Decadent

Chapter Three
Haunted
>>June 3, 2008<<
Danny and I are on the tire swings in the back yard drinking grape soda. Daddy tied one in the Oak tree for my seventh birthday, but when Danny would come in the summer we would have to take turns. Not that it was a bad thing; it just wasn’t as fun as swinging and talking at the same time. So one day, we walked out there and saw that there was a second swing, right next to mine. Daddy said that it was a good thing he had a spare tire, and I laughed at that.
“When are you getting back on the swim team?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I dunno.”
I’m silent.
He drinks the rest of his soda then chucks it at the tree. He has so much anger in him lately and I don’t know why.
The sun is beating down on me, and it suffocates me through the long sleeve shirt and jeans I’m wearing. I look longingly at Danny and his shorts and t-shirt, wishing I could be free from this suffocating secret: the secret that hides behind my fabric.
Danny notices me sweating.
“Why don’t you change?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
He doesn’t say anything and continues to swing while I sit in the heat with my grape soda.
I hear the truck door slam.
I bolt out of the swing, the soda pouring on the grass, and crawl under the back patio. Danny runs with me, half confused of what is going on.
He lies in the dirt next to me while we watch my daddy walk in the backyard. I cover my mouth with my hand so I don’t scream and give away our spot.
Danny watches me in bewilderment as terrified tears roll one by one down my trembling cheek.
After an eternity, he leaves and I hear him walk inside.
Danny turns to me and waits. I crawl out and beckon him to follow me. We tip-toe past the window to the living room, then once we’re free, we run as fast as we can to the creek that’s behind his house.
I crash into the water, my jeans getting wet around my ankles.
“Faye tell me right now,” He says sternly.
I fall to my knees, for they are too shaky to hold me up.
“I can show you better than I can tell you,” I whisper.
He waits.
I pull my shirt off.
I’m only in a thin, cotton, tank-top and he can see.
He sees all the bruises on my arms, chest, and stomach. He sees all the cigarette burns, the scars that will always haunt me.
“Oh God, Faye,” He whispers.

>>February 27, 2009<<
We’re sitting in his room.
I watch him stare out the door. His sister is sick, he tells me. I ask how sick. He tells me she will die.
I stand up and walk over to him. He looks up and opens his arms and I fill them.
He holds me tight because he needs something to hold onto, not sure of what to do anymore. I run my fingers through his crazed blond hair, something I’ve longed to do.
He’s not the little Danny I was so used to anymore. He’s grown up.
We’ve both grown up.
He pulls back and looks at me, like he’s scared.
And so I tell him it’ll be okay.
He tells me it won’t and I don’t want to believe him.
He pulls my long sleeve shirt up over my head so I’m only in my thin tank top again. He runs his hands over the bruises.
“See?” He asks, “It won’t be okay.”
I don’t say anything. I thought we were talking about his sister.
“You won’t stop him,” he says.
I close my eyes, just feeling his fingers on my skin. They’re gentle. I didn’t know someone else’s hands on you could be gentle. All he did was pound his fists into my skin. It’s like Danny is smoothing the pain away.
But the scars will stay.
The memory of him screaming at me for all those years will still haunt me. And no matter how much I hide, I can’t hide forever. He will still find me.
I feel Danny’s hands on my face, moving fast, trying to wipe the tears away. But they fall too quickly.
“He can’t hurt you here,” Danny whispers.
I nod and open my eyes.
He watches me pull myself together again, watches me put on my fake face of composure.
And I feel self-conscious.
He hands me my shirt back and I put it back on, hiding yet again.

Alec
In the room yet again.
All their souls are screaming at me to take them in, to become part of me. We could be one.
But that’s just their sins screaming at me, and it would be a sin for me to give in, to kill them. Thou shall not kill.
“Thou shall not kill,” I whisper to myself.
I try and think of something else, anything else.
I tilt my head back against the wall and think of her. Her long brown hair, chestnut. Her bright blue eyes. Then I think of her mind, her soul. I wonder who broke her down like that. And the thought of anyone hurting Faye spikes such anger in me that I know I shouldn’t feel. Anger is a sin.
Twenty seven minutes, sixty two seconds.
Sixty one.
Sixty.
I wonder how long I will be in pain till I’m forgiven. I wonder why I deserve this.
But I know why.
We disobeyed Him, we betrayed Him.
Twenty four minutes sixteen seconds.

