Dying Day

by Kory M. Shrum

  “Nothing is going on,” Jesse whispers. But her eyes brighten and tears rise beneath the lashes. “Why were you at Mrs. Poltaski’s office?”

  “If I tell you my secret, will you tell me what’s going on?”

  Jesse stops disfiguring the Vogue models and regards Ally for the first time. It is probably the word secret. I have to admit that it has my ears pricked.

  “Maybe,” Jesse says, sitting up on her knees to gaze into her friend’s face. “If this isn’t some trick like ‘I talk to her about my periods. Or ‘I think I want to be a nun’ or something.’ It better be a real secret.”

  Ally looks more than a little offended. “I think it’s a pretty big secret. My mother would definitely murder me if she found out. You might stop being my friend over it.”

  Jesse snorts. “That isn’t saying much. Your mother would murder you if she found out about the toffee chocolates you eat before dinner.”

  Teen Jesse’s making jokes, but I see the curiosity written all over her face. She’s hooked now, and so am I. I catch myself listening to the house again, just to make sure we—they—are truly alone. But when I lean out of the doorway, I see only an empty house.

  Ally doesn’t look like she’s in the mood for jokes though. Her face is pale.

  “Oh my god, you murdered someone,” both I and my younger counterpart say in unison.

  “There’s a dead body under the house right now,” younger Jesse adds.

  “No,” Ally says. “I wouldn’t be talking to a guidance counselor about it! Not unless I wanted to go to jail.”

  Younger Jesse nods, conceding the point. “Good point. Then what is it?”

  Ally hesitates. Color rises in her face and I’m almost certain I can hear her pounding heart from here.

  “I’m gay,” she whispers.

  Jesse only blinks.

  “I’m a lesbian,” Ally adds, flicking her eyes up to search Jesse’s face.

  Jesse keeps blinking.

  Ally’s face flushes red. “I-I don’t like boys. I don’t feel about them the way you do.”

  “Are you trying to say it as many ways as you can?” Jesse snorts. “I know what a lesbian is.”

  “Oh god, don’t screw this up,” I groan. “Say something. Say something nice!”

  Ally’s face can’t get any redder.

  “So, like you want to kiss girls, not dudes,” younger me says, pursing her lips.

  Ally nods. Her eyes are fixed on her lap now, cheeks still bright with color, hands cupping her knees furiously. She won’t meet my eyes, worse, she looks like she’s braced for whatever horrible thing younger Jesse might say in return.

  She’s expecting rejection, I think. My heart clenches.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” Jesse asks.

  Ally shakes her head, but she still won’t look up.

  “Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

  “No,” Ally says.

  “Ever kissed a girl?” Jesse asks with her head tilted.

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know you’re gay?” Jesse asks and thankfully, she sounds curious rather than disgusted. Ally notices this too, and her face starts to soften with hope.

  “How did you know you’re straight?” Ally fires back.

  Jesse shrugs. “I don’t know that I’m straight.”

  Ally finally looks up and searches her face.

  Jesse nudges her knee. “Seriously, how do you know you’re gay?”

  “It’s just how I feel about them. I don’t think about boys that way. When I imagine kissing someone or holding their hand—it’s never a boy.”

  “Does anyone else know?” Jesse asks.

  “Well, Mrs. Poltaski. She’s trying to help me work up the nerve to come out. She thinks I should wait until college, but I can tell my friends and family now.”

  “Come out of what?”

  “That’s just what it’s called when you tell people – coming out. Like coming out of the closet.”

  “Why the hell are gay people in a closet?”

  Ally’s fear is quickly morphing into irritation. “I don’t know. Because people put them there.”

  Jesse’s indignation flares. “Assholes! You tell me who put you in a closet, and I’ll beat their ass! Let’s see how they like being shoved into tight places.”

  Her reaction is so genuine, I smile.

  Ally laughs, but there are tears in the corners of her eyes. “And my brother knows. And now you.”

