Song of the Fireflies (17 page)

Caleb drove Grace and Johanna to the bus station.

Adam came strolling out of the shower wearing a pair of black running shorts and a towel draped around the back of his neck.

“Since Caleb will be chickless tonight, he can have the couch,” Adam said, drying the back of his hair. Then he pointed at Bray and me. “You’re welcome to crash in the office. The couch bed in there is really comfortable.” He stopped just before he made his way down the hall. “Though if I were you I’d change the sheets.”

This was good news. I didn’t think I could sleep another night crammed onto the couch in the den with Bray like we had the past few nights at Adam’s.

Adam disappeared inside his bedroom like he did at the same time every night. Tate was outside on the back porch again. All of us thought it best to just stay out of his way while he was seething over this thing with Caleb. Except for Jen, of course, who was outside trying to talk to him and calm him down. Even she knew better than to act her usual abusive self around him while he was like this.

Secretly, I envied the two of them, the chaotic yet strong relationship they had.

I wanted to be alone with Bray for a while. I got up and took her hand. “Want to go for a walk?”

She smiled up at me. It was such an innocent and sweet smile that I felt even guiltier for the resentment I was feeling.

“Lead the way,” she said and placed her hand into mine.

We left the house and walked down the street for a long time, then we cut through a parking lot toward a baseball field. There were two light poles near the chain-link fence at the end of the field that cast a dull gray glow over the dirt and white painted lines. We slipped through an unlocked gate near a dugout and walked out past the pitcher’s mound and sat down on the grass.

“I hate it that Grace had to go,” I told her.

She laid down beside me on the grass and looked up toward the sky. Thick clouds completely covered the stars. I sat upright next to her with my legs angled upward. I picked at a few blades of grass and rolled them in my fingertips.

“Yeah,” Bray said with a trace of sadness in her voice. “But I still have
you
.”

I smiled down at her. Tiny pieces of torn grass fell from my fingers and were carried off by the wind.

“Tate’s really pissed about whatever Caleb did,” I said.

“Yeah. He really is.”

Silence fell between us again. I reached down and pulled a couple more blades of grass from beside my shoe.

“Elias?”

“Yeah?”

“What did you really bring me out here for?”

I had been trying to figure out how to tell her and also trying to figure out if this was what I needed to do.

Her hand touched my arm. I looked down at her and smiled faintly.

“Elias?” she asked again, being very patient.

“I’m going to be your witness,” I said.

She rose up from the ground, a blank look in her eyes.

“What the hell do you mean?” She knew exactly what I meant.

“I can say that I was there when it happened.” Already she was beginning to shake her head no. “No one can prove otherwise. I’ll tell the police, a jury, whoever I need to, that I was there and I saw what happened and that it was an accident.”

“No,” she said with complete resolution in her eyes. “I won’t let you do that.”

“You don’t have to
let
me,” I said. “I’m going to be your witness.”

She stood up and crossed her arms with her back to me.

“Bray?”

She snapped around. “No! I said no!” Her arms fell at her sides and her face was wild with anger and concern. “What if they ask you to take a lie detector test? Or, they get us in separate rooms—because they will—and one of us slips up and tells them something different?” Her voice began to rise. “Jesus, Elias! One tiny detail, one seemingly insignificant detail and they have us. They’ll have
you
. They’re trained to spot things like that! They’re trained to trip us up!”

I stood up in front of her. “We have some time while we’re still with Tate to get the story straight. Make it simple and straightforward. Don’t include a bunch of small details. Just give them the basic picture and stick to it.”

“No. No fucking way.”

She turned her back to me again.

“We have to do
something
,” I said. “We can’t run for the rest of our lives, Bray. They’ll catch us sooner than later. The longer we run, the worse we make it for ourselves.”

She wouldn’t respond or look at me. I watched her from behind as her head fell over forward between her rigid shoulders, her arms crossed again tightly over her stomach.

“Then I’ll say it was me,” I added.