She’s not there in French.
I wait all hour for her to show, but she never does and I grow wary. All day I don’t see her, but her friend is here.
I debate whether or not I should ask him where she was. He didn’t seem too thrilled to see me the other day when I was at her house.
But against my better judgment, I walk over to him. His eyes widen.
“I was wondering where Faye is,” I say lamely, “Is she sick?”
He doesn’t say anything and walks off.
I stand there, feeling incredibly stupid and embarrassed. But I guess I’ll learn from that mistake.

That night I walk into the old diner that has been standing for about a hundred years. When I was here last, the owner, Ephraim, was just opening the place up. Now his son owns it, but Jess, the grandson, works the tables.
He sees me walk in and grins. “Just made a fresh one.”
I grin. I have an obsession over his banana cream pie. I head over to my usual table when I see her sitting at the table in the corner. She has a cup of coffee in front of her and she is writing vigorously in her journal.
I walk over to her table. “May I?” I ask.
She looks up and nods.
I sit across from her.
She just looks at me blankly; she lost her train of thought. She’s confused on whether or not to go back to her writing or be polite and make conversation.
I grin and her.
Her blue eyes brighten and fall farther into disorientation. Her long chestnut hair was spilled over her shoulders and in her face. I wanted so badly to smooth the hair off her face, but I knew it wasn’t my place.
“What?” She asks, somewhat self-consciously.
“You weren’t at school today,” I say, not a question but a statement.
She nods.
I wait, and then she understands.
“Sometimes it’s good to take a break from people,” is her reason.
I can understand that.
Jess comes over with my slice of pie and sets it down, and then looks at Faye. “Anything else?”
She shakes her head and he leaves.
I take a huge bite of my pie. “You really should have some pie.”
She laughs.
“I’ve been coming here every night since I moved here,” I say.
She shrugs. “It’s a nice place. I like to come here when I can’t sleep.”
“And coffee helps that,” I point out.
She looks down at her coffee and blushes. “Yeah well. I have to get out of the house.”
I think back to her sitting on the porch, with her eyes focused on the invisible.
“That’s why I like to sit on the porch,” She says, “Anyway to get away.”
She looks up and realizes that I was listening the whole time. I guess she doesn’t really talk to anyone about this stuff.
“Why is it so bad?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
I remember what she had said about it just being her and her mother. “And your father?”
“Gone,” she hisses.
I get it.
I take another bite. “You know, you should really have a bite.”
She grins, relieved.
I hold out a forkful to her. “You know you want to.”
She looks at the fork and then sighs, giving in, and takes the bite. I watch her face, and its amazement.
She laughs, “That’s really good.”
I grin and turn around. “Jess!”
“Yeah?”
“Another slice please,” I say, and then turn to my slice that’s half gone. “Make that two.”
“Coming up,” he says.

