Pretty Faces and Dark Places Page 3

  His lips were so soft, so warm and so tender. His body was as hard as marble, as hot as a sunny day and as firm as secureness would feel if it were able to be touched. His touch was so gentle and kind; it felt almost like possessiveness and the need to-never-let-go.

  Shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t …

  I had no idea that we were making our way to the bed until the back of my thighs hit the edge of the mattress. My heartbeats raced against each other and my chest rose up and down with my shallow breaths that tangled even more when he laid me down and his hand found the zipper of my dress over my side.

  “Wait,” I said breathlessly. That little, tiny bit of my mind that was still working begged me to tell him so. “I, uh, I don’t even know your name.”

  His eyes found mine, full of passion and … it was like there was fire in them. Not the kind of fire you mean to describe excitement, desire or ache, no – fire. Like, real fire. Flames. Hot with hints of redness where only white should be. And for some reason, I didn’t think twice of it or about it. His breaths fanned over my skin when he spoke with a smile on his lips, “It’s Andrew, Beautiful Angel.”

  Andrew …

  I smiled sweetly back at him. “You don’t know mine,” I stated in a hushed voice.

  “Of course I do.” He leaned in and kissed my neck before he made his way with his lips up to my ear where he whispered, “Beautiful Maya.”

  The sound of my name falling from his lips sent shivers down my spine, and I almost lost it, but like the majority of everything that had happened that night, it was very, very strange that he knew my name. It was almost – creepy. I knew he hadn’t hear Sophie calling me by that name, since she only ever called me May, but I thought that maybe he’d heard me when I was introducing myself to Matthew? That could be it, but I couldn’t even remember if I’d told him that my name was Maya or May.

  Andrew’s mouth on the top of my left breast made me forget everything and I suddenly didn’t care anymore, about anything. The voice of reason inside my head faded with each new kiss he left on newly exposed skin. I didn’t even think twice when he whispered, ‘My soulmate’ again, the same thing he’d said to his sister, or how serious he was about this.

  “It’s so different with you,” I whispered. “With other boys I … uh, I always wish for the ground to open up and swallow me whole when they just talk to me.”

  His eyes found mine. “Be careful of what you wish for, Beautiful Angel.” Back then, I didn’t question what his words meant. But now … I do know what he meant by it. Oh, I know it so well.

  With the minutes passing, the two of us were nothing but naked bodies pressed into each other – arms pulling, legs tangled, hands touching and fingers pinching sensitive spots. My wings were a bit uncomfortable, but he wanted me to keep them on. I couldn’t find it in me then to think of the whys or whatever, I just … lived in the pleasure he was giving my body and my heart.

  Before, whenever I thought about my first time and what it would be like, I only saw roses and a night that would’ve been planned for weeks and weeks prior – maybe even months. Before, I worried about the pain I’d heard the girls in school saying that you would definitely feel. Before, I knew that that night I would worry about protection and birth control. But now, on this night, and with Andrew, nothing seemed important to me. It was like the whole world around us had stopped, with nothing but the feel of him and the need to get even closer. Anything else was a blur or even a nonexistent haze. It was all about him. Only about him.

  With every whispered ‘Andrew’ and every hushed ‘Beautiful Angel’ we sunk more into each other, drowning in passion and need and want. Hungry eyes and hungry lips made me writhe and squirm underneath him with undeniable lust and the desire for him to do more.

  Soon, but not soon enough, he found his way inside of me. Cries of pain and whines of discomfort turned into moans of need and groans that were meant to tell him to never stop. And he didn’t.

  His words in my ear, and the feel of his body so warm that it could only belong to someone with a serious fever, all made it so hard for me to hold back, forcing me to just let go, screaming the name of the man who made me see stars.

  That was the very last thing I remembered from that night. I have no idea what happened next. It was like, one second I was feeling the bliss of an orgasm and the next, I found myself in the middle of a deserted road. A road that with just a glance, you could easily tell that no one came by often, or maybe at all. The thought scared me to no end. I was all by myself, completely alone somewhere I didn’t know and couldn’t recognize, nor even know what had brought me there.

