RoseBlood(39)

It wasn’t my first kiss. I’d gone to junior prom with a sweet, nerdy guy named Tate. We shared a benign closed-mouth peck at my door, when he dropped me home. But it never amounted to anything else.

My kiss with Ben was different—mouths opening, tongues seeking. I was the instigator, lifting my arms around his neck to push the aria down. Ben groaned—deep, masculine gratification—and his lips felt as if they caught fire. His tongue scalded as it wrestled mine. He dragged me hard against him. The film of chlorinated water between our skin seemed to sizzle, and his chest burned my collarbone.

We ignored the rap song blaring from the speakers on the balcony, ignored the snickering guests who opened a path so Ben could back us into the empty pool house and slam the door shut. He lowered me onto a pile of damp and musty beach towels on the cement floor—his heavy body straddling me.

His hands were everywhere. There was nothing sweet or tender driving either of us. It was spontaneous, harsh, lusty, and degrading. I hated how fast we were moving, how out of control we were, and for an instant, I hesitated, until the notes resurfaced. In that muddled, hysterical state, I convinced myself that the humiliation of an impromptu vocal solo would somehow be worse than letting things go too far with a boy I didn’t even know.

Those are the facts I shared with Janine and Trig.

What I didn’t share was that just as my cover-up came off, as the kisses grew intense and gasping, Ben’s flavor changed to something singed, sweet, and unnatural—like roasted autumn leaves, sulfur, and copper wrapped in toffee. I devoured the taste, starving for more.

A fiery sensation soldered Ben’s chest to mine, like someone had poured a pint of gasoline on us and followed it with a lit match. A bright grayish-yellow glow buzzed and ignited at the point of contact, where my bikini-wrapped breasts were flush to his pecs.

I was so wasted—I can’t be sure I retained every detail. All I do remember—vividly—is that the glow jumped from Ben’s sternum to mine, catching flame to my blood while turning his cold and paling his face to a deathly white. I remember how he gasped for air as he rolled onto his back atop the heap of towels . . . how he clawed at this throat, trying to breathe. I remember screaming when his lips started to turn blue, when the veins in his temples and wrists seemed to sink into his skin, as if being hollowed out from within.

Forgetting the odd glow within my chest, I stumbled from the pool house and shouted for help. By the time the EMTs arrived, Ben was convulsing, and the heat behind my sternum had snuffed out. But even before it stopped burning, no one had seemed to notice the strange light at my sternum. A few kids did, however, comment on my glowing contacts. I didn’t dare tell them I wasn’t wearing any.

Instead, I stared at the ground until the warm tingling behind my irises subsided, scared and worried for Ben, yet horrified for myself. Of myself. When the paramedics arrived, no one mentioned anything about my eyes being abnormal. A kind EMT assured me what happened wasn’t my fault, that Ben was having a seizure and I’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I let them believe it, but I knew it was my fault. Because when we were kissing, when he began to thrash for life, I felt stronger and more alive than I ever had. I fed off his lust, and then his terror. And I wanted to keep feeding . . . but somehow, I came back to myself when I saw those blue lips. It was me who broke our connection in that instant.

If I hadn’t, he’d be dead today.

Over the past few weeks I’ve tried to convince myself I imagined everything. But I can’t explain away glowing eyes any more than I can the sprained wrist I suffered from the fall—something I was too drunk to notice at the time. If not for me being rushed to the ER alongside Ben in the ambulance, Mom wouldn’t have found out about the party, or my drinking, or my indiscretions with some guy I barely knew.

And it wasn’t even worth it. In the end, the alcohol didn’t make a dent in my musical compulsions—because it didn’t change who I was. It didn’t fix me. Before Mom arrived to pick me up from the hospital, I’d already serenaded the staff with the aria. After they’d recovered from their awe-struck shock, they applauded then hooked me up to an IV, mistaking my post-performance malaise for dehydration.

How could they have known I wasn’t thirsty anymore? That I felt satiated and full of life. All because I’d almost drained Ben of his.

Even worse, how could I not wonder if I was cursed like Grandma had said all along, and that I’d done the same thing to my father years earlier with my demonic gift of song?



Refusing to wallow in pity—for Ben, Dad, or myself—I go seeking redemption instead. If I can find a tangle of weeds overtaking some flowers and revive their beauty and purity, I can restore my self-worth on some level, and maybe investigate the location of that first gardener sighting almost a week ago.

I slip into a pair of parchment-thin leather gloves from my winter clothes’ supply, and make my way outside, armed with a stainless-steel food tub, a large spoon and fork, and a serrated pie server from the cafeteria—temporary substitutes for a bucket, shovel, rake, and trowel.

This morning at breakfast, Aunt Charlotte convinced me to wait until tomorrow, since that’s when Mister Jippetto promised to bring the gardening tools I’d requested last time we spoke. Although her real goal was to convince me to go with her to Versailles. Fortunately, Bouchard ended up staying, which seemed to make Aunt Charlotte feel better about leaving me behind. But I’ve changed my mind about waiting to explore the garden. I have to do this today.