  “Third,” Jesse harrumphs, pressing her back into the wall where the bed meets it. “Glad to know where I rank. Third behind some polo shirt-wearing prepster and a woman who thinks bedazzling is a thing.”

  “Promise you’re not going to tell anyone. I’m not ready,” Ally says.

  “Who would I tell?” Jesse snorts. “You’re my only friend.”

  Ally nods, but the tears that were building in the corners of her eyes finally spill over, and the crying begins. Jesse looks so alarmed—as alarmed as one might look if a velociraptor were to come crashing through the wall suddenly.

  “I’m sorry!” Ally sobs. “I’m just so relieved.”

  Jesse’s face pinches in offense. “What did you think I was going to say?”

  “I don’t know.” Ally wipes her nose on her sleeve. “That you think I’m sick, that I’m gross or that I deserve to die. That you never want to talk to me again.”

  Jesse looks like someone just spit in her face. “Do you think I’m one of those bigoted bitches?”

  “No, but people get scared. People…people react badly.”

  Jesse opens her mouth to say something, but Ally’s crying is so loud now that she just shuts it. Ally runs a hand through her hair, separating a chunk with her fingers. She begins twirling it around her fingers again.

  “I would never ever stop being your friend. Unless you start holding out on the toffee chocolates. That’s a deal breaker.”

  Ally cracks a weak smile.

  I’m trying to desperately remember what these toffee chocolates are. They sound amazing.

  “I was kind of hoping you’d confess to being a Russian spy. I’d make you teach me Russian. It’s so sexy.”

  Ally laughs again, wiping at her eyes.

  “I just wish you would’ve told me sooner, and I wouldn’t have teased you so much about Chad Wrecker. I thought you liked him.”

  “God, no. He’s a bully and a moron.”

  “Yes, but he’s so pretty. I would understand your lapse in judgment.”

  Ally rolls her eyes. “I suppose one could lose their virginity to worse.”

  And just like that the mood darkens.

  This is a long time ago… someone whispers. A familiar, if distant voice. This cannot hurt you any longer. Don’t let it hurt you any longer.

  The room shifts in both light and color, like a television losing signal for a moment, when the picture goes all static-y. This shift brings me back to myself again, reminds me that I’m Jesse and a visitor in this place. And I’m not really sure how I got here. Or how to get out of here.

  “Yes, they can,” the other Jesse says and her otherness rushes up, separating me from the scene I was falling so thoroughly into. I feel weight in my limbs again. The door frame is cool against my arm.

  “I told you my secret,” Ally says. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

  Tell me what’s going on. Tell me what’s going on. Tell me what’s going on… It’s such a monstrous phrase to be so simplistic. It weighs a ton on my chest—no, her chest—as if the gravity of the room has suddenly ratcheted up ten notches.

  “I don’t get along with my stepfather,” young Jesse says. And I can tell by watching her that this is the gateway. She is testing the words on her tongue, her lips. Then she shakes her head as if it doesn’t say enough, as if that isn’t the way she wants to start.

  Instead, she uncuffs the sleeves of her flannel shirt and begins to roll the fabric up toward the elbow.

  She reveals enormous bruis
es on both forearms.

  “Oh god,” Ally says. She sits up on her knees. Her hand goes over her mouth as she takes in the bruises. “Oh my god, Jess. He beats you?”

  “Sometimes,” she says. And all of Jesse’s brave façade crumbles. “If I don’t…If I don’t…” Her lips tremble and the words fall away.

  You played the victim, a cold voice whispers in my ear. You manipulated her feelings for you.

  “No.” I whirl away from the two girls trying to see who the voice belongs to. But I only see engulfing darkness, swirling shadows, beyond the bedroom, nothing exists but an endless abyss.

  You used her to survive, and you’re still using her to survive.

  “What? No.”

  See for yourself.

  I turn back to the doorway, and there’s Ally and Jesse, kissing—lips hot on one another—while Ally fills my ear—her ear with so many promises. Promises of safety. Promises of a better life.

  She’s always loved you more than you’ve loved her, and you played that love against her.

