by Ivy Smoak
I lifted up my phone and stared down at Miles' name that I had just input into my contact list. I hadn't come up here for air. I had wanted to watch the meteor shower. But the stupid city lights blocked out everything. I wiped more of my tears away.
For years I had stared at the stars, wondering where Miles was. Missing him. Loving him. Cursing his name. And now he was right here. And I needed him. God, I so desperately needed him. I put the cell phone down.
I couldn't go against what everyone else that was trying to help me wanted. I felt like for the first time since I was a kid, everyone could really see me. I placed my hand on my stomach and stared up at the dark sky. The problem was that there were parts of me that I didn't want anyone to see. I was angry at Liza for sharing information to Eli and V that they didn't need to know. She had no right. She clearly didn't care about my feelings. So why should I care about hers?
I lifted up my phone again and typed out a message to Miles. "I can barely see the stars tonight." It was innocent enough. I wasn't flirting with him. I just needed to know he was out there looking at the same thing as me. For the longest time I hadn't gotten that validation. I needed it tonight. Before I could talk myself out of it, I pressed send.
If he really was a player like everyone thought, he probably wouldn't know it was me. He had probably just picked up some other girl to go watch the meteor shower with him. I jumped when my phone buzzed. I lifted it up and slid my finger across the screen.
"You're just not looking hard enough."
His words made my tears fall even faster. It wasn't the first time he had said those words to me. I remembered being back in his tree house, bickering over which stars made up certain constellations. He was the one that had always helped me see. He taught me to appreciate the smallest constellations. I wiped my tears away and tried to focus on the darkness above. The first time we had watched a meteor shower together, I swore I thought the stars were shooting out of the sky. He explained the difference to me with a whole bunch of terms I didn't understand. A part of me still believed it was the stars fleeing their spot in the sky. Escaping. Doing the one thing I could never seem to do.
I sat up as I saw the first meteor shoot across the night sky, just barely visible. A smile spread across my face as I grabbed my phone. "I just saw one," I typed out and pressed send.
"Told you so," he responded a few seconds later.
I rolled my eyes. He seemed more like his younger self via text message. I wasn't sure why. Probably because I wasn't distracted by his chiseled jaw line. I bit the inside of my lip and lay back down. I continued to stare at the screen of my phone instead of back up at the sky. It wasn't the stars that made me feel close to him right now. Or a lost pendant against my chest. I had the real him. I could say anything I wanted to him. But the years had silenced me. What could I say to a complete stranger who used to be my best friend, when all I wanted to do was apologize and tell him I forgave him too. I wanted us to start over. I wanted another chance to not let him down.
My phone buzzed in my hands before I could think of what to say.
"Are you happy?"
His words made me freeze. I closed my eyes for just a second, remembering when he had asked me that same question on the roof of my grandmother's house. Something seemed to tighten in my chest. I was able to say I was happy back then because I had him in my life. I still had my grandmother. I still had this undeniable sense of hope.
Because I hadn't met Don yet. I hadn't been beaten. I hadn't lost a baby. I hadn't given up.
I couldn't tell Miles the truth about who I was. But that didn't mean I needed to lie about my answer. I opened my eyes and typed the two letters that I was pretty sure I had forgotten how to use. "No." I pressed send. I was tired of telling everyone I was okay. I was tired of the lies. This was me reaching out.
Right after he had asked me if I was happy on my grandmother's roof, we had shared our first and only kiss. A kiss was probably an exaggeration. It was really just a peck. But we had kept our lips locked together for a few seconds. I remembered thinking I would never stop smiling.
I lifted the corners of my mouth and smiled at the sky. It terrified me that the sensation of smiling felt foreign to the muscles in my face. Like I had to strain in order to do it. And I couldn't help but think that if I had been stronger, I'd still have everything I had lost. Just the thought made my chest hurt.
My phone buzzed again. I looked down at his text: "Me either."
Was that him reaching out to me? Was he telling me that I could make him happy? The air suddenly felt heavy again. I thought about his version of what had happened when I entered foster care. He had talked about being an angry kid. I had been so preoccupied by my own pain, that I had never even bothered to ask if he was happy before. "I'm sorry if I ever let you down," I typed out and pressed send.
"You couldn't possibly."
I sat up and drew my knees to my chest, resting my chin on the top of my knee. I didn't know what to say back to him. If he knew who I was, he wouldn't have said that. Because all I had done since I was nine years old was disappoint him.
Another text came through from Miles. "Meet me on the corner of 6th and Pine in 20 minutes. There's this ice cream shop I think you might like that's open late."
I stared down at the words. I wanted to run to him. I wanted my life to be like a movie where everyone had a happy ending. The credits would start to roll right after I jumped back into Miles' arms. I shook my head. There was a reason I stopped watching Disney movies after my parents died. "I can't," I wrote back.
"You were happy that night in Central Park, right?"
"I was drunk."
"That wasn't why and you know it. Twenty minutes."
He had reached out to me just like I wanted. "I can't. I'm sorry, Miles." And I had stomped on his effort.