Even with her back to me I could tell her face had locked up along with the rest of her body, as her head rose solidly from between her shoulders, she slowly turned around. I had never seen her look so stunned before.

Both of her hands came out in a flash and she shoved me hard, but I didn’t fall. Then she grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Don’t
ever
say that again. You fucking hear me, Elias? Don’t you
ever
say that!”

I just stared into her wild eyes, seemingly unfazed by her outburst. I needed to keep my cool, because one of us needed to be calm and it clearly wasn’t going to be her.

I reached up and tried to cup her face in my hands but she shoved them away.

“I can’t believe you said that!” she snapped.

“You can’t believe I said it, or that I’d actually do it?”

“It doesn’t matter. I won’t let you go down for me.”

She began to pace.

“I can’t go down for you, but you’ll let me go down
with
you?”

She froze. I knew my words would hurt her, but they needed to be said. Because it was exactly how I felt.

“There’s not that much of a difference, Brayelle.”

“Is that what this is about? You’re just trying to prove a point?” Resentment laced her voice.

“What point would that be?”

She shook her head with dismay. She couldn’t respond. Maybe she didn’t understand her own question, I didn’t know, but I admit even I was somewhat confused by my own.
Did I just openly blame her?
I thought to myself.

Not wanting her to feel that way even if it were true, I took her into my arms and kissed the top of her head.

“You’re not going to lie for me and say you were there and you’re not going to go down for me, either.”

“Then what am I doing here with you?” I asked calmly, surrendering, knowing that her resolve was unshakable.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be,” she shot back, but I knew it wasn’t something she wanted to say.

She stayed in my arms and didn’t try to pull away. I wouldn’t have let her if she did.

“Is that what you want, Elias? To leave?” She sighed and nuzzled her cheek against my chest muscle. “If you want to leave I’ll understand.” The pain was soft in her voice, but pain nonetheless. It wasn’t to make me feel guilty at all, but it did anyway.

“Well, I’m not leaving you,” I said. “But we need to figure out what we’re going to do. Partying every night and running around with Tate isn’t going to make this go away. A few more days. That’s it, Bray. We need to figure this out in a few more days, or we’re going back together and I’m going to be your witness.”

“You can’t do that.”

“If it’s the only option we have then I
will
do it.”

I placed my hands on her arms and took one step back, looking down into her tightened face. “Just promise me that,” I said. “If we don’t think of anything else, you’ll at least let me be your witness.”

“What if I’m lying? Would you still be my witness?”

That caught me off guard. “I know you’re not lying.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I trust you. And because I know you.”

Her gaze strayed, but it wasn’t because she was hiding anything.

“Just promise me that you’ll go along with it.”

She didn’t answer at first. I knew she didn’t want to. Finally, she nodded.

“Good,” I said and hugged her close to me again.

We stood there quietly for a moment. I had a feeling that even though she agreed, when the time came, if it ever did, there was a chance she might change her mind.

“Elias, what’s going on with Caleb and Tate?” she changed the subject. “What if this is our last stop with them? I doubt Adam will want us here after Caleb leaves. And besides, I’d feel weird about staying anyway.”

Yeah, so would I
, I thought.

“I’ll talk to Tate,” I said. “Ask him to keep us around for a few more days at the most. Long enough for us to figure out our next move.”

Bray didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, but you heard him talking to Caleb. They sent Grace and Johanna back for a reason.”

“I know,” I said, but I knew she was right so it was all I said.

Thunder rumbled in the sky and the thick, dark clouds lit up in the distance, revealing what the tops of the trees looked like painted against the black backdrop that had shrouded them. The crawling branches that reached upward along the infinite dark looked ominous as the flash of light faded.

I felt a drop of rain. And then another.

“So much for a quiet walk together,” Bray said.

