Fade (2 page)

I didn’t particularly care enough to bother with make-up.

I turned from the mirror and dressed before heading downstairs with nothing more than water on my face. I wandered from room to room, examining my new home in the silence of dawn. I didn’t know what to make of the house.

The two couches in the living room were deep, dark, and comfortable. Dad even had one of those massive televisions hanging on one wall, with a row of DVDs alphabetized on the low shelf below. Everything else gleamed, antique and gently worn, but polished. The house wasn’t familiar per se, but I’d been expecting the big unknown. The reality seemed less overwhelming. It was … Dad. The place even smelled a little like him: sugar, spice, and the citrus tang of furniture polish.

That made me feel a little better, but not by much. I still felt a little like Cinderella after the ball. Midnight gonged on the clock, and everything I’d been given disappeared.

I’d lived in a little town outside of Smyrna, Tennessee, in the same two-story red brick house, on the same street, with the same neighbors, for as long as I could remember. Everything there made me feel comfortable and safe, but none of it belonged to me anymore.

Mom was dead, and I couldn’t afford the mortgage on our house. Dad couldn’t pay it for me either. He still owed on the quirky Victorian he’d called home for the last two years. The place belonged to me now too, but even though I’d unpacked my things as soon as I arrived, I still felt like a visitor here. Would that feeling ever go away, or was I doomed to the no man’s land of guesthood for the rest of my life?

I didn’t really care one way or another. I just wanted to make it through the day without falling apart, and then curl up in the bed. I figured if I lay still for long enough, eventually I’d fall asleep. And, in my book, restless escape would be better than no escape at all. But still, knowing that I’d settle in eventually, and that things wouldn’t hurt so much forever, would have helped.

“Hey, kiddo,” Dad greeted me when I wandered into the kitchen. He sat slumped over the newspaper, a cup of coffee steaming beside him. He looked as tired as I felt, with bruises under his bloodshot brown eyes. His dark hair stuck out everywhere, and his clothes looked like he’d slept in them.

“Morning,” I mumbled. I poked my head into the refrigerator to hide the tears burning at my eyes and grab a bottle of water. Mom and Dad had been divorced for two years, but they’d always been close. I hated that he struggled with her death as much as me. It didn’t seem fair that both of us were broken.

”Did you sleep alright?” he asked as I closed the fridge, my stomach churning at the thought of anything more solid than water.

“Not really.” I forced a smile. “Maybe I’ll sleep better when I get back from campus.”

He frowned, his face a mask of concern and sorrow. “You know you don’t have to register for classes today, hon. You can take the semester off, hang around the house … .”

I was already shaking my head before he trailed off. “I need to go back. I need something to do.” I felt like I was cracking apart beneath the weight of grief and self-pity. I didn’t need three more months to wallow.

“I understand.”

I gave him a wobbly smile, grateful for his easy acceptance. I didn’t have the energy to explain how much I did not want to sit around the house, feeling sorry for myself, for any period of time. I’d kind of figured he understood that better than anyone else. We were a lot alike, and lengthy explanations had never been necessary for either of us. Still, I appreciated the confirmation.

The paper rustled as he folded it up. He laid it on the table before turning back to me. “Good luck today, Ari. I’ll be here afterward if you want to talk, ‘kay?”

“Thanks, Dad,” I whispered, averting my eyes when tears welled once more. I wanted to hug him, but if I did, I’d start sobbing. I cleared my throat instead and headed for the front door, ready to get the day over with as quickly as possible.

A fine sheen of dew still covered the grass as I rolled through the small town with the heater on high. I noticed nothing else on the short drive to ASU-Beebe. My mind was a million miles away.

Thinking about my mom hurt, but I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her either. I’d done nothing but cry since her funeral, and wiping away tears before anyone saw had gotten old, fast. But grief, I learned, didn’t much care what I wanted. Once the emotion took hold, nothing could get it out again. I could scream and cry and plead and beg all I wanted. Having a meltdown wouldn’t change a thing.

I just wanted to get off the ride. Was that too much to ask?

I made it to campus in a matter of minutes and parked beneath a large oak at the edge of the lot. I arrived half an hour early, but students already filled the parking lot. I stalled in the car, not prepared to face them yet.

My dad taught mythology here, and everyone knew about my mom. I didn’t want to answer any questions about her, let alone from people I’d never met. Talking to Dad hurt enough. Every time he tried to smile at me, I cried. I didn’t want to break down in front of three hundred strangers too.

“Get on with it already,” I told myself, reaching for the door handle. My hands trembled as I dragged myself from the car before I lost the nerve altogether.

Cool air bit at me. I turned toward the Registrar’s office, my eyes stinging.

Several students peered in my direction.

“Crap,” I muttered and slammed the car door behind me. I hunched my shoulders and headed toward the red-brick building, praying no one stopped me.

No one said much to me while I registered for classes, but the staff kept shooting me sympathetic smiles and whispers of support. Every time they did, some new pair of eyes focused on me. I picked classes at random, desperate to escape.

After purchasing my books, I settled on top of a picnic table in the quad, trying to imagine myself at the cozy little college. My last school had been no larger, but it had been different. I’d become accustomed to four stories of glassed-in tedium crammed between a jungle of parking lots and offices. ASU-Beebe was something else altogether.

