Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) (18 page)

§

The landing at the top of the stairs. The next photo. Your
face half in shadow, half in light. The almost-smile is still there in spite of
the pallor of your skin, the hollows beneath your cheekbones, the scarf wrapped
round your head. I hear the last breath of a laugh. Smell honeysuckle drifting
on a cool breeze.

Always the same photographs in the same order. I don’t know how,
but the how doesn’t matter. And I already know the why.

(
Please let me go.

Never.
)

It will be the last photo, just like the last time. I know it
will, but I check the locks anyway. Everything is as it should be. It’s too
cold to leave the windows open or I would.

§

A throat clears. I look up to see my boss standing in my
office, a small frown on his face. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I say. “Why?”

“You look a little tired, that’s all.”

“Just a bout of insomnia,” I say. The lie slips easily from my tongue.

“You have my sympathies. My wife’s had that for years. Try a
glass of wine before bed. That helps her.”

“Will do.”

He lingers for a few moments longer, and for one quick instant, I
think of telling him everything. I tried that once with your sister; she told
me I should talk to a doctor, and then she stopped answering my calls.

§

I unlock the windows, as always, but my hand remains on the
lever. I am so tired of waiting. I’m wearing shadows under my eyes now, and I
have a knot in my chest that won’t go away. Maybe I could learn to forget about
you. To move on. Throw away the photographs, let time fade the memories. Lock
the doors and the windows instead of unlocking them. Go out with my coworkers.
And maybe you’ll stop.

I flip the lock, sigh, and turn it back. No, I want you to come
back. It’s what I’ve always wanted. Maybe that small sliver of doubt is the
reason you haven’t yet.

§

I find a photo in the hallway just outside the bedroom door
and sit with my back against the wall. I’ve never seen this photo before;
you’ve never made it this close.

The smile is no longer a smile, but a grimace. The shadows
beneath your eyes are now bruises of dark. I taste the bright sting of
antiseptic. Hear the ticking of a clock winding down and down and down.

“Please, baby, please,” I whisper, my voice hollow.

I take that tiny trace of doubt and shove it away. Hold the photo
to my chest. This time will be different. I know it will.

§

I toss and turn for hours, listening to the quiet. The
distance between the hallway and the bed seems so small, yet miles, worlds,
apart as well.

Please, baby. Please.

The last words you said to me.

§

The next door neighbor is outside watering her plants when I
get home.
She waves. Smiles. I return the gesture, but not the
expression. When she starts to head in my direction, I hightail it into the
house. Rude, I know, but she caught me when I first moved here and kept me
outside for an hour, her voice flitting from topic to topic like a bee on a
mission for nectar.
She doesn’t pick up on any of the signs that I want
to be left alone, or maybe she does and just chooses to ignore them. The way
she ignores the ring on my finger.

§

Another photo, left on the foot of our bed. It shows only
clasped hands. Matching silver bands. Fingers entwined. One hand is hale and
hearty; the other frail, the veins standing out like mounds in a field of fresh
graves. I feel the paper skin beneath my palm. I hear a whisper of words,
promising lies, promising everything. I taste a kiss laced with despair and loss.

I can’t stop the tears. I can’t stop my hands from shaking. But I
run to the florist and buy three dozen red roses, long-stemmed with thorns, the
way you like them. On the way back, I brave the mall and buy a fresh bottle of
your favorite perfume.

§

One day becomes two. One week turns three. No trace of
flowers in the air. No new photos. I’m still alone with empty arms and a knot
in my chest. I smoke cigarette after cigarette. Pace footprint divots in the
carpet. Choke back tears as the hope leaks out, a little more with each passing
day.

My boss was wrong about the wine. It doesn’t help at all. Nothing
does.

§

After two months, I slide the photographs into an envelope,
tuck the flap over as best as I can, and pull a battered shoe box out from
under the bed. Nine sets of photos. Ten envelopes, the last one sealed. The
paper clearly reveals two small circular shapes. The saint on the medallion
never offered assistance; the ring is only a circle of empty without your skin
to bind it.

When I close my eyes, I recall every plane and curve of your
face, before illness turned you pale and hollow, but I wonder, if not for the
photographs, would I? Would time have turned my heart to scar instead of open
wound?

I shove the box back under the bed, my mouth downturned. I
should’ve known better. You’ve tried nine times in five years, and all the want
in the world can’t bring you back.

§

The next time my coworkers ask me to go to happy hour, I say
yes. I say yes the second and third time, too. By the fifth time, I don’t have
to force a laugh at a joke or fake a smile when someone catches my eye. I feel
a loosening in my chest, an ease in my breath.

I take the box of photographs and put them on the top shelf of my
closet. I make sure all the doors and windows are locked before I go to bed.
And, finally, I take off the silver ring. My eyes burn with tears, but I blink
them away before they fall.

§

“Please let me go,” you whispered through cracked lips.
“Please.”

“Never,” I said, arranging the scratchy hospital blanket around your
shoulders.

Your bare scalp was hidden under a yellow scarf, but nothing
could hide the matchstick legs, the grey tinge of your skin, or the pain in
your eyes that morphine couldn’t touch. No amount of perfume could mask the
shroud of illness and breaking hearts.

I held your hand and told you for the thousandth time about that
night, our first date, after I dropped you off. How I turned and saw you
standing with your hair full of moonlight and your lips full of smile. How I
knew I would spend the rest of my forever with you.

“Please, baby, please.”

And then only silence. I sat
with your hand in mine until your skin began to cool, and I didn’t cry until a
nurse led me out of the room.

