Break Away (Away, Book 1) (21 page)

“You're not doing this,” I heard him say
close behind me. Then, he was standing in front of me, blocking my
way out with furious eyes.

“Doing what?” I said, feigning innocence.

“This Ice Queen bullcrap. You don't need it
and
I
don't like it.”

“And I should care about that why?” I pulled
up my eyebrow.

“I helped you. I lied to your grandma back in
the hospital to save you from whatever thing you were running away
from.”

“I wasn't running away from anything.” I
said, leaning forward menacingly.

“It didn't look like it.”

“Are you sure Comus is the one with the
delusional mind?”

“Don't put this on me,” he said. “You know
I'm right.”

I sighed, exasperated. “That's the thing with
you, Ian. You
always
think you're right, and I'm sorry to
burst your ego-bloated bubble but—”

“And there you go again,” he interrupted me,
waving his hands in the air, as if asking the heavens for patience,
“Throwing everything on me to sidetrack the point of this
discussion.”

“The point? What point?”

“
You!
” He pointed at me, the green in
his eyes like two burning forests.

“
Me?
” Our voices had been rising up in
a thunderous cacophony and now, with the anger-ridden sounds
booming off the walls, I was afraid the glass panels above would
shatter in sharp-edged little pieces.

“
Yes, you! Why else would we be discussing
this?
”

“
Because you're a pea-brained moron,
that's why!
”

“
Yeah? And you're a stubborn, pain in the
ass coward!
”

“I. Am. Not. A. Coward,” I said, poking my
finger into his chest with every tight word that left my mouth.

He clasped my finger and looked at me right
into the eyes. “Yes, you are. You're afraid to
feel
.”

“
To feel? Feel what?
” I yelled.

I never got to know what was that thing
sizzling in his eyes because Lola chose that moment to step into
the room. “
Mijos
, what's the matter with all the screaming?”
She took us in, cocked her head and placed her short, chubby arms
on her round hips. “Are you fighting?”

At that, Ian released my finger and stepped
back. “No, we were just...discussing our differences, that's
all.”

She eyed us back and forth, her eyes two ping
pong balls darting between the two of us, as if she was figuring
out something.

The silence grew uncomfortable, like a big,
fat elephant in the room, and when Ian looked he couldn't take it
anymore, he said, “I'll go to take a shower in Dad's bathroom. You
can take mine.” He turned his head in my direction but didn't look
at me. Then, he strode past the entrance and left the room without
a word.

Lola found my eyes again and left them there,
as if she wanted to make a point with her unwavering scrutiny. I
could almost hear her voice whispering into my mind
you know
what that was, right mija? With Ian?

This time, it was me who was assaulted by
awkwardness, so I asked in a soft voice “What?”

With a narrowed, suspicious gaze, she said,
“You know…he has never let anyone come in here besides me. Not even
Mr. Townsend—or Buffy,” she added on a second thought. The words
why did he let
you
?
hung in the air.

Hating all these half conversations, I
decided to play Bullseye and shot straight at the target by
answering her. “I'm an artist, too,” I shrugged, “Maybe he feels
more comfortable with people that know the drill of creating
art.”

“The drill?” she asked, confused. “He never
uses drills.”

I smiled. “No. What I meant is that when you
create something, you want to show it to people who understand and
appreciate what you do. And since I'm all those things…”

Her brown eyes, if possible, narrowed more.
She wasn't convinced. That much was obvious. “I know Ian. Ever
since he was a kid, his love for crayon colors and Play-Doh told me
what his future would be. Mr. Townsend had other plans for him, of
course, and once Ian grew aware of it, his true passion became our
little secret—a secret that saw the light of day when he decided to
confront his father.
Dios mio
, he wasn't happy,” she said,
with her mind lost in far away memories. “But soon he came to terms
with Ian's career choice and everything got better. The only
problem was that Ian realized his secret wasn't
secret
anymore.”

She paused, as if thinking of a way to
explain this and carried on. “You see
mija
, when Ian used to
hide from his father in the garden shed to sculpt, that somehow
made it special in his mind. When he became aware that the spark
was vanishing after having broken the secret, he asked his father
for a place of his own to work on his sculptures. Mr. Townsend gave
him this,” she opened her arms wide to show the room, “and two
keys—one for Ian and one for me. So it was all over again the two
of us shielding his work from the eyes of others. It was again our
secret, and Ian was happy.” She looked at me with a small smile.
“Until you, no one besides him and
mi misma
had entered this
room. Not even friends from his art classes.”

I gave a shake of my head. “The door was
open, so I kind of sneaked myself in here. It's not like he
revealed to me his secret place.”

“But he let you stay,” she pointed out.

I stared at her, unable to give an answer to
that, not knowing what to think. So I did what was best and ignored
it. “I have to hurry and go to take a shower. I'll see you later
Lola.” I pressed my lips against each other in a tight smile and
reached the door. Then, I stopped and turned around. “Thanks for
sharing that with me,” I told her against what my brain was
screaming at me, because people could assume that in some way, I
was interested in Ian's past. And I wasn't. So I stepped out of the
threshold and drove my feet into the hallway.

Destination: Ian's oh-so-heavenly shower. I
sighed. At least there was one thing to smile about.

“T
hirsty little
fella, huh?” Ian told me when I slipped into the car after feeding
good oily nutrients into my Mini. “And picky at that.”

I turned on the engine and threw him a glare
over my shoulder. “Your Rover feeds on premium gas, too, so you
better shut the hell up.”

We'd already been to the hospital to check
Buffy. I'd taken the chance to tell Gran I had to go to Chicago
because an Aremihc's recruiter had scheduled a meeting to talk to
me. It was the only world-shaking reason that I could tell her that
might've explained me leaving in this moment—though there was no
need to tell her that not even an acceptance letter from Aremihc
would've pushed me away from my sister's room. Then we'd gone to
the Lady to get fresh clothes for me and to get my Mini out of her
driveway, because as I'd told Ian, I could better endure a ride
with Jack the Ripper than spend a whole four hours in his
leather-stuffed Rover to go to Oxford, Ohio.

While waiting for me to get ready, Ian had
Googled Comus' home address and surprise, surprise, he didn't live
in Chicago as we'd expected. No, he lived in a town where
paranormal research and ghost sightings were the daily bread. My
stomach had clenched in—I hated to admit—fear. But I'd shoved aside
my reluctance to go and had prompted Ian to begin our journey. A
journey that
he
wasn't so pleased to do in the tight,
enclosed space of my beautiful, loyal Mini.

“My legs are in serious pain,” Ian said,
struggling to shift his body to the side. “Could we please stop
somewhere for a few minutes so I can stretch them?”

“God, you're worse than a woman with a
urinary problem.”

“Blame the pocket-sized space of this thing,”
he said, looking down at his constricted legs.

I scoffed at that. It wasn't my Mini's fault
he was so tall. “We just stopped at the gas station and we're only
an hour away.”

“I could get a blood clot from this.”

I rolled my eyes. “That's only when you're
confined to constricted spaces for long periods of time—and four
hours certainly isn't. I'm not stopping, so deal with it.”

I heard him muttering something low that
didn't sound pleasant. I left him to his inner bitchy tantrum and
focused on the road ahead. The map on Ian's iPhone had shown Comus'
house was ten minutes away from Oxford, probably in a deserted
place with foggy, Sleepy Hollow-like surroundings. I shivered at
the thought. Ohio was a state widely known for its vast array of
haunted houses and ghost stories. The fact that I was adventuring
myself into this creepy, shadowy place shattered any doubt someone
might've had on the love I felt for Buffy.

Holding someone's hand through the darkness
was easy, but shoving yourself into the core of that darkness
wasn't, and that's why coming here was so important. Facing one's
biggest fear for the ones you held dear in your heart was the
biggest proof of devotion, the biggest sacrifice one could ever do.
And I was doing that for Buffy. I was facing my fear of the
paranormal for her, and maybe this didn't sound so heroic or epic,
but for the little Dafne cowering in one corner of my mind, it
meant the world. And I felt proud. Felt proud for her courage and
for what she was risking.

Whatever happened with Comus, I would always
hold this tad of respect for her in my heart, with the hopes that
in a near future it'd grow to complete self-fulfillment.
And
who knows? Someday I might turn into the most fearless ghost
slayer or ghost lover the world has ever known,
I thought with
a small smile. Life was about transformation and evolution after
all.

I glanced at Ian out of the corner of my eye.
Not everything was entitled to that positive conversion, though.
Some things just weren’t meant to change, and my relationship with
Ian was a fine example of it.

He crossed his arms over his chest in a sulky
mode and leaned back on the headrest with a frustrated sigh. He
truly seemed to be battling against my Mini’s comfort.
Good
,
I thought with a smile. He still had a few more minutes to enjoy my
absolutely gorgeous and cozy car.

Oxford, Ohio was everything I’d imagined once
we’d rolled into its silent outskirts—sun-deprived, gray, cold,
unwelcoming. At first, the city was charming and filled with warm
colors, a place where I could see a wrinkled version of me living
her last days. It was peaceful and inviting. But later, as if we
glided into a dual mirror, a cloud took over the sky and coated the
town’s distant surroundings with a dull blush, turning the trees
into lifeless, tall forms. The sun a sparkling remembrance of the
now shadowy cold. With each passing mile, icy fingers dug into my
chest.

I tightened my hands around the steer wheel,
my knuckles white with pressure.

“Who’s uncomfortable now?” Ian suddenly said,
curious laughter edging his voice.

I kept my eyes on the creepy road, thinking
about those movie scenes where the driver turned to look at the
person beside them only to find a second later a ghastly shape in
the middle of the road when he pulled back his gaze to it. I
definitely didn’t want that to happen. So my eyes stayed fixed on
the firm, gray carpet spreading ahead. “I’m super. Not
uncomfortable at all. Why would I be?” I said, with a small nervous
hitch at the end.

“No idea.” He reached the radio and turned it
on.

“Don’t,” I said almost immediately. “I, uh,
get distracted with music. I don’t want us to get lost.” Even if it
was a lie, I rather be seen as a person with ADD than a crazy one.
Because what would’ve he thought if I told him radio could lead to
static and static could lead to distorted messages from the other
side? Yep. I guess I wasn’t ready to become a ghost lover yet.
Bummer.

“We have the GPS and
me
to not let you
get us tangled in the middle of a foggy forest,” he said. “Wouldn’t
it be cool if we stumbled upon the infamous Headless Horseman?”

I swallowed. “Don’t tell me you believe in
that, too.”

“Why not? If people believe in UFO’s why not
in a headless man riding a black horse?”

“I’m really starting to believe you’re one of
those superstitious people.” This talk was making me nervous.

He shrugged. “I do believe that to be a good
artist you have to acknowledge the possibility of other realms.
Believe that there’s much more than what surrounds us. It fuels
one’s imagination.”

I shot him a curious glance.

He smiled at the speck of interest dancing in
my eyes and took it as a cue to continue. “When I sculpt, I feel
like my mind isn’t in this world. That it’s somehow suspended in a
place where soul and mind become one, where colors and motions are
its language. I’m just not…
here
. I’m somewhere else.”

“Like a parallel dimension you mean?”

“I don’t know what it is. I just feel it
there
, like a special spot in the back of my head.”

Something about his last words rang a bell,
good or bad, I couldn’t tell.

He looked at his iPhone and said, “Turn to
the right on the next road. It’ll head us straight to Comus’
house.”

Though the fog lining the road made it hard
to see said turn, I slowed down our speed right in time to catch
it. The road narrowed and the fog became denser, nearly
obliterating our surroundings in a frightening, dreary cloud. The
front lights of my Mini were two vapory tunnels of blurry
clearness. I hesitated, my foot more heavy on the brakes with each
passing second. My heartbeats faster than the drums of a tribal
song.

I was imagining the ghost of a little girl
dressed in a white dress, with long black hair hiding her ashen
face, when Ian’s alarmed voice broke through the frightening image.
“Stop!”