Into the Darkness

by Andrews, V. C.

  “Well, for one thing, I listen well,” he said. He lay back on the rock and put his hands behind his head. I watched him a moment, watched the way his eyes seemed to drink in everything, as if he were going to be blind any moment and wanted to lock as much as possible into his visual memory. No one I knew seemed to seize on sights and sounds as intensely.

  I took off my towel and spread it over the rock before lying back beside him.

  “What does that mean, ‘listen well’?”

  “I really listen. Most people look like they’re listening, but their minds are off and running down some other street, or they let boredom take over too soon. Maybe most of the world has ADD. I don’t know. There are so many reasons most people are deaf to what’s around them.”

  “Okay, what am I missing now,” I asked, gazing up at the sky, “O great guru of nature?”

  “Sometimes I like to watch clouds gradually change shape. I have a theory that if you could capture all the cloud shapes in the world, you would discover that they’re imitating things below.”

  “Who’s imitating things below?”

  “The clouds. Like that one off to the right, the one that seems to have broken loose from another bigger cloud. See it? It resembles a big cat; that puffiness is its head. Doesn’t it look like it? See what I mean?”

  I centered on the cloud and laughed. “Yes, I think it does.”

  “I knew that if anyone would see it, you would.”

  “Why?”

  He braced himself on his right elbow and sat up to look down at me. “I told you that, too. You have a vision, a kind of extrasensory ability that enables you to see beyond or through what’s right in front of you. That’s why you’re having trouble putting your affections solely in one guy. You see through them too easily. You’re waiting for someone more substantial. Don’t worry. He’ll come along.”

  “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’ve never heard someone your age talk like you do.”

  He shrugged. “I am what I am. Anyway, now you know what to listen for.”

  He leaned back again and looked up at the sky. It was so comfortable, warm, and pleasant. I felt relaxed and closed my eyes. The sound of the stream curling around and over rocks worked like a lullaby. Neither of us spoke. The warm breeze felt like a light blanket. In seconds, it seemed, I fell asleep, or at least I think I did. It seemed as if I had fallen into a dream. In this dream, Brayden was hovering over me again. Then his smile faded as he stared down at me, and I stared up at him, falling into his eyes, already tasting his lips before he slowly brought them to mine.

  I was in the ninth grade the first time I kissed a boy on the lips. It was at Ellie’s house party. There were three couples. I was the one with the least amount of time logged in as anyone’s supposed girlfriend. The boy’s name was Reggie Seymour, and he had been in our school only four months. His parents were in a raging divorce, and his mother had taken him and his sister, Pat, away in what was almost a kidnapping. From what all of us eventually learned, she wasn’t supposed to leave Washington State with her children. Both Reggie and Pat looked habitually frightened, I thought, always looking toward classroom, cafeteria, and auditorium doorways whenever someone entered. I sensed that they were expecting either their father or a policeman to burst on the scene, someone who would haul them back to Washington.

  Reggie was as shy as, if not shier than, I was at the time. We seemed naturally to navigate toward each other with short conversations and quick smiles, and eventually by holding hands. Maybe I liked him or risked liking him because I believed he wasn’t going to be with us long. He was cute, about average in class, and not terribly good at any sport. His timidity kept him from being aggressive. I think he was worried that if he got into any trouble, he would make more trouble for his mother and bring about some serious consequences for all of them.

  Ellie’s party was the first time I had paired off with a specific boy. We all had our little space in the large living room, and when the lights were lowered, the necking began. I was sure that Reggie’s and my kissing was the least erotic of any of the kisses going on. Our kiss was more like the snap of a match. We spent most of the time talking, until Ellie finally shouted for us to shut up because we were ruining the mood. We kissed again, both of us trying harder to make it seem like something special, but neither of us came away with any stronger feeling for the other. And then, two weeks later, he and his sister were pulled out of the school, and his mother did return to Washington State. It was one of the more bizarre student memories I had. We all talked about the Seymours for a while, and then they dropped out of conversations and our minds as quickly as a trivial news blurb on CNN.

  So, even in this dream, I didn’t know what to expect from Brayden’s kiss. It was as if his lips settled on mine and formed themselves perfectly to fit my mouth comfortably. It was a kiss filled with expectations but so light and airy that it kept me held to expectations. I fought hard against waking up and losing the moment. It was the longest kiss I had ever experienced, even in a dream, a kiss that finally flowed into me, touching me so deeply that I felt my whole body soften and then become more demanding, trying to draw more and more from it.

  When he lifted his lips from mine, they felt naked, aching with disappointment. I lifted my head gently to draw him back, but he moved his lips down over my chin, to my neck instead. I closed my eyes and felt myself grow limp, but willingly. I wanted his hands all over my body, gently caressing and molding it so he could fit his more comfortably against it, turning me toward him, stroking my hair, his lips on mine again, his hands softly moving over my breasts. It felt as though he had somehow gone under my bathing suit top, even though I knew he hadn’t.

