chapter fifteen

For the second day in a row, Miri and I left campus, but this time I put her in my car. We still went to Lucy’s though. It just seemed like the right place to go—at least my autopilot seemed to think so.

I laid Miri on the couch, propped her on a few pillows with a blanket tucked around her. Her body had begun to quake, even her eyelids twitched. She’d barely said a word since we left school, but I hadn’t been too chatty either. I mean, what could I say to her? That I was a bitch? I think she already knew. That I had no social skills whatsoever? Pretty obvious from the get-go.

So I let the autopilot take over and sat back in the time-out corner of my brain while I watched my body do all kinds of things and felt the spark grow. Like smoothing the hair off Miri’s sweaty forehead. Or holding her hand tightly between mine and whispering little words of comfort.

When I offered her a sip of whiskey, pilfered from Lucy’s cabinet, she whipped her head to the side.

“No!” She gripped the blanket in her fists and twisted so hard I thought her fingernails might tear the yarn apart. “I can’t,” she gasped between panting breaths.

“It’ll help.” I knew it was true, too. The same way I knew anything just before I needed it, like driving a car, or sky diving—not that I’d ever tried sky diving, but I knew I’d be able to do it like a pro if I ever did. “Just a little now. Then a little in a while. We’ll cut back, but it’ll help you with the pain.” True. All true.

Miri drank the amber liquid, wincing as it went down. She let out a long sigh and opened her eyes. “Thank you.”

“For what?” I dabbed a cool cloth on her forehead and cheeks, while she watched me, her thoughts unreadable.

“Because you didn’t have to do this. You don’t even know me.” She put her hand on my wrist and I stopped what I was doing.

Her sky-blue eyes weren’t shining like I knew they could, but already they were a little clearer. A little less psycho. I shrugged, and immediately remembered how Lucy hated it when I shrugged. You got somethin’ to say, you say it, baby, she’d always said.

“Well, you helped me yesterday.” I breathed out, then spoke again without censoring. “And sometimes it’s easier to help someone you don’t really know—someone who can’t judge you because they don’t know you.” Truth. That was truth. But it wasn’t my truth—I didn’t know anything about friendship.

Miri bobbed her head and laughed, and even though the sound was strained, it still made me smile. “We’re quite the pair, huh?”

“Yeah.” And I laughed, a real laugh. Something I’d only ever done with Lucy. The hairs on the back of my neck rose and I shivered. For a moment it felt almost like she was there, trailing her long fingernails across my shoulders like she sometimes did.

Miri’s gaze travelled to a pair of Mardi Gras masks on the wall. “I bet she was really awesome,” she said, her voice a reverent whisper.

I rocked back on my heels and looked around. “You have no idea.”

“Tell me more about her.” Miri pulled her feet up and scooted so she was sitting higher on the couch. I sat down in the space she’d made for me and after looking around, I told her everything else I knew.

How she never let anyone make her do anything she didn’t want to. How she stood up to Daniel even though I knew senators and judges who didn’t dare tell Daniel what they really thought. Not Lucy, though. Lucy’d won her scariest battle when she’d run away from her dad at sixteen. She said nothing would ever be as scary as that.

My thoughts skipped to the night at the gazebo, and how I doubted she still felt that way—there was something scarier than her dad. But then I thought, maybe she was right anyway. Nothing was more frightening than my father—not even me.

But I didn’t go there. I just told Miri how strong Lucy was. How much I admired her.

“She was a lot like you,” I said when I finally finished. And I did feel Lucy’s presence then. Like a kiss on my cheek. You done good, baby. You done good.

I called Miri’s house to talk to her mom, but the maid on the phone said she wasn’t available. Even when I told her Miri was really sick and that she was going to stay over at my house because she’d fallen asleep on the couch, the lady just said okay.

“Typical,” Miri said through clenched teeth. “I don’t even think Mom would come to my funeral if there was something better to do, like a fundraiser or something.” And the way she said it—not with sadness or regret or any of the things I might have expected, but with acceptance, with truth—made me speechless.

I didn’t bother calling Daniel. Let him worry. Let him have to answer to Father. Besides, Father could find me if he wanted—but I had a feeling that, like Miri, no one would miss me much tonight.

