The earth began to shake and roll violently beneath their feet causing cracks in the tiled cafeteria floor. Windows shattered in loud pops as fragments of glass fell to the ground like a hard rain. The ground shook even more as the school’s alarm system went off, the blaring noise filling the air and finally separating the lip-locked pair.
“Do you think…?” Kate began as she surveyed the destruction around her and Alex.
“Probably a coincidence…,” Alex replied, although the thought had crossed his mind as well. Were they responsible for this? After all, after their first touch, when their hands first met, the ground had shaken like that before. All that destruction had just occurred during their kiss without him even being aware. It was though his mind was somewhere else completely.
“Holy shit,” Kate said as she watched students evacuating the school and emptying out into the courtyard. “I didn’t feel any of it.”
“Neither did I,” Alex added with concern.
Alex quickly reached out for Kate’s hand, placed it over hers and squeezing gently. The table began to move in response. The longer he kept it there, the worse the shaking got. He let go just as the floor beneath them started to rumble.
“How is that possible?” Alex asked, looking to Kate in complete shock.
“It can’t be,” Kate replied, although even she could not deny what she had just observed. “I mean, that’s not even physically possible, right?”
“You two!” a heavyset lady shouted as she gestured for Alex and Kate to follow her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing sitting around while the alarms are going off?”
The pair followed the woman into the courtyard, already filled with the other students all chattering away about what they had just been through. Over the loudspeaker, the principal announced that the school would be temporarily closed due to the extensive damage. A cheer arose amongst the students.
“Walk me home?” Kate asked, sounding concerned.
“Yeah,” Alex replied. He hoped that this new revelation that their contact may be the cause of some kind of sinister destructive power would not cause a cancellation of their newly formed relationship. After all, even though it had been just a short while, he had really grown attached to her.
The two began walking away from the school, headed down the sidewalk. It was a beautiful day to be out of class. Small clouds cast slow-moving shadows on the ground. A warm breeze caused the branches of newly-leafed trees to sway gracefully in the wind.
“We need to talk about this,” Kate said.
Alex’s heart dropped.
They walked a short distance more, and then Kate glanced around to see if anyone was about. Confident the coast was clear, she took Alex’s hand into her own. She held her breath as she waited for something to happen. She waited a few seconds—nothing happened. Just as she sighed in relief, the few rocks on the sidewalk began to dance and rattle about. She held on still. A tall birch tree close by began to creak and sway as if caught in a strong wind.
“It’s us,” Alex finally said as he wriggled his hand free of Kate’s.
“It really is…,” Kate added, looking down at her own hand. A single tear came from her eye, which she quickly wiped away. “I… I don’t see how this is possible.”
“Neither do I,” Alex said sadly. He wanted to reach out and hold Kate, yet feared the end result. “I am sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Kate said as she looked into Alex’s eyes. “An apology is just another way of saying goodbye sometimes, right?”
“Isn’t that what you want?” Alex asked, the beauty of Kate’s large blue eyes seeming to threaten to steal his very soul away—he could become so easily lost in them. “I mean, isn’t that what we should do?”
“No, I mean… the right thing to do would be for both of us to walk away right now and never see each other again,” Kate replied, keeping her gaze on Alex’s face. “But I don’t care what is right. I don’t care if it’s selfish. Haven’t we been through enough? Between the both of us, isn’t it enough?”
“I would say so,” Alex added. “Do you think we are being punished?”
“If we are, then fuck it,” Kate quickly wrapped her arms around Alex, kissing him passionately. “Fuck everything.”
Alex placed his arms around Kate in response. The two began to kiss again and again, holding on to each other with such passion and strength as though the world was trying its best to tear them apart. All around them, car alarms sounded in the street. Houses began to grumble and cry as the earth rolled beneath them. The sidewalk buckled in places, as lawns of perfectly-mowed green grass tore open, revealing cracks of dirt and rock beneath the surface. A fire hydrant split open, filling the air with a high pressure stream of water, spraying the two back into reality.
Water came down like droplets of rain, covering Alex and Kate as they gazed into each other’s eyes. Kate began to laugh, and attempted to catch some of the droplets in her hands. Alex was happy to see Kate in such a state, despite the damage the pair had caused to the surrounding area. It did not matter—all that mattered to Alex, at that moment, was that Kate was happy.
Alex escorted Kate home. They passed large groups of people, all talking about the same thing—the sudden onset of earthquakes that seemed to randomly hit the city of Springfield. They passed by buildings, seeing cracks running up the side of strong brick foundations. Alex wondered how far their destruction had spread. As they reached Kate’s home, a small one-story house with an uncared-for lawn and dirty white siding, Kate gave Alex a quick kiss, careful not to allow it to turn into something more destructive.
“Thank you for today,” she said, smiling.
Alex laughed—it was an odd statement. After all, there was a demented sense of beauty at what they had both created. “Thank you,” he added. As strange and wrong as it was to him, this was the most fun he had had in years. He could not remember a happier moment in his life, at least after his father’s departure.
