Seven
“You look great, baby.” Mom waits for me at the bottom of the stairs with a camera, like it's prom. Dad got her a digital camera and she's been taking picture after picture. Things like me sneezing or eating or doing something awesome like sitting on the couch. I'll see the flash out of the corner of my eye and try to stay still and not do anything weird with my face. I pretend like I don't notice when she does it. I have no idea why she's taking a picture of me doing nothing, but I don't ask.
I smile and pose on the stairs, and give my best Miss America wave. Dad's right behind her, arms around her waist, laughing. I make some funny faces and she takes so many pictures I'm blinded by the flashes.
Jamie's truck sounds in the driveway like a hurricane hit a chainsaw factory. He loves that truck, even though he could never use it in a getaway.
“That's my ride.”
“Have fun, Ava-Claire. Be safe. Don't be home too late.” She hugs me tight. I wish she'd hug me like this forever and never let me go. I don't want to go to the party, but I let her go and walk out the door. She takes one last picture as I look back at her. The flash makes my eyes burn for a moment.
“I will, I won't.” Dad looks like he wants to add something, but he gives me a look that says it all. I smile and wave as I grab my jacket.
“Ready to roll?” I say as I launch myself to get into the truck. Jamie reaches out and hauls me in. Even though he's never had a cigarette in his life, his truck still smells like moldy cigarettes. It's a hand-me-down from his dad, who smokes like a chimney.
“Always.” I ride bitch, since I have the shortest legs. We get Tex a few minutes later, and her skirt rides up so much she has to haul it down after she gets in.
“Classy.”
“I have great legs, what can I say? It would be a crime to cover them up.” I sigh. She does have great legs. I've got stubs.
My knees are crunched up under the dashboard and Tex keeps brushing crumbs off her seat. Jamie also has to reach between my feet to get his coffee cup, but that's part of the charm of riding around with Jamie.
Sam Weston lives at the end of a dirt road, like a lot of people in Sussex. Secluded in the summer, hell to drive on in the winter. His house is closer to the water than mine, and even has a little cliff so you can watch the waves. The neighbors are all rich summer folks that hibernate in Florida and haven't made it up for the summer yet, so the location is ideal. Cars are haphazardly parked in the ditches on either side of the driveway, and some have made their way onto the lawn. The cold air bites at my legs and exposed arms. I should have brought a sweater to cover the blue t-shirt I've worn.
“I didn't think there would be this many people.” Tex seems surprised. I have no idea why. A car full of people who sound like they're already three drinks in skids next to us, nearly jamming into Jamie's truck. They all stumble out and have to hold onto each other to get up the steps and into the house. It's practically vibrating on its foundation from the music.
“Can we stop staring and go in? I'm freezing,' Tex says. No wonder, considering what she's wearing.
“Put a coat on,” I snap. This was her idea.
“But I might lose it. You know coats disappear at these things.” She holds her arm up, showing me the wristlet that holds all her identification and cell phone. Style before function.
“Shall we?” Jamie leans down and offers each of us an arm. I fake a smile and link up with him on one side, Tex on the other. A Jamie sandwich.
No sooner are we through the door than beers are chucked in our direction. The music is loud, the rooms packed, it's hot and smells like sweat with a hint of pot. If I'm going to be here I might as well enjoy myself as much as I can.
Each beat from the music moves through the floor, making its way up my legs and through my body like a spark of electricity. I want to plunge into it, to lose myself in it, but Tex drags me into the kitchen. Now that I'm here, it's not so bad. Jamie heads to the next room where beer pong is in full swing. He has to say hello to his buddies, who are already slamming each other around and laughing too loudly at something that probably isn't even funny.
I grab a lime wedge and stick it in my beer can. Tex discards her beer and grabs a cup of something pink some girl ladles from a huge metal bowl. I think her name's Angela, but I'm not sure. She catches me staring and gives me the hairy eyeball before clopping away in her gigantic heels.
“Are you going to drink that?”
“Why not? You know I hate beer.” She peers into the cup and pulls something out.
“Because you have no idea what's in it.”
“Alcohol.” She takes a sip. “And... fruit punch? Maybe lemonade? I don't know. It's good. Try it.” She shoves the cup under my nose. It smells good, but that doesn't mean I'm drinking it. There could be anything in there.
