by Laura Gibson
Well, what did you expect when you stole all your husbands from other people? You definitely had to know you weren’t getting good stock.
These were all the things Anna thought about when she looked at Melody and hoped the girl wasn’t just going to use Kelly to get closer to one of his more connected friends. But here she was, hanging out at Phillips, going to see Ryan and Jefferson like they were closer friends than they were.
Anna rolled her eyes and pulled open the heavy door to the dining hall, hoping for a minute that maybe Jefferson and Ryan weren’t there. That the lunch would never happen and she could just leave, pretending as if she had never seen Melody and things would go back to being kind of normal.
As luck would have it, Ryan and Jefferson were standing just on the other side of the door and Anna stiffened as Melody let out another cry of glee, throwing her arms around Jefferson’s straight as a rail frame.
“Jeff!” Melody held onto to him tighter, “I missed you!”
Anna caught Jefferson’s uncomfortable glare and smirked, he never really cared for Melody almost as much as Anna and it was something that they had bonded over. Their dislike of the general human population was a commonality that bonded them a little closer than everyone else. Just another unspoken thought in a world lined with hidden means and dark secrets.
Secrets like the fact that Jefferson was completely in love with her. Secrets like the fact that she didn’t mind it one bit.
He understood her, and that was more than she could say about a lot of people, including her own brother. He could love her. He could pretend that someday they would share something special. That may or may not be in the cards, but what the hell? What was wrong with a little dreaming every once in awhile?
“Hey, Mel.” Jefferson stepped back from Melody’s hug, “I didn’t know you would be in town. I thought you were across the country or something.”
Melody shrugged, “Mom’s visiting some friends right now before we head over to Boston for the new semester.”
“And Anna.” Jefferson’s smile became genuine. “I thought that was you on the quad earlier.”
“You caught me.” Anna laughed, “Guess Melody and I had the same idea.”
“Well, aren’t we fortunate.” Jefferson was still just looking at Anna like she was the only person in the room and Anna was alright with that. She rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck. “Do you wanna get lunch somewhere else, or this place any good?”
“Didn’t you ever eat here with Connor?” Ryan asked, his hands in his pockets. They may have been cousins, but they were never very close, not like how cousins and supposed to be. Too many dividing lines.
“Once or twice maybe.” Anna shrugged, “If we did, I don’t remember it.”
Anna was being honest, although she had dated Connor Bronen for the last four years, they didn’t have a typical romance. He let her do her own thing and she let him do the same. It was an easy relationship with no rules and almost zero boundaries and she liked to keep it that way.
“Well, I’m starving.” Melody steered towards them towards the cafe, “It doesn’t really matter where we eat, as long as I get something before I die.”
Anna saw Jefferson roll his eyes at Melody’s dramatics and she had to smile. If Jefferson Williams could just be a few years older, she could see herself with him more so than Connor Bronen.
But you couldn’t help your age, even if you tried. It was the one curse that no one could change.
They all headed over towards the cafe while Melody started to prattle on about something that she had done this summer and no one really bothered to pay attention to her.
They were all too busy thinking about themselves and what they were going to do now that she was back in town.
Things always seemed to change when Melody Jeffords came to town and no one seemed to know why. It was like she was this force of nature that signified the passing of time. She never influenced the larger events, but she was witness to them. Always had been.
Charleston, West Virginia
May 30th, 2008
Anna
Anna could smell the fresh air from an open window where the sounds of passing mid-morning commuters drifted in. The storm had passed sometime in the night and left the world without a reminder of its existence. She replayed the sound of the hail hitting the glass on the window and wondered what had been so important last night that Jefferson had to leave. Had to go. What thought possessed him so completely that he couldn’t look at her anymore. Didn’t they promise themselves to each other? Or was that a dream? A trick of the light one spring afternoon while she tried not to cry in her wedding gown, afraid she’d ruin her mascara.
Sure, things were hard now, but they could get better, later. He just had to be patient with her. He just had to be okay with what she was offering him. Why did he need more? She couldn’t give him anymore.
Underneath closed eyes and a brain that was still savoring the feeling of sleep, her skin pressed against the soft fabric of sheets far too nice for her own bedroom. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know she was alone. Silently, she allowed their bridge to burn.
The night before, while he stood in the faintly lit driveway, she thought about calling out to him from the window. Had even opened it and pressed her lips against the mesh screen but no sound would come, nothing to make him stay. He had paused, waiting with his back turned. Hopeful. But he should have known her better than that.
She stood there long after his tail lights had disappeared down the street and left her wondering about all the different ways she could have told him the truth. The real truth. Not the made up nonsense she spun in her own mind, but the whole of it. She could spill out her soul for the entire world to see just to tell him loving him was as easy as breathing. But she wouldn’t.
Her words had always been knives and often left scars, but never had such brutality been aimed at Jefferson. Never had she really felt the need to wound so viciously.
He would never forgive her for what happened with Casimir. That was obvious enough. He had talked about soulmates and forever and she had turned on him like a vulture to carrion. There was no forever for a person like Anna Hill. There was just living.