And just then, the sky opened up and it began to pour. Bray shrieked and tried to cover herself unsuccessfully with her arms and then the screaming turned into laughter. We were both drenched in under five seconds. The rain pounded down so fast and so hard that we had to shout over the noise to hear each other; each drop like a million nails being thrust into the dirt on the baseball field.

“It’s a long walk back!” I said.

Bray started spinning like a ballerina in the middle of the field. She laughed and raised her arms above her and turned her face upward toward the sky and just let the rain wash over her. She opened her mouth and spun around and around. I watched her for a moment, mesmerized by her innocence. I saw that little girl I met so long ago, running with me through that pasture without a worry in the world. Just seeing her like that, it made me smile, but deep down it also crushed me. I knew that she would never be that innocent again, that our life together would never be as carefree as it was when we were children.

“Dance with me!” she shouted.

“What?”

“Dance with me!”

I had heard her right the first time. I just didn’t understand why here, why now.

“There’s no music!” I said over the rain.

She grabbed my hand. “You don’t hear that?!” she said, motioning to the patter of rain and thunder around us.

She started spinning around me and I stood in the same spot following her until she grabbed both of my hands and pulled on them. Next thing I knew, we were spinning together, holding each other’s hands tightly and distributing equal weight on our arms. At first, I felt like an idiot and hoped Tate wasn’t spying, or worse, Caleb. But I was quickly lost in Bray’s laughter and her smile and her beautiful blue eyes. The thunder got louder, the lightning more intense. I was beginning to worry about us being out in the open like this, in the center of a baseball field just asking to be struck down by the finger of God. But soon, I didn’t care. We were those two innocent children again, living free and loving life. And not even lightning could ruin this moment. It wouldn’t dare.

We stopped spinning, and I twirled her around by her hands as I stood in place, and then I dipped her. Leaning over her body, I pressed my wet lips between her breasts as her white shirt was weighted down by the endless rain. I planted kisses up the center of her throat until I found her plump lips, dotted by droplets of rain. Rain washed in heavy rivulets over our faces, into our parted mouths. I searched her eyes staring back into mine, and I longed to taste her. In every way. Every square inch of her body. But right now, just her lips.

I raised her body back up and gazed into her eyes, my hands secure at her back and still holding up her weight. She smiled at me, that same bright and beautiful smile that never failed to instigate my own. I watched adoringly as the rain clung to her eyelashes and streamed down her cheeks and glistened on her lips. I would’ve given up anything to stay with her forever in this moment, blocking out the world around us and forgetting what awaited us out there.

I lifted her from the ground with my arms wrapped around her lower back and I kissed her deeply, savoring the taste of her warm tongue against mine.

Perfect. Beautiful. She could never shatter my image of her, no matter what she did.

We finally tore our lips apart, gasping for breath. Before we even caught our breath, we ran straight to the house and dove into the office where we would be sleeping that night. I immediately started to strip off her clothes, peeling her wet shirt from her skin. I just couldn’t get her undressed fast enough. I hardly ever moved my lips from hers when I tried to undress myself.

I urged her onto her hands and knees onto the couch bed, and I immediately positioned myself behind her. I leaned over her, laying my chest across her back, and I searched for her lips with my own.

We were still out of breath from running and the effort it took us to get out of our wet clothes, so we were breathless when we spoke.

“Do you remember what you said?” I whispered hotly onto her mouth from the side. I pressed my hard cock against her from behind and trailed my tongue down the back of her neck as I lay on top of her.

“What did I say?” she said breathily, her mouth constantly searching for mine.

I pressed myself against her again, and I felt her skin prickle with shivers underneath my naked body.

I bit her bottom lip. “That I could do anything to you I wanted.”

Just picturing it made my cock throb painfully.

“Y-Yes.” she shuddered.

Her hand came up and she wound her fingers through my hair.

“Did you mean it?”

“Yes, I meant it.” She gasped when I pressed against her this time. She knew what I wanted to do to her, that I wanted to explore her in ways I’d never explored her before.

“Elias…,” she said softly, cautiously.