Sing Me Your Scars (Apex Voices Book 3) (23 page)

She left a note, her handwriting spidery and thin, on a small
scrap of paper lying in the center of the kitchen table, one edge held in place
with the salt shaker, a silly ceramic pig they’d found at a yard sale.

Joshua,

I’m sorry. I couldn’t wait any longer, and I knew if I told
you, you’d try to stop me. I believe that when it’s all over, we will be
together again. Instead of saying goodbye, I will say until then. I love you.

Always and ever,

Maddie

§

He crumbles the note into a ball and throws it against the
wall. Bites back a shriek. No, maybe he isn’t too late. He flees from the
apartment, not bothering to lock the door, and runs along the edge of the world
where flat meets real, calling out her name, knowing she can’t hear, but
calling anyway. Tears pour down his cheeks, and the hurt turns every heartbeat
to pain. He can’t believe she’s gone. He refuses to believe she’s left him like
this.

Then he skids to a halt. There. His Maddie. Standing with a small
smile on her face and the paper rose held in one hand. Her other hand is
extended, palm up, beckoning him closer. He steps as close as he dares.

“Why did you leave me? Oh, Maddie, why didn’t you wait?”

He thinks about the paper flower, the way she’d tipped her head
back and laughed when he’d presented it, feeling foolish, but right. The way
her fingers curved around his own.

And the tears won’t stop; he
can’t make them stop. He cries until his throat aches, until his eyes are
swollen and the world is a blur.

I would’ve gone with you, if you’d asked me to. If only you’d
asked. It isn’t better this way. Not for me.

§

When he wakes the next morning, the buildings across the
street are captured in russet and amber. He steps outside. The sidewalk in
front of his building and most of the street is still safe. Still the color of
real. Not the color of past.

He can no longer see Maddie, but he knows she is there.

Somewhere.

He hopes she isn’t afraid. He hopes she isn’t in pain.

§

A loud rumble of thunder wakes him from a deep sleep. Fat
drops of grey are falling from the sliver of sky, dark clouds roiling in the
small space.

He sits at the kitchen table with his head in his hands,
listening to the storm cry its rage. After a time, he takes a napkin, folding
it by memory, his hands sure and careful. When he finishes the first rose, he
makes another and then another, until a dozen paper roses lay on the table. He
leaves them there and fumbles his way back to bed, pulling the covers over his
head to keep out the sound of the storm.

I’ll see you tomorrow, Maddie. Tomorrow. Even if you don’t
know I’m there.

§

In the morning, rain still falls, but of a gentler sort, and
mud spatters the street. Joshua drinks the last of the tea. It tastes like
tears on his tongue.

He gathers the roses and ties them together with a purple ribbon,
Maddie’s favorite color. The soft coconut smell of her hair lingers in the
apartment. He breathes it in, willing it to memory. Holding the roses against
his chest, he traces his fingers over their wedding photograph and says goodbye
to all the things they bought together.

Then he hears a shout, not of dismay, but wonder. With heavy
steps, he walks to the window.

The rain has washed
everything clean, and the mud isn’t mud at all, but a mix of umber and sienna.
All the colors have been stripped away, leaving behind a stark landscape of
black, white, and grey.

He holds his breath as a woman approaches one of the black and
white buildings and disappears around the side. He sinks to his knees when she
returns. “You have to see this,” she cries out, her voice rising up over the
buildings. “Everyone, please, please, come and see!”

Several people emerge from buildings on the real side of the
world, people he vaguely remembers from the time before, people he passed on
the sidewalk or almost bumped into at the corner coffee shop. They all follow the woman, their voices trailing
behind in syllabic streamers of anticipation.

Joshua races from the apartment and staggers across the street.
All around him stands a forest of paper dolls and thin scraps of buildings, the
fronts and backs pressed up against each other, the interiors locked away,
tucked inside like flowers pressed between pages of a book.

He runs again until he finds her, motionless and still.