  “You make me feel alive,” he whispered, and kissed my ear and my cheek and then found my lips turned and waiting for his. It was as if he had awakened another me, waiting to be awoken, happy to be awoken. I moaned and welcomed his touch everywhere, my heart beating like a racehorse finally permitted to gallop, to drive every part of itself to the place it was meant to be.

  I moaned, raising my lower body so it would press against his. As my excitement grew, I heard him say, “Amber Taylor, meet Amber Taylor.”

  I cried out at the peak of my passion, and then I felt him easing up, calming me, lowering me softly to my towel, kissing my eyes closed. I didn’t move. My breathing slowed. He stroked my hair again, quieting me, relaxing me. His final kiss was softer, a gentle closing of a door. Although he turned away, I still felt a blanket of his warmth over me.

  Suddenly, I woke. The river was louder. The sun was lower in the sky and blocked out by trees and leaves. Long, thick shadows seemed to be crawling toward me. I felt no breeze. I heard nothing. The silence surprised me. I sat up, realizing that I was alone.

  “Brayden?” I called, looking around. Had he gone for a short walk? Was he down by the water? I called for him again and again, but he didn’t respond.

  Surprised now, I stood up and wrapped my towel around my waist. I heard some movement in the bushes and turned quickly to my left to see two rabbits. They paused to look at me and then scurried under another bush to disappear.

  Where was he? I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted, “Brayden!”

  He didn’t reply. There was no sign of him anywhere. What had he done, left me there asleep and dreaming? How long had he been gone? I glanced at my watch. I had slept the better part of an hour. I waited and listened for a few more minutes, and then I hurried around the boulder and started back along the pathway he had shown me. A good ten minutes later, I stepped into my backyard. He was still nowhere in sight. I looked at his house. It was as quiet as before.

  How could he just walk away like that? How could he leave me out there?

  Fuming, I marched into my house and stomped up the stairs to my room. There I gazed out the window at his room and, as usual, saw nothing. For a few moments, I sat on my bed thinking, and then I shook my head and told myself to stop pouting and car
ing. Instead, I took a hot shower and, more determined than ever, began to think of what to wear to Charlotte Watts’s party.

  5

  Prudence Perfect

  It occurred to me that Brayden had never offered me his telephone number, and, unlike everyone else I knew, he didn’t carry a cell phone. I couldn’t even call him to complain about his leaving me in the forest, and I didn’t want to go banging on his door to see what had happened. I was afraid of disturbing his mother and really getting him angry at me and causing more trouble. As I dressed and prepared for Charlotte’s party, I paused occasionally to look out the window, hoping to see him outside his house. The windows of his room were more like mirrors at the moment, so I couldn’t see if he was in there.

  In fact, everything around the house seemed frozen in time. It was as though any breeze, any wind, avoided it. Not a leaf on any of the trees on the property trembled. Even the clouds above seemed like sails in a dead calm sea, pasted against the blue. And then a crow landed on the roof and settled so completely and so still that it looked more like a decoration.

  I decided to go on my computer and look up Brayden’s mother. She had her own Web site under her artistic name. There was a list of awards and museums in which her paintings were hung. I thought most of them were very beautiful, interesting, some remarkable pictures of people in street scenes and country scenes. Her work was described as a unique cross between realism and impressionism. There was a biography, describing where she had attended school and such, but no mention of her husband and son.

  I looked through the Web site until I heard the phone ringing and then practically lunged for the receiver, hoping, even though I couldn’t remember giving him my phone number, that it was Brayden.

  It wasn’t.

  Ellie was calling to remind me what time she would be picking me up, but I think also to confirm that I really was going to the party and hadn’t changed my mind. I began to grow a little suspicious about why it was suddenly so important that I go to this party. She had no trouble going anywhere without me. It was as if she had made a bet with Charlotte that she could get me there. Or maybe they had something else planned.

  “What are you going to wear?” she asked.

  “I’m working on it now.”

  “Try not to look so . . .”

  “What?”

  “Safe,” she said, and laughed.

  “I’m sorry I ever told you that.”

  “You could try to be sexier, Amber. I know you have the clothes for it.”

  “I’ll try,” I said. “But it’s not necessary to be so obvious.”

  “Right, Prudence Perfect.” She laughed quickly. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

  She could be so infuriating, I thought. Why was I doing this?

  My mother called soon after to tell me that she and Dad were going right from the store to Von Richards’s restaurant for dinner since I was going out to the party. I had the same sense that she was confirming that I hadn’t changed my mind. Was I really this bad about it in their eyes? Did they think I was becoming some sort of a recluse? It was only through the eyes of other people that you saw yourself, I thought. Being oblivious or unconcerned about how other people saw you put you at a great disadvantage. You were blinded by how you wanted people to think of you rather than seeing how they really did. However, you could wrap that cocoon around yourself just so tightly before you were smothered in your own ego.

