Shades of Darkness (25 page)

We passed the concert hall. Music drifted from many of the practice rooms—snippets of Bach, strings of jazz, even a hint of funk. I wondered if Oliver was in there, practicing his way to eventual fame. At least the place wasn't silent like before. This was a sign that Islington was moving forward. Slowly, but surely.

“What brought you to Seattle?” I asked.

“Same thing that brought my parents to Detroit. Work. Honestly, I think they just kept changing locations so they won't have to focus on . . .” His words caught, and he looked away, which pretty much said everything he couldn't say. “On other things.”

He shook his head. “Sorry. Don't mean to be a Debbie Downer.”

I laughed. “Clearly you've been hanging out with me too much. Pretty certain I'm the only person under eighty who uses that phrase anymore.”

He chuckled too, and when his gaze darted to mine I felt a new, not altogether uncomfortable knot form in my stomach.

“Okay then, my anachronistic friend. My turn for the questions. Why painting?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

We were passing by the Writers' House, and I almost nudged him in, but I knew the moment I stopped walking was the moment I started thinking about other things. Especially in there; it felt like Elisa's questions were haunting that space. If we walked in, I'd be able to think of nothing beyond the question I didn't know if I wanted answered: Had Jane and Mandy actually killed themselves?

“I mean what got you into it?” he asked. “Every artist has a story.”

“True,” I said, guiding him toward one of the forest trails. Even though I was still a little on edge over being alone with a guy, being on campus made me feel safer. This was
my
territory. I could tell we were both skirting Jane's death and our night's plans. It felt like being an actor in a play, only I was also part of the audience, watching it all with detached interest. “I like painting because it's so mutable. Everything about it changes. A shift in light or shadow might mean you need to remix all your colors. One stray brushstroke can alter the whole composition. It's like people . . . or life, if you want to get really deep and pretentious. It's different every day.

“Besides, figure painting means I get to stare at naked old man penis, and who doesn't love that?”

He laughed so loud, I honestly think he surprised himself.

“What about you? What got you into painting?”

“Parents,” he said. He sobered immediately.

“Ah. Not old man penis then. Let me guess: brush in your hands before you could talk sort of thing?”

He shook his head.

“Not quite. I started painting about five years ago, the first time they almost got a divorce. They separated for a few months—over my birthday, no less—and that was how I coped. We'd just moved to Vermont and I didn't know anyone, so I signed myself up for a painting class at a nearby studio. It was my therapy.”

“That's . . .”
Horrible? Poetic?

“Yeah.” He sighed. “I dunno. It's kind of like you said—painting always changes, but it let me change my world. If I was lonely I could paint a bunch of people. If I hated the snow I could paint a beach. And it also meant I got to play with colors, which was pretty cool, since I'd spent most of my life afraid of them.”

“Afraid of colors?”

“I'm colorblind,” he said. He gave me a small grin. “Kids made fun of me a lot when I was really little, when I drew the grass the wrong color or made people blue, but the painting world kind of embraced it. It was nice having something I'd always seen as a shortfall heralded as innovative.”

“I hadn't ever really noticed. And I definitely don't think I've ever been heralded for anything.”

He chuckled. “Overstatement. I was always a loner, so there wasn't much heralding in my world either.”

“So is that your cross to bear?” I asked. I don't know why I was pushing it, but I'd always liked learning people's secrets. It made them seem more human. And if I focused on this—on Chris, who was very human and very normal—I could stop focusing on Jane and Brad and the parallels my unconscious mind wouldn't stop drawing. “You're the misunderstood colorblind artist?”

“Not quite,” he said.

“Well then, what's your deep dark secret?”

“Not yet,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, not yet.” His voice became firm, though not exactly angry. I knew that tone—it was precisely the same one I used when someone was prodding into my past a little too much.

“Gotcha,” I said.

We walked deeper into the woods, the only sound our footsteps on the gravel and the occasional gust of wind through the bare trees. When we reached the lake we stopped and stared out, our breath coming in silent little puffs. It was comfortable. In a way, it felt like all the times I'd come out here with Ethan—the closeness, the openness. I don't know how the hell Chris managed to make me forget all the shit going on and everything we were going to do tonight. Being with him just felt natural.

The moment I realized that, though, I felt my walls inch up. The crows watching from the trees weren't helping.
He isn't Brad. This isn't all an act. I don't need you to protect me from him.

Unless he's the one who needs to be protected from me . . .

Immediately I stepped to the side and forced down whatever feelings of comfort I'd had.

“Whoa, what just happened?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you just went really cold. Did I say something to offend you?”

“No. It's just . . .”

“Just?”

“This whole thing doesn't make any sense. I shouldn't, I mean . . . you shouldn't fall for me.”

He chuckled humorlessly and started walking again, trudging a new path through the snow.

“Don't worry, you already told me a dozen times we weren't going to date. I'm not a masochist.”

“It wasn't a dozen.”

“Maybe not verbally.”

I glared at him. He put his hands up.

“I get it, really. It's okay. But I'm trying to get to know you and you keep pushing me away.”

“It's safer that way. Trust me. You don't want to get to know me.”

He took me by the shoulders. He did that eye thing, that
you will look me in the eyes and see I'm really listening
thing.

“I do,” he said. “What do I have to do to make you trust me?”

“It's not that I don't trust you,” I said, looking down. The fact that I wasn't lying made it harder to stomach—I shouldn't trust him. But it was me that I had to keep at arm's length. “It's just . . . there are parts of my life I don't talk about. Can't talk about. And that makes being my friend hard.”

My dreamtime sketch flashed through my mind—Jane sprawled and staring, charcoal splattered like blood across the page.
If you knew half of the things that make me who I am . . .

