Chapter Six
Present Day
Danny had finished packing a small bag and put it around his shoulders. Jazz was sitting on his room, watching him carefully. He had told her everything that had happen between him and Sam. He had told her Sam had a baby, that she had a scar on her wrist and that she had completely ignored him when he said he loved her.
Jazz said that Sam was going through something hard and that she didn't want to change anything. She could be trapped in an abusive relationship and not wanting to leave her son behind. Well, if that was the reason she still wanted to go back there, Danny was going to follow her and beat the shit out whoever was hurting her.
"Really, what you're doing is stalking, Danny, even though you want to help her, you need her permission." Jazz said, seeing that he had finished packing.
"She won't see me. I'll be invisible to whole time and if it turns out okay, if she's fine living there I'll come back and she'll never know I was there in the first place." Danny answered. "I need to know what she's been going through or else I'll never sleep again."
"Just, please come back as soon as possible, I don't know how long I can fool our parents."
"I'll be back at one week top, even if I don't find anything, I'll return next Monday, I promise."
"Fine, just be careful." Jazz said. "You better hurry and fly to the airport, Sam's plane leaves in half an hour."
"Great, I'll go. Bye sis." And he turned invisible, flying out of his house to the airport.
He flew through the doors, through the waiting lines and heard a woman saying that the plane for Toronto, Canada, would be leaving in fifteen minutes at gate eleven. He flew to the gate, quickly making several papers fly out of people's hands, just like he was a very strong breeze.
He saw Sam sitting on a chair, with her tickets in hands, waiting to go on board. He stood up by her side, studding her actions. Somehow, out of curiosity, he wanted to know everything about her. She was wearing a green casual dress and on her lap she had an opened book with the Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities.
Danny resisted the urge to touch her face, she'd notice he was there, she always recognized his invisible touch.
He sat by her side on the empty seat during the flight, she didn't look like she was hurting for having to go back to her own house, actually she looked almost relieved.
It took them three hours to reach Canada and when the plane landed, Sam looked a lot paler than normal; Danny saw her rush to the bathroom and heard as she emptied her stomach. Something was definitely wrong with her.
She grabbed her handbag and walked out of the plane and after the airport. On the street she called a taxi. Danny immediately flew inside with her, barely having time to admire the country he had never visited.
The taxi took about ten minutes to stop in front of a beautiful building in a rich neighborhood. Danny got out of the car following Sam inside the elevator and inside her apartment. It was a big and cozy apartment.
It was completely empty. Nobody was home. That wasn't another man and there wasn't a child.
He was completely confused.
Sam sat down on the cough, sighed and started crying desperately as if her heart had just been ripped out. He wanted to go there and hug her, but he wanted to see where it was going to end and if he showed himself now everything would be ruined.
The living room had small modern furniture of very bright colors. Sam was crying on the cough, the huge high definition TV was turned off and there was no sign that things were going to change for hours.
The room had a big broken mirror, a queen size bed and a big wardrobe. There was another room right next to that, and Danny saw that it was locked and decided to phase in. He turned on the lights and saw a beautiful child's room.
There were clowns everywhere, colorful toys, small racing cars, and a big crib right beside an oversized ball. It was an adorable room, but why was it locked? He saw frames hanging on the wall with pictures of Allan and Sam, very happy, smiling, and playing. There was one in particular that caught his attention. Allan was in a pool holding tightly on Sam as she taught him how to swim.
He heard noises coming from the kitchen and immediately flew there to see what Sam was doing. He found her separating pills of different colors and placing them on the table. There were about fifteen pills.
He had already decided that if she was going to take them all he was turning himself visible and would stop her. But she just let the pills there; she went to her room, grabbed a purse and left the apartment.
He followed her to the garage. He saw that she owned a convertible mustang and grinned. She was the type of girl who liked good cars. He sat by her side and noticed that she was driving a bit faster than necessary.
Danny didn't notice where they were going; when he decided to look around he noticed a green field. Far away, on top of a hill, he saw a big cherry tree.
A cherry tree can be a very be very beautiful thing to see when completely blossomed. From the distance it can look like a cloud and when you look at it closely it's amazing that every flower had a breathtaking beauty.
The place was extremely romantic, Danny noticed. There was nothing more perfect then sit with the girl you love under a cherry tree and spend the day speaking silliness and laughing at the smallest things. He woke up from his tree gazing when he noticed Sam had parked the car and was climbing the hill.
What lay on the other side of that hill? Was that a cliff? Was she going to jump?
His heart was beating wildly inside his chest. He flew next to her, ready to catch her if she decided to jump, ready to do anything it would be necessary to keep her safe. He was going to be her guardian angel for as long as she needed.
It took him three seconds to understand why she had tried to kill herself, why she was depressive and why she didn't want to talk about it. Just behind the cherry tree was a grave covered in grass. Sam sat against the tree trunk and closed her eyes.
