Chapter 25
My forehead bouncing against cool glass tugs me out of the ether. A string of curse words muttered by someone next to me punctuates every hit, and I slit my eyes open, fuzzy light squeezing in.
Huh … I didn’t expect to wake up in a spaceship. I don’t remember being abducted by aliens, but, for some reason, it feels rather fitting.
“Take me to your leader,” I mumble, voice rough as gravel as I continue to squint through the glass, my head spinning.
A tiny laugh echoes back to me. I didn’t know aliens laughed. That’s so cute.
“What are you on about now?”
Funny, that alien sounds a lot like my best friend.
With a deep breath, I open my eyes further, halfway at least (I’m so brave).
Refocusing them from their bleary state, I stare first at my bandaged-up reflection, then out a moving spaceship window.
How strange … Outer space looks a lot like a four-lane road, trees and the occasional wooden stand blurring past.
“All right?” the alien says in that far-too-familiar voice.
“D-Darcy?” I garble out, blinking at a series of signs that appear to be advertising pyrotechnics.
“Yes, Cubby love?”
I swallow through my dry throat, tongue and cheeks feeling thick and puffy. “Where are we?”
“About an hour into a state called New Jersey.”
New Jersey … My head is still fogged, and my cheeks feel swollen like overripe plums, but that doesn’t seem quite right. Outer space shouldn’t have a place called New Jersey.
“Darcy?” I whisper again, closing my eyes as a dizzy spell curls my senses.
“Cubby?”
“Are you an alien kidnapping me?”
I know Darcy well enough that I can sense her every smile, and this one is wide. “Obviously.”
A few minutes pass, the fuzzy streak of green out my window slowly shimmering into focus, sunshine poking through the foliage.
“Darcy?” I say once more, slanting a glance at her next to me, her jaw tense and hands gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. An overwhelming sense of urgency floods through me. “Do you think other planets have trees? Do you think those trees tell secrets?”
“Cubby, as much as I love chatting with you—especially when you’re high as a kite—I am fighting for my life to drive on the correct side of the road in this backward country.”
“Whose car is this?” I ask, still loopy but more grounded in reality.
I scan the interior. It’s not luxury by any means, but has a decent stereo and leather seats.
Practical with a touch of comfort. I highly doubt any car rental would hand it out to a twenty-two-year-old who struggles to meet even her homeland’s traffic laws.
“Kevin got it sorted for us. Same with your hospital bill.”
The surgery, and the pain leading up to it, comes back to me in a jolt, and I groan, gingerly poking my cheeks and the bandage wrapped from the crown of my head to under my chin. “God, what a nightmare.”
“Yeah, I’ll say. You scared the shit out of me. Are you okay?”
She risks a look at me when I don’t immediately answer, our gazes locking for the first time since I went under. Her hands tighten on the steering wheel, and my heart speeds up.
I could look at her forever, that face more familiar than my own—the tiny scar on her forehead from an accident when she was a toddler, the dusting of freckles across her nose—but I instinctively glance at the road when it seems she won’t be the one to do it.
“I’m okay,” I say at last. It’s the truth and a lie. But in this moment, alone with Darcy with my raw cheeks and misty senses, I really am okay. “Feels weird to have my mouth organs harvested.”
“I don’t think teeth are considered organs.”
“Of course they are, they have nerves and a blood supply.”
“That isn’t what makes an organ an organ.”
“Then what does make an organ an organ?”
Darcy throws up one hand. “I don’t know. A bodily function? A purpose?”
“I’m sorry, do you not chew? That seems like a pretty important bodily function. If they aren’t an organ, they should be.”
She lets out a tiny laugh. “Why do I feel like Skull would have a lot to add to this conversation?”
“You just know he has some outlandish special interests.” A smile tugs at the corner of my lips.
“Oh, for sure. We’d know all about them at this point if he didn’t refrain from speaking for five to seven business days at a time … I love that weirdo.”
“I do too,” I say, meaning it. We sit in silence for a few moments, and dread weaves through me as I remember our fight. I clear my throat. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Remember Harry’s cousin, Joe?” Darcy’s mouth kicks up in a cheeky smile. “The really fit fella that used to visit him in the summer?”
“The one with the hot—”
“Half sleeve? It’s a full now.”
I groan.
“Anyway, he’s in grad school at some uni outside of Philadelphia. Harry popped over for a visit.”
“What’s he studying?”
“Fine art, I think Harry said.”
“That man is the embodiment of fine art. Does he just study himself?”
“I would, if I looked like that. I’d never leave the mirror.”
I snort. “As if you aren’t every bit as stunning.” There’s a long beat of silence, tension pulling my skin tight like a rubber band as I regret ever learning to speak.
“Kale went to see his folks in Ohio,” Darcy says, taking mercy on me. “Skull is … Well, to be honest, I’m not sure where that enigma slinked off to, but I’m sure he’s having a grand old time with Tiny Deja, wherever they might be.”
My stomach pinches. “Are we … are we broken up?”
Darcy does a double take. It takes me a moment to piece together that she couldn’t tell if I was talking about the band or …
She lets out a long sigh. “I think we all need a bit of breathing room from each other.”
“They hate me.” I turn back to the window, cursing the lovely blue skies and brilliant sunshine. It’s a barbed pill to be so miserable on a beautiful day.
“Don’t be dramatic. No one hates you.”
“The entire internet hates me.” A lump knots in my throat. It must be the drugs that have me so touchy.