“We all have secrets, Kaira. We all have things that make us feel fucked up. But those are the things that make us human.”

He took a deep breath.

“Fine. We'll do this. I had a little sister,” he said. “Her name was Bri.”

Was? Had?
He didn't give me time to ask. He also didn't let go of my shoulders, though his grip was gentle. His eyes never left mine.

“She was a year younger than me. She loved me, and I loved her. We did everything together—built forts, played games, went on adventures. We were living in Maine. Little town on the ocean.” He glanced away and bit his lip, letting his hands slip from my shoulders to his pockets. He looked unbelievably sad, and I wanted so badly to make it go away. “I don't know why my parents let us go on our own. I was only six. But I think they were tied up in work or just tired of us pestering them. So Bri and I went to the beach. Alone.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don't really know,” he said. He brought his gaze back to me. He wasn't crying, but his eyes wavered; he looked lost. “I was building sand castles. I remember that. She was playing in the waves. I told her not to go out. I told her to stay close. One minute she was there, laughing and splashing around, the next it was silent.”

“Jesus . . .”

“It's so cliché, isn't it? Swept away by the tide. They didn't find her body until a week later. I guess she was caught in some fisherman's net. Like a tiny drowned mermaid.”

I put a hand on his arm. The indignation from before was gone. It was impossible to be angry. Not when he was this vulnerable.

“I still remember how quiet it was,” he said. He looked away, toward the lake. “Almost like this. Like there was this great void in the world, like the weight of her soul was a tangible thing.”

“I am so, so sorry,” I said.

He took another deep breath and stood up a little straighter.

“Don't be,” he said. “As you said, it's my cross to bear. I'm the reason my sister is dead. Every time I paint, I wonder if she'd like it. I wonder if it would make her happy.”

“You can't blame yourself for that,” I said. “You were just a kid.”

“I can. And I do. If I had been watching her, if I'd heard her call out, if I'd done a hundred other things differently, maybe she'd still be here. Hell, maybe she'd have come to Islington with me, studied dance or writing or something. I didn't even notice her leaving, though. She's dead because of it. But it taught me a lot about life, you know? How you just have to take each moment as it comes because at any time, it could all be taken away. And it has, many times. My parents moved a few weeks after that. That's what started the fighting and the moving. As they've said, I'm the reason their relationship went downhill—they couldn't stand living with her ghost. And although they never said it, I knew they could never stop blaming me for it.”

“Then your parents are assholes,” I said.

He gave me a side smile. “They try.”

I knew that this was the moment I should open up and tell him about Brad.
Everything
about Brad, and what had happened after. There was a large part of me that wanted to believe Chris and I could bridge this gap and move forward and maybe this time I wouldn't get hurt by a boy I wanted to care about. Maybe I wouldn't end up hurting him. But that was just a pipe dream. No one would want to be with me when they knew the truth. Hell, not even
I
wanted to be with me much of the time, but I was kind of stuck.

“Mind if we start walking again?” I asked. “My toes are starting to go numb.”

My toes were perfectly toasty in my boots. I just needed to start walking, to get somewhere closer to people and civilization because I needed an excuse
not
to talk.

“Sure thing,” he said. My hand slipped from his arm, but we didn't stop touching, not entirely. “Anywhere in particular?”

“Writers' House,” I suggested. “I could use some hot chocolate.”

Hands just brushing, we walked out of the woods.

It felt like a metaphor. The crows watching us from the boughs didn't help.

•  •  •

Even though it was barely tilting into afternoon, the sky above was heavy and gray when we stepped into the Writers' House. A few students were already in the foyer, reading or typing away on computers. In the kitchen, I filled the electric kettle with water and began rummaging around in the cabinets for hot cocoa.

Something felt different between us now, and as I looked at him I realized what it was: He was no longer just a pretty face and a quirky sense of fashion. He was human. And some part of me ached to connect with that. To lay down my own fears and demons and be seen as a human too. As much as I could be.

Trouble was, I'd spent too many years in the dark, too many years pretending being alone and unwanted didn't hurt like hell. People didn't want that me, the real me, the me who stared at shadows and didn't know anything about her real family, the ones who gave her up to die. No one wanted
that
truth. So I had to create the image that I was wanted. That I was stronger.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, stepping up beside me. I ripped open the packets and poured them into the mugs. Handmade ceramics, probably from a graduate.

“About chocolate,” I lied.

“Uh huh,” he said.

“Why is it,” I asked, pouring water in the second mug, “that I've only really known you for a few days, but feel more comfortable around you than I should?”

And why doesn't that scare me as much as it should?

I didn't expect an answer, and I didn't even really mean to ask. But now that the words lingered in the air, I knew I couldn't take them back. It felt like standing at the crossroads, waiting for direction.

“I don't know,” he said after a moment. “I've been wondering the same thing.”

I set the kettle down.

“I can't fall for you,” I said.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because,” I whispered, suddenly aware that we were still in an open kitchen and people might be listening in. “Love is dangerous.”

“That's what makes it worth it.”

I turned to him then, and looked him right in the eyes. He had shown me his very human past. Maybe I needed to show him mine. Even if there was nothing human about it.

“The last time I was in love,” I said, “people got hurt. Bad.”

“That's a part of life,” he replied.

Gods, his eyes. I couldn't stop looking into those eyes.

“No,” I whispered. “This wasn't.” I wanted to look away. I didn't want to say what was on my tongue, not while he was staring at me with so much intent.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I was hurt,” I replied. A flicker of truth. “And the guy . . . he died. His name was Brad. The first and only guy I ever dated. And he died.”