by Mary Gray
I remember making my way into his classroom, thinking about how he let us call him by his first name. Around the other teachers and our parents, he instructed us to refer to him by his proper title. “They get sensitive about things like that,” he had said. Naïve, we all agreed.
When I saw him gathering textbooks, I swooped in to help, eager to please. Neither of us said anything, but I knew his every movement, could detect his every step. We were tethered together, he and I, and I wondered if he might be as conscious of the connection as me.
When we finished with the textbooks and moved on to straightening the chairs, he asked, “Are you enjoying my class?”
I was relieved I could answer with a yes.
“And what of your future?” he asked, suddenly turning toward me as I reached for a stray graphing calculator.
Bashful, I handed it to him. Our fingers touched; currents of electricity jolted through our skin. We didn’t move.
“College,” I managed to say. He was so close I thought I could hear the heartbeats beneath his skin.
“And what do you know of the arts?” I could detect the Listerine on his breath, count the individual whiskers of five o’clock shadow.
“I’m taking AP English.” I was barely aware of the words falling from my mouth; I was too busy studying his swelling lips. They formed the vowels and consonants seamlessly. It was always so obvious my math teacher was schooled in the arts.
What happened after that is the moment I relived every night for six days when I went to bed, for Teo kissed me just then, precisely as I’d always hoped. He held me, so adult-like, unlike the lustfulness of boys my own age. He tipped up my chin, read my trembling face, and said, “I do believe you are the most beautiful creation I have ever seen.”
Some say words shouldn’t mean so much—our actions take precedence over them. But the words Teo Richardson said that day reached inside of me. The impossibilities welled up inside of me—I knew of the restrictions regarding teachers and students. But it didn’t make sense, was somehow the wrong law. So I trembled and shattered, felt my ribcage contract. I couldn’t breathe. All the air bubbles were trapped, so I forced them all out, exhaled, and said, “I wish you and I could be.”
And that’s when I felt my ribcage expand, that impractical hope starting to take root. Before, I had trembled and shattered, but then I regrew because Teo held my face, told me he would make it happen, and I knew. I knew he would do something about my wish. I knew it wasn’t a futile dream lamely spent. Teo was the type of man who accomplished things. That’s why I loved him. That’s why I said it.
Teo’s looking at me now. I breathe on my fingers, the tips oddly cold despite the Texas heat. I have a new kind of frostbite where my flesh hardens from the inside, and I remember the question I asked him before: How could you think I ever wanted this?
Teo cups my face, breathes the fresh Listerine into my face, and says what I already know. “You told me you did.”
They are gone, all gone because of a futile wish I should never have made. What possessed me to make a wish like that? I wish you and I could be.
But this isn’t what I had in mind. This is never what I wanted. Though I loved Teo, I can’t look past what he’s done. What I’ve done. And I don’t want it to happen. I do everything I can to harden my face. Water gathers in my eyes, but I won’t cry over him again. I won’t. I won’t. So I force them back.
“It makes you sad.” Teo’s jaw quivers, and fear splits open his eyes like he knows he’s losing me. He grips my hand tightly, almost so tight that it hurts, but his eyes droop down when he says, “We belong together, you and I.” Like it will change something.
“But you’re killing people!” I cry.
Teo’s eyes brighten before he looks away. I’m not entirely sure why his eyes look so bright until the light of the moon shows me—there’s water spilling down his cheeks. He’s weeping for me.
The water behind my own eyes trembles, begs to overflow, which is so soft of me, but I’ve never seen Teo cry. It’s like his tears are contagious or something. But I’ve shed more than enough tears for him—he cut out Abe’s and Eloise’s tongues, shoved Romeo and Juliet off the roof. He doesn’t deserve a single tear shed, so again I blink them back.
With shaking hands, Teo reaches into his pants pocket, and I can’t think what he’s moving to retrieve. He already gave me the ring, and then that bug, but when he pulls his hand out of his pocket, I find a book—red and black—my copy of Jane Eyre. The one with the torn cover, the one I gave to him when the secretary tried confiscating my books. I’d forgotten about it.
Handing it to me, he says, voice pained, “I couldn’t fix it. Somehow, it was better off ripped.”