The small, brick buildings were nestled amongst massive oaks and scattered over sloping hills. Grass rolled out across the quad, and very little landscaping had been done. The simplicity of the design added to the beauty of the area instead of forcing it into something else. The entire campus smelled of dew and grass, of earth and tree, and all that other natural goodness I always enjoyed. The campus even had its own farm. All in all, very pretty. Exactly as small and comfortable as I wanted.

I had a feeling I’d fall in love with the place.

A guy hurrying across the far side of the quad caught my eye while I mulled over the traitorous thought. He was dressed casually in jeans and boots, with a light black jacket zipped up his chest and a beanie cap on his head. Nothing out of the ordinary at all, just another guy in the parade that had already passed by, but something … shifted … as soon as my eyes landed on him.

A warm breath brushed across my neck, my stomach fluttered … I wanted to revel in the buoyant feelings swirling though me, but didn’t get the chance.

Longing swept through me like a river, melting everything I thought I knew about myself, and reordering it. Pieces shifted, pulled apart, and came back together in new ways, unburdened by the little things that accumulated over the years. The idiosyncrasies, the pet peeves, the ingrained behaviors and thought processes … all vanished for a moment. A massive hole opened somewhere inside me, deep down in a place I’d never known existed before.

Everything looked different with that hole there. My line of sight narrowed, dimmed, and then pulsed brightly, as if I saw the world with new eyes and a new perspective. As if I saw
me
in a new light.

I didn’t particularly like what I saw.

Half of me was missing. Not the part that had shattered when Mom died either, but something else altogether. A fundamental part of me … not where it should have been.

I wasn’t whole, wasn’t right. Why hadn’t I ever noticed before?

I stared at the guy across the quad, overwhelmed and confused.

Had the hole always been there? Had I just been too ignorant to notice it, too caught up in the trivialities of the day-to-day to pay attention? Had I piled too much in, pushed too much aside, to
feel
?

I didn’t know, but I felt now, and feeling
hurt
.

The guy tensed as though he felt my eyes on him, and turned in my direction. He stood no less than a hundred feet from me, too far away to see clearly, but every feature of his face swam into focus as if I’d called his appearance up from the depths of my memory. He was gorgeous, with messy golden hair, strong cheekbones, and a sharp, defined jawline. Even his vivid, emerald eyes and the small scar above his right eyebrow were crystal clear to me.

I told myself to stop staring and look away. That grief had scrambled my brains, and I only imagined things that weren’t there.

I didn’t listen to that little voice of reason.

The boy lifted his head.

Time seemed to slow, stretching before me in ways I couldn’t comprehend.

Our eyes met across the distance.

I stopped breathing, heat weaving through me in coils, burning away the hole I’d just discovered, and leaving me wrapped in a soft blanket of warmth. A thousand different sensations whispered through me like a summer’s breeze, freezing me in place. Joy, fear, loss, hope, sorrow … I couldn’t separate one emotion from the other. Before I even had the chance to try, a current of energy washed through me, pulling a gasp from my lips. Strength and familiarity rippled through the air between us. The powerful sensation swarmed over me like a thousand little teeth nibbling on my skin, and shook me to the core.

I
knew
him.

I think maybe I’d always known him, and I didn’t know how. But I desperately wanted to know, because for the first time in weeks, being awake didn’t hurt. Grief wasn’t breaking my heart, my eyes weren’t burning with unshed tears, and my head didn’t hurt from a lack of sleep.

I felt … peaceful. As if looking at this beautiful boy washed away everything that happened since Mom died. I felt right in a way I never had before, not only unburdened and aware, but complete. Like the gaping hole inside me had filled with him.

I think the mystery guy felt the same way.

He jerked backward, barely avoiding crashing to the ground. His eyes widened.

Shock rippled through me.

His eyes really were blazing emerald and as familiar to me as my own. I saw my hazel eyes in the mirror every single day, but his were seared into me as if I’d memorized them over the course of years and had simply forgotten them until that moment.

Who are you?
I wondered to myself, desperate for the answer to that question. To know his name, and why looking at him felt so right.

I didn’t get an answer. Or maybe I did.

A switch flipped in my mind and thoughts that didn’t belong to me came sweeping in. Shock, awe, and an echo of the same bewilderment and familiarity I felt flowed through in waves. Each one was distinct, different. Not mine, but not foreign either. Somehow, they were his. They snapped into place alongside my thoughts like puzzle pieces locking together.

I cried out, surprised by the odd feeling.

Unseen hands pushed me backward on the tabletop. Wooden splinters snared my jeans.

I grasped the edges of the table, swaying beneath the onslaught of thought and sensation whispering through me in dizzying flickers. They were almost too fast to catch, but I understood enough, saw enough.

Something dark and animalistic pushed at the edges of my mind, trying to force its way inside. The thing appeared separate from the boy, but not. Like a massive shadow sharing his mind. An animal. Somehow, he had caged it in thick, iron bars, but the animal wasn’t happy with the arrangement. It threw itself against the bars of that cage, trying like hell to get free. To get to me, I think.

Fight or flight kicked in, demanding that I run, but I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay right here, with him. Whoever this guy was, whatever lived in him … it didn’t want to hurt me, and neither did he. The truth of that pulsed like a bright light in his mind. He wanted to protect me, keep me safe. From himself as much as from anything else.