by Anne Malcom
“I just found out. Wanted to tell you. Wanted to hear your voice. Been a long day without you, baby,” he murmured.
After two months, the reaction my body had to that voice had not changed. I reasoned after twenty it still wouldn’t.
“Well, okay. Me too. See you soon,” I said as the boy stopped in front of me, obviously wanting to talk.
“Yeah, babe.”
I hung up the phone, looking at the boy expectantly.
I hated strangers talking to me. I hated people I knew talking to me at the best of times. Unless I liked them.
I only liked a small amount of very lucky people.
“Are you Lucy Walker?” he asked, rifling through his messenger bag, looking like he was ready to get out of there.
I sighed, feeling his pain. The kid was most likely doing a hundred jobs and didn’t want to dillydally, but something in my mind clicked.
“Why?” I asked, frowning slightly at the mussed head. “Am I being served? Or sued? Because I swear I didn’t even see that cyclist and she said she was totally fine. It was just a bump, really.”
Ice-blue eyes met mine. Eyes that didn’t match the disheveled hair and wrinkled shirt and worn Nikes of a bike messenger. They were unnerving.
“No. You’re not getting served,” he said, his voice easy and boyish, yet another conflict with the eyes. “Are you or not, lady? Got places to be, and my boss will kill me if I don’t deliver this message.”
I shook off the feeling in my stomach that signaled something hinky, thinking maybe Keltan had me on edge and I was looking for demons everywhere. Even there, on the busy street, in broad daylight, where just an impatient, underpaid and undergroomed bike messenger stood.
I sighed. “Yes, I am.” I held out my hand for the paper I assumed he was rifling through that leather bag for, guessing he’d found it because the hand was stilled and now resting in there.
He grinned. And not the boyish grin from before that didn’t match his eyes. No, this one matched perfectly, as it was full of malice and not happiness.
I frowned against it, planning on stepping back slightly but not feeling hugely afraid because I was on the street outside my building in the middle of the day. Keltan was coming in a few minutes, if he wasn’t already striding down the sidewalk leaving slack-jawed females in his wake.
The sharp and intense pain in my torso demanded my attention away from Keltan and the slack jaws of the women who marveled at him. At first, I thought it was a nasty and unexpected cramp from the red devil. Then I realized that even that devil, my own body, couldn’t muster up such agony.
“Message delivered,” the boy rasped, grinning wider as his body pressed close to mine.
There was another brutal, white-hot lance of pain in my middle. I glanced between us, seeing his hand between our torsos, pulling out a long and pointed blade covered in red.
Blood, I thought vaguely. That’s my blood.
I watched it tumble from his hands, moving through the air in slow motion, almost as if it was underwater, and then clatter to the ground soundlessly.
Then I registered that nothing had sound. There was no more traffic or people or snatches of conversation. There was merely a dull beep that didn’t seem to originate anywhere but took over the sound waves.
I blinked as he walked quickly but purposefully towards the bike leaning against the stand and then rode off. His haste wasn’t even blinked at; there were enough assholes on bikes hurtling through the streets.
But not women bleeding from a knife wound. I reasoned there weren’t that many of them.
Yet I wasn’t even blinked at either.
I looked down. You couldn’t see the red blossoming around the wound through the black fabric, but it was dripping next to the fallen knife on the sidewalk like rose blossoms.
I didn’t seem to have purchase over my own body, even though logic told me to do something like scream, attract attention, ask for some kind of medical help.
Instead, I pressed my hand to the side of my body and somehow remained standing. I brought the hand back up to my face, turning it in the sunlight to look at the maroon liquid coating it.
“Snow?” a deep voice protruded through the ringing from behind me.
Putting my hand back on my midsection, I turned.
Keltan walked towards me, his face easy, gait unhurried yet purposeful.
That was until he saw me. Something on my face must’ve communicated alarm even when my mouth didn’t seem able.
Every ounce of easiness and happiness was stripped from his gaze and he went from a gentle stroll to a full-on sprint for the few feet that was left between us.
Lucky, really, because the second he reached me, I unceremoniously crumpled to the ground.
An icy tide washed over every part of my body that wasn’t in Keltan’s arms.
“Baby,” he murmured, pure fear saturating his tone, his eyes focusing on the spot where red liquid was leaking out of the gaps between my hands.
Though the sheer volume and speed might’ve fostered the word “gushing” more than leaking.
I thought it was bad. As was the lack of pain and the utter paleness and emptiness in Keltan’s eyes.
“Lucy,” he clipped urgently, gently pushing my hands out of the way to expose my wound for a split second before covering it with his large one.
Less liquid leaked through his hands, but they were still covered in less than an instant. The tanned skin quickly stained with blood too.
Keltan’s body was stone and yet it vibrated with chaos at the same time. There was no still there.
None.
Only fear.
Only the waters that beckoned me to drown once more.
That he was fighting off with bloodstained hands.
“Someone call a fuckin’ ambulance!” he roared at the gathering people on the street. Now that there was blood, a swooning woman and an attractive yet murderous man, it was interesting for L.A. dwellers jaded to most streetside dramas. My eyes followed the really jaded or really busy ones who spared my prone and bleeding form only a lingering glance before going about their day.
