Afraid of the Dark

Banner by Behind the Mask. Thank you so much! =]

After my father left, I used to ask God why sometimes. I would ask him to give me a sign, to point me in the right direction because, even at such a young age, I felt so lost. He never did and I stayed lost, clutching onto blind faith and nothing else in the dark.

I finally got my sign fifteen years later.

There were no windows in that small, cramped room, and when the lights went out, that was just what happened--the light went out of everything. The darkness that followed wasn't the shallow, watered-down sort of darkness of your bedroom at night, or even the darkness of your backyard in the early morning hours, because there was no night light, no streetlight, no moon, no stars to pollute the darkness. It was the pure, thick darkness found rarely on this planet. The kind of darkness that folds in on you slowly, creating walls that are not there. The kind of darkness people go crazy in.

The darkness swallowed me up--crushing, heartless, all-encompassing--and then I blacked out.

-----

The house had stood crouched against that craggy mountainside for God knows how long (Momma said a hundred years, but it was settled into the land as if it had been there when the very dirt itself was formed, too--as if it had always been a part of that mountain, since the beginning of time). When I walked down the hallway barefoot in the summer, the floorboards pricked at the tender soles of my feet and creaked as if they might give way and dump me straight down into the crude cellar at any moment--but they never did.

I was always afraid of that house. Mamaw and Papaw lived there and it was far away enough from town that we didn't visit them much during the school year. My sister, Emma, and I spent weeks at a time there during the summer, though, so that Momma could work an extra job without having to worry about looking after us. Usually at least a few of our cousins would be staying there with us, too, so that the house became a sort of drafty orphanage during the summer.

I hated it.

There was never enough light anywhere in that house, even in the daytime. The mountain blocked most of the sun, cupping the house to its breast in constant shadow--and, besides, Mamaw was "hot-natured" and prone to migranes, so the curtains were drawn most of the time. The cellar was cold and wet and dark, too, of course; I never went down there alone. The attic was the antithesis of the cellar: it was suffocatingly hot, always, with a small, cramped closet on the far side of the attic, where the roof sloped down until even I, at ten years old, couldn't staighten up without bumping my head on the ceiling.

One day that summer, in mid-July, me and my sister and two of our cousins decided to go play in the attic, and it was so hot up there that I swooned a little and almost passed out. Lightheaded, dizzy, I shoved my cousin Levi back when he pushed me into the wall.

"Stop it! It's not funny, Levi."

He leered at me with mean eyes. "Don't be such a baby, Sarah."

He pushed me again. I caught myself this time and pushed him back, hard, so that he stumbled backwards into the table with Mamaw's old sewing machine on it. The sewing machine fell to the floor with a violent clattering sound and we all froze. Mamaw yelled something at us from downstairs.

"Shit!" said Levi, picking himself up off the floor. He glanced down at the sewing machine but made no move to right it. "Look what you did!"

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared him down. "It was your own damn fault."

He didn't say anything then--he just lunged at me, pinning me to the wall directly behind me before I even had time to register the attack. I had a lot of boy cousins and I had grown up fighting with them all my life, so this wasn't new to me. But that was the summer I was ten and Levi was twelve, and for the first time in our lives, he was bigger and stronger than me.

I couldn't push him off this time.

We struggled for what felt like hours but must've been just seconds before he grunted out, over his shoulder, "Jackson--help me!"

Jackson was Levi's little brother. He was my age, but taller, lankier, his long body packed with lean muscle. At first I thought there was no way he would stoop so low as to gang up on a girl like that, but a moment later Levi had yanked me away from the wall and there was a second set of hands grabbing me around the neck from behind.

One of Jackson's hands disappeared and I heard the closet door creak open. I looked up, over Levi's thick shoulder, and saw Emma standing on the other side of the room, watching me try to fight off my attackers in vain. I wanted to scream at her to help me, but my mouth wouldn't work. And she just stood there, staring.

Jackson let go of me and I took the opportunity to try and duck out of Levi's grasp, but it was no good. He took hold of both of my arms and, with a huge shove, threw me backwards into the closet. I slammed up against the back wall of the closet so hard that it almost knocked me out; my vision swam so that I could just barely make out Levi smirking at me, the harsh lines of his face illuminated by the sickly afternoon light, the shape of him framed in the open doorway. Then he shut the closet door and I heard the metallic click of the rusted lock sliding into place, cold and final, like a death sentence.

And everything went dark.

-----

When I came to, I was lying on the floor and Wentz was yelling at me through the darkness.

"Sarah! Sarah, you're fine! You're fine! You're okay, you're fine!"

I sat up and was met with first the echo of a few quick footsteps as he stumbled towards me, and then the collective clattering of the playing cards falling to the floor as he ran into the table. He cursed violently as he struggled to get his footing and then his hands found the top of my head.

"Fuck! Fuck, Sarah--are you okay?!"

His voice was closer and I realized that he was kneeling now. His hands moved from my head to my shoulders, and he shook me a little.

"Sarah--Sarah, talk to me. Say something!"

