Reverie and That Song She Sings
Part 4
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Dark Side of Your Dreams
"Faye…"
His eyes.
They looked me up and down, all through me, as if I were transparent and my skin was just a ghost to cover and keep me warm. They were scanning me for all that was abstract and untouchable, for the things unable to be tasted or felt, for everything.
Everything.
I could feel them reaching into me, trying to hold me from within, to approach my heart to reason with it. I couldn't let him do that, not if he was holding her instead.
Damnit!
How could he? Why would he? To approach his face, broken from the placid waters into a ripple, would betray me now.
I took my eyes from his face for the third time that hour.
"Well…? Answer the question."
Tell me the truth.
My hands squirmed nervously in my lap like grounded fish.
Please let it be me. Please let it be me.
He raised his hands, with his palms open and facing me, as if to offer me an explanation, an excuse or something else. "Can I not return something…" he trailed off and lapsed into a small sigh, letting his hands fall to his sides. He closed his eyes and smiled softly. "See ya at breakfast then," he said, turning and then opening the door. He stopped halfway out, to toss one last glance at me. Then he left as quickly as he had come. I watched his shoes disappear from sight.
It simply exploded.
My heart burst behind my ribs in the moment that the tumblers clicked into their places. I clenched my fists and could feel the red half-moons press into my palms.
"JESUS CHRIST!! DAMN IT!"
My hand shot out, striking anything that was in the wrath of me. A book seemed to cower away before I struck it, where the pages fluttered like desperate wings before it finally lay dead on the floor. My hands turned on my sheets, and I ripped them from my bed. The mattress pulled away with half of it. I roared out curses as I flung it all upon the floor.
I turned my attention on the end of the bed, where everything of mine was kept. I tore out the contents of my shelf, launching all the books across the room. They all gave the same frantic attempt to fly before their will was broken as well as their spine.
Then my fingers came across the one thing that made me stop.
The tape.
I took it in my hands, softly and unlike the others. I cradled the package in my hands. The original paper wrapping was peeling away to reveal the dark shell beneath.
The shell that holds what I cannot.
I remember how I had slunk in the midnight after I first saw what was on the mysterious pack. I had unplugged the player and the television, carried them one by one to my room. No one questioned the empty place where those things had once been. Jet had grunted, and Ed had sported a curious look, but not a person said anything to me. They understood.
This was my misery. My doubt.
My solitude.
I slumped down, sliding my heels out from under and across the steel floor. I stared at the thing in my hands. I was still breathing hard from my expulsion of rage upon my room. My hands were still shaking, fingertips tingling with the rush they had received from the disaster I accomplished.
This thing was old. An antique. The very same thing I was. However, I had gathered no dust, nor had I yellowed with time. It was another reminder of what I was.
My heart took another step down the sunken path it had chosen.
Spike.
What had just happened in this room? My very desire had become tangible with him. My fantasies had become touchable. But with my clumsy mouth I had torn it all apart. Then I frowned. Disappointment spread across my jaw and furrowed my brow.
I stood up and started down the hallway, wanting the answer he had yet to give me.
I approached his door and gripped the handle. It must have been unrestricted to me, for it came open rather easily. Spike was hunched over, shirtless, elbows on his knees. Smoke came out of his mouth like wavering ghosts and disappeared just as quickly, hanging in the air like veils of grey before vanishing. He studied my face, as if it would prepare him for a caress or a smack from my part. I stood where I was, not entering his room, but not leaving the doorway as well. I leaned against the frame and posed my question to him.
"Why?"
He grunted, putting out his cigarette and reaching for a shirt across from him. "Why what?" he said as his fingers found the soft fabric. His voice had some of its poison leftover in its tone. It was clear that I was irritating to him.
But who gives a crap? I want answers.
"Why'd you come in my room?" I asked just as calmly as I had voiced the question before.
He mumbled something indiscernible into the folds of his shirt as he slipped it on.
"What?"
He pulled it over his head with a sigh.
"I thought I saw something."
My eyebrow raised unconsciously.
"What are you talking about?"
He looked at me. His expression poured forth bittersweet sorrow to my eyes, but I couldn't understand his silent messages. The blood had boiled away between us. Nothing traceable was left to glimpse at or share. Nothing was understood anymore, and we were both jostled eggs.