Ignoring the voices of those running in circles around him,
shouting out ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ and ‘what nows’ (he doesn’t care about any of
their questions. He doesn’t need reasons.), he touches Maddie’s face. Her skin,
the texture of good paper, warms beneath his palm. He
clenches a fist to his chest. His heart hurts in a place he didn’t know
existed.

“I wish,” he says, his voice thick. “I wish you’d held on just a
little longer.”

He swallows his sorrow. He will not leave her in the street. He
can’t. She belongs at home, with him, not here, and with gentle arms, he lifts
her up. The weight is wrong, all wrong, but it will be better soon. He knows it
will.

Careful not to bump her on the door or the walls, he carries her
into their apartment, puts her in their bed, and tucks the covers around her
shoulders, ignoring the way the sheet clings to flat lines and angles instead
of curves. He sets the paper roses on the nightstand so she’ll see them

if

when she wakes and sits on the floor beside the bed.

“Everything will be okay,” he whispers. “I know it will.”

As the sun moves across the room, his back aches and his stomach
growls, but he’s afraid she’ll fade away into nothing if he moves. If he were a
painter, maybe he’d know how to bring her colors back, but all he can do is hold
still and hope.

When the room turns to shadow, he
climbs into bed. Imagines he can hear a tiny, tiny breath forming deep in her
lungs, waiting to emerge, waiting to push her back to real.

“Please come back, Maddie. Please come back to me. You’re all I have.”

He falls asleep with tears in his eyes, one hand curled under his
cheek and the other holding her hand, dreaming of paper cuts and maybes and
time.

Pattern:

Every lining has a cloud, be it a worn spot, a mended seam,
or an unraveled thread. They are neither perfect nor impenetrable, no matter
how much we wish it so. People will tell you that damage makes the fabric
stronger.

It depends on the damage.

Ease:

After the storm has passed, I look down at my arm, just
above the elbow. The new tear in the lacework of my lining is small. I pull
myself up from the floor and sit on the sofa, breathing hard. I feel as if I’m
made of dandelion fluff, as if one puff will blow me into a million pieces, but
this feeling, this small weakness, will pass.

I hear a cabinet open and close and wipe the last trace of tears
from my eyes. Alan comes back holding a needle in his hand, but he doesn’t meet
my gaze, doesn’t say a word, as he plucks a strand from his own lining without
flinching, threads the needle, and stretches out my arm.

I turn my head away. The first
stitch is always the worst, but this pain is different. This pain links us
together even more. I stare at the wall, at a photograph of the two of us taken
a few weeks after we met. Our hands are clasped, our shoulders touching, and I
can see a hint of the tempest hidden in his eyes, but it isn’t his fault. I
must have said or done something.

I know better now. Tonight was a mistake. A stupid mistake.

He finishes, puts the needle aside, and strokes his fingers over
the new repair. He’s skilled. The stitches are barely visible; it will be easy
to hide. And it doesn’t hurt much.

Not this time.

His hand moves up; he traces my lower lip, then he cups my jaw.
“I love you,” he says, his voice hoarse.

“I love you, too.”

He pulls me to him, hard against his chest. His lips crush mine.
Maybe tonight we’ll love everything away and the needle and thread will be a
thing of the past.

§

His lining is burlap. Rough and strong. I trace it with my
fingers when he sleeps. There are repairs here and there, but I don’t know if
he fixed them himself or if someone else’s hand wielded the needle.

I asked him once. I won’t ever do it again.

Give:

At work, I answer the phone, make client appointments, and
deliver messages, but I watch the clock. I can’t help it. The hours seem to
drag, even when the office is busy.

At the end of the day, I rush home into Alan’s arms; when he
kisses me, I feel as if time has stopped. For us. For love.

I am lucky, so lucky.

§

Renee is sitting in the back of the coffee shop, her mouth
turned down, checking her watch.

“I thought you were going to stand me up like the last time,” she
says.