"I'll be waiting."
I placed my phone down beside me. Stop waiting for me. I buried my face in my knees and let my tears roll down my shins. Miles Young was the happy ending I would never get. I had four days. That was it. He had a whole lifetime to forget about me. I had ruined my life. I just hoped I hadn't ruined his too.
I wasn't sure how much time had passed when I started to hear a clanging noise growing closer to me. I knew the vigilante was climbing the emergency escape stairs up to the roof. But I really didn't want to see him. I quickly wiped my tears away just as he stepped onto the roof.
He walked over to me and stopped when he was directly in front of me. I blinked as I stared up at him. He put his hand out for me.
I shook my head.
He kept his hand out, waiting for me to grab it.
"I'm watching the meteor shower. I don't want to go in." I sounded like a petulant child.
"Okay," his voice rumbled as he put his hand into his pocket.
"How was your date with Liza?"
"That's why you're up here? You're jealous?" He didn't smile or laugh. Really, he showed no emotion at all. It shouldn't have surprised me. I knew what we were. A moment in time.
I sighed. "I'm not jealous." Maybe a small part of me was, but what did it matter? "You can do whatever you want."
He slowly knelt down in front of me and placed his hands on my knees.
I swallowed hard.
"I want you." He spread my thighs with his hands and leaned forward until his lips brushed against mine. "I need you." This time when our lips touched, it wasn't gentle. His hunger was back.
I put my hand at the base of his neck, pulling him closer. I needed him too. He so easily took away the pain in my chest. I knew that I was out of my mind. But I also knew that whatever this was could get me through another day.
Chapter 25
Tuesday
Something was seriously wrong with me. I had issues, but the vigilante did too. That's why it felt right. But that wasn't a good reason to run into his arms. Especially when I clearly had feelings for Miles too.
I bit the end of my pen as I stared at the words the pro
fessor was writing on the board. I should have been paying attention, but everything the professor said seemed to pass over my head. What was I even doing in this class? Despite what Liza thought, Sadie Davis wasn't talking about the four members of our group. She was counting down the days. I was running out of time to figure out what it all meant.
I shoved my notebook into my backpack and slipped out the back door of the large lecture hall. The professor didn't even turn around. No one's going to miss me. I immediately shook away the thought.
The leaves were just starting to change color. I took a huge breath of fresh air. The bright green of campus was slowly fading away. Just like I'm fading away. Stop.
Eli was supposed to meet me after class to walk me back to V's, but I couldn't make my feet stay still. There was no time to wait around. I needed to move, to feel the burn of my muscles. Three days wasn't enough time to learn how to defend myself. But it wasn't going to stop me from trying. Hopefully V would be up for a training session.
I started walking toward V's apartment when I saw her. Sadie Davis was sitting on a bench reading a book, like she was just another college student on campus. It was like she knew that I was going to walk by here after class. Did that mean she knew where V lived?
Unlike the other times I had seen her, this time I didn't freeze. I actually started walking faster. This could be my one chance to speak to her. I needed to understand why she was doing this. And what exactly she was doing.
As if sensing my presence, she closed the book and looked up at me. The expression on her face made it seem like she was surprised to see that I was coming toward her. She immediately held up three fingers. There was no smile this time. She looked like she was panicking because I wasn't stopping.
Hoards of students suddenly started to pour onto the walking paths between us, blocking her from my line of sight.
By the time I reached the bench, she was gone. But the book she had been reading was still there. I lifted up the tattered copy of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I had read it for an English assignment in high school. It had no connection whatsoever to what Sadie Davis was doing here. It was about a group of men sailing the Congo. The book itself did have a connection, though.
I loved reading growing up. It was like I was able to escape from my life through the pages of a book. But I had hated this one. It didn't feel like an escape at all. I could barely make my way through it. And it wasn't just because I didn't enjoy the story. I opened it up and saw the blood smeared across the title page.
I remembered blocking the bottle with my hand. Bleeding until I felt dizzy. Slowly pulling the shards out one by one. Wiping my palm against the pages of the book and hiding the evidence in my backpack. Thinking the bandages and the blood was enough to put him away. Being laughed at for having stories running in my head.
After Don found out I went to the police, I ended up with a broken arm, a welt on the side of my head, and a distrust of law enforcement. He beat me with the book I tried to get him arrested with. I hated that book. I hated him. But I learned to keep my mouth shut and I stopped believing in a better life. In a lot of ways, this book had been the end of my hope.
It wasn't just the memory that this book served either. My heart truly was filled with darkness, just like the title said. Don knew that. He had put the darkness there with his own two brutal hands.
I glanced at the bottom of the page where a note was scrawled. "This would have been more fun if you hadn't already stopped living, Sadie." My name was in quotes again, just like the notes I had gotten before Don had gone dark. He was back. This was his handwriting. And it wasn't Sadie Davis that I should be fearing. It was him.
***
"What other proof do you need?" I said and slammed my hand down onto the book.
Liza just stared at me. "Don could have written that awhile ago. We don't know how long he's been planning this. It doesn't prove anything."
