Page 36 of Light As A Feather
“Wait, Jayden, we should talk.”
He walks right past me, uncharacteristically ignoring me. The glimpse I catch of his face looksoff—his expression flat, blue eyes emotionless, his notorious smile nowhere to be seen. “Jay,” I call after him. “Wait!”
This time, he casts a glance over his shoulder, adjusting the duffle bag awkwardly. “I have to go.”
Perplexed by the complicated interception of my two most important relationships, I watch him leave with a dozen emotions competing inside of me. When the door closes with a resounding thud, I decide to take a walk to clear my head.
The balance between the three of us has always been precarious. At some times, more so than others. Before Sol left,we’d all gotten to a good place—maybe that’s why this is even harder than I anticipated. Their places in my life were turned inside out and upside down over the last few years.
One thing I’ve always been able to count on is my twenty-plus-year friendship with Jayden. He might have been taken aback by Sol’s reaction to him, but I have to believe that’s all it is. That I’ll get a text from him soon, apologizing for leaving so abruptly. That he had other shit on his mind.
I hope it’s that and not something more. And if there is, I have to believe that we can get through it like we have everything else that’s been thrown our way.
Sol, unfortunately, has become a less predictable aspect of my life. The moment I question it, I rethink it.
As close as we’ve been, as well as I know her—without a doubt better than anyone else—I would be lying if I acted like some pieces of her haven’t always remained just out of reach for me.
Even though her running off while I was sleeping created a deep wound in me—one that festered with doubt and desperation—it wasn’t the first time she vanished in the middle of the night. That night, I can remember clear as day.
2007
“Sol?” Silence is the only response, but there’s something more to it. It’s as if there’s something waiting for a reaction. Like the start of a fencing match, when an opponent stands in positionacross from you, itching to advance but making the smart decision to study you first.
While that disembodied hunger scares me more than I want to admit, her absence is the true source of my panic.My bedroom has been our safe place. Where I can hold her close once she’s escaped the chaos of her own home that erupts into a battlefield for two most nights. Tonight’s fight wasn’t as bad as some others—it didn’t end with her mother laying hands on her or her door hanging off the hinges—but she still cried until she fell asleep against my chest.
Which meant I fell asleep wondering if it makes me a bad guy to cherish the moments she spends beside me, open and vulnerable, looking to me for comfort. I hate what brings her here, but having her trust me so much, becoming that person for her, is all I’ve ever wanted. Is it even worse that we’re just friends? That she doesn’t seem to know how badly I want her to really be mine…
Maybe that’s why I feel the judgment bearing down on me from all directions.
Or maybe I’m just completely disorientedwithout her to act as my center of gravity. I try to stand, but fall out of equilibrium, my steps unbalanced as my feet hit the floor.Half asleep, I clutch onto the door, waiting for my balance to be restored with wakefulness. I’m able to right myself, to walk straight, but everything’s all wrong.
After months of her spending most nights tucked against my side, it’s unnatural to be alone before sunrise. Worry settles over my skin like the first signs of a cold. I tell myself the shiver that starts at the nape of my neck is because it’s three in the morning and not the ominously lingering shadows creeping past the corner of my eye that I can’t seem to catch a good look at.
Forcing my limbs to cooperate despite the hold my mounting fear has on me, I step into the hall that’s steeped in darkness. The house groans like my tired muscles after the last week of practice before a championship. As I search for her, it yawns wide, and part of me doesn’t even care if whatever’s out there eats me up as long as she’s waiting for me in the pit of it.
Checking the bathroom first, then my mom’s office, I sweep the top floor, but she’s nowhere to be found. Reluctantly, I tiptoe down the spiral staircase, journeying into the bowels of it without anything to light the path. Even with the moon shining through the large windows at the front of the house, a deep darkness clings to every corner.
“Sol,” I whisper. “What are you doing? Is everything okay?” She knows she’s welcome to anything in my house, but when I walk through the kitchen, she isn’t there getting herself water either.
My search continues through the family room and past the stairs to the other side of the first floor. “Sol,” I whisper-yell, my concern for her starting to outweigh the worry of waking my parents, who weren’t supposed to be flying home until tomorrow but had come in around midnight.
Peering into the darkness, I search for the glint of stars off her hair; instead, I find the wide whites of her eyes staring back at me. I nearly jump out of my skin but manage to withhold a yelp. The orange glow of candlelight dances across her face, her features pulled tight with tension and pain.
“Are you okay? What are you doing down here?” I ask as I crouch down in front of her and grab hold of her forearms, which are ice cold.
She doesn’t respond, doesn’t react at all. Her gaze is pure white, the pupils rolled back as she stares past me. The hairs raise on the back of my neck, begging me to look over my shoulder. Reluctantly craning my neck, I’m relieved to find anempty room behind me. Even though I’m certain there’s no one there, she appears fixed on something that’s beyond my vision.
“What are you looking at?” Slowly, I drag my palms up and down her arms, trying to warm her and bring her back to the present without startling her. Her silent stare continues as I go unnoticed. I’ve never seen anyone sleepwalk before, but that must be what this is. Isn’t the rule that you’re not supposed to wake them? I think that’s what my mom told me that one time Grandma came to visit, and she was trying some new meds. I can’t be sure, but in favor of being safe rather than sorry, I kneel there without disturbing her further.
She’s as still as a statue, the candle the only movement between us for what feels like hours.Even when the hot wax dribbles down, coating her fingers, she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away. She simply allows it to become part of her.
My eyes grow heavy as the first light of dawn breaks, but I refuse to take my gaze off her in case this is something more serious. Instead, I debate whether I should go get my parents. Getting a lecture for having a girl stay the night isn’t my main concern—they love Sol, but they have rules about sleepovers—it’s that if they find out, they’ll be more observant, stricter, which will leave her without a place to go when things get too dangerous at her house.
All of my muscles ache, ready to give out under the exhaustion and indecision that pull me apart when she finally speaks.
“He’s coming for me.” A single tear rolls down her cheek before she blows out the candle between us and slumps forward in my arms. Within the winking light, I swear I catch the eager gleam of anticipation.
“What?” Fear cuts through my voice. “Sol, look at me.” Shaking her shoulders, I force her to sit up to give her a once-over. Her eyes are bloodshot, strained, but otherwise, she looksnormal. Even the tear is gone, absorbed into my skin like the eerie feeling of being watched.