“No thanks. I'll stick with what I know.” I sip my beer, which is improved by the lime. Drinkable. I haven't had a whole lot of experience with alcohol. I mean, I've had one here and there, but my experience with it was nothing compared to most of my classmates. I've never actually been wasted. Maybe now is a good time. At least I don't have to drive. I take a bigger swig.
“Slow down there. You want it to last.” Tex practically has a degree in drinking. “Water is the key,” she tells me, “and food.”
I ignore her and nearly choke on my next gulp. I barely even taste it.
The beer kicks a few minutes later. My body warms and I don't feel so tense. It's nice. I stop thinking about Thing One and Thing Two.
As soon as she's gotten one drink in her, Tex goes off and mingles. I hang out with my beer in the kitchen, waiting for the right moment. I say hello to a few people from school who come in to get a refill, but for the most part I'm alone.
“Ready to dance?” Jamie finds me sitting on the counter next to the sink helping some girl put ice in her cup. She gets most of it on the floor.
“I've been waiting for something better to come along.” I grin at him. Smiling seems so easy now, lke someone else is doing it for me.
“Ouch. You've hurt my pride.” He clutches his chest as if I've wounded him before helping me down off the counter. The girl stumbles off with her drink and plenty of ice. She almost does a face plant when she slips on a cube. Jamie leans down to pick them up and throws them in the sink.
“I think that's impossible.” He takes my hand and twirls me around. My can of beer sloshes on the floor.
“Come on.” He tugs me to the pounding living room. With the alcohol, I'm more willing to dance than I would be otherwise. He notices when I'm less-than-graceful. I've barely gotten into the song when he pulls on my arm and takes me away from the speaker. He says something and I put my hand to my ear, telling him I can't hear.
“How much have you had to drink?” he yells.
“Just one,” I yell back, holding up one finger. The strobe lights make him look like he's moving in slow motion.
“Since we got here?” I'm not sure how long we've been here. Feels like a few minutes.
“Yeah.” I try to pull my arm away. His grip hurts.
“You idiot. That's going to come back and bite you. You're not supposed to drink it that fast.” He takes my arm and yanks me back into the kitchen. I protest, but he lifts me up onto the kitchen counter and hands me a glass of water.
“Drink.”
“I'm not a baby. You don't have to take care of me.” It's a lot easier to hear now, but the room is doing this wavy thing I'm not liking too much.
“Yes, I do.” He doesn't say it like a joke. More like it's a fact that he's admitting to.
“Where's Tex?” I say as I take a sip.
“Not sure. I saw her over with the video gamers a while ago. I'll go find her. You stay here.”
I stay on the counter and dutifully drink my water. Jamie is a little overprotective. It's what happens when you have an alcoholic father. Tex has another drink in her hand when he hauls her in.
“I'm going to keep an eye on you two. Pace yourselves. Eat. Don't leave with strangers. Keep your underwear on and your tongues in your own mouths. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” We both say, saluting in unison. He gives us the 'I'm watching you' finger gesture and goes back to referee the beer pong. Tex chugs her drink in protest and I get another beer.
We spend the rest of the night dancing and fending off drunken gropers. Tex more than me, but I blame that on the skirt. What kind of message did she think she was sending? I only think about it for a second, thanks to the beer. I'm not sure how many I've consumed, but I'm past caring. I'm dancing and laughing and not thinking about things. It's awesome.
At some point in the evening, Jamie gets both Tex and me into the car. I'm able to walk straight, but I'm so tired my eyes can barely stay open. I think I remember Tex yelling something about not breaking her shoes, but it's hard to tell. Her voice is all slurry and she's mumbling. She always mumbles when she drinks.
Jamie drives me home, and I'm so tired I nearly fall asleep in the truck.
“How was the party?” My mother's curled up on the couch when I get home. I'm surprised to see her awake. Of course I knock over her purse and spill everything out on the floor in my attempt to be quiet.
“What are you doing up?” I say, picking up a tube of lipstick and a wad of tissues.
