Pretty Little Dead Girls (2 page)

Something inside of her tender heart gave up and died, even while something else struggled to survive. Relationships and memories passively floated past her like flotsam in the tide pool while a part of her grabbed at everything desperately, pulling it to her bosom while she still had time.

Take Teddy Baker.

While her Skateboard Hero was busy not focusing his attention on her, Bryony became enamored with a rather pretty boy who was in her Music Theory class. Large brown eyes, black hair, and a somewhat melancholy countenance convinced her that he needed bounteous amounts of love to be happy, more than any one person could give, but if everybody just dropped tiny drops of love into his empty bucket of a heart, then surely one day it would fill up. Love is sometimes a collaborative effort, you see.

Bryony and Teddy both stayed after class one day, this momentous occasion marked by the ringing of the school bell. The other students and the teacher quickly abandoned the room, and Bryony twirled her light hair self-consciously around her finger while Teddy talked about his family. His woes. The struggles that he went through, the way that he was misunderstood.

“I think that people don’t love you enough,” Bryony said simply. Teddy blinked his rather vacant eyes, and quickly agreed.

“You’re so right, Bry,” he said. “Nobody loves me. Nobody really gets me at all. It’s lonely sometimes, you know?”

He eyed her, gauging her reaction. Her skin was soft and she had that otherworldly ambiance that clung to her. She slid through school as if her death had come and she was a ghost, one foot tethered on earth and the other already off in the stars. Teddy dug that. It made everything easier. It made it not quite so bad, this thing that he was about to do.

“Well, I love you,” she said. Her cheeks pinked. “I mean, not like that, of course. I don’t know you that well yet. But I have this theory, right? We all have a bucket. This big, empty bucket that’s just waiting for somebody to fill it, and . . . ”

Teddy didn’t care much about big, empty buckets. He took her head in his hands, zeroed in, and pushed his mouth against hers. She kept talking for a few seconds, and finally fell silent. Teddy moved his lips a little bit like his sister instructed him to do, and he felt Bryony tentatively do something similar. Teddy pulled away and looked at her, trying to read the unusual expression on her face.

Part of her brain said, “Stop, Bryony! You are a dead girl, and you cannot get attached to anybody. One day you are going to leave suddenly and without warning, and how cruel would that be? To all of you?” That part shook its fist angrily.

The other part of her brain said, “Listen up, you, this may very well be the night. The night that has always been coming, the night when you finally sigh and your ribs still. Don’t you dare miss this momentary chance at happiness!”

“Wh-what are you thinking about?” Teddy asked nervously. He hadn’t had many kisses, but never in all of the movies he had watched had the kissee stared at the kisser with such concentration afterwards. It unnerved him, and rightfully so, for being judged harshly after sharing a first kiss with somebody is a horrid, horrid thing indeed.

Bryony came to a decision. “Teddy, I think that you are very sweet. If tonight is the night that I am murdered, I want to think about your eyes and the way that your hair is falling into them. I want to think about this kiss right now, because it is the first one that I have ever had. And I would like to try it again so that it is a little bit better, if that’s okay with you. I wasn’t really prepared.”

For a second, Teddy caught a glimpse of Bryony as a little girl, when she would stare at the sky, and the clouds would pass over her eyes. She stood as tall as she could, but something was already breaking inside, and Teddy could almost hear it. The gears of her soul grinding to a halt. The bright metal filings of it struck sparks and shone like stars.

She watched him carefully, and Teddy only nodded. He pressed his lips to hers more gently this time, and it was as a first kiss should be—gentle and hopeful and full of nervous delight. He didn’t invite her out as he had first planned. He didn’t take her to the mesa where their headlights would sweep over the desert, where the night would reflect back eyes that couldn’t be seen otherwise. He only told his friends that she refused to come, that she wanted nothing to do with him, and they would have no use for their rope and lighters and eagerly sharpened knives that night. They would have to find somebody else to practice on, somebody else to assuage their burgeoning hunger, because Bryony was on to them, he said, and would never come. Never, so don’t even try.

