Cursed

Walking into the living room, I noted I was right. There were papers scattered around her and she represented an island within the sea of bad handwriting. She sat cross-legged with her back leaning against the tan leather recliner and the coffee table within arm’s length, her last generation Mac laptop resting on top. She looked like a lazy Saturday morning with her baggy sweatshirt, black sweatpants, and fuzzy zebra print slippers. Her blonde hair was swept from her face and tugged and twisted into the messiest bun, though she made it look stylish. You could see her chestnut eyes regarding me with a small smile taking on her thin lips.

“What’s up?” I nodded the question to her while crossing my arms over my chest and leaning into the threshold. The question fell informal, inconsiderate, and quick. I knew she hated it, and that’s why I indulged.

Clearing her throat, she arched a perfectly waxed and darkened eyebrow at my tone. “Hello.”

I mimicked her by clearing my throat. She was taking the route of small talk. This wasn’t going to end well, I could already tell. “Hey mom,”

“Any plans for tonight?”

“I don’t know, maybe. We’re still discussing.”

This picked her interest. “Oh? What kind of plans would you need to discuss?”

I pulled my left shoulder into a shrug and sighed noncommittally. “Luna was talking about going to this club. It’s a sixteen to twenty club, so no pedophiles or rapists or alcoholic beverages allowed.”

She laughed at this, her eyes crinkling closed in obvious amusement, yet it all was a mystery to me. “No, no way. A club? What’s got you even considering this?”

I shrugged again, and suddenly I was playing devil’s advocate. “It’s better than wasting life like its nothing. You act like you didn’t have some kind of fun when you were my age. Dad told me about the raves and the forest parties.”

Her once serene chestnut eyes darkened to a livid and threatened brown. She straightened her back and leveled her chin—much like I had done earlier today, mind you—and clipped her tone. “Well, that was back in the eighties, kiddo. Times have changed, chivalry is dead, and you should lead by example. Look how much of a bust mine and your father’s marriage turned out to be. Do you really want yours to turn out like this?”

My own anger and irritation flared, causing my voice to rise and my tone to darken. “I’m going to a club, mom. It’s not like I’m marrying the first guy that plants his hands on my hips. It’s just a little fun. Something, by the way, that I’ve been missing a lot of because you two decide to fight all day long and I have to play peacemaker.”

“Watch your tone with me, little miss,” she snapped, snapping her fingers at me like I was the household dog instead of her daughter. “Your father may mind your tone, but I’m not weak like him. Respect me, and I’ll do the same for you.”

I grunted, pinching the bridge of my nose so hard that I could feel the air flow cut off. “I’m not one of your errant students, mom! Don’t treat me like I am. I’m two weeks shy of seventeen. Let me be a teenager, let me date guys, let me make mistakes, and let me correct them! Just let me—live!”

I hadn’t noticed when I’d started screaming, but suddenly my ears burned, my cheeks flushed, and my eyes felt like they were bugging out of my head. My arms were flailing and my foot was stomping like a five year olds. Still, she sat in her spit-spot form like a perfect military child and continued to just study me from her spot on the floor. It was starting to piss me off.

“Are you done? Honestly, Sadie, you are a hair’s breadth away from two weeks grounding. Do you really want to test me?” her tone was dark and gruff and surreal. So, when I just stared at her lamely, she repeated harsher, “Are you done?”

Continuing my cold stare, I whispered into the stagnant air, full of wrinkled papers and red marker, “You’ve forced me to pick sides for two years now. Count them—two. All I’m asking—pleading—for is one night of teenage normalcy. Just give me one night!”

Now, there was cold, detached silence that not even the music on mom’s computer could dissipate. She stared at me with controlled anger, and I stared at her with uncontrolled pleads. I wouldn’t be the first to break the silence, and she was just as tenacious as me. Though, I won.

She’d caved first by pursing her lips in a sucked-in sneer and growled, “Get out of my face, Sadie Lynn. Go to your room and stay there.”

I spun on my heel so fast, the world tilted and twirled with me before I made a quick paced break for the stairs. I took them two at a time and tried not to slip down them or lean on the wall for support. When I finally reached my door, a migraine had returned and I whipped my head to the side, staring down the stairs and to the opening of the living room.

Twisting the knob and pushing the door closed behind me, I fell against it for a few suspended seconds before darting to my closet doors.

I threw them open and trailed my fingers against all of the denim and cotton and polyester before ripping down black bleach-blotted skinny jeans, a white skin tight camisole, a black lace see-through crop top, and black ankle-high heel boots. I started ripping my sweater from my head, followed by the black tank top beneath it and replaced with the shirts. After that, I sloshed out of my jeans hastily and tugged and jumped into the other pair. I pushed into my shoes and whipped back into an upright position, staring Luna dead in the eyes.