§

I wake on a cool morning in early autumn to find the
photograph on the mat outside the front door. The lock of hair, the little
smile, the pale roses. I stand with my hands in my pockets for a long time, but
eventually I carry the photo back into the house.

I’ll leave the windows open every night, weather be damned. I’ll put
flowers out every day. Because you were so close the last time, so very close,
and that has to mean something.

I slip the ring back on my finger. It was a mistake to take it
off in the first place. I won’t make it again.

Please, baby, find your way back home to me. I’ll wait for you no
matter how long it takes. I promise I will. If you make it all the way this
time, I’ll say the goodbye I should’ve said in the hospital.

Maybe then I’ll be able to let you go.

Derek tells the woman the shoes are too small, but she
insists on pushing her foot in and the flesh bubbles over the edge. When she
teeters around the aisle, he winces. The stiletto heels are meant for a
gazelle, not a cow. Her shiny, fat face splits into a smile.

“I’ll take them,” she says.

Derek wipes his hands on his pants and gives her the slick
salesman’s grin he’s perfected countless times in the mirror. “Would you like
to wear them out of the store?” Of course, she says yes.

The matchbook in his pocket is heavy, a dangerous weight to
carry. He’d like to burn her up. After her skin blackened, the fat would go
fast, sizzling away in a scummy pile of stinking yellow excess. He turns away
so she can’t see the light creeping up into his eyes.

After she wobbles out of the store, Derek goes into the back to
wash the feel of her off his hands. The bell over the door chimes. Slipping on
his pleasant, safe face, he heads back just in time to see her walk in, all
stiletto heels and red lipstick. 38-26-36, he guesses, bought and paid for with
her ex-husband’s money and maintained with hours at the gym, sweating under the
guidance of her personal trainer. The kind of woman who drinks dirty martinis
with four olives, not three. A mannequin, ice-cold and perfect, but hot enough
to burn the skin from his lips.

“I’m looking for a pair of black heels,” she says. “Four inch
stiletto heels.”

Derek uncurls his voice from the back of his throat. “Size
eight?”

Her full lips curve up at the corners. “Yes, how did you know?”

“It’s my job.”

She sits down and stretches out her long legs. The heat from her
core pushes flames from her skin, flames only he can see. In the stockroom, he
wipes sweat from his brow as he pulls out several boxes of shoes.

She shakes her head at the first pair, frowns at the second, but
when he opens the third box (four inch heels, shiny patent leather, a tiny lace
bow at the back), a quick laugh emerges from her throat like a butterfly
escaping the chrysalis. “Those are perfect,” she says.

Her toenails are painted the color of fresh blood. His hands
shake as he slips the shoes on her feet, careful not to make contact with her
skin. She’s burning him up with her presence.

The muscles in her calves flex as she walks with graceful,
practiced steps, leaving behind sex-heat, want-heat. Derek digs his fingernails
into the soft flesh of his palms, tattooing his skin with half-moon bruises.

“What do you think?” she asks.

Too beautiful to burn, too gorgeous not to.

“You’re right. They’re perfect,” he says. “Would you like to wear
them now?”

“Oh, no, these are for a very special occasion. I don’t want to
ruin them.”

After she sits back down, he removes the shoes, resisting the
urge to touch. To feel. The matchbook falls from his pocket when he leans over
to pick up the box, and they reach at the same time. Their fingertips touch,
and a tiny spark of electricity jumps in the no-space between their skin. A
strand of her hair falls forward, curving in a comma against the pale of her
cheek. Her lips part; her fingers tremble.

Could it be?

He flips the matchbook over in
his hand and puts it back in his pocket, watching her face the entire time. Her
eyes are an ocean of lava filled with needwantmusthavenow. It explains
everything.

They walk side by side to the register, not speaking. When he
hands back her credit card, their fingers touch again; her heat pushes into
his. He slips the matchbook into the bag with her shoes.

Will she understand?

Five minutes after she leaves, he calls the credit card company.
His story is convincing, and they give him her address.

That night, unable to resist the heat within, he watches and
waits. The second night, he lights one match after another, seeing her face in
each tiny flame. On the third night, his perfection emerges from her house with
her body encased in black, the new shoes shimmering like the carapace of an
exotic beetle.

He follows her car at a safe distance, smiling when she reaches
her destination, a new development where huge half-built homes silhouette the
sky with their wooden skeletons. She gets out of the car and walks her
heat-walk across the grass. A pregnant moon, haloed in red, lights the way. The
moth-like flutter of his heart cannot resist the lure of her warmth.

The house (their house) is a shadow-maze of new wall smell. The
glow from the moon reaches down through the unfinished roof, and her heels
click on the floor with soft, gentle stiletto clicks. Another sound then, a
quick little snick, and a smell he knows all too well—the sweet perfume of
burning wood. The intoxicating scent of power.

When he finds her, her face holds no trace of surprise.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she says, holding up his gift, the
matchbook, her voice whisper soft and honey sweet.

A snake-trail of fire winds its way around them, red-orange-yellow
flames that flicker and hiss. Music, such sweet music, each note reflecting in
the patent leather of her shoes.

“I knew tonight would be special.” She smiles her red, red smile,
takes his hand, and together they burn.

 

Every family has a secret magic tucked away in a dusty
attic or hidden between the words of a handed-down story. This box is ours. It
doesn’t look like much, but it’s been in our family for a long time. After my
mother’s death, I found it in her attic with a notebook inside. Now I’ll leave
the box for Rebecca. I hope she won’t just think it an old woman’s fancy.