A Tub of Cold Water

It was a dream, I knew it was, but it just didn’t make sense. The hand was bloody, but it wasn’t of his blood. There was a pocket knife, bloody as well, in the hand limply at his side. The smile was that of apprehension and his eyes were still sad. No, they were more than sad. They were the definition of depression, lifeless and absent of all feeling beside that of internal rage and hatred of thyself.

Sawyer looked down at the bloody hand before moving it up to rub and stroke my porcelain skin, adding color to my otherwise ethereal complexion. “Radiant skin, so soft, so lush, so… perfect.”

“Sawyer?” I whispered through unmoving lips as I watched his copper-scented hand rub and caress a soothing beat that not even Skye could copy. I found myself becoming a purring cat, leaning my head into his touch and grasping his wrist to keep it still.

Taking a small step so that his height really did weigh down on me, he stared down into my light brown eyes, a new sad smile tugging at his lips. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

A simple nod was left in his wake as his eyes turned toward the ground, leaving my body in a chilling state as my skin scorched under his touch and my blood froze with my body. The feel of his spliced finger on my skin was as glorious as I had pictured it prior. “Yes,” that deep voice announced, “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” I asked dazedly, my eyes closing as his bloody thumb ghosted across my bottom lip and my lips parted to capture the salty taste of copper on the tip of my tongue. I didn’t care. I just wanted him to go on caressing me for the rest of my life. Make this a memory, one that I could live in every time my father abused me.

“For what I’ve done. I won’t say I didn’t mean to because I did.”

That voice, deep and soothing—it was the voice you pictured a dark angel possessing. A coaxing melody that had you dancing toward him as his black wings spread open and threat was painted across his face was the way Sawyer whispered every syllable. It had me hanging onto every word, drowsing to every authoritative whisper that pirouetted between his lips, dripping off his tongue.

Just before I could ask him the damned act he could have committed that would make him apologize, yet imply that he didn’t mean it, he stepped off to the side, retracting his hand with the movement. I whimpered out, reaching for it before I saw my father’s bloody, beaten, dead body on the floor. My eyes jumped back to Sawyer and all too sudden, I was snapped from my dimwitted state of influence his touch inflicted upon me.

Chris was a broken, bloody mess on the floor, most of his features undetectable from where I was standing. I stepped forward and pressed a pale hand to my blood-coated lips, an inaudible gasp lodging somewhere deep in my throat and choking me. A part of me, a very, very fine part of me, was sad to see my father in a state of death—whether it was a dream or not. Another part of me was sickened by the very sight of all the blood covering the ground like a blanket of red snow. Then there was the part of me that was fascinated, delighted at the very sight of the blood sprays and spatters.

I turned my head back to Sawyer, who had his eyes downcast at the possible feelings I’d possess by the sight of my father on the ground. I whispered, “Look at me.”

Obediently, Sawyer’s gaze snapped to mine, swathing me in a blanket of his sadness, his addictive, blood-chilling sadness. Reaching my hand out to him, he reached for mine. Closing my fingers around his wrist, I danced my fingers across three deep, little scars. When I did, he snatched his hand back.

“Don’t touch.” He warned, his voice hardening—like the act of ruffling the dark angel’s feathers. These scars were Sawyer’s black, downy feathers. It was personal when you touched them, threatening in a way that was an act of trespassing, breaking any trust you could have built up in that time. I withdrew both hands and curled them against my chest protectively.

Glancing back at the unnerving corpse of Chris, my gaze turned accusingly back on Sawyer. “You killed him.”

He flicked his gaze like I had before returning it back on mine, “Yes. And I’m only sorry if it hurts you.”
He had officially withdrawn his apology earlier stated. This stung something alive inside me with a deep pulsing hurt. “Why?”

Turning his head with a whip toward me, Sawyer grabbed the hem of my sweatshirt and hauled it over my head, flogging it at the ground with a grunt. His hand gripped my shoulder, where he spun me back against him.

We were facing a mirror that hadn’t been there prior, his hand making an imprint on my shoulder and his chin resting against my temple. I was staring at my bare upper body, only concealed beneath a pale pink bra. His free hand danced upon the many marks and black blotches that covered my body shamelessly, pushing down slightly on the plumper ones for effect. I would wince or groan out, reaching down to stop his torture of the touch that, moments earlier, made my skin sing with a melody to be touched forever by him.

