• chapter eighteen •
'Our hearts are wild things, maybe that is why our ribs are cages.'
That was what the screen of my phone said when I picked it up after lunch. It was a message from Sana. Nice quote, I thought, and called her, because something was wrong. Whenever she was sad, she sent me quotes which described her situation, and then it was up to me to figure out what the hell had happened. It was a game we used to play as kids, but during the complicated process of 'growing up', I had stopped playing, because most of the time I was sad because I had to study all day long, and when one studies all day long, one simply doesn't have the time to look up quotes. Plus, I would have bored anyone to death, had I talked about my monotonous day.
"Hazel!" she said when she picked up. She was sniffing. Before I could say anything, she started sobbing, and then she was crying hard. I could just imagine her sitting on her bed with a tub of ice-cream, wiping her tears on her comforter.
While she was crying, I checked the 'clock' app on my phone. It was midnight in Delhi. "Sana? Why aren't you asleep yet?"
"How can I go to sleep?" she moaned. "Karan is cheating on me."
I wondered for a while who this Karan was till I remembered that she'd started dating him just weeks after I'd left for Louisville.
"How do you know he's cheating?"
"Because someone sent me pictures of him making out with another girl. He —he went to a party yesterday. He's all over that girl."
"And how do you know the pictures aren't fake? They could be photoshopped. There are so many bitches who do that. They photoshop pictures of guys they like and send them to their girlfriends, hoping they would breakup so that they can seduce the boys or whatever."
"They don't look photoshopped." She started crying again.
"Then maybe Karan was super-drunk! If he was, then you can't blame him for kissing someone else. He wasn't himself."
"I don't know." She sniffed. "You're so sensible. I called Sharon, and she started plotting a revenge plan."
I laughed. That was so her. "Have you talked to Karan?"
"No."
"What—? Some random person sent you pictures and you totally believe them, and you don't think it's important to ask him his side of the story?" I sat down on my orange, L-shaped couch. "Listen, Sana: change your perspective, and the story changes."
"What am I going to ask him?"
"Show him the photos and tell him that if he doesn't like you anymore, then he should just tell you and you won't hate him for it. And don't shout at him, it will probably make him angry. If you ask softly, he might even feel guilty. You know."
"I really love him, Hazel."
I exhaled. That was something. She had never said that about any guy, except one, and that was very long ago.
"Okay," she continued, "forget all of that. What if he's really cheating? What if he's cheating and then he asks me for a second chance?"
"What do you want to do if he does ask?"
"I don't know. I still love him, obviously. I can't 'unlove' him instantly, you know. But if I take him back, people will say I have no self-respect and I'm easy to get. Ugh. Why do I still want him?"
"Of course you still want him. And there's nothing wrong with that, okay? And listen. If you want to give him a second chance, then do. Don't think about what stupid people will say. People always have something to say. Loving is something you do from the heart. Don't let your brain interfere, you hear me? So if he asks for a second chance, forget about ego and self-esteem and mind games or whatever and think about your happiness for a while, okay?"
She was still sniffling. "Okay. Thanks."
"Get some sleep," I ordered, and she hung up. I looked at the phone for a while, thinking about nothing in particular, playing with my hair absent-mindedly, when someone shouted "BOO!" so loudly from behind me that I dropped the phone, and the screen cracked.
"Shit. I didn't mean to do that, I swear," Liam said apologetically. I whirled around, tackled him to the sofa and sat on his stomach so quickly that he didn't even have the time to blink. He raised his hands towards his head, as if surrendering.
"You idiot," I said, failing to suppress my smile. "When did you come in?"
"A while ago. Thought I would sneak in and scare the hell out of you."
"You broke my phone."
He laughed. I straightened out on top of him, snuggling my head in the crook between his neck and shoulder, and we tried to kiss as best as we could in this awkward position. "I'll get you a new phone," he murmured. "I promise."
"You better."
Then he cleared his throat nervously, like he always did when he was about to tell me something important. "You remember that poem I told you about? The poem that my dad's friends laughed at?"