“We probably won’t have school tomorrow,” she said with another short fit of laughter. “If you want, come by. I’d like to see you again.”
“Definitely,” he answered without hesitation. “If you need anything, call me.”
“Will do.” Kate nodded as she entered her house, looking back to Alex once more and smiling happily.
Alex was a quite a distance from home, but he did not mind. He walked proudly that day, with a new sense of meaning and purpose to his life, for he had finally found someone—a beautiful-yet-troubled girl that complimented him so well that it was more than he could have ever hoped for. It was almost enough for him to forget that their touch caused earthquakes. He wondered how that would play into their relationship in the future. Would the quakes ever end?
Chapter 4
It was nighttime. Alex was sketching a new picture in his leather-bound sketchbook. This one was a picture of a girl running in a cave, holding a glowing stone in her hand that led the way. A wolf loomed overhead. Alex wondered where some of these odd pictures came from, other than dreams; it seemed as though sometimes that they were already there on the paper, that he was just clearing away the white to reveal them.
He was lost in the thought when his cell phone on the bed beside him lit up and began to ring. It was Kate.
“Alex…,” Kate sobbed over the phone, “Alex, please come over. I’m… I’m in trouble. I need you.”
“What’s wrong,” Alex asked, deeply concerned, “what happened?”
“Please, just… I can’t,” Kate said, crying so hard that the words were mangled and not coming out properly. “Just come, okay?”
“I’m on my way,” Alex said as he hung up the phone. He grabbed his jacket from the back of his computer chair and ran out of his apartment.
The night air was cool. It smelled damp from an oncoming rain. Alex ran as much of the distance as he could, stopping every now and then to catch his breath. It took him almost an hour to reach Kate’s house. He made his way up the st
one walkway, reaching the door just as a light rain began to fall. He rang the bell, and the door opened up instantly. Kate stood in the doorway, dressed only in a pink pair of extremely short bed-shorts and a long red Todd Carey T-shirt with the silhouette of a man playing guitar underneath the paint-splattered lettering. Her black liner around her eyes had run down in lines, smudged slightly against her cheeks in a fruitless effort to clean her face up. Kate raised her hands out before her—one of her arms was wrapped in a white scarf that was stained in blood, and Alex held her tightly against his body. She felt warm against him. Then, quickly, she released him.
“Thank you for coming,” Kate said as she shut the door behind them. “It’s my father, he’s gone.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?” Alex asked as he looked about the house.
Various items were smashed upon the floor, and a lamp had been thrown through a large box television set. Broken picture frames were piled up against the ground in a corner of the room, and glass fragments spread out randomly.
“What happened here?”
“I was just in my room, listening to music,” Kate answered as a tear began to stream down her face. “I heard the sound of something breaking. I came out of the hall and into the room and my father was shattering all the pictures of my mother against the floor. He was drunk. I tried to stop him, I begged him to stop. He just told me to shut up and go back into my room. He threw me down on the floor again and I landed on the glass.”
“Your arm…,” Alex said as he placed a hand to her arm.
She moved away swiftly, knowing that their continued touch would bring on the shaking.
“Are you all right?”
“I got the piece out,” Kate whispered as she looked down to the pile of broken picture frames against the floor. “He didn’t even notice the blood. I started crying, yelling about how he hurt me and he just walked off into his room. I went into the bathroom and cleaned myself up. Attempted to, anyway—the best I could.”
“Where is he now?” Alex asked, feeling a fire of anger well up inside of him.
Kate handed over a generic Christmas card, the kind that you get free in the mail when charities are asking for donations and offering free cards as good-will gifts. Inside the card was three hundred dollars in two one-hundred-dollar bills and five twenties. In scribbled pen writing, the card read:
Katie, I cannot be your father. I was never cut out for the job, nor do I want it any further. I have a life of my own that I have to worry about. You need to not be a part of that life. I have no other advice to give you other than take care of yourself. It is the only thing that really matters. Other people don’t matter. Only yourself… that is why I’m leaving. I can no longer live this lie of a life that I am forced to share with you. I can no longer work a shitty job that brings me no happiness. I’ve met someone. She does not want a daughter. At this point in my life, neither do I, so take that as you will. Going somewhere where people don’t know my story, or my face. Will call the police department tomorrow and have you sorted out.
Alex stared at the note in disbelief. He had known that people could be cruel. He had seen it firsthand far too many times. The note was not even signed. Kate’s father could only drivel on about his own selfishness and not offer any form of comfort to Kate. His only sign that he even felt the slightest bit guilty was the small sum of cash in the card. It was basically an ultimatum, as far as Alex could tell—take the money and live as best as she could on her own, or, face the foster care system at the age of sixteen—a prospect that seemed to be a lose-lose situation.
“I am so sorry,” Alex said as he handed the note back to Kate. He looked down to the pictures of Kate’s mother. She had long brown hair and the same beautiful blue eyes that Kate did. She had a kind, smiling face.
“Don’t say sorry,” Kate said, drawing closer to Alex. “Remember, sometimes apologies mean goodbye… sometimes… right?”