  Ego, however, was what drove me back to the full-length body mirror on the door of my closet at least a half-dozen times because of what Ellie had said. Suddenly, everything I was going to wear did look like something from the wardrobe of Prudence Perfect. I changed five times before settling on a layered look with the tightest black pants I had. I had a dark blue blouse so they wouldn’t complain about my not wearing one of the colors, even though this whole thing about July Fourth was a farce. I rearranged my hair twice, deciding to pin it up and back, which made me concentrate more on my earrings. I put on one of the matching turquoise necklaces Daddy had made for me and then redid my makeup three times, adding more than usual before I felt confident enough to step out of my room and head downstairs.

  I’ll show them who is and who isn’t Prudence Perfect, I vowed, gazing at myself in the full-length mirror in our foyer. I wasn’t obvious, but I was sexy, and I did feel a little more reckless, a little more excited. Had my dream at the creek woken something inside me, some sleeping feminine side of me that had welcomed being nudged, that had been waiting impatiently?

  Once again, I gazed out of windows looking for any Brayden sightings, but he was nowhere to be seen, and the diminishing sunlight put that dismal gray darkness over his house again. From what I could tell, the crow was gone, and no other birds landed on the trees in the yard. Even the leaves looked limp and depressed. How could his father just plant his wife and son in this new home and not arrange for things to be done around the house?

  Window curtains were tightly closed, shades drawn down, and the sun wasn’t even striking that side of the house anymore. Maybe I could find my way to understanding how or why his mother avoided lights, but what about him? How could he enjoy navigating his new home through shadows? And what about when they ate? Where did they eat? I was not familiar with the house, but I assumed from the size of the windows on the other side that the dining room was there. When I left my house to watch for Ellie’s car, I went out to the street and walked far enough to see that there was no light spilling from any windows on that side, either. Did they do everything up in the attic, even eat?

  Perhaps he’d had to take his mother somewhere, I thought. Maybe that was why he had rushed off. He’d remembered an appointment. Or maybe it was some sort of an emergency. He could be at the hospital with her. All sorts of possibilities rained down around me. Perhaps she had taken too much medicine. Was she suicidal? Was that it? That would certainly explain why he hovered around her so much. But why should his father leave her so quickly in a new place and put all of the worry and responsibility on Brayden? How did you do that to your teenage son?

  I realized that I should temper my annoyance and anger until I learned his reason for leaving me alone in the woods. I waited out in the street for a few minutes to see if he might see me there and come out, but I heard nothing and saw no one, so I returned to my front porch and waited for Ellie. I saw her car approaching and stepped into the driveway.

  “Hi,” she said as soon as she pulled up. “Wow, you look great.”

  “Thanks.” I got in.

  “Where did you get that top? I never saw you wear it before?”

  “I got it months ago but forgot about it.”

  “How can you forget about clothes? I love your hair like that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Your father made that necklace, I bet. I keep asking my father to buy me one. I told him you’d probably get me a discount.”

  “I can try,” I said. “Let me know.”

  “Maybe my birthday.”

  She hesitated, nodding at Brayden’s house.

  “Did you ask him again?”

  “No. I told you he couldn’t make it.”

  “He must have gone somewhere, huh? Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.”

  “Right, I don’t think so.”

  She nodded. “Did you meet his parents?”

  “No.”

  “I’d like to see what he looks like,” she said, still gazing at the house. “Come on. What’s he like, Amber?” She finally started to back out of the driveway.

  “I haven’t known him long enough to tell you anything more, Ellie.”

  “You did say he was good-looking.”

  “So? Rudi Travis is good-looking but has a brain cooked with drugs, and talking to him is like talking to a wind-up doll or something.”

  She laughed. “He is good-looking. What a shame. What a waste, I should say. I wonder what it would be like to sleep with him anyway. I suppose I could pretend he was someone else.”

&
nbsp; “Then why bother? Just go with the someone else.”

  “Yeah, right, except we all can’t have what we want—who we want, I mean. You can.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “I bet this new boy is already bonkers over you.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “He is, isn’t he? You can tell pretty fast when that happens, can’t you? I mean, I think I can.”

  “Not everyone is that simple to read, Ellie. And besides, those are usually the most uninteresting guys.”

  “How come you know so much about men for a virgin?”

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t tell me you’re not a virgin, Amber. We talked about it a little more than a year ago, and unless you’re doing someone on the side, maybe some older man, I don’t think anything’s changed.”

  “I’m not doing an older man. Don’t start spreading rumors,” I said angrily. Sometimes the girls in my school reminded me of vultures just waiting for some words, some action, some opportunity to pounce and feed other vultures. Maybe that was why I was so careful about what I said and what I did around any of them.

  She laughed, but I knew she heard my warning loud and clear. “Well, I hope this new boy turns out to be nice as well as good-looking. This town could use some new blood. Most of the boys are too full of themselves.”

  She waited for my response, but I was silent, still thinking about Brayden, the way he had kissed me in my dream, and my realization that he had left me lying on a rock in the woods. Her question had made me think harder about it. How could he take me out there, be so gentle and interesting, and then desert me like that? Maybe he was just playing with me. It was depressing to think that. I couldn’t trust anyone anymore.

  “You think so, too, right?”

  “What?”

  “Think the boys in our school are too full of themselves. I just said that. What, are you spaced out already?”