He hissed, “Look at what he’s done to you!”

Spinning me back around, Sawyer pushed my back into the closest wall and covered my exposed flesh with his body. As if desperate to have my understanding, he whispered through clenched teeth and evitable pain, “I had to do something. He wouldn’t.”

“Who wouldn’t?” I muttered, one brave hand climbing up to frame the side of his neck, my fingers memorizing the pale skin beneath it.

“Him.” He groaned as he tilted his head away from my hand, giving me the space to touch and tease as I so wished. As if a whisper of the wind, “Skye” spiraled out like a tendril of the breeze from between his lips.

I stared coldly into Sawyer’s eyes, my own widening to the accusation and feeling an overwhelming sense of revulsion toward him in this moment. Before I could clear Skye’s name from his mouth, Sawyer breathed, “So, I killed him. I killed him to protect you.”

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Like I was being held under water for far too long, I gasped through a closed throat and shot stick straight into a sitting position, the blanket framing my body. Skye jumped up into a sitting position as well, his hands bordering the sides of my face before he successfully turned my head toward him.

“Baby, baby—baby! Aubrey!” Skye growled as he shook me awake, but the sight of a bludgeoned Chris was still sitting in the background and Sawyer before me, gripping my shoulder and whispering interests of protecting me in a way that Skye never could.

After blinking a plethora of times, I finally cleared my eyes to the sight of a ruffle-haired Skye with concern shining in his eyes against the moonlight and worry weighing down the skin beneath his eyes in the form of sunken in sockets.

“It felt real, it was real.” I mumbled, discombobulated. My breathing was slowing back to a normal dreamlike state and the haze that held a corpse colored boy and a blanket of blood finally dwindled.

“It wasn’t real, Brey, it was a nightmare.” Skye reassured, rubbing his sweat-covered palms against my clothed shoulders.

Turning my head towards his hands, I found myself almost wishing they’d pale out and produce scars bearing up his arms. The sight of his smile—an actual smile clouded my vision once more with memories of a moment that shouldn’t have been a dream. “No,” I finally said, “It was a beautiful dream.”

“A beautiful dream?” Skye sounded piqued, “What was so beautiful about it? It jerked you upright and awake like someone had stabbed you through the heart.”

An angry Skye wasn’t much of a Skye at all. He was rash and rude and pushy and far, far too overprotective. Somewhere in my head, I knew that if I talked about Sawyer being the main man in my dream Skye would lose himself to jealousy or concern.

“He died. I never had to live in fear again. And for a few minutes, Skye, do you know what that meant for me?” I peered over my shoulder as I spoke no louder than the wind against the window.

He shook his head, his eyes glistening like usual against the minimal light. I sighed in a faux state of harmony. “I was… free.”

“I promised you the day I found the bruise that I would make sure you would be free again, Brey. Do you doubt me?” Skye’s voice filled with accusation and it gleamed in his eyes. Suddenly, I didn’t find them beautiful beneath the pale light of the moon.

“I never said I doubted you.” I gruffly stated.

“And you never said that you didn’t, either. Do you trust me or don’t you?”

His superhero persona was getting in the way of his protective instincts to guard me, and that was starting to tick on my clock of patience. I stared straight into his eyes when I spoke next.

“It’s not that I doubt you and it’s not that I don’t trust you, Skye. It’s that—” Unbidden, my throat started to close up and my eyes started to sting. “You don’t know how it feels to not sleep at night because whether you’re sleeping or you’re awake, he’s still hitting you. You don’t know what it feels like to be a caged animal. You don’t know what it’s like for someone you love to beat their fists on you like he’s King Kong.”

“Oh, Aubrey,” he started with the click of his tongue.

“No. Skye, you don’t know. You sit here and talk about freedom, but freedom is me running to you when he comes knocking at the door. I don’t know any other kind of freedom.”

And at the talk of freedom, tears welled and pushed over, falling like raindrops on a soft summer’s day. Skye reached up immediately to rub away the spokes of my weakness from my skin with a breathy sigh. “Then tonight, baby, be free.”

Wrapping me in his arms, Skye pulled me back down onto the pillow and folded me into him with a kiss to my temple—the same temple that Sawyer rested his chin against.