By midnight, Miri’s shakes had subsided and she’d fallen into a deep sleep. I couldn’t bring myself to lay down on Lucy’s bed, so I pulled the downy white comforter from off of it and curled up in the chair across from the couch. I slipped in and out of wakefulness as I kept watch over Miri. Dreams danced at the edges of my awareness, but I didn’t stick around long enough for them to reach me.

Asleep or not, I couldn’t get away from thoughts of Michael.

“Wake up,” Miri said, shaking me a little on my shoulder. “Desi.” When I opened my eyes, and saw her standing over me, her hair flattened on one side and wild on the other, she said, “You were dreaming.”

“Oh,” I said, sitting up and pulling the comforter more tightly around me.

Miri ran her thumb over my cheek, wiping a tear I didn’t know I’d shed. “And by the sounds of it, it wasn’t very good.”

I shrank back from her touch. “Sounds of it?” I tried shaking my head to clear it of the fogginess—what had I been dreaming about?

Miri backed away and sat on the edge of the couch, pulling the blanket over her lap. She looked at her feet, then out the window which was showing the first hints of daylight—she seemed to look everywhere but at me.

“Miri. What did I say?” I knew my voice was too harsh, but if I’d said something about Father or Hell that could hurt her, endanger her, I needed to know.

She shook her head sharply. “I’m not sure. You said a few things—mainly about already chosen and . . . I couldn’t make much sense of it. Something about becoming, but you didn’t say what. Mostly you were just crying, like whatever it was you were dreaming about was really, really sad.” She raised her chin and her eyes met mine. “And you said something about Michael—only, it wasn’t anything happy.”

She cocked her head, as if considering me all over again. “Do you know him? Like, from somewhere else?” I just stared at her, not sure what to say. “Because, it seemed like more than just a little crush—did he hurt you? Before?”

Had he hurt me? Because I did hurt.

But no, it hadn’t been him who hurt me. It had been all me. I must have sided with Loki in the Great War. I must have chosen him over Michael, because how else would I have ended up with him as my father?

Except, why would I ever have chosen anyone but Michael?

“Desi?” Miri prompted in an oh-so-quiet voice.

I took a deep breath, then another, trying to push the last remnants of the forgotten dream, and thoughts of Michael, far from my mind. “No. He didn’t hurt me. And yes, I know him.”

Miri was quiet for what felt like an eternity, but then she said, “Okay.”

“Okay,” I said.

We sank into an uncomfortable silence while the sun rose and warmed the room with golden beams. It made my heart ache because Lucy had told me how she always greeted the new day with yoga on her balcony. She’d said it was the best time of the day, the time she felt most wholly herself.

Without thinking about it, I stood, letting the comforter slip to the floor. I stepped onto the balcony, and closed my eyes as the sun bathed my face. Flashes of the balcony in Hell—the endless tiers of eternal damnation and the fires that burned so cold you wished they would just consume you—filled my mind.

But there was Lucy’s yoga mat. And there was the sun. And here was where Lucy greeted each day. Here was where Lucy felt like herself.

I didn’t dare hope I’d find my own self there on that balcony, but I unrolled the mat anyway and sat down, face turned into the sunlight. I felt, rather than heard, Miri join me. We sat there together, eyes closed, hands resting lightly on our knees, letting the sunlight prepare us for a new day. Miri took a deep breath, followed by a long, low sigh. I copied her and felt the spark flare and the cold recede.

Miri’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out of the pocket in her rumpled skirt. She snapped it closed without responding. Her hands shook as she stuffed the phone back into her pocket.

“What is it?”

“My mom.” She let out another sigh, but this one didn’t sound quite so relaxed as the one just before. “She says the school called yesterday about my absences the past couple days. She says I better get my butt in school, and stay there, or I’ll be in big trouble.” Miri attempted a laugh, but it did nothing to hide the fear that had replaced the hope I’d seen shining in her eyes.

“Are you feeling any better? Can you even go to school?”

“Oh man.” She pulled her trembling hands through her hair, somehow making the flattened mess look better. I watched her profile, the way her cheeks rose and her eyes crinkled when she smiled into the sun. She sighed again, this time more deeply, more cleansing. “Yeah, I’m feeling okay. Tired, but okay.” When she turned to me, her blue eyes caught the sunlight and shone like cut crystal. “You have the magic touch, I guess.” Her smile deepened and a dimple appeared in her left cheek. “Thank you, Desi.”