Anna heard the key in the lock and she knew she’d have to apologize to Jefferson sooner or later. She slowly opened sleepy eyes and turned to face the door from her position on the bed.
The darkness that had fueled her drunken antics had dissipated with the alcohol and she could taste the disappointment on her lips. She didn’t want to be this person. This formless thing that changed shape with present company. She wanted to be whole.
She wanted to be what Jefferson thought she was.
Anna rubbed her face and wondered if it was too late to call Casimir and say she was sorry. She shouldn’t have behaved the way she did. It wasn’t right. It went against everything she had told Casimir she was willing to do to make things work.
She sat up as the door opened and she tried to think of all the different things she could say to Jefferson before it really dawned on her who had entered the house.
His face was whiter in the pale light coming in through the eggshell curtains and Anna looked at his hollow cheek bones. When was the last time he’d eaten?
He didn’t like to eat in front of others he said. It gave them too much to think about while they watched him chew.
She looked at his terribly blue eyes and wondered if they had always reminded her of ice on a window pane, or if that was a new idea. A shiver ran down the length of her spine as he stood there, surveying her, allowing her to survey him.
A few moments ticked by with neither of them breaking the spell. Mindless chatter wouldn’t help either one of them.
Anna looked down at his hands and noticed the grocery bags.
He looked down at his hands as well and then looked back up at her. “I brought breakfast.”
Anna swallowed and pulled herself out of the bed, the warm, safe cocoon she had ma
de her own and made her way across the house towards her husband. The man she had pledged her life to.
Anna regarded Casimir wearily. Her head ached from too little sleep over the past few days and that was caused mostly in part by him.
Casimir’s mannerisms were cool. Cold arms and legs moved him around the kitchen, each movement decided and planned. Every part thought of ahead of time.
He didn’t ask her if she preferred her eggs scrambled or in omelet form, but he knew all the same. As if they were really husband and wife. As if they weren’t just playing pretend.
This was a game Anna didn’t know if she had the patience for. But something about Casimir that morning told her she had to try.
She had created large waves in their small pond last night. She needed to slow down and relax now. Explain herself.
They ate in silence while Anna thought about all the different things she could say.
“I’m sorry.” Anna said quietly, finishing her omelet.
Casimir nodded his head, and slowly, he placed an empty pill bottle on the table. “Do you know what this is?” Cas asked, his blue eyes almost sad.
Anna swallowed, eyeing it.
“My sister, took almost this whole bottle a year ago.” Casimir made a face, “She died of course, tragically.”
“It’s empty.” Anna wanted to stand but she could no longer feel her arms or her legs, dead weights hanging at her sides.
“It’s in your omelet.” Casimir stared at her.
Kelly
After the fact, Ryan and Kelly separated, each one left alone to think about what had happened. Each one afraid of the consequences in different ways.
He had almost told Ryan to stop. Had almost begged his cousin not to kill an innocent person to save the life of his sister. But Ryan was already committed and there was no turning back.
Of course, Kelly would always do the hard thing when it came to Anna. Always. It wasn’t a choice for him, it never had been. Growing up they didn’t have anyone except each other and Kelly was going to stick to that. He had to stick to that, because if he didn’t have Anna, he didn’t have anyone. She was his family and that meant the world to Kelly.
Far off, Kelly heard a car pull into the driveway and a person get out. Someone let themselves into his house and he could hear their heavy footsteps on the stairs.
“Kelly?” Jefferson’s voice was quiet as he stood in the doorway. “Kelly, I have to talk to you.”
Kelly rolled over and looked at his old friend, wondering what he was going to say now, wondering if Casimir had sent him with another message.
Jefferson’s face was thin and gaunt. He hadn’t slept in days and Kelly wondered why. His life was hard, but it wasn’t impossible. It wasn’t as difficult as either Kelly’s or Anna’s. He didn’t have to live with certain burdens Kelly had kept him safe from.
“There’s, um,” Jefferson swallowed and cleared his throat, his eyes flat in his skull, his mouth showing no sign of actual genuine emotion.
And then Kelly knew.
Chapter Twenty
May 31st, 2008
Charleston, West Virginia
Melody
The occupants of the car had risen long before the sun. At the hotel they had pretended to sleep in the dark, kept awake and away from their dreams by the beating of their own hearts while they stared at everything and nothing all at the same time.
The sunrise glinted against the wet tarmac, leftover rain that hadn’t dried since the day before, it bounced off the black town car and one of the girls put her sunglasses on. An act that was either to hide her cold expression or protect her eyes.
The other girl looked over at her and swallowed. The mood of the car was one of nerves set a fire and neither one of them really had the words to explain what was about to happen. But what was about to happen?
There was never really any plan that lasted longer than, ‘Wait till I call you. Have the plane ready to go. Have the money ready. The passport. Wait till I call you.’
And now that plan was set in motion. Anna had called Melody from the bathroom of Jefferson’s house while Cas made her the omelet.