  “No, no,” I say, but doubt has its hooks in me. Doubt twists my fear on itself until I see only dark at the edge of even the good memories.

  You forgot her. Forced her to find you again, to prove her loyalty again. Once, she asked for your loyalty, and you refused. You chose Lane over her. She became your personal assistant just so she could stay with you. She left university, her future, and molded herself to you, and you refused to give her the one thing she wanted.

  “Stop it.”

  She finally stood up for herself, demanded a commitment after months of your indecision, and you let her go, knowing she wouldn’t go anywhere. You ran to Lane, even though you knew he only loved you because of what you are, not who you are.

  I want to protest. I want to beat back the dark encroaching on me, suffocating me, but I can’t deny the truth of these words. Because it’s true. All of it is true. I’d been too immature and stupid to realize how amazing and beautiful she was, how priceless her love and loyalty was. But Nikki knew, knew immediately, and I hated her for it.

  You only took her to spite a woman you didn’t like. You took her because you could.

  “No!” I shout at the darkness.

  You don’t care about her safety. You don’t care about her happiness.

  “That’s not true.”

  If given enough time, you’ll only betray her, replace her with the next person who adores you for what you are—after everything she’s done for you—you’ll move on without a backward glance.

  “Shut up already!” My screams pierce the swarming darkness until it shatters. I’m on the beach, on my hands and knees. The wind from that place tears at my hair and face, but the cold is sobering. The cold sharpens my reality. And part of me knows it isn’t the cold of the beach I’m feeling, but the tundra. But I don’t see the tundra. I see only this stormy beachscape.

  Gabriel had warned me about Michael’s tricks. And here I am, falling for every single one of them.

  Gabriel? Where are you?

  Michael stands a respectable distance away, looking like an English gentleman, one hand on the head of a cane—no, not the head of a cane, but the hilt of his sword, the tip buried in the sand.

  “I’m slowly discovering why he is so loyal to you,” Michael says, those words melodic. “You certainly have a strong will, a stubbornness I should despise, and yet—it’s admirable, isn’t it?”

  I snort to hide my uneasiness. “You sure know how to make a girl feel special.”

  I can’t seem to get off my knees just yet. I sound normal at least, or almost normal. My voice is a little dry, and there is a tremor in my limbs that wasn’t there before he ran me through.

  “What are you doing to me?”

  “Unraveling you. Piece by piece. Softening you for the main event.”

  With a shaking hand, I probe the cut in my clothes until I find the skin underneath. Flaking blood crusts the surface, but there is no wound. Tenderness, absolutely. But no wound. Jason’s healing gift must work even in this place—the gateway.

  “Do you even know why you are opposing me? You’re determined to guard against me, but you don’t even know why,” Michael says with derision. “Now that Gabriel isn’t here to whisper lies in your ear, you have a chance to see the truth.”

  “The fact that you were leading Caldwell around by the collar is reason enough. I’m sure you were more than a little influential in his genocidal plans.”

  Michael’s face screws up. “You think I am worse than Gabriel? I gave Caldwell truth. I helped him rise from the ashes of his oppressors then gave him my aid, freely. I did not blame him for what Gabriel did.”

  I should know better, but I can’t resist. “What did Gabriel do?”

  Michael’s lips twitch with a suppressed smile. “He killed his own kind. Took their power and gave it to you.”

  “Your kind?”

  He laughs, real amusement. “As if you could understand. Even now, your little mind is polishing me up and putting wings on me.”

  “You’re not angels.” Of course, I don’t need him to confirm this. How many times have I seen the reality of Gabriel shift? How many times have I felt like I saw something… monstrous… otherworldly… lurking just under his skin?

  “Please,” Michael sighs, exasperated. He reaches up to pull away a strand of hair stuck to his lips. “You humans still believe that you’re the best thing to emerge from all of creation in the billions of years it’s existed? Sun still moving around the Earth, is it?”

  “We haven’t found any life.”

