Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
You Were Burning Alive
The ocean stretches out in front of me as I let my legs give out, slipping my toes underneath the sand. This didn’t feel like running anymore, but sprinting full speed ahead of a tornado. Pushing myself to burn all my energy until my anger is just ash. All I feel is my exhaustion.
I’m left talking to myself on the beach, dry heaving in between words.
“The worst part is—” I exhale. “I tricked myself. I played the game so well that I actually believed for a second he might have feelings for me.” A quick huff of laughter escapes me as the waves crash louder against the shore.
A few feet from me, I spot a couple, making out, wrapped in a burgundy blanket. So deeply in love that it’s as if a light is forming around them.
“Is that—” I cock my head to the side as the light only grows more intense, swallowing the couple whole as it grows. The light is a brilliant blue and blinding. Halos are forming in my vision the longer I stare at it.
A girl in a white slip dress approaches me as if she is walking right through it.
“Skye?”
“Charlotte,” she says back to me softly.
“Why did you disappear after the memorial?”
My voice shakes as she steps fully into view.
Skye looks different. Not older in the obvious ways.
There are no wrinkles nor gray hairs, but her face looks refined somehow.
The air around her feels heavier, like it’s carrying something unspoken.
She stands straighter, shoulders back. No sign of the reckless teenager I remember.
I can’t put my finger on what it is exactly, but it unsettles me.
“I was giving you time.”
“For what!” My voice jumps an octave as Skye starts to pace back and forth in front of me.
“To do the thing that I’ve been begging you to do since I showed up—” she says in one long breath.
I scratch my head, digging my feet further into the sand.
“You never needed me. This chant you keep hearing—a luz sabe, duas almas incompletas, uma guia a outra. My dad would tell me about the pendant and the stories that went along with it. I hate how I couldn’t understand what it meant until recently.”
A small tear slips down her cheek as she points to the pendant wrapped around my neck.
“It translates to ‘the light knows two incomplete souls. One guides the other.’ If you really want to understand how this translates to you, just think about who you were before the fire.
“Did you ever notice everyone else was allowed to have problems… except you? You never acknowledged your own. Never allowed yourself to speak any louder than a whisper. Turns out, you are kind of an angry person, Charlotte.”
“I’m an angry person?” I repeat, stunned.
“You kinda are. You never told anyone how you felt. You kept it all inside like you were burning alive.” Skye lets out a soft, hollow laugh. “Take it from me, it’s an awful experience.”
Even though she is laughing, all I see is her body devoured whole by the flames. Fire curling around her like it’s claiming what already belongs to it.
“I didn’t know I was doing that…” My sight’s only on the grains of sand.
I’m really glad this beach is basically empty, because I’m wiping my snot-filled tears from my face and shaking uncontrollably. I’m not even cold.
“I guess I thought at first the pendant chose you because you watched a girl die in front of you, and most people would be traumatized. Except you just went back to managing people.”
My chest tightens.
“But then I remembered something my dad told me that my great-grandmother would tell him about the pendant… Those who run in fear of what they want need a little more of a push to see it.”
“Because the light knows…” I fill in.
She smiles faintly. “You are catching on.”
“It’s not that I didn’t care about you dy—dying,” I stammer, barely getting the last word out.
“I know, Charlotte.”
Skye bites her lip and crouches down to my level.
“Just promise me when you leave this life that you leave a version of yourself that people actually knew.” She pauses, watching the curved wall of water grow suddenly taller. “Nobody deserves to get to know a half-baked version of you because you are too afraid to show the real thing…
“And Holden?” she adds.
“What about him?”
“Don’t forget to tell him.”
“About the visions you showed me?”
“Yeah, and your feelings…”
“Right, my favorite topic. Feelings.” I stifle a laugh, turning my head to the couple that I am able to see again, a few yards in front of me.
“Speaking of feelings, those dreams you showed me… the one with your dad yelling at you and you on stage… Why did you show me?”
Skye flops her head back and returns to standing over me.
“Oh, that. I guess the pendant wanted you to see what was haunting me.”
“I guess I couldn’t imagine someone like you having anything bother you,” I say.
“Everyone has their demons. Up until recently, I kept repeating the conversation my dad and I had before I left for college. He wanted me to stop dating a boy I liked at the time and be more practical with my career choices. I’m stubborn and wanted a BFA, and didn’t care for anyone who got in my way. ”
“And now, how do you feel?”
“I feel less weighed down by it. That my dad”—she looks away toward the ocean—“loves me.”
In true Skye Silva fashion, she switches the subject back to me.
“You don’t only exist to hold anyone else together anymore. I don’t need to be on a stage to know people cared about me,” she whispers.
The ocean breeze is hitting me sharply as the ocean waves are growing in size. The wind barrels around Skye, leaving me stunned. I know for sure this is it for us as the sand beneath her is rising from the ground, swirling her into thin air.
“Thank you,” I murmur, collapsing back into the sand. I lay my back flat against it to get a clear view of the sky that she has now disappeared into. Counting each bright light. Little stars that were born years and years ago, only now showing their faces tonight.
By now, Holden would be done with his interview. I pull out my phone and scroll through the comments to check how it landed.
After reading about fifty comments, my finger hovers over his name and presses the call button. It connects immediately.
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
The silence that follows is thick and awkward. He clears his throat a few times as he starts to formulate his thoughts.
“I am sure you saw it,” he says.
Any anger I felt an hour ago has faded at the sound of his voice.
“I did.”
This is first-date energy, where you are unable to move past the tension that is so easily cut with a knife.
“What’s it like to be the most charming man in America?” I blurt.
“I don’t know about that, Char.”
“It’s true. Looks like the podcast did its job.”
“About the podcast…”
“I’m actually calling you because I can’t quite figure it out.”
“What do you mean?”
“You went from holding my hand to shutting me out. Then declaring to the entire world how important I am to you. It’s a bit disorienting.”
“I slipped up, Charlotte. I’m not a great guy, as you saw.”
“Flawed, yes. But I don’t think you’re as cold of a person as you let on.”
“I’m sorry about what I said, Charlotte.”
“I appreciate you apologizing. I just want you to know for certain that I was real to you. This was never fake for me. Maybe I lied to myself that it was, but—”
“But what?”
“I realize how I could actually be myself around you.”
“You were real for me too, Char.” Holden lets out a nervous laugh. “So, what now?”
“I just need you to take care of yourself. You are going to do remarkable things, Holden. Just try to open yourself up more—to people. And I’m going to try to do the same.”
Holden’s breathing grows heavier over the phone. A moment of silence to take in what I just said.
I can hear him take a big gulp before he says, “I meant what I said on the podcast.”
“What?”
“You could be standing in a corner of a crowded room, and I couldn’t not notice you.”
“Holden,” I whisper, “take care of yourself.”
Just like that, our conversation ends, I pick myself up to walk alongside the ocean, feeling the wet sand between my toes.
As the wind picks up, I shove my fingertips in my jean pockets for warmth. I feel the cardstock on my right side.
When I pull it out, I reread what she wrote me:
444-5673—I’m available even in the middle of the night if you change your mind.