I stare at the torn book in my hands. The entire book is now damaged and bent. When I look up again, Teo’s walking away, stumbling farther and farther into the trees.
“Teo?” I run toward him, clutching the book to my chest, ducking in and around the crocodile teeth, the scratching branches, the stinging leaves. I need to understand his plan now. Maybe he’s going to let us out.
“Teo!” I cry again, but he’s too far ahead. So I run faster as tree branches rip at my skirt and snag my hair.
Teo doesn’t answer; he merely continues on. Tree after tree. Droning on like someone has reprogrammed him, and I don’t understand why he isn’t turning around for me.
When he reaches the fence line, he stops, and I’m only a breath behind him, so I touch his arm. “Will you let us out now?” Why else would he move for the fence?
But he doesn’t turn. I study his eyes, his hair, slightly longer than a week before, and realize I have never seen a face so devoid of emotion in my life.
“Teo?” I reach for his face, but something stops me. I’m not sure what it is until I see the expression on his face. Gradually turning his head, his dark eyes bore into mine. And when he smiles at me faintly, I cry out, because I know what he’s about to do. He’s leaning toward the barbed wires, and I’m reaching my hands out to make him stop, but I’m slow. Much too slow. He’s falling, face first, into the electric fence.
Teo’s body jolts; his head takes the brunt of the shock. I move to cover my eyes, but there’s this part of me that wants to look. His entire body is vibrating so madly, it’s like he’s not human, but a plastic toy shaken violently in a toddler’s fist. And the smell—burnt flesh. Like someone’s barbecuing. And then there’s this click, precisely the sound Jonas made before. A portion of the fence opens up and swings wide like a normal door, and I see why. Teo’s head hit the bottom wire, which clicks again when he slumps to the ground. He’s dead. He’s really dead. He’s opened the fence for me. I don’t know if he meant to open the fence for me. And I don’t care.
I drop my book at my feet.
24
When the others join me, the night air is cool and still, the stars twinkling above us so brightly that I know dawn will be here soon. There’s no Jonas. I’m not sure where he is. When Cleo prowls up, gripping his stun gun in her hands, I grab her bronzed arm.
“Where’s Jonas?” I ask, because he could leap out at us at any moment—snap our necks, stab us with swords.
Cleo taps the stun gun against her leg, and that animalistic curl I’ve always loathed stretches across her lips. “I may have stunned him once or twice.”
Marcus staggers up from behind her. “Try ten,” he says, rolling his bloodshot eyes.
But I thought Jonas got away. Jumped through that trap door on Teo’s roof. He must have come back, jumped out at them again. But they couldn’t have been fast enough. Jonas moves so quickly, it’s like he’s some kung fu master.
“He sort of tried stabbing Cleo with one of his swords when she was fixing me up,” Marcus says, searching my face. He taps his insulin pump, and I can see what he means. He has his insulin now—thank you, God—so Cleo must have stunned Jonas just in time.
“So you left him there?” My voice goes up like I’m pitying Jonas now, but t
hat’s not how I’m feeling—I just don’t like the idea that he could get at us.
Marcus shakes his head. “Nope.” He digs in his pocket and pulls out the remote I’d thrown at the fence when we were trying to escape—the one that wouldn’t work. I hadn’t noticed him pick it up. Why is he showing me this?
Cleo’s upper lip curls. “We tossed him in that cage—”
“You know,” Marc’s eyes narrow, “where Ramus and Bee—”
The cage. They tossed him in that cage with the red curtain—with the lion—and used that remote. Cleo’s and Marc’s stone-cold faces stare back at me, not laughing. Eyes not so much as glinting. I think I might like Cleo a little now. She fixed up Marcus and deposited our last enemy in that cage. And Jonas isn’t waiting to pounce on us. I’m trembling, and there’s no reason to be trembling.
