The Contradiction of Solitude

by A. Meredith Walters

My empty, empty heart leapt.

  Elian chuckled and the sounds we made twined together and carried away across the quarry.

  “It’s not that cold,” I chided.

  “Either you’re full of shit or you have no sense of temperature.” Elian slowly walked into the water, his hands holding mine tightly. Cutting off circulation. Refusing to ever let me go.

  We waded in to our knees. My toes and feet had gone numb. Numb as the rest of me.

  I could barely feel the silt beneath. A pebble dug into my heel. It hurt. But I didn’t care. I would give this to Elian. Just for today. For this moment.

  Joy.

  Elian tugged on my arm and I fell forward. The frigid water sucking the air out of my lungs.

  “Layna, I’m sorry!” Elian snickered. Not meaning it. Only laughing and laughing.

  I didn’t get up. I let my body acclimate to the temperature. My heartbeat slowed and my fingers pruned. Something brushed against my back but I didn’t startle.

  “No, you’re not,” I smirked and ducked my head beneath the water. I kicked away from the shore and swam out. Into the deep, fathomless quarry.

  “Layna! Don’t go out too far!” Elian yelled, but I didn’t listen. I swam away.

  I didn’t listen. I was never one to heed the danger.

  I swam and swam. I could hear Elian shouting but I didn’t hear him. I was too far away from the shore.

  Cold, slithery things touched my feet. Slid past my legs. My entire body was numb and I couldn’t feel my legs and arms.

  It was deep. Too deep. I couldn’t see anything beneath the surface. I felt sluggish. Heavy.

  And then I started to sink.

  Deep.

  Deep.

  Down.

  Light couldn’t penetrate the surface. The water was murky and dark. I couldn’t see anything.

  I held my arms out as I sank. Eyes wide open.

  Falling.

  Falling.

  “Hold your arms out, Lay. I’ll make you fly.”

  I wasn’t flying. I was dying.

  My lungs were on fire. My body so, so cold.

  I felt a moment of panic and I started kicking my legs. But something was wrapped around my ankle. I couldn’t break free.

  It felt like fingers, digging into my skin. Not letting go.

  Keeping me here.

  Keeping me safe.

  I tried to see through the inky darkness. There was no sun. No light. I was alone.

  Or was I?

  The fingers around my ankle pierced through flesh. In the frigid water I could feel the warm blood start to flow. Floating up. Floating down.

  This is what death felt like.

  I opened the door and walked inside.

  I could hear my daddy’s voice. He was talking low. Not loud enough.

  I heard her crying. Tears that I felt in my gut.

  She was sad. I knew my daddy would make her feel better.

  I forgot about the ice cream.

  I didn’t care about that anymore.

  I wanted to see my star.

  Because I knew the girl with the sad, sad sobs was just for me.

  My star.

  Mine.

  “Daddy,” I whispered walking slowly towards the closed door at the end of the long, dark hallway. Ringed with light, it was a beacon.

  I was excited.

  I couldn’t wait any longer.

  I knew Daddy wouldn’t be mad. He loved me. He wanted me to share his special, special secret.

  “Daddy,” I whispered again, my hand flat against the door and I pushed.

  The door swung open and the first thing I saw was Daddy.

  He smiled high.

  High as the sun.

  Bright as the stars…

  I was in the water. And then I wasn’t. I was in strong, secure arms being pulled back to shore.

  Laid out on the sand and dirt, my naked body shivering.

  “Layna, what were you thinking?” Elian cried. He covered me with a blanket and wrapped me up. Pulling me to his chest where we sat on the beach as he rocked. And rocked.

  “I told you not to go out that far.” His voice broke. His tears mingled with the quarry water. I lifted my face and caught them with my tongue. Salty sadness.

  “I can’t lose you, Layna. Why would you do that to me?” He was angry. His arms were too tight.

  “I’m fine,” I reassured him.

  I was fine.

  Was I?