I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. All I could do was sit there with the darkness devouring me--powerless against its cold fury, seeing nothing but solid vacancy, hearing nothing but Wentz's voice and this vague rasping noise in the background...

"Sarah! Talk to me!"

I couldn't.

He shook my shoulders again, harder. "Sarah! Calm down! You're fine--I've got you, you're fine..."

No. He was wrong. He was so wrong. The darkness had me.

I was going to die here, I was suddenly sure of it. I would die alone, in the dark, with Pete Wentz shaking me and screaming in my face, sure that he knew me when he really didn't...when no one knew me... Fuck, I would die before anyone really knew me...before I even had a chance to...to...well, did it matter what? I didn't have a chance....

All at once, I went limp with terror and hopelessness, falling forward into Wentz and collapsing pathetically against his chest. I had expected him to push me away, or at least stiffen in response, because that was what people did when you showed them your weak spots--but he didn't.

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in closer.

"You're okay," he kept saying. "You're fine. You're fine. It's okay."

I sobbed into his shoulder, air rattling in my chest as I forced myself to take deep breaths. Simultaneously, the rasping noise stopped.

"See?" He sounded relieved. "See, you're fine. You're fine."

The convulsive shaking began to ebb away gradually, but my teeth were still chattering, my stomach still clenching itself into knots. I didn't believe him.

"Are you okay now?" asked Wentz.

"I--I--" I clung to his chest still, shivering. "I don't like the dark."

"I know," he said, as if he really did know--was that even possible? "But it's okay. You're okay. You're fine."

I ignored his reassurances. "What happened?"

"I don't know. Maybe the power went out or something--"

"This is New York. The power doesn't go out in New York."

"Sarah," he laughed, "the power goes out everywhere sometimes."

I was far too hysterical to focus on this conversation. I moved closer to Wentz, gripping his shoulders so fiercely that it must have hurt, but he didn't complain.

I started to cry.

"Don't cry," said Wentz immediately, and somehow his hands found my hair again in the darkness. "You're fine. The lights will be back on in a minute, and then--"

"What if they're not?" I whimpered. "They should be back on already."

He sighed and started to pull away from me. Carefully, in the same patient tone of voice kindergarten teachers use while teaching kids to read, he said to me, "Okay, how about this--I'm gonna go see if I can find somebody--"

No. No. How could he be so calm about this? If he left me alone in all that darkness, I would die, I was sure of it. I would never make it alone. It was so dark... No, no, he couldn't leave me, he couldn't--

The musty smell of that closet in the summer came back to me in a rush of hysteria. The rattling of the flimsy lock, the splinters tearing the flesh from the sides of my fists as I pounded on the door...the heat, as crushing, suffocating as the darkness...Papaw's voice, the quick thuds of his footsteps on the staircase below, Levi growling a curse under his breath, knowing he was caught...

And my own screams drowning out everything else--they started out just as a primal noise of terror--then morphed into Open the damn door! (too hysterical to sound threatening)--then melted into shrieks again, punctuated by heavy sobs, and then--

All that darkness....

"No, no!" I screamed, the words rushing out of my mouth with all the power I had in my lungs. "Don't leave me! Pete, please, don't leave me, don't leave me--"

Pete pulled me into him immediately, and the suddenness of his embrace was enough to knock some sense into me. "Okay, okay," he said, sounding thoroughly bewildered by the force of my reaction. "I'm not going anywhere. It's okay, don't cry--"

As if I had been possessed by a demon he had chased away somehow, I came back to myself all at once. The trembling in my gut, the cool beads of sweat across my forehead, the tears pooling along my jawline felt foreign to me as the hysteria began to subside.

I pressed my face to his chest again, and he continued to stroke my hair, my back, murmuring softly to me all the while. I clung to him tighter and tighter until I felt the warmth of his cheek against my cheek, his heartbeat thudding faintly against my chest, the flutter of his breath along my neck.

"It's okay. You're okay," he was saying. "Nothing's going to hurt you."

"You don't know that." My voice sounded faraway and the words came automatically, without any willful choice on my part. It was my subconscious speaking.

But for all the trembling in my voice, Pete sounded as confident as ever. "Yes, I do. Nothing's going to hurt you, Sarah, I promise. I won't let anything hurt you."

And something about the way he said those words made me believe him.

Suddenly calm, I pulled away from him; his arms tightened around me in alarm, loosening only when I touched his shoulder to let him know it was alright. But he still held me even as I reached around in my back pocket for the smooth plastic cylinder I kept there.

I held up the lighter and he gasped at the sudden burst of light.

"I'm so stupid," I half-laughed through my slowing tears. "I completely forgot I had this."

Pete's mouth dropped open and for a moment, he just stared at me in awe. The unsteady glow of the lighter flickered there between us, illuminating his face in soft yellows and oranges. He was so close to me that he was all I could see--the curve of his forehead, the graceful slope of his nose, lips, jaw, teeth...eyes. His eyes were like other worlds, gleaming there in the wide golden moon of his face, shining apart from the darkness around him, with the reflection of that tiny flame swimming in each deep brown orb. The light cast his face in sharp relief, and I could see every frown line, every smile line, every wrinkle, blemish, scar that told the story of his Life So Far.

