Chapter 102
Davian
Two Ghosts
snowfall (Slowed + Reverb)
?neheart, reidenshi
I pushed open the patio door, stepped outside, but paused when I spotted her at the railing.
My heart calmed down a little, though I couldn’t help but notice that she was pulling her midnight-blue coat tighter around her body while shivering and gazing out into the distance of the garden.
The dim, warm light from the neoclassical brass wall sconces bathed the patio in a warm glow.
The slight frosty winter wind played with her hair.
I was jealous of the wind. Of the sun. Of the rain. They all did such beautiful things to her body. Things that made me watch until I had to force myself out of my trance.
Cautiously, I stepped closer, slipped behind her, let my hands wander to her waist, listened as her breathing quickened when I pressed myself against her, eventually pulling her close and letting her rest her head against my chest.
Being able to hold this woman triggered one of the most beautiful feelings I had ever experienced. As if I were holding the world in my hands.
A fragile plant that had grown in the wrong habitat, and which I now wanted to see blossom under my utmost care. For whom I would give everything. Whom I would protect with everything I had.
While Lara had said goodbye to Monica and taken a final tray of cinnamon rolls out of the oven in the kitchen, we had sat by the crackling fireplace, and she had looked up at me, tracing the contours of my face with her delicate papyrus fingers until I had closed my eyes and savored her touch.
Out of nowhere, she had let go of me, stood up, and said she needed a moment, and I had nodded and watched as she had slipped into her coat and disappeared outside. For five minutes. Then ten. Then twenty...
With every passing second, worry had crept in, growing more and more insistent, and I had decided to go check on her.
Something seemed to be on her mind. And I prayed it wasn’t her goddamn father.
I leaned down to her head and pressed a kiss to her hair.
That was the moment she wrapped her cool hands around mine, causing me to draw in a shaky breath and welcome the pleasant chaos in my stomach.
I pulled her hands into mine, wrapping mine around hers, ready to give her all my warmth, and she exhaled deeply.
“Could it be that we’re overwhelming you?” I asked gently beside her head, following her gaze up to the stars.
“No…” She shook her head slightly. “No, it’s not that. Christmas is just… something I have to get used to.”
It stung uncomfortably in my chest to know that this was her first Christmas with people who wanted to make sure she was okay. For whom she wasn’t a burden.
“Is there anything we should do differently next time?”
Whatever it was, I would give it to her over the next few days. The next few years. I would make sure that Christmas became something for her that she wanted to remember.
Usually, that was Lara’s attitude when it came to holidays and celebrations. But she seemed to have rubbed off on me somehow. Probably because, until I had turned twenty-three, I hadn’t had a proper Christmas either.
“No. It’s lovely, Davian.” Her voice broke, making me look down at her. “Your Christmas is so incredibly lovely. That’s the problem.”
There was so much pain in her voice that I turned her toward me, stared at her tears for a moment before pulling her tightly against me.
Her cold hands found my chest, her fingers digging into the navy red Christmas zip-up turtleneck sweater Lara had given me, and her breathing calmed with every passing second.
The Silence
Manchester Orchestra
“Mama hated Christmas. Because she couldn’t stand that Papa left us alone,” she began. “She was so drunk every Christmas.”
I pressed my lips together, letting her press her head sideways against my chest before I instinctively rested mine on hers.
“Our last Christmas, I wanted her to feel better. It was the first Christmas I decided not to waste a single thought on my father and to pull Mama out of her destructive, downward spiral. I wanted to show her that we could make it on our own. That we were all we needed. That everything would be okay as long as we were there for each other.”
After everything that had happened to her, she had remained so damn strong. Had gotten back up time and time again. Without me. Without Lara. My feather had risen on her own from the ashes under which this existence had tried to bury her.
“I took all the money that had been in my piggy bank and went to the supermarket, got all the ingredients needed to prepare those German dishes she’d always told me about. Things her parents used to make for her at Christmas in Germany. I wanted to try them. With her.”
She breathed shakily against my chest, clinging to me tighter.
“I wished for just one Christmas where she wasn’t drunk. Where she was there. For me. Just one.”
Tears welled up in my eyes, responding to the pain in her voice.
“I came home with two full grocery bags. As usual, the house was dark. We had no decorations. Papa had destroyed everything when I was seven, and Mama had never bought new ones.”
Even the orphanage where I had grown up had had Christmas lights…
“I thought she was asleep. It was so quiet. I wanted to surprise her, tried to cook these recipes.”
She laughed softly, but the pain didn’t fade from her voice.
“I was so bad. So goddamn miserable.”
I knew she didn’t like cooking or preparing food, even though she loved to eat.
