Silent screams filled Garrett Delko's lungs as he gasped for air. He needed to get out, needed to find his phone.
Help, he cried, but the room filled with lost dreams and unhappy thoughts smothered his voice. He jiggled the door knob, desperate to reach his mother, but it wouldn't budge. Pain sliced through his chest as he looked over his shoulder.
No No No NO—
Garrett woke in a sea of sweat. His body slick with fear, but his mouth dry as a desert after being shoved into a pillow to drown out the screams. Sitting up, he fumbled for the flashlight hidden under his pillow. The brightness jarred his senses, but he welcomed the hurt. Anything to escape the nightmares haunting him.
He thought college would help, time and distance allowing him to heal, but it wasn't working. His dreams were always the same. White, plush carpet soaked in scarlet. His hand, wrapped in bandages, dragged through pools of blood, leaving behind marks that branded his soul.
Garrett could feel the terror reaching for him again, rising to claim its prey. Using a technique his therapist taught him, he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, counting to ten. He repeated the process till his heart stopped beating like an African drum. He detested being reduced to nothing but a scared little boy. He was nineteen, for god's sake. He should be stronger than the memories, but no matter how hard he fought, they always returned, always won.
Garrett turned off his flashlight, and carefully stowed it back under his pillow not wanting to wake his roommate who slept in the bed bunk above him. Quietly, he eased off the covers and rolled out of bed, shivering as the frigid air clung to his clammy skin. Winter hadn't arrived yet, and already he pulled on his sweatpants and black Eason University hoodie. As Garrett pushed past the door of his dormitory, he popped in his earbuds, and began his favorite playlist, otherwise known as his "Calm the Fuck Down Songs." He let his pulse sync with the beats as he started down the asphalt, slowly picking up speed.
Running had become a compulsion. He got a taste for it the night they silently carted his older brother away. No need for flashing lights, or blaring horns, just a slow and steady roll down Isola Lane. His chest had burned as the neighbors lined the street, watching the police procession like it was a Disney parade. It was no fairytale. It was fucking reality, and at that moment, a vicious need to chase down the ambulance and rip open the doors had surged through him. His bare feet had pounded against the black road, unaware of the rocks cutting into his flesh or the yells of his parents. All he had wanted was his brother. Safe. Warm. Home. That feeling still pushed him, a need so deep it snaked around his heart and held him hostage. So he ran. And ran. And ran. Each time hoping he'd escape, each time hoping he'd gain a different outcome.
Garrett veered west, away from campus, and jogged to the outskirts of town toward Heartache Lake. He liked to run the trails in the mountains surrounding the lake, but he kept away at night because cougars habited the area, not to mention the Heart Lake ghost that haunted the paths. It was rumored at one time the heart-shaped lake used to be whole, but when a young lady learned of her sweetheart's death, she screamed so loud, her grief tore a split down the middle.
Garrett pushed himself faster as he followed the path along the lake. He felt free here, the openness allowing him to shed his walls and just be. He slowed as he came upon the wooden bridge, which connected one side of the lake to the other. He would have avoided the shortcut since bums liked to sleep there because the bridge wasn't well-lit, but he had an early baseball practice tomorrow and needed the sleep. He was about halfway across when a movement ahead caught his attention.
Not wanting a confrontation, he pivoted, but a flash of silver made him stop. Squinting, he inched closer, warring between caution and hope. Could it be? After all this time had he finally found his mystery girl? His breath hitched as the clouds parted allowing a few beams of moonlight to shine down.
It was her. He'd know those silver-rimmed glasses and long, raven hair anywhere. She'd intrigued him since the beginning of college when they'd gone through a two-hour freshman orientation together. While everyone else was on his or her phones, completely ignoring the professor, she'd been taking notes in a spiral bound book no bigger than his hand. Every so often she would look up and smile as if she knew something no one else did. That smile—those lips—drove him crazy. Made him want to discover her secrets. Delve until he knew her inside and out.
