Bird Song (47 page)

He looked at me above Stacy’s head as he answered.
 
“I’ll think about it.”

“Thanks,” Stacy sighed in relief.
 
“This means a lot to me, Robert.
 
Really.”

He nodded brusquely, his gaze never leaving my own.
 
“Stacy?” he said softly.

“Yeah?”

“Could you leave now?”

Stacy noticed where his gaze was directed and turned to look at me, the silent question written in her eyes.
 
I nodded and she exhaled slowly, looking back at Robert before shaking her head.
 
“O-
kay
.”

She gave me a quick hug and waved at Robert before slipping quietly out the door.
 
Robert and I stared at each other until I saw Stacy’s car reverse out of the driveway and her red taillights fade away down the street.

“We need to talk,” Robert and I both said at the same time.
 
The look on his face and the look in mine reflected in his eyes told me that this was going to be more than just a simple talk.

“You first,” I told him, wanting a bit more time to be able to word my apology just right.

“I was planning on doing so anyway,” he insisted.
 
“May I?”
 
He held a hand out and motioned to the empty space on the bed that Stacy had occupied.
 
I nodded and he sat down, carefully maintaining a safe distance between us.

I looked at him expectantly and waited for him to begin speaking.
 
He kept looking at me, but said nothing.
 
Every so often I would look behind him at the clock on my dresser as the minutes ticked by, but I didn’t say anything about the time.
 
I honestly had missed his presence so much, simply sitting here with him was enough.
 
I didn’t need conversation.
 
I didn’t need-

“Grace, I need to show you something.”

I blinked.
 
“What?”

His hand stretched forward to hold mine but before his fingers grazed my skin, he pulled his hand back.
 
“May I?”

I looked down at his hand and blinked once more to adjust my vision.
 
“Is your hand…shaking?”

Robert clenched his hand into a fist and pressed it against the bed, the force causing the bed to dip and the springs to squeal from the pressure.

My hand covered his, the contact meant to be reassuring.
 
Instead, my mind was instantly filled with the unrelenting stream of information that Robert’s mind contained, ever constant and unyielding to the limited capacity of my own.
 
I started to feel the pressure build as each foreign memory began to stretch my mind until all I could see were the tiny pulses of light beneath my lids.

This had happened once before, the first time that Robert and I had consciously held each other’s hand—a platonic gesture meant only to help me—and I had passed out as a result.
 
My nose had bled, my mind felt like it had literally exploded, and Robert had stayed with me throughout it, despite only knowing me for less than a day.
 
This time, however, I hadn’t lost all consciousness and could still feel his hand beneath mine.
 
The other was gently cradling my head that had dipped forward and then to the side as the onslaught of thoughts and visions took over, weighing me down with them.

“Are you alright?”

I opened my eyes slightly to see Robert’s concerned face looking at me from an odd angle; his head was tilted to the side, his torso twisted towards me.
 
I smiled at him and nodded my head.

“Are you sure?”

“
Mmm
-hmm,” I murmured, just glad for the contact.

He looked at me, studied my face.
 
As soon as he was sure that the dizziness had passed, he helped me to a sitting position.
 
“You let me know when you’re ready for this,” he said as he wiped my forehead with the back of his hand.

“I’m ready.”

“We don’t have to rush this, Grace.
 
Are you sure you’re ready?”

“That depends on what it is that you have to show me.
 
Is this about Erica?”

“No,” he replied.

“Well.
 
I guess I’ll just have to wait and see then, huh?” I remarked.

My hand that was still covering Robert’s lifted off of his as he removed it from the deep indentation that he had created in the mattress.
 
“I’m sorry about the bed,” he commented before taking a hold of my hand and pulling me close.
 
“Don’t move.
 
No matter what you see, do not move,” he instructed before lowering his head to mine.

Our foreheads touched faintly but before I had time to appreciate the cool smoothness of his skin against mine, I was no longer in my room.
 
Instead, I was now watching two people leave the school grounds in a rusty green vehicle.
 
I knew who they were instantly as the mixed feelings flared within me—I was now seeing things from Robert’s point of view and his emotions were now my own, his anger and his hurt two distinct voices inside one cold and lifeless heart within him.
 
As he watched the pair leave, his attention turned to another figure leaving the school.

The man was older, slightly portly with a noticeably hurried gait.
 
His hair was disheveled and his brown suit was wrinkled where it had gathered while he sat.
 
Robert watched the man walk across the parking lot towards a dark brown station wagon.
 
The car was unlocked.
 
The man climbed in and turned the key to start the engine.
 
It was a sickly sound, as though the car were pleading with its owner to put it out of its misery, squealing like a wounded animal just before the final blow of mercy was to be dealt.

The car pulled out of its stall and rolled slowly out of the lot, its direction negligent.
 
Robert was moving, too.
 
His vision became foggy yet no less clear, an odd thing I noticed, as he followed the vehicle.
 
Each second that ticked by, each simple increment of time seemed to turn the sky around Robert darker and darker as the car in front of him began to weave in and out of its lane.

Soon the station wagon was barreling down an empty stretch of road, the demand nearly too much for the tired engine to handle as it inched its way up to a terrifying speed.
 
As the car weaved into the oncoming lane, I could make out what appeared to be the front end of a bicycle lying in the middle of the lane ahead.

