Ashes and Ice (3 page)

I’ve been here for the entirety of my life and I have no one, Capital Z, zero people “hearting” me. The most attention I have ever gotten is when Jared Wilson put me head first in the cafeteria dumpster for sitting in his seat. I’ve never made the mistake again. But if I ever want to venture out of the shadow of social invisibility, I could always provoke him.

I file into the shuffle of people. No, invisibility works just fine for me.

A few kids shove past me and I stumble, my bag flopping to the ground. I reach down to pick it up and as I stand up, I see a few kids look at me and shake their heads.

I shoulder my bag and sigh. Apparently, not invisible enough.

The voice soothes me, eases the cold and fear.

I am in Clara’s apartment. I am fine. My name is Jade Smith.

Come to me.

My bones respond to the voice. They start moving, listening to the whisper, obeying. I feel like I am being pulled, pulled up, pulled across the room, pulled toward Clara’s door to leave.

Leave? I don’t want to go. I want to stay. I want to pretend I am Jade Smith, a runaway, a complicated girl with a complicated past like one of the girls in those movies Clara and I watched. I want to stay and figure out my life. I want to know how mint ice cream tastes. I want to watch the sequel to the first two Rocky movies—how many did Clara say there were? I want to find my family, want them to love me. Surely, surely I have one… I have just forgotten.

This is when my plan, my grandest lie, unravels. The dead girl in the woods. She must’ve had a family and someone left her there, strewn out like an unwanted doll to die. I had seen her, wanted to… possess her, taste the energy seeping out of her in scarlet ribbons.

I can’t stay here.

I have to leave. My body knows where to go. The voice knows where to guide me.

I scuttle back to pick up the messenger bag Clara bought me. It has buttons all over it. Each one makes me smile.

“Clara?” I say, but no one answers.

On the counter, I see muffins and a note.

Hey Girl, fun night. Do you know you sleep like the dead? I made so much noise this morning and you just kept sleeping. Had to go to work. I’ll be back at lunchtime. If you need to go, though, take the $50 and take care of yourself. P.S. Put on the boots NOW. ;)

I smile and stuff the fifty and the muffins in my new messenger bag. I take my time, running my hand over the chipped tile of the counter. The pull in my belly toward the door turns into a violent tug. I swallow, walking over and turning the doorknob. I survey the apartment—the absolute wreckage of it—and realize how much I like it. I don’t flinch when a cockroach runs past my shoe. “Thank you, Clara.” I say to the air… “Thank you.” Somehow, I know I won’t see her again. Somehow, I know I shouldn’t.

I leave her building and follow the strange magnetic pull leading me east. Everything is crystal clear until I round the corner onto 23rd street.

I wake up in the hay at a farmhouse, a horse drooling into my hair, a shadowed figure in the wide-open doorway of the barn. I don’t even remember standing up, my memory blinks right off again.

Humidity chokes me. I am lying flat on hard wood. I can feel the grain of it under my fingertips. I slowly peel my eyes open and gasp.

Water.

It is everywhere. I am on a dock right on the edge, nearly tipping in. The water is close, too close; it will kill me. I can’t move even though I know I have to scoot down the dock toward the shore. I am paralyzed in place, screaming—when did the screaming start? Soon, the water will come and swallow me whole. I feel the cold penetrating my bones, freezing me to the core. My throat is ragged, raw. The screams are shrill, ugly sounds, and they pierce the air.

Warm, doughy arms wrap around me. I don’t flinch away from them because I am too scared to move at all.

“Shh, shhh, darlin’, you gon’ be alriiight.” It is a warm drawn out sound, barely audible because of my screaming. “Shhh, shhh, Nanan is here. Shhh, shhh. Fine young thing like you should not be screamin’ like a banshee. C’mon, darlin’. Ya safe. Ya alright. Nanan won’t let nothing happen to ya.”

Her voice is a lullaby. My screams taper down, but don’t stop. The water. My eyes lock on that water. I don’t want it to take me. I don’t want to drown. Not again. It hurts too much.

Warm hands the color of hot cocoa rest on my cheeks, slowly turning my face away from the water and toward the voice, toward her round brown eyes. “Ya listen here, darlin’. Ya alright.”

I stop screaming, quaking from the aftermath, weak. I want to cry. I want to sob onto this woman’s shoulder. I want to release this pain behind my eyes, but I don’t. I can’t. But I believe this woman, this woman with warm hands, and I don’t flinch away or even attempt to pull away, because her soft brown eyes have me. They are not lying eyes.

For now, the water will not take me.

The woman pulls me to my feet and keeps her arm wrapped around my shoulder as I stumble down the uneven wood planks. “You gon’ come home with me, darlin’, you gon’ come home with me and ya be all right. No young thang will be left alone in Madisonville, Louisiana. No sir, not while Nanan is here. Ya be all right.”

The water will not take me now, but this woman—this Nanan—will.

I lean into her and let her warmth seep into me.

Jared slaps Dominic on the shoulder, “You may be good with a ball, but all you’re going to be seeing around this track is my ass.”

“Oh really?” Dominic’s arches an eyebrow.

“Oh yeah.” Jared smirks.

“We’ll see.” Dominic pounds one fist into the other briefly enlarging the mass of his biceps. “I’m going to—”

They could go on forever. I don’t really care. One will win. The other will be pissed off. Some obscenities will be exchanged. Then it will all start over tomorrow. I just want to run. Run like there is no one here. Run like all in front and behind me are the open pastures and the only competitor I have to race is the gold Arabian in the barn. Like I used to, like Dad used to. I breathe in steadily. In through my nose and out through my mouth.

“All right. Ready. Set. Hey, hey. Julianne get up on the track. You can’t sit out.” Coach rolls his eyes as she mumbles about how unfair life is.