"He's here. Why do none of you believe me?" I looked around the table. Eli and V didn't come to my defense. No one was on my side with this. But I was the one that actually knew Don. None of them did. He was back in the city. I could feel it in my bones.
"Look," Liza said. "If he was back in New York, I would know. I have facial recognition running non-stop on V's computers. He's not here."
"I don't need technology to know that he's close."
Liza leaned back in her chair. "Actually, you do. A hunch doesn't prove anything. He's not here, Summer."
"But..."
"Sadie," V said. "We'll look into it, but Liza is right. We have everything set up so that we'll know as soon as he's back. He couldn't have gotten past that much surveillance."
"And if you'd stop touching that book, we might be able to get some information from it." Liza pulled a pencil out from behind her ear that I hadn't been able to see underneath all of her hair. She pushed the book away from my hand with the eraser end of the pencil.
"It's just my blood. You can't get any new information from that."
"We can run it for fingerprints," Eli said. "Maybe that'll finally point us in the direction of some kind of connection here."
I wanted to slap everyone at this table. "There's no one else involved. Sadie Davis works for Don. She's his messenger. And he's back! And if we don't figure out what they're planning to do I'm going to be dead in three days!" I felt like I was hyperventilating. I couldn't seem to catch my breath.
"Hey," V said. He stood up and put his hand on my arm. "Why don't you go lie down for a bit while we run the book for prints?"
I pulled my arm away from him. "I need some fresh air. I'm going for a walk."
"Let me come with you," Eli said as his chair squeaked across the floor.
"I don't need an escort. There's no danger right? That's what you all think? That I'm crazy?"
"We didn't say that," V said.
You didn't need to. I could see it on all their faces. None of them had my back. None of them believed me. This time when I approached the window it opened without Athena saying anything. It was like she could sense my bad mood.
I wanted to hang out with someone who believed in me. Someone who had always had my back, even when I thought he hadn't. I pulled out my phone and clicked on Miles' name. "6th and Pine you said? I'm going to go check it out now." I pressed send before I could tell myself the millions of reasons why I shouldn't be talking to him. I started walking toward 6th and Pine. Even if he didn't respond, I could still use that ice cream. We had met early for our meeting because I had told everyone I had an important update. Which meant I hadn't grabbed anything to eat. And now I was starving and pissed. Ice cream was the perfect solution.
My phone buzzed before I had even taken a few steps.
"Ice cream for dinner? I'm in. Give me 20 minutes."
I smiled down at the text. For just one night I was going to be normal. I was going to do what I wanted. There was no guarantee that I'd get more time. I knew that I couldn't exactly be myself around Miles. But it wasn't really about that. It was more so that being with him reminded me of who I really was. And if I could have one more hour as Summer Brooks, I'd take it. It might be my last chance.
When I arrived at the ice cream shop, I was happy to see that it was actually ice cream and not some ritzy frozen yogurt joint. I wanted the real thing, not some barely healthier alternative. I peered through the window at the menu posted above the checkout counter. They had every flavor I could possibly think of. I stopped scanning the options when my eyes landed on mint chocolate chip. I smiled, remembering what it was like for Miles to know me.
"You cheated!" I said and grabbed the cards out of his hand.
"I did not."
"Miles, you only have three of a kind instead of four."
"Jokers are wild."
"They are not! You can't just make up rules halfway through." I folded my arms across my chest.
"Just because I'm better than you at this doesn't mean that I cheated." He picked up the spoon from his em
pty bowl and leaned over toward my bowl, which was still half full.
"Don't you dare touch my ice cream, Miles Young."
He smiled out of the corner of his mouth. "What'll happen to me if I do, Summer Brooks?" He leaned even closer toward my bowl that was sitting on the floor by my knee.
"Don't you do it."
He put his spoon in my ice cream and took a huge bite.
"You're a cheater and a thief."
He quickly picked up my bowl and stood up.
"Miles!" To me, stealing ice cream was sacrilegious.
"If you want it back, you'll have to come get it." He backed away slowly and took another bite of my ice cream.
I got up off the floor and ran after him. He laughed as I jumped onto his back. He tried to spin me off, but I was clinging to him with all my strength. I reached down, grabbed a sticky fistful of ice cream and smashed it against his cheating, thieving face.
His laughter only grew as he skidded across the linoleum floor. Suddenly he slipped, leaving us in a pile of sticky, tangled limbs.
"What on earth are you kids doing?" Mrs. Young said.
We looked up to see her with her hands on her hips, but there was a smile on her face.
"Summer stole my ice cream," Miles said with a laugh as he pulled away from me.
"I did not, Mrs. Young. He stole mine."
She shook her head, but the smile remained. She opened up the freezer door and pulled out the container of mint chocolate chip ice cream. "Here." She grabbed two new spoons and put them into the container of ice cream and placed it on the floor beside us. "You both need to learn how to share."
The truth was, I didn't mind sharing with Miles. I really just wanted an excuse to be tangled up on the floor with him.