  My ankle pulsated and I pulled the blanket away to have a better look.

  “That looks like it hurts. You must have cut it on something.” Five precise cuts bleeding sluggishly.

  Cut on sharp fingers.

  My mind remembered.

  My heart was already trying to forget.

  I was safe.

  For now.

  Elian picked me up and carried me back into the house where he sat me carefully on the sofa. He found a towel and began to dry my hair. Lovingly.

  He loved me.

  I had scared him.

  I smiled.

  “Stop it, Elian. I’m fine.” I pushed his hands away. I could see the still, calm waters outside the window. Hiding. Concealing. It’s rippling like laughter. It had let me go.

  “I can’t believe you went out there far! After I told you about all the drownings! Why would you do that?” He kept on and on. Wanting answers.

  Questions hammering my brain.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” I felt…guilt.

  Elian shook his head. “Sometimes Layna, you scare me. I can’t get in your head. I don’t know what you’re thinking. You’re this intense, enigmatic woman who set me on fire. I’m utterly consumed by you. But there are times I think—”

  “You think what, Elian?” His name was a curse. A question.

  “I think that you’re not meant to be here with me at all. That some crazy bump in fate threw us together and now here we are. But it’s not going to last long. And at the end of you, I will be completely destroyed. Finished. You’ll walk away just as you were before.”

  Elian’s hands shook as he cupped my face. His thumbs ran over my lips, parting them. Pushing inside. Against sharp teeth. Tasting and touching.

  Devouring.

  “But what will be left of me after you, Layna? I won’t be walking away will I?”

  What could I say?

  No words were sufficient.

  I stayed silent.

  I gave him my lips. My teeth. My skin.

  And he drank it in.

  Because he knew that some things were too horrible to talk about. Too horrible to contemplate.

  Life without this.

  “I’m hungry,” Elian murmured from the web of my hair and limbs.

  I ran my hands up and down his back. Touching the most important part of him.

  “Me too,” I agreed.

  “Should we go into town? Maybe go to Denny’s?” he asked.

  “No,” I said sharply. Emphatically.

  Elian laughed. Strained. Fake. Not real. He was starting to wear a new mask. A different mask.

  One made just for me.

  “I thought Denny’s was your favorite.”

  I could never go to Denny’s with Elian again. It’s where I found him.

  It was our beginning.

  We were past that point in our story.

  “Why don’t we go to get some groceries so I can cook for you?” I suggested. I wanted to keep him here.

  Safe.

  Away.

  Tucked in and tight.

  Mine.

  “You cook?” Elian asked incredulously. After my brief encounter with death, he seemed brand new.

  Revived.

  Better.

  He loved me. It had taken him over. It had pulled him under. He had been fighting as he drowned. But now, he seemed to have accepted.

  And now he was…

  Better.

  “I can cook,” I told him with a smile. Small an
d sweet. Just for him.

  “Well, let’s get dressed then.” We untangled. We pulled apart. We got to our feet and found our clothes.

  Elian spent time dressing me. He insisted on it. He couldn’t stop touching me. Brushes. Lingering. He was all over me. He was inside. He was underneath my feet and deep under my nails.

  In the car, on our way into Brecken Forest, Elian found an oldies radio station. Waylon Jennings sang just to me.

  I could pretend for an afternoon that my father didn’t exist. That I wasn’t his daughter. That I was just a messed up girl with a messed up boy, and we would stumble through life together.

  I had developed my own delusions.

  Elian pulled into the parking lot of the small grocery store. Elian took my hand. I pulled it away.

  Not yet.

  Not here.

  He looked hurt but I ignored him. I didn’t like the flash of…remorse…I felt as I pulled away from him.

  Hating the way my stomach clenched.

  Hating the constricting ache in my heart.

  I reached out and took his hand.

  I gave in.

  Elian smiled. He was happy.

  I felt…good.

  Icy emptiness snarled.

