The Contradiction of Solitude(65)

The fingers around my ankle pierced through flesh. In the frigid water I could feel the warm blood start to flow. Floating up. Floating down.

This is what death felt like.

I opened the door and walked inside.

I could hear my daddy’s voice. He was talking low. Not loud enough.

I heard her crying. Tears that I felt in my gut.

She was sad. I knew my daddy would make her feel better.

I forgot about the ice cream.

I didn’t care about that anymore.

I wanted to see my star.

Because I knew the girl with the sad, sad sobs was just for me.

My star.

Mine.

“Daddy,” I whispered walking slowly towards the closed door at the end of the long, dark hallway. Ringed with light, it was a beacon.

I was excited.

I couldn’t wait any longer.

I knew Daddy wouldn’t be mad. He loved me. He wanted me to share his special, special secret.

“Daddy,” I whispered again, my hand flat against the door and I pushed.

The door swung open and the first thing I saw was Daddy.

He smiled high.

High as the sun.

Bright as the stars…

I was in the water. And then I wasn’t. I was in strong, secure arms being pulled back to shore.

Laid out on the sand and dirt, my naked body shivering.

“Layna, what were you thinking?” Elian cried. He covered me with a blanket and wrapped me up. Pulling me to his chest where we sat on the beach as he rocked. And rocked.

“I told you not to go out that far.” His voice broke. His tears mingled with the quarry water. I lifted my face and caught them with my tongue. Salty sadness.

“I can’t lose you, Layna. Why would you do that to me?” He was angry. His arms were too tight.

“I’m fine,” I reassured him.

I was fine.

Was I?

My ankle pulsated and I pulled the blanket away to have a better look.

“That looks like it hurts. You must have cut it on something.” Five precise cuts bleeding sluggishly.

Cut on sharp fingers.

My mind remembered.

My heart was already trying to forget.

I was safe.

For now.

Elian picked me up and carried me back into the house where he sat me carefully on the sofa. He found a towel and began to dry my hair. Lovingly.

He loved me.

I had scared him.

I smiled.

“Stop it, Elian. I’m fine.” I pushed his hands away. I could see the still, calm waters outside the window. Hiding. Concealing. It’s rippling like laughter. It had let me go.

“I can’t believe you went out there far! After I told you about all the drownings! Why would you do that?” He kept on and on. Wanting answers.

Questions hammering my brain.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” I felt…guilt.

Elian shook his head. “Sometimes Layna, you scare me. I can’t get in your head. I don’t know what you’re thinking. You’re this intense, enigmatic woman who set me on fire. I’m utterly consumed by you. But there are times I think—”

“You think what, Elian?” His name was a curse. A question.

“I think that you’re not meant to be here with me at all. That some crazy bump in fate threw us together and now here we are. But it’s not going to last long. And at the end of you, I will be completely destroyed. Finished. You’ll walk away just as you were before.”

Elian’s hands shook as he cupped my face. His thumbs ran over my lips, parting them. Pushing inside. Against sharp teeth. Tasting and touching.

Devouring.

“But what will be left of me after you, Layna? I won’t be walking away will I?”

What could I say?

No words were sufficient.

I stayed silent.

I gave him my lips. My teeth. My skin.

And he drank it in.

Because he knew that some things were too horrible to talk about. Too horrible to contemplate.

Life without this.



“I’m hungry,” Elian murmured from the web of my hair and limbs.

I ran my hands up and down his back. Touching the most important part of him.

“Me too,” I agreed.

“Should we go into town? Maybe go to Denny’s?” he asked.

“No,” I said sharply. Emphatically.

Elian laughed. Strained. Fake. Not real. He was starting to wear a new mask. A different mask.

One made just for me.

“I thought Denny’s was your favorite.”

I could never go to Denny’s with Elian again. It’s where I found him.

It was our beginning.

We were past that point in our story.

“Why don’t we go to get some groceries so I can cook for you?” I suggested. I wanted to keep him here.

Safe.

Away.

Tucked in and tight.

Mine.

“You cook?” Elian asked incredulously. After my brief encounter with death, he seemed brand new.

Revived.

Better.

He loved me. It had taken him over. It had pulled him under. He had been fighting as he drowned. But now, he seemed to have accepted.

And now he was…

Better.

“I can cook,” I told him with a smile. Small and sweet. Just for him.