"The one you wrote when you were five?"
"Yeah, that." He took out a piece of paper from his pocket. "I found it between the pages of the diary I kept when I was little. I got it for you."
I took it, sat up, unfolded it and started reading.
I like to write poems,
Cuz I'm a little mad,
Therefore I'll write some nonsense
In my writing pad.
Some lines are not going to rhyme
Cuz thinking them up takes plenty of time.
What is the difference between
A lemon and a lime?
Magicians perform with the help of tricks,
Houses are made up of bricks
The language of Netherlands is Dutch
Why do sisters annoy so much?
Give me high four and high five.
Where bees live is called a beehive.
I used to like my neighbors until
They put a password on their Wi-Fi.
I can't believe you are still reading this.
Juice is plain and coke has fizz.
People drink tea in a cup
Chats begin with 'What's up?'
Sticks are not easy to bend.
And you have reached THE END.
I laughed. "It's so...nonsensical."
"Good. That's what I was aiming at." He stood up and drew me to himself, pulling my arms around his neck. I wrapped my legs around his waist. "Let's go read something."
He carried me to my room. We both lied down on the floor next to the window with novels from my bookshelf. I was lying on my stomach, and he was using my back as a pillow.
It was quiet. The sound of birds squawking came in through the open window. The sky was dark and the air was cool. Lightning cracked. It was very dim in the room, like I was looking at everything through a grey-colored filter. And I liked it.
We spent the entire evening like that. I fell half asleep somewhere near the end of it. He moved, and the pressure on my back lifted. "God," I mumbled, my face against the floor. "Your head is soooo heavy."
He chuckled and put his arm around me. His lips brushed against my ear; I shivered from the contact. "That's because my head contains a big, intelligent brain."
He flipped me over so that I was facing him, and kissed me, and I was engulfed in warmth.
That cozy, warm feeling was gone as soon as we broke apart, and I felt cool again.
Not cool. Cold, actually.
A little too cold.
We both stood up in a flash. I held his sweaty hand tightly, turning in circles, searching for her.
She was standing in the doorway, easily visible in the dark; transparent, as if she were a projection from a movie projector.
Hissing, she floated towards us. Her feet were touching the ground, but the movement was so smooth that it looked like levitation. I shuddered and shifted my gaze from her ugly feet and looked up at her face instead. She dived straight at me. I couldn't move.
Liam was in front of me before I had time to blink. Mary touched her lips to his.
I stood frozen behind him, unable to comprehend what was going on, till I realized that something was coming out of Liam. A sort of... grey smoke, like the smoke you see just after extinguishing a candle. I screamed.
Extinguishing a candle.
Liam was no longer standing on his own; I was holding him up from behind. Frantically, I pulled him back and covered his mouth with my hands. His weight caused us both to topple over. I used my other hand to cover my own mouth, but that didn't seem to bother her. She had this expression like she'd got what she wanted. And she seemed to be...glowing brighter. Like she was a little more visible in the dark. Instead of disappearing as she always did, she glided out of the bedroom.
I gaped at her in terror.
Wriggling out from under Liam, I went to the window. She was walking towards the road. The streetlamps flickered as she approached them, and then went out one by one, till the entire street was dark and it was just her, visible as clearly as a glow-in-the-dark sticker. I watched till she turned a corner and I couldn't see her anymore. The streetlights came on. My hands were shaking. Why wasn't she fading away?
I looked at Liam. He was lying just as I'd left him, motionless. "Liam?" I said, running over to him. His arms were cold. His everything was cold. I lay my hand against his cold cheek. And I realized he wasn't breathing.
My eyes widened in horror. "LIAM!" I shook him. "You're not gonna die. Liam!" I pinched his nose and blew air into his mouth and pumped his chest. I had no idea if I was doing this correctly. "Wake up! Please!"
My throat was so dry, I couldn't even talk. I forced my jelly-like legs to run to my study table, and I picked up my phone and called Zack. Normally I was the calm one in all situations, the problem solver, but now I couldn't relax no matter how hard I tried. I could barely hold the phone.
