Dream Smashers (15 page)

And he does. His gentle, strong, warm hand on
my arm is all it takes for the entire room to shatter.

“It’s okay, Autumn.” His voice melts the
chains.

I believe him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Hospitals wouldn’t be hospitals if not for
the modern machines that help to keep bodies breathing and monitor
heart rates and feed stomachs through tubes and collect urine in
bags. We’d be looking at a dead body instead of a live one at this
very moment if we didn’t have machines.

Her hair is stringy and dirty as usual. Her
lips are chapped and broken, typical. Her skin is pale and
blemished in various locations with crusty scales around her nose.
Plastic tubes push invisible atmosphere into her nostrils.

She notices us. Her lips tremble and expose
her icky mouth in a partial smile. “Hi,” she whispers. Her dark
portals leak tears that stream down the sides of her face into her
hair.

Grams shuffles to her side and holds onto her
hand. I stay next to the door—might as well have an escape plan
just in case things start to get smashed.

“I’m sorry,” Jacinda squeaks while looking up
at her mother, like a child that has just colored a masterpiece out
of crayon on her mother’s pristine white walls. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Her voice gets clogged with pain and regret—deep and snotty.

Grams nods her head, not saying a word.
Misery pours out of her eyes. She holds Jacinda’s hand up to her
face and kisses it and then bends over the bed rail in an
awkward-I-need-to-do-this movement. The rail pushes into her thin
ribs. She holds her daughter as close as she possibly can, trying
with all her might to protect her from all the evil in the
world.

But she can’t do that. I’m sure she has tried
and probably will try for the remainder of her life but evil has
and always will penetrate her efforts. For without the bad, there
will be no good, and therefore bad things will always be, no matter
how hard they hug right now.

The protector breaks her embrace to look at
me standing in the doorway. “Autumn, come over here,” she says in a
compassionate tone.

I grimace and tell my legs to move. They obey
in a stiff fashion, one step at a time.

Mother and child watch grandchild, me, stop
at the foot of the bed.

Jacinda wipes the tears from her face with a
hand stuck with all types of tubes being held in place with tape.
“I know you may not like me, but I love you.”

Yeah right. My throat burns like after
swallowing hot sauce.

She must be able to read thoughts because she
replies, “I know you probably don’t believe me. All I can do is
prove it to you.”

I stuff my hands in my front pockets. The
blinking lights on the wall above her bed catch my attention. Red
and green lights. Red and green are for Christmas. It’s almost
Christmas. Three red and four green. The green lights blink off
when the red lights blink on. Back and forth, on and off.

“Autumn?” Jacinda says.

I snap my gaze back to Jacinda but I’m still
wondering what those stupid lights are for. They could at least
label them. Maybe one needs to go to a special school just to learn
what the blinking lights are for.

“I promise to never touch crank again. I’m
never ever going to do it again—I swear.”

Grams raises her hands in the air. “Praise
the Lord!”

We’ve heard this one before. I’ll believe it
when I see it. But that’s not what I say. Jacinda will burst Grams’
bubble all on her own. I don’t need to do it for her.

I nod. And swallow the pain away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Saturday, October 17
^th

Dank and loud. Body odor underscores the coat
of coconut scent from the fog machine. I dance. And I don’t care
who sees. Sure, I’m probably making a total fool of myself. My
dance is unique to me—smooth glides along the dance floor, easing
people away. I slither and wiggle to the rhythm of the funky mixes
playing over and over, never ending. One song fuses with the next
and the next until they all sound the same.

Despite the pulsating colored lights, the
room remains dark and sparkles from the disco ball, and black
lights make our teeth gleam. Mirrors along every wall are evidence
that this is real, that I am dancing and I look hot, so hot that I
can’t stop watching the alien reflection of me and everything
around me. Angel washed my look dirty with stellar skills and
wardrobe. “If you are going to be seen with us at Scour, we’re
gonna have to do something about all this you-ness of you,” she
said to me before handing me a tiny black leather skirt, and red
stilettos.

