Ashes and Ice (5 page)

It feels too much like before—when he died. And that scares me. When he died, I knew I would never be the same. Always a bit gone and out of reach. Always a bit broken because he was no longer there. Dad could sort it out. I could talk to him about it. He could drag me back into the world. But, he can’t. Because he’s the one who brought me to this place to begin with and he’s the reason why I may never be able to let go of it. I think about his smile, his laughter, his guitar and the intensity of his eyes as he blotted out the world and listened to me and nothing else.

I need him now. I breathe in deeply. And as I leave the chatter of the school behind me, I know that I’m not going straight home. I turn right at the fork in the road as the sky darkens. But the threat of rain doesn’t scare me away, because I know where I need to go.

Blood.

I tighten my fingers on my pen, and dig deeper into the paper, nearly ripping it.

Dead things.

I gulp down, squeezing my eyes shut, but Clara’s vacant, dead eyes are painted there so I blink them open. She’s gone. Gone, gone, gone. And the Etcher killed her. He slashes his victims apart, and then carves something into their skin. It is how they connected the two murders. Three. Clara was the third.

I let go of the pen and stuff my hands in my pockets. I look around. Desks, floors, plastic, people. Slick surfaces and too many people crowd around me. Their chatter and movements make me flinch. Every so often, I hear a heartbeat, two heartbeats, three heartbeats, so many heartbeats like drums, pounding, and I am beaten down into remembering not one heartbeat is my own.

I realize my hand is dragging a finger over my chest, curious at the silence there. I clench my fist and lower it to the desk. I hate it here. I hate these walls. I feel claustrophobic, cornered.

A throat clears beside me and I flick my gaze to it. Black eyes set a pale, stubbly face. One of the huge, muscular boys. He winks. I shift away.

I wait, wait for the bell to ring and release me from this room. But the teacher is still setting up for class, moving his papers around on the desk. The first bell to start the class hasn’t even rung yet. Time moves so slowly.

That is when I see it. The boy. Grayness rises off him like the fog rolling off the swamp. Sitting behind him, I see the mass of cold, ashen air wrap around him like a blanket until I can barely make out the outline of his hunched shoulders. It scares me how the crisp, clear air around him transforms into something so solid and menacing it may suffocate him, crush him under its deadly force.

All day he stays like that, through class after class—gray and depleted, a C shape hunched under the weight of an ominous grey cloud.

When he leaves the school, I don’t know where he is going, I simply know I have to follow him. He doesn’t see me, never even looks up from the pavement. Shoulders hunched forward, he simply walks through the rain, head down as if he is too afraid to face the world head-on. I try to convince myself he’s disgusting, try to hold onto the bitterness making me feel stronger, but I distance myself because I don’t want to care. The haze around him, however—so gloomy, and gray, and faint—doesn’t stop tugging at me beneath the resentment, somewhere unguarded, deep in my chest.

I bury the thought. I watch as he opens the creaking iron gate, the doors to a cemetery. I watch as he walks through gravestones, never eyeing them, as if his feet know exactly where to go. I keep my distance, but dart in front of him, cloaked by his lack of observance and my speed.

He stops.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t speak. He just stands there like a statue. He’s quiet and alone, though the ever-fading gray cloud wisps away from him as if the gravestone itself is robbing him of his energy, of his life.

I swallow. A mantra fills my head, trying to edge out another emotion and fill me:
Stay away from him. You don’t need to care about him.

Then I hear it. It’s such a low, muffled sound. Heavy breathing, sharp inhales and exhales. A barely visible shake of his shoulders, hoodie covering his expression. He—the statue of a boy—crumbles. Falling to his knees in the most broken and vulnerable way, I feel something inside me fall with him. He pushes his hood down. Now I see him clearly, even through the rain and distance, I see him perfectly. Tears try to blend in with the rain, but fail. I see his tears. His precious, pained tears. And all I can do is stare.

Something within me shifts. Annoyance to curiosity. Impatience to sympathy. Reluctance to desire—desire to understand how and why he can weep like the rain. I touch my cheek. Slick. Wet. But my own tears don’t touch these cheeks. And I wonder if it’s because I am too empty a creature to produce my own. It all feels so…disconnected, disjointed, as though vital pieces of me are missing or broken. I don’t miss those bits, but I wonder if it’s only because I don’t know what I’ve lost. Connor is real. I am not.

Clara was real… I tense, thinking of the shape of her eyes, the flecks of silver along her ears. I swallow hard. Clara. Clara. Is. Dead. My chest starts to ache, stretch, cave in. I look back to the boy.

I want to run to him and wipe his tears away. I want to grasp at the energy fleeting away from him and give it back.

I don’t. I just leave him there, alone and crying. The moment I turn away to run, a heavier ache squeezes my chest. I suddenly realize what the expression “pulling on your heartstrings” means because, right now, even without a heart in my chest, I feel they have been cut and I am plummeting into the emptiness.

That’s stupid. She’s not looking at me. I narrow my vision to a small speck of paint on the pavement. It is time to run.

“Ready, set, go!” Coach shouts before his high-pitched whistle rings out in the humid air.