I told Zack to come straight to my house with Ash, and ran over to Liam again. He was breathing very softly. I sighed, relieved.
"Liam?" I slapped his cheek. I sprinkled water on his face. Still cold; he hadn't opened his eyes. I threw a blanket over him, wrapping it around him tightly, and sat by him, stroking his hair nervously, till I heard the sound of tyres screeching. I scrambled to the window. Zack was just getting out of his car with Ash, and I shouted through the lump in my throat to tell him that the door was open.
They both came into the bedroom. I stood up shakily. "She-she came and tried to s-suck his soul out and- he's totally cold. He wasn't even b-breathing. But now he is." My hands were trembling.
"Shh." Ash turned on the lights and sat me down on the bed, and I started crying fully now. They both walked over to Liam. "Should we call 911?"
"What good would that do? This is supernatural stuff." She touched his face. "We should tell uncle first."
I wondered what the hell she was talking about before realizing that she was referring to Liam's father.
"I'll call him," Zack said. "But what will we say when he asks about what happened? He won't believe the truth."
"Just say that he fainted and he's gone cold and we don't know what has happened." She started rubbing Liam's hands in an attempt to warm them.
I barely registered Zack's arm when he put it around my shoulders. I was numb with fear. She had Fractured his soul. Of course she had. I had known she was going to do this. She had broken him into pieces to take energy from him. How was I ever going to fix him? Or worse, what if there was no way to fix him now?
Had she taken away a part of him that couldn't be replaced? Would Liam forget me? Would he remember anything about me when he woke up? Would he be himself ever again?
Zack held up the phone to his ear, and just then Ash cried out, "Hey! He's opening his eyes!"
My heart skipped a beat. I got up and ran as fast as I could to him. "Liam!"
He gazed blankly at me with half-open eyes, and I was afraid that I'd lost him, before I saw recognition flash in them. "Hazelnut?" he whispered.
"Yeah." I nodded. My tears dripped onto his face. "Yeah." I buried my head into his chest.
"Are you alright?" I heard Zack asking.
"Hm-mm. Just... very tired." He was still whispering.
"But do you feel, like, normal?" That was Ash.
"Very... sleepy." He closed his eyes again and drifted off.
Ash took his legs and Zack took his shoulders, and they put him on the bed. Then they sat for some time just to make sure he really was okay, and went home after hugging me. I sat with him. I called his dad to tell him that he had fallen asleep and was probably not going to wake up soon, and he let me keep Liam for the night.
I didn't sleep. I couldn't. I just kept replaying the horrifying scene in my head over and over again, but that didn't make it any less painful.
Finally I lied down next to him and took his hand. Around an hour later, his eyes fluttered open again. He mumbled something inaudible. I propped myself up on one elbow and looked at him. "Hi."
He smiled weakly and touched my lips. "I'm cold."
I felt his forehead, and then his cheek. "You seem normal to me."
"Yeah, but—" he placed my hand a little below his chest, "I'm cold here. It's like there's an ice cube right in the centre of me."
I frowned. His chest was warm. I rubbed a spot with my thumb. "Here?"
He nodded. "Hm. It's so cold. Can you feel it?"
I shook my head anxiously. "It's okay. It'll be gone by tomorrow. Just go back to sleep. I called your dad and he said you can stay here for the night."
He pulled me close and I kissed him very softly. His breath was cool, like he'd eaten mint, but I knew it was that cold feeling inside his chest; something that must have been a side effect of what Mary did.
I took a shaky breath to calm myself. I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt this angry. Not even Stan had infuriated me this much. Ever. Messing with me was fine, but messing with Liam was not.
I pulled away and kissed his forehead. "You feel normal, don't you?" I asked, searching his face. "Apart from that cold feeling in your chest? Do you kind of feel like... like you've lost something?"
He took a while to answer. "Yeah. I feel... unsettled. Disoriented. You know? Like there's a thought at the back of my mind but I don't know what it is. Like... like something is missing. I don't know. I just feel strange. But I'm okay. Just sleepy."
