Lover of the Light

by Sydney Taylor

  "Can we go somewhere and talk?"

  I stare at the girl who gave me a beginning, and I begin to wonder if all of this is just some ephemeral dream.

  I think I know.

  I'm pretty sure that I know.

  It's written all over her.

  It's in the way her sigh trembles, and she doesn't want to look at me. It's how she asks me if we can talk instead of just telling me what's going on. It's the soft drop of her lips which seldom hold any frowns, and how inconsolable this moment truly seems. The sobriety in her words steals her eloquence in a way that lets me know what's happening before she even has a chance to tell me.

  Of course, I know.

  Maybe my greatest memory is also my greatest mistake.

  "Okay." I swallow down the thickest lump forming in my throat. "Yeah."

  So, I go to her.

  Chapter 14

  May 11th, 2012

  11:00 p.m.

  We're laying in my backyard.

  My greatest mistake is looking up at the stars with one hand brushing through the grass and the other stroking over the slip of exposed skin below her shirt. I can see the shine of her tears as they fall from the corner of her eyes, slide down her temple and disappear into her hair.

  There's a bitterness in my stomach that stings my tongue. I don't know where it comes from, just that it debilitates me. There's a stillness in the air which ensues a dull panic subdued by Audrey's impassiveness, and maybe that's the only thing holding me to the earth right now.

  My jaw begins to ache from the building pressure between my clenched teeth, and I can feel the sourness of suppressed tears spreading to my cheeks. Looking up at rare cloudless night sky and feeling soft winds brush against the hairs on my arm, I unlock my jaw and breathe through my mouth.

  With a four-leaf clover pinched between her thumb and forefinger and her left-hand stroking over the place where life grows, Audrey turns her head enough to look at me and blows a sigh through her lips.

  "My mom doesn't want me to, but she told me it's my choice...it doesn't hurt. It's only a few minutes, and then that's it. It's over."

  I don't dare try to move or speak. This hurts too much.

  Audrey has always been on birth control. That night we met, she had taken two missed days' worth: one for the move here from Chicago, and one for that Friday. After taking a shot of Jaeger, Audrey lost Thursday, Friday, and Saturday down the toilet without her knowledge.

  And then we made a life.

  "Just like that," Audrey says. Who she thinks she's talking to, I have not one fucking clue. This girl looks as confused and fucked up as I do.

  I don't comment, because I don't have the slightest idea what to say.

  Don't have my abortion?

  I don't think so.

  It doesn't matter what I say, this much I'm sure of... There's nothing I can take back or save, nothing I can say at this moment to take back what's happening.

  This is irreversible.

  This doesn't make any sense, and it makes total sense.

  There's nothing I single-handedly can do about this because this is the ultimate mother of screw-ups. I didn't choose to get myself into this, and I don't get to choose a way out.

  She holds the reins for this decision, and I think she makes it worse for herself every time she touches her stomach. She doesn't even realize she's doing it.

  This is a life that we made. Brightside and me.

  So why does this feel so far from a new beginning?

  I know.

  "Yeah." My voice cracks, dry and sour.

  Of course, I know.

  "I'm sorry," she says.

  We're two kids who're crazy and unfit. Brightside can't have a baby. She's too young. She's too dependent and immature. She doesn't know the first thing about the life inside her, and neither do I.

  "I'm so sorry."

  She's doing this because it's the right thing to do.

  I nod, looking up at the stars and trying to spot constellations over blurring images.

  "Yeah. Me too."

  So why does this feel so fucking wrong?

  "Blake."

  Life is harsh.

  "It was my mistake."

  Bliss isn't endless, light doesn't always have a way of shining in, and even beginnings must come to an end. She doesn't have to tell me, I know. I can feel it.

  "Blake." Her voice is pretty, soft, and just as inviting as it was the first time I heard it. Only now, I don't want to look up.

  This doesn't have some happily ever after, we're sixteen.

