Velvet Skye (Updates Fridays)

Chapter 3 (NEW)

Skye’s standing on the edge of Runyon Canyon, eyes closed and arms wide like she’ll soar over the city if she jumps. But I’ve seen it happen. Nobody soars, and nobody flies, they fall.

She’s three-steps away from a hundred-foot drop and she keeps leaning towards the edge like she’ll disappear into sun. She’s so close, too close—if she trips no one will reach out and catch her ‘cause people don’t fly, they die. Or maybe the person that I saw jump wasn’t lucky enough to have wings.

I’m out of my car and sprinting to her fast enough for the world to blur. People are staring, ‘cause I’m shouting at her to step back like we’re the only two people on the canyon but I don’t care as long as I make it.

I grab her and pull her back to me so hard I send the two of us crashing into the hiking trail. It takes an elbow to the chest for me to realize that I’m hurting her. I didn’t mean to, I’d never mean to. But a stupid part of me still doesn’t understand that when I let go, she’ll be alive, that this time, I made it.

           “Easy, Ty!”

           “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

I don’t even know who I’m apologizing to anymore, but it dulls the sting of playing wannabe hero in front of Skye and a crowd of strangers. She gets to her feet first and pulls me up out of the dirt but I’m sweating so badly I nearly slip out of her grip. This isn’t a good day.

            “It’s fine, that was just kind of—“

            “Stupid. Look, I’m sorry, I’m just not good with heights,” I say.

She doesn’t even know the half of it. Her eyes swim south towards her shoelaces and she blushes a little. It’d be almost cute if it wasn’t out of pity. I feel so stupid I can’t even keep looking at her, but I know she’s smiling. She’s always smiling, even when she shouldn’t be.

            “What the hell were you doing, Skye?”

I’m trying my best not to scream at her, but the too calm look on her face isn’t helping.

            “Escaping. How’d you find me?”

            “That doesn’t matter.”

            “It matters, Ty.”

She looks at me like she wants to say something else but she doesn’t. I don’t know if finding her here was a good thing, but her silence only makes me feel crazy for doing it. I’m not, though. This is my spot. It’s been my spot for a while. Whenever Miles’ Brady Bunch family gets too much for me, I come here. The canyon’s a great place to run to, and nobody’s better at running than me—even a state champ.

           “You know Miles basically has the LAPD out for you, right?”

Skye pulls off her Ray-Bans to clean out the dust. My fault.

           “It’s funny how guys will tell you to get lost and then go looking for you,” she says.

She takes a couple seconds too long on each lens. Enough for me to see that she’s been hiding puffy red eyes behind them. But I don’t ask. For a second, I don’t know what to say to her, I never do at times like these.

First week I moved to Miles’ place, almost every night I’d hear my aunt crying somewhere in the house. It always came from somewhere different, somewhere she thought no one could hear, but I always did. I just never knew what to say.

The last night she grieved out loud I ran into her on my way to bed. Her eyes were bloodshot, but she didn’t hide it. Instead she hugged me, quietly, in the middle of her stairwell, like she knew that was the one thing we both needed. Maybe that’s what Skye needs too, but I’m too scared touch her, ‘cause whenever I do I forget that she’s not mine to touch.