  “You’re my girl, Layna. I know your secrets. Do you want to know mine, little, little Layna?”

  “Yes, Daddy! Tell me! Tell me!”

  He leaned in, his mouth close to my ear. The night was dark. The sky was full. Daddy was home.

  For now.

  “Happiness is deceptive. Joy is cruel. In the end all you have is selfishness. And pain. It’s okay to want the things people say you shouldn’t have. To take without asking. If it fills that hole in your heart, it can’t be all bad.”

  I didn’t understand what he was saying but I smiled like I did. It wasn’t until later, when I was much, much older, that he made so much sense.

  “What are you going to make me?” Elian asked, picking up a basket.

  “How about spaghetti and meatballs?” I suggested.

  Elian’s grin faded a bit. His green eyes that had begun to dance again clouded over. He went dark. So dark.

  “My mother used to make spaghetti. It was Amelia’s favorite meal.”

  I knew.

  “Then let’s make it tonight,” I insisted. I pushed even though I knew it hurt.

  We walked up and down the aisles. Pasta. Sauce. Meat. Ingredients for one last meal on one last day before the emotional holocaust.

  Because in just a few days I would go to see him.

  My beginning.

  “Elian,” a quiet voice. A miserable sound.

  I glanced toward the obtrusive invasion and saw Margie, silly love-struck Margie, staring at Elian, my Elian, with angry, desperate eyes.

  Elian barely acknowledged her. His entire focus was on me. On our hands that were still clasped. On touching my hair and brushing against my side.

  I smiled at Margie. Silly, stupid Margie.

  Margie, who never went away.

  “Where have you been? Are you really not working at George’s anymore?” Margie’s eyes were only for Elian. She hadn’t even looked my way.

  Ripping skin, chunks of hair on the floor. I stomped on her neck, just as her heart tried to thump beneath my sole.

  Elian looked into my eyes. Hooded green and coal black. “We have to go,” he murmured. Not caring that Margie looked stricken. Devastated.

  I noticed. I cared.

  “Elian! Everyone would love to see you. Can’t you come by later?” Elian tugged on my hand, and we walked past Margie as though she weren’t even there.

  I leaned in towards the redheaded bitch. “Let him go, Margie. He was never yours to begin with. Pathetic,” I hissed jubilantly.

  Margie stilled. She wanted to maim. She wanted to kill.

  Just like last time she confronted me, I wanted her to try.

  But she didn’t. Some people were complete disappointments.

  Elian pulled me along. Away from Elian Beyer and the life he used to live.

  Toward Elian James and the life that belonged to me.

  Mine.

  We went home, and I made him spaghetti and meatballs. And Elian ate his painful history, he bloated on it. One mouthful at a time.

  I packed my bag and put in the trunk of the car. Layna followed me out of the house and put her suitcase beside mine. A small overnight case containing her green notebook was thrown on the backseat.

  We didn’t take much. Just enough for a few days. Why did I get the feeling I was grossly unprepared for the trip that lay ahead of us?

  “Are you ready?” she asked after settling into the passenger seat.

  Shouldn’t I be asking her that question?

  Was I ready?

  Would I ever be ready for something like this?

  I slept little last night.

  And the night before.

  I tossed and turned, the sheets soaked with sweat.

  And Layna—blissfully undisturbed Layna—slumbered peacefully beside me. I would watch her while she breathed deeply, eyes closed. Wondering what made her smile like that in her sleep.

  When I watched her I felt the closest to content I had ever been. But it never lasted long.

  Because every time I closed my eyes, I would remember. Who she was. Who I was. Who we were together.

  Two wasted people with nothing. No one.

  Because of him. Cain Langley.

  She no longer shared his name, but Layna shared something else. Something darker. Something so much worse.

  But there were other things that I saw in the quietest moments of the night. While she slept and I could watch her without reservation.

  Watched her while she dreamed of things she’d never tell.

  She was beautiful. She was complicated. She was always a mystery.

