Inspire

by Cora Carmack

  Inevitable. Immeasurable. Unforgettable.

  But born in a moment so small.

  The music picks up speed, and I swear I can feel every pluck of the string like a whip against my skin. I flush cold and then hot, and my insides feel like they’re being wrung out, twisted and pulled inside by some imaginary grip.

  “It’s been nearly a year since he’s played,” his mother whispers to me. “He had a band and everything. I told him he didn’t have to give it up for us, but he wouldn’t listen. He was working so hard to care for Gwen and me. I only wanted him off the road. I didn’t want him to give up music completely.”

  I lose all my words when I’m with you

  It might frighten you baby, if you knew

  How you own my heart, have from the very start

  And it’s yours til time is through

  Is this how it feels to fall?

  Not so complicated after all.

  I expected a tempest. Relentless. Maybe even senseless.

  Is this how it feels to fall?

  Inevitable. Immeasurable. Unforgettable.

  But still so small.

  “It’s you,” his mother continues, unaware that I’ve forgotten how to breathe, how to speak, how to do anything but stand here and listen to my heart break between gentle thrums. “He’s been so different since his father’s arrest. He was here and supportive and wonderful, but there was always something a little hollow in him. I thought it was the music. But he’s been different since you came along. I’ve never seen him as happy as he is with you. He’s become stronger and more vibrant these past few weeks, like you’ve opened his eyes to a whole new world, and he’s finally learning to move on. He loves you.” Her hand touches my shoulder and slides over my back as she pulls me into a hug. “Both my children love you.”

  I should be rejoicing at her worlds, at her acceptance of me (especially considering how we first met), but the weight of the moment slams into me, pressing down on my shoulders. Everything about my time with Wilder that lifted me up—the love, the joy, the hope—those things turn to stone. And I want to them to crush me, want to die beneath them because I don’t know how to live with this.

  His mom is still talking. Her mouth is moving, and so is Wilder’s, and I want to hit pause. I want to stop and rewind. I want to never know this about him. I want to never … gods, I want—I want—

  I want everything to stop.

  “I’m going to be sick.”

  I don’t know how I move, but I do. It feels like I should have to learn how to walk all over again. Like my body should be as crippled as I feel. I don’t understand how gravity still exists, and the sun is still in the sky, or how my heart is still beating.

  How is my heart still beating?

  I throw open the bathroom door and dive to my knees moments before my stomach convulses. Everything is stripped out of me then. Not just from my stomach, but from all of me. I lose my hope in that bathroom. My faith. My future.

  This is what it is to die.

  Maybe not in body, but in spirit.

  “Kalli?”

  Oh gods, please no. Please don’t do this to me.

  I don’t realize I’m sobbing until he kneels beside me and says, “Sssh, sweetheart. It’s okay.” Then I hear it, the awful noise coming from my chest, and finally something in this world matches how I feel. His hand touches my back, and I throw myself sideways, slamming into the hard porcelain of the tub. I don’t feel the pain. I’ve got too much of that already in me.

  “Kalli? What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t touch me.” The words break up as they leave my mouth, sprinkled between gasps and sobs. I cannot let him touch me. All this time, I thought I had it under control. I thought I was keeping him safe.

  “Kalli, you’re shaking. What’s wrong? Does something hurt? Mom, call 911.”

  “No!” I have to get out of here. I have to get far away from Wilder. From his family. I climb to my feet, and he’s right. I am shaking.

  “I need outside. I need air.”

  I flinch away from first Wilder, then his mother as they try to help me.

  Out in the hallway, I nearly run into Gwen. She’s combing out her wet hair, and she looks up at me with wide, confused eyes.

  I can’t do this. I can’t.

  I ignore her when she calls my name, pushing through the pain to tell myself to walk, just keep walking. Get to your car, and you can leave. You can drive and keep driving.

  I stumble over the stairs leading down from the porch, and I hear Wilder shout as I barely manage to stay on my feet. Once I start running, it doesn’t seem so hard. In fact, it makes it easier to breathe. So I run down the sidewalk, through the parking lot, and to my car. I throw the thing into drive, and slam on the gas.

  Just keep running.

  And if I look in the rearview mirror and see Wilder jogging after me, I don’t let myself acknowledge it. I scream to fill up the small cab with sound so I don’t have to hear him yelling. But I keep screaming long after I’m out of the parking lot, out of their neighborhood, out of the city. I scream until my throat is too raw to make a sound.

  PART FOUR

  “Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”

  Oscar Wilde

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Kalli

  Three months later

  My apartment smells musty when I push the door open. I flip on the lights. Or try to anyway. They don’t work. I knew I should have set up auto-pay billing. The floor creaks beneath my feet, and it feels both odd and normal to push the door closed with my heel. There’s a sweatshirt on the couch, still pulled inside out from the last time I shrugged it off as I sat there working on homework. Books are piled on the table. My laptop is still plugged in and open, the screen dark.

  This place is a museum for the life I lost.

  A trip through the kitchen reveals more reason for the smell. There’s a moldy bag of bread on the counter. Unwashed dishes in the sink. I don’t even want to open the fridge to discover what the last three months have done in there.