She also gave me a button-down blouse that
squish what boobs I have up and out like scoops of ice cream placed
neatly on sugar cones. Angel poofed out my long brown hair and
super-modeled my face. I look like I belong on a cat walk,
strutting my stuff for the world to admire and drool over, no
longer like a sixteen-year-old fledgling.

“I’m gonna see what’s taking James so long,”
Angel shouts in my ear with hot, dirty breath. He left forever ago
to get us drinks. She grabs my arm and tries to pull me off the
dance floor. “Come with me.”

“Nah. I’ll just stay here,” I yell back.
“Will you bring me a soda?”

She rolls her eyes. “Kay. Hold that table for
us.” She points at a tall table with two stools at the edge of the
dance floor.

I nod and dance my way over to the table with
an icky and gross-in-all ways-imaginable top. Probably never
washed. I scoot my rear onto the stool. My stilettos slip as I
do.

Angel skittles across the floor to the food
counter. That’s what she reminds me of, a bag of Skittles, like the
colors of the rainbow. One minute, she is true to her name—all
sweet and organic sitting in the Burgerville with James. The next
day,
poof, bang
, and she becomes all vixen-like. Boys turn
to watch her walk and she returns the compliments with a smile or a
bat of her eyelashes. For every boy’s head she turns, a glare or
snicker escape one or two of the girls in the room. Well, I
shouldn’t say all of them because a couple of the girls look like
they would jump her bones just as quickly as some of the guys.

The music changes to a new rhythm, something
I’ve never heard before. It starts dark and grungy, my type of
music, but with a beat that screams for movement and a sadness that
warrants more than just that. Stone Temple Pilots meets Muse meets
Black Eyed Peas. I stand from the bar stool, nearly tripping in
these crazy shoes. My feet throb. I kick the stilettos off and sway
back onto the dance floor, letting the music wash clean my
mind.

I still can’t believe I agreed to come here,
but figured it would take Jacinda off my mind. Normally, I would
have scrounged for an excuse not to come here with Angel, but no
excuse became available tonight. I erase all my worries from my
mind, just for tonight. I smudge out the thought of the
faceless-pastor-dad, of Jacinda, and concentrate on the task at
hand: feeling the music.

“You look lonely, beautiful.” A chocolate
voice comes from behind me, close to my ear. I don’t turn, but I
see his reflection in the mirror. “I can remedy that.” The darkness
of the room along with the flashing strobes makes it difficult to
see his face. Oddly, I don’t care. He could look like Frankenstein
right now for all I care. He stands just a foot away. His black
clothes blend with the air, and his dark eyes pierce through the
mirror. I still don’t turn around, just dance to the rhythm.
Breathing and moving and forgetting and dancing and then holding.
His hand caresses mine.

The strangeness of his strong fingers
wrapping around mine shoots up my arm. My internal organs flip-flop
from the touch of this outlander. Curious, I hold on, even though
it feels every kind of wrong. He moves along with me, from behind,
and with his other hand he brushes my hair to one side and says in
my ear, “Autumn.”

I stop. And I stare into the mirror.

He knows my name. My head is light, and it
feels like I should care, it feels like he has whispered, “Danger,”
but he really only whispered my name. He’s just a boy. A strong
boy. A handsome boy. A boy who can dance.

I sway again and watch the mirror. His shaggy
blond hair, green from the black light, caresses my shoulder. His
lips brush my neck and his sweet scent stirs a longing to turn and
face this mystery man in black, but I don’t. We aren’t doing
anything wrong if I don’t turn around. We’re just dancing. His
strong grip on my hand keeps me in place. He leans into my
shoulders, his pelvis swaying along with mine.

With closed eyes, I let loose and do what
seems natural in an aberrant way, but mechanical at the same time.
We dance back and forth for what seems like an eon. This must be a
tease, a taste of what carefree is like. Hot, spicy, sweet and sour
all at the same time. I like it. It’s not the wind through my hair,
it isn’t speeding down a country road in a roadster, it’s not my
sweet Evan, but it is jump-up-and-down, laugh-and-cry-for-no-reason
freedom. I don’t have to cry for Gramps, for Grams, for Jacinda. I
can cry for Autumn if I want to—something that I’ve never been able
to do. But I don’t want to cry. Instead I want to dance with this
dark strong boy with golden hair who knows my name.