When the orientation had finished, he kept an eye on her, but she rushed out before he could say hello. He'd been disappointed, but then he caught sight of her notebook on the floor. He expected to see notes about office hours and how their meal plans worked, but instead, it was observations about them. The students. The people around her. It wasn't just physical traits. There were things like speech patterns, odd mannerisms, and weirdly enough, colors scribbled in the margins. The colors weren't generic either like blue or orange, but cobalt blue and rust orange.
He had searched long and hard for an observation about him, but he hadn't found any. It stung his pride, especially since he was ninety-five percent the rust orange comment was about his roommate, Greg, who'd been sitting next to him. And sure, the guy was six-five—a whole five inches taller than Garrett—and an Australian accent that had girls flinging their panties at, but honestly, he wasn't that great. Greg ate his weight in cold cuts and burped the ABCs as a party trick. Garrett, on the other hand, was a national merit scholar and a high school state baseball champion. His looks weren't anything to scoff at either. His blue-green eyes, chestnut hair, and dimples had charmed more than one member of the opposite sex back in his hometown of Carlsboro, Illinois so why had she noticed Greg and not him?
The question plagued him more than he cared to admit, and as he gazed at her, he realized he had to know. So what if he was breaking all sort of promises he'd made to himself? He couldn't let this opportunity go. Not tonight when he desperately needed something good and clean. Of course, he'd have to be sneaky about it; he'd rather die than let her know how bothered he was, but he hadn't gotten the most popular girl in school to be his prom date by being foolish.
He was forming his plan of attack—should he casually bump into her or feign concern for being out so late—when she shed her jacket and shoes. Tossing them carelessly to the ground, she climbed over the railing to the small ledge on the other side. Slowly, she took off her glasses and turned to face the water.
Garrett watched in horror as she lifted her arms like an eagle about to take flight. He told himself to stop her, yell at her, do something, but fear trapped him in an invisible cage.
This can't be happening.
Not again.
His lungs stopped working as she took a deep breath, and for a split second, he saw his brother's face instead of hers. Panic clawed his chest as memories attacked him.
The ticking of the clock.
The smell of sweat and dirt.
And blood.
So much blood.
The sound of her hitting the water jolted him back to reality. His stomach turned. He couldn't let anyone else die. Not tonight.
Shoving down the bile rising in his throat, he scrambled over the railing and dived in. His body buckled under the icy water. By sheer force, he willed his muscles to move, slowly gaining momentum as he swam for the girl. By the time he reached her, her head had broken through the surface, and she was gasping for air. He hooked an arm around her chest and swam to shore, ignoring her sounds of protest.
"Are you fucking crazy?" he asked once they were out of the water. She glanced up, the moonlight highlighting her face. She should have looked ugly with her hair plastered to her skull and her lashes clumped together like spider legs, but it only emphasized her delicate features.
Resentment welled up. He shouldn't be attracted to someone like her. Did she even think about what she was doing? Did she care that it would devastate the people around her? Tear her loved ones apart?
"I don't know who you are," she began, flicking off the water trickling down her neck, "but what gives you the right to ask me that? Maybe you're the one who's crazy."
"I'm—?" Anger exploded out of him. "I'm not the one trying to end their life!"
"Neither am I." She slid her glasses back on and glanced around like she was seeing it for the first time.
Her answer should have made him dizzy with relief, but all he could feel was anger burning in his chest. How could she act like nothing was wrong? Maybe she hadn't been trying to commit suicide, but she took a major risk that could have ended her life, and it pissed him off that she didn't even care. "You could have seriously been hurt."
"I doubt it. The lake is deepest in that area." Stepping back, she gathered her hair and wrung out the water. It splashed his shoes. Not that it mattered. He was already wet, freezing, and miserable.
"So what? You jumped in the middle of the night for the hell of it?" He didn't know whether to hug her or throttle her. Maybe he could do both. It might break through whatever zen she had going on and shock her into responding like a normal person.
