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The shot split the sky like a song. A song of blood and death and love and everything that made living both the hardest thing and the only thing. Fired into the night sky to shoot down the stars. Below the dark blanket threaded silver with stars, she lay. Eyes closed, hand closed tight around the gun. Imagining every star a distant light into the universe. Untold worlds. She was such a small part but the planets seemed to spin on the axis of her longing. The longing to consume, to possess. To eat the stars one by one. Piece by piece like the blood oranges that stained his mouth and chin. This inner world, the white gravestones and dark cornfields inside her mind rose up and called for the sound of feet. Feet on the stairs. A hand opening the door. There was light shining beneath the door. Open it. Open it. ****************************************** “Will, are you home? It’s almost one-thirty. If we don’t hurry up, we’re going to miss the matinee. Will?” Only silence answered. She fidgeted with the collar of her blouse. God, it was hot. Her entire neck was sweaty and she could feel a wet spot at her back. Maybe she could convince him to go to the pond after the movie. She imagined the cool water enveloping her body, her face. She imagined floating on her back and seeing the sun on his closed eyelids. On his skin. Making him glow with light and heat. Her hand stilled on the banister. The image of mottled sunlight on the back of his narrow hands illuminated her mind. It had become like this ever since that day she saw him from the kitchen window. Any random moment and she was undone. Sitting down at dinner with her mother, she would suddenly see the pale blue veins mapping his hands and she would drop her fork. Washing her hair, the vision of the tender skin at the nape of his neck would make her clutch at the silver bathtub fixtures, overcome. Even watching television, the canned laughter would make her head pound with the echo of his low laugh. Even when he was not there, he was there. Even when he was close, he was so far. Sometimes she was angry. At him for existing to burn her on his fire. At herself for loving the flame. She would dream of leaving here. Dream of no longer having a life that was only partly hers. Of having a life that was not so tied up with another’s. Sometimes she would wonder if she had not seen him that afternoon three weeks ago, standing under the sun barefoot in the grass, if she would be like this. Overtaken by a feeling she hardly understood except to call it love. It was not love. It was discovering that the life she always knew would forever belong to him. Unknowing and unrecognized. Discovering that the greatest gift she had to give was his imprint over her being. A four letter word to tidy up the chaos of her past, present, and future. She did not know what the future would bring. All she knew was that she was seventeen and love was the word that was somehow too much and not enough to explain the state she was in. She climbed the stairs to his bedroom; they were going to be late for the movie. It was his choice this time and they were going to see a war film. Lots of shooting and swaggering and she already knew how it would end. The movies he loved always faded to black leaving everyone dead. “Will?” She turned the doorknob of his bedroom door and peeked inside. He was not there. There were newspapers spread out over his bed. He must have been reading the baseball scores. The grey short-sleeve button down he wore yesterday was tossed haphazardly on the floor. And he called her a pig. She reached under his bed and took out a piece of Bazooka Joe from his secret candy stash. Popped it in her mouth and chewed slowly. She heard the water being turned on in the bathroom. So help her God, if he was primping and posturing in front of the mirror, she would talk loudly throughout the entire movie. He already spent too much time on his stupid self and the other day she’d had to endure his twenty minute inspection of all the shaving creams Wilkins’ Drug Store carried. As if Dru would even care how his idiot face smelled. As long as he didn’t smell too bad, she didn’t think Dru would even notice while they were smacking lips. Gag. That awful evil little part of her mind whispered that *she* would want him even if he smelled like wet dog. The water turned off and she ventured down the hall to the bathroom. Ran her fingers along the hallway wallpaper. Traced the cabbage roses and blue ribbons. Everything in his house was done to his mother’s taste. Feminine, stifling with flowers and cherub figurines and doilies. He hated it she knew. Hated having Angel and Xander over because they would make fun. As if Angel had anything to make fun of, what with that enormous painting of his mother’s poodle in the parlor. And Xander’s father’s beer bottles littering the Harris’ kitchen was hardly better. She knocked on the bathroom door but received no answer. The water turned on again. What in Mary’s underpants was he doing in there? She knocked again and called his name. No reply. Looked at the cheap little blue enamel watch her mother had given her for Christmas. Geez. They really were going to be late. Fine, she was just going to open the door a bit. Just to yell at him to move it along. There was light from under the door. Open it. Open it. The door creaked as she opened it. And grabbed onto the doorframe to keep from falling. He was…everything. Standing by the side of the bathtub, one leg in. Naked. He was…everything that only became visible in hazy dreams. Everything beautiful about the world that she only noticed in the quiet moments. A stray daisy pushing its head up through a crack in the sidewalk. The glimmering dust left over on her finger from a butterfly’s wings. The way leaves curled up around the edges when they were dying. The coolness of milk on her tongue. The hitch in her mother’s voice when she laughed despite the sadness in her eyes. How could she not love him? He made her see beauty in all its undeniable truth. Her throat closed up. The lines of his back, the trail of his spine. She wanted to walk that trail and mark it with her pierced feet. The flare of his narrow hips like a delicate paper fan opening to obscure a mysterious face. He reached over to turn off the water and she could see his tricep muscle flexing, the curl of his bicep. She must have made a sound because he whipped his head around to stare at her. His blue eyes wide. “What are you doing here?” “The…movie?” “Get out and close the door behind you! Geez Summers, don’t you have any manners? You don’t just walk in on someone in the bathroom!” She jumped back at the anger in his voice. “I’m sorry.” She closed the bathroom door and leaned her sweaty forehead against it. “Like I wanted to walk in on you like that. I think I’m going to throw up.” He called to her from within. “Shut up. Look, I’ll be out in a second.” She waited until he came out, dressed in a short sleeve striped blue button down oxford and jeans. She could still see a droplet of water on his collarbone and turned her face away. Later, in the stifling heat and dark of the Sun Theater, she watched his long fingers tapping the wooden handrest between their seats. And suddenly remembered that the water in his bathtub had been tinged with blood. She did not ask him, the tight lines around his mouth shutting her out. *************************************** She tasted blood in her mouth. She had bitten her tongue. How long had she lain here on her back in the cornfield? She opened her eyes and saw the dawn cresting over the tall stalks of corn. The stalks were turning brown. Soon the summer would be over. The gun was still clutched in her hand and she let it drop from her fingers. Got to her feet unsteadily and shielded her eyes with one hand. She looked into the sun and felt its heat touching her through her clothes. Today she would go to a funeral. There were not many days of summer sun left. Soon she would have to leave. She picked up the gun and put it in her skirt pocket. The knowledge was like the fluttering of the wings of doves in her mind. White noise in her head. Beating……beating…wings…rushing…like feathers…like wings… The knowledge that soon she would have to use it. It has almost been a month. Since you returned. Since you returned for me. There is not much time left. Our inner time has stood still but the world’s time has flown by us. Almost twenty years without. Almost a month within. And you, the measure of both. If I told you that even when you are not here you are here, would you think me mad? If I told you that I used to write your name over and over and that’s why they thought I was mad, would you agree? In there, when I was just a number, I used to write your name. Over and over. I could not see it but your name is burned into my hands. Summers, Summer. They finally took my pen and paper away. And told me it was winter. Others have seen your name on my skin. Burned into my fingers and palms. Written on paper in ink and blood. And punished me for it. |