“What do you want to do?” Alex asked. At this point, he would do anything for her. “Whatever it is you decide, I’ll be with you. If I can help you, I promise I will… anything.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Kate said as more tears escaped from her eyes. “We hardly know each other and I’d only ask for way too much. I just want you to know that you can turn away.”
“I can’t.”
“You can,” Kate continued, “Turn away right now. Just forget about me and I will be fine. I will figure my life out, somehow. Just walk out. I would never blame you for it. I would understand.”
“I can’t…,” Alex said again. He wanted to hold on to Kate as tightly as possible. He wanted to comfort her, but knowing that he could not do so made him feel even more terrible. “I won’t leave. I could never turn and walk away. I would never be able to forgive myself. I would miss you for the rest of my life. I would regret you, for the rest of my life.”
“But the future’s so uncertain; I mean… where will we go? How will we make it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Alex replied, “We’ll have each other. We’ll figure it out.”
“Stay with me tonight?” Kate asked, placing her lips against Alex’s for a brief moment—just long enough to cause the wooden beams rattle beneath them.
“Of course,” Alex replied, as he followed Kate to her bedroom. Together, they lied in the darkness. They shared few words, yet every now and again would brush their hands close together, testing the limits of their condition. Alex wanted to hold Kate, to be beside her. Perhaps even more, however, he knew that this would be impossible at this moment.
“Tomorrow, I’ll help you pack up some things,” Alex whispered, as he brushed his hand against Kate’s cheek reassuringly. “We’ll head out in the evening—I know where my mom’s car will be then. We’ll take it.”
“Thank you, Alex,” Kate whispered as she allowed herself a moment of contact with his hand. The bed began to shake beneath them as his hand softly drifted away. “Thank you for everything. I never believed in people like you, I never believed that people could be like you.”
“I feel the same way,” Alex said, lying on his back against the bed.
Chapter 5
Kate carried with her a backpack and the same black side-bag from school. She filled it with clothing, some money that she had saved up, and a few things she could not bear to be without: mostly items given to her by her mother, or items that had once belonged to her at one time.
Together, they walked the distance to Alex’s apartment. Kate kept guard of the front door as he packed his backpack full of a few things: his mp3 player, a few items of clothing, and about a hundred and fifty dollars he had been saving for a gaming system. He went into his mother’s room, routed through her drawers and found another hundred tucked away in a metal cigarette case, which he also pocketed. He found her spare car keys, shoved them in his back pocket and left his apartment, giving it one last look over, thankful to leave it.
“We need to stay out of sight, for the most part,” Kate said as the two rushed down the sidewalk. “I’m worried my father’s got the cops out looking for me at this point. I know a place, though. Downtown there’s this old abandoned warehouse. I used to hang out there with some friend when we’d ditch school.”
“Is it near Water Street?” Alex asked.
“Yeah, should be about two blocks,” she replied.
“That’s perfect—the bar my mom hangs out at is on Water Street,” he added, nodding confidently and telling himself that this plan will work. “That’s where we’ll get the car.”
Kate and Alex hurried downtown, attempting to look as inconspicuous as possible. As they neared an old broken-down warehouse that was right next to a highway overpass, Kate pointed out the door, an old rusted iron door. They were about to head toward it when a group of teens came from around a dumpster. The smell of smoke filled the air. It was the kid from school that had grown a fondness for calling Alex either “faggot” or “pussy”, and a group of three others. One, a heavyset kid wit
h a beer in-hand, and, next to him, a tall (although not as tall as Alex) slender kid with blond hair and a face that lacked enough chin, causing him to look slightly retarded. Finally the last of the four was a red-haired girl who was short and stocky, wearing all black and a chain wallet.
“Oh, look—faggot’s got himself a girlfriend,” the short guy commented to his three companions, who all laughed as though they were trained to do so like dogs being told when to bark.
“Leave him alone,” Kate shouted, standing in front of Alex. “Mind your own fucking business!”
“It’s that bitch from gym that thinks she’s so special because her mommy died of cancer,” the red-haired girl taunted. “Why don’t you give us what you’ve got on you, and we’ll let you go.”
“I don’t have any problems with any of you,” Alex said loudly, and then turned to the short leader of the group. “I only backed down that day because I’d been kicked out of school for fighting. I don’t have to worry about that anymore, so I wouldn’t fucking test me today. Go back to whatever it was you were doing and let’s all just forget we ran into each other.”
“Not going to work,” the lanky boy with the retard-face said as he pulled a knife from his back pocket. “Our terms or… well… our terms, one way or another.”
The short leader came closer. “Now hand over what you’ve got, faggot.”
Alex pushed Kate to the side, and with one swift motion brought his fist down as hard as he could upon the short boy’s face, striking him right in the eye. Without even hesitating, he placed a kick right into his crotch, causing him to fall to the ground.
“Fucking… kill them,” the leader said, coughing as he clutched his crotch in agony.
Window in the Earth Trilogy Page 41