“Couldn't sleep. I'm watching Ever After.” She has a bowl of popcorn on the couch with her, as if she's been waiting for me. I'm sweaty and exhausted and I want to go to bed, but I sit down next to her.
“Mind if I join you?” She pauses the movie and then starts it from the beginning. I stink of alcohol and cigarettes, but I snuggle under her arm. She kisses the top of my head.
“Did you have a good time?”
“Not as good as Tex.” Her fingers tangle themselves in my hair.
“That girl needs to slow down.”
“I tell her that every time. She doesn't listen.” When Tex and I started going to parties when we hit high school, Mom had smiled and told me to call her if I ever needed a ride. She's an odd mix of overprotective for some things, and lax on others. Partying is one thing she's never seemed to mind, like it;s one of those rights of passage. She trusts me enough to let me make my own decisions because I'll never do something that will make her ashamed of me. I've never come home wasted.
I only make it through a few minutes before I fall asleep with her stroking my hair and humming in my ear.
I wake in the middle of the night, my alcohol buzz gone. The buzz in my head isn't, thoughts flying around so fast I can't keep up with them. The only thing they hold on to is that memory of looking into those eyes. I can't say what color they are. It doesn't matter. I want to see him again. He'd had another chance to do whatever it was they were going to do last time, and he hadn't.
So, um, that means I can go back and see if he's there, right? I can't stop thinking about him, like a song I can't get out of my head I need to listen to him on repeat to break the spell. If he's not there, then I can stop thinking about him. I have to get it out of my system, one way or another.
The drive takes longer, because I'm too busy telling myself how insane this is to focus on my driving. It's unlikely it is that this weird guy has been camped out in a cemetery for several days, waiting to see if I'll come back. The chances are slim.
***
This time I bring a flashlight, using it like a search beam to scan the cemetery. I think I'm alone until something appears.
“You're still here,” I say, nearly falling down as my flashlight beam bounces over him. He turns around at the sound of my voice.
It's a cold night and I can see my breath in the beam of the flashlight, like smoke. I have to wrap my arms around myself to stop from shaking, I'm so freaking cold.
“I am,” he says. “So are you.” The light jumps in my shaking hand. So much for being confident. Keeping the beam on his dirty feet is the best I can do to minimize my freak out.
“I guess I have no self-preservation instincts.” I want to sit down, because standing is awkward, but I don't want to be the one sitting when he's standing. So I just continue to fidget awkwardly. “I thought you were going to... um...” I can't say kill yourself.
“Yes. But I did not.” There's a pause as I question all the ways this is a bad life decision.
“What changed your mind?” That's it, I'm officially insane. I'm standing in a cemetery, discussing suicide in the middle of the night with some guy who kinda saved me from his creepy brother who might have tried to rape or kill me.
“It was not the right time.”
“So what is the right time? Not that I think you should, but...” Open mouth, insert feet and hands, Ava.
“I will know.”
“It can't be that bad.” I know nothing about this guy. “What's your name?” It's my attempt to talk him off the proverbial ledge. All the cops do it on TV.
“Peter.”
“Peter, what?”
“Hart.”
“It's nice to meet you, Peter, I'm Ava.” I stick my hand out, like this is some sort of meet-and-greet. He stares at my hand. I yank it back. I must have come on too strong. Go me.
“So, what, have you just been camping out here, waiting for unsuspecting girls to wander near your mausoleum?” I sound like a lunatic.
“No.”
“Where's your brother?”
“You mean Ivan. He is not here.” Glory hallelujah. I should throw a party, with confetti.
“You're not very good at conversation, are you?” He turns his head to the side. I like it when he does that. Wait, what? I pull my eyes away from him.
“No, I am not. But you continue to try.”
“Call me Saint Jude,” I say with a sigh. It comes out kind of trembly, since I'm so cold. I hope he doesn't notice, but I'm sure he does.
“Do you consider me a lost or hopeless cause?” That catches me off guard. Only Tex or Jamie or my mother or someone familiar with saints would understand that little quip.
“Well I don't know you, so I couldn't say. What would you consider yourself as?” I look up at him, trying to be as confident as I sound. Clearly, he's something. I just don't know what that is. I move the beam back up to his eyes, hidden behind that hair. They sparkle like gems under water.
