Chapter 15 #2
She steps into the elevator and points at me. “Breakfast. Friday. Or they will find out about your deception.”
I roll my eyes so far back I can see my brain. When I blink my gaze back to normal, the shuttering elevator doors have closed over my lovely grandmother.
Nadia isn’t around when I get home after work, to absolutely no one’s surprise. But I am pretty startled when I spot Adam sitting on the porch.
He stands when I approach, his hands in his pockets. His eyes are serious, and deep, deep blue. I almost stop walking when we make eye contact, but with sheer power of will, and remembering the hurt he caused me, I hold my head high and say, “May I help you with something?”
“I’m sorry.” He shakes his head. “Sky…I’m sorry. I said things that were hurtful, because I was trying so hard to be neutral. I shouldn’t have.”
It’s not quite enough for me, this apology.
I look at his eyes again before settling my focus between his eyebrows instead.
Most of the time, direct eye contact is a bit much for me, but emotional situations like these?
It makes me feel like an alarm is going off in my body.
“What do you mean, you ‘shouldn’t have’?
You shouldn’t have said hurtful things or you shouldn’t have tried to be neutral? ”
“Both,” he responds simply. “It was disrespectful to expect you to show me your gift like it was a magic trick. But also…” He glances down and back at me.
“I try to approach my stories with, as cliché as this sounds, an open heart. I aim to trust that what someone is telling me is their truth. I admit, some of the things you said startled me, and so I—”
“Got a nasty, arrogant tone,” I supply.
“That. Yes. But.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slip of paper. “When I got home last night, I wrote out a list.” He swallows.
I switch my weight to my other hip. “Okay…”
He sits back down on the porch step and makes a gesture for me to join him. I have to admit, he’s piqued my interest, so I sit next to him, keeping as much space between us as possible.
I glance at his paper and read the title. “ ‘A List of Impossible Ghostly Things.’ ”
He chuckles. “Yes.” He clears his throat and he begins to read. “Number one. The night my mother died, I felt her kiss me on the forehead. I smelled her perfume. The next day, I found out she’d already been gone when I felt these.
“Number two. Sometimes I see my grandmother’s shadow in Gramps’s home. Kind of like when you round the corner and you see that someone is there but you don’t see them yet? Like that. I’ll see the shadow, I swear I can almost hear her humming in the kitchen, but when I walk inside, no one is there.”
As he speaks, I can almost see what he’s remembered in my own mind. His mother’s perfume, violets and roses. William’s wife, singing a little tune as she cooks in her apron. It’s almost as though these memories become Alive Things and walk through me.
“And lastly. Um. This is possibly the weirdest one.”
I fold my arms. “Go on.”
“A couple of times…two years or so ago, at Gramps’s, when I stayed with him to help him recover from the flu?”
I clear my throat now. That was the time when I’d been spying on him the most. I’m still not exactly proud of the fact. “Yeah?”
“I saw eyes.”
I swallow. “Eyes.”
“Yeah. Like in midair. I’d see a pair of eyes watching me. Brown ones, I think, but they were kind of faded. I thought I was losing my mind, but then they stopped.”
My heart is beating a little faster. Could it seriously be true? Those times when it seemed like Adam was looking right at me? He sensed me?
“I’m telling you this, Sky, because I want you to know that I understand there are things about this world that don’t seem to make sense.
That, you know, ‘Western civilization’ ”—he makes air quotes—“denies can exist. People experience shit all the time that is downright miraculous and magical—I would know, I’ve interviewed plenty of them—and we go on with our lives as though magic doesn’t exist.” He glances at me and I feel a pang in my heart when I realize that he’s tearing up.
His eyes are glassy. “I don’t wanna live that way anymore.
Convincing myself that magic…that things that cannot be explained… can’t exist. You know?”
I nod. Although I can’t relate to living as though magic doesn’t exist, I can understand wanting something more than what seems possible. Wanting meaning. Belonging. Because this is what my gift, what my magic brings to me.
“Anyway. I just want you to know that I’m going to trust that, you know. What you’re telling me—it’s the truth.” He laughs. “The weird thing is…” He then shakes his head, as though deciding against telling me what’s on his mind.