  I drop my purse on the floor, and lean against the counter. I thought it would hurt more coming back here. I’d anticipated it being like a knife to the chest, which is why I’d gone to a bar first. Maybe I had a little more to drink than I thought. That would explain the numbness.

  I’d never had to be drunk to face my past before.

  “To new experiences,” I mumble, raising an imaginary glass.

  Exhausted, I sink down onto the floor right there, leaning against the kitchen counter. Specks of dust float in the beam of light coming in through the window, and I watch them through dry eyes.

  Three months ago, I left this apartment behind. I cut ties and ran because I couldn’t face him. I knew if I came back to my apartment, he’d follow me, and what could I have possibly said?

  I knew if I saw him, if I talked to him, I would be tempted to stay. I told him once that I was selfish enough to want him despite the risk, and that hadn’t changed. Still hasn’t. Three months, and I still wake up thinking about him. Go to sleep wondering what he’s doing. I pick up my phone, hovering over the screen. I can’t even put a number on how many times I’ve thought about calling him, hoping I’d get his voicemail, just so that I could listen to words, any words, out of his mouth.

  I spent the first week after I left practically catatonic. I checked into a hotel, and I never even left it long enough for them to clean the room. I stayed in bed, raiding the mini bar or ordering room service when the hunger pains got strong enough to break through the haze I was in. The next week I spent driving. I’d head back toward Austin one day, and then change my head and drive in another direction the next day. It wasn’t until the third week when I sat down and began to think.

  First, I wrote down as much of Bridget’s prophecy as I could remember. She said something about my keeping secrets, and that I would lose him to them. That I knew well enough already. But she’d also said som
ething else about a reunion.

  And the line I clung to, even though I knew it was foolish and harmful to hope:

  To be made whole, all must first be lost.

  I was intimately acquainted with the all being lost bit. It was being made whole that I wanted to know more about. Because as hard as I tried to leave this place behind, as many times as I’ve told myself that Wilder is better off without me, that we’re both better off, there’s one thing I just can’t shake.

  The thread.

  Fate.

  It didn’t fade. No matter how far I drove. Not with time. Not with distraction. Not for anything. We’re still connected, our futures tied together for better or for worse.

  So I spent another week traveling, popping into dive bars and art galleries and coffee shops for the occasional inspirational quick fix. And I thought about being made whole. And what that might mean.

  Whole.

  It wouldn’t be enough to just be with Wilder, though I did feel like I’d lost half of myself to him. To be whole would be to be normal. To live without secrets. Without this curse or gift or whatever it may be.

  For me, to be whole is to be human.

  Throughout history there have been humans deified by the gods. Heracles. Ariadne. Psyche. Io. Some earned their spot in Olympus through accomplishments. Others were gifted it due to love. Still others found immortality through bargains or accidents or manipulation.

  But the other way around? That is not a common story. There had been a centaur that was said to have given up his immortality when he suffered a wound that could never be healed. Some of the myths say he made a bargain and gave his immortality to free Prometheus, and agreed to take his place in the underworld. Instead, he was honored and placed among the stars as the constellation Centaurus.

  But the way the myths have been told and twisted and fictionalized over the years, it’s impossible to know the truth of the past unless you were there. And even so, I have no wish to give up this world for the underworld or the stars. Not yet anyway.

  I would gladly take death at the end if I could have a true life first.

  But I don’t have the power to grant myself that kind of choice. Only a greater god, perhaps only Zeus, could make that kind of bargain. And it would be a deal, no doubt about that. I’d have to give something up or make a promise or complete a task, but as soon as the idea took root in my mind, I was unshakeable. I would make any bargain, do anything to have the life with Wilder that my gut said it was possible to have.

  But you can’t make a bargain with someone you can’t find. I don’t exactly have the greater gods on speed dial. And my attempts to find the few other minor deities that still inhabit the earth in the hopes that one of them might have some clue, some connection to help me … well, those had been nothing short of a disaster so far.

  Just like me, they learned long ago how to hide and survive among humans. I started with my sisters, trying to track them through historical records from identity change to identity change, inheritance to inheritance, assuming that they must live the same way as me. But one by one, I lost the thread on each and every one of them. They’d hidden their tracks too well. I tried researching artists with a quick rise to fame, but in the Internet age, there are more of those than I can possibly count. I watched YouTube videos and scrolled through hundreds of thousands of event photos hoping to catch sight of a familiar face in the background of just one.

  Nothing. If my sisters are anything like me, they stay away from fame, from anything that might get them too much attention.

  I visited cities known for their artist populations. New York. Los Angeles. New Orleans. Las Vegas. I tried smaller creative-friendly cities. Providence. Santa Fe. New Bedford. Nashville.

  Nothing. I didn’t know what else to look for. I could leave for Europe, I suppose. Or Asia perhaps. But it’s a big world to try and find seven people who have spent centuries learning how to hide.

  And even if I found one of my sisters … what then? Odds are they’re just as clueless as me. I could try the furies next. They mete out justice among both mortals and immortals. They’re more likely to know how to contact the greater gods, but they’re even more difficult to search for than my sisters.