I feel my cheeks warm. I’d forgotten about that. Alan and I had
been talking, and I’d lost track of the time.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not a big deal. You’re here now.”

As always, her lining is shimmery. Perfect. It matches the light
in her eyes. When we first met in high school,
she held mine up to the light, didn’t laugh at the worn edges, the threadbare
center. She didn’t ask how, but I told her anyway. We’ve always told each other
everything.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages,” she says.

“I know, I’m sorry. We’ve been busy.”

She gives a small nod. She
talks about her job. I tell her about the restaurant where Alan and I went last
weekend. She raves about a book she recently read. I mention a new movie Alan
and I want to see. We both order second cups of coffee. I scratch my arm,
lifting my sleeve, and her eyes follow the motion. Her brow creases.

“What happened?”

I pull my arm back and manage a smile. “It’s nothing. I’m clumsy,
you know that.”

“You’ve never been clumsy before.”

She stares at me for so long, I feel like I’m withering. Then she
looks away, and a strange hush hangs over the table. Eventually we fill it, but
our voices hold a strange weight. Maybe we just don’t have that much in common
anymore.

Tack:

We call in sick and spend all day in bed. He makes
breakfast. I make lunch. We watch movies and, in between, make love.

“I love you,” he whispers in my ear. “I’ve loved you since the
first minute I saw you. I knew you were the one. You are everything to me. I
don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

“You’ll never lose me,” I say.

“Promise me. Promise you’ll never leave me.”

“I promise.”

And I mean it. He is my everything, too. We make love again. My
thighs ache; my heart aches even more. This is real. This is love. It’s
supposed to hurt.

Yoke:

I know I’ve said the wrong thing the second the words are past
my lips. The apologies spill out like buttons from an overturned jar, but it’s
too late.

His mouth sets in a thin line, and his eyes go flinty dark. The
storm rushes in. Pulls the breath from my lungs. Wind scours my cheeks; the
crackle of electricity dances in the air. I want to run, but there’s no way to
escape, and if I try, it will only make things worse.

The first rip comes fast and hard, so quick it takes a moment for
the pain to catch up. And again, the fabric splits with an ugly sound. I fall
to my knees and pray this storm will have a quick end. I smell a sharp tang of
metal and salt.

“Why do you make me do this?” he says over and over.

But we both know why. If my lining were made of denim, not lace,
this wouldn’t happen. Maybe if I’m torn apart and stitched back together
enough, I’ll be strong enough to make him happy all the time. I know he doesn’t
want to hurt me, not really. He wants me to be strong.

After the shriek of the wind dies down, he goes to fetch the
needle. His hands are gentle, and when we kiss, I taste a ray of sunlight on
his lips.

Maybe one day I’ll be his sun.

“I love you,” he says.

I know he does. I have three new sets of stitches as proof.

§

In the dark, I run my hands across my lining. Trace one
fingertip along the new stitches. A part of him, now a part of me. I wonder if
there are other women with threads of him still inside them, but I push away
the thought before it can take hold.

It doesn’t matter anyway. I am his everything.

§

“You shouldn’t have to work so hard,” he says one night when
I come home late from the office. “We don’t need the money anyway. I make
enough for both of us.”

My boss doesn’t say anything when I tell her I’m leaving, but her
eyes show disapproval. Or maybe it’s just jealousy because she doesn’t have
anyone to take care of her.

Binding:

“You don’t need anyone but me,” he says.

“I love you,” he says.

“Promise me,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” he doesn’t say, but the needle and thread says it
for him.

§

He takes me shopping.

He picks: a red dress, a black dress, a nightgown trimmed with
pink ribbons.

I pick:

§

Renee calls. I reach for the phone, but he kisses me until I
forget about everything and everyone else.

§

I cook his favorite foods. Pour his favorite wine. Breathe
him in. Trace the stitches in the darkness. His. Mine. His. Mine.

§

Renee calls again. I don’t answer.

§

“I don’t need anyone but you,” I say.

“I love you,” I say.

“I promise,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”