Faye
Alec smiles, and it’s one of those smiles that touches his eyes and brightens them. “I think I would like to be a pastor or someone similar,” he says.
I grin. I can’t picture him as a holy person. His whole persona screams “dark and emo hear me roar”.
He nods. “I know it doesn’t really look like it, but I’m really into the whole religious thing.” He looks haunted again, his smile is gone and his eyes have dimmed again.
“What about you?”
I shrug. “I don’t know really.”
He nods and he’s the first who hasn’t given me a lecture about it. “You have time.”
I laugh. “I’m a junior. I have another year then I’m off to college.”
“Who says you have to go away to college the minute you walk off the stage?” He asks, dipping into another slice of banana cream pie.
“I haven’t really thought of that as an option,” I say.
“Why?” He asks with his mouth full.
I laugh and take a bite of my own.
“I have always thought of college as a way to escape, not as an opportunity,” I say.
I remember when I was younger, when my abusive father was still around, I would count down till I would go to college. At the age of nine I was looking at colleges; not at the programs they offered, but at the number of miles put between my father and me.
He nods slowly, like he’s trying to process all of it. I know he doesn’t understand though, no one understands.
“Makes sense,” he says after awhile.
I look at him incredulously. “Really?”
I must have looked like an open book because he burst out laughing, a full laugh that made me grin automatically.
“You really aren’t as misunderstood as you think,” he says.
I smile. It’s the first time anyone besides Danny has said something like that to me.
I close my eyes. “Can you say that again?”
I hear him set his fork down and hesitate.
I wait.
“You really aren’t as misunderstood as you think,” he repeats softly.
I replay it in my mind, over and over again.
Pretend it’s real.
It’s another blasphemy.
I open my eyes and I’m in reality again.
I watch him watch me. I look at the reflection in his eyes, how he must think I’m unstable. But he said that I’m not misunderstood. That’s always good.
I distract myself by watching the breeze from the fan play with his black hair.
“Faye?” He asks, almost scared.
I look in his warm eyes. “Yes?”
“Another slice?”
I look at my empty plate. It’s been the most I’ve eaten in a long time, and it feels good to be actually full.
And it’ll give me an excuse to stay out, not to mention another excuse to be with Alec.
“Sure.”
We spend the night walking down the streets in the misting rain talking about nothing and importance. We talk of our preferences to our fears. I never knew that two people could have so much to talk about. Danny and I were never like that. We grew up together so we knew everything about each other. Alec and I had spent our entire lives away from each other and now we were telling one another what they had missed.
“Rain,” I say.
He stops and looks at me. “Why?”
He had asked what my favorite thing in the world was. I had to think about it for awhile. Most people would pick something like pie, Alec for instance; others would say something sentimental like family or friends. But I have none of those, so they hold no value to me.
I stop too.
Pause.
Gather my thoughts. “I feel real.”
I look at him, waiting for him to reply to that, but he doesn’t, instead he waits like he knows I have more to say. He waits like he wants to hear what more I have to say. And I can’t get my head wrapped around that. That a boy I just met, that anyone, would have patience with me. That someone would have enough patience to care what crazy thoughts were rambling inside the scariest thing called the mind.
I start walking, and he doesn’t follow, so I walk slowly, aimlessly, in circles.
“I like the way the drops fall on me, like it’s holding me to the ground when I feel like I’ll disappear. I like the smell of it; I like breathing it in because it makes me feel whole. I like the taste, it taste pure. I like watching it cleanse the earth,” I say walking around him.
His eyes follow me in circles and I wonder if he’ll get dizzy.
“All that, and all I said was pie,” he says finally.
I grin. “Well what would we do without pie?”

Daniel
She was in late.
I watch her pull off her shirt; her back was still damaged from the scars. She pulls on her night shirt and crawls in bed.
I get up from the rocking chair and pull the covers up her shoulders, and then place a kiss on her forehead. “Goodnight, Faye.”
“Danny?” she mumbles, almost incoherently. Her eyes are shut and she bunches up into a ball like she always does.
“Yes?”
“Stay.”
Oh, Faye.
“Ok,” I say. I watch her scoot over, somewhat clumsily.
I grin and scope her up in my arms and lay her on the other side of the bed before climbing in. She lays on her side, curled up into her ball, almost in the fetal position. It hurts to watch her still fight her battles, which no longer exist.
I manage to wrap my arms around her and pull her close so she knows she isn’t alone.
>>May 19, 2009<<
“She’s in her room,” her mother says.
I can tell she’s been crying too.
I nod and begin to walk down the hallway. It seems to take forever to get to her room.
I knock before walking in to see Faye lying in bed. She’s curled up into a ball, her knees brought up to her chest.
I sit beside her and wait.
Just like yesterday, she places her head in my lap and I run my fingers through her thick hair. And then she starts crying.
“It’s for the best, Faye,” I say, “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“But he does!” She sobs. “He’s still in my head, yelling at me, telling me I’m not good enough.”
I want to find this man and kill him. But his sins will catch up to him; it was in God’s hands. And in a way him leaving was a blessing to her.
I don’t know what to say to her to make her feel better, so I just soothe the pain, never able to fully erase it.

>>NOW<<

I still watch her cry for him at night. It isn’t every night anymore, so it gives me hope that she will be happy and free one day.

Alec
We’re sitting on the roof of her car during lunch, like we usually do during lunch. I asked her to invite Danny over here but she declined for some reason.
I open the container with the pie in it, another tradition we have now.
She grins. “I wonder if you could go a day without pie.”
“Shh,” I say dramatically, “Don’t say such things.”
I hear her laugh as I put whipped cream on the cherry pie. I slide the container to her and a fork, catching her eye.
It was wrong to do.
Like before I was thrown in her head, the demon craves her soul…but she is too strong.
She’s in a ball, in the fetal position trying to protect herself.
“Don’t! PLEASE!”
I pull away and watch Faye.
She blinks a few times.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, playing dumb.
She shakes her head. “Nothing.”

