn. To the left of the photograph, a cursive font was engraved into the metal. It read: In blood and in misery.
The words felt familiar—like she’d heard them before; like someone had spoken them to her, long ago. They sounded so brutal, so intense, that she was sure she hadn’t heard them. But still, the familiarity remained as she slowly closed the locked and placed it deep into the back pocket of her jeans.
Lara moved to the exit, stopping when she accidentally stepped on an abandoned journal.
“Sorry,” a man behind her said, “I must’ve dropped that earlier.” He was middle-aged, his hair an odd color, like molded paint mixed in colors of red and brown. He put his hand out in expectancy. Lara did not bend to retrieve the journal.
“Right then,” he muttered, crouching to grab the journal from the ground. The leather was old, the surface nearly decaying. Lara glanced at the open pages; each line was filled with ridiculous writing—like the messy scribbles of a child.
The man stopped for a short second, noticing the dried blood on Lara’s slipper. “You get a nosebleed or something?”
“Sure,” she answered, her stance tense; her tone unconvincing.
The man raised his brows, his forehead wrinkling as he did so. He raised the journal in thanks—though Lara wasn’t sure what he was thankful for. She watched as he retreated, back to the corner table he was sitting at. He pulled out a pen from his trench-coat pocket and began writing, the glint of his pen moving in a riotous speed.
Lara looked down at the floor—to the deserted droplet on her slipper. She wondered if whatever story the man was writing was worth telling.
She hoped it wasn’t.
THE CAFÉ DETECTIVE Clarke Murphy had left was too busy for his taste so, after at least thirty minutes, he decided he would work best at home—alone. As he neared his apartment building, he pulled the earphones from his ears and tucked them into his messenger bag, then felt around for his rusted keys to unlock the door.
Before he set his bag down, before he changed, Clarke hurried to his investigation board at an anxious pace—like if he didn’t get to it soon it would disappear, fall into the floor and destroy every single thing he’d ever uncovered.
He pulled a single photograph from the front pocket of his dusted bag and smiled—a peculiar smile; a gruesome smile. It was his very first photograph of a girl—of a person. Clarke stared at the girl’s fiery hair, her pale skin. The freckles across her cheeks looked like bristled paint. The first recognizable face to be found at the bell tower. He plucked a push-pin from a small wooden table and, slowly, pressed the girl to his board. Pulling the red yarn from his drawer, he connected it from the photograph to the most recent newspaper clipping.
Clarke found a red sharpie and uncapped it, the fumes overwhelming his nose. Carefully, he wrote her name across the photograph.
Lowri Byrne.
Hello, Lowri, he thought. It’s good to meet you.
WHERE IS HE?
The taps of Evelyn’s fingers against her phone’s keyboard filled the room. Ana began typing, the text bubble popping up at the bottom of her screen.
Jake’s saloon. You’ll be fine.
Thanks.
Evelyn rose from her comfortable bed, taking one last longing glance at it, and walked straight out the door.
She decided to take a subway to Chelsea—unwilling to pay the cost of a Lyft. The walk to the station was short—Evelyn had been stuck in reverie the whole time, oblivious to her surroundings. She thought of her best friend; she thought of how she missed him so much—so painfully—that her soul ached.
Evelyn didn’t bother to sit as the windows behind her blurred in colors of black and brown. When she got off, her mind now cleared, she walked west of 23rd Street and waited behind a lamp post.
The saloon before her was old-fashioned, the outside made of burnt wood and lined with golden script. Jake’s Saloon, it said. Evelyn could make out the dimly lit fixtures dangling from the ceiling as people walked in and out, arms entwined, brains foggy from cheap liquor and a night of socializing.
She leaned against the lamp post as she scrolled through her phone to find a text from Ana.
He’s wearing a green hoodie and a backward baseball cap. You’ll spot him easily. His face is not one to miss.
Evelyn exhaled a short breath. She was bored. Tired. An itch trembled above the tips of her fingers as she watched more people walk in and out of the saloon’s double doors. None of them in a green hoodie. None of them in a baseball cap.
She opened her gallery and aimlessly swiped through the pictures, keeping one eye on the saloon and the other on her screen. All were photos of a boy—a boy with curly hair and brown skin. Evelyn beamed at the pictures, her heart clenching with a sort of incontestable pain. The thoughts from her ride on the subway flooded through her mind. She missed him—missed his smiles; his laughs. Sometimes she felt like she would never have him back.
Evelyn shut off her phone.
“Yo man, I had a great time,” said an unrecognizable voice. Evelyn’s head snapped up, her eyes glued to a green hoodie—and a backward baseball cap.
She couldn’t see his face, only his back as he talked to another boy. Evelyn t
wisted her neck, straining her ears to hear their conversation.
“Nice catching up with ya. You sure you don’t want me to call you a cab?” his friend asked.
“Nah, bro, I live a few minutes from here. I’ll walk,” Green Hoodie replied.
Evelyn grinned. Walk. Perfect.
“Alright. I’ll see you soon, yeah?” Green Hoodie said something Evelyn couldn’t decipher. They did some sort of handshake—one that Evelyn thought looked incredibly foolish—and parted ways.
Evelyn ruffled the blonde locks of her hair and pulled down her shirt—exposing the lace bra she wore underneath. It was time to get this over with. She stumbled out of her position and bumped directly into Green Hoodie. He let out a small oof before putting his hands on her waist, pulling her closer to his body. Evelyn tried not to grimace at the touch.
“I’m so sorry,” she started, putting her hands on his chest in an exaggerated expression. She looked up and—God, Ana wasn’t lying when she said his face was hard to miss. Everything about him screamed charmless. His teeth were crooked and yellow; his mouth stained with the smell of whiskey and cigarettes. There were freckles across his pale face, not delicate but bold—the type of bold one would run away from.
“Woah there, tiger,” Green Hoodie said, eyeing her exposed cleavage. “Slow down. Don’t want you hurting yourself now, do we?” His hands were still on her waist.
Evelyn mustered a fake laugh. “That was my fault. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”
“Consider yourself lucky then. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have bumped into me.” He smirked, licking his chapped lips. Evelyn thought she was going to be sick. Was this his way of flirting? I pity those who’ve encountered this creature of a man.
“Lucky me,” Evelyn exclaimed, batting her eyelashes in mock flirtation.
Green Hoodie’s finger trailed across Evelyn’s back. Evelyn gasped—not at his touch but at a memory. Another boy. Another finger. Green Hoodie took her response as a positive one and pulled her body closer. They were so close that Evelyn felt suffocated—trapped. She pushed his hands away, grateful for the loss of warmth from his body, and shook her head. Get it together, Evelyn.
