Beautifully Ruined

by Nessa Morgan

  But what the hell, right?

  “Sure,” I answer before slamming the door—happily, in his face as I hoped. He laughs at me while he backs down the driveway. Soon, I’m just standing in my driveway wondering what I just agreed to. Milo is a bit strange, a bit different, but I don’t see him being scary, I don’t see him turning into Ryder and that’s the only reason I don’t track down his phone number and tell him I changed my mind.

  I think Milo only has the purest of intentions, that’s what my gut’s telling me and I have learned to listen to my gut throughout the years.

  I turn around, fully prepared to head into my house, when my eyes land on the window of the neighboring house. Familiar brown eyes peek at me before the blinds fall shut, separating me from the chocolate gaze I miss so much.

  My breathing falters before I head into my house, hoping I can get through the rest of the day without wondering what he’s thinking. It helps that I have pie waiting. Sweet, delicious pie to mask my pain and regret, even for only a little while.

  five

  Hilary pats my head tenderly before sitting down, smiling to me from across the dining table, her plate filled with food, the space in front of me filled with books and my Dell laptop—Microsoft Word open. I wasn’t hungry—I haven’t been for a while—but my aunt asked for company as she ate her dinner. I only had a light amount of homework, which didn’t need my full attention, so I brought all my work downstairs and set up camp as she made her way through some delicious macaroni and cheese.

  “How was your day at school?” she asks before shoveling a decent amount of food in her mouth as hungrily and daintily as she can.

  “It was the normal situation.” Classes, pining, crying, staring, fighting, homework, there’s nothing unusual when you’re Joey Archembault. “How was work? Any kick-ass surgeries?” I waggle my eyebrows, eager to listen—in desperate need of Grey’s Anatomy to return from mid-season break.

  “Definitely.” My aunt grins, happily and excitedly. “Caught a brain tumor just in time for a lovely patient, I say I did pretty well today.” Hilary loves to brag—I love to listen, her smile beaming bright white as she looks to me.

  “Well, that’s awesome, Aunt Hil.” I gush, smiling before continuing my American Sign Language assignment, a paper on the history of Gallaudet University. I’m nearly done by the time Hilary clears her plate of macaroni and cheese and stands up from the table. I’m hitting save and sending it to my wireless printer when she kisses me on the forehead, smoothing back my hair from my face, wishing me a good rest of my night and a good night’s sleep. It’s printed and in my binder by the time I’m in my favorite fuzzy pink sleep shirts, large t-shirt, and just crawling into bed with a book.

  I forego Catch-22 for a book from my shelf. A lovely young adult novel about a girl and her new neighbor that happens to be an alien. But I’m getting really into the story, craving every word before I fall asleep. My eyes grow heavy as thoughts of a sexy neighbor of my own drift through my mind and I’m out like a light, wandering through dreamland before I can make my thoughts stop.

  But it’s not Zephyr I see.

  The world swirls around me in bright hues of pinks and purples, vibrant yellows and oranges, tugging me from place to place, through memory to memory, and I don’t recognize the field of flowers within I land. It’s empty and the wind slowly blows the tiny flowers back and forth. Like a slow wave, they move and shift together, swaying lazily with the breeze. I reach down to swipe my hand through the flowers expecting the silk of the petals to glide against the palm of my hand, wishing to feel the petals against my skin, but my hand glides through them as if they were nothing.

  They are nothing.

  “It’s pretty, isn’t it?” the light, airy female voice asks from behind me, startling me. I jump, turning around to face the voice, the skirt of my summer dress swinging and swishing around my bare legs. Behind me stands a girl my height with pencil straight dark hair plaited in a thick braid over her left shoulder, little tendrils of dark hair framing her face and blow in the wind I feel pushing against me. She’s wearing a blue sundress, similar to the white one I’m wearing, covered in a tiny floral design you need to be close to discern. Her brown eyes glisten in the bright sunlight, twinkling like stars when she turns her hard gaze to me.

