Over the Hills and Far Away (NOLA's Own #1) (59 page)

Sitting in lotus pose, relaxed and calm, I can’t help but take a few moments to simply enjoy the peace and quiet. I’m not disturbed when I hear a faint rustling a little ahead of me. Its energy is alien, but I don’t feel threatened.

Then, right in front of me, I’m startled to see…myself, sitting about three feet from me, in the same exact pose. I’m increasingly unnerved as I stare at it—
that’s not me—
because it looks like me, but there’s just something wrong about it.

It’s not my reflection. I think it looks weird because I’m seeing myself as others see me.

Even more unnerving is the blank dead stare. I don’t think it can see me. It’s looking through me.

I close my eyes again. I don’t want to look at it. It’s creeping me the fuck out. I will it away from myself, but when I open my eyes, there are two more.

Motherfuckers are multiplying!

I quickly glance at each one. There’s one of me when I was about five years old, looking bruised, with a busted lip. When it grins, a string of bloody spit drips, and a tooth falls out. One of them looks like a whore. There’s no other word I can think to describe it. She’s just used and abused with streaked makeup and greasy hair, sticking in clumps, and she’s wearing an outfit not unlike the shit Sheri wears. She’s absolutely filthy.

What fresh hell is this?

Closing my eyes again, I’m praying no more are waiting to greet me with their blank stares and bizarre energies.

Unconsciously, I move my right hand to the side, and a delicate, slender hand slips into mine. It’s been so long since I’ve felt its warmth that I feel nostalgic tears burn behind my lids.

“Don’t fear them,” Mom tells me.

I open my eyes and turn to face her.

“Mom,” I whisper, feeling my heart swell with the strength of my love for her, with just how much I miss her. The years really haven’t dulled that pain—at least not when I can see her and touch her like this.

“Hello, my Little Zephyr.”

I find I don’t mind hearing her call me that so much right now.

“What are they?” I ask.

“Don’t you know?”

Demons wearing my face.

“Xavier was only partly right,” she tells me with a smile. “He said only some of them wear your face. But he was mistaken.”

“In what way?”

“They
all
wear your face,” she replies.

“How is that even possible?”

I turn to look forward again and gasp. There are more. One appears to be what my bloated dead corpse could look like.

Mom squeezes my fingers. “Think.”

It’s for the same reason my inner voice is Phil’s voice. It’s the same reason he recognized me for what I was to him—not as the little girl who had gone back to Pensacola after the best Christmas he’d ever known, but the missing half of who he was.

“It’s okay,” she tells me. “Your demons wear his face, too.”

“It doesn’t seem right,” I tell her. “Why would our demons look like each other? They should be wearing our own faces! I don’t blame him for any baggage I’m carrying around in me!”

“You are soul mates, sweetheart. While you complete one another in so many ways, you also show each other your greatest fears…and that’s really all demons are. When he looks at you, Phil sees his greatest joy and his darkest misery.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do about these things then?”

“Nothing. You can deal with them when they show themselves. Just be able to recognize them for what they are. They’re only as harmful as you let them become.”

Watching them warily, I nod.

I hear footsteps shuffling behind us on the porch, and turning, I spot Grandma moving around.

“Hi, Kenna honey!” calls Grandma. She’s positioned next to an ancient wooden radio. “Want to hear some tunes?”

“Uh, sure, Grandma. How are you?”

“Fantastic!” she crows.

She starts fiddling with the knobs, and I hear static and fuzzy voices.

“Ah-ha!” she cries as “Kashmir” filters through the crackling speakers.

Mom squeezes my fingers. She looks away from my gaze, off to the side of me, like she’s listening to something beyond “Kashmir.”

A secret smile plays at the corners of her mouth. “He’s laying the world at your feet.”

When she says that, I feel a gentle warmth envelop my right ankle.

“The more you try to distance yourself, the tighter he’ll hold on. There must be a common ground for you both.”

The demons are gone, and before me is my beloved backyard with all the Technicolor blooms and my favorite scent.

“I miss you,” I tell her. When I turn to look at her, she’s gone. “Mom?”

“You are a power to be reckoned with,” Grandma says.

When I turn back to look at the porch, she’s gone as well.

“Kashmir” is still playing, but the light is no longer the brilliant brightness of noon. Rather, it’s that of a world being plunged into twilight.

How the hell do I get out of here?

Immediately, I’m sucked up once more through the Rabbit Hole.

Still smelling those flowers, I could feel that I was in bed, lying on my side. My ankle
did
feel hot, maybe a little sweaty. Cracking open my eyes, I saw that I was in my room, dimly lit by the lamp on my dresser.

Odd…I don’t remember turning that on
,
I thought.

Pushing myself up, I looked down and saw Phil sitting on the floor against the foot of the bed, his head resting on his left upper arm and his hand lightly clasping my ankle.

He’s laying the world at my feet. He
is
my whole world.

Reaching out, I stroked my fingertips over his brow, and he slowly opened his eyes, looking so lost, so sad.

“Hey, babe,” I said quietly. Glancing at my clock, I was shocked that it was after ten in the evening. “I never meant to fall asleep—”

“It’s okay,” he replied. He sounded…
defeated
.

My heart fissured a little at his tone.

“No, it’s not. I said I’d come back,” I insisted.

Lifting his head, his face was a mask of pure misery.

“What is it?” I asked, feeling a wiggle of fear worm its way into my heart.

Taking my hand in his hot large one, he brought it to his lips. “Every time I feel you tryin’ to escape me…I die a little inside.”

My breath caught in my chest. “I wasn’t—”

Sad eyes met mine without fear. “You were. What’s wrong with me that makes you feel the need to run?”

“Oh God…
nothing.
There is absolutely
nothing
wrong with you, Phil!”
Shit, I’m tearing up again.