“Sizzling, chick, you are on fire!” Luna screeched, kicking her legs every which way before bouncing herself from my bed. “Oh god, we’re gonna have so much fun tonight! I can’t believe she said yes. I heard you screaming, but I didn’t think that’d break through her iron armor of hatred.”

I turned my back on her and faced my mirror, picking up mascara and insistently applying it.

“About that,” I began, “I’m grounded.”

I glanced up at her reflection and, sure enough, the mask of complete shock had her mouth hanging open, her eyes wide, and her hand in her hair. “Excuse me?”

I nodded, repeating, “I’m grounded for two weeks.”

“And you’re still going to go out?”

Such disbelief stained her voice, turning it scared and worried and unpredictable.

I nodded again, popping my lips when I said: “Yep.”

“But,” she began, paused, then emphasized, “She’ll take an axe to your neck. It’s like suicide or something.”

“You were right, Lune. We never do anything fun. Honestly, the word is foreign to me, and that’s not fair. We’re going out tonight, we’re dancing with boys, and we’re having fun.” I spoke in giddy release, my voice shaking as it tumbled from my lips and I stared at her in the mirror.

She stared back as I applied thick black eyeliner, making my greyish green eyes pale out to a nearly colorless minty green. I batted my eyelashes, drying them and stared into my eyes, into my reflection. She didn’t say anything, but that cunning smile took her lips again, and I whispered, “Do you have your car tonight, or are we catching a bus?”

Making her way towards my dresser, she stopped at the halfway point, pushing her skater shoes back on and shrugging into her jacket. “Oh, I’ve got the Jetta tonight. It’s all mine, baby. Are you ready to slip out?”

“Slip out?” I echoed, turning around toward her so she could fully see my arched eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Luna confirmed, “Slip out. Sneak out. Do some barrel roll towards the back exit. Tie bed sheets together and scale the side of the house. You know, all sure methods of not getting caught?”

I shook my head. “How about walking out the front door and calling it a night?”

She pursed a lip and ran her hands through her cropped hair. “You know, you’re no fun. All of my ways at least put a little pizzazz on the grand exit.”

“We don’t need a grand exit, dear Luna, we just need to walk right out the door. I’d rather make a statement than make an ass out of myself.” I said as I shrugged on my leather jacket with a diagonal biker zipper. “Ready?”

Luna shrugged and bit into her lip, that worrisome stare turning more realistic within this moment. “If you are,”

With that, I flicked my ceiling light off and pulled my door open. We walked down the hall, down the stairs, peered into living room, and walked right out the door. She might have called after me, but I couldn’t hear her. She might have run to the door, but I couldn’t see her. She might have called me repeatedly, but I couldn’t care.

For the first time in a long time, I was exposed to the bliss and adrenaline of getting caught and I was inhaling the haughty feeling of waving my hand at the very thought. Tonight, I was going to experience, I was going to replenish, I was going to live.

______________________________

Nearly an hour later, we pulled up to the warehouse that had messy neon painted scrawl scribbled over the door. Enigma. It suited the rundown shack that was at least two acres in width and one in length. All of the windows were covered in thick black paint and the grass had worn away to gravel beneath car tires, puking teens, and shoes kicking and sloshing the lawn apart.

As we walked, our breaths drew out in opaque clouds of fog and our jackets couldn’t keep the shudders out of our covered limbs and our shoes crunched the hard ground and kicked rocks to fill the silence that sat between us. She knew what I was going to ask, and I knew she was going to deny, deny, deny.

Once halted behind a small line of people, I turned toward her, her glossed lip turning chapped because of the dry winter air. “I thought you said that this was a teen club.”

“I-It is!” she spouted too quickly, coming to her own defense against my piercing eyes. The one night I come out, I happen to hop in line to an off-the-charts club. Great. “Just wait, Sadie. Just because appearances deceive you don’t mean that it isn’t what everyone says it is.”

My eyebrow wagered its way up my forehead as I stared at my tall friend, my head shaking as my wavy locks shook stiffly in the chill of March. I didn’t say anything else. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and turned toward the back of a tall brunette who gabbed with her friend. She didn’t look twenty-one, but time could also be on her side.

Once they went in, it was only a couple more minutes before the bouncer leaned away from the threshold. He was tall—maybe a few inches past six feet, and had an eyebrow piercing. He had a head full of dishwater blonde hair, somewhat thick arms, and a slim torso. Overall, he didn’t look anything like a bouncer off TV did. He wasn’t bald, he wasn’t hulking and toned, his skin wasn’t bronzed and gleaming under the red lights that followed up the hallway just beyond him, his arms weren’t crossed over his chest. In the end, he didn’t really look threatening like I expected him to.

“IDs?” he asked, his pierced eyebrow twitching upward in challenge.

I gaped at him for a moment. His voice wasn’t raspy and thick and dangerous sounding, it was actually calm and soft. Luna pinched my hipbone enough to make me jump. Gasping, I grappled for my ID in my back pocket.