Marc and Cleo face each other, communicating somehow. Marc’s eyes narrow like he wants to know something, and Cleo’s eyes dart backward. A little hole of jealousy burns inside of me. In the time that I’ve worked to separate myself from Teo, Cleo and Marcus have struck up some awful romance where they can communicate without words. A twig snaps, and I look up to find Sal joining us, carrying a backpack. Ana scrambles up from behind him, bits of mud splattered on her face. I wish I could run to her, hug her—cheer that she’s safe. But I guess that wouldn’t be appropriate since I nearly got her killed. Not that I blame her. I wouldn’t want to be my friend, either, after all that I’ve done. But her eyes light up when she sees me standing next to Marc and Cleo, so I flash her a smile. Maybe we can be friends.
I look for the others after Ana, keep staring at the trees interlocking in the dark woods, but no more come. No one else is alive in Elysian Fields. So much death. I asked for this place.
I glance up at Marcus, a rock lodged inside my gut because so many have died. “Let’s say goodbye,” I say, though I’m not entirely sure how. Maybe we can go home, bring our parents back here, and all search for the bodies of their sons and daughters who have passed. We need to do that.
A flash of movement catches my eye; Marcus is walking away from me. Where’s he going? He trudges past a couple of trees before stooping down and picking up a large, rectangular piece of sheetrock so big it covers his chest and neck. Maybe it’s a dartboard or something. Walking toward me, a smile twitches his upper lip, like this piece of sheetrock makes him really happy. It must have something to do with what he and Cleo were talking about.
“What’s that?” I ask in time to see Cleo moving away from me. Her heavily made-up eyes brighten and her lips twitch up. She’s smiling at me? I’m not really sure what to do with that. I never imagined a civil look between us after everything that has happened, so I just gape at her as she moves toward the fence.
Marcus grins at me, his exhausted eyes brightening enough to match his smile. “I didn’t have a lot of options for canvases,” he says. “Cleo actually gave me the idea when you were working on yours.” He turns the sheetrock around and shows me so I can see.
It’s a painting, bright colors singing from the white background. At the top, Romeo tips an invisible hat for Juliet—she’s dancing, and he’s holding a pair of spoons. Beneath them are Tristan and Izzy, holding hands and clinking their love potions one more time. It’s hard not to blink; tears keep gathering in my eyes. Ramus and Bee stand at the bottom, their faces like moonbeams as they face their greatest threat, the lion. Abe and Eloise, fumbling with Eloise’s skirts, are laughing, and Lance and Gwen hold a drum and bird. The rest of us are there, too, but I can’t look away from those we’ve lost.
Where I would have chosen muted hues, Marcus has splashed the scene with primary colors, a mood utterly unlike what we have experienced here at Elysian Fields. Genuine smiles spill across everyone’s lips, and I notice he’s curved our street into a circle.
After studying the piece for much too little time, I glance up at Marcus, realizing he’s watching me. “Your painting,” I falter, unsure how to phrase it. “You definitely didn’t do gothic.”
Marcus smiles sadly. “Nah, that’s your gift.” My heart leaps like I’m jumping.
I glance over to the others by the open fence to see what they’re doing when Cleo snatches a pair of keys from Sal’s backpack. I’m not entirely sure how Sal got them, but I’m guessing he found them in Teo’s suit jacket, just like Marc and Cleo found Marc’s insulin where I should have looked.
“Where do you think Hades would park his car?” Cleo asks, jingling the keys in her hand. But she’s not waiting for an answer. She walks right through the open fence, and Sal and Ana follow her out, Ana’s orange sari glinting as the sun peeks over the horizon.
My eyes automatically find Marc’s—those blue eyes, clear like an infant’s. Clutching his painting in one hand, he strides to me and offers a damp hand to step through the open fence together. I clutch his hand tightly within my own, and as we step to the other side, my connection to his brother completely unravels.
I’m free.
“We’re pretty sure we know where Teo keeps the SUV,” Marc’s saying. “Izzy told us before—said the drugs Teo used for bringing us here didn’t work too well on her. Something about endorphins.”
That sounds precisely like Izzy. She deserves to be with us, but I stare down at Marc’s beautiful depiction and realize she is, in a way. I just wish it were real.
Holding the painting out to me as we stand on the other side, Marcus says, “I made it for you.”
But I can’t take it from him. It doesn’t feel right. His talent belongs somewhere else, like a museum. Or a gallery. I begin to shake my head, when Marc grabs my chin. “Don’t be stupid.”
