NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) (4 page)

He’s muscular, tall, and wearing a
tattered black sweatshirt that says
Irony
is lost on you
in orange letters
.
 
His dark jeans are belted with black
leather, and a silver band encircles his middle finger.

Dark hair tumbles into his face and a
hand with long fingers impatiently brushes it back, all the while his eyes are
still connected with mine.
 
His jaw
is strong and masculine, with the barest hint of stubble.

His gaze is still connected to mine, like
a livewire, or a lightning bolt.
 
I
can feel the charge of it racing along my skin, like a million tiny fingers,
flushing my cheeks.
 
My lungs
flutter and I swallow hard.
 

And then, he smiles at me.
 

At
me.
 

Because I don’t know him and he doesn’t
know better.
 

“Cal?
 
You ready?”

Finn’s voice breaks my concentration, and
with it, the moment.
 
I glance up at
my brother, almost in confusion, to find that he’s waiting for me. The hour has
already passed and I didn’t even realize it. I scramble to get up, feeling for
all the
world like I’m rattled, but don’t know why.
 

Although
I do know.
 

As I walk away with Finn, I glance over
my shoulder.
 

The sexy stranger with the dark, dark
gaze is gone.
 

TRIBUS

Finn

FuckYouYouCan’tDoAnything.
HurtMeMotherfucker.
 
YouCan’tDoAnything.
 
You’reSoFucked.
 
HurtMe.
HurtMe. HurtHer.
 
Can’tDoAnything.
 
KillMeNow.

Like always, I
ignore them…the voices in my head that whisper and hiss.
 
They’re always there in the background,
inside my ear.
 
There are several of
them, mostly women’s voices, but there are a couple men’s voices, too.
 
Those are the ones that are harder to
ignore, because sometimes they feel like my own.

It’s really hard
to ignore your own voice.

And even though I
can push them to the back of my consciousness most of the time, I can never
make them go away.
 
The colorful
pills I used to take every day couldn’t even silence them, not always.

Because of that,
since they made me nauseous and didn’t work anyway, I added another chore to my
to-do list the other day.
 
It was an
easy one to cross off.

Stop taking
pills

Don’t tell
Calla or dad.

I picture my
mental list in my head, with perfect clarity, because that level of focus tends
to muffle the voices for a second.
 
My list is on white notebook paper, lined with blue, a pink line running
vertically down the left side.
 
After I complete a task, I draw a mental line through it, crossing it
out.
 
It makes me
feel
accomplished.

 
Without my list, I can’t get through the
day.
 
It’s too hard to think without
it, too hard to concentrate.
 
Without
it, I can’t even
appear
normal.
 
Its compulsory for me at this point,
just one more thing that makes me bat-shit crazy.
 

No one except
Calla and my dad know how crazy I am.
 
And even
they
don’t know the
extent of it.
 

Not all of
it.
 

They don’t know
how I wake up in the night, and have to force myself to stay in bed, because
the voices tell me to throw myself from the cliffs.
 
To stop myself, I always dive into bed
with Calla, because for whatever reason, she quiets the voices.
 
But she can’t be with me every minute.
 

She can’t be with
me during the day when my fingers itch to scratch into my skin, to pull my
fingernails out, to run down to the bottom of the mountain and scream as I hurl
myself into traffic.
 

Why would I itch
to do these things?

Because
of the fucking voices.
 

They won’t shut
up.
 

It’s getting to
the point where I don’t know what’s real and not real anymore, and that scares
the piss out of me.
 
It particularly
scares the piss out of me because Calla and I will be separated soon.
 
She thinks we’re going to the same
school, that I’ve consenting to going to Berkeley with her.
 
But I can’t.
 
I can’t suck her down with me. I’d be
the worst person in the world if I did.
 

So soon, I’ll be
at MIT and she’ll be at Berkeley, and then what will happen?

She’ll be fine,
because she’s sane.
 
But what will
happen to
me?

As I come out of
the therapy room, I bend and gulp a drink from the water fountain.
 
A few drops of icy water trail down my
neck and instantly the voices react.
 

Scratch it off.
 

My hand is already
on my throat before I realize what I’m doing.
 
Frustrated, I force my hand to my
side.
 

I’m not going to
hurt myself.
 

Jesus.
 

I have to stay sane.

Quickly, I find Calla
curled up on her normal bench, staring into the distance.
 
I cover the ground between us in twelve
long strides.

“Cal? You ready?”

She stares at me
like I’m a stranger, before realization filters across her face and she
smiles.
 

“You ok?”

Calla’s voice
wraps around me like a blanket.

She keeps me
sane.
 

It’s always been that
way, maybe even in the womb, for all I know.
  

Don’t let her know
Don’t
let her know Don’t let her know.

Don’t let
her know.
 

I smile, a
perfectly normal grin.
 

“Perfectus.”
 
Perfect.
 
“You ready?”

“Yep.”

We walk out of the
hospital, into the afternoon sunlight and pile into the car.
 
I start the engine and steer the car
from the parking lot with shaking hands.
 