Gathering our IDs in his hand, he flicked his eyes from mine to hers and handed them back to each of us in turn before moving away from the doorway. “Have fun, girls.”

Grabbing my arm like I was blind, Luna charged us forward and down the dark hallway that had black velvet wallpaper and red lights overhead. Laughing at my reaction, Luna shook her head and patted my shoulder. “What is wrong with you?”

I shrugged, “That just wasn’t what I was expecting to find as a bouncer. To tell the truth, he doesn’t make me feel safe and protected here.”

“Oh, don’t complain.” Luna punched my arm and steered me over to a table along the far side of the left wall. She stripped out of her jacket and laid it over her purse in the seat. “There is no complaining when you want to have fun. Face it, chick, you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Narrowing my eyes at her, I stripped out of my jacket and placed it in the chair opposite of hers. She had on a form-fitting black and red plaid dress that stopped just above her knees with a pair of white ripped leggings beneath it. She looked flawless in her own deranged beauty, one that was unique and could never be copied. I envied her in these fine moments.

Reaching out, she took my hand and pulled me towards the dance floor, which was down a three-stepped staircase and nearly an acre itself in size. There was a DJ that hovered above everyone else and strobe lights that flickered the colors of the rainbow. The air was saturated and warm with the smell of smoke, sweat, and cheap perfume. The walls vibrated and the music was so loud that I couldn’t even remember how to think.

The ground was one huge blacklight, refracting all color from the strobe lights and sending back its exact opposite. It was like one huge rave, complete with the DJ suspended above us, the glow stick bracelets, and the pumping bass drops that electrified the air with all of its mixed scents that seeped deep into our pores. Hydrating us within its ascent, I felt the music move through my limbs and my bones, pulling my arms over my head and swishing my hips from left to right, like I was a puppet and it was my master.

My eyes closed and my head dipped forward, my hair making a curtain and encasing me within its Strawberries & Cream scent to block the one that was thick with body odor and perfume.

I don’t know how many songs passed—maybe it was one that continued on towards forever, or maybe it was a series—before I peeked through a split in my hair to see Luna grinding against a tall guy with dark brown hair but eyes silver like the moon. His mouth was buried in her neck and her head was lazily tipped against his shoulder, her hand in his hair and his hand against her hip.

That was the same moment I felt someone’s hand move over my own hip, rubbing the bone to gather my attention. His lips were at my warmed ear in that second, his chilled breath hitting the heat that radiated from my skin. “Care to share a dance?”

His voice was familiar. It was calm and soft, but raspy and deep, it chimed like a melody but reminded me of waves hitting against a cliff wall. Suddenly, it wasn’t my shampoo clouding over me, but his saltwater scent, mixed with the musky soil of the earth. He was every element exploding into one. His touch on my skin was like fire, his breath was like newly created air, his body was like the earth, and his movements were lucid like water.

Stepping back once to put my leg reversely between his own, I tipped forward slightly to align my body against his, allowing him to steer me. I already knew without turning to look that it was him, the nameless shadow that had covered my day in immense thought. He was back, forcing me to remember our encounter today, to remember his clear threat, to remember the way he’d looked at me before everything became surreal.

My hand framed over his, clearly smaller, even in the black room, twisting my body like a snake, clever and swaying and free, I allowed him to guide me. Pictures formed behind my eyes, ones from before my time in a room much like this, yet with ball gowns and limited touching. Pictures of a forbidden romance filled in where they gazed at each other from across the room, waiting for the moment when they could share just one dance with each other.

And in between the haze of the music, his hand on my hip, the dace we were entangled in, and the nineteenth century ball behind my eyes, I tried to ravage my brain from where I knew him. Because that was the thing—I knew I knew him, whether he was forthcoming by that or not. I knew I’d seen his eyes before, I knew I’d heard his voice, I knew I’d tasted his skin, and I knew I’d felt the cold ground of somewhere foreign where he stood in the middle of the night.

Now, I could feel his fingers grip the edge of my shirt, causing me to twirl around on the pad of my heel and tumble against him from lack of balance. Swiping my hair over my shoulder to stare down in my face, it was like that scene from this morning had never happened. It was like, the moment I saw his silver eyes, everything prior to this had been erased.

“What causes you to think so hard?” he mouthed against my lips. Even if he had spoken, I don’t I would have heard him.

Just when I was about to beg to hear his name, a migraine erupted against my temples, shooting in every direction and skyrocketing down the back of my spine. I screamed, but it couldn’t have been heard over the thumping music. My knees went weak for a second as I went slack against him, my hands groping and searching for anything to hold onto. All I found was the edges of his T-shirt.

“Sadie?” he yelled over the rush of the music, the roar of the blood rushing through my ears. That was the last thing before my eyes rolled to the back of my head and everything except for the echo of his voice faded to nothing.