  I crane my neck and find the four-leaf clover she was twirling around her fingers moments ago, now perched on my shoulder. My eyes struggle to meet hers.

  For the first time since we met, I don’t want to look at her.

  Maybe she knows this, because she holds me closer than ever. Tangling her fingers in my hair, I can feel her sadness against her trembling lips and wet cheeks. I pull her to me harder, wishing I could make her fear and sadness go away.

  “Kiss me,” she demands.

  I comply, because there isn’t much else I feel I have to do. She's taking from touches all that she can and giving kisses all she must give, allowing me no time to respond and no space to reciprocate. I can't move, because she's trying to lose herself in me when I'm already lost so deep in my head.

  There is no right option; they're all so damn wrong.

  "Please." She reaches for the hem of her shirt and pulls it off.

  Her bra is purple, with two black bows on it. I don't say anything this time.

  And we wouldn’t be in this situation if we hadn’t done this in the first place, and while I could laugh or cry, I’m numb to this. I’m afraid.

  I don't say much at all. Not when she takes her shorts off and slips her hand over mine. Not when I feel her tears sliding down my throat when she presses kisses along my collarbone. Not even when she says she's sorry again, and I can't respond because this hurts too much and feels too good for words.

  I let her move over me as I place my hands in her hair and I try to get out of my own head.

  I'm not here, in the moment. But neither is she.

  Our bodies respond naturally to each other's touch, but our minds are elsewhere at this moment.

  Nothing about this is patient, but I really don't see the value in trying.

  Audrey doesn't either.

  We don't take our time, and we don't merely take as much from each other as we did the first time we made this mistake.

  She lowers herself on me, and we both make involuntary sounds and movements.

  It's hard.

  Dirty, because we're lying in the grass.

  It's crazy, the worst and best thing.

  It's desperate and fast, disgraceful and disgusting.

  I keep thinking about new life.

  I keep thinking about mistakes, and not knowing any other way out of this.

  "Blake." My name is a desperate cry on her lips.

  Audrey's moan pulls me back.

  For a second, I push it all out of my head. I don't think about life and new beginnings, mistakes and helplessness, or patience. There's a moment of blank space, an undisturbed void that allows me to just feel.

  It's not merely enough, but it's just the slip of concentration I need to let go.

  Audrey's head falls against my chest and I pay attention to the rise and fall of her back as she breathes unevenly against me.

  I finally look at her face, and it's just how I imagined. Tear-stained cheeks, lifeless eyes, lips parted and pouted in irremediable confusion.

  And I've never felt so fucking useless.

  So, I put her clothes back on and I kiss her cheeks. I take her hand and I lead her back into my room. Audrey puts a Grouplove CD in and we listen to a happy song that isn't happy. We crawl into my bed and I pick grass and clovers out of her hair, and she stops crying long enough to fall asleep. Her phone stays silent, and so do I.

  I want to scream.

/>   What the hell do I do now?

  Audrey acts like this is simple. Girls have abortions all the time.

  So why does this feel like an end?

  Chapter 15

  May 12th, 2012

  9:00 a.m.

  My eyes strain against intrusive sunlight as it stretches across my bedroom. Brushing along the eggshell white surfaces of my bedroom walls, against the navy blue colored carpet until it blankets over my body, suffocating me with yellow-lighted warmth. I shut my eyes and bring my arm up to cover my face.

  I don't need to turn my head to know the girl who cried herself to sleep last night is no longer in my bed.

  Rage swells up to my chest, and I find myself having to take carefully calculated breaths to keep myself from holding all the oxygen in my lungs.

  Following the phosphenes behind my eyes and hearing the muffled sound of Chase's fan from the next room, I focus on my breathing and tell myself that I don't have a reason to be angry.

  Inhale.

  It was her mistake.

  Exhale.

  But it wasn't.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  Inhale.

  I don't know why she left this time, but it's eating away at me. The knots twisting inside my gut tell me to go find her, but what if she doesn't want that?