  I should answer her—this girl I don’t know but recognize—that would be the easy thing to do. I’ve seen her somewhere, somewhere that doesn’t come to mind but her face is so obvious, so clear in my head.

  “It is,” I say lamely, letting my arms fall straight down my sides, limp and dangling.

  She briefly looks to me, crossing her arms along her chest, hiding what genetics gave her. The girl lucked out from what I can tell.

  Quickly, she laughs, dropping her arms. “Don’t look so scared,” she says. “It’s only me.” Who is me? She swings her thin, tanned arms around her as she takes a soundless step forward. “I like to come here to think from time to time,” she whispers with a small smile tugging her lips apart. Where is here? “Think of it like my happy place.”

  I look around and only see wide, open space—not a building, not another thing for miles. The air is filled with a light floral scent, the sky is cloudless and bright but there is no sun hovering above, just a bright blue empty sky. There are no trees surrounding us and we are completely alone. It’s just her and me.

  But who is she?

  She looks familiar, as if I’ve seen her somewhere.

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” she starts quietly, walking past me. “But you just, I don’t know, never come here.” I tilt my head, unable to follow her trail as she moves. “Although, you do have every capability of doing so.”

  I want to tell her, I don’t even know where here is, but the words die on my lips.

  I turn to face her. Instead, I blurt, quite gracefully I might add, “Who are you?” before I can rethink. The outburst doesn’t surprise her as it does me. She turns to me with a small, knowing smile blooming.

  “You mean to tell me that you don’t recognize your own sister?”

  I step back.

  Ivy?

  “That’s me.” She giggles as if she heard me. “And you should—this is your dream,” she continues, turning away to look around us. “Think of this as a little…” she trails off, thinking before saying, “family bonding.”

  “But you were ten,” I stammer out nervously. “Only ten years old.”

  She turns to face me. “And this is how I would look if I turned nineteen.” She has a point. I wouldn’t know what she’d look like today. If she lived. “At least in your mind. I think I’d prefer my hair to be a little bit shorter in the real world. Maybe a little curlier.” Ivy tugs on the end of her braid. “You know, if I lived and were—”

  “Why am I here?” I blurt. She doesn’t seem surprised by the interruption; she also doesn’t answer my question. Ivy turns away from me and takes another step away, further into the flower-filled field, putting more distance between us. A few minutes go by, minutes that feel like hours, before I demand, “Are you going to answer me?”

  I can’t understand the hostility I have. This is only a dream, a dream that will disappear when I wake up. I won’t remember any of this in the morning. But anger is all I have.

  “That isn’t something I can answer.” Ivy doesn’t face me when she speaks so I stare at her back, her bare back, tanned from the sun and covered in scars and bruises, ones that weren’t there a moment ago. Even in my mind, a dream, I can’t hide that night from my memory.

  “What happened to you?” I ask, stepping closer, my hand outstretched to touch the flaws of her flesh. My hand falls between us before it connects with her skin. I don’t know what I’ll feel if I try to touch her. Maybe she’s not real—of course she’s not real, Joey, this is a dream—but more than that, what if when I try to touch her, my hand goes right through her like the flowers?

  I can’t have that happen.

  I want to touc
h my sister. She’s standing in front of me, that should mean I can touch her.

  But this is a dream. Only a dream.

  She turns her head to the side—she can barely look at me, barely see me. “You should know, Joey.” With that, she disappears, fading right before my eyes leaving me alone in an empty field surrounded by air and flowers.

  I should have touched her, felt her sun-kissed skin, when I had the chance. Now she’s gone.

  Tears trickle down my cheeks, falling to the front of my white dress. She was here—Ivy was here. She was talking to me. And she just left.

  She just left me.

  It’s breaking my heart, standing in this field—the last few moments replaying.

  Startled, I feel the sensation of air move over my shoulder, lightly rubbing back and forth along my skin. But it isn’t air.