  I tried to get up but couldn’t; I felt exhausted, sore and aching. Every inch of my body hurt, and my head was pounding so hard that I wanted to scream in agony but didn’t dare to speak, as if I knew speaking would hurt. Instead, I stayed on my side, in the same position I’d found myself in when I first opened my eyes.

  The heat of the sun was almost as hot as the feel of his body when it was pressed into mine. And that was my first thought after I found myself all alone in that terrifying place. Him. And the feel of his closeness.

  With a great effort and loud groans, I sat up and looked around me, having no idea what had put me in this situation or this shape, confused and worried at the same time as to why Sophie had left me there – knowing very well that she would never do that. Fear consumed me due to the lost hours of my memory, making me scared to death of what had happened in those hours – to her or to me.

  I forced myself to get up; I knew I couldn’t just stay there and be all miserable, I had to do something to get out of there. Wherever that there was.

  All I was able to do was cry in agony as I lifted my arms the slightest just to push myself up on them, barely steadying my frame on all fours before pushing my body up to stand on my feet.

  “God! Oh, God!” I screamed my pain into the nothing that surrounded me.

  Anyone looking at me would think I was drunk, it was so freaking hard to stay steady on my feet. I kept swaying and tripping, groaning and moaning with every new, heavy step.

  I walked for what felt like ages, worry filling me from the inside out – whether I was walking in a direction that would lead me to a secure place, or if I was walking to a hell that was even worse than where I’d already been. I worried the most about whether I would be walking until nightfall, or if I was to face death soon right where I was.

  Eventually, possibly hours later, I felt like I was dying and my soul was lost and just returned to me when I heard the undeniable sound of an engine running. A car passed by, and the old woman driving it was nice enough to pull over and let me in. Maybe she felt sorry for how I looked, or maybe she pitied me for the tears on my face that wouldn’t dry. Or maybe she just did what any kind human would do for another human who was lost in the middle of nowhere, as the only option that would lead the other to their survival.

  “Oh, dear!” the lady gushed. “Are you okay, Kiddo? Do you want me to get you to the hospital?”

  “N-no, please, I j-just need to go to my house and see my granny,” I said in a low voice, my throat drier that a dead leaf in autumn, and my breaths shallower than ever.

  Luckily for me – if I could call anything that was happening to me to be something related to luck, that is – the lady didn’t ask anything further than to where she should take me. And I think that right after I gave her my address with all of the power I could manage, I passed out, because the next thing I remembered was being dropped off at my house. I didn’t even get the chance to turn around and thank her, for she left the same second I closed the car door.

  I didn’t blame my grandmother for appearing to be scared out of her skin when her eyes landed on me as I made my way through the door. She had every right to let out a cry that she tried to muffle by her hand over her mouth. After all, I was barefoot, my feet dirty and bleeding; my hair was wild and messy, and might be as dirty as my feet were. My dress alone was something e
lse – ripped, and had long since lost its white color to something near gray.

  “Oh, my God!” Nana cried out as she hurried to me, took me in her arms and wept. “Oh, Maya, I was so worried about you, Child. I thought I’d lost you. Thank you, God! Thank you.”

  Her words made my chest swell with emotion, guilt consuming me for putting her in this situation and what she’d gone through because I’d thought it was a good idea to leave late at night to have a good time outside of the house and against her will.

  Sadly, with the condition I was in, completely exhausted and drained, all I was able to do was cry along with her and utter a small ‘I’m sorry.’ And it was only when my Nana pulled back to look into my eyes, hugging my face with her hands, that I noticed that our house was filled with police officers.

  At first, I thought it was too much and Nana had overreacted by calling the police that quickly, only to be proven wrong – she didn’t overreact at all.

