In Memories We Trust
Part XII
I can’t see a happy ending to this story; there’s just no way out of this pit you left me in after you died. Y’know how hard it is to live with myself after that night? I practically sent you to your death, no, I did send you to your death. This isn’t a fairytale; there’s no godmother or Prince Charmings, no flick of a magic wand can make this disappear. They always said the world was a mean and cruel place, and that to survive you had to find your own way, but I never could have imagined this. This feeling of being so utterly alone and lost that it makes even the strongest weak and the grown men fall to the ground and pray for mercy.
And even if a happy ending was in sight, something would go wrong before I ever got there; it always does. Things were getting better before your death (…well, they weren’t getting worse), and then you had to go and drink yourself into a stupor and get yourself killed. It becomes almost a game of waiting; waiting for something to go wrong, for someone to get hurt by the selfish actions of one girl.
Brian’s next, I can feel it. He’ll be the third to suffer for my sins. Three souls is three too many.
I let Brian’s gentle fingers wrap around my arm and guide me out the front doors. I could see the sunlight before I could feel it, and as soon as the automatic doors whooshed open and let a tidal wave of heat wash over me, I wished I had never seen it. Days of nighttime gloom and indoor darkness meant the sudden yellow surrounding me was all that brighter. My pupils dilated instantly, and I squinted to ease the pain, but there was no relief. Brian’s hands found mine and he led me across the pavement, down a curb, across the street, and held the door of a beat up black car open while I stumbled and tripped my way into the seat. I leaned back against the black cloth seat and sighed, the pounding in my brain had resumed and the heat and light was making it no easier to cope with. He closed the door deftly behind me and walked around to his side of the car as I let my eyelids slowly close over my aching eyes.
“Raven….Raven, come on.” Brain’s gently voice sounded in my ear and he shook one of my shoulders in an attempt to wake me from my much needed slumber. As my mind drifted back to the land of the conscience, I considered my surroundings.
A few broken shutters flapped wildly about in the nonexistent wind, but other than that, the mansion before me was beautiful. Painted a dark gray with a black wraparound porch and black doors and windows, the house was something straight from a horror film; I half expected bats to come shooting out the door at any moment. Leading to the house was a small walkway winding up a short incline, jagged and broken in places, but as eerily beautiful as the rest of the house. Trees with bare branches reached and clawed at the sky with their finger-like limbs, swaying in more nonexistent currents of air.
I reached over and wrapped a hand around the handle of the door and let myself out of the car. We must have driven a while because the sky was a darker shade of orange now, instead of the pulsing yellow of before, and it was cooler. I breathed in the scent of the old and broken house deeply and sighed.
“Yours?” I asked, referring to the house. Even my voice sounded bigger and stronger out here, more like it should.
“You could say that,” Brian replied slyly. I knew better than to question his statement and merely allowed him to take me by the hand and lead me up the cracked sidewalk to the front door. “We’ll be living downstairs. They never turned electricity off, so the kitchen and bathrooms still work, but the upstairs is dangerous. I almost fell through the floor yesterday,” he offered me a crooked smile. I glanced briefly at his eyes and noted the deep amber color they’d become.
“Great,” I said, genuinely happy for the first time in months. Every moment it seemed more likely that this was a dream and that I would wake up.
“All things that go up must come down,” I reminded myself, unfortunately out loud.
“What?” Brian asked, puzzled.
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head and biting my lip. He reminds me of you, Troy. A lot.
And even if a happy ending was in sight, something would go wrong before I ever got there; it always does. Things were getting better before your death (…well, they weren’t getting worse), and then you had to go and drink yourself into a stupor and get yourself killed. It becomes almost a game of waiting; waiting for something to go wrong, for someone to get hurt by the selfish actions of one girl.
Brian’s next, I can feel it. He’ll be the third to suffer for my sins. Three souls is three too many.
I let Brian’s gentle fingers wrap around my arm and guide me out the front doors. I could see the sunlight before I could feel it, and as soon as the automatic doors whooshed open and let a tidal wave of heat wash over me, I wished I had never seen it. Days of nighttime gloom and indoor darkness meant the sudden yellow surrounding me was all that brighter. My pupils dilated instantly, and I squinted to ease the pain, but there was no relief. Brian’s hands found mine and he led me across the pavement, down a curb, across the street, and held the door of a beat up black car open while I stumbled and tripped my way into the seat. I leaned back against the black cloth seat and sighed, the pounding in my brain had resumed and the heat and light was making it no easier to cope with. He closed the door deftly behind me and walked around to his side of the car as I let my eyelids slowly close over my aching eyes.
“Raven….Raven, come on.” Brain’s gently voice sounded in my ear and he shook one of my shoulders in an attempt to wake me from my much needed slumber. As my mind drifted back to the land of the conscience, I considered my surroundings.
A few broken shutters flapped wildly about in the nonexistent wind, but other than that, the mansion before me was beautiful. Painted a dark gray with a black wraparound porch and black doors and windows, the house was something straight from a horror film; I half expected bats to come shooting out the door at any moment. Leading to the house was a small walkway winding up a short incline, jagged and broken in places, but as eerily beautiful as the rest of the house. Trees with bare branches reached and clawed at the sky with their finger-like limbs, swaying in more nonexistent currents of air.
I reached over and wrapped a hand around the handle of the door and let myself out of the car. We must have driven a while because the sky was a darker shade of orange now, instead of the pulsing yellow of before, and it was cooler. I breathed in the scent of the old and broken house deeply and sighed.
“Yours?” I asked, referring to the house. Even my voice sounded bigger and stronger out here, more like it should.
“You could say that,” Brian replied slyly. I knew better than to question his statement and merely allowed him to take me by the hand and lead me up the cracked sidewalk to the front door. “We’ll be living downstairs. They never turned electricity off, so the kitchen and bathrooms still work, but the upstairs is dangerous. I almost fell through the floor yesterday,” he offered me a crooked smile. I glanced briefly at his eyes and noted the deep amber color they’d become.
“Great,” I said, genuinely happy for the first time in months. Every moment it seemed more likely that this was a dream and that I would wake up.
“All things that go up must come down,” I reminded myself, unfortunately out loud.
“What?” Brian asked, puzzled.
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head and biting my lip. He reminds me of you, Troy. A lot.