  “Don’t be sad,” a deep, male voice tells me, distracting me from what I saw.

  I turn around.

  Suddenly, I feel safe wherever I am.

  Next to me, another familiar face I haven’t seen before. But I know who it is I’m looking at.

  “Noah?” I ask, a smile pulling at my frown.

  He nods.

  “Where am I?” I ask, hoping for an answer that makes some amount of logical sense, hoping for a better explanation than Ivy’s.

  “You should know the answer to that,” he tells me, dropping his hand. I barely felt it. “I can’t tell you anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because even I don’t know.” That isn’t exactly what I wanted to hear from him, but I can’t complain. Not loudly, anyway. “But I’m here with you.” His hand reaches, cupping my cheek. I lean into his touch, feeling his skin, feeling him. It’s like he’s real—he’s real right now. Noah pulls his hand away, and the cool air presses against my cheek, reminding me instantly of the loss of the recent and the past.

  “I don’t remember you being this nice to me when we were kids,” I confess, remembering all the times he pulled my hair and hid my favorite toys. Every inch the big brother I despised as a little girl but still loved until no end.

  “Well, you have to admit that you’re embellishing this quite a bit, Joey.” He rolls up the sleeves to his shirt, scrunching them to his elbows. “This is your dream.”

  My dream? Does that mean anything can happen and I’ll be the one controlling it? That whole the world is your oyster bullshit comes to mind. The type of stuff they drill into your mind in school. But I try. I try to make it rain because that’s the only way I’ll believe him. I close my eyes tightly, breathing slowly, hoping to feel that first drop. That first drop of water hitting the center my forehead, but nothing happens. I try harder to make it rain—will it, wish it—do everything I can, but still nothing.

  “It won’t work,” he tells me, eyeing me suspiciously.

  I shrug it off.

  “Then why now?” I ask no one in particular, I’m just thinking out loud—listening to myself talk and complaining. Because I’ve had plenty of years, plenty of opportunities, to have these dreams. So many times before, Noah or Ivy could’ve stepped into my dreams and been as equally cryptic as ever. But why now? Why do this to me now? “Why see you both now and here?” Wherever here is.

  “Because you’re going through a tough time. What they call a rough patch.” Noah tucks his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “If we can’t be there for you in the real world, why not in your dreams, you know?”

  No. I don’t know.

  “Maybe we should be a bit honest here, huh, Noah?” The voice behind me surprises me. I turn. Ivy is standing behind me, her hands folded in front of her. “This isn’t exactly a dream.”

  I look back to Noah. His eyes narrow as he stares at Ivy.

  “Then what is it?” I finally demand. I want answers and this little back and forth between them is not giving me any. “What is it?”

  “That,” Noah starts, stepping toward me, “well, we can’t tell you, little sister.” His eyes lock on Ivy behind me. I turn, spotting her glare, arms folded along her chest. There’s a bite to his smooth voice. There’s a bit of aggression that wasn’t there a moment ago. It’s reminding me of the little boy who used to pull my hair, pelt me with hot wheels cars and place single Lego pieces around my room for me to step on.

  “I feel like we should,” Ivy argues, stepping toward us. “She’s our sister, and—”

  “We can’t, Ivy. You know that,” Noah says. “They’ll take us back instantly. She needs us here. Joey needs us here right now.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t help her while she’s here, Noah. We still have the chance.” Ivy drops her arms, placing her hands on her hips—a stance of defiance as she stares at her younger brother.

  “That’s exactly what it means,” he argues. “For her, this is a dream.”

  “This is a dream,” I state matter-of-factly, a little uncertain now. “Right?”

  “Right,” Noah answers while Ivy says, “Wrong.”

  That isn’t confusing at all.

  Noah stalks over to our sister. “You can’t tell her anything,” he says, leaning closer.

  “I know that,” she snaps, turning away until she stares off into nothing, her brown eyes vacant. “But I want to try, she’s our sister.”