  It turned out that I hadn’t lost just a few hours out of my memory – the party wasn’t last night. It was a whole day gone, just like that, a whole day lost from my memory, along with the other few hours of this morning before I woke up.

  And I wish it had just stopped at that, but it didn’t – Sophie was missing, as well.

  Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, a blur of events, tears, cries, pain, and hurt. Questions wouldn’t leave my mind, the ‘what ifs’ and ‘if I’d onlys’ just couldn’t take the hint of how much I wanted them to leave me alone. The next thing I knew, the day that I would be burying my best friend had come.

  “I’m not going, Nana!” I said with the trapped tears stinging my eyes, choking me and making my heart ache even more.

  “Sweetie, you have to. You have to pay your respects,” Nana said quietly.

  “No! Don’t you people understand? She’s not dead! I refuse to believe she’s dead. What they are doing will never be acceptable to me, never!”

  They really couldn’t understand. She was my twin sister that my mother had never given birth to nor had my dad ever fathered. I’d known her my whole life. We were never ever separated from each other longer than a weekend when she had to go somewhere with her parents. I couldn’t just go and bury her … it was impossible to let go.

  “No matter what we believe, Child, you have to be there – for Sophie’s sake.”

  They didn’t understand at all. They couldn’t get me. And the heck if I was able to understand them. I had no idea how on earth burying her was something they’d do for her sake. It was for theirs, not hers. Never hers.

  Unfortunately, my tries and my whines were for nothing, because just two hours later, I found myself standing in front of the headstone to a body-less grave, holding a coffin that was empty except for photos, letters, roses, and memories.

  ‘Sophia Letterman. 1994 – 2013 A beloved daughter, sister and friend.’

  It only took two months after Halloween for everyone to lose the hope of finding her. There were no clues and no evidence. Everyone looked at me as if I were nuts; they told me nothing I’d said made any sense. They said there were no traces of any cars on the road that led to the woods. They said that Sophie’s car was nowhere near the woods. Hell, they never found the road itself that I was talking about, let alone the car. It was like nothing I’d said was taken seriously; they made me feel as if I’d made it all up. No, they did say I’d made it all up because I was suffering from a strong case of depression, or PTDS some had said.

  They decided that two earthquakes had happened on Halloween – which I’d never felt or had any idea had ever happened, by the way – and that might be the reason why I’d lost that day of my memory. They said I might’ve hit my head somewhere. They didn’t tell me why I didn’t have any bruises, though. People were happy to come up with the theory that I was on drugs, mixed with alcohol. I didn’t have the energy to tell anyone they were wrong; I barely spoke at all.

  They found nothing, and I couldn’t do anything about it. It was as if that night had never happened, and if it wasn’t for the blood I’d found on my panties when I got home, I would’ve believed them.

  Six months after the horrible night when I’d lost my best friend, Sophie’s family decided that ‘burying’ her would be a good idea, for everyone to move on, because Sophie wouldn’t want us to grieve for the rest of our lives, they’d said. Well, they didn’t know crap. I wanted to grieve for the rest of my life. She was my sister. My sister, for Christ’s sake. How could I just let go and forget? How could an empty coffin ease the pain and let me move on? They were delusional.

  Still, I did as my Nana told me. I went there, I stood still, I let my tears fall as I heard everyone saying their goodbyes and whatnot, clutching the rose in my hand for dear life, finding it so hard to just drop it like I was supposed to do. And when I did – I didn’t feel even a tiny bit better.

  That night, after so many pitiful looks and assuring words I didn’t want to hear from people I didn’t want to see, I went home. I found my bed and dropped myself on it facedown and fully dressed. Then I did the thing that had become my routine: I cried myself to sleep.

  I felt hands on my body, soft touches and warm fondles. I gripped the sheets beneath me at the feeling I was having. My bed itself was getting warm from the heat I was feeling, heat that filled my whole body and surrounded us.

  “Andrew,” I whispered his name.