Act normal

Calla turns to me,
her green eyes joined to mine.
 
“You
wanna talk about anything?”

I shake my
head.
 
“Do I ever?”

She smiles.
 
“No.
 
But know that you can. If you want to.”

“I know.”
 
And I do.
 
 

“Did you know that
ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the death of their cats?”

I change the
subject and Calla laughs, shoving her long red hair out of her eyes with
slender fingers.
 
It’s our thing,
these stupid death facts.
 
It’s
my
thing, really.
 
I don’t know why. I guess it’s from all
the years of living in the stupid funeral home.
 
It’s my way of giving death the
finger.
 
Plus, by focusing on death
facts and learning Latin and making my stupid mental lists, it gives me
something to focus on. Any time I focus hard on something, it staves off the
voices.
 

Trust me, I’ll do
anything for that.

“I didn’t. But
thank God I know now,” Calla answers.
 
“What would you shave off for me if I died?”

I would plunge to the bottom of the ocean
for you.
 
I’d comb it for shells and make you a necklace and then hang myself
with it.
 
Because
if you aren’t here, I don’t want to be either.

I can’t show her
how panicky the mere thought makes me, so I shrug.
 
“Don’t give me the chance.”

She looks
horrified, as she realizes what she said, so soon after mom died.
 

“I didn’t mean
to….” She starts to say, then trails off.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
That was
stupid.”

Calla and I are
twins.
 
Our level
of connection can’t be understood by those who don’t have it
. I know
what she means even when she doesn’t.
  
Her comment had come out before she
remembered mom.
 
It sounds stupid,
but sometimes, we can forget our loss for a second.
 
A blissful second.
 

“Don’t worry about
it,” I tell her, as I turn onto the highway.
 

Fuck her. She has no right.

The voices are
loud.
 

Too
loud.
 

I close my eyes
and squeeze them hard, trying not to hear.
 

But the voices are
still there, still persistent.
 

She doesn’t deserve you.
 
Kill her you fucking pussy kill her
now.
 
Push her off the cliffs.
 
Lick her bones.
 
Lick her bones. Lick her bones.

I grip the steering
wheel until my knuckles turn white, trying to force the voices away.
 

Lick her bones, suck her marrow, show her
show her show her.

Today, the voices
sound real, even though I know they aren’t.
 
They’re not my
voice,
they’re just masquerades, a scary mask, imposters.
 
They’re not real.

My
voice is real.
 

Those
voices are not.
  

But it’s getting
harder and harder to tell them apart.

QUATUOR

Calla

One
thing about this mountain in the summertime, is that time seems to slow to
almost a
stand-still
and days blend into each
other.
 
Before I know it, one day
bleeds into two, then three, before somehow, I find myself on Group Therapy
duty again.

This time, however, I’m quick enough to
call driving rights.
 
I ignore
Finn’s indignant look as we get into the car, and I smile smugly at him (real,
not fake) as I drive away from the house.
 

As I steer the car down the mountain
curves, the tires squeak on the rain-soaked gravel.
 
Finn stares out the window, lost in his
thoughts as we pass ‘the spot’.
 
The place where our mother crashed and died.
 

A near-by tree hosts
brightly-colored
ribbons and a small plain cross.
 
It’s
lonely here, reverent and quiet.
 
It’s a place that I usually ignore,
because otherwise, it makes my heart hurt too much.
 

Unexpectedly, though, Finn lifts his
head.
 

“Can you stop?”

Startled, I brake,
then
pull over. “What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head.
 
“Nothing.
 
I just need to be here for a minute.”

He gets out, his car door creaking as he
closes it.
 
I’m uneasy as I follow,
because we’ve never stopped here before, not since we hung the ribbons and
staked the white cross into the ground.
 
It’s sacred ground here, but it’s also emotional ground.
 
And emotional ground is dangerous for
Finn to tread on.
  

“Whatcha doin’?” I ask as casually as I
can, following him to the side of the steep incline, to the place where mom
plunged over the side as she was talking to me.
 
Balancing here, with our toes poking
over the side, we can still see where the trees are knocked down and damaged
from mom’s car hitting them.
 
I feel
a wave of nausea.

“Do you think she was dead before she hit
the bottom?” Finn asks, his voice emotionless.
 
My heart squeezes in my chest.
 

“I don’t know.”

I’ve thought about it, of course, but I
don’t know.
 
Dad didn’t tell us and
I can’t bring myself to ask.
 

“What do you think about the other car?”
Finn asks, his gaze staring down into the ravine and definitely not looking at
me.
 
I inhale,
then
exhale, pushing the guilt away, far away from me, over the mountain, over the
cliffs, into the water.
 
  

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly.

It’s the truth, because afterward, Dad
wouldn’t tell us what happened to the occupants of the other car.
 
Who they were, how
many.
 
He thought I was feeling
enough unwarranted guilt, enough pain and torment.
 
He wouldn’t talk about any of it and we
were banned from turning the television on for weeks, just in case the news
carried coverage.
 
You’d think it
would be maddening, but at the time, I was so immersed in grieving that I almost
didn’t notice.
 