  Noah crosses the distance separating them and grabs her arm, tugging her closer to him so he can whisper. It doesn’t work as well as he hopes, I can still hear everything they’re saying.

  “She’ll always be our sister,” Noah starts, his thumbs smoothing over the skin of her arm. “We’ll always love her and want to help and protect her, but we can’t. We can’t tell her what’s in her future, you know that.”

  None of that makes any sense.

  “What’s in my future?” I blurt out curiously.

  Their heads snap in my direction, almost as if they forgot I was here, standing no more than five feet away from them.

  “You shouldn’t have heard that,” Noah says.

  “But what do you mean?” I beg, walking up to them. “About my future?”

  “I can’t tell you, Joey.” A tear rolls down Ivy’s cheek as she stares at me, sadness in her eyes. “Remember how much we love you.”

  “Is this real?” I ask, holding my hands out to my sides to feel the wind blow and graze my skin. Suddenly, I can feel the grass beneath my bare feet. I can feel the blades brush against my bare legs, the petals graze against my skin. What wasn’t real before is real now and it surrounds me endlessly.

  Noah stares at Ivy whose mouth drops open, as if to say something, but quickly closes. The brother and sister share a look between them before turning their twin eyes back to me.

  “We’ll see you again, Joey,” Ivy tells me as a promise, slowly fading from sight.

  “We promise you, little sister.” Noah fades from sight just as slowly, leaving me standing alone in the field.

  The wind rustles the grass and flowers around me, swaying the blades and petals against my legs, tickling my senses.

  I am alone. I am alone in a place I don’t know.

    

  By the time I wake and my body emerges from its sleepy abyss, I’m shaking. My body won’t stop. It’s as if a cold breeze swept through the room, leaving a trail in trembling limbs, but my window’s closed and locked—has been for weeks now—protecting me from anything and everything on the other side of the glass or the other side of the alley.

  The nights of leaving my window open are done and gone.

  But I need to check.

  I won’t know until I check.

  Sometimes, I rub salt in my own wounds.

  I fling back the covers from my legs and walk to the window, yanking on the cord to wrench the venetian blinds up. The screeching sound floats through the early morning air. It’s somewhat similar to the sound of nails dragging down a chalkboard. At least, that is what I think at two in the morning.

  As expected, the window is closed tight and locked.

>   I brace against it with my hands, feeling the bite of chill against my skin. It comforts me. Fully waking me.

  I’m alert, pressing my forehead against the glass. Being near the window helps me breathe.

  I take a breath. The deeper the better.

  The light across the alley catches my attention and I find myself staring through his window, watching his movement—a movement that’s become so familiar to me through the years, I could map it in my sleep. His hand glides through the air as his bitten lip pops away from his teeth. His dark hair tied back, away from his eyes so he can focus all of his attention on the world he’s creating.

  There’s nothing on this planet more beautiful than Zephyr painting. There’s nothing more important than him in his element. He’s so at home, so peaceful, I want to paint him, I want to capture the moment forever. A simple picture on my phone wouldn’t do him justice, wouldn’t capture this moment as I see it. It’d need something more.

  I bet he wouldn’t even notice me in the window—like a lovely creeper. What the hell am I saying? I know he doesn’t. Zephyr’s right in the zone; he’s in his own world where there’s nothing but paint, him, and his idea.

  What is he painting? The words drift through my mind without my permission. A present thought whenever I see him like this. If only I could see it, just take a quick peek…

  But I no longer have the privilege or luxury. It isn’t my right.

  I lower the blinds before lowering my head and sulking back to my bed, crawling beneath the still-warm sheets and hoping sleep claims me quick, but I’m still wide awake by the time my alarm goes off.

  Awake and alert. I’m even aware that the boy next door is still awake.

  six

  I didn’t realize until this morning I never told Milo what time to arrive to take me to school. Not my brightest moment. I did remember to text Kennie to tell her I had a ride today but completely spaced on telling the new ride—my new chauffeur—when I was ready.