Her serene countenance faded as she looked at him for the first time. Her double take would have made his chest puff if she hadn't gentled her voice as if talking to an injured bird. "I like reminding myself I'm alive."
His jaw clenched. "And feeling alive is that important?" Enough to risk her life?
"Isn't it? People take life for granted. I don't ever want to fall into that trap."
Something in her tone got to him, made him feel things he wasn't ready to feel. Not with her. Taking a step back, he wiped away the droplets dripping down his neck. "Risking your life for an adrenaline rush is idiotic. No, it's worse than that. It's making a mockery of what you supposedly value. I don't care how deep the water is. You should be savoring what you have, not offering it up like an animal for the slaughter."
"You must have cared for them a lot," she murmured.
The knowing in her voice made his guard go up. "Who?"
"Whoever took their own life."
"I don't know what you're talking about." The denial was automatic, born from his parents' refusal to even broach the subject. Ironic since they were the ones who forced him into therapy. Heaven forbid they seek help even though his mom's hoarding had magnified and his dad couldn't watch a Cubs' baseball game without smoking a whole pack of cigarettes.
Garrett didn't expect her to take his answer at face value, but neither did he expect her to blink behind those big, square frames that covered a majority of her face and give him such an understanding, accepting look every horrible secret bottled inside of him threatened to burst out. God, what had this female done to him? He'd never met anyone besides his brother who slipped past his defenses so quickly.
Puzzled, he followed as she brushed the dirt off her jeans and made her way up the embankment. The rocks were slippery, but she never faltered, every step as light as a dancer's. Who was this girl? First, the journal with all the colors, and now this late night encounter. It was like she was sent to Earth solely to tantalize him. Once they reached the top, she picked up the jacket she'd thrown to the side and struggled to put on clunky black motorcycle boots with numerous straps and strings.
She was about to topple over, so he rushed over. "Let me—"
"I've got it," she said, bracing a hand on the ground, her silhouette stark against the harsh light of the lamppost. The backoff tone was hard to miss, and it should have put his hackles up, but instead, it made him want to help even more. Maybe because she seemed as lonely as he was.
It was that feeling that led him to ask, "How did you know? About you know....the thing." He'd lived with his roommate for seven months, and he hadn't guessed even though Garrett mentioned his brother several times.
Leaves swirled around her as she finished lacing up her boots. She went over to a bench under a lamppost. Propped against it was a rusted bike with a backpack swinging on the handlebars, but no helmet. "You have that look in your eye," she said, taking out a University of Arizona sweatshirt and pulling it on. It dwarfed her, ending just below her knees, and he had a ridiculous desire to hunt down whoever gave it to her and challenge them to a duel.
"What look?" He didn't have a look. There was NO look.
She hesitated, then shook her head. "Never mind."
But he saw her expression. It cut through him more sharply than words. Somehow this girl within minutes of meeting saw through his bullshit when he had everybody else fooled. He shrugged nonchalantly. "It's not a big deal. I'm over it."
She put a hand on her hip drawing his gaze to her short, indigo chipped nails and a silver ring on her thumb. From a boyfriend? Had he given it to her as a promise along with his sweatshirt?
"Are you really saying that right now?" she asked, tapping a finger against her hipbone. "After that massive freak out you just pulled?"
He froze, and it had nothing to do with the cold. "It wasn't massive." Massive implied too big to handle and he handled it just fine...hadn't he?
She let out a small sigh, her hand dropping to her side. "Can we make a deal? Let's dispense with the bullshit because I've had enough of that to last a lifetime."
As Garrett stared at her, he felt a niggling sensation, but he couldn't put a finger on why, so instead he flippantly said, "A whole lifetime's worth? That's a lot of shit to go around."
Garrett panicked as she rolled her eyes and turned to leave. "Fine, I'm not happy about what you did," he said quickly, and when she turned back around he went on, "And maybe I did freak out a little, but I had my reasons. And no matter what you say, I still think it was stupid and selfish." And it upset him to know she felt the need to do something so drastic especially since drastic measures usually correlated with drastic reasons.
