by Holly Ryan
It took courage to actually do this, I remind myself when I cross over the threshold, so I can’t fuck this up. That thought quickly goes out the window, though, when I feel an overwhelming sense of shame when we lock eyes. He knows me. We’ve never met, and yet in some ways, he knows me better than I know myself.
The man gestures to a couch that’s visible from here, but located a ways from the door, so we have to walk through a good portion of the house to reach it. I pass pictures on the wall, plenty of which are of Brianna. She’s happy in all of them. Blissful, even. Her smile is wide and bright, but I have no memories to compare it to. The only way I’ve ever seen her was in a state that was anything but happy.
The décor is outdated, and when I sit down on the velvet couch, its age causes me to sink a little too far into it. A musty smell fills my nose. These must be hand-me-downs, I figure, maybe from some sympathetic member of their family. The rest of the room is empty, save for a grandfather clock that ticks against the farthest wall. A fireplace sits to our right, and on it sits a single picture that I can’t make out from here. The mantle is dusty though, that I can see even from this far away. This is the house of a single man who doesn’t have time for such petty things as decorating and upkeep – not after what he’s been through.
My first impression of the man is he isn’t what I expected. Although I don’t know what the hell I expected. Not him, that’s for sure. This guy looks like someone I’d be friends with, given any other circumstances. He’s much older than me, but there’s a clean-cut look about him. I expected someone… visibly struggling, although I realize how wrong it is of me to assume such a thing.
He hands me a glass of ice water.
“Thanks,” I say.
He drinks his own, standing awkwardly for a moment next to the sofa. “Here,” he says, going to the window. “Let me open these for us.” He pulls on a single cord and sunlight floods in. “It’s been a while since it happened. What made you decide to come see me now?” He turns. “I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting it.”
“I should have come to see you much sooner. I have to apologize for that.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for. Things happen precisely when they’re meant to.” He hikes up his pant leg and takes a seat. “Most of the time.”
I clear my throat. “The truth is, I wanted to see you because I still dream about her.” I look away and laugh absently, unable to look at him after such an awkward confession. “That feels crazy to say.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not crazy. I wish I still dreamed.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t dream at all anymore. Since it happened.”
I don’t move. I only watch him, and listen to whatever it is he has to share.
“After she died, it’s like my brain, the most fundamental parts of it, the parts buried deep down in there that make a person who they are – they stopped working. Broken. Just like that. And ever since that night,” he shrugs, “I haven’t dreamed.” He stands and takes hold of a framed picture off the nearby mantle. “It’s the weirdest thing. I sleep fine most nights, but I never dream. Not anymore. I haven’t had a single dream since the night before she died.” He looks up at me. “Do you think that’ll ever come back?”
I don’t know how to respond to that. All I know is that my heart hurts. I wipe at my eye and stiffen my upper lip. “It will. I’m sure it will.”
The man smiles a little, giving one last look to the picture, then turns it around so I can see it. Framed in the picture is the woman from my dreams, except she doesn’t look the same as she does in my dreams. She’s smiling perfectly over her shoulder, lifting a drink in one hand and raising her shoulder to her chin.
Deep down, I’m not so sure at all. But I have my hopes.
STELLA
A knock on the door echoes through the apartment, reaching my ears in the shower. I hurriedly finish dabbing my hair dry with a towel, and pull on the barest essentials of clothing. That’s Cohen, I’m sure, but he’s earlier that I expected and should know better than to knock.
A smile is plastered across my face when I swing open the door.
It’s not Cohen.
But it is a man. I don’t recognize him at first. Then it dawns on me. What are you doing here? I want to say. But I can’t, because it’s back. The same close-throated silence.
His lifts his familiar eyes from under a baseball cap, the brim of which is concealed beneath a hood. When they meet mine, his steely expression ignites adrenaline in my soul.