  It’s hard not to feel hopeless. Like I’m clinging to a solitary life preserver in a never-ending ocean. I could search for months. Years. And in all that time, Wilder will continue to age. He’ll meet new people. He’ll start dating again. What if he falls in love with someone else?

  I drape my elbows over my knees and drop my head against my arms.

  Where did my numbness go?

  As I work to get it back, something slams into my front door. I jerk my head up, and it happens again. Repeatedly. It takes my inebriated brain a few seconds to understand that it’s not something running into the door.

  It’s someone knocking.

  “Kalli! Kalli, are you in there? I see your car! Open the door.”

  I cover my mouth to stop the sob that jerks up from my chest.

  Wilder. How is he here? I’ve been gone three months. There’s no way he’s still looking for me.

  Is there?

  “Kalli, please.” His furious knocks slow. The sound changes, grows more hollow, and I’d guess it’s his palm against the door instead of his fist. “Just open the door for me, please. I’ll do anything if you’ll just open the door.”

  Another voice joins his outside. Deep and hesitant. “Come on, Wild. It’s dark inside. She’s not here.”

  That’s Rook. Oh gods, what are they doing here?

  “That’s her car. She’s back.”

  “You know, they do make more than one of each kind of car.”

  There’s a thud and then shuffling feet, like one of them shoved the other back.

  “I drive by here every fucking day, Rook—”

  “Yeah. That’s definitely an issue we should talk about.”

  “There’s never been a car like that in this lot since she left. Not once.”

  “So maybe someone has a friend visiting. Or maybe they rented out her place to someone else.”

  Wilder ignores him and begins knocking on the door again, hard and fast once more.

  “Kalli. I don’t care that you left. I don’t care why. Please just open the door.”

  He keeps knocking, and before I can help myself, I’m crawling across the dusty floor on my hands and knees. Sliding carefully so as not to make any noise.

  “Wild, Bridget is waiting—”

  “I don’t care. You go. I’m staying here.”

  “Damn it. We’ve done this before. You said it would be different this time.”

  Wilder doesn’t answer, and the desire to see him is burning me up from the inside out. I can’t breathe around the heat of it.

  “Fine,” Rooks says finally. “Torture yourself a little more if that’s what you want. Call me when you get tired of the pain.”

  I kneel before the door and press my hand against it. Numbness is long gone, and tears are falling so fast that I can’t see through the blur. But I know he’s little more than a foot away from me now. I listen for his breathing on the other side, scared now that his knocking has stopped. Maybe he went after Rook after all.

  A thump follows, and I hear what I think is him sliding down my door, sitting down on the other side.

  “Where are you?” he says, quieter this time, and I don’t think he’s talking to me anymore. Or rather, I don’t think he thinks he’s talking to me anymore.

  “I just wish you’d call. Or write. Or anything. I just want to know you’re okay. You—that day …” He sighs. “I’ve never been so terrified in my life. The look in your eyes. The way you were crying. Goddamn it, Kalli.”

  He quiets then, and as slowly as I can, I shift so that my back leans where I believe his is on the other side. I close my eyes and wonder how I can feel so far away when he’s this close.

  He doesn’t speak again. Nor does he knock. But when I stand and chance a look throug
h the peephole a few hours later, I can still see his legs stretched out in front of him on the concrete. I stare for a long while. Until I can close my eyes and see the image from memory, right down to the worn patch on his knee and the scuffs on his shoes.

  Then I settle back down against the wall. Eventually, I fall asleep there, slumped over on my side, and when I wake in the morning, my porch is empty.

  It takes me two days, but after more research, I put a new plan into motion. A little poking around online reveals the name of Wilder’s old band. Wild Roots. There was a tree tattoo with intricate twisted roots on one of Wilder’s arms, and now I know its story. Or part of it anyway. I find a picture of the group, and just as I suspected … Bridget was part of his band.

  From there, I find out her full name, which I then take to social media. And after a little light stalking, I see that she’s checked in at a hair salon. So I park my car outside, and wait for her to leave.

  It’s a gods-awful, creepy move. But she’s the only person like me that I know how to find. And sure, she’s not going to be able to put me in touch with another god (hell, I’m not even sure she knows what she is), but another vision from her could give me some insight, anything, into the future. And this time, I’ll be paying attention. I’ll get every word.

  It’s nearly an hour before she leaves, her hair shorter and a darker blonde than the last time I saw it. I decide it’s best not to approach her in public, so I swallow down a little more guilt over my stalking and follow behind her when she gets into her car and pulls away.

  I’m relieved when she pulls into a parking lot outside an apartment building instead of going somewhere else. Unfortunately, it’s an old loft style building, so there’s one main entrance that’s keyed, and all the apartments are inside. I park quickly, and pull the baseball cap I brought down low on my head.

  I have to get into that building right behind her. If I have to wait to get buzzed in or for someone else to come, there’s no way I’ll know which apartment is hers. With my heart hammering, I walk up behind her as she turns her key in the lock.