Her open expression knocked me off-kilter and I looked away. I didn’t know what to do with that much honesty. I closed my eyes against the sunlight, and against Miri’s questioning gaze.

“Well, we’d better get going then, I guess.” Miri stood and brushed at her horribly wrinkled skirt. “I’ve gotta stop back home at least to get a decent uniform.” She checked her watch and took a sharp breath. “Damn. We don’t have much time.”

I took that as my cue to get the hell up, so I jumped to my feet and hurried through rolling Lucy’s mat, then hustling into the living room. I didn’t have time to put the comforter back on her bed, but I folded up the blankets. I just couldn’t leave Lucy’s apartment a mess—it didn’t feel right.

Forty minutes later I drove up to Miri’s house to pick her up—her car was still parked in the lot at school. I’d gotten home, changed—without seeing anyone, a miracle—and come all the way back to get Miri in record time.

When she dashed out of the house and hopped in the car, I gaped. “Uh, aren’t you supposed to be dressed for school?”

She was wearing jeans and a St. Mary’s sweatshirt.

“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry! I totally forgot until I got home.” Miri stared at me, like I was supposed to be able to figure out what the heck she was saying. “It’s a game day—a football game. We don’t have to wear our uniforms just so long as we’re wearing school spirit stuff.” Her words tapered off as she considered me, sitting there in my prim white blouse and navy blue sweater, my chaste plaid skirt and black Mary Jane’s. Then she broke into a huge smile and jumped out of the car.

“Come on!” she called, dashing for the house.

I hurried after her, not sure what she was up to, and getting more and more worried by the minute that we’d be so late for school Miri’s parents would be sure to hear about it.

When the front door closed behind me, Miri called, “I’m upstairs!” I followed the sound of her voice, and the sound of dresser drawers slamming shut, up to her bedroom on the second floor.

Even though I knew what her room was like, the reality of it still hit me like a slug to the gut. Once I stepped inside I felt the Shadows reaching out to me, stroking me. Familiarity pelted me with shivering ice. There was a part of me—a big part, apparently—that wanted this, that wanted to be worshiped and adored, like I was in Hell. Like I belonged to them.

Miri must have mistook my silent trembling as something else because she stopped what she was doing and looked around her room, as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh,” she said. “I should have warned you. I actually kind of forgot.”

She picked up a shirt from the ground, dislodging a bottle that had been hidden inside of it. The bottle rolled across the floor then bumped against the foot of Miri’s bed. She laughed—though there wasn’t a shred of humor in it. She was embarrassed. Ashamed. I knew those feelings.

And beneath it all, was Miri’s want.

I realized, just then, how similar we were.

We both wanted something we hated—Miri the liquor, me Hell.

And it all equaled the same thing. Without some divine intervention, Hell was exactly where we’d both go. Only there, Miri would live an eternity dying of thirst but forever unable to quench it. And I’d be forced to inherit a kingdom I despised.

Well, there wasn’t anything that could be done about me, but there was still a chance for Miri. There was still hope.

“You could always paint it,” I said. Miri stopped searching among the clothes and froze for a second. “The walls, I mean. You know—if you wanted to.”

“Yeah.” She made a sound like a squeezed accordion.

She stripped off her sweatshirt and held it out to me. “Here.” I started to question her, but before I could she had another one, a little faded, poised above her head. “Come on,” she said. “Put it on—I’ll get you jeans in a sec.”

I took off my sweater and shirt and pulled on the sweatshirt instead. It felt so good that I smiled. It was probably the most comfortable thing I’d ever worn. If I owned something like that I don’t think I’d ever take it off.

“Here, I think these’ll fit,” Miri said, handing me a pair of faded blue jeans. I dropped my skirt and pulled them on.

“Yeah, they’re great!” I felt different in these clothes, like I was someone else altogether. Like I was Miri. Except when I looked around, it didn’t seem like even Miri could feel good in a room as dark and gloomy as this. I nodded my head. “This weekend—we should paint your room this weekend.”

Miri looked at the bottle on the floor. She reached out her toe, as if she’d kick it under the bed, but then she pulled her foot back. “Yeah. That’d be good.” She turned her back on the bottle before walking past me and out the door.