Darcy purses her lips, tapping the turn signal before merging. “You don’t fare well in the court of public opinion, I’ll give you that much.”
“Not sure I fare very well in our band either.”
Darcy’s sigh is empty of patience, and I’m surprised to see the anger flash in the look she shoots at me. “That right there. That’s your problem.”
Defensiveness is my default. “My problem?”
“You act like we’re out to get you like the rest of the world.”
“I’m sorry, but after our fight yesterday it kind of feels like you all might be.”
Darcy looks at me again, this time her face falling in a pained expression so genuine, my chest aches.
“Yesterday was … not good,” she concedes, glancing back to the road.
“We were all caught off guard and exhausted and moody and didn’t handle it well.
But you should have told us. It wasn’t fair we found out how we did.
We all love you. We wouldn’t follow you around this bloody country if we didn’t. ”
“Follow me around? How are you following me around? We’re all equal members of this group.”
“In theory, yes, but have you noticed we tend to crumble to pieces the same moments you do? You’re our leader, Cub.
Whether you like it or not. Whether you believe you’re worthy of it or not.
” I go to argue but she cuts me off. “Music doesn’t get made without your spark, your light.
But your defenses are up so damn high all the time, you keep us in the dark instead. ”
I shake my head, emotions pulling me deep under. Her compliments bruise more than criticism. If I stop to listen to them, I may actually start to believe what she’s saying, and that would make life hurt all the more. If I hate myself the most, it doesn’t matter how much anyone else does.
“I’m nothing without you. There wouldn’t be any music without you. I’m nothing more than a buzzkill,” I mumble.
Darcy’s cheeks flush a deep crimson with frustration, and I’m worried she’s about to curse it all to hell and swerve us into a tree to get me to stop my incessant self-loathing.
“Do we each have our strengths? Of course. Harry regularly makes me cry with even a basic melody. Kale could be in a professional orchestra if he wanted. Skull has one of the keenest senses of musicality I’ve ever witnessed.
But together? That’s when it shines. That’s when it’s the brightest. And we all want that so desperately.
And we want that with you. So stop getting in the way of it with your chronic pity parties. ”
“What about you?”
Darcy flinches. “What about me?”
“You mentioned the strengths of everyone else. What about you?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m not bad on the bass. I keep you in line … sometimes. Not bad traits to bring to the table.”
I scoff.
“What?” she says, voice icy. “Do you have something to say to me?” She keeps her glare fixed on me for so long, I have to reach over and turn her face back to the road.
“It’s interesting you can say nice things about everyone else, but not yourself when you’re the one that deserves the most praise. You’re the best person I’ve ever met.”
She’s quiet for so long, I start to wonder if she’ll ever talk to me again. At the GPS’s sudden urging, she gets off the freeway and we pass an old wooden sign welcoming us to Cape May.
We navigate for a few more minutes down quiet side streets, eventually turning into the drive of a small, Victorian-style home. It’s painted various shades of pink like a Valentine’s heart. We face forward, staring at the house, the engine’s hum the only noise.
“Rented this for a bit,” Darcy says, not looking at me. She lets out a sad laugh. “I mean, I didn’t rent it, Kevin convinced Sigrún to put it on the company’s tab for you to recuperate. But it’s ours for now.”
I nod, swallowing past a dry throat, nausea brutally churning my stomach. I don’t want to go in there. I’m so sick of sharing spaces with Darcy when we aren’t ourselves. It creates a caustic ache in my bones, permeating out until my skin itches with it.
“Very nice,” I murmur.
“I don’t think I’m a good person at all,” Darcy says suddenly, jaw set, hands still clenched around the steering wheel as her eyes bore a hole into the happy-looking house.
I blink at her, tracing back the conversation.
She’s so tight, so uncomfortably wound, it makes my own muscles clench.
I reach across the center console, turning the keys and cutting the engine, dropping us into pure silence.
After a moment’s hesitation, I place my hand on hers, coaxing her grip to loosen.
“You are a good person,” I whisper. It’s one of the only truths I know. The moon orbits the earth, the earth orbits the sun, Darcy is a good person. They’re all fundamental truths. “Why do you think you aren’t?”
After a moment, her neck releases like it weighs a ton, head bowing forward as a small tremble ripples through her. I’m surprised to see tears tracing down her cheeks, landing in dark stains on her lap.
“Because…” A whimper breaks from her throat. I drag my hand up her arm to rub circles along the center of her back. She sucks in a shaky breath, then looks at me, mascara smeared, face red. She’s so lovely it’s staggering.
“Because why?” I lean toward her. She’s poised there, on the edge of vulnerability. I’m right there too, gripping on to her, following whatever direction this goes—the safety of solid ground or the tumble off the cliff.
She licks her lips then bites the lower, the weight of the words dangling at the tip of her tongue bearing down on both of us. My hand traces up her neck until I cup her cheek. She nuzzles into my touch, eyes closing.
Somewhere close by, a car door slams, starting a frenzy of barking from the neighborhood dogs. Darcy jumps, wrenching away from me. Like the extinguishing of a candle, the intensity in her expression snuffs out, all the raw honesty disappearing like smoke.
“Sorry,” she says, eyes back on the house. “I didn’t mean to get all weird out of nowhere. Let’s get inside; check the place out.”
Before I can say anything—any desperate attempt to tug her back into our golden bubble where we say the things we think and mean them fully—she gets out of the car and unloads our bags, trudging up the walkway and into the silly pink house, leaving me with my blue heart in my hand and a lump in my throat, wondering if I’ll ever get my Darcy back.