“Say it.” My voice is gentle and firm.
He nods. “The weird thing is, ever since you started telling me…about the creation of this world. Of all the worlds. And about your experience, being taken and cared for by old gods. It all felt true. And I think that’s what bothered me the most. How can something feel true in my body but still not make sense in my brain? ”
“It’s another ‘Western civilization’ thing.” I put my hand over his, where it lies on his knee. “The idea that consciousness is in the brain. My family knows that the whole body is conscious. Just like the whole earth is, and everything on this earth.”
Adam laughs and covers his face with his other hand. “See. What you just said. That feels true, too.” He shakes his head and drops his hand. “I’m sorry, Sky. I hope you can forgive me.”
He opened his whole heart to me just now, in a really vulnerable way. I think he’s sincerely humbled over what transpired between us at Cranberry Falls. Adam is flawed, but he’s also trying. I can accept that. “I forgive you.”
“Yeah?” He says it like he wasn’t expecting it at all, his face bursting into that wide smile that makes my knees feel like they’re gonna give out, even though I’m literally still sitting.
“Yeah.” I reach behind me for my bag and pull out two tickets to the summer festival Nadia forced upon us only a few days prior. “Wanna hit up the festival tonight?”
“Sure.” He smiles as he stands and offers his arm.
I take it to help myself up, and for some reason, I wrongly estimate my ascent.
As soon as my legs have straightened, I realize I’m close to him.
Too close. I can smell the salt and nutmeg of his skin.
I can see his freckles more clearly than ever before, how they’re all as perfectly round as planets.
Finally, I allow myself a glance at his lips.
Peachy-pink. A freckle hovering on the right edge of his top lip. The bottom just a touch fuller.
Adam clears his throat and I toss my gaze right down to my handbag, where I’d left it in a plop on the step.
Before I can grab it, Adam says, “Sky.” His voice is husky in a way that makes the blue moths, all one hundred billion of them, return to my stomach instantly.
I glance at him, and his breath is slightly heavy, as though he’s nervous, or…
aroused? “Sometimes, the way you look at me…” He trails off and shakes his head.
“Yes?” I ask.
“Never mind. It’s nothing.” He angles his head toward his car across the street. “I’ll drive?”
Inside his car, he taps his fingers on the steering wheel at red lights, seemingly lost in thought.
I want to ask him what he means, about the way I “sometimes” look at him.
I’m well aware I was staring at his mouth too long.
Does he think I want to kiss him? If so, I’ve caught him looking at my mouth with even more frequency. Does that mean he wants to kiss me?
In a stunning turn of events, I realize I am much too shy to ask for clarification. Normally, I don’t care about hurdling over codes of social decency if it means I’ll understand what the hell is happening. But not today, Satan. Not today.
We get out of his car—Adam rushes over to open my door wide for me—and take in the scene.
The main parking lot of the church has been turned into, for all intents and purposes, a carnival.
There are rides, including bumper cars and a small Ferris wheel, and loads of vendors selling treats like fresh caramel popcorn, candy apples, churros, and elephant ears, both of the latter covered in mountains of powdered sugar like snow.
The smell of fried food surrounds us like a cloud of deliciousness.
“Where do you want to start?” he asks.
I smile. “Well. I am starving, if I didn’t mention that earlier.”
“Food it is.”
Adam insists on buying me my dinner of choice—nachos, covered in radioactive, glow-in-the-dark spicy cheese dip.
He gets a turkey leg for himself, and we sit on a bench right in front of the Ferris wheel, watching the blue, purple, and green lights of it twinkle like dancing UFOs in the oncoming night.
“So, is anything new with you?” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Besides dancing in the woods with pelicans and dolphins—”
I laugh. “Okay, neither of those live in the woods. But…” Now I’m the one clearing my throat. “I think I met someone.”
Adam immediately drops the pile of napkins in his fist. “Shit.”
I jump up to help him collect them. I pull out the hand sanitizer, and after we are germ-free, we return to our food. “So you met someone,” he says, and then he attacks his turkey leg with what can only be described as violence.
