Brutally Beautiful(59)

“So, what’s your story then, Lainey?”

“I don’t have any stories you’re going to want to hear, Kade. Do you have stories you want to talk about? Or you want to make this evening light and unheartbreaking?”

His lips curled up playfully, “Oh Lainey, I have tons of stories…” he said as we climbed into his truck and started the engine. “But my story? Let’s see…my past is heinously horrid. Born with extremely powerful, yet flawed super human powers, I accidently melted my mother into a heaping pile of goo as soon as I fell from her womb. The guilt was unbearable and drove me to wear a mask to hide my deadly grey eyes, deliberately living a life of solitude as I search the world for a cure for my flaws. Everyone thinks I’m not living up to my heroic potential and that I should work for the government, fighting America’s villains, but the reality is that I’m just saving everyone from my hell.” Kade had pulled out of the lot and the dark road was racing under the wheels, and the trees were a blur of tangled blackened branches blocking out the moonless sky. For miles, an awkward heavy silence hung in the air when his story finished, both of us knowing there was some strange truth to his tale. Turning into the trailer park, he slowed the truck down from warp speed, pulled into the dirt road next to the trailer, and turned off the engine.

“I googled you,” I whispered.

His eyes nailed me to the seat. Vaporous breath escaped through his lips as his chest rose and fell faster and faster. His eyes flickered and searched my face maniacally; his breathing became more erratic, intense gasps of air. “Goodnight, Lainey,” his voice croaked huskily.

I leaned forward and laid the palm of my hand over his chest. I felt him tense and strain beneath the tips of my fingers. His eyes searched mine, as my fingers felt for the beat of his heart, listening to it, feeling it as it slowly settled into its regular pace.

“Kade.”

“Don’t. Just go, please. I can feel you in my darkness, Lainey, and you’re shining, lighting up my way. Please go. Leave me to my darkness,” he smiled bitterly.

“Kade, I know the mess you’re dealing with and how it makes you feel. More than you know.”

“You don’t know anything!” He screamed, nostrils flaring and red-faced. He goes hot and cold like the flip of a switch. On-flip-Off. Hot-flip-Cold. “Yes. I have the characteristics of a real person. Flesh, hair, bones, blood, whatever…but I have nothing on the inside. Empty, devoid of any emotion, dead. Like I did die that day, and only my body remains here. Maybe you could feel flesh and pulse, see my blood and bones and you think I'm just as human as you, but I'm not. I’m f*cking empty. There is nothing inside me. Nothing but violent scenes and pleading echoes. Then I saw you, and something small flickered deep inside the dead dark recesses of my mind. I don’t need some stupid little girl like you telling me how you understand me, when you never would be able to conceive the unthinkable shit I’ve lived through. Just f*cking leave me here, Lainey. Walk the f*ck out and leave me here.”

“I don’t want to leave you there, Kade. Nobody should be left there.”

“So, what? You’re going to try to save me, Lainey? Leave me alone. You have no idea who and what I am. Get the f*ck out and go back to your little perfect bubble.”

Ignoring his rouse, I dug into him, “I can see you’re in pain.”

“My pains are not apparent to the eye,” he muttered.

“What the f*ck are you talking about? They’re as apparent as the nose on your damn face, because you wear them so proudly! You act as if you carry some contagious sickness with you, something that you actually threaten people with. Well, I’m not scared of you and your self-inflicted disease. Especially since I suffer from the same exact one, I just know how to live with it. The first time I saw you - you f*cked me like a teenage virgin with your eyes, then when I asked you for your order, you acted like a misogynist. I know, Kade. How about we do this? Why don’t you snap a little picture of me and then later tonight, when I leave the premises and you’re all by your wonderful Wizard of Oz lonesome, you could creep in for some quality time with the still, mindless, silent picture. Or maybe, you could just acknowledge the fact that I might understand what you’re going through and deal with the real life me, the one that you follow around.”