They said hateful words about her, that devil girl who mysteriously knew so much. Teddy agreed with them, and told them that he would never talk to her again. When her gray eyes searched him out, he avoided them. Eventually they dropped to the ground whenever she saw him, and he felt her spirit crushing underneath his sneakers as he walked by. It was easy to ignore her, to even tease her when he was with his friends. But when he was by himself, it was different.

He treasured that kiss up in his heart, taking it out to test it from time to time. It always held up. It always shone.

CHAPTER THREE

It Comes

It is time.

It is time.

She always knew this day would come.

CHAPTER FOUR

Defy the Desert

Bryony gave her father a kiss on his withered cheek.

“I can’t live here anymore, daddy. The desert is calling out for my bones. Do you understand that?”

Of course Stop Adams understood it. He’d known it for years, ever since she was a baby, practically. His wife had tried to tell him since the day Bryony was born, but he never listened. Finally she had packed up.

“I can’t stand here waiting for my little girl to die, Stop. I can’t take it one more minute. One more second. I will always love you, and her.” She kissed them both on the cheek, just as Bryony kissed him now.

They both said the same words.

“I can’t live here anymore.”

“I understand, baby girl,” Stop said.

His heart quietly broke in half, but he knew that he would shuffle home and sew it back together again. Old men break and break and break into smaller pieces, going on until there is nothing left. He always had something left, as long as he had his daughter. He knew that on the day she died, he would disappear, as well, and they would rejoice together wherever it was they would rejoice. But until then, he stayed. He didn’t mind it a bit.

“Sergio across the street will send his daughter to make dinner every night. I know you’ll get by for lunch. And I’ll call at least twice a week. Just so you know.”

Just so he knew.

Just so he knew that she was alive, still breathing, still gasping in great big breaths of beautiful, fragrant air. His lovely girl.

“Where are you planning to go, sweetheart?” he asked her. Wherever it was, he wouldn’t follow. The desert was his home, the wild animals prowling around inside his skin. The sun had baked itself right into his psyche, and if he walked too far past its borders, he would collapse into sand that filled his shoes. He knew that Bryony would come home, one way or another. She would either visit or be shipped home in bits and parts. The desert would have her when all was said and done, but not yet. Not quite yet.

“I’m not sure yet, Daddy. I was thinking that maybe I’d like to see cornfields.”

“All of the old horror movies revolve around cornfields.”

“Or New York City.”

“You’ll be murdered in no time, that be true.”

“How about . . . the Northwest?”

“Ah, honey, serial killers spawn there. I don’t think you’d last a day, dear heart.”

Bryony shook her head. Her hair fell in golden waves down to her waist, pulled back by a headband, the way that a good girl wears her hair. Red Riding hood wore headbands, as did Alice in Wonderland. Both were in peril. Both suffered. This fact was not lost on her father.

“Daddy, I want to see things. I want to be somewhere that I have never been before. I hate the desert, and want to be somewhere different.”

Stop pulled himself up from the lawn chair. He hugged his girl.

“Don’t be letting me stop you, Bryony. You go and be what you need to be. Do what you need to do. You know that I’ll always be here, yes? Go be free, sweetheart. Live a good life.”

Bryony skipped inside, much lighter after this conversation with her father. Stop sat himself back down on the chair in the tender way that he had picked up over the last eighteen years. She was a good girl, a sweet soul. Somehow she took whatever was in her hands and threw it across the sky like diamonds. This was what she needed to do, and the world needed her as much as she needed to see what life was like outside of a town built on death.

But he was sure going to miss her.

Stop stayed up very late that night, staring out at the desert. He learned long ago not to turn on the lights, to let the darkness creep closer. He didn’t want to know what was staring back. Staring at him, and staring at his little girl.

CHAPTER FIVE

A Killing Sort of Love

Bryony ran.

She ran for many years, bouncing in and out of school, and discovering that she did not care for (in this order): journalism, engineering, dancing, creative writing, psychology, or dirt biking. Dirt biking was more of a fluke, a class that she joined in an out-of-this-world moment of sheer whimsy, because she wanted to do something fun and free and different. The bike itself wasn’t a problem, but a bike plus dirt equaled a hot, cranky, sweaty Bryony, and that is never a good thing. So, no. Dirt biking was right out.