His insistence only makes me want to refuse harder, but the typhoon in his eyes keeps me quiet. The bluest of blue. How long was I trapped inside the ebony, believing them to be for me?
“You’re thinking about him,” Marcus says, wrinkles burrowing below his hairline. “You okay?”
I nod and Marcus reaches out and grabs my arm, but his bloodshot eyes and clammy hands tell me, once again, that I should be the one helping him.
We grapple for each other.
Clutching my hand, Marcus says, “You know, I’ve never been romantic. I know how chicks dig that deep, foreboding crap. But I have something on my brother.”
“Oh?” I love the feel of his calloused hands.
“I have skills,” he says, nodding toward his painting, “and so do you. Now, I may not be the ‘reading poetry under the moonlight’ type, but I do like art. We should combine our talents. Paint a heaven and hell piece. I paint heaven—”
“—and I paint hell.” I smile slightly. But something nags inside of me. “Do you think that says something about me? That everything I paint turns out dark?”
“Well, yeah,” Marc says, and I flinch at his response. But Marcus holds my hand harder, like granite holding sandstone in place. “You paint the dark because you understand it, Cheyenne. You know what it feels like, but it’s actually foreign to you. Because you are good.”
I could be saying the same to him—he was the one doubting himself in the first place, but he doesn’t know why Elysian Fields exists. I think about my last moments with Teo, how he helped me see how I was the catalyst for all that had come. I went to him and asked him to make us happen, and he answered my request. And then, when I didn’t appreciate all that he’d done, he took his own life.
These thoughts all come together and make me wobble even more. I try to ignore the regret, but I can’t get away from the truth—that I’m the reason for so much sorrow, so much pain.
Marcus is quiet for a while, which makes me grateful, because he must detect what I can’t say. When Cleo waves for us to join them, Marcus holds up one finger to them before turning to me, his voice never more even than now.
“I’ll never be able to know exactly what you had with him,” he says, “but I’m guessing even now he’s messing with your head.” I wish I could tell Marcus it’s not simply messing with
me—it’s the truth—when he says, “Regardless of what you’re feeling, Cheyenne, he killed our friends.”
It would have taken him a very long time to build these homes. What he said to me may have been true—I did ask for us to be together—but now I can see Teo was merely waiting for an invitation from me.
And I know that it’s the truth, but it feels twisted somehow. It’ll be a long while before everything makes sense. But I know Marcus will be there to help me, holding a torch in the darkness.
Ana laughs, and Sal and Cleo cheer. Sal tosses his backpack high in the air—they’ve found the SUV. Cleo starts throwing branches off the top, but I can’t seem to move past the thistles close to my feet. It’s like they are this minimal barrier, blocking me from the rest of the group. Teo’s world is behind us, the unknown ahead, and it’s a little frightening right now.
Marc’s hand slips into mine, and he squeezes it. I smile, because it’s the thing I never expected to like. My hand feels like it’s tingling. Marc looks at me, his eyes wild and blue, and for a second it’s like he’s hesitant to move, too. I start to say something—I have no idea what—but that’s when he closes the distance, and his lips are on top of mine. He’s blueberries and warm lemon meringue pie, and I want to taste it all. A jackhammer slams beneath his shirt, and he’s not alone. My chest, my neck, my back are exploding. Teo’s not the only one who can do that to me.
When Marcus pulls away from me, I know we’re together now, and there will be lots of kissing. I know he gets me, and it’s okay if the bad stuff seeps through because we are both here and neither of us are broken.
“I’m into you,” I say, whispering into the damp warmth of Marc’s neck.
“I’m into you,” Marcus repeats, and the burn from his flesh is the glow and ember of bonfires radiating on the beach.
I try to put together something to say, but my words bounce off the insides of my cheeks. Marcus doesn’t seem to mind, though. His lips are kissing my jaw, trailing to the other side, and connecting again with my own lips. My lips and my jaw are crackling. I dig my fingers in his hair, and when his arms pull me closer, my heart pounds inside my chest like a manic ping-pong ball, and the fire surging through my veins feels like I’ve been sprinting. I run my hands down his back; when he runs his fingers down my jaw, my face glows like that torch I envisioned before is lighting my insides.