I follow Cassandra to the car. She says I don’t get out much and when I began to protest, she told me that eating pie at a dinner doesn’t count. And so I agreed to let her take me out tonight, which was probably a bad idea.
It’s been a week since I saw into her head again. She barely said anything to me in class the next day, and I thought that maybe she was weird out by all of it. She wasn’t exactly a social butterfly. The only person I saw her have a real conversation was with Cassandra and her overprotective friend, Danny.
“What’s his problem anyway?” I asked her.
Cassandra laughed and pulled off the driveway. “He doesn’t mean anything by it. He just has been with Faye all his life. If they weren’t completely in love with each other they would be like brother and sister.”
That stung. If they weren’t completely in love with each other…
“Why do you ask?” She asked, “Do you have a little crush on her?” She taunted.
I rolled my eyes, but didn’t deny it.
Cassandra smelled an easy victory. “Some immortal you are.”
“What?”
“You need to work on hiding your emotions; I can read you without even looking in your eyes.”
“Yeah well, I’ m usually better at that than this,” I say, “It’s just that I’m still not over how I got into her head like that. I’ve never felt like I was physically in someone’s mind before.”
“Maybe you have a gift,” she offers.
“I don’t think so. It’s never happened before.”
“So you think it’s something to do with her?”
“I think she has a stronger grasp on her mind than normal people have; I think that her mind is more complex.”
She frowns through the windshield. “You think that she can drag anyone into her head?”
I nod. “Maybe without meaning to though.”
“That’s a good theory,” she says.
“Elisha thinks that she’s stuck,” I tell her.
She looks at me, not having to pay attention to the road. “And you want to free her?”
I look out my window. “I hope to.”
“Angel, she’s not your average depressed teenager,” she warns.
“Don’t call me angel,” I say, almost harshly.
She sighs.
Cassandra drops the subject and pulls up to a bar.
“No,” I say, “Drinking is a sin.”
Cassy sighs wistfully. “Yes I know, but I’m already being kept out of Heaven. I know you believe he’ll come around and forgive us, and if he does then I’ll be proud to say that you are worth going to Heaven.”
I watch her get out and then follow. I don’t have to drink; they have other things beside alcoholic beverages there.
I follow Cassy into the bar and see her sitting in the corner with an empty drink.
Her long brown hair was spilled over her shoulders.
“That’s Faye,” she says.
I nod. “Yep.”
I walk over to her. Please don’t be drunk…
“Faye?” I ask.
She looks up at me, her eyes dazed. “The cup is empty.”
I sit down next to her while Cassy gets her some coffee. “Faye, I think you’re drunk. Do you want me to drive you home?”
“No I’m not. I don’t usually drink…I don’t get drunk,” she slurs.
Cassy comes back with a mug of coffee and puts it in front of Faye.
“Can I ask what happened?” I ask.
“You just did,” she slurs, and then takes a drink of her coffee.
I grin. “Well?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she whispers.
Cassy looks at me with warning eyes, as if telling me not to push her.
“I’m going to get a drink,” Cassy says.
I sigh and sit back in my seat.
Faye makes a weird face and suddenly gets up and runs out the door. I follow her to the parking lot where she bends over and is punished for drinking. I sigh and pull her long hair out away.
Cassy walks out with a handful of napkins and a bottle of water.
“You better take her home,” she says, handing me the napkins and water.
I nod and watch Faye rest her head against the brick wall.
She inhaled and exhaled deeply.
And repeated.
I gave her the napkin and she wiped her face and then took a drink of the water I held out for her.
“Thanks,” she breathes, embarrassed.
I smile. “So you want me to take you home?”
She hesitates.
“Or we could go for some pie?” I suggest, catching on.
She hesitates, again.
I take her hand and lead her to the parking lot. “Where’s your car?”
She points to a blue Camry and I pull her over to it, open the door, and strap her in the passenger seat. I get in the driver seat and hold my hand out for her keys, she hesitates again and then gives her keys to me. I pull out of the parking lot and drove down the dark road. The early fall air was beginning to grow crisp.
I watch as, despite the cold, Faye rolls down the window. Then she reaches over and turns on the stereo, which has a CD in it.
She leans back and closes her eyes, mumbling with the lyric that filled the car.
I follow the familiar concrete driveway that leads to the large, dark, and illusive house that I call my home. It looks like just the place where a family of Fallen Angels would live, but inside it feels like home, looks like the inner workings of Martha Stewart. Again, it’s part of the mask that we hide to conceal ourselves from the innocuous society, the weak.