But a degree is a degree, regardless of what it is in, and all of the world looks fondly upon said degree, so Bryony slogged through her psychology classes. She also briefly considered Criminology, but figured that most of the people there weren’t as interested in capturing criminals as they were about criminals learning to avoid being caught. She was a butterfly, fluttering around joyfully. She was not stupid.

But she was also curious about love. She wanted a real, true love that accepted what she was and how she was going to leave this earth, and didn’t run screaming into the night from the crushing madness of it.

She tried on one young man after another, and it was a fun and happy time for all.

Oh, she tried on Brandons and Jordans and Nathans and Jeffs. She tried on a Raoul and a Rhett and even a Perry, but neither one of these fine gentlemen was exactly right for our diligent Bryony.

“I’m sorry,” she said to each one, patting their cheek. “You are not for me, and I am not for you. Let us move on and be happy, yes?” And yes, each young man wanted to be happy, and each young man let her go, and some were actually quite relieved to shrug the burden of responsibility off their shoulders. Bryony was joyful and she was kind, but it couldn’t be forgotten that death was constantly ruffling its fingers through her hair, and this was a difficult thing to accept. Still, one of the Brandons clung for a bit, which is to be expected every now and then, but when this particular Brandon met an especially dewy-eyed Matilda, everything set itself to rights.

Her first real boyfriend should have been a warning to her, but he had charm and, more importantly, he didn’t immediately cut his eyes to Bryony when a girl from her dorm went missing, or when a young man from her study group was discovered hanging from the shower head.

His conversations started with, “How are you doing, love?” but after a while they changed to, “Are you all right?” and “Did anything dangerous happen today?” and “I had the most horrifying dream about you last night. You don’t happen to be severed at the waist, do you?” When they embraced, he’d squeeze her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, and then he’d run his hands down her shoulders and arms, checking for bruises and gaping knife wounds.

“Your neck is so very fragile,” he murmured one evening, and Bryony had enough.

Really, she ought to have learned her lesson there, but love is ever so shiny and desirable, and so desperately worth pursuing, we are told, and so two Kens, a Nick, and a Johnny later she came across Jeremy, who was tall and darling.

“You’re going to die, Star Girl,” he said. His thick lashes dropped over his eyes.

“Yes, I know.”

“That’s cool.”

They went on dates and to dances where he spun her until they both laughed. He hung his arm around her shoulders like he was hanging up a coat, and Bryony wondered deep in her heart if this was it, if this was truly how love was supposed to feel. Enchanting and giggly but somehow darkly lonely, as if Jeremy’s breath stole a tiny bit of her soul each time they kissed.

One day she walked into her dorm room and found him sitting on her bed, holding a gun.

“I can’t stand it anymore,” he said before she even had a chance to open her mouth. “I can’t stand the waiting.”

Bryony stood still, her arms full of flowers gathered from the gardens outside. The breeze from the open window moved her hair and made the flowers dance gently.

“Run,” the lilacs seemed to tell her. “Have you forgotten how? Have you forgotten what you do? Run, my girl, run!”

“I fantasize about killing you,” he whispered. “I have done it a thousand ways. Poisoned you. Torn you apart with my bare hands. Snapped your bones and heard you sigh as your life ends.”

“Run!” shrieked the lilacs again, and one threw itself from the bouquet and onto the floor.

“I think about it because I love you,” Jeremy said. The gun twitched in his hand and Bryony saw his eyes were wild with rage and torment and, yes indeed, a killing sort of love. This nearly made Bryony smile.

“I mean,” he said, standing and pointing the gun to Bryony’s cheek, “if you are going to be murdered, shouldn’t it be by me? Wouldn’t that be kindness? Is it possible to love somebody any more than that?”

“You’re stronger than this,” she said, but even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. It was a lie, oh, it was a lie, but she didn’t know what else to say. “Please” or “Jeremy” or “I could maybe love you if you gave me more time”, perhaps, but no, she said none of these things. She only said, “You’re stronger than this.”