"Maybe this is how it's supposed to be," I sighed into my hand. Jeremiah gently pulled my hand away from my face and down to my lap.
"You're sure you can't remember?" He asked contentedly caressing the back of my palm.
"I'm sure, Jeremiah. If I could, I would've told you by now." I rubbed my temples softly.
"Come on, Amber, you can do this!"
"No, Jeremiah, I can't! You've got to stop believing in me so much! I'm really messed up!"
"You think I don't know that? I've known you for...a long time."
"Sure you have." I pulled my knees into my chest and bit my lower lip.
"I have, Amber, far longer than you realize."
"Oh, really?" I shot back and whipped my head up. "You seem to know everything about me! Apparently you knew about my parents, so tell me how you know this! If I can't even remember, then how can you tell me?"
"I'm...not like others. I can...sense when someone is distraught."
"I don't believe you." He took my hand in his.
"You have to." Quickly, I relinquished my hand and tucked it under my thigh.
"I don't, Jeremiah, I can't."
"Amber," that lead him to gently place his freezing hand on my rosy cheek. I shivered. "I feel...everything that you feel. You're not alone in this, Peach." He absentmindedly stroked my cheek. His fingers burned into my skin and I fell into him.
"Come here, I've got something I need to tell you." I pushed back hard on his chest so that I was leaning back. I bit my lip.
"You're moving." I stated quickly and in a monotonous tone. He shook his head vigorously.
"No, no, how could I do that, Peach? I could never, not with you like this, never." He assured me.
"So, what? As soon as I'm...better, you're just going to leave? Are you trying to make yourself look good?" His face fell in that moment and I bit my tongue.
"You've misunderstood me. I could never leave you. The only way I would ever move, is if you went with me. I can't...live...without you. Don't you understand that? I need you. Every facet of me, everyday!" And his lips were on mine again. I'd like to say that he initiated the kiss, but honestly I needed his lips on mine. So much passion and emotion poured from him, and from myself. I pulled back for air.
"I need you too." I whispered and leaned against his chest. He hoisted me up onto his shoulder and carried me out of the room and laid me down on the bed. He gently kissed my forehead before exiting the room, swinging the door around him as he left. I drifted softly to sleep.
The room was dark, no, there was light seeping through a crack in the floorboards. An overwhelming scent flooded my nostrils and I gagged. A chill slipped up my back and into my neck. The room was too cold; it should have heat, but there was none. A whimper sounded from just outside the room and I whipped around to see. The light from the floor was barely enough to see my hand, and the chill continued to surround me. I rubbed my arms, only to pull my hands away slick with some dark liquid. I gagged and scraped my hands onto my pants, wait. It was a skirt. When did I put on a skirt? Ignoring the question, I felt around the room for a door knob, and to my disappointment, found none. A scraping noise came and I spun around to see through the tiny amount of light I had, that the wall was opening. Jeremiah sat in the open outside chained to a chair, head in his hands. He whimpered and his shoulders jerked. The dark enveloped us like it covered the night, slowly but quickly at the same time. The black of the night was an eerie black that you feel an unsuspecting victim would get knifed down, but silently. It wouldn't be a bloody murder, but a quiet one that slips over them and is forgotten quickly, diminished. Gone. The darkness vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and I could see. We could. We saw each other. The light of the day wasn't entirely enveloping, but just enough so that we could see just a little bit-tiny. Of course, the silence was still filling the wind that refused to move. It was trying to steal our secrets...I remembered. The hamartia, as there always is one, was the silence. The deafening silence that wouldn't be shushed, and made me forget how to speak. The silence. It hurt, yet helped me to remember. Memories hurt so much- worse than a knife sinking down and stinging your skin. It burned me. A sensation, yet a curse, a temptation, yet a battle...the pain... "I'm sorry, I love you. I'm so, so...sorry! I love you!" He rocked in his chair...what was he talking about? Chills shook me again and I wiped my arms again...once again slick with liquid. Blood.
My dream...felt familiar, yet I couldn't remember when I had it before. I remember when I didn't know him; his existence meant nothing to me. I remember going to sleep easily, falling into a soft dream. But now, I can't remember a day that went by that I didn't fall asleep with the taste of his name on my lips and his melodious voice ringing in my ears. Sure, my favorite dreams were of him, but my favorite dreams became nightmares that night... and they'd stay scraping through my head until I didn't want to sleep anymore. I grew afraid of sleep that night.
