Dark So Dense
nick. macy. nick/macy.
i. the days turned as red as your eyes
He sees her years too late, her fingers curled around a book, the New York winter leaving black shadows across her legs.
He almost doesn't go towards her. There's a sound check to get to and if he can make it, a brother and a lunch to meet.
But her breath is climbing like smoke to the clouds and he remembers her from to long ago to miss.
His black image is thrown behind him and when she looks up he can see Wonderland in her eyes.
"Nick?"
He nods and she smiles.
It isn't like it was all that time ago. When she'd get nervous and he'd end up sporting a bruise.
"What are you in town for?"
"Sound check." He slides beside her and ignores the sting of the cold chair. "Who sits outside in the winter?"
Her too short nails dog ear the book and she grins. "I like the winter best."
"I would have thought you were more of a summer girl."
Her hair curls tighter to her cheek as she shakes her head. "I love seeing my own breath and the chill of my fingers. I like the smell of the city best in the winter. Everything's so much more mellow."
"Do you live here?"
"At the cafe? No." Her laugh leaves a signal fire in the sky and he feels his skin spread with a smile. "I live in Virginia of all places, but I thought I'd come home for a vacation and Daddy took us to New York for the day." He glances to his side. And when he looks back at her, her mouth is still turned wide at him, her eyes seem to know too much. "Jamie wanted to shop and I just wanted to relax. So he took her out and I thought some hot chocolate and a book would fill up some time."
"How is your step-mom?"
"Fine. She's...fine."
He remembers her sad eyes from high school, the black clothes and how she could never stand the sight of cut flowers anymore.
It had been Stella's hand she held at the funeral and for months afterwards, every time he looked at her he could see faded sunny days filled with flowers and dirt and tears trapped behind her eyes.
He'd found another reason to avoid her in halls.
And he'd already been singing in Greece when he'd heard of Martin Misa's new wife.
Macy's smile had dimmed and her eyes were old and he'd felt the pit of his stomach expanded painfully every time he'd seen her.
"I really like you're new band, Nick. Granted I don't have the number one fan site for you anymore, but I think I like it, even better than JONAS."
"The Macy I know would never commit such blasphemy."
"I'm all grown up now." Her eyes still look to heavy and his smile feels fake and he wishes he'd kept going or that he'd remembered how much he hated the way it all turned out.
"Yeah." It's all he think of to say. Yeah she's old and yeah his music is old or maybe it's, yeah I remember how young we were then and how old we thought we were and it's all the same in the end. Instead he looks away from her and stares at her book, Through the Looking Glass, and sometimes he'd like a hole to fall down and a white rabbit to led him.
"It's my favorite. Well, not always, it use to be my mom's she'd always read it to me before bed or whenever I'd get sick. I always preferred Anne of Green Gables or Peter Pan. I got those girls better. But the older I get the more I think of Alice."
"Why?"
"Nothings ever what it seems." But she's not looking at him anymore, her eyes are on the shadows and the buildings and for a reason he can't say he runs his fingers over hand and when her palm opens up to him he rests his fingers there.
The shadows grow larger and the air grows quiet.
And somewhere above them, all the air that they're breathing mixes together like a kiss.
ii. love piles high on the clouds
He calls her three days later, he's suppose to be on a plane, but the snow keeps his feet planted to the ground and all he can see in the sky is the wisps of her breath calling to him from their hometown.
She meets him at the old school. Her hair tucked under a too big hat and her nose red.
He feels his fluttering heart move in his chest.
"I thought you'd be long gone by now."
"Flight delay."
"And you couldn't stay away from the ole Alma Mater ." Her mouth is hidden behind a dark scarf and without thinking his fingers dip the fabric from her face.
"Are you happy?"
"Sure." But her eyes tell the truth.
"Me too." And his lips lie.
Suddenly her fingers are wrapped around his and they're walking along the sidewalks.
"Not always." Her ears are red and her nose has turned brighter.
"Why not?" He thinks of Alice and her studies, that silly little rabbit hole and strangely of that Red Queen and of course of the roses. Nothing is ever what it seems.
"I don't know, I thought being an adult would be... different." Her fingers flex and he holds on as tight as he can.
"Sometimes..." He keeps his eyes on the falling snow and the feel of her hand, smooth and cold, and remembers being young and the music of his brothers and how he'd thought only good was waiting for him. "I miss the way it was."
"I always miss the way it was. I mean, I like my job and I have friends and I'm not sad. It's just, I didn't know growing up meant moving on." She shudders and he wraps his arms around her, her face in the crook of his neck and he knows what she means.
Nick as a solo artist was suppose to be a step up and it's not that he's disappointed in it, but that sometimes when he wakes, before the sleep falls from his eyes, he waits for the sound of Kevin or Joe, waits for hum of Frankie's bored voice.
It never comes.
Kevin off studying animals and playing his guitar for fun and Joe's face lighting up screens and his charming voice simpering out tunes for films. Frankie was finishing up school and the old firehouse was abandoned once again.
"I miss her." It's more the words on his neck than the feel of them on his ear that crumples him.
He misses his brothers.
He misses himself.
He misses her.
He decides not to let go.
iii. there's the spring and the fall and i'm not missing you at all (even when i can't stop think about you)
June brings a bright sun and warm air.
He's in a dingy little town, with dusty skies and the melancholy seems to have followed him from the cold winter.
"I don't remember tours being this boring."
He squints through the sunshine to his older brother. "Sorry to disappoint you."
Joe grins and his teeth are blinding.
"Look Nicky."
He shakes his head and feels the distaste dripping of his tongue. "Don't-"
"What's with you? Ever since you got stranded in New York you've been...sad."
"I'm not sad."
"You're sort of sad."
"I'm like the opposite of sad, I'm giddy. I'm the son of fun."
He thinks Joe's snort is immature and he isn't sad. Thoughtful, introspective. But sad seems to pathetic.
"If fun had a son and you were it, then it'd be it's illegitimate bastard son that was also the son of depressed and squinty."
"Why is fun a boy. I would think fun would be the mother and like squinty would be the boy."
"Not now, Kev. We're investigating."
"There's nothing to investigate. I'm not sad. Or depressed." He huffs and throws a look to the both of them. "And I'm most certainly not squinty."
"You're sort of squinty. You squint when you're all emo." Kevin's face has that look of deep thought that can only lead down the many roads of musical sea animals.
"I'm not emo. I'm not anything."
Joe's mouth is open and Nick knows he's in for more stupid logic.
"I'm completive."
"What have you got to complain about." Nick spares Kevin the glare that rests on his face.
"It means thinking about things."
"What are you thinking about?"
"Macy."
"Why?" Kevin's voice shrills.
"I saw her there, in New York. Then when my plane got delayed, I called her up in New Jersey. We just...clicked."
"And that makes you sad?"
"I'm not sad. I'm just not happy."
"What's there not to be happy about?"
He doesn't have an answer.
"Nick?"
"I don't know. I know that everything should be fine and it's not like I'm all crazy depressed, it's like I've reached my dream, but it's not what I thought it be or there's still something missing."
"Like Macy?"
"No. Not a person. It's more than that."
And in the distance he can hear the season change from spring to summer and there's nothing he can do.
iv. we're all still mad here
He spots her through the dark.
Her eyes are still haunting and her smile is never as wide as he'd like.
Afterwards, with his brow wet and his back sore, he finds her at the stage door.
She wraps her arms around him despite the smell and the sweat. He hugs her back just as hard.
"Is it weird, you know, that I'm here?"
"No. I've been hoping to see you again."
"Look I made you something." She pulls her laptop from her bag and clicks something and looks up with a familiar grin. "I've been working to make you a number one fan site. Now it's just like high school. With a little less crazy."
He laughs. And pulls her back for a hug. "I've missed you, you know."
"Me or the way it was?"
"You were apart of the way it was."
She shrugs and pulls back. "Are you happy?" It echoes to him in his own voice.
"Maybe. Sometimes." This time when he thinks of the looking glass, he thinks of the poor roses and how in the end it doesn't matter. A rose is a rose no matter the color and the mad will always be mad and maybe everything is what it seems, simply because it never is.
"Yeah." She's grinning and for the first time he's not hurt that's it's older.
"Yeah. I'm getting there." He smiles when he says it. Because it's not just her. Or what ever they'll be. It's that shift in his chest, that being older and wiser and maybe even lonelier isn't all there is.
It all that he wanted and nothing he expected. And their shadows melt together in the distance.
He's getting there, because there's still something to look forward to.