  I felt him. All of him. His lips. His hands. His warm-like-the-sun body. His whispers and his smell. He was on top of me, kissing his way up to my lips, and I smiled into them before kissing him back. He paused and I opened my eyes to see his looking deeply into my own and I had to smile again, but my smile fell as I watched the perfect shade of green turn into red, red, red until it became fire. It was scary, so scary that my heart started pounding in my chest so hard, almost stopping when suddenly, huge black wings spreading out appeared behind him.

  I woke up screaming and sweaty, looking around me at the empty room, searching for any evidence that would tell me that what I had experienced wasn’t just a dream. Because if felt like anything but. It felt so real, so real that it was seriously hard for me to think of it as anything but that – reality.

  That was the first night those dreams started, or better yet – nightmares. Those nights, I missed Sophie more than ever, for I needed her like I could never describe. I would wake up every night and talk to the nothing that surrounded me. Talk to her as if she was listening. I would ask her, ‘Where are you?’ Or plead with her to ‘Come back to me.’ I never got a reply.

  School wasn’t my favorite place on the planet; her empty seat in this class or that was enough to get my tears rolling out of my eyes for the rest of the school day. It earned me looks and hushes, whispered words about the poor girl who’d lost her other half. It drove me insane.

  On the outside, I wore a blank expression, had an emotionless face and only spoke when spoken to. My replies were short and my voice barely ever above a whisper. Everyone knew I was suffering. You’d have to be blind not to see how I was dying day after day and night after night. But even if you were blind you’d know it. Sadness was reeking out of me in strong waves. Hitting everyone within reaching distance. Everyone knew.

  From the inside, I was going crazy. I was a crying, sobbing mess, still. Only hundreds of times more than what people could see. From the inside, I was screaming. At everyone. Including myself. I wanted everyone to leave me alone, to stop talking about me. They didn’t even know me – why would they talk about me? I wanted my mind to stop asking questions and wondering about the everything and the nothing. I wanted my heart to stop longing for her so much. I wanted to let go. Her parents were able to, why couldn’t I? Why?

  From the inside, I was mad more than I was sad. That’s a lot, I might add.

  Home was no better than school; she was there everywhere I looked. Every-freaking-where my eyes would glance, I’d see her. In the kitchen where she had her breakfast – cereal and milk, always
cereal and milk. In the living room where we would play video games or watch a movie with my feet on her lap. In my bedroom where we shared the same twin bed almost every night – she was a kicker and a blanket thief. On the desk where she would sit while studying, ‘because that’s how I rule’ she would say whenever I might ask why she was acting so crazy. Everywhere held a memory of her. Everywhere.

  I missed her dearly. It hurt more with every new day. It hurt so much to the point I wished she’d had an accident or died from sickness, because then I would’ve known she was dead for real, at least. But this – this was much, much worse. Because I still hoped. And hopping made my chest hurt hard, and my heart bled even harder.

  “Andrew?” I gasped, sensing him near me, but my eyes were so heavy I couldn’t open them.

  “Maya, my beautiful Maya,” I heard his deep voice whispering near my ear. I shivered and tried my best to open my eyes but couldn’t. My entire body was tingling. It was an awful feeling, just like the one you get when your legs fall asleep and you try to stand up. It tingles, it hurts. Not so bad, but it’s not a pleasant feeling, not at all. My whole body felt like that, but it was stronger near my neck and in the middle of my back. Stupid sensation that I hated and just wanted it to end.

  “Andrew, where I am?” I asked him.

  “In your bed, Beautiful Angel,” he replied, his voice so close that I even felt his flames-hot breaths fanning over my face.

  “I – I can’t open my eyes,” I told him, and heard a chuckle that sounded like one only the devil would let out. It was dark and cold. Darker than a moonless night and colder than ice.

  ‘‘You’re so pure and innocent. It’s going to be so hard to tame you to fit into my world, but it will happen – no matter what,’’ was what he said in response. An answer that made my blood run cold and for my breaths to become shallow.