Page 41 of Fall From Grace
The last video I watch before I go to sleep is an on-stage performance by Black Sacrament. They have a girl and guy singing now, and they work so well together. It’s crazy to me that she was plucked out of obscurity and thrown into the limelight like this, and that it resulted in the band going viral.
I mean… I’m pretty sure the new singer, Angel, is with the band. Like,withthem, with them. They’ve been interviewed, and no matter how many times they’re asked about it, they tiptoe around it, not wanting to say yes or no.
Honestly? I used to think it was weird for a girl to be with more than one guy, but you know what? If that’s what she wants and it’s what they want, then who cares? As long as they’re happy. At least someone’s happy in this world, ‘cause it definitely isn’t me.
Could I be with more than one guy at a time? I’d like to say the answer is an easy no, but as I set my phone down and close my eyes to try to sleep, I can’t help but think about a pair of guys I shouldn’t. One I already let in a bit too much, and the other is as good as untouchable, a freaking professor.
It doesn’t matter, anyway. The things I think about while in bed at night don’t really mean anything. Everyone probably thinks about things like that, fantasies and other things that would never actually happen.
Still, the thought puts me to sleep.
The next day, I give myself a deadline. By five in the afternoon, I need to have the topic picked out and emailed to Professor Scott. To Reese. To whatever I’m supposed to call him. The morning and early afternoon is pretty much shot thanks to my other classes, so the only time I really have to sit down and mull it over is after all my classes are done.
I know Logan would go with whatever I choose, and I know most other people already picked out something random, but since I’m going to be doing all the work, I would like to do something I find interesting. I just… I don’t know what that is, yet.
After my classes are done, I head to the student union and get something to eat—a small salad and a six-inch sub with extra turkey, along with a drink. My favorite combo. I stuff the salad container and the sub into my backpack carefully and decide to eat somewhere I can hopefully get some peace and quiet, basically somewhere I can think without being reminded about how different everything is this semester.
So, obviously, my room at the house is out. The quad is out—it’s way too busy with other students no matter what time of day it is. I don’t feel like hiking it to the field I know is beyond the sports stadium on the east side of campus, so I settle for going to the cemetery the college is built around.
Yeah, it’s kind of weird there’s a literal cemetery on the northern edge of campus, but from what I understand, the cemetery was there first. College came second, and only grew until it surrounded the cemetery on all sides. I don’t know that it’s still in use; it’s pretty full of headstones, but the campus takes care of the lawn and such.
I don’t go there often, but I did go there a few times last year when I needed to clear my head when it came to my studies. When you’re in a dorm room, with paper-thin walls, let’s just say it’s darn near impossible to focus on studying when yourneighbors are being as loud as they possibly can… regardless of whether they’re watching TV or getting busy with whatever boy they’re choosing to hook up with. Meghan might’ve been able to ignore it, but I never could.
So I found that, sometimes, studying at the cemetery was the way to go.
I hike across campus to get to the cemetery, taking small sips of my pop on the way. If there is one vice I have, it’s pop. I don’t do coffee, so pop is where I get my caffeine fix—though I do try not to overdo it. Still, I’d rather drink pop a thousand times over than drink water, coffee, or tea.
The cemetery’s entrance isn’t on the south side; a tall iron fence surrounds it on all sides, save for the entrance on the northern side, where cars can pull in on the pebbled pathways. It helps stop students from cutting through the cemetery to get to the other side. Still, since my destinationisthe cemetery, it takes me longer to get there.
It’s a large enough cemetery that the hustle and bustle of the college campus is far removed; when I step past the open iron gates that close at nightfall, it’s like I step into another world. It’s quiet. The breeze is gentle with no strange smells of body odor, perfume, or trash. It’s peaceful, the perfect place to sit down against an old oak tree and think.
Seriously, the trees are massive, as old as the cemetery itself, which date back to sometime in the eighteen hundreds. So old the oldest headstones are made of limestone, and therefore the dates and names have all been washed away thanks to the acidity of the rain over the centuries.
It’s kind of sad, when you think about it. The families who put them there thought the headstones would last, that their loved ones would be forever remembered, but time always wins, and time makes you forget.
I hope it makes me forget my pain soon.
My destination is the oldest part of the cemetery, and I’ve gone to it enough times to know where in the confines of the cemetery it is. My spirits are unusually high—a throwback to a more normal time in my life is welcomed by my psyche, apparently—but those spirits falter when I hear the faint sounds of someone singing.
My legs halt to a stop.
Apparently I’m not the only one in the cemetery. Apparently someone else decided to come here… to sing? Here I thought it was weird to study in a place like this, but studying is completely normal compared to singing.
I mean, who comes to a cemetery tosing?
I’m like a moth to a flame. I follow the sound of singing until the voice becomes clearer. The voice belongs to a guy, low and gravelly, the kind of voice you wouldn’t mind being whispered directly into your ear, one that sends shivers down your spine.
Across the way, I see a head peeking out over a gravestone. Whoever it is, he’s leaning with his back on the headstone as he strums an acoustic guitar and sings a song that, the longer I listen, becomes more and more familiar to me. I’ve heard this song before, but where?
The identification of the song doesn’t mean as much as the identification of the person singing. All I see is a head of messy black hair. I stop in my approach, a strange feeling rising in my gut. I listen to him sing for a minute more, really letting that unique voice of his sink in.
He’s not belting the song out with a full set of lungs behind it. He’s relatively quiet, and yet there’s still power to his tone, and he can hit every single note—and something like that requires practice. It requires skill, a skill most people never try to grow, especially guys.
That voice… it’s so stinking familiar to me, but I just can’t place it.
My curiosity gets the better of me, so even though this guy probably came here to sing in peace and quiet—the same reason I came here to study and think about the group project topic for psych—I move around the headstone to see who this guy is.
I barely make it around when he spots me with his peripherals, and he abruptly stops singing. And me? My knees once again lock up, and right then I know exactly why that voice was so familiar to me.
