Pain
III.
I lulled in and out of a dreamless—thankfully—sleep to the sound of Adrian's favorite underground metal band. Each time I woke up, I did so with a smile on my face, because each time I woke up, I was another couple of miles closer to Jack. I couldn't help feeling a little guilty for conning Adrian and Livy into this. But no matter how awful I felt, my separation from Jack would always be worse. Ever since we began seeing each other three years ago, we hadn't been apart for more than a day or two. People thought it was remarkable, especially for a high school relationship, that Jack and I never grew tired of each other. Somehow, we didn't. Even as little children, we were inseparable. To this day, I remember in perfect detail the day I met Jack. It was the first day of kindergarten. I sat with a couple of classmates, playing with colored wooden blocks. There were letters on the blocks, but I couldn't read them. My classmates and I simply stacked up the blocks as high as they would go before the tower tipped over. Then we all laughed merrily and set to work building up the tower again. We were having a lot of fun. So much fun that our game attracted most of the rest of the class. They took our example and all began to make towers of their own. Pretty soon, all of the blocks were gone, and no one wanted to salvage his tower to help build someone else's. So we went hunting for more blocks, and we found them in an unstacked pile in front of a small, orange-haired boy, who was arranging them in horizontal rows and appeared to be concentrating very hard on it. Some children began to take his blocks, but I sat down next to him. Somehow, his game seemed more interesting to me than mine had been. I asked the boy what he was doing. He said that he was spelling. Jack can't remember anymore what exactly he had been spelling, so I guess I'll never know, but I do know what he spelled next--it was a homonym of my last name, Peign. We exchanged introductions, and Jack started to rummage through the blocks, muttering to himself, "Taleila Peign... Taleila, Taleila... T, Taleila..." He chose the letter he called a T, and then he stopped. Seconds later, he put the block back and started over, this time, muttering, "Peign... Peign, P..." He quickly arranged the letters, then looked up at me, smiling proudly. "Peign, P-A-I-N." I studied the blocks so hard that it took ages to learn the correct spelling of my name. I studied them so hard that I still remember what color each letter was. P was red, A blue, I purple, and N green...
My eyes still closed, I reached around blindly for my root beer. To my surprise, I felt the epidermis of my hand scratch against cement. I opened my eyes at once to find that I was lying on a sidewalk. I noticed just then that it was scorching hot out, the merciless sun beating down on my arms and face, and on the ground all around me. I shielded my eyes from the sun, which was creeping up over the tall buildings on the other side of the street.
No snow, I thought randomly. No snow on Christmas. We must have made it into California by now. But Adrian, Livy, and the car they rode in on, were nowhere to be seen. Probably, I figured, they were watching me at that moment, having a good laugh at my expense.
"Assholes," I muttered, standing and brushing dirt off my jeans.
Something caught my eye all of a sudden, a quick black blur from behind an umpteenth story window across the street. Although I hardly saw it, I felt it was one of my friends. And anyway, even if it wasn't, I decided, the joke's on them, because now they'll have to find me.
I darted through the traffic, almost being hit by an SUV, and passed through the building's doorway. The interior reminded me of an apartment complex, except there were no rooms that I could see. All that was among the beige-ish walls and oak flooring was a winding staircase that appeared to go on forever and ever. I sighed and began to climb.
After a number of minutes of feeling like I had made no progress, as if the staircase really had no end, I started to tire and stopped to lean against the railing for a break. My foot slipped, and I nearly tumbled over the rail to my death, but I caught my balance just in time to get myself back into an upright position. My heart thudding inside my ribcage, I looked up and noticed that the ceiling was only thirty feet, at most, above my head. I took another lap around the winding staircase, and sure enough, there it was, a great wooden door with an intricate bronze knob. Without bothering to knock, I pulled open the door and stepped inside.
I was greeted by the friendly smell of old books. Grosses of shelves, twice as tall as myself and a hundred, maybe a thousand times as long, filled from end to end with unlabeled books, decorated the huge area. Who puts a library on the top floor of a building, where the only way to access it is by use of an endless staircase, I wanted to know.
But I had a feeling it wasn't really a library, or if it was, it hadn't been used in a very long time. The books were covered in a thick layer of cobwebs and dust, and the whole place was dead silent. I wandered down the rows of books, my every step sounding like the bang of a low drum.
"Adrian?" I called out. "Livy?" The only response that came was the echo of my own voice.