I nodded. "Liam?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you." I kissed him some more. A lot, actually.
He had actually stopped breathing for a minute. I'd thought that he was dead. I was just so glad to have him back, I couldn't stop myself. I didn't stop him when he took his t-shirt off. I didn't stop him when he took mine off. Or when he started kissing my breasts, over my bra. Or when he ran his warm hands all over my skin, from my neck to my stomach. I pulled him closer and kissed his chest. My nerve endings were on fire.
Eventually his exhaustion won over and he fell asleep. I tucked him in, turned off all the lights except my night-lamp, and closed my window even though it was of no use. What could a closed window save me from, anyway? I opened it again to let in some air. The air smelled like rain. When I looked closely, I noticed it was drizzling slightly.
I took my laptop and sat on the floor.
The entire night, I surfed the Internet. I typed, fracturing of soul, fracture, taking energy from souls, myths about ghosts, how ghosts take energy, but all I got was stuff about fracturing the bone, and stupid myths about ghosts, like, ghosts are the strongest at 3 a.m. in the night and weakest at 3 p.m. in the day.
Three hours passed. I wanted to curl up next to Liam and fall asleep. My eyelids were drooping, but there was no way I was going to bed till I found the answers. I got up to make myself some coffee, and I felt Liam's forehead again. He seemed perfectly normal. Then I sat down and continued surfing.
No matter what I typed, I got nothing useful, and by the end of my surfing session, I was crying. I slapped the screen of the laptop shut and cried my eyes out.
It was morning. There was a square-shaped patch of sunlight on the floor. I showered, washing myself with strawberry body-wash.
She hadn't faded away last night. She had calmly walked out of the house. What was she going to do with the energy she'd taken? She didn't know where William was. She couldn't kill him. So she was probably to do something to us.
When I came out of the bathroom, Liam was sitting up on the bed. I smiled hugely and hugged him. He pinned me down to the bed and kissed me. "How are you feeling?" I asked when we broke apart.
"God." He rolled his eyes. "Stop treating me like a sick patient. I'm fine." He leaned closer to me and grinned goofily. "How was it, sleeping next to me for the whole night?"
"Incredibly amazing," I replied, hoping he won't notice my bloodshot eyes.
He stood up. "Let's go and cook something. I'm so hungry."
"When are you not hungry?" I followed him to the kitchen. I took out some bread to make sandwiches.
"When we get married, you'll have to cook a huuuge amount of food for me all the time, because I can't cook shit. So better get used to it."
I blushed a deep scarlet and looked at him. He winked. Behind all the playfulness, I could see the seriousness in his eyes. A smile crept across my face. I was so lucky to have him.
"What are you wearing to Ashley's party?"
I frowned. "What party?"
"Oh, she hasn't told you yet? Her birthday party. Somewhere at the end of August. 23rd of August, I think. She's celebrating in some hotel. I've forgotten the name. She's literally invited the whole school. So, yeah. We both can go there and eat food and have fun. And then eat some more food."
I laughed and gave him his tomato sandwiches. "There's something I want to tell you."
"Hm?" he asked absent-mindedly, pouring orange juice into two tumblers.
I lifted his chin with my finger, making him look at me. "I got accepted at New York University!"
"Holy shit! WHAT?"
"Yes!"
He got up and hugged me so tightly that it squeezed the air out of me. "We're going to New York together!"
"Yes," I said. I didn't point out that his acceptance letter hadn't come yet.
"Yes," he said.
I couldn't wait for August to end so that we could go there and live together and start a new life. I rested my head on his shoulder; he was still holding me just as tightly.
A red leaf flew in through the kitchen window. I smiled at it. Poets usually think of autumn as a depressing season. I wonder why. It's always been my favorite. What's not to love? There's the rain; the pretty colors of all the leaves; the warm breeze; and the memories: I had met Liam a year ago. In autumn. Autumn might signify the end for some people, but for me, it had always been the start of something new.
∞