And I was surprised to see that he was beautiful.

His lips met once more, pursed and thoughtful. "You smoke?"

I meant to lie to him, but I ended up telling the truth. "No," I said quietly. "I just... I'm just scared of the dark."

I didn't know what to expect, but I wasn't expecting his reaction: the corners of his lips twisted up in a wry little smile, and he said, "I guess so, huh?"

The warmth in his face took me off guard. He should have been confused--appalled, even--by my little breakdown and the confession of my biggest secret, but he was just smiling back at me like he wasn't surprised in the least. Like there was nothing to be surprised about.

The thing is, I could never outsmart Pete. I could never throw him off. He was always two steps ahead of me; no matter what turn I took, he would be there waiting for me, smirking as if to say, See? I knew where you were headed all along.

It drove me crazy. I was the reporter, and he was the subject. I was supposed to see right through him--not the other way around.

But at the same time, I couldn't help but feel comforted, knowing that, for once, someone actually understood me. Though I hated to admit it, Pete was right: I didn't let people in, so I had never allowed anyone to know the real me before.

Pete was different. He never waited for me to let him in. He broke the door down and started pointing out all my little flaws to me first thing. But he did it with that stupid smile on his face the whole time, like he saw something in those flaws that he appreciated somehow.

Well, he saw himself in me--at least, that's what he had said.

I didn't allow myself to dwell on this thought long enough for it to get under my skin. Instead, I brushed it aside, telling Pete dryly, "I don't appreciate your sarcasm."

His eyes turned serious, but his smile only grew. "I think you do," he said. "You're just afraid to admit it."

Was I? Could he be right--was I only resisting him because I liked him too much? Maybe.

As we sat there in the dark together, I felt more peaceful and content than I had in a very long time. It made no sense to me, the quiet happiness I felt despite all that darkness--but I guess maybe I did like him too much. Maybe that was it. Because there was something about the look in his eyes when he smiled at me like that, something about the way he held himself, so close to me, that calmed me down. When it was just me and Pete huddled around our tiny flame with the darkness at our backs, in our own little world, I felt like everything was going to be okay somehow.

I had never felt that way before. And he was right: it scared me.

Pete stared back at me as all these thoughts raced through my mind, his expression outwardly ambivalent, though I recognized a question burning beneath his careful facade. I drew in a breath to say something--though I wasn't sure what to say, or how to say it, just yet--but before I could get the words out, the lights came back on.

Startled, we both winced and shielded our eyes from the searing flourescent lights. "Oww, fuck," groaned Pete, scowling up at the strip of lights as if this whole mess was specifically its fault. He got to his feet as I let the lighter's tiny flame die out. "Took you long enough."

I looked up from the cold, dead lighter to see his outstretched hand. He took my hand and helped me up; suddenly we were at eye level again, and he stared right at me as if he was trying to tell me something he couldn't say out loud.

Then the door burst open and Stump and a Radio Official stepped inside, and our little world was ruptured. Pete and I both jumped a little and turned towards the door. And all at once, I hated those intruders, those lights, for interrupting the most peaceful few minutes I'd had in a very long time.

"Sorry about that, guys," said the Radio Official, flashing his stiff, fake smile at us, oblivious of what he had just walked in on. "A breaker went out."

"No problem," said Pete easily.

I looked over at him. His face was calm, his expression casual. Had he not felt everything sliding into place just now, when we were sitting in the dark? Didn't he hate them for ruining that, too?

Maybe it was just me.

I realized that the others were still talking, but their words only came to me in an abstract sort of way, as if drifting towards me from some other place in some other time that didn't matter to me. And it didn't matter. But, presently, their voices got clearer and louder, more prominent, as I tuned into their conversation.

"Are you--are you okay?" asked Stump, the question aimed at me and Pete, judging by his gaze. "I thought I heard someone...like, screaming--"

...Screaming? What screaming?

Pete seemed to be just as confused as I was. "No," he said, frowning at Stump with that disbelieving, maybe-you-should-get-your-head-examined look on his face. "I didn't hear any screaming." He turned to the Radio Official. "Did you?"

The Radio Official stammered a little, taken off guard. "N-No, but I was on the next floor, so...."

Stump opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but stopped, his gaze fixed on some point in space between me and Pete. I started to ask him what he was looking at, but then I glanced down and found the answer: after helping me up earlier, Pete was still holding my hand.

He must've realized it at the same time I did, because he dropped my hand immediately and looked away. Stump tried to catch his eye for some kind of explanation, but Pete wouldn't look at him--he just turned to the Radio Official and said, "So are we gonna do this thing, or not?"

Pete moved past Stump to follow the Radio Official down the hallway. Stump glanced after him, then looked at me for a long moment as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing--as if he didn't like what he was seeing.

"What?" I asked, a little too quickly.

He shook his head. "Nothing," he said, and then he turned to follow Pete down the darkened hallway.