Danny walked around the grave and read the name on the tombstone: Allan Manson.
Five Years Ago
Danny was navigating on the internet with nothing to do while Valerie exercised on his room, when he found a blog called Gothic Life, the thoughts of a Teen Goth. He immediately thought that was a nice site that maybe Sam would like to see it. He copied the link and was about to send her by email when the noticed two familiar names on the latest post.
"... There's only one day that we separated to be for just the three of us: Friendly Tuesday. We go from school to Nasty Burger and stay there for about an hour or two. Sometimes we go to play videogames at Tucker's house, but we don't go to the park, theater or my house anymore. The reason of all this is that both Danny and Tucker found themselves girlfriends…"
'That's Sam's web journal!' He thought, surprised that she had a diary; she didn't look like girls who'd spend their days writing about their miserable lives thinking they were amazing.
The doorbell rang and Valerie went to answer it, feeling completely normal at it like the house was hers. He didn't mind, really, but if Jazz was in the house she'd give him a speech about limits of a relationship and how to be polite and not let your girlfriend answer your house's door.
He resumed reading Sam's journal, but hadn't gone far when Valerie called him from downstairs saying that Sam was at the door. He quickly ran to her and saw that she looked very disturbed.
It was when they had their small fight and Sam drove away. Valerie was really upset and decided to go to her own house and leave Danny to think about the situation, because he really needed to.
Danny returned to his room hours later. He noticed the computer on and remembered what he had been doing. He sat down in front of the screen and read the whole post.
He sighed heavily when he finished reading that. She had written that one month before and she hadn't updated since then. He read it over and over again, not believing how stupid he had been. She had written it, she had written that she was suffering and he had been too blind to actually see it. Now the only thing that remained was a virtual line that explained everything to him 'this stupid loneliness is killing me.'
He had left her alone.
He had hurt her.
She didn't look lonely that night a month ago, the night she had written the post. She was singing, she looked happy and she looked like she was going to make a very good carrier. She had sung an Italian song. What was the name of it?
Tucker had just signed in on IM.
FryTuck: Good news, man: Star agreed on going on double date Friday night.
DFenton: Tuck, do you have that video of Sam singing with you?
FryTuck: Sure, I'll send you. BTW, why do you want it?
DFenton: I just had a bad feeling.
Danny clicked on the link Tucker sent him and started downloading the video. It'd take around five minutes to complete.
FryTuck: Is it something serious?
DFenton: I think it is. She was here a few hours ago and started crying. We sort of had a fight.
FryTuck: That's bad, man. Why do you need the video anyway?
DFenton: I wanted to find the lyrics of the music she sang.
FryTuck: The Phantom of the Opera or the Italian one?
DFenton: the Italian, of course.
FryTuck: Let me see if I still have the flyer here.
While Tucker looked for flyer, the download was completed and Danny opened the file. She had looked beautiful that night. But unfortunately he couldn't understand a single word she was saying and there was no way he could find the lyrics like that.
FryTuck: I found it. It's spelled 'Certe Notti'. Does it sound familiar or anything?
DFenton: Thanks. I'm going to find out.
He opened another window for the internet and searched for the translation of the lyrics for the music Certe Notti. It took fifteen sites and ten minutes to find a good translation. His stomach dropped. He didn't know if it was intentional, but Sam had given him a sign of what she was going to do a month before.
FryTuck: found it?
DFenton: Yeah… take a look at this: 'Some nights, the car is warm and you will go wherever it will take you/ some nights the road doesn't matter, what matters is to listen that you're going away/ some nights the radio that plays Neil Young seems to understand who is listening to it/ some nights are addicting and you never want to give it up/
And you can stay alone in some nights here/ it's possible be content like this, like this/ some nights or I wake up or I'll never raise again/ we're going to see each other at Mario' someday.
FryTuck: Who's Mario?
DFenton: It doesn't matter, it's part of the lyrics, but the thing here is, the message. She said she's going away.
FryTuck: and do you think she's capable of that? Really, Sam's scared to cross the town by car; do you think she'll go on some road trip?
DFenton: when she left my house today she had lots of luggage on her car and she didn't take the street for her house.
FryTuck: shit man…
DFenton: My thoughts exactly.
FryTuck: Can you get me the journal link?
DFenton: Yeah… (and he copied down the URL)
FryTuck: I can't access it. How did you get into her private account?
DFenton: Wait! I can't get back in, too.
FryTuck: Maybe you accessed the site when the server had problems, well, whatever, we can't read her journal unless we have her password.
DFenton: I don't think she's going to update it for a long time.
Present Day
Jazz was laying on the cough reading the new book by Laura Kipnis when the phone rang. She reached for the phone and answered it calmly.
"Hello?"
"Jazz, I need your help!" Danny sounded frantic.