Every muscle in my body tenses at once. I again want to reach for my familiar blade, only to realize that, once more, I am without it. Lorelei. That’s right. I can’t believe I made such an amateur mistake, again. How did he find me, though? He must have somehow tracked me down through my name at Sapphire. He tries to come in, but halts when he realizes I’m not going to move. He backs up, then glares once more.
Then, in an instant, the man sweeps off the hood. He shrugs his shoulders from the cold, as though to shake off some snow that isn’t there, then meets my eyes. “Stella?” Cohen says, oblivious to what just happened before my eyes. “What is it? Can I come in?”
I crack a smile once I return to reality.
“Of course,” I say, shaking my head, but I don’t step aside. He remains where he is, examining my face, reading me. I grab him by the collar, pulling him through the door. When I have him, I wrap my arms around the back of his neck and draw him close. My lips can’t meet his fast enough, and they can’t press against him hard enough. The same is true for him, but he takes it a step further to his hands, which immediately find their way under my shirt and beneath my bra.
We don’t need words anymore. Letting go is exactly what I need; and I know it’s exactly what he needs, too. He tells me this by the way he moves over my skin, the way he so quickly changed out of his closed-lipped persona into one of mad passion.
I tilt my neck toward his mouth. He accepts the invitation, devouring me with the warm touch of his mouth. I cripple under him, the strength of his hand digging into my lower back the only thing keeping me afloat. My fingers make their way to the button of his jeans, and when they land there, he takes over for me. In a flurry, he undoes his pants, before I help him the rest of the way. I press my shoulders against the wall, connecting my hips with his.
When he’s freed me from the majority of my clothes, I drape my leg around him. He slides his fingers between the fabric of my panties and my skin, and slips them down in one swift motion. They remain around my legs when he enters me, carefully but with a sense of desperation. I grip the back of his neck, his hair embedding under my nails.
His thrusts send my back against the wall. I don’t have to worry about anything. Not even standing on my own two feet, as Cohen supports me with his powerful grip.
He exhales into my shoulder when he releases, his hot breath amplifying my own trembles and contractions.
He briefly shifts his weight, his breath heavy and uneven, and still hitting against my skin. We look at each other and exhaustedly smile. He kisses my neck before pulling away.
I would never intentionally hurt him – that’s true. And I never will hurt him, because he’s been hurt enough for fifty fucking lifetimes.
The truth is that Cohen was forever changed by what happened that night in the water. We’ve both known that all along, and I accept it – more than that, I want it. Because I know that with all of that also comes the best of him.
THIS I KNOW
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AVERY
It was less than a second, maybe half a second, but it changed everything.
What it changed isn’t as important as how.
The parts of the how that I can’t remember are worse than the ones I can. No one believes me when I say that, especially the doctors and my mom. They tip their chins and look at me with those knowing eyes that put me to shame. But it’s true. How could it not be? The h
ow is the forgotten memories – the regretful, invasive non-thoughts I try to sigh away from the depths of my hospital bed when all my visitors have gone home, taken their faux flowers back because I have too many and shuffling out with smiles of relief that they think are hidden.
You should have screamed.
I don’t remember much.
But still, Avery, you should have screamed. Come on.
I’ve tried and tried to remember more. I tried that night, and I’m still trying to this day. So give me a break, Self.
Fuck you. I still say you should have screamed.
I did try, okay? It’s important you know that.
I tried. That’s totally obnoxious, isn’t it? Something people say when they want you to think the best of them and hide the rest, or to move you on rapidly to the next topic of discussion. A passive voice. Dismissive. A pity me … I tried.
But really, I have. I’ve tried.
And that’s all I can think about as the morning sun streams in through my room’s vertical blinds, over the thin, white sheet of my bed and my body. I think about how long I’ve laid here in this boring and uncomfortable hospital while attempting that very thing: to remember. Maybe I can pinpoint why I didn’t scream. I’ve tried so hard to remember that my brain hurts, even more than it did when I awoke to find myself all alone that night, helpless and damaged on the cold, hard ground.