XXX
A chill crept up my body as I panted, taking in the scent of the covers. I pulled the blankets close around me and up to my nose. Frantically, I searched the room. I didn't recognize this room. Of course it was the one that Jeremiah had set me in initially, but I hadn't paid attention to it. I shivered with the feeling that I was being watched. Jeremiah sat on a chair across from the bed and I curled further into the blankets. He was asleep, but his head was resting against his shoulder; it reminded me of the dream.
"Jeremiah?" I asked in a hushed tone. I couldn't even hear myself. I waited a few moments.
"Yes?" I heard in reply. I let out a sigh of relief and breathed in the blankets again.
"Will you come over here with me?" I asked in the same voice as before. Even in the dark, I could tell that he nodded. His eyes burned as he came over and lay above the covers beside me, and I got cold chills from his body being so cold and so close. I turned on my side to face him and he gingerly took my hand in his. It froze.
"Bad dream?" he asked kissing my hand and placing it under the blanket.
"Something like that," I whispered. "I feel better knowing that you're here though." He pulled a pillow up to his face.
"Anything for my Young Peach," he smiled and looked away.
"Anything?" I asked him.
"Mmm," he muttered.
"Would you mind turning on the heater?" I asked. He laughed and did so.
"Better?" he asked.
"Yeah..." I lead off. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Do you believe music has any influence on the way the mind works?" Jeremiah pursed his lips.
"Not directly. It all depends on the person. When you sit yourself down to think about it, it all comes down to whether or not this particular person is able to use all regions of their brain. Hypothetically speaking the brain is a tool that is downgraded by so many people yet has the ability to span and be used further than what any human being has ever exceeded. It's all in finding the right person, why?"
"I just feel that music is so beneficial," I snapped suddenly feeling defensive.
"Well yes, it is, but why the question?"
"Music has helped me through so much, you know? Helped me keep my head on straight?"
"While that is proven to be true, it's not the music that is doing the influence itself. It is the person who is hearing it and allowing themselves to be moved, touched, infuriated, saddened, reassured, or even get suicidal tendencies. It's all a placebo."
"Placebo?"
"Yes, it means it may not be entirely true, but someone will believe it. Doctors use it to cure patients sometimes. There's a tale where a man went into a graveyard and got 'lizard eggs' put into his stomach by a witch doctor, which do not exist by the way so we'll consider it a demonic figure, who in all actuality splashed the man's face with soot or something and the man began dying because he believed there were such a thing. He went to the doctor's and the man's wife explained what had happened. So, since placebo go the man in, it got him out as to the fact that the doctor dumped lizards into a bucket and said they had passed so the man lived because he believed it. Understand? There was no witch doctor and there were no lizards. It's all the power of the mind and its ability to believe. Much like how when people are in love and they separate, they believe it can work. As this has nothing to do with placebo, it shows that the mind will believe what it wants and that the heart has nothing to do with the decision making or pain they'll feel.
"That being said, there are tendons in the heart that could snap after the brain has been through a traumatic experience as such which will make the heart weaker, so there is such a thing as a broken heart but I do not believe the heart deals in emotions, it pumps blood. You see, the hypothalamus is one in the limbic system which is a cluster of forebrain structures that has the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. They all deal in motivation, emotion, memory, and education, so there is no need to blame the heart for feeling when it's all the brain. The heart is a major necessity to the body but it does not do the believing or emotions. It's simple."
"But if the emotions are in the brain and sound waves are processed within the brain, there's no way for the music to effect the emotions?"
"Well I'm not saying there isn't; the mind is something highly perplex, you and I both know. The mind is also possible to convince it something is true when it's not; placebo. It also can bend and there are ways to use a very high percent of it if we try."
"I understand but you're working around my question."
"Yes, music can affect the way one feels and thinks but only if they allow it. Some people say they cannot live without music but that's false. If they say that, it could absentmindedly mean that they need something to hold onto so they look to musicians to word how they feel, that's all it is." I turned over on my pillow so I looked away from him.
"However..." he started, "If someone has been through a traumatic experience, then music will help them because it can be inspirational."
"Oh," is all that I could say.
*****Hey, I try not to do author's notes but id appreciate it if you guys started to comment your opinions or thoughts as to where I should take this story plot wise. Thanks!*****