I didn’t blame them. I almost preferred them to the gaping crowd standing there, spectators to my death.
Was that what I was? Dying?
The stillness of my body that communicated yes, I might be in fact dying gave way to a quick shake. My eyes wandered back to chocolate brown ones.
“Snow, stay with me,” Keltan ordered brusquely, in a tone that somehow communicated I might have control over such an action. The desperation in them told me he wished he had that control. The mere catching of his words on the air gave me something to grasp on to. He clutched my neck with the hand that wasn’t putting pressure on my wound. “You hear that, Lucy? You watch my eyes and you hold the fuck on.”
I did watch his eyes. I wanted them to anchor me to the moment so I could stay in them forever.
“If your name’s on the bullet, there’s nothing you can do.”
The soft echo of his own words taunted me with the fact that even with him as an anchor, the universe could drag me away if fate so willed it.
Kismet.
It seemed very cruel to bring me to him just to take me away.
But I felt like I idly thought Laurie might have. If kismet designed the only way for me to breathe with Keltan would end with me drowning on the street, then I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I coughed in my effort to let words out. The sound was gargled and wet and I didn’t like it, not at all. “I…. You,” I started to say. “I’m not running anymore,” I choked out.
His grip tightened, both at my neck and the gaze which held me tighter than any hands could. “No, Snow. You’re never gonna run. I promise. You just gotta hold up your end, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“My end?” I repeated on a whisper, losing the battle with the ice that even Keltan’s furnace couldn’t chase back to the grave.
“Stayin’ with me. Still
. So I don’t have to run either,” he murmured. Pleaded. Prayed. “But you gotta run from this. Don’t let it catch you. Take you.”
Never in my life had I needed to be less still. Even the pain that had taken me by such surprise in its terribleness was a welcome movement. Welcome chaos.
But then, as soon as you welcome chaos, stillness reigns.
And that was when you were in trouble.
And not the good kind.
I woke up to blinding sunlight. But as I blinked I realized it wasn’t blinding. I was warm, not too hot but perfect. The heat circled my bare skin like a physical embrace. All I could see was blue, unwavering blue. A cloudless sky so beautiful all I wanted to do was dive into it.
I was on my back, lying on the grass. Not something I would do normally. Grass wasn’t comfortable to lie on. It itched, there were bugs and it stained clothes. Give me a stool at a cocktail bar anytime.
But this grass was like the sun. Warm, comforting, inviting. Made to circle me and make me safe.
I didn’t want to get up, but a flash of gold at the corner of my eye had me sitting up abruptly.
The loss of the comfort should have been jarring, but the air seemed to accommodate my movement, making it easy, lithe, unhurried.
Everything was effortless.
So I stood, without that pain that was now little more than a dream. Everything was little more than a dream. That whole other life.
As I straightened I saw her. How I didn’t see her all along was confusing; she was standing right in front of me, after all.
“Laurie?” I whispered.
She grinned big and wide, showing that smile even Julia Roberts would’ve been envious of. The smile that painted her pretty face exquisitely and did so often. Her golden curls were tumbling around her shoulders, shining like honey in that pleasing light. Her lineless and ageless face was exactly how I remembered it. Delicate features, eyes that had only seen happiness and love. A small frame, wrapped in a white sundress. Polly’s old white sundress. That dress made me sad for some reason. I couldn’t remember why.
“Hey, Lulu,” she said softly, her voice like bells.
That voice curled around me, so foreign yet familiar at the same time. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but they didn’t fall because this didn’t seem to be a place suitable for tears. It was too perfect.
Even one drop of tears would ruin it.
So, they didn’t come.
“Are you really here?” I whispered.
She nodded.
I watched her face. Remembered it.
“I miss you. So much.”
Her small hand reached out to squeeze mine. It was so real and so surface at the same time. I felt it against my own skin, but it also skimmed over me like a ghost.
“I’m here,” she whispered back. “I’ll always be here.”
I blinked. “Are you happy?”
I didn’t know why I asked that. It seemed stupid but I needed to know.
She squeezed again. “Of course. I was happy before. Always. Here I’m always like that too.”
It made sense. This was her cloudless day. It could be mine too. I knew that.
It was inviting me. Beckoning me.
“Do I have a choice?” I asked through the thickness at my throat, thinking of the people who were already becoming blurry, lost in the meadow that was so comforting.
But I held onto one. One I needed to breathe, even more than this crisp air that tasted like honeysuckle.
Laurie tilted her head. “I don’t know. Do you, Lulu?”
Her question settled in my stomach, in my throat. He was slipping like the rest of them. If I didn’t grasp that, I’d be lost. I knew that.
But then I’d have to leave Laurie. She’d be alone.
“I’m never alone,” she promised, seeming to hear the fear I didn’t voice. “Always with you.” She paused. “Grab on, Lulu,” she ordered softly.
I grabbed on, just before he floated away like the others.
“Love you,” I called as I was dragged away.
I was underwater. Drowning again. And this time it wasn’t comfortable, or warm. It was cold, unnatural. I gulped for air that I’d been breathing cleanly for the past three months.
I needed that air. I couldn’t be drowning any more.
Something squeezed my hand amidst the drowning, something that gave me hope for surface and clean air.
“Snow?” The voice was deep, urgent, saturated in concern, but also muffled, weirdly thick.
More voices joined, but it was like I was in a bathtub and they were all above me. I could only hear their murmurs; that one voice was the clearest.
His breath kissed my neck. “Baby, come back to me now. It’s time to breathe again.” The voice was a whisper and a yell at the same time
I used it like a rope to yank myself up to the surface. It was a fight, but I had to do it.
I didn’t know how long it took. For me, it felt like moments, but as I got closer, the voices receded and then they were gone.
Only one remained.
At first, the breaths were unnatural. Harsh. But then when I heard another rough exhale, a sigh, and a flexing of pressure on my hands, it was easier. Cleaner.
He was there. I wasn’t drowning.
My eyes unstuck and he came into view in stark color.
The lights were too bright, uncomfortable. The blankets scratched me and the heaviness at my stomach was uncomfortable to the point of pain.
I met chocolate eyes.
“Thank fuck, baby,” he breathed, his face etched in sorrow and relief. He leaned forward, pressing his lips to my head. Then my temple. Then my cheek. Then back so he could lift our entwined hands and kiss mine.
The harsh blankets and bright lights and pain didn’t matter. Because I was breathing.
And this was better than a half-remembered meadow and the memory of honeysuckle that didn’t seem right.
“I’m alive, right?” I rasped, needing to make sure.
He visibly flinched. “Yeah, babe. You’re fuckin’ alive. Kismet, remember? This shit is already decided for us. You weren’t getting taken away. The universe promised forever.”
Shadows danced under his eyes, demons and chaos dancing within them.
I inwardly flinched at the reality of what happened. My inquiring mind needed to know the specifics, how I got here, who did this, but I sensed that would be too much chaos for the moment. We needed a pocket of stillness. The world could wait.
I blinked. “Forever. Well, we can’t let down the universe.”
He smiled. It was tight and full of residual agony, but it was there. “No, we couldn’t. Which means we’re getting married, obviously.”
I smiled at him. “Obviously.”
His eyes flickered with a lot. Mostly surprise. “You’re not fighting me on it?”
“No, I’m done fighting. How about just breathing?”
“Yeah, baby, breathing sounds good. As long as you’re my wife as soon as you’re out of this bed. Or before, if you’re up for it?”
His eyes glinted with challenge.
I looked down at the polyester—what the hell!—hospital gown I was wearing. No way in hell was I wearing polyester to my own wedding. Or be having it in a hospital bed. In a room that smelled of bleach and faintly of death. Then I realized the latter was my own. And then I realized that all that stuff didn’t matter. It was only breathing that did.
So I met those swirling chocolate eyes with a smile in my heart, despite the pain in my midsection.
“I’m up for anything if it’s with you.”
We got married in the hospital. The next day. The doctors advised against any… excitement afterwards, considering my knife wound caused serious internal bleeding and my heart stopped on the table. Twice.
Keltan had been there when they informed me of this.
And I had to squeeze his hand to yank him back to the surface that time.
So, we didn’t get to fully co
nsummate the marriage until two weeks after the actual wedding.
But it was worth the wait.
Well worth it.
Heath was best man. Though I knew that there were ghosts in Keltan’s eyes thinking of the man that should have been there if the universe hadn’t decided to snatch him away.
But he was there, in a way.
So was the friend the universe had snatched from me.
Rosie was maid of honor.
She’d rushed to my bedside pretty much the second after I’d uttered my response to the proposal.
I’d heard later that she’d got my message, after finally checking her voice mail—two months late, and had been on her way to L.A. when I was stabbed.
“I don’t care what kind of sweet nothings you’re murmuring. This is my best friend, who almost died. I’m getting my own sweet nothings,” she demanded, her voice louder than a yell.
One could almost call it a screech.
Her heels echoed as she stomped to my beside and stopped.
She looked different. Her outfit wasn’t a surprise—an oversized beige tee that draped off her shoulder and cut way high on her thighs. Her chocolate hair had been chopped harshly so it only brushed her shoulders.
She worked it. Definitely.
But there was something there that hadn’t been before. Or maybe something gone that had been.
Either way, it hurt to look at her for a second, see the pain before she cloaked it.
“Bitch, I go away for a hot minute and you get stabbed,” she exclaimed, her voice shaking. As was her hand as she rounded the other side of the bed and grasped the hand not possessed by Keltan.
“Hot minute? Try almost a year,” I accused.
She blinked. “I needed a hiatus.”
“From what?”
“Life,” she replied simply. “Death.”
I gave her a look. “Looks like death brought you back.” I glanced to the monitor showing my heartbeat. “Or almost death.”
Her eyes swam with tears. “No way would you die and leave me in this world without you. I’d kill you if you did that,” she whispered. Demons, not quite the same as Keltan’s but at least cousins, danced in her tone.