But despite all the trying, I’m left with only a few painful, hazy moments that stick out in the mire of fogginess of my memory. Like, I can remember that the night everything happened, the streets were empty. And they were dark. And cold. And they tasted like damn dirt.
A shiver runs through me. I brush my hand over my upper arm, using the smooth, fake petting sensation to calm myself down. To calm my nervous system, which is always on high alert these days. It works; the shivers subside and the clenching in my stomach releases gradually as I calm. I turn my head to the side, toward the window. It worked, but I can still feel the coldness of it all, and when I close my eyes I can still hear the first sounds of his heavy footsteps falling into place behind me. So I don’t close them. My eyes mist and burn, and not just from the fatigue; I want to close them. I’m tired. My eyes are heavy. I need to close them. But those footsteps.
I had brushed them off when their sound first hit my ears. And my first thought after waking was a painful one – a yearn, a wish, a desperation – that I hadn’t.
I return my head to where it was, its most comfortable place in the center of the pillow, looking up at the ceiling. Really, the thing that still gets me is how empty the street was. I’d been in the area before, that wasn’t an issue. The neighborhood was plenty familiar, and I knew where I was going and what I needed to do to get there. The problem was that every home was dim, and there wasn’t so much as the sound of a dog’s bark in the distance to echo throughout. The whole thing was a blank slate. Empty. Empty in my eyes, ears, and empty to my cries for help.
The heaviness of it all gets me: I close my eyes. I have to. Not for sleep, which for some reason I can only fall into between two and six a.m., when the exhaustion finally takes hold of me, but just for a rest. To rest my eyes, and for some inevitable remembrance.
Damn the emptiness, and damn that street.
But mostly, damn Cole.
“Get out.”
He can say it; I’ll get out. That’s fine. He just doesn’t have to say it with such a nasty tone. But then again, I guess he does because we just fought. Again. And come on … would I expect any less from him?
No. The answer is no.
I hop down from Cole’s late-eighties pickup truck, tan-colored, the color even more filthy from driving in the mud. I let my floor-length black dress fall to the ground; because I don’t care anymore, and my insides feel like falling the same as the cascade of fabric. The truck has always been too tall for my average frame, so my leg almost catches again on the high step. I thought I could avoid it this time, what with being so angry and all. Isn’t all that adrenaline supposed to, like, make you super self-aware and reactive? I work my leg free, awkwardly, the feeling of Cole’s eyes burning into the top of my head.
I grab my purse off the seat and throw it on my shoulder. When I reach the ground, I look around. It’s already getting dark, although I sure as hell didn’t need to step out of the truck to see that. It’s just hitting me now, the darkness of it all, now that I’ve been kicked out. It’s also chilly, and the hem of my dress is already covered in a thin layer of dirt from the sidewalk.
I turn around. Why is he doing this to me again? I mean, I can’t say I’m surprised, and that this isn’t so like him, but I really thought we’d gotten this all cleared up after last time.
“Thanks,” I say, the sarcasm dripping off my tongue and hanging thickly in the air between us. I don’t allow him time to respond. I clutch the side of the door, ready to close it in his smug face. “I’ll call you later.”
Then I gather my dress above my ankles in fisted bunches, hoping this time he can’t sense the hint of desperation in my voice. After having such a bad show tonight, I could really use a break when it comes to him. And, quite frankly, I’d rather he didn’t realize that no matter how much he pisses me off (and vice versa), I wouldn’t be able to stand seeing him leave me. I know it’s written all over me; it has to be.
Cole glares with that look of his through the open door, and I know it’s serious this time. That’s his don’t mess with me, Avery, look. You’ve pissed me off good this time.
“Don’t,” he finally replies as he turns the key.
I was right.