  Exhale...

  What if she wants me to stay away from her? Like all of this isn't hard enough as it is, she must see me and know she's getting rid of our baby.

  Inhale...

  But what if she changed her mind, and she didn't want me to know? What if she pulled a classic Brightside move and left to play the martyr?

  Exhale...

  What if she's only doing this because she thinks it's what I want?

  Inhale… Inhale… Inhale...

  My thoughts go on like this for the next fifteen minutes; a vicious cycle of presumptive, panic-inducing, prematurely disconsolate questions that leave me forgetting how to breathe.

  I think about all the things that I should have said but didn't.

  I take my hands through my hair and try to replay last night's events.

  "Just like that."

  My stomach churns, vomit bubbles in my throat.

  No. It isn't just like that.

  There must be more than this.

  I jump up and find my sneakers under the bed. I shove my feet into the already-tied thirty-dollar Walmart shoes as I look for a shirt to put on. I grab my keys from the dresser, which now only consist of two; one for the house and one for the sun-spotted death machine.

  I leave my bedroom door open as I head toward the front of the house in long strides, not able to get to the front door fast enough. I pass the embarrassing cuckoo clocks and childhood photos that Audrey loves so much, past the living room where my mom always sleeps on the couch with the TV on mute, and I don't stop walking until I step out of the house and the blinding sun showers over me.

  It's Saturday, prom is tonight.

  I'm going to find her.

  I must do something.

  I don't know what, but I must do something more than this.

  I reach the station wagon and my eyes zero in on a car up ahead. It's a tan Impala with the left mirror hanging off the side and the driver's window rolled down. The boy inside has his arm hanging out the window with a cigarette dangling from his hand.

  He sees me, and I see him sitting up in anticipation as he puts his addiction back to his mouth before he flicks it out the window.

  This is Brightside's brother, and he's undoubtedly here to kick my ass.

  I stand still as Benjamin swivels his car to do shitty park job over my front lawn, and the driver's door flies open. With my feet still glued to the ground and my defenses shut down, I watch curiously as a head of dirty blonde curls emerges from the vehicle.

  With Chicago-overpriced sunglasses shielding his eyes and a piece of gum protruding from his toothy unreadable grin, Benjamin takes off into a jog toward me and doesn't stop until he shoves me against the door of my car.

  "You knocked up my sister?" I crane my neck toward him, only to see a tightly clenched white-knuckled fist flying toward me until it knocks into the side of my face.

  "You did, didn't you?" He tightens his hands around my tee shirt and uses it to pull me away from the car before slamming me back into it.

  I plant my palms flat against the car behind me to steady myself.

  He pulls back for another punch, and I spot my brother running up behind him. "Whoa, whoa!" Chase holds his hands in the air, and Benjamin drops another punch on my left shoulder.

  I straighten out as my brother tackles him to the ground. Chase locks Benjamin in a straddle, getting ready to attack. Benjamin attempts to shove Chase away from him, but my brother is 215 pounds of muscle and he's not going anywhere.

  My brother is fighting my battles for me.

  "Chase." I step forward and catch him by the forearm before he can punch Benjamin in the face. "Stop."

  "Get off me, Shrek!" Benjamin crawls backward, freeing himself from probable impending-death.

  "Touch him again, I dare you." The threat looms in the air as Chase falls back on his elbows in the grass, looking between Benjamin and me. "What the hell is going on here?"

  "He knocked up my sister." Benjamin reaches over the grass to pick up his sunglasses. His Ray-Bans are broken. "And now she's on a train to Chicago, probably scraping change for a fucking bottle of water."

  "What?!" I shout.

  "He did what?" Chase asks.

  "Yeah." Benjamin nods, jumping to his feet. "She took the abortion money that you"—he points to me—"gave her, and she bought a train ticket to Chicago."

  I furrow my brows at him. "I didn't―"

  "You gave Audrey money to have an abortion?" I squeeze my eyes shut at the orotund voice behind me.

