Six
Elias
My breath catches. Those charms. They’re flashing between dark blue and yellow. His smile shakes, his eyes holding onto mine. Bright and purple. This is what he really looks like. He’s not blond at all. And he still has my hoodie on. I thought I recognized it, reaching down to his knees, hanging loosely over his slender form.
He leans against the counter, purple nails looking more like claws digging into the wood. “Well . . . You gonna tell me or not?”
“How . . . Why are you here?”
His eyes cast downward, and he glances toward the bathroom. “I came to see my friend, but I didn’t realize you worked and lived here. I hadn’t had a chance to wander outside your apartment. This is a nice coffee shop.”
His gaze flicks to the speakers hanging on the ceiling and he rocks his head to the beat of the song playing. “So, is that it?”
I shake my head, still unable to believe my eyes. Every bit of his exposed skin is purple. All smooth surfaces except for the cracks along his cheeks. I can’t stop looking at him. He’s more captivating this way than he was in . . . I guess it was some kind of disguise he was wearing. Why didn’t he show up as himself? Was he trying to keep his identity a secret? He isn’t doing a great job by letting me know who he is now.
What does a person say to his sleep-paralysis demon? How is this even real? How is he real?
“Is it some secret? I gotta say, I expected to get a response a lot easier and quicker from you this way.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” I cross my arms. “I don’t really have a favorite song.”
“Movie?”
“Not really.” Everything I once enjoyed became a blur after my brother’s death. I was no longer sure whether they were things I enjoyed or things I just did because he loved them, or because Brody loved them. Now I no longer want to do any of it. Watching those movies, going to those plays, and fishing aren’t the same alone. Neither is painting and designing lures as a side hobby, because Adam had encouraged me from the sidelines, helping me pick colors.
When I was sitting on the dock beside Arien, I was falling back into familiar territory, and for a minute I forgot why I hadn’t touched a fishing pole in a year. Why all my airbrush paints and wood-carving tools remain boxed up.
“Color?” His eyes shine under the bright lights and he stares harder at me.
“I guess, blue.” Although purple is looking pretty good about now. Wait . . . what? No, I can’t seriously be attracted to someone who makes people believe he’s a hallucination. Someone who shows up in people’s lives unannounced . . . Someone who . . . who almost made me forget why I didn’t deserve to smile and laugh.
“And what about games? Do you like swimming? Maybe some other kind of hobbies? Do you have favorite memories? There were only so many I could gather from journals, old videos on your phone, and pictures.”
“What? Are you looking through my things? That’s an invasion of privacy.” Yet I have this strange urge to invite him in to learn more about who I once was and now am. He’s also the first person I’ve come across who actually wants to understand how the two parts connect—how and why I’ve got to where I am now. He’s the only one aside from Amy who’s trying to find the old Elias. But that side of me is gone. He lost way too much and everything else slowly faded with it.
I can’t find a point to any of it anymore.
“Yeah . . .it’s what we all do,” he stammers. “I mean, my approach is a little different from the norm. Usually, we find out what frightens you or makes you angry—your worst nightmares and fears—and we feed off the bad energy from the people we visit. But I’m trying to channel all the good. I think doing so will help you relax easier when you try to sleep and you won’t dread closing your eyes so much.”
“Why do you think I’d want that?” I was doing so well not wanting to reach for those small mercies. I was more welcoming of the pain and torment. Then he showed up and reminded me how good life could feel. Reminded me how much I missed it. But when I think about laughing and enjoying being in the sun at my favorite lake again, an ugly sensation crawls into my stomach. The guilt takes over and I see my brother’s bright, shining eyes close. I see his arms reaching for me as crumbling metal swallows him whole.
“I just figured most people would.”
“You figured wrong,” I say between clenched teeth. I should have been the one to die in that accident. Not him. I don’t remember our last words to each other or our last moments together before he died. I didn’t see him slip away; I was spared the bad memory. I was spared everything. It’s not fair for me to be spared from the nightmares too.
Lowering his head, he grabs the bottom of my hoodie and pulls it over his head. “Here’s this back. I’m sorry I took it. I meant to put it back before I left but had other things on my mind.”
“What about the candy you took? Did you not mean to take that either? And do you happen to know what happened to my Biscoff cookies?”
He shuffles from side to side, pushing the hoodie closer to me with his bottom lip slipping between his teeth. “I planned on giving all that back too. And once I can get to the store again I—”
“There you are,” Kyvian says, brows bunching together as he glances between us. With a curious expression, he tilts his head. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I was just asking for a cup of water. I don’t know how humans handle that much caffeine in one go.”
Grabbing a cup, I fill it with ice and add the water next. Two sets of eyes watch me as I set the cup on the counter. “Here you go.”
I almost leave my hand there when Arien reaches for it, wanting to see if that buzzing sensation will be there the same as all the times he touched me in my sleep, rubbing me on the arm and sliding his fingers in my hair.
Physical touch was always my favorite. Something I didn’t get much from Brody in the end. I’m not sure he was ever really very affectionate to begin with, but it was definitely one of my love languages. Adam would even joke about how he’d never met a man who liked to be hugged as much as I did. All these details about me are in my journals. Did Arien read everything? Did he read about the days Brody and I fought about stupid shit and how he purposely slept in the guest room to get back at me.
It worked too. I can’t forget how cold the bed was whenever he was away from it for too long. Once he showed me the difference between being wrapped in a warm body and lying alone, I struggled to go back to how things were before we moved in together.
“Thanks.” He lifts the cup and walks back to the table, Kyvian following closely behind him as he eyes the hoodie on the counter.
“Wait, isn’t that yours?”
Arien’s feet stop moving forward and his fingers tighten around the cup as he turns to look back at me. Those eyes pin me in place, and for a second I feel as paralyzed as I was in bed earlier when he was in my house. “No, that’s his. I borrowed it earlier today and forgot to give it back.”
Yanking the hoodie off the counter, I drag my gaze from his, missing those soft-purple irises melting into mine when I walk to the back. They’re chatting behind me, their words nothing but mutters in my ears the further I walk away. I don’t know how Kyvian reacted when Arien told him the hoodie was mine. I couldn’t focus on anything else but him. It was like nothing else existed but my little purple demon.
Wait . . . Did I say mine? I scrub a hand over my face, sighing deeply. Then I take another deep breath, letting all emotions roll off me when I think about how I used to call Brody that. It took over a year before I did, and here I am using it with a man I barely know. Setting the hoodie on a hook next to Ian’s jacket, I lean against the wall as a dizzy spell hits me. I close my eyes and open them again, steadying myself on my feet as I do my box breathing.
Once I’m able to free myself from the oncoming cataplexy episode, and the weakness in my knees lessens enough for my legs to take me back to the front, I relieve Ian for his break and notice that Arien is gone. After gathering cleaning supplies, I approach the table he was at with Kyvian and stop, dropping the rag when I spot a note in the center.
Looks like I’ll have to guess what your favorite things are. I think I’ll have fun doing it too, and maybe you’ll get some laughs out of how many times I get it wrong.
Your sleep-paralysis demon, Arien.
Yours. That word sticks out to me the most out of everything else in the note. My heart does this weird flutter thing, and I read the word a few more times in my head, not connecting it to anyone else but him because even though I called Brody mine, he never did say it himself.