Melody used the vast network of Jeffords doctors to make sure someone was there to save her life. The ambulance Jefferson had called was a waste of breath but necessary in the long run.
Cas left the house with the gait of man who had gotten away with murder, again, and the trauma team had entered not three minutes later.
The rest of the plan went more smoothly than Melody thought it should have, considering it was a plan without a plan. Considering it involved Anna Hill and sneaking her out of the country.
The car came to a stop and Anna cleared her throat, her limbs were less than stable, but that was to be expected. She had almost died just a day before, things should feel a little shaky.
“You need to calm down.” Anna’s monotone voice slid over Melody like the hiss of a snake caught in a net.
“I am calm.” Melody defended herself through shot nerves. This wasn’t going to end well for anyone. Cas wasn’t a stupid man, he would figure it out eventually and then everything else would go to shit.
All she had to do was keep this one secret. Just this one secret. Couldn’t tell Kelly. Couldn’t tell Jefferson. Just her and her family would know. But that’s what the Jeffords were good for- keeping other peoples’ secrets. That’s what they had been doing for ages. Some day they might do something about all of the scandals they’d amassed over the years, but more than likely they wouldn’t.
It was a survival tactic of the best kind. Become the best friend, become the confidante. The secret keeper was always the one kept around.
This was the thought that smoothed over Melody’s fears and made her know that when Anna came back and decided it was time to put a stop to Casimir Volkov, she would remember Melody. She would remember the Jeffords and what they’d done for her.
Melody opened her car door first and swung her legs out. She took one glance back towards Anna but Anna wasn’t looking at her. Anna wasn’t looking at anything. In the past twenty four hours they’d spent together she was the most silent she’d ever been.
Melody wanted to ask what was going on in that wonderful mind of hers, but she couldn’t think of the proper way to ask it so she just stayed quiet, getting out of the car and waiting for Anna to exit on her own.
Like an albatross raising through the clouds, Anna stood up from the car and looked out across the tarmac, her black sunglasses hiding so much more than just her eyes. Her dark hair hung around her shoulders, reflecting the light from the sun, glittering with the health and vitality that her skin couldn’t. She was the whisper of the girl she’d used to be and Melody had the very distinct inclination to call her Alice, as if she had become the alias. As if the blood running through her veins was the life force of another person. As if Anna were dead, truly, and all that remained was Alice.
“You could still just go to the police.” Melody said with a smidgen of hope laced into the sentence.
The albatross turned her face to look at the younger girl and a small smile curled one side of her mouth, an expression akin to a snarl but she said nothing, she just stared on, waiting for Melody to say something more. Waiting for Melody to change the subject. Anna wouldn’t be going to the police. Not now, not ever. That wasn’t a part of the plan. She was leaving. She was running away. She wasn’t going to be doing anything different from that line of thought.
Staying, fighting, that wasn’t in her. She didn’t have the stomach for an all-out war.
Looking at her, Melody now wondered if Anna had been a coward. If she was just too afraid to stand up for what was right. She had been through much in her young life, but she’d never really done anything about any of it. She just took her blows and remained. She never made a stand. She never took a side. She watched from the sidelines and formed her own opinions but she didn’t fight for what she believed in.
She didn’t even say goodbye to Jefferson
. Jefferson, who loved her more than life itself. Jefferson, who would have waged wars in her name if she’d given him her heart. Instead she had run. Taken her blows and tucked tail and run.
Anna Hill wasn’t a fighter, resilient though she may be, she wasn’t a person to try to change anything. She’d lost the fight she’d never been a part of and now she was going to take her leave of the world. Start a new life somewhere else. Be someone else.
“What about Jefferson?” Melody asked, feeling her heart sink in her chest at the mention of his name. She loved him, always would, and she knew this would destroy him completely. He would be wrecked for the rest of the world and no one would understand what sort of heart resided in that body of his. No one would see him the way he was now, the way he could love someone so completely.
They would see the vulture picking at the carrion. They would see the predatory gaze. They would see what was left after Anna died. They would never see him. They wouldn’t see his gentleness, his caring or compassion, and they wouldn’t care to. Because he was going to kill that part of himself. He would do away with it because of the hole in his chest. Because of the gaping wound left from Anna’s passing.
Anna was a selfish coward. But that was what would probably save them all in the end. Because if she stayed, if she fought, there was no telling how this would end.
“Are you ever going to come back?” Melody asked as she got Anna’s suitcase from the trunk of the car.
“Someday.” Anna answered, her face now looking at the plane, her thin arms stretched across her chest, small fingers gripping her elbows.
“When?” Melody pressed, praying it was sooner rather than later. Everything had a rather ominous feeling about it. Everything was covered in a dark cloud that made her feel as though the suffocation was soon coming. For everyone. Not just for her. The physical shiver climbed up her spine and shook her shoulders.
“No need to shake,” Anna murmured, still not looking at the girl, her mind still on the future she had planned without anyone.