I turn into him, not thinking. His arms wrap
around my neck and my face buries into his chest. His cotton shirt
is warm and slightly damp. We keep moving. He has a musky expensive
scent, Sak’s Fifth Avenue expensive. I’ve never bought cologne or
perfume from there before. It’s the same smell that’s in the air
when I walk through that store at Christmas time when seasonal
part-time-perfume-squirters stand in the hall of the department
stores and offer free sprays of liquid cash in a bottle.

The music stops for the first time
tonight.

“Good night everyone!” a male voice announces
over the speakers. The lights flicker on. A loud groan echoes
throughout the club, as if the dancers are one and their groans are
a single sound escaping a large body. Chairs scrape, footsteps
trample, and voices create a murmur that wasn’t there before the
music stopped. The room no longer travels along the same path, no
longer an orchestra working together, but is chaos and flow every
which way possible.

Sak’s Fifth Avenue pulls my face up to his so
fast that I don’t get to see it. That’s the least of my worries
though, because his lips are on mine—all warm, moist, strong and
soft. They part and his tongue forces mine open. I try to pull
away, but he holds me tight. Wet heat penetrates my mouth,
searching, tasting, running along my teeth.

Uh, hello. My name is Autumn. I’m dating
Evan. This can’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening. I
struggle with him in the bustle of everyone leaving. Just as I
decide to bite his tongue off, he’s ripped away from me.
Finally.

“You get the fuck off her!” James says in the
meanest voice I’ve ever heard from him and then he punches Sak’s in
the face.

I step back. “Whoa, whoa…” And then I see
Sak’s face.

His smile I know, with gleaming white teeth.
But he’s not smiling in a nice way. He’s grimacing with blood
dripping off his bottom lip. His eyes I know, pure as bad can be. I
even know the diamond studs decorating his ear lobes and I kick
myself for not recognizing his shaggy blond hair earlier.

A succulent gnaws away my intestines. Vomit
toys with my throat.

Ace.

Ace charges James and knocks him into the
crowd. People trip over the two wrestling and punching and kicking
each other on the ground. A circle of bodies forms around the free
entertainment, but before it’s complete, two security guards with
swollen chests and arms bust through and breaks-up the fight. The
audience groans in disappointment.

Angel pushes her way toward James. His
crooked nose seeps blood from the nostrils, but he continues to
struggle to get away from the man holding him back to get another
swing at Ace.

Ace rips himself away from the security guard
and points at James. “You’ll pay for this. “ He spits blood on the
wooden floors and then stomps out of the building.

Shock. Dread. Horror. Hate. Tears. Numb.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Sunday, November 15
^th

A car splashes through the puddles covering
the street in front of The Road Church. We stand at the foot of the
stairs, waiting.

“I can’t believe you talked me into this.”
Angel closes the top button on her bedazzled pink sweater to cover
the cleavage the world outside of the church is allowed to see.
Nobody inside, though. Bound and covered. That’s the proper
way.

“You? I can’t believe Evan talked
me
into this. But, thanks for coming with me. Rainy changed the
subject when I asked her.”

Angel rolls her eyes. “Have you talked to her
today? James wasn’t answering his texts this morning.”

“No. But it’s early.”

“Yeah. I guess.” She crinkles her nose. “I’m
just worried. He went to a party without me last night and didn’t
even call or anything.”

Weird. Since James has been back from rehab,
they’ve been stuck together like barnacles to a rock in the sea.
“We can walk by their house after church if you want.”

“Cool.” Her eyes sparkle. “Why couldn’t your
boyfriend give us a ride? And where is he now?”

“He’ll be here.” I push my hair behind my
ears and then comb my fingers through the long strands on my
shoulder. “He would have picked us up, but his mom made him give
his cousins a ride or something.”

He appears. Walking from the parking lot,
alone, he smiles at me with his eyes and a small grin on his lips.
He shoves his hands into the front pockets of his beige
corduroys.

“What do we have here?” Angel turns her
attention to the hottie walking our way.