The problem is, it didn’t stop the guilt.
  

Because
I killed people.
 

Staring down the side of this mountain,
looking at the gouges carved into the trees from the metal of the crashed cars,
the destruction of the forest…it’s all evidence.
 
Whoever mom hit is dead. That’s
apparent.
 

And that’s my fault.
 
I killed them just like I killed
her.
 

The only real question is, how many were
in the car?
 
Was it one person?
 
A couple?
 
An entire family?

“Do you think there were kids involved?”
I ask quietly.
 
Because the thought
of that…
God.
It’s unbearable.
 
I picture scared little kids strapped
into car seats, covered in blood and terror.
 
I squeeze my eyes closed to block out
the imagined sight.
 

“I don’t know,”
Finn
answers, his voice just as quiet.
 
“We could find out, if you want. We could look up the newspaper
articles.
 
If you think knowing
would be better than
not
knowing.”

I think on that for a minute, because
it’s tempting,
so
tempting.
 
Then I shake my head.
 

“If dad won’t tell us, then it’s bad,” I
decide.
 
“That means that I’m better
off not knowing.”

Finn nods and stares wordlessly out over
the trees.

Finally he speaks.
 
“But what was a car doing on this
mountain?
  
We’re the only ones
who live here.
 
No one else has any
reason for being here that late at night.
 
The Home was closed.”

It’s a question I’ve wondered about ever
since it happened.
 
Mom was rounding
the curve in the middle of the lane because she wasn’t expecting anyone to be
there.
 

But someone was.
 

And they’d hit each other head on.
 

“I don’t know,” I reply and my chest
feels like ice, like my sternum will freeze and shatter.
 
“Maybe they were lost.”

Finn nods because that’s a possibility,
and the only one that makes sense, before he grabs my hand and holds it tight.

“It’s not your fault.”

His words are simple
,
his tone is solemn
.
 

A lump forms, sticking halfway in my
throat, in a limbo area, where it can
neither be swallowed or
cleared.
 

“It
is
.”
 
My words are just as simple.
 
“Why aren’t you mad at me for it?”

When Finn finally looks at me, his eyes
are tortured, and blue as the sky.

“Because it can’t be undone.
 
Because you’re the
most important person to me.
 
That’s why.”

I nod because now I know the truth.
 
He’s not mad at me because he thinks I’m
not at fault.
 
It’s clear that I
am.
 
He’s not mad at me because I’m
all he has, because I’m a part of him.
  

“We’ve got to go.
 
I’m going to be late.”

 
I nod in agreement and we back away from
the edge. With a last glance at the sad ravine, we climb back into the car,
damp with the drizzle and our tears, and drive silently to the hospital.
 

When we’re inside, Finn turns to me
before he slips into his room.
 

“There
is
a grief group.
 
You
should check it out.”

“Now you sound like dad,” I tell him
impatiently.
 
“I don’t need to talk
to them. I have you. No one understands like you.”

He nods,
because no one understands like him.
 
And then he disappears into the place
where he draws his strength, around people who suffer just like him.
 

I try not to feel inadequate that they
can help him in ways that I can’t.
 

Instead, I curl up on my bench beneath
the abstract bird.
 
I pop ear-buds
in my ears and close my eyes.
 
I
forgot my book today, so disappearing into music will have to do.
 

I concentrate on feeling the music rather
than hearing it.
I feel the vibration
,
I feel the words
.
 
I feel the beat.
 
I feel the
voices.
 
I feel the emotion.
 

Someone else’s emotion other than my own
is always a good thing.
  

The minutes pass, one after the other.

And then after twenty of them,
he
approaches.
 

Him.

The sexy stranger with eyes as black as
night.
  

I feel him approach while my eyes are
still closed.
 
Don’t ask me how I
know it’s him, because I just know.
 
Don’t ask me what he’s doing here again, because I don’t care about
that.
 

All I care about is the fact that he
is
here.
 

My eyes pop open to find him watching me,
his eyes still as intense now as they were the other day. Still as dark, still
as bottomless.
 

His gaze finds mine, connects with it,
and holds.
  

We’re connected.

With each step, he doesn’t look
away.
 

He’s dressed in the same sweatshirt as
the other day.
The irony is lost on you.
 
He’s wearing dark jeans, black boots and
his middle finger is still encircled by a silver band.
 
He’s a rocker.
 
Or an artist.
 
Or a writer.
 
He’s something hopelessly in style,
timelessly romantic.
 

He’s twenty feet away.
 

Fifteen.

Ten.
 

Five.

The corner of his mouth tilts up as he
passes, as he continues to watch me from the side. His shoulders sway, his hips
are slim.
 
Then he’s gone, walking
away from me.
 

Five feet.

Ten.

Twenty.
 

Gone.

I feel a sense of loss because he didn’t
stop.
 
Because I
wanted him to.
 
Because there’s something about him that I want to know.
 

I take a deep breath and close my eyes,
listening once again to my music.
 

The dark haired stranger doesn’t come
back.