  "No, I didn't." I shake my head and open my eyes to look at Hailee. She looks crestfallen, disappointed.

  Her features soften, and she nods. She walks over and wraps her arms around me, pressing her cheek to my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Blake," she whispers. "You're not alone."

  Audrey is.

  "Well, I have no clue how she got the ticket then." Benjamin shrugs as Hailee pulls away. "That's what Lainey told me happened, and―"

  I suck a breath through my teeth.

  Fucking Lainey.

  "Lainey," Hailee says.

  "Lainey," I say through clenched teeth.

  "Lainey." Benjamin purses his lips, looking to me apologetically.

  Audrey got the money from Lainey, her sketchy cousin who lets her go home with whoever-the-fuck at three in the morning in a town she's never been to before.

  "Who the hell is Lainey?" Chase asks.

  "Our cousin," Benjamin answers, eyeing me warily. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to―"

  I raise a hand to cut him off. "What do you mean, she's going Chicago? Who's in Chicago?"

  "When I couldn't get ahold of her, I called Lainey, and she said Audrey caught a train, got the money from you... Like my parents were just going to be cool with this. They were cool with her not answering her phone all night because she was with you, but this―"

  "She didn't get any calls," I protest, because I know Audrey didn't pull her phone out all night.

  I think about her taking her shorts off in the grass, and I wonder if she dropped it.

  "Who's in Chicago?" I repeat.

  "My girlfriend," Benjamin tells me, nodding. "She's going to see my girlfriend, Hannah."

  Chapter 16

  May 12th, 2012

  2:08 p.m.

  Panicking.

  It's something I'm good at.

  It's maybe the only thing I'm good at.

  She gives me the worst anxiety. She drives me crazy because she's crazy. Unpredictable and overwhelming. Irrational and underestimated. Facetious and mischievous. One second, she's an open book, and the next she's sealed shut.

  But I need Audrey like I need air, sun, and music.
/>
  The face-bruiser is driving down I-90 East with a freshly lit cigarette dangling from his lips and a taped-fixed pair of Ray-Bans over his eyes. He hums and drums his fingers over the steering wheel to the beat of a Braden Flowers song on the radio about having soul when you're not a soldier.

  This is Audrey’s brother, and he's getting on my last nerve.

  But I kind of like him.

  He's helping me get my girl.

  He lied to my mother. He told her we were “roughing around” when he bruised my face. He told her that I was spending the weekend with him after prom, and that I would probably be back by Monday, so that she wouldn't freak out when I'm not home on Sunday night.

  I probably won't be home by Monday. Probably not even Tuesday, but Benjamin and his trusting sanguine smiles were enough for her to not give a fuck what I do this weekend. She’s just as trusting with the Sawyers as I am.

  "You and my sister, dude." Benjamin flicks his cigarette out the window. Highway wind sends white and black ash fluttering through the car until they settle on my shoulders and stick to my shirt. "You're like the quietest motherfucker I've ever met, and I can't get Audrey to shut up. How does that happen?"

  I suck at the inside of my cheek and wince at the taste of rusty, salty blood from my cut opening back up.

  I don't know what to say.

  I don't know how it happened.

  I heard a voice, saw a face, caused a smile, and I fell in love. Words didn't have much to do with it. It just happened.

  "You need to smile some, kid," he tells me, rolling down the window some more. "Speak a little. Live a little. I know life is hard and you're in a rut, but it's not the end of the world. You have lungs, use them. Talk to me."

  I push my hair away from my face, sighing through my nose.

  Yeah, I still need a haircut.

  "I know," I tell him, and I mean it.

  My dad once told me that words are fragile, especially when you're not sure what you mean to say. He said that sometimes actions are more powerful.

  When Audrey told me she was pregnant, I kind of just stood there and stared at my feet. Actions seemed meaningless. I couldn't bring myself to do anything powerful. So, I hugged her, and I hoped that was enough.