Oh, Sawyer. Your trivial sadness sitting in your eyes unashamedly, your tainted beauty in the form of pricks and dashes lining all up and down your arms, your grim line of a smile—no emotion, no light. You live in just darkness and storm clouds, an endless rain drowning over you. I want to save you, but I don’t know how. I want to be the sun to your night, the happiness you should feel.

I just don’t know where to start with you. Give me a sign, Sawyer. Show me the way erasing that sadness from your eyes, show me a way to make you smile like you did in my dream. It’s something I’ve wanted for three years now. Why didn’t you show this interest back then? Why do you show it now?

Just show me the way.

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Skye’s snoring drowned through any other possible noise that could surround the room. It was deep and slow. Like he knew I was lying awake and didn’t want me to fall asleep.

Somewhere around one in the morning, I pulled myself from the bed and slipped on my shoes once more and pulled up the hood on the sweatshirt. I paused by the door, staring at Skye and willing him to wake up, but after thirty seconds, I gave up hope and left the room. I exited the same way I arrived, but left the window open because it’d be easier when I came back.

When I finally made it off his block, I found myself venturing toward a park a couple streets over from Skye’s house, staring at the different constellations the stars created. In the dead of night, away from my father and away from Skye, I truly felt free. I didn’t have to please anyone and no one had to please me. That is what freedom felt like.

As woodchips crunched under my feet, I found that someone was sitting on top of a slide on playground, their legs dangling and kicking as their head was thrown back and their eyes locked on the stars as well. Familiarity flooded through me and I knew exactly who it was when I saw his black hair slipping back against his shoulders and his pale skin illuminating in the moonlight that this dark angel belonged under.

I made my way toward him, a certain pull that had me acting fast. I climbed a ladder and slowly moved to the slide next to him, folding my arms on it and glancing against my peripherals as he seemed unfazed by my presence.

Oh, but Sawyer, I was definitely fazed and effected by yours. Somewhere in my mind, I always found a moment during my week to think about him—think about his tainted beauty—but ever since my dream, I couldn’t even close my eyes without picturing the blood covering his hand that covered my cheek. Tearing my eyes away from him, I looked up at the moon in all of its glory.

“It would seem that now it is you who is admiring, wouldn’t it?” Sawyer blurted against the gentle night’s breeze without so much as tearing his eyes away from the many different specks of light sprinkled on the endless black river of the sky.

My eyes gravitated back onto his beauty. He belonged to the night, where his skin could gleam the same color as the moon and his scars were the stars. “It would seem so.”

“What brings you out at the devil’s hour?” he said as he finally turned his head toward me, but not longer than a second or two before turning it back to the sky.

I shrugged my response, assuming that he was glancing through his peripherals like I was. “What brings you?”

“I asked you first,” he childishly responded, even though his voice was as serious as if this were trial rather than a random happenstance.

“I couldn’t sleep, my friend was snoring far too loud.” It was the truth, but it really wasn’t the reason. I couldn’t very well just out and blurt that I had to get out and walk you out of my mind.

He nodded for a couple of seconds before he parted his lips. Though he didn’t speak right away, his dark angel’s voice was powerful when he did. “Do you ever get those moments when you feel like you weren’t meant to be a part of the daylight?”

Turning back toward him, I nodded while whispering dazedly, “All the time.”

He turned toward me just as well, his eyes wide and understanding—something that I never saw from Skye. “And it feels like all that you belong to is the night?”

“Like the stars are your friends and the moon is your spotlight?” I smiled. I finally smiled.

“Exactly. Like under the constant darkness, you’ve finally found peace, you’ve finally found freedom. That’s what brings me out here.” Sawyer finished, turning his head back to the moon.

“That’s what brings me out here, too.” I whispered as my hand slid toward his slowly. I just wanted to see if his skin really did make mine heat and my blood freeze.

“So, how long?” Sawyer asked as he turned his head down to my crawling, brazen fingers.

“How long, what?” I should have paused my fingers, but I couldn’t. I just needed to see if it was like my dream—I needed it to be like my dream.

Still staring at my fingers, he moved his hand toward it so that his pinky finger covered over mine as my skin seared volcanically and my blood froze beneath it. Oh, thank god. “How long has he been beating you?”