  I hoped one day she would finally be mine.

  I loved her. Beyond reason. Beyond sanity.

  Into madness.

  I was wary about this trip. Layna’s unwavering determination to see this through bothered me. Since deciding she was going to finally see her father, her mind wasn’t with me. It was out there. In a place I couldn’t follow.

  In a place I never wanted to go.

  Her love for the man she called Daddy terrified me.

  “Do you have everything?” I asked her as we got into my car. She nodded, tucking long dark hair behind her ears. I watched her, but carefully. I felt ashamed to do so when she was awake.

  “I’m scared, Elian,” she said softly, staring out the window as I drove down the gravel driveway. Away from my home. Away from my life.

  I glanced at her in surprise. She had seemed so intent. So focused. I hadn’t counted on fear being among the things she felt.

  I was pleased with her vulnerability. I was thrilled with her open transparency. For just a moment.

  Just one moment…

  “I’m scared too,” I admitted. Because I was. I was scared that by leaving Brecken Forest I was turning my back on everything I had created. For good. Forever. That there would be no coming back from this.

  I didn’t know what lay ahead. Only what lay behind. And I desperately wanted to go back. To where it was safe.

  To where I could pretend I was a man without a past. A man with an easy smile and a quick laugh.

  A man people loved and wanted to know even if I never, ever loved in return.

  But that man was dead. Buried beside Amelia in the ground.

  I had lost him the day Layna entered my life.

  And there were times I resented her for it. That I despised how easily she murdered the person I had become.

  But then I’d touch her and I’d forget…

  We didn’t say anything else. There was no need.

  I drove away.

  Far.

  Far.

  Away.

  My mom was watching the television. She didn’t know I stood just inside the doorway watching too.

  She sob
bed and sobbed. I felt sick.

  Amelia was dead.

  That man had taken her. He had killed her.

  She was coming home.

  Not to live.

  But to be buried.

  My parents blamed me. They thought I could have stopped her. That I should have said something sooner about the man I had seen driving by our house.

  This was my fault.

  My fault.

  “Crime scene photos have been released. These images will be graphic in nature.”

  My sister’s body. Lying in a field. Her hands missing. Her dead, sightless eyes staring at the sky.

  At the stars.

  “Amelia!” I couldn’t help but scream.

  My mother quickly turned off the television. “Go away, Elian. Just go away,” she said tiredly. She didn’t want to look at me.

  Dad never talked to me either.

  I had disappeared.

  Elian James didn’t exist anymore. He had died the day Amelia went away.

  I wished I could change and become someone else. Someone who didn’t have a murdered sister and a heart full of guilt.

  Someone different…

  “We should find some place to stay for the night. So we can get some sleep before going tomorrow,” I suggested. I felt as though I were talking through a tunnel. Echoing on all sides.

  It was hard to stay here, to stay connected, when I realized I was only miles away from the person who had savaged my entire life.

  The man who had lied and betrayed the woman I loved.

  I hated.

  I hated.

  But I loved too.

  I looked at Layna and tried not to see the monster in her veins. I tried not to kiss her thinking about the blood on her hands through no fault of her own.

  Most of the time I succeeded. But it was hard to love Layna and not feel like I was loving him.

  “There should be a Best Western nearby. Let’s stop there. I need…” Her voice floated off into nothingness.

  I felt her thoughts. I heard her words.

  Even though I was surrounded by silence.

  We drove through the small, Virginian town without really looking at it. I didn’t register houses or shops. My head, my mind, were somewhere else.

  I felt as though the past few months were steadily building. Building. Building.

  Towards something big.

  I was petrified.

  Of the explosion.

  Of the aftermath.

  What would I be left with?

  Would I be left with anything?

  My eyes went back to the woman at my side. Compelled. Bound. Unavoidable. My fingers ached. They ached. To touch her. To feel her. When my hands were empty I felt lost. Incomplete.