"You've made your feelings perfectly clear on that point," she said, a wry smile on her face but it didn't reach her eyes.
That's when it dawned on him. She felt familiar because she had the same shadows lingering in her eyes. "Why are you out here?"
Her head jerked back in surprise. "What do you mean?"
"What drove you to jump in the middle of the night?"
She lifted a shoulder. "Same thing that drove you to run."
He thought of bloody knives and soaked sheets. "I highly doubt that."
"Our experiences might be different, but our reasons are the same."
"We're fucked in the head?"
Her lips lifted in a small smile, but behind the amusement laid a thread of grief. "Isn't everybody?" She jerked her head towards the freshman dorms in the lower quad. "I better go. My roommate's probably finished with her newest conquest by now." She rolled her bike onto the path, her boots squeaking with every step.
Garrett's chest tightened. He wanted—no, needed—to know more. "What's your name? When will I see you again?" He reached into his pocket for his phone, determined to get her number, but came up empty. He patted his back pocket, just as he remembered he was wearing sweatpants, not jeans because he'd been running, and HOLY—
He'd jumped into the lake with his phone. His brand new, latest model, his-mom-would-kill-him, phone.
"What's wrong?" she asked, suddenly in front of him. The wall of indifference she'd been wearing melted away into concern. "Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?"
"It's..." Mournfully, he glanced at the lake where his phone was no doubt resting at the bottom. She followed his gaze, then whipped her head back when he said, "My phone. I lost it."
"Are you sure?" She shook her head. "Never mind. Dumb question. Of course, you're sure." She bit her lower lip and dropped her chin, so all he could see was the top of her head. "If I hadn't jumped—"
"It's fine," he said, even though it wasn't fine. It would be another mark against him in his parents' eyes. No doubt they would use it as an excuse to push him into transferring to the University of Chicago which was only a train ride away instead of Eason which was all the way in Northern California.
"I'll pay you back." She twirled the ring around on her thumb and gazed up like she was trying to calculate the national debt. "I-I don't have the money right now, but I can get it to you by the end of the week. End of the month at the latest." He started to shake his head, and she rushed on, "It's my fault. I should have—"
"It's not your fault." He didn't agree with her actions, but she hadn't forced him into the lake with his phone either. He had done that fuck-up all on his own. "I probably wouldn't have jumped if I wasn't so—"
Messed up.
But he was messed up. And he did jump. And now he was phone-less. God, what a nightmare. He tried to calculate the money his relatives had sent for graduation. If he went with a less expensive model, he might squeak by without his parents knowing.
"No, I should be the one—"
He held up his hand to cut her off. He couldn't take her money. Not when she clearly didn't have the means. "Don't worry about it. I have it covered." A thought occurred to him. "Actually, you can do something for me."
"Anything," she responded quickly.
"Tell me your name."
Her eyebrows drew together in skepticism. "That's it?"
If he'd been thinking clearly, he would have asked for more like a chance to get coffee and talk, but instead, he said, "Yup, that's it."
She studied him for a moment like she thought he might jump up and shout, "Gotcha!" but when he didn't move, she whispered, "I'm Arianne."
Obtaining her name felt like a victory, and he wanted to pump his fist in the air as he did after hitting a home run. Trying to contain his grin, he said, "Nice to officially meet you. I'm Garrett."
Arianne nodded, giving him a wary look like she saw straight through him. He was about to ask if she would like his number when a beeping sound had Arianne fumbling for her backpack. She pulled out an beat up flip phone that looked like it belonged in the nineties and frowned at whatever was on there. "I've got to go."
"Is everything alright?"
She slung a leg over her bike. "Yeah, just my roommate. I really am sorry about your phone." Garrett sucked in a breath as she tilted her head to the side. He hadn't noticed before, but her eyes were silvery gray like the color of lightning striking a storm cloud. It was beautiful, unique. Like her.