Suddenly, I heard an animalistic noise, a grunt or a snarl, from just ahead. A mystifyingly beautiful jet black wolf stepped out from behind a shelf, tail first, paying no attention to me as it dragged something across the hardwood floor. Shock swept over me as I realized that, between its jaws, the animal was carrying a human foot. My brain seeming to suspend my motor skills, I watched the wolf's kill appear, inch by inch. Ripped, bloodied jeans over strong, masculine legs. A tattered shirt attempting to conceal a torso just as tattered. I didn't want to admit it, but even in its sorry state, I recognized this body. For someone who had spent so much time admiring it, it was unmistakable. Still, I looked on with horror, desperately hoping to be proven wrong.
I saw only his jawline before turning away. It tortured me to look at Jack like this. The able-bodied, cunning, always-resourceful Jack, who had damn near saved my life on a number of occasions, could not be dead. If he was, it only could have meant one thing: I was doomed.
I heard the thud of a limp limb falling onto the floorboards and echoing through the capacious library. Reluctantly, I turned to face the snarling wolf, who had temporarily forgotten Jack, and now trained its radioactive yellow-green eyes on its appetizer—me.
My eyes still closed, I reached around blindly for my root beer. To my surprise, I felt the epidermis of my hand scratch against cement. I opened my eyes at once to find that I was lying on a sidewalk. I noticed just then that it was scorching hot out, the merciless sun beating down on my arms and face, and on the ground all around me. I shielded my eyes from the sun, which was creeping up over the tall buildings on the other side of the street.
No snow, I thought randomly. No snow on Christmas. We must have made it into California by now. But Adrian, Livy, and the car they rode in on, were nowhere to be seen. Probably, I figured, they were watching me at that moment, having a good laugh at my expense.
"Assholes," I muttered, standing and brushing dirt off my jeans.
Something caught my eye all of a sudden, a quick black blur from behind an umpteenth story window across the street. Although I hardly saw it, I felt it was one of my friends. And anyway, even if it wasn't, I decided, the joke's on them, because now they'll have to find me.
I darted through the traffic, almost being hit by an SUV, and passed through the building's doorway. The interior reminded me of an apartment complex, except there were no rooms that I could see. All that was among the beige-ish walls and oak flooring was a winding staircase that appeared to go on forever and ever. I sighed and began to climb.
After a number of minutes of feeling like I had made no progress, as if the staircase really had no end, I started to tire and stopped to lean against the railing for a break. My foot slipped, and I nearly tumbled over the rail to my death, but I caught my balance just in time to get myself back into an upright position. My heart thudding inside my ribcage, I looked up and noticed that the ceiling was only thirty feet, at most, above my head. I took another lap around the winding staircase, and sure enough, there it was, a great wooden door with an intricate bronze knob. Without bothering to knock, I pulled open the door and stepped inside.
I was greeted by the friendly smell of old books. Grosses of shelves, twice as tall as myself and a hundred, maybe a thousand times as long, filled from end to end with unlabeled books, decorated the huge area. Who puts a library on the top floor of a building, where the only way to access it is by use of an endless staircase, I wanted to know.
But I had a feeling it wasn't really a library, or if it was, it hadn't been used in a very long time. The books were covered in a thick layer of cobwebs and dust, and the whole place was dead silent. I wandered down the rows of books, my every step sounding like the bang of a low drum.
"Adrian?" I called out. "Livy?" The only response that came was the echo of my own voice.
Suddenly, I heard an animalistic noise, a grunt or a snarl, from just ahead. A mystifyingly beautiful jet black wolf stepped out from behind a shelf, tail first, paying no attention to me as it dragged something across the hardwood floor. Shock swept over me as I realized that, between its jaws, the animal was carrying a human foot. My brain seeming to suspend my motor skills, I watched the wolf's kill appear, inch by inch. Ripped, bloodied jeans over strong, masculine legs. A tattered shirt attempting to conceal a torso just as tattered. I didn't want to admit it, but even in its sorry state, I recognized this body. For someone who had spent so much time admiring it, it was unmistakable. Still, I looked on with horror, desperately hoping to be proven wrong.
I saw only his jawline before turning away. It tortured me to look at Jack like this. The able-bodied, cunning, always-resourceful Jack, who had damn near saved my life on a number of occasions, could not be dead. If he was, it only could have meant one thing: I was doomed.
I heard the thud of a limp limb falling onto the floorboards and echoing through the capacious library. Reluctantly, I turned to face the snarling wolf, who had temporarily forgotten Jack, and now trained its radioactive yellow-green eyes on its appetizer—me.