Stained Glass Souls (Wattys 2014, Collector's Dream Award Winner)

Charliegh, Part One: The Rhetorical Boy

His walk was unmistakable. Shoulders hunched, neck protruding from between the slope of his shoulders. A revolving stage light caught upon the camouflage cap, the downward leer that constituted his smile. And when he pulled his hands from his pockets, fingers round and stubby, she could almost see the excess of her bruises covering his nails; black and purple and rich, navy blue. Columns of agony flowers, ripped from the vine and tattooed upon his conscience.

Oddly enough, the fear came last.

She was almost numb as he slid into the stool beside her, leg brushing against hers. It was too horrific to be real. When he reached out, enormous palm encompassing the width of her thigh, she realized with a jolt that this was a boy who knew every part of her. Intimately.

She couldn’t help but wish that boy had been Sylas, especially as Nolan shifted towards her, grip tightening. His smile was brilliant, features backlit by the faint rainbow glow behind him.

“What a coincidence,” he said quietly, “Charliegh McGowan.”

The background to his rough, cynical voice was Sylas’s crooning, something about black vans and cherry trees and inked lines. It was a song he had written for her – a collage of completely ridiculous things, melded into a beautiful contradiction of white noise.

Lost, remembering the days when he sang for her, the lone cheerleader of his odd indie band, Charliegh winced in pain as Nolan’s jerky movements increased.

She slid to the side of her stool, elbow slamming against the edges of the counter, but his hands followed. “Leave me alone.” She gritted her teeth. Screaming for help was a tempting option, but what about Sylas? If he knew Nolan was here, would he turn his back on her completely?

“You left so suddenly last time.” He poked her side, and grinned when she gasped in pain. “I would have thought you wanted to finish what you started.”

Finish what you started.

The breadth of those words reached far beyond the conventional. More than finishing her lopsided affair with him, it struck her as signifying the whole of her downward spiral. How far she had come – from bemoaning her sister’s futile relationship and pursuing her moral calling – to sitting like a dejected harlot upon a creaky barstool, letting a strange boy push his unwelcome hands over her skin.

“Nolan. Stop.”

“What would I know about stopping things I didn’t start?”

She shoved his arm, but he didn’t budge. For someone so skinny, he was solidly immobile. “You approached me. Because Florence had the misguided idea that I was interested in white trash.”

The fear came in that one swift, fell swoop, when he pushed her from the barstool. Her foot caught upon the rungs and her foot wrenched painfully beneath her, bending at an awkward angle. The room was a dizzying whirl of flashing lights, a coffee shop constellation before her eyes. For a moment all she could do was blink, staring at the twisted face of a boy she had been mistaken to trust.

As he bent down, the smell of liquor rancid on his breath, she realized that he truly meant to finish what he had started. Suddenly, the rage that coursed through her was stronger than the dull throbbing of her ankle. She pulled herself into a sitting position, the tile floor sticking to her fingertips.

“I didn’t force you to come with me.” He said, tone mocking. He squatted down, arms extending to grab hold of her. “I didn’t drive my family away. It was you. All you.”

Her teeth clanked against each other when he grabbed her shoulders, shaking her with such vigor that her hair fell loose from its ponytail and billowed across her shoulders. Fragments of faded greenish-brown stuck to the corners of her eyes, edges sharp upon her inner eyelids and lips.