"Thanks for being cool about the whole thing. Most people wouldn't be. Um, enjoy the rest of your run. Bye," she said, lifting a hand and then began pedaling away.
"Wait!" She couldn't leave. Not when he was finally getting somewhere. Cupping his hands next to his mouth, he said, "Hey, what's my color?"
Her bike wobbled as she looked over her shoulder. "Honestly, you look a little pale. You should forget the run and go inside before you get hypothermia."
He wanted to laugh. "No, I mean my color. You know blue or yellow or orange?" He could feel her astonishment as she skidded to a halt. "I found your notebook during freshmen orientation," he explained.
Surprise turned into suspicion. "How do you know its mine?"
He didn't want to admit he'd been watching her, so he gave a hapless shrug. "Deductive reasoning. And by the way, you should be wearing a helmet."
She made a tsk-ing sound. "I thought we made a deal not to lie."
His cheeks heated. "We agreed not to bullshit. Big difference. And that's beside the point. Did you know nearly three-quarters of all fatal crashes involve head injuries?"
"You know that off the top of your head?"
He wished she looked impressed instead of weirded out. "I like to be well informed." More like his mother hounded him with statistics till he was blue in the face. It'd gotten worse after Spencer's death. He couldn't leave the house without a lecture on safety precautions.
"Of course you do," she said, chuckling. "Well, I don't think I'm likely to collide with anyone in the middle of the night."
"Except me. I'm always out here running." He regretted his honesty as soon as it left his mouth. It felt too vulnerable, too exposed for his liking. He was afraid she'd delve and see something he wasn't yet ready to show. "I mean, I'm sometimes out here. Not like—"
"I'm out here a lot too," she said softly. A stillness settled over the area, everything aligning for one sweet moment. It unnerved Garrett. The sudden intimacy felt too much, the connection too great.
He cleared his throat. "I still have the notebook. Do you want it back?"
She glanced away, her breath visible puffs of air. "You can toss it. I have others."
But why? What was the purpose? He'd imagined a million and one reasons over the last three months, but he couldn't ask. Not when he'd already shown too much of himself. "If you have another urge to jump off a bridge you should do it during the day in case anything bad happens."
"I think my jumping days are over."
Garrett breathed a sigh of relief. "Good. It's better for you. Safety wise, I mean."
She gave him a long look. "Wasn't thinking about safety."
Her words made him go still. "Then what were you thinking of?"
A loaded silence hung between them. Arianne glanced out at the water giving Garrett a clear view of her pert nose and long, graceful neck. She was beautiful, mysterious, but also, troubling. A reckless package willing to sink just for the chance to fly. It was a dangerous combination, one he wanted no part of. But even as he told himself to stay away, he couldn't stop staring.
Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself. She looked small. Delicate. Like a lost bird hungry for affection. A fierce need rose inside of Garrett. He wanted to be that person. Tuck her under his arms and offer his warmth. Shield her from whatever demons drove her into the lake. Banish the bad. Replace it with good.
He wanted to be her hero.
And wasn't that laughable? He couldn't even save himself. All this talk of her being trouble and he was the most troubling of all.
Another shiver rippled through her skin, only deeper this time, acuter. What was he thinking? It was the middle autumn, and she was soaked. Once again he placed his wants ahead of someone else's. "You should go inside. It's freezing out here."
"What about you?"
He was too jacked up on guilt and thoughts of troubling packages to sleep now. "I still have a couple more laps to go."
"Big runner, huh?"
Something inside him said she wasn't talking about the miles, but he wouldn't dare touch that with a ten-foot pole. She might have shadows in her eyes, but he could guarantee she'd never dealt with the depth of his.
A soft sigh left her lips. "Don't stay out too late. Never know what type of crazies you'll find." With a self-deprecating smile, she peddled away, and this time he let her go.
*Bonus Content* Want to know the playlist Garrett was listening to on his run? Follow me on Twitter (@DoNotMicrowaveX) and tweet #ColorsofUsPlaylist to find out!