The driver, however, did not.
 
It happened in a split second.
 
The car hit the bike at such an exaggerated speed, the frame split in two and went flying into the undercarriage.
 
Though I personally knew nothing about the workings of a car, this was not my vision.
 
This was Robert’s, and I instinctually knew that the metal bars that made up the bike were about to do something horrifically disastrous to the rear axle of the station wagon.

With a loud, metallic snap, the remains of the bicycle tore through the rear of the car, the resulting damage causing the car to rise up above the pavement. Physics then took over as the car’s mass forced it into a tailspin.
 
The intense speed combined with the friction from the tires pulling against the asphalt caused the vehicle to jerk up, resulting in the car flipping over for several rotations, eventually coming to a rest on its roof.

Behind it, the road was a veritable battlefield of twisted metal and torn rubber.
 
There were gouges deep within the asphalt with several distinct tracks formed by what would soon be tread-less tires and the remainder of the pipe that protruded now from the underbelly of the completely destroyed vehicle.
 
Glass littered the road, though it looked far different from the type that would belong to a windshield or windows.

Robert approached the car, the fog lifting just slightly, though the darkness never receded.
 
As he drew closer, the sight of blood on the ground was a sign that whoever was in the car had not escaped unscathed.
 
Robert’s hand grabbed a hold of the door where the window should have been, as though he were grabbing a thick book.
 
He lifted his hand and the door peeled off of its hinges smoothly, effortlessly, like removing a slice of cake.

He tossed the door to the side, ignoring the screeching sound it made as it slid several feet away, and peered inside of the cab.
 
He shook his head at what he saw, and I felt myself recoil at the image as I tried to place the somewhat recognizable face that belonged to the man who had been driving.
 
The steering wheel was pressed up against his chest, pinning him to the seat of his now overturned car.
 
His face was a mangled mass of torn skin and blood that sparkled with fragments of the same odd looking glass that lay out in the road behind him.

“Hello, Oliver,” I heard Robert say in a soothing voice.

“Oh good.
 
Someone is here to help me,” the man named Oliver said in a garbled voice.
 
He coughed as blood bubbled up out of his mouth and nose and landed on the ceiling of the car, mixing in with the sickly sweet liquid that had already pooled there.
 
“I think my cell phone is still in my pocket.
 
Could you call my wife?”

Robert’s hand reached into the car and he gently touched the man’s shoulder.
 
An intense light filled the car in a quick burst of light, and then Robert was outside of the vehicle, the man named Oliver standing beside him, confused and disoriented.
 
“How’d I get out here?” he asked before his eyes picked up on what Robert had already known.

“Hey, that’s me in the car.
 
But I’m right here…
 
Wait—does this mean that I’m…dead?”

Robert shook his head.
 
“No, Oliver.
 
This just means that I’m not interested in having this conversation in the car while it’s leaking gasoline and smelling of cheap vodka and whisky.”
 

“Hey now, I don’t know what you’re talking about.
 
I wasn’t drinking.
 
See?
 
Perfectly sober,” Oliver argued, demonstrating his point by taking several steps away from Robert and then spinning around on his heel, his balance perfect; the motion smooth.

Robert’s hand flashed out, his fingers wrapping around Oliver’s throat as he said in that same calm, soothing voice, “You’re lying, Oliver.”

The man held his hands up, his face turning a putrid shade of purple as he relented.
 
“Okay, okay.
 
Yes, I did have a drink.
 
Just one
th
-” Robert’s grip grew tighter around Oliver’s throat and the man started to cough before managing to gasp out a quick “I drank half a bottle!”

Robert eased his grip on Oliver’s throat, though he still had his fingers laced around his neck in a vise grip that I could eerily feel on around my own.
 
“That’s better.
 
Now, Oliver.
 
We’re going to play a little game called truth or dare.
 
I’ll ask you a question and you’ll tell me the truth or you’ll dare to lie to me again and then we’ll repeat what you’ve just experienced here, only I won’t use my hands.”

“
Wh
-what will you use?” Oliver stuttered.

Robert’s lips curled back in a menacing growl and gnashed his teeth.
 
Oliver began to shake with fear and understanding and obediently nodded his head.

“I’m glad that we understand each other.
 
Now then, question one, do you know who I am?”

Oliver shook his head, the movement so small and quick, had I been looking with my own eyes I would have missed it entirely.
 
Robert smiled at the man’s answer.
 
“You’re telling the truth.
 
Pity—I was hoping that perhaps you would.
 
I rarely enjoy moments like these, but for you I’ll make an exception.

“Who I am, Oliver, is your road to perdition.
 
Or, I could be your road to salvation.
 
The choice is yours.”

The man’s eyes widened with confusion.
 
“I…I don’t understand.”

Robert pointed to the body that was slowly dying in the car in front of them.
 
“You’re not in that body, Oliver.
 
You’re standing beside me because I have the ability to allow you to live and make right the wrongs you’ve done, or I can allow this scene before you to play out and you’ll die a very painful death that will be but a precursor to what lies in store for you.”

Oliver looked at his lifeless body, obscured by the steering wheel that held him immobile and upside down, and then turned his focus to Robert, whose menacing appearance could be seen in the glassy reflection of Oliver’s eyes.
 
“What do I do?
 
What do I do to make things right?”