We all propel forward at varying speeds—some slower than snails. I let Jared and Dominic sail past me. I don’t want to repeat my face-in-the-gravel fiasco. I fall into a relaxed stride bordering on absolute boredom. People pant beside me, a few glide past me. Oh, the pool of mediocrity. I feel like I am destined to wade in its waters for eternity. Part of me is waiting though. Maybe Jade will catch up to me. The thought makes me want to slow down and speed up at the same time. I didn’t want to be so interested in her. I even try to convince myself I am not interested. I suck at lying, though.

A rock rolls under the ball of my foot setting me off balance, propelling me forward. I can sense a face-pavement moment coming on. Oh God, not again. My front foot slaps the ground and attempts to even out my stride, but I can see the ground getting closer to my face. Here we go…

A hand laces around my bicep, yanks me up hard, and drags me forward, forcing my feet to find and maintain the rhythm.

I didn’t fall!

I look to my left as the person releases my arm. Her black hair whips back and forth as she passes me steadily.

Jade.

My heart skips a beat. I nearly lose balance again.
She stopped me from falling. She touched me
. My eyes fixate on her as her delicate frame paces swiftly past the stragglers. Perfect form, perfect carriage, perfect stride. Perfect, perfect, perfect. I can’t pull my eyes away from her.

With swift grace, she gains speed and falls nearly in stride with the two monstrosities of human beings: Jared and Dominic. Is she actually going to try to beat them? I propel myself forward so I can get an unobstructed view of the three of them and the finish line. She pulls between them. Jared looks down at her. A flicker of tension grasps his muscles, making each one more pronounced. He pumps his arms faster, pulls ahead slightly. Dominic glances to his side and smirks. Smirks? What is he smirking about? Jade runs faster and pulls ahead of him. He tilts his head to the side, staring at her backside with so much intent and interest, a ripple of disgust and anger rattles my insides.
That perv
.

Jared is in the lead. Jade in center. Dominic lingers slightly behind, intentionally. Jade’s strides pick up pace and she pulls past Jared. He glares at her, horrified.

“Don’t let her win, Dom!” Jared shouts.

“I don’t know. I kinda like the view.” Dominic points directly at Jade’s rear.

She doesn’t look to her sides; she keeps staring forward toward the finish line.

It happens so fast. She raises her arms straight out to her sides, fists clenched and stops abruptly. Jared and Dominic didn’t see it coming. Her fists hit their guts and they stumble a step backward before tumbling to the ground with loud grunts.

“Dammit!” Jared doesn’t hold back how pissed off he is. He finds his feet and tries to catch up with Jade, but she sails past the finish line, alone and victorious.

I smile.

She looks back. Her eyes shift from Jared to Dominic and then to me. To me? Her face remains as plain as stone, staring me down.

She winks, then snaps forward and walks right off the field.

No smile betrays her, but that wink was for me. A dizzying rush flushes through me and I feel exhilarated and… happy.

“Um, I mean, of course you can sit here.” I’m embarrassed the sound could have been defined as a little more than a chick’s peep—quick, sharp, and high. Dom or Jared would have probably made it a point to ask if my balls had dropped yet.

“Thanks.” She doesn’t look at me. She twists and brings her leather boots under the table. Throwing her book bag onto the table, she opens it, rummages through it, and pulls out an apple and her notepad. She flips the book open, takes a bite out of the apple, and spins her pencil over her fingers, flipping it down her knuckles like some mini-sized acrobat. I don’t know if I’m staring at her flat out or just leering sideways. “So, Connor,” my name tumbling from her lips doesn’t sound like a dead fish, “what’s up with your lame-ass excuse for running?”

I deflate.

What the hell? Did she just come over to insult me? I can run. I run damn good. If only she knew, but I knew she had seen the video by now and I didn’t want to argue with her. I just shrug and start pushing around my rice.

“Not trying to tick you off.” She doesn’t look up from her notebook. “I just know that you can run faster than you are letting on.”

“What?” That surprises me.

“You run.” She shrugs. “And you run fast.” She cocks her head toward me. “But when you are on the track you seem to be a combination of Blonde-boobs and Wheezer.”

Who? “What?” I feel my eyebrows furrow together, as I get caught in my confusion.

“I don’t know too many names yet. So, I give them nicknames.” She waves her hand toward Courtney, nicely tucked under Dominic’s arm, “Meet Blonde-boobs and,” she slightly tilts her head backward motioning to Matt heaving in his next sloppy breath, “Wheezer.”

I laugh. Out loud. I’m surprised by the unfamiliar sound and snap my mouth shut.

“So?” She nestles her chin in her palm, “what’s your deal?”

“I can run.” I say abruptly.

“I know,” she sounds exasperated, “but why don’t you run well on the track?”

I’m quiet. How lame would it be to say that I don’t want to end up face-planted on the track, upside down in a dumpster, or on the internet?

“You like being invisible?” She says, sitting upright and taking another bite of her apple.

Ouch. Just because it’s true, doesn’t mean people should go around saying it aloud. She doesn’t say it harshly though, so I pause before responding. “I..uh…well…”

“Oh look at what we have here.” Dominic’s voice oozes over us. His body casts a shadow, Jared and Phil close behind him. Nausea knots my gut. Dom slaps my shoulder. “Our little celebrity has a girlfriend.” Dom’s other hand goes to pat Jade on the back. Her hand shoots out and twists his wrist the wrong way. A very brief look of surprise and pain twitches across his face before his easy smile replaces it. “Easy girl.” He pulls his hand away. “Feisty little thing, aren’t you?”