Now he sounds truly scared, but it will all be better soon. I close my eyes and feel the depth and fullness of the cloud. Yes, it’s low. Nimbostratus. Not a big one, not a dangerous one, but substantial enough to cause rain for a while and promise swells enough to make boating a choppy affair. I stretch out my fingers and sense the intentions of the cloud. It wants to stay for days. I could wind it tighter, coax it into inviting in a cold front and turn it into the storm predicted by the radio yesterday, but I won’t let it. I carefully pull it out taut, like a tablecloth being smoothed of its wrinkles. I push the cold front back, keeping it at bay.
The pressure rises. The storm would mew complacently if it could.
When I open my eyes, the gray above isn’t as dark and the rain is smaller caliber, soft and gentle.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Hector says, his palms out and collecting the light drops on his skin. “That was amazing.”
The word—“amazing”—sloshes around inside my belly. Astonishing. Surprising. Stupefying. “You say it as though it were a positive thing.”
“It is.”
“But I can do things that are worse. Far worse.”
“I know.” Hector takes my hand in his. “I could do amazing things, too. Horrible things, if I wanted.” A grimace passes over his face, and for a split second, I see what he could do. Translate his own pain into horrors for others. I wonder how many people have this inside them, this whispered potential for violence. Those with enough reason to do so, but choosing humanity over nourishing that destruction. Hector shakes it off, so splendidly. He squeezes my hand, and I look at our fingers clasped together. Twenty fingers. All able to do such damage.
So we stand there, two terrible people capable of terrible things.
But not today. It will be a détente of sorts, where we leave our miseries and propensity for unhappiness outside ourselves.
Until tomorrow morning.
Then I will go back to being myself. November will be mine once again, and Hector will not.
I should be relieved, truly. But if I am, why do I ache so much?
Chapter Forty-Seven
HECTOR
We eat a little, though neither of us is hungry.
We drink a little, though neither of us is thirsty.
We do these things, because everything ordinary is extraordinary when the time is ticking down really fucking fast.
That night, when the sun sets and the air is misty, we take a walk outside after being indoors for hours. Maybe kissing, for hours. Maybe talking. I don’t need to count the minutes of anything we do. That would mean that time was passing, and I don’t want the reminder.
Outside, the temperature has dropped, and the sun is a gold crescent on the horizon. The lighthouse winks on, and its beam fills the fog with a dull light. Anda eyes the tower like a sulky kid.
“Come on. You should go up there,” I urge her.
“Why? The light hates me.”
I could ask exactly how she knows that, but I don’t. I can see it in how she carries her body. Withdrawing into herself, as if being pelted by acid instead of rain.
“C’mon.” I take her hand and bring her back inside. She drags her feet all the way, but not so much that she’s not willing to come with me. I take both sleeping bags in my arms and lead her through the house and the back corridor to the interior of the lighthouse. Anda sucks air between her teeth as soon as she touches the iron railing.
“Really, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Why?” I say, several steps above her. From here, she looks up at me, and her eyes are huge in the darker light inside. Her skin is luminous, as if she can channel the unseen moonlight.
“Because we are opposites. I can feel its hostility for me. And I despise it, too.” She narrows her eyes. “Why are you so insistent on bringing me up here?”
“Because. I never thought I would tell a single soul the truth about me. And I did. And…” I close my eyes, taking a huge breath. “I feel better. Not fixed. Not by a long shot. But better.” I open my eyes and stare at her. “I don’t know, Anda. I have a feeling that if you tried to make peace with it, it would be…good.” She waits for something more, knowing I’m holding back. Finally, I smile sheepishly. “And also, I want to see you in a light, bright as day. All night long.”
Anda smiles a little, but she doesn’t seem convinced. She carries her worry with her like lead weights on her feet, taking one clonking, heavy step after the other up the spiral staircase. Her breathing comes with more effort, a slow rasping sound as if she’s harboring razor blades in her throat. The closer to the top we get, the larger her eyes get, wide with fear and apprehension. When we finally reach the iron gallery, she squeezes my hand so hard that her nails bite into my skin.
“It’s too…” she begins, but doesn’t finish her sentence. She shakes her head and crumples down onto the iron floor surrounding the glass-chambered light. I immediately drop to my knees to help her, but she hisses at me. I back off.
Her hands touch the metal below her and she snatches them away, as if they’d scorched her. She lets out a shriek of fierce anger, an almost feral noise. I take a few more steps away, giving her room. Something incendiary is playing out inside her head. I pray that the sleeping bags in my arms won’t spontaneously combust. Was it a mistake to bring her up here?
“It’s okay. Forget it. We’ll go back down,” I say quickly, holding out a hand. Anda recoils from my hand and grimaces.
“Stop. Just, stop.”
In the slowest of slow motions, she lowers her fingers to the black metal beneath her. Her fingers quiver with pain when they make contact, and she shuts her eyes tightly. Her shoulders shake, and she drops her head, feeling whatever it is that the sandstone bricks of the building have stored up for over a century. A keening issues from her throat, a sound too much like wind against the eaves of an old building.
When she finally raises her eyes, they’re bloodshot. Dark circles shadow beneath them. It’s like she’s mourned a thousand deaths in the space of a minute. I take a cautious step closer.
“Are you…okay?” God, that’s a stupid question.
“No.” She whimpers and wipes her wet cheeks. “But I would like to lie down now.”
“Here? I didn’t realize it would be so bad. I’m sorry. We can go back down.”
“No. We’ll stay here,” she says miserably. “It’s okay.”
I don’t ask again. I shake out the sleeping bags and zip them together so we can lie inside together. She wriggles to get her feet to the bottom, and her body curves around the gallery as the light pulses above us. Anda shuts her eyes tightly.
“I can see the light even with my eyes closed.” She frowns deeply.
I kick off my boots and scoot next to her. It’s cold as a meat locker with the wind up here, but I don’t care. I slip one arm beneath her head as a pillow and wrap the other around her waist. The air is still damp and misty, and I shiver.
“Cold?”
“Not much,” I lie.
She harrumphs at my bravado. She can see right through me. “Well. It is November, after all.” Anda smiles a tiny bit, and I smile back, and her hands move beneath the sleeping bag. The wind around us dies down and suddenly it’s not quite as cold as it was only seconds ago.
Oh.
“You did that, didn’t you? When we hiked on the island. You kept it from being too cold.”
Anda nods.