The hum, which cut like a knife into my togetherness, was coming from an unfamiliar, dark-colored sedan resting at a stop light on the street directly in front of us. I noticed the melody first, but as I stood there, blocking out everything – the trotting hooves of carriage rides, muted conversations – I could faintly make out lyrics too.
“Julia, are you okay?” the beautiful man beside me echoed, sounding slightly concerned.
My heart was beating violently against the walls of my chest now. My breaths were quickening. My legs were struggling to hold my weight. The tiny heel of my sandal had, by now, become a part of the ground beneath me, and I was just merely an extension of this small piece of earth. And somehow, in what had only amounted to a matter of moments, my world had grown so small – and nothing mattered more than hearing that melody in the near distance. And yet, somehow, I managed to find a word. Well, almost a word.
“Hmm?” I asked half-heartedly. Even I could tell I was clearly distracted and disinterested in my company’s, for now, unimportant question.
“Are you alright?” he asked again cautiously.
I tried to recollect myself even as my senses were being drawn into the Siren’s sedan-like lair.
“I’m sorry,” I answered him in a soft, unusually preoccupied voice. The voice even surprised me. “I just… that song,” I stuttered. My eyes were planted straight ahead.
He moved closer, and suddenly, I felt his fingers interlocking mine. I was aware enough to notice that they were larger than mine, a little rougher than mine, but I was too lost in something other than us to respond outwardly to his brave gesture, though I don’t think he had ever touched me like that before. In fact, who was I kidding? Of course he had never touched me like that before. Co-workers don’t hold hands.
“I hear the music. What about it?” he asked. He sounded puzzled, though his detective work remained patient and slightly curious.
“I know it,” I whispered now as I struggled to still hear the lyrics from my past and the man’s heavenly voice beside me all at the same time. I wasn’t sure which one I’d rather be hearing at the moment. The beautiful man’s voice was safe and predictable. The lyrics, on the other hand, were from a time when everything was perfect, but anything but predictable.
Anthony drew his face closer to mine without saying a word. I could smell the sweet hues of his cologne as his strong chest pressed against my shoulder. I was just beginning to realize how warm and strong his hand felt – maybe it was because there was such a sharp contrast between his and mine. My hand was growing colder and clammier with each pressing second. The whole moment was all so new, so foreign – my co-worker holding my hand, that sound – both of those events simultaneously. I mean, I would usually feel butterflies in a time like this – a first for us – the first move. Yet now, I just wanted him not to be near me, not to feel my ice-cold hands, my slimy scales for skin. And oddly enough, now, I just wanted him to stay quiet and still because regardless of how I wanted to feel or how I thought I should feel about him or his hand-holding or his cologne or his chest’s close proximity to my body, it took a backseat to an unfamiliar, dark sedan and its not-so-u
nfamiliar echo in the distance.
“Is this one a favorite – the song?” he whispered, still trying to reel me in, I’m sure, and rightly so.
He remained patiently interested in what had so violently stolen me away from him. My eyes, however, continued to pierce my distraction as if I could physically see what the ly
rics that poured from it meant.
“No, it’s not a favorite,” I lied. My half-truth was soft – almost in auto-pilot, the kind that was distant and low. It was still too early to let him in. And it wasn’t completely a lie. The truth was that I didn’t have the slightest idea of how to feel about it. Like him, I was hearing the song’s entire version for the first time.
Having said my peace, I returned my full attention back to the sound as if I had no control over its pull.
Anthony paused then, but I still said nothing. I had barely noticed that I wasn’t blinking. I guess I thought I might miss some of the lyrics or something if my eyelids lingered over my intense, green irises too long. My glossy