His hands move back to the steering wheel in his usual, irritating five-and-seven position (how many times have I told him: doesn’t he know you’re supposed to hold it at ten-and-two?), and I suddenly want to tell him I’m sorry. It overcomes me like a wave, the desire to tell him that it’s not his fault and I’ll try better next time. You know, the things I usually say; the things girls like me always say to boys like him. But before I can say anything, he drives away. He leaves me, with the door hanging open and tires spinning that could have run over my feet for all he cares. I watch him go. The door slams shut with the momentum of his truck, the truck I’ve grown so familiar with over the past five months, and the tires do not run over my feet; instead, they leave a further splatter of mud on my dress.
Lovely.
I stare at the truck descending in the distance, in awe of what just happened, half expecting him to turn around and tell me he was kidding. Got you that time, Booger, he’d say, using the nickname he annoyingly and pointlessly bestowed on me through all my play-whiney objections. Some joke that was, Maverick – my nickname for him, because he always did remind me of Tom Cruise. But the dick-y Tom Cruise, the Top Gun one who never smiles and seems made for the stiffness of military life. I’ve never told him this, of course, and I wouldn’t dare.
He doesn’t return. His truck continues into the distance, even bothering to use his turn signal as he makes a left out of sight.
Dick. He actually did it. He left me.
I release my handfuls of dress. I look down at the fabric. As if this night isn’t turning out bad enough, I’ll have to tell my mother what happened to the dress she worked so hard to make me. Three nights ago, when I told her my dance recital was now a last minute, impromptu performance due to the unexpected return of our best instructor from a cancellation in Europe, my mother stayed up until two in the morning working on this dress. I couldn’t perform without one, I’d said, but that’s okay – I’d come up with something. I’d buy something secondhand, maybe try to get in touch with some of last year’s dancers. I remember her fingers fluttering over the fabric as she pushed long lengths of it through the sewing machine, her back crooked over; her hard work only lit by a single small, weak lamp, the whole of her glowing in that meager circle of light as I found her working in her den.
“I’d do that if I could, you know,” I’d said, leaning my head against the doorway. I
hated to see her doing this for me, like this; that wasn’t what I’d wanted.
She’d flitted the dress-in-progress out in front of her, not taking her eyes off the work. “If you could, dear.” Then she’d flicked her eyes up at me and gave me a flash of smile. “No worries.”
I walked up to her and wrapped my arms around her. “Thanks.” I kissed her cheek.
Later, in the mirror, she’d helped me try on the finished product, tying its back and strapping its belt for me. I loved it from that first moment. It hanged perfectly over my body, amplifying my curves and bringing out the delicate nature of the dance with its tulle. It’s all black.
I re-lift some of the layers into my hands. The mud is speckled and in some isolated areas, not the whole thing. It doesn’t look too bad, really. Maybe it can be dry cleaned.
But first, I’ve got to get home. I scan the area. I’m on a suburban street surrounded by houses on both sides of me. All those homes are dim, no lights left on for sleeping. I see a house I recognize: a tiny white box, almost miniature, resembling a one-room square, and it leads to a brick mansion a few hundred yards to its back, located on the same lot but slightly hidden. A bright red Jaguar rests near the entryway of the small house, and an old, rusting Toyota minivan is parked in front of the mansion. My mind stokes: I’ve seen that property before, taken note of the strange reversal of roles. All of this looks pretty familiar, actually, I think, and more minutiae register in my still-stunned brain. Then it hits me. Yes, I’m sure of it – this is the Spring Creek neighborhood, located about twenty minutes’ drive from where I live. I’ve been here a few times before with my best friend Mara. She lives on Birch Avenue, which should be only a few blocks from here.
I dig my phone out of my purse and click it on. Its screen lights up in the darkness, illuminating me. According to this thing, it’s ten-thirty. If I walk quickly, I should be able to get to Mara’s house before eleven, with enough time to grab a snack and a shower and arrive back home before my curfew at twelve. I text her:
