Starry Skies - Chapter 14

Home is the Other Way

The faint beeping grew steadily more emphatic as I slogged through noir atmosphere. My eyes refused to open, but my ears still heard. People shuffled among themselves, almost imperceptibly, I still heard the dull scraping of rubber soles against hardwood flooring. Nearby, some trees rustled in a northern wind. Though the breeze was soft, there was turmoil in the air. A storm was coming.

My eyes snapped open as if on default. All noise halted. Slowly..I looked up to meet the eyes of a young man with wide, careful eyes. I followed them as they traveled down the length of my arm, stopping at an intravenous wire feed jabbed in my wrist. I recognized the solution it fed into my system as A positive. Blood. I watched the liquid life drain into my arm, leaving a disturbing red stain where its path ended. My fingers quickly unlatched the catch on the small vial, and slid the pesky needle from my skin.

I blinked and everything came crashing down to reality. Looking around, I noticed several unnaturally pale faces; eyes glued to me. The Cullens. Vampires of mythical proportions, meant only to exist in watered down romance novels. So..why was I here too?

"Shit." I managed to utter before the darkness closed in on me again.

Before the vampires, I'd managed to think..No, not to think, but to numb my thoughts. To say, "Hey, so what? I can live in a fairy tale world where Werewolves are the norm and I can disappear from thin air." Before the vampires, I'd thought it was okay to know Jacob, and maybe even like him a little. Yeah, I admitted it. But none of that mattered now, because this wasn't really my life. My life was with Mom and Chloe in Chicago, where the people were in your face, and reality was every man for himself. In this dream world, nothing was real. Before the vampires, I believed this was the way things were now. But it wasn't how it really was. I didn't belong here, and from then on..I had to live away from this realm of books. Books are books no matter how convincing they seem. Dreams are dreams no matter how long they last..And if nobody was waking me up, I guessed I'd just have to do it for myself.

Before the vampires. This was after the vampires. After them. After everything. And yet before I knew anything.

"Lotte..."

"Waking up...?"

"Fine...Don't...Seconds"

"You really think she's okay?"

"I said five seconds! Chill out!"

Time to wake up, huh?

"...Jacob?" I asked just to make sure I hadn't woken up from this shit hole of nonsense while I was out. I honestly don't know why, I mean he wasn't there the first time I'd come to. Secretly, I almost thought I could hear jazz again. But instead he replied.

"Oh God Charlotte, Charlotte" he breathed. "I'm so glad you're okay, you scared the shit out of me, I'm so glad.." I'd been moved to a soft bed in a purple themed room. Alice's, I guessed. Goddamn. "...Charlotte?"

He was sat at the foot of the cushiony mattress, but quickly moved to my side when he heard me speak. The light poured in through a birch window, hitting me square in the eyes so I had to squint. His face glowed quietly like a light in the dark all around. It seeped through his hair, making it glint golden like tiny bubbles of amber. His perfectly shaped eyebrows shadowed a concerned set of deep, dark eyes, the same eyes that guarded the nose shadowing his left cheek, which built beautifully into that pair of mocha mauve lips. I think his nose was the most perfect thing I'd ever seen in my entire life. Super models would go through a hundred plastics surgeries and still never quite get it right. I bet his mother was so gorgeous. So gorgeous. It made me sad I had to go back.

"I'm sorry" I said so quickly, I could barely make it out myself. I knew he would hear. I shoved back the covers and ran before he could register.

"Charlotte!" He yelled; he didn't know where I was going, and for that I pitied him. I didn't know either but I knew it would be far away and that I could never go back.

The Cullens knew something was up; probably from Edward. They tried to get a hold of me, but I plowed straight through the lot of them and out the door. Pounding down the front steps, it felt like I couldn't breath. You know when you used to take swimming lessons, and you couldn't stop until the coach said so? Your lungs bursting, not allowed to taste sweet oxygen until the rounds were finished? That's how it felt to me. I prayed it would end. It didn't for a long time. And then I tore through nothing, and still it was the universe. Time finally stopped my heart and I had to collapse at the foot of a tree, gasping for breath as if wasn't all around me.

So. A little voice said inside my head.

Now I was hearing voices. Great.

Yeah?

Why are you running? It pondered psychoanalytically.

I want to go home. Duh.

But home is the other way.

It's not really about directions.

Perhaps I was unclear. I meant your home in Washington. With Jacob?

That isn't my home. I thought coldly, though the thought of Jacob took out the sting.

Why not? Someone wondered.

Because it's a book. And soon to be a movie. I don't live in the movies.

Yes, but we all live in books don't we? Every day is a page in our lives..Whether it's written on paper or time doesn't make much of a difference.

Pff, I snorted.It does.

Let me tell you one thing.. They said. Stephanie Meyers lied when she called her little Saga a fiction. You just happen to be the only one who knows the truth. Who can know it.

Okay. I somehow accepted this. I'm still going home.

Fair enough. They granted, and I drifted off once again.

When I opened my eyes I was in my room. In Chicago. It was furnished differently, and there was a picture of a young couple I didn't recognize on the bedside table. I got up and looked in the dresser that wasn't mine. It was filled with a mans clothes, and in the closet was some lady's. After a while of poking around, I saw that this was still my room, but the people who'd moved in after we left had just changed it around. I'd always expected it to be exactly the same as before. I don't know why. As to how I'd gotten here, I figured my little "gift" had come in handy.

Everything was still really surreal, so who knew. I looked at the clock that wasn't mine. 4 O'clock. The jazz quartet in the park should have started around then. Right on time, the lazy sound of Sinatra sunk into the walls, carrying the whole city feel right along with it. It was exactly the same, but something inside me was different, I think.

I traced my hand over the old peach walls (At least that much hadn't changed) and tried to feel home again. In the midst of my struggles a phone rang and the message machine picked up to say

"Hiya! This is Steve and Carrol. We're not home right now but leave us a message and we'll call you back! Thanks. Beeeep!" Steve and Carrols' house.

I told you home was the other way, the little voice said, and I was back in the woods gasping for breath again.