“Then, I don’t understand, Kenna. All I want is to spend every waking moment with you. I want to sleep next to you every night—”

“I think,” I told him in the most soothing voice I could manage, “that you believe that we’re the same inside, Phil. And we’re just
not.
You have it in your head that since we feel the same about each other—and I assure you, we really
do
—that we’re going to have the same reactions. And that’s simply not the case.

“You’ve spent these last few years with no time for yourself. Surrounded by your closest friends, your
brothers
, you were never lonely. I’m the complete opposite of that. I’m very, very comfortable by myself, and I enjoy my own company. I
need
to be able to have some time with no one else around. I need it to figure out my own feelings and thoughts.”

“You can’t do that with me?”

“You have this amazing ability, Phil, to make me forget everything and everyone, even myself. Your energy is so intense, so all consuming, and I love it. But I’m not used to it. I can’t tune it out, and I find it damn impossible to ignore. So, no, right now in our relationship, I can’t figure shit out for myself if you’re around.”

“What did you need to figure out today?”

“Why I was so upset with you,” I replied.

His eyes closed, and he lowered his head to rest on my feet. “I’m sorry, Baby Girl. I hate that I’m this dirty slut—”

“I know you do. And…I realized that I kind of hate it, too.”

“Oh God…” he whispered, swallowing thickly. He was quiet for a minute, and then he turned his flushed face and kissed the top of my foot. “I’m ashamed of a lot, and I’m scared that when you find out what I’ve done, you’ll be ashamed of me, too—enough to want to have nothin’ to do with me ever again.”

“Like
what
?” I asked, exasperated. “Have you murdered someone?”

“No.”

“Raped someone?”

“I came close once. I’m not sure if that counts.”

I rolled my eyes. He was talking about the other night.

“Molested a child?”

“Fuck no!” He looked at me as though
I
were disgusting for even voicing such a concern.

“Fucked a sheep? Goat? Donkey?”

“No. No. And no.”

“Then, I can honestly say that you haven’t done anything that would make me so ashamed of being with you that I’d have to leave you.

“But I figured out that what I was feeling was bitterness and jealousy because all these women have been with you, you know? Even Sheri had you in some capacity before I did. It just…I think I’m bummed because I feel like I wasn’t worth the wait, you know? When we kissed, I felt like I made you a promise…and it sucks to know I had deluded myself—”

“You didn’t, Kenna. It
was
a promise, one I broke because I was a little bitch who hadn’t gotten what I wanted.”

I stroked his face, once again just caught up in how drop-dead gorgeous he was.

“Deep down, I know that this isn’t going to be an issue in the long run,” I told him. “A part of me had accepted it from the get-go. And now that I know what I feel, then I can deal with it, and talking to you about it…makes me feel better. I don’t think you’re dirty, Phil. I think you’re human.”

He smiled sadly and rubbed his face on my foot.

“When did you get here?” I asked.

“Around seven. You weren’t answerin’ your phone, so I came over. By the way, X came with me, and Alys let us in. She told me you were passed out cold in your room, and then X stole her to watch a movie back at my place.”

“Yeah, I guess I was really tired or stoned—or both.”

“I watched you for a while. I love to watch you sleep. You look so peaceful.”

I smiled. “That’s not creepy or anything.”

He shrugged. “Don’t really care if it is or not.”

“I know. You want to sit on the bed with me? Or are you just going to mope on the floor all night?”

Heaving a sigh, he got up. “Can I change the music? That shit put me into some sort of sleep. I mean, I think I was awake and asleep at the same time.”

“It’s meditation music. It helps calm my head.”

“You don’t say,” he said sarcastically. “Zeppelin?”

“Sounds good.”

He started pawing through my CDs. “Oh! Queen’s
Greatest Hits
?”

“I do love me some Freddie.”

“Too fuckin’ right,” he grunted. “I love that you love all the same music I do.”

“Yeah, it would totally blow if you listened to bubblegum pop or country. That’s something I’d be ashamed of you for, and I would leave you over it.” I laughed.

“I don’t think I’d blame you,” he said, smiling, his eyes twinkling with some happiness. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he took off his socks.

I guessed he’d left his boots downstairs.

“Did Jason eat?”

“Alys volunteered to help Sheri make him some food. I don’t know what.”

“That’s good.”

Flopping back onto the pillows, he pulled me into his arms. “Are you sure you want me here?”

“Yes. I never meant to be away for so long.”

He exhaled and relaxed a bit more. “Okay.” He was quiet for a few minutes before telling me, “I think I would’ve confessed about Sheri to you eventually. It wasn’t like it was special or anythin’. She would give all of us head when we needed it.”

“I know.”

“How come
you
never said anythin’ about it before today?”

With a shrug, I replied, “I think I was trying to convince myself that it didn’t matter, that it wasn’t anything for me to be jealous over. And really, it’s not.”

Reaching out, he took my hand, lacing our fingers.

“All this shit you say you’re ashamed of…is it sexual?” I asked, looking at our entwined hands.

“Pretty much. I’ve fucked just about everythin’ that moved itself across my path.”

“You’ve shagged some dudes, too?” I asked, my voice tinged with laughter.

Shooting me an exasperated glare, he said, “No. That kind of shit doesn’t bother me, but I’m not attracted to dudes—at all. But I know some guys who would surprise you to know that they are.”

“I bet.” I laughed outright.

Phil smiled sweetly, his eyes getting a bit of a sparkle before dimming and growing serious once more. “I haven’t always treated women too well, not that they were lookin’ for it, but still. I’ve used them, and I have been used in return. I never really thought too much of what I would be bringin’ home to you until…well, until we knew when we were comin’ home. It was a low blow, knowing I was bringing you home somethin’ so gross.”