Humans are a frail species, not only physical, but mental as well. They can’t, wouldn’t be able to, protect themselves against us. Can’t protect themselves from the eviler ones who feed just to feed, unlike our family where we torture ourselves to keep them save. We, who have been punished for being selfish, put their needs before our own just to keep them safe.
“Where are we?” She asks.
I smile and get out of the car, swinging around and opening her door. “My house of course.”
I laugh to myself as her heartbeat quickens.
“Eda is an excellent chief,” I say, “Her apple pie is the best I have ever had.”
“What about the dinner’s banana cream pie?” She asks.
I grin. “Yes well, they have nothing on her apple pie.”
I escort her to the door, then hesitate. I am not sure whether or not this is a good idea, bringing her in here unannounced, without warning to all the others. But, as I look at her childlike blue eyes scrutinize the house with curiosity, it’s too late for that.
I have already brought her into my world.
I open the door and we walk into the foyer. There was Eda, waiting. I knew she had seen us coming. “Well, Faye, it’s about time I’ve met you.”
I glance warily at Faye.
She looks back at me, wondering what to say.
“You're scaring her,” I say, taking Faye’s arm and walking her to the kitchen.
I knew the rest would be waiting too. Wondering who the girl is and why I have brought her home. I see it in their heads. What makes her different? Why is she so important? He is risking everything, is she worth it? The thoughts anger me. Of course I realize the risks, surly I would not bring home any girl whom I did not trust. Not like this was the circumstance at all. I wasn’t bringing home a girl. It was just Faye.
I looked back at Faye and listened to her heart pick up. I looked at her eyes, plunged into her mind and listened to her thoughts, her accusations.
She doesn’t like me, the redhead. Alyce is glaring at her, her lips turned upward into a scowl. He scares me…Elisha is looking at her the same way he looked at that couple he attacked not too long ago…he looks like he’ll hurt me…Eda, she looks eager, I hope I don’t disappoint her. Not like I’ll be back, he won’t bring me back.
Eda always warned me not to stray into the minds that did not invite me in, she said that I would always be disappointed, and in this case, she is right. I felt the heavy weight of disappointment as I replayed her thoughts in my head.
Alyce, you're scaring her
She looks at me, smirks, then walks away. Elisha, now snapped out of the trance, follows her out the kitchen. And then we are alone again.
I sigh. “Now then,” I say, pulling out a bar stool in front of the counter. She grins, forcefully, and sits.
“They don’t seem to like me,” she says.
I shake my head, opening the container that keeps Eda’s pie. “They aren’t use to me bringing home visitors. It just worries them.”
I cut a slice and put it on a plate for her, then one for me. “Á la mode?”
She grins, this time for real.
I open the freezer to get out the gallon of ice cream.
“What did you mean about it worrying them?” She asks.
I put the pies in the microwave and warm them up, waiting the whole thirty seconds to think of how to explain without giving much away. I take the pies out of the microwave and begin to put ice cream on top. I place the dessert in front of her before taking a bite.
I met Vera in the summer of 1889. She was a servant for one of the plantation owners. She was an orphan and couldn’t afford to live on her own. Pearl, the governor’s wife, had a soft heart and took her in. Of course, because Pearl was selfish, it wasn’t a paradise for Vera. When I met her at dinner there, she had no life in her eyes. Her blond hair was no different from hay, and her skin was dry and burnt from the long days in the sun.
During dinner, I kept my eyes on her as she came in and served us. She met my eyes a few times, but, timid, she looked away with a blush. No one else in the room saw her beauty. They couldn’t see her delicate green eyes, nor could they see the perfect contours of her face.
After dinner, of course I excused myself from the billiards room and snuck into the kitchen. She was standing at the sink doing dishes. I rolled up my sleeves and began to help her.
“Um…excuse me, but what are you doing, sir?” She asked, her voice, intending to sound forceful, came out breathless.
“Why can’t you tell good help when you see it?” I teased.
Her face deepened with red. “I can do it by myself.”
“Oh I don’t doubt that,” I said, “But it gives me something to do with my hands. When I get nervous, I have to keep my hands busy to settle the nerves.”
“And why are you nervous, sir?”
“Well for one, the governor will probably never invite me to another dinner if he catches me in here with you, and for two, I really don’t want to blow my chances. Who knows when I’ll see you again?”
“Alec?” I hear Faye’s voice in my head.
I blink.
She’s waiting for an answer. I wonder how long I have been thinking of Vera. I wonder how longs she’s been watching me wage the war in my head.
“I…” I begin, “I fell in love once and it ended badly,” I say.
She waits, knows there is more.
“They don’t want a repeat.”
I am still haunted by her.