  “You haven’t seen us because most of us regard you as ants on the pavement, or gnats on the trash heap—do you have conversations with these creatures? That is, if you notice them at all? No. You only notice them when they begin to be a problem.”

  “We’ve become a problem.”

  He gestures at the beach, at the sky, at the house. “Obviously.”

  I don’t look around, despite this invitation. I have a feeling taking my eyes off him now would be more than stupid.

  “Some would save you from being annihilated like the pests you are. Idiots.” Michael pauses to emphasize the word idiots with bared teeth. “Fools decided that the ants were worth protecting, that you are as worthy of the Power to Create as we are. And so he drags us—his own brethren—into a battle for your salvation. But you aren’t ready for this power. Nor do you deserve this gift.”

  I’m following most of this, but I’m stuck on the idea that the powers surging through me are stolen from someone like Gabriel. Or Michael. But the rest isn’t new. Gabriel has hinted enough, hasn’t he? I saw the visions he shoved into my mind months ago. Different civilizations evolving to a certain level of consciousness, and once they arrive at the moment—this moment—this is what happens.

  “Ask yourself who murders their own kind and if you would call that creature good?” Michael presses on. “Or if you would call a human evil for carelessly crushing an insect colony. You think you understand all of this, that you see it clearly, but I assure you that you do not. Do you think creatures such as yourselves, as petty and oppressive and demented as you are—that you deserve access to the infinite?”

  “So you want to destroy the ant colony—us—before we…” I feel a question in there somewhere, but I can’t quite articulate it. I’m searching for clarity, but I’m also buying time until my limbs stop shaking. “And Gabriel wants to save it.”

  “Don’t make him the hero. He’s no Prometheus.” Michael clucks his tongue. “He betrayed his people. He stole from them. Everything he’s ever done has been for his selfish, misguided reasons. He’s very much like you in that regard. No wonder he puts all his faith in you.”

  I don’t even have a comeback for that.

  Could Michael be right? Could Gabriel be as horrible as I am? Because let’s be clear here. I’m no hero. If someone made a list of redeemable humans, I don’t even know if I’d make it in the first four or five bi
llion names—if I made the list at all.

  Every time someone stands by me, Brinkley, Gabriel, or Ally—I’m bewildered all over again.

  Michael smiles, his eyes burning like fire. “You will get her killed.”

  And I can hear the truth in his words.

  Chapter 13

  Ally

  Maisie and I stand in the rec room, our fingers combing shelves for other possible books to fall in love with. I got her up here because that cell of a room is too depressing. She needs light and high ceilings, and not to mention room to pace out her anxiety and grief. And in all reality, the smell of book pages and the feel of a well-worn cover under fingertips are better medicine for a broken heart than anything else I could offer her.

  She slides a book from the shelf and turns the spine in the light to read the engraved gold letters. “Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.”

  “That’s a good one,” I say.

  She opens the cover and turns a full page. She pauses to read, “The classic tale of romantic suspense.” She snaps the book closed and puts it back on the shelf. “Nope. I’m not really interested in romance or suspense at the moment. I’m a little tired of both.”

  I look at her over the rim of War and Peace. “When did the romance happen?” I can’t hide my surprise. As far as I know, Caldwell had her locked in a tower for a long time, and then she was with us. Unless she is in love with Gideon, and her crush was clear to everyone, she didn’t find love then. But there was that boy we found dead in the desert.

  She laughs bitterly.

  “I guess it isn’t really romance,” she says. “But I had a really good kiss.”

  “Really?” I say, unable to hide my curiosity.

  She smiles. “Sam was…he was…”

  Her eyes fill with tears and her lip trembles. And now I know exactly where this is going.

  “He shouldn’t have died. Why did Perry have to kill him?”

  She puts her head on the bookshelf and begins to cry.

  I close War and Peace and put it back on the shelf. “Some people are just cruel.”

  I place a hand on her back and rub gently as she catches her breath. I try to imagine what it must be like for her to lose so many people in such a short time. True, she couldn’t have known this boy, Sam, for more than a day, but he’d obviously made an impression.