“I am nothing.” His voice goes quiet. The first change in volume, which tells me something. I just don't know what that is. I'm still shaking and I can't feel any of my extremities.
“You're... something.” I can't say what I'm thinking, that I don't think he's a normal guy. I try not to look at his eyes again, but now that I've done it once, they're all I can see when I close my eyes. My heart kicks into high gear. Why are my palms sweating?
“I just can't figure you out.” He's still standing. “You don't want me to, though.” I meet his eyes for a second.
“I would prefer it.” I'm shivering so bad I can barely talk.
“Well, thank you anyway. For not letting Ivan do, whatever it was he wanted to do, and for not killing yourself.” I cringe inwardly at how ungrateful of a thanks it is.
He studies at me a second before answering.
“You are welcome, Ava.” It's the first time he says my name.
“So, um, goodbye.” As much as I'd like to stay and chat with him, my nose is going to freeze and fall off if I don't leave. He is unaffected by the cold. Come to think of it, I haven't seen his breath in the air. I haven't seen him breathe at all. I should probably just stop thinking.
“Goodnight, Ava.” I stare at his chest, looking for some kind of breathing movement. Of course, it's really hard to see in the dark. I drag my eyes back up to his face, which is calm as ever.
Of course I have to stop and say, “will you be here tomorrow?” in a hopeful, pleading kind of voice. He answers my question with one of his own.
“Will you?” I bite my lip before I answer, considering if I should lie or tell the truth.
“Probably.” I go with the truth. Even with the fact that I've just embarrassed myself irreparably, I know I'll be back. Sometimes you just know things. My mother would scoff at my certainty and say something about fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice... I don't remember the rest.
I give a lame little wave as I turn around.
“Will you?” I ask again.
“Perhaps.” Neither of us want to make a commitment. That would make this something more, and I'm still not sure if it's anything or nothing. I want it to be nothing, but it's probably something.
***
Ava. Such a symmetrical name. I liked symmetrical things. Books on a shelf, rows of flowers, roads. I wondered if it was the chaos in me that secretly longs for order, for things to be in their place.
I told her my name. It felt strange on my lips, like a forgotten language. I had not shared it with a living person in a long time.
She held the light she brought like a torch, as if it would illuminate every dark corner, help her to see what is hidden. Light could not hurt me, contrary to legend, but she did not know that. I didn't tell her.
Her eyes blinked over and over. I watched the emotions on her face, like waves carving sand. I was used to watching faces as they die. They went so still, froze in a mask that was impossible to change. She paged through so many feelings; fear, anger, frustration, amusement. My face was still. I'd forgotten how to make my face move like a mortal. It unnerved your prey when they could not read what you were thinking on your face.
She had so many questions. I didn't feel like answering them, so I didn't. She couldn't understand anything about me. I thought she wanted to try.
I focused on her smell, which was as strong as any human. They had no idea how much they gave off. Sweat and dirt and blood and skin and cologne and deodorant and soap residue and food and smoke. Everywhere they'd been rubbed off on them, so I could tell what they'd done that day, and sometimes the day before. It clung to their skin, even when they tried to wash it away. The scents layered and gave each person have a signature.
She was a little scared of me, and she smelled of sleep , smoke, alcohol and sweat. Soap that smelled of artificial coconut. She must have had chocolate earlier, and cooked vegetables. Meat was a strong smell, but I didn't smell it on her. There was a residue of her house there as well. Paint and fabrics and wood and plastic. The people she lived with were on her. A woman with flowery perfume. A man as well. Men and women smell so different. Pheromones. Science hadn't discovered them yet when I was alive.
Underlying it all was her blood. So warm and active, being pushed and pulled through her veins. I wanted to take it away from her.
Her eyes were green. They widened as she made contact with mine. I didn't mean to, but I tried to hold the contact for a few seconds. She broke it and I saw she was scared. Not enough to run.
She knew that I was different, not human. Those eyes asked the question that her voice didn't. What was I?
I didn't answer.
The want to kill her stayed with me, like a word whispered in my ear. A kiss that promised of something else. Something better. If only I would give in. I didn't.
We said goodbye to each other. She used my name. Such a simple word, goodbye.