I started towards him. He followed me with his eyes. I felt the brown irises fall down on me the moment my clothing rustled away the silence. It didn't matter to me, for I had my own on his face. I watched him, watching me. Then I leaned down to meet them both.
"What really happened in that room, Spike?"
He blinked. Not out of confusion, but for the sake of stalling to fix the jigsaw puzzle of words. My heart ached with every beat as this posed question was left unanswered.
"A dream, I suppose."
My fist slammed into the bookshelf behind him, shifting some contents onto his sheets, with my abrupt thrust towards his face. We were inches away now. I could smell his hair.
My other hand held my weight from falling into his lap and causing a terrible accident.
"Just a dream?"
Tell me the truth, Spike.
My aggression for the answer startled him. I scanned this man. He was moving his hand.
I saw it.
Envelope.
Beside his hand.
My attention turned and I plucked the envelope from the bed. It was thick, a definite square shape worn onto the outside from the contents. The stickers were fading.
Tokyo…
Germany…
Europa…
Ganymede…
These names called out in the bright letters along the envelope. I knew hardly any of them. The edges were torn and ragged, apparently by hands that were dumb with frantic feeling, for the clasp had yet to be undone.
He tried to take it away from me. He grabbed and grunted out of something near panic.
But no, I would not let him have this, for a piece of the contents fell out as he made a grab for it and I curved to dodge.
I looked down at it. The shock jumped into my chest and I felt the horror of it. I stared at this thing.
The eyes of a child stared back at me.
I bent down, slowly, reaching out and pulling the child from the floor. She smiled at me from behind a birthday cake lined with eight distinct candles in a row and designed with a monkey in a red fez. It wasn't the child that I had recognized, for I couldn't find anything within my very mind that could recall this image.
It was the eyes.
Eight aged to twenty-three.
He hid it from me…
I must've said it aloud.
"Yeah, I did. Listen Faye…"
I stared at the little girl. At myself.
"Faye…"
Again, a heart took the muddy path.
"It's all a dream."
The air became silent with my words. Maybe he understood what I meant with them. On the other hand, maybe they were a foreign knife, strange blade but it cuts just the same. Maybe they were hollow, and I my tongue had fumbled in the dark of my mouth and come out with nonsense.
My heart hurts.
Tired of playing.
"I thought you'd leave if you saw them. I thought you'd…" he began and then left the words clinging to open air like an unfinished chain. Heavy. Not warm. Erratic instead.
"You thought I would leave."
He ran his hands through his hair, catching on all the tangles and twists.
"Yeah."
"If I was a dream, would you know if I really left?"
"Faye…"
His hands were holding my face again, trying to make me see his soul through hazy panes. Maybe they were fogged with my breath and disappointment. Spike's eyes darted to find understanding in my face. I don't know if he found such treasures from me. I'm not sure if he could.
He pulled me to his chest and kissed my hair, stroking it with his hands. I didn't lift my hands to share an embrace.
Numb this time.
Empty.
He had locked away my own secret. A secret that I could not fathom or recall.
Why did it come?
"I shouldn't even be here," I mumbled into his shirt. He held me tighter to him.
What did you do Faye?
What did you do Faye?
What did you do Faye?
Sturdy shelter in which we crime
Thoughtlessness is always mine
Dine tonight to dine alone
Carved along this façade of stone
Can you hear her voice be told?
She sings above this Latin cold
Her words echo back thousand fold
Only you can breathe my sanity
For you are my judge
My jury
My exclusion
Author Notes:
The mini-poem is mine.
I thank all of who have read and reviewed my story. Thank you for your support, without you this story would've remained in its original "one shot" form. Your reviews have given me confidence in what I do. Thank you again.
Oh, by the way, Choir Geek, I could not find your profile to read your stories. Have you changed your name since you reviewed?
The story after this installment will begin to follow Faye's passion to find her past, though events portrayed in the television series will play a small part in what is to come, with the exception of the last installments. I expect to have at least 12 total parts in this story.
Oh, and I have English and Advanced Biology this semester, and if I don't ace both of them, I don't get this nice and wonderful scholarship that would get me into college for free. So it might take me a while to update, like it did this time. Sorry for taking so long.