"What happened?" She sat up straight, her book falling on the ground.
"It's Sam! She's not in a relationship at all. Oh, for goodness' sake, her son died last year!" Danny said. His voice was failing him, like he was feeling all the pain Sam had been through he realized how much she was suffering and he couldn't do anything about it. How could he say to her that things would be better when her son had just died? He wasn't coming back!
"Allan died!" Jazz sounded as skeptical as he was when he read the name on the grave. It seemed impossible; it was like a tragedy to big to be true.
"What do I do? She locked herself in her apartment again and won't stop crying! I need to do something, Jazz." He cried.
"Has she seen you?" Jazz asked, trying to calm herself down and rationalize.
"Not yet."
"Usually I'd say it'd be for the better to remain invisible, but she's over the edge…" She stopped for a second or two. "You better knock on her door and say try to gain her trust enough to let her open up with you, she can't be alone; she needs distractions."
"Thank you, Jazz"
"And keep in touch; we don't know what might happen." She insisted.
"I will, don't worry."
"Listen, you wait ten minutes before knocking on her door, do you have her telephone number?"
"No, but I have her address you can look at the internet." And Danny told her the address. "Are you going to call her now?"
"I'll call her and say her mother gave me her number and I'll tell her that you are missing, okay?"
"And I just show up at her doorstep?"
"Yes, but wait at least ten minutes to show up, she must get a little worried first." Jazz explained.
"Fine, I'll wait for you call, then."
"Bye, Danny. Good luck."
Five Years Ago
The day Danny had seen Sam naked in front of him, they had gone out to the Nasty Burger. She paid for the two Sundays to replace the ones Danny had dropped in surprise on her floor.
Danny sat on the table, waiting for her to return with the ice creams. He dared to think for a few moment how cute her other tattoo looked. It was placed just above her pelvis and was a small elegant letter that was written 'Carpe Diem'.
Sam sat in front of him and gave him his ice cream. When he noticed her sitting there he blushed various shades of red. She looked at him oddly, but decided to not ask, but when he wouldn't stop blushing or even dared to look at her eyes she thought it was better just ask.
"What's wrong now?"
Danny chocked on his ice cream when he heard her question. He couched madly for about five minutes before finally returning to normal.
"So…?" She insisted.
"I sort of saw your other tattoo…" Danny said. He knew he was close to a nosebleed.
"Is that all?" She laughed. Danny noticed that she blushing, too. "Well, now you know." She smiled.
"It looks beautiful." He said before he could stop himself.
Sam blushed and turned to look away.
"Thank you." She replied. "Don't tell Tucker."
"I won't. I understand now why you didn't want to show us." He smiled.
"It's very indecent…" She agreed.
"Wait a minute!" Danny suddenly realized something very disturbing. "Who tattooed you?"
"Some guy at Punk Street, why?" She played dumb with him; she loved torturing him by making him say everything he was thinking.
"Why?" He repeated, frustrated. "He saw and touched a lot to make that tattoo!" Danny said.
"Jealous?" She asked, innocently, playing with her hair.
"I wouldn't call it 'jealousy'" Danny defended himself with dignity. "I'm concerned, that's all."
"Right, because your girlfriend would breathe fire if she heard about your jealously." Sam said in a sing song voice. "Actually, I think she'd be mad if she heard about something that happened in my room today…"
"Don't even think about it!" Danny said, becoming really worried and looking around to see if anybody had heard her.
"Relax; I'm not going to tell her, it's just between us." She smiled. "You can trust me, even though I have this great blackmail in my hands I don't intend on using it unless it's very necessary."
"It'll never be necessary." Danny said quickly.
Sam was going to reply him when her cell phone rang. She picked up and answered happily.
"Hello."
"Sam?" It was her father.
"Hi dad, I was wondering where you were." She said, making Danny sit up tense just by acknowledging that her father was on the phone. Really, that man gave him the creeps. Danny saw as Sam's face became a lot paler and her eyes filled with tears. "Now? But… when did it happen? Fine, I'm going." And the hung up.
She sat up in completely control of herself for three seconds before placing her arms on the table, bending down and crying hysterically.
"Sam, what happened?" Danny asked her, worriedly.
"My grandma passed away." She told him.
"Now?" He asked, confused. "That's why your parents weren't home then."
"He said she was unconscious in the morning and they ran to the hospital, she died just now." She explained. 'I wanted her to go to the audition' she thought bitterly. 'I started taking lessons because of her'.
"Come on, Sam" Danny helped her up. "I'm going to take you to the hospital; you need to be with your parents now."
"Oh Danny, I don't want her to die." She sobbed on his chest.
Now she had nobody else to talk to her aside from Danny and Tucker. The stupid world had just decided that she'd have to be alone.
Angst… Yeah, I had to write it. I know some of you want to kill me now, but… well, just be patient and keep reading.