“Okay. Go!” His whistle pierces the air.

My feet are already moving. My breath falls in sync with the motion. One-two, one-two, one-two. Breathe. In-out. I picture the green hills of home and the oak trees that guard it. I round the first bend in the track. The wind whips my face as I pick up speed, offering some relief from the Louisiana sun. Everything feels even and balanced. It’s constant and steady—the pavement, the air in my lungs, the movement of my legs.

I fly past the second bend, the third, and the fourth. I pick up momentum going around for my second lap. I’m on the outskirts of the group. The imaginary screensaver I have of the open pastures gives way to reality and I see ,as I’m coming to the end of the mile, Dominic and Jared are side by side in full-blown sprints a few yards in front of me. I can’t help but smile to myself. These guys are just full of BS. Seriously, if skinny ol’ me can come up so close behind them, how amazing are they? I push myself a little harder. I see the finish line, so close, and a little part of me would like it if Jared and Dominic could get a view of my backside for a change.

My strides are more deliberate and the thud of my sneakers on the pavement sounds off in louder, faster intervals. The gap between us is closing. They are too engrossed in glaring at each other and panting to notice me coming up on the right. If I push a little harder, I can make it. Just a little harder. Just a little faster. Within three strides, I am right next to Jared. At first, he doesn’t notice. But then he looks at me with contempt, his eyebrows furrowed together, his eyes squinting. I almost hear the wheels churning in his brain:
when did you get here
?

The finish line is only fifteen feet away. Ever so slowly, I pull in front of them. By one stride and then another. Am I actually going to make it? Am I actually going to beat Jared Wilson and Dominic Xavier? Me? Connor Devereaux? I can almost feel heaven open up and shower down its glory when it hits. A sharp blunt object nabs my shin and I feel myself tumbling forward, head-first. Pavement meets my forehead in a spasm of pain that ricochets from my head downward. The sun blinds me, but as I lift up my forehead, I can see Jared smirking back at me while crossing the red flag.

He shrugs his shoulders and attempts a cartoonish depiction of innocence, “Oops. I’m sorry.”

Dominic bellows out a laugh and high fives him.

A few girls giggle, pointing their camera phones in my direction.

Instead of getting up right away, I press my head into the gravel. It’s hot and doesn’t stop the throbbing, but it blocks out everyone else, at least for a moment. Coach Edmond nudges me with his shoe. “Ya okay, kid?” I sigh, dragging myself to my feet and nod. The unawesomess of me stares from the hushed whispers and whoops of laughter as I limp past them toward the locker rooms.

The bump on my forehead continues to pulsate in small waves of pain. My earphones drown out the sounds around me. By lunch, my little face-planting incident, in all its very inglorious glory, is viral on the internet. Apparently, I have a couple thousand views, a few likes, and a comment page littered with “what a loser!” and “watch out, don’t trip, ass-wipe!” and “Jared strikes again! Hilarious, man!” As I walk to my table, some kids flag me and stuff their phones in my face while their own faces contort with soundless laughter. I push past and keep walking, unwilling to watch the replaying video. I remember it well enough. I absentmindedly brush the back of my fist to my forehead. Yeah, I remember it just fine.

I sit down and turn up the volume on my IPod. I have the living dead across from me and some dude with headgear wheezing to my left. Only the two feet to my right are completely empty. All mine. I know no one is going to run over to claim my prized expanse of treasured cafeteria seat space, but I keep my book bag and sketchpad sprawled out across the table in case anyone tries.

I feel someone behind me. I hear a faint “excuse me” over the beat of the music. I pretend not to hear. I know what they want. They need a place to sit. But this spot is all mine. Dammit. There are so many other places to sit and they have to choose right here? They must be a cross dresser with a peg leg to actually want to sit over here with the crooked-teeth, cat eyed, looser of the school. Which means I definitely don’t want to sit next to them.

I slightly bob my head to the music to gesture I am too involved to actually attend to their needs right now. I can see the arm of the person behind me lift up to touch my shoulder. Good lord, can they not take a hint? But right before the intruder makes contact, his hand plops back to his side and he slowly walks away.

The guy passes to my left. I exaggerate a look to the right. Maybe I was trying too hard to ignore him. Maybe it was too obvious. As I straighten my back, I can see a dark silhouette walking past the pillars and to the table isolated and lonely without a fan in sight. Is he really going to sit all the way over there? There are other places to sit. He’s going to die of heat stroke over there. A pang of guilt suddenly slaps me across the face. Why do I have to be a jerk? I could’ve shared my spot. He’s obviously too shy to sit anywhere else. I peer to my left and see who I rejected.

From the back, I can see I turned down a girl, not a guy. She has black hair dangling to the middle of her back. She’s wearing long-sleeves, so, obviously, she’s crazy. She turns and I suddenly regret my antisocial behavior. She isn’t elegant or a bombshell, at least not by Hollywood standards. She’s beautiful in a way, demanding stares. Her skin is honey. She wears a fitted shirt that says, “The voices in my head don’t like you either” above a skirt poofing out over fishnet stockings and knee-high boots. Her slight, muscular form is blessed with killer hips. I swallow hard, tracing my eyes back up to her face.

Just then, her eyes flutter up to meet mine. I choke on the bite of food in my mouth. Her eyes, a startling green, don’t look at all happy to see me. I snap my head forward, embarrassed she caught me staring. I hold my breath for a long moment. Her eyes are so beautiful and so very harsh. They are cold, brutal eyes and they glared right at me. Half of me thinks:
Idiot, idiot, idiot! Beautiful, totally hot girl had her hand on my shoulder and I ignored her.
I curse myself for missing a chance to have her sit next to me. The other half of me, though, is relieved. Somehow, I know eyes so sharp and penetrating could slice me open.