I furrow my brow at him. “I mean, maybe. He seems interested in me. And…he’s definitely sexually attracted to me.”
Adam frowns. “What do you mean, definitely? He told you that this early on, but you don’t even know if he’s a romantic prospect yet?”
I shrug. “Sometimes you can just tell if someone wants you or not. You know?”
He doesn’t respond, instead opting to tear another slab of meat from the poor turkey leg.
“Anyway, I was just thinking. If he and I…ever…you know.” I raise my eyebrow as Adam frowns at me again, even deeper this time. “I was wondering, since you’re a man. And I’m interested in a man’s perspective and experience. What’s the best way to give a man a really great orgasm?”
Adam’s mouth is super full, so it takes a minute before he can speak. “Uh. Are you sure you’re okay talking about something like this with me?”
I shrug. “I guess, I thought we were supposed to be friends. Don’t friends give each other advice on stuff like this?
” I blink. “Unless—oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think that you’d be uncomfortable with—okay.
Subject change. Ummm.” I force my brain to come up with something else to talk about, quickly, but all that comes out is a jangle of words.
“Duck confetti. Tree mothers. Knitting! Knitting. You like knitting, right?”
Adam smiles. “All that. Everything you just said. Especially the duck confetti. All ways to give a man an orgasm he’ll never forget.”
I stare blankly for a moment, and then I snort-laugh.
I laugh so hard, I have to bend over a little bit.
Just imagining seducing a man with…duck confetti?
Whatever the hell that even is? I double over entirely, imagining shiny little duck papers flying down from the ceiling of my bedroom in front of some bewildered man.
I’m wiping my face by the time I am able to get myself upright again.
“Jesus.” He looks at my face all over, as though he’s seeing me for the first time. “I feel like I would do anything to get you to laugh like that.”
Before he can say another word, a man and a woman walk up. “Adam!”
Adam stands, doing a strange half hug with the man, and then a real hug for the woman. “Hey, Doug. Fatima. How are you guys doing?”
After a moment of small talk, he turns and introduces me. “You all know Sky.” It’s not a question, given the smallness of our town and the largeness of my reputation. I’m glad Adam says it with warmth, even smiling at me as he says my name.
Fatima also offers me a big smile, but Doug blinks at me, as though he isn’t sure what to say. “Huh.” He turns back to Adam and keeps talking as though I’m not there.
I sort of expect Adam to redirect me into the conversation relatively soon, but maybe it gets a bit too difficult, because all of a sudden, a big group of people find their way to us, everyone weaving in and out to greet Adam, loudly and drunkenly.
I don’t mind being on the outside looking in at times like these.
Most of these people seem…I don’t know. Superficial, I guess.
They don’t seem to know Adam. They don’t know that Adam is the most gentlemanly man in the whole town, someone who will grab your groceries or open the door even if it’s clear you don’t need help.
They don’t know that when he laughs, his eyes sparkle, like they’re made of sapphires caught in riverbeds in Montana or something.
They don’t know that he always checks in on his grandfather, even if William is feeling just fine.
They don’t know Adam. And judging by the way Adam’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes—thus not one Montana sapphire sparkle in sight—I think he feels that, too.
But Adam makes no effort to extricate himself. And that’s when I spot another small group of men walking up, including…oh gods. Including Grayson Baker.
My heart begins to beat so fast, I can feel it wanting to jump out of my chest and splatter all over the floor.
The last time I saw Grayson, I was half naked in my bedroom, allowing my crow brethren to attack him. I repeat the memory of him shrieking in my mind like an incantation. I’m the powerful one here. He’s the one who should be afraid.
But maybe time has made him return to his arrogant ways, because when he sees me, he smirks. And then he looks at me down and up, and up and down, and winks.
I’m hyperventilating by the time that wink happens.
And Adam has been pulled into the massive group of people.
It’s so loud. Even if I’d shouted his name, he wouldn’t hear me.
The sounds of people shouting and shrieking press in on my chest and I feel like I can’t breathe even more.
I’ve got to get out of here. That’s what my body keeps screaming to me.
So I do the only thing I can think to do.
I turn and run.