A combination that now made sense. She’d had to learn to prepare food early on, but had failed at it because she hadn’t learned it out of interest, but out of necessity to survive.
And she liked to eat when we cooked because no one had ever cooked for her.
“Mama loved music all her life, so I wanted to put on some Christmas music for us. But then…”
Her voice broke unexpectedly, which made me pull her closer to me.
“…when I walked into the living room…”
Quill shook her head. More and more violently.
“She just stared at me.”
A sob escaped her throat.
And it tore me apart from the inside.
“She was lying there, just staring at me. Her eyes… I’ve never seen so much emptiness and truth in a pair of eyes, Davian.”
She sobbed again, harder, letting her arms wander into my coat until she wrapped them around me, clinging to me as if she needed it.
“I thought she hated me. Until I noticed how pale she was.”
Her sobs against my chest grew more and more uncontrollable.
And the horror of realization ate deeper and deeper into my consciousness.
“The CD fell out of my hand…”
There was so much despair, so much pain in her sobs, that I just wanted to take it away from her.
“To this day, I don’t know if I really made it to her. All the bottles had tipped over when I dropped to my knees in front of the couch… She was so cold. She was so cold, Davian…”
Her last words died in a sob so heart-wrenching that I pulled her head close to me, pressed my lips against her hair, and let the tears flow.
This wasn’t fair.
Her mother, the woman who should have been there for her, had left her forever on Christmas.
“I… She…”
“Hey…,” I whispered, running my fingers through her hair, down her back. “It’s okay.”
She was shaking, sobbing against my chest, and I held her for minutes until her breathing gradually calmed down.
“I was only gone for an hour. An hour… I just wanted to celebrate Christmas with her.”
Once again, her voice choked on a painful sound, and she clung so tightly to my back and shook her head as if all of this were too much for her.
And then I realized it.
I was the first person she told.
“Just an hour, Davian…”
“Shh…”
I opened my coat, pulled her inside, tried to wrap it around her as tightly as I could, but it didn’t calm her sobbing. On the contrary.
“Hey… I’m here. Let it all out.”
I wasn’t sure how long we stood here, how long I held her like that. All I knew was that something deep inside me broke for her. Something that was meant to break only for her.
At some point, I closed my eyes, rocking my hope back and forth, trying not to drown in her pain.
“To this day, I wish I hadn’t left that house. She’d still be here. She’d still be here…”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, Quill. It could have happened any day, and we both know that. Your mother wasn’t stable.”
That woman had been gone long before that night. And Quill knew it.
She cried quietly against my chest, and I was grateful that she was letting it all out.
How long had she been carrying this around with her?
Too long.
Something cold touched my nose, then more, but I kept my eyes closed.
The snowfall was getting heavier, but I wouldn’t let it get to her, pulled her even closer to me, wanted the fabric between us to disappear, wanted her lying naked on top of me, under a blanket, snuggled up in my arms.
Tonight I would make love to her, show her as gently as possible that she was loved. That she had a home. That she would never be alone again.
December 1996
The icy stinging on my face grew stronger than I remembered, so I opened my eyes and stared up at the black sky, from which thick white flakes were falling down on me, ready to bury me here.
I didn’t need to look to the side to know that I was lying alone in the thick layer of snow. That I was the only soul in this cemetery still trapped in a gradually dying body.
No matter how many memories of her I relived, no matter how many painful moments with her I escaped into to awaken my emotions for a moment from their ever-deepening sleep.
She was gone.
And she would not come back.
Never again.
All that lit up the cemetery was a lantern.
Carefully, I turned my head toward her grave, looked at the white lilies that I had dyed blue for her and laid on the ground in front of her gravestone.
In their center stood a homemade blue candle, with a dark blue ink bunny on it and the red words Merry Christmas written beneath it, which Lara had given me for her.
The tiny candle flame flickered in the wind, to my surprise, still fighting for its life after all the time I had already been lying here.
Tears far too hot made their way down my face, pooling at my nose until I turned my head back toward the sky and they flowed down my cheeks toward my ears.
I had never wanted to set foot in this town again. But I couldn’t leave her alone. Not at Christmas.
I had promised her.
Snowflakes threatened to bury my ink flowers, mingled with my tears. Not cold enough… Not cold enough to overpower the inner cold that gnawed at my very core with every day without her, ready to devour every emotion that strayed into my consciousness.
I kept staring into the pitch-black night sky.
Until I lost all sense of time.
Until I became one with the cold.
Until only one thing remained.
A memory.
Of two ghosts. Two ink ghosts on a bridge.
Your ink. My veins.
– Inkbird