.the light.
"Carly?"
Defeated, she lifted her head slowly. "Hey, Freddie."
Freddie had never seen her look worse. She was pale, almost translucent. Her hand drifted slowly up to her shoulder, and she tried ineffectually to remove his grip. She was so weak, and cold. Carly looked like a snowflake, about to melt away. He opened his mouth, but he didn't know what to say. What could he say? He wanted to yell at her for making him, them all, hurt like that, but she looked so helpless and small.
He'd given up on loving everything in his life, but he'd never quite given up on loving her.
Instead of saying words he couldn't imagine, he slowly took his hands from her shoulders. Her dark eyes widened. Deliberately, he turned, at once savoring and hating the feeling. The steps were heavy, but he was five paces away when she grabbed his arm.
"Don't leave," she said, voice barely above a whisper.
Freddie sighed and jerked his arm away. "Maybe you should listen to your own advice." The cruel words tasted bitter, but vindication swept over him. She did deserve this, after all she put them through. Again she snatched at his arm. Her fingernails dug into his skin.
"Freddie, listen to me."
No. He was tired of this. He was done. If he had to drag her behind him all day, so be it. He wasn't going to listen to her excuses.
"Freddie," she said again, weakly. "I'm sorry."
She was unbelievably gray, he thought as he looked at her. Nearly monochromatic. The clouds hid the sunlight from her form; a ray or two scattered on the sidewalk reflected only more bleak color onto her skin. In contrast, her brown hair looked almost black. Her lips were dull and chapped.
And blast it all if she wasn't beautiful anyway.
"What do you want?" he asked roughly, half regretting the words and half regretting the tone.
Carly looked down at the cracked sidewalk, scuffing a single dirty sneaker against the pavement. Her pants legs were ripped, and he had a feeling it wasn't intentional. "It's not safe," she muttered, so quietly that he almost didn't hear.
Freddie felt a twinge. Why did he have to be so soft-hearted? "What do you mean?"
"It's not safe," she repeated, a little louder. Her voice cracked on the last word. "Come inside with me." She made a limp gesture to the rundown brick building behind her. Vividly, he recalled his nightmare and winced.
"Carly, it's safe out here." He was curious, now. What reasons could she possibly offer for throwing them all away like so much meaningless trash?
She shook her head vehemently. "No. It's not safe." For the first time, he noticed the slur in her words. Freddie raised an eyebrow.
"Have you been drinking?"
"Can we just go inside?" she asked in a small voice, her skin a little less gray now. The sun was peeking out, but he didn't feel any warmer.
He looked at her, wondering if she was as hollow as he felt. "Come back to the hotel with me," he said abruptly.
Carly's eyes shot back up to his. "No." Her tone was urgent. "Come with me. Please?"
"No," he returned easily. Freddie had lots of practice saying that word; it slid off his tongue quite pleasantly.
"Please?" she tried again. "For me?"
He shivered. He had expected for her to use that defense, but he hadn't anticipated his reaction. Anger, perhaps, but it was an emotion more like fear or unease that crept through him as she pronounced those words. It was like watching a reanimated corpse try to smile. The words seemed so foreign to what she was now. Or maybe he was just projecting again.
She was leaving, though, and he felt compelled to follow her steps of black and white, as painful as it was. He looked at the brick wall, trying to reach an understanding with it.
The apartment was dingy and dark. There were no curtains on the dirty blinds, nor carpet on the linoleum. In fact, the room that they entered (a kitchen/dining room/den) seemed very bare, very unlike Carly. Freddie tried not to look at her, but it was difficult. He wanted to see beneath her skin and ask this shell what she'd done to vibrant Carly Shay.
She sat down at the tiny kitchen table. He followed suit. For a long moment, all there was in the world was between their eyes, barely daring to meet. "Why are you here?" she asked suddenly.
Freddie looked away. "You invited me," he said.
"I meant...in New York."
He looked at the grimy refrigerator. No pictures there, not even schedules or cute magnets. He didn't want to talk to her about his work, like nothing had happened, like she hadn't spit them out years ago. "I know what you meant, Carly. Wh-why did you leave?" He cursed his tongue for stumbling over the last words, too painful to say.
"College," she answered snidely.
"I think I deserve an answer," he said, giving her a hard look.
"Does it really matter?" she pressed, licking her lips. "I mean...we're here together now. Everything's okay." Looking in her eyes, Freddie genuinely wanted to believe her, but he could tell that she didn't even have faith in her own words.
"Everything's not okay, Carly." Sitting there, he felt like the fly in the spiderweb. He stood up. "It's not okay," he repeated.
At the door. It was gray, like everything else in this place. His hand rested on the doorknob when he heard a choking sound. Slowly, Freddie turned, without lifting his hand. Sitting at the kitchen, looking unbelievably insignificant, was Carly, curled up and sobbing quietly. No tears; just gasps and shudders.
"What have you done to yourself?" Freddie asked, disgusted. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked. He tugged down his sleeves.
Carly looked up at him, her eyes as large and empty as the moon. "Fix me, Freddie."
He lost his thoughts. A range of inscrutable, unfamiliar emotions flooded him. Resolutely, he glared down at the filthy floor. He turned the knob. "I'll be back in an hour," he said to the hallway.
"What should I do? It's not...safe." She made another choking sound.
"Why don't you clean this place up?" There were no windows in the hallway. What he wouldn't give for a bit of sunlight. He closed the door behind him a little too loudly.
Freddie stomped through the rain, shielding the take-out box with one hand. The ragged red carpet in the hallway darkened as he dripped onto it. He pounded on the door. "It's me," he said half-heartedly.
There was a sound of scuffling and Carly opened the door. God, she was thin now. He shouldered his way past her. "I cleaned," she said helplessly as he passed. He acknowledged her with a nod and put the box on the kitchen table.
"Come on and eat," he said, absentmindedly running a hand through his wet hair.
She sat obediently. "I'm not hungry."
"I don't care what your problems are, you need to eat." Freddie served a large portion for each of them. "Can I turn the air down in here? It's freezing."
"The air conditioner is broken," Carly said, looking at her plate complacently.
He frowned at the thermostat. The numbers changed, but according to the thermometer, it was eighty-six degrees in the apartment. "You can go on and eat," he told her as he took his seat.
Her hands drifted over the plastic chop sticks, but she didn't touch them. "Can you bless it first?"
The first mouthful caught in his throat. He choked; eyes burning, he swallowed a gulp of water. "You've never wanted a blessing for the food before."
"Well, I want one now. Bless it."
She scraped the plates into the trash loudly as Freddie watched her. Who was she, he wondered quietly. Her movements were like Carly's, but she was so lifeless. Carly mumbled something.
"What?" he asked.
"I said, how long are you staying?" She didn't look at him with the moon eyes.
The floor was still gray, but more from use than from dirt. "I don't know. Until this story stops being interesting to the American public."
"What story?" The clack of chop sticks.
It was probably getting dark behind the blinds. Where had the day gone? "The one about the brutal murders."
"Oh. I haven't heard about it." Carly laughed. It was not the full sound he had loved, only a pale echo. His heart ached.
"They've been in your neighborhood. How can you not have heard about it?"
"I don't watch the news," she said shortly.
Freddie looked at the door longingly. "I should go back."
Carly set the dishes down. "To your wife?"
He laughed with disbelief. "I'm not married."
She didn't blush. "Oh. Sorry. I just figured. You were always a...romantic."
"Not anymore. I don't believe in it." He stretched. At the door, he paused. "Let me give you my number. Just in case you...need anything."
His bed was soft but unwelcoming. It was like trying to sleep in a box. Freddie felt ill-suited for it, and he kept looking at the window, even after he closed the blinds and untied the red curtains. Red like brick. He shivered again. Red like blood.
The morning took its time reaching his room, and even when the sun rose, he still saw the world in cold shades of slate. A sickly sweet smell wafted through the air, bringing back to mind the events of the previous day. "Carly," he said, pronouncing it like a judgment.
And still it was cold.
"Two more bodies," Sheila said. He had to give her that she at least tried to sound upset about the tragedy. The shooting took most of the day—they had to do a few different versions, since the station had complained about the overly graphic piece from the day before.
At lunch, Sheila confided in him, "I'm kind of worried about staying so close to the murder scenes. I know the hotel is nice, but...do you think it's safe?"
Freddie thought for a second. "No."
These bodies were even more mangled. A man and a woman, found together, the woman's legs stripped of their flesh and the man missing most of his face. To his horror, he found it difficult not to picture Carly laying there on the hard pallet. Skin as pale as death—easy enough. Her face disfigured past recognition: eyelids ripped off, strips of flesh torn, blood dried, black against white. Eyes forever watching, unable to close.
He had to see her. To make sure.
As soon as they finished shooting, he burst in the door. There she was, lying on the couch, as still as if she was dead. "Freddie!" she cried, sitting up. Her eyes gleamed, reminding him of something he couldn't place. "I didn't think you'd come."
"Neither did I," he said honestly.
A rag-doll smile broke across her face. "Are you going to fix me?"
"I think so."
For the first time in years, the clouds seemed to lift. The hotel was still cold that night, but Freddie slept so peacefully that he hardly noticed. He dreamed in technicolor, of a girl with dark eyes and red, red lips.
His phone rang during breakfast. After listening for a minute, he nodded and hung up. "He wants us off the job after today. The public seems to think this story is too depressing."
Sheila laughed dryly. "No, really? What could be depressing about horrible murders?"
He smiled tightly. "There've been five more." Hot coffee flowed down his throat, but his arm hairs still stood on end.
God, he hated this room. All clean and white, as if the bodies on the tables were only sleeping people. Their chests were nearly ripped open, and no amount of medical sanitizing could disguise the gore of their deaths. Freddie felt a strange desire to trace a finger's path along the pale white skin of one of the women; he cringed at the thought.
Off the job after today. He thought back to the expression of hope in her eyes. For the first time, she'd looked alive again, real. Warm. He was a sucker, all of his old emotions rushing back. Could he leave her?
Freddie would feel like a traitor. He knew it. If he left her like that, with whatever all her problems were: anorexia, drug addiction, alcoholism...at least some of that was going on. Maybe he wasn't rid of all of his old, favorite ideas about chivalry and romance. He had said that he would fix her.
Instead of going to her house after the shooting wrapped up, he returned to the hotel. Sat on the nice bed, considered what he was giving up. A life of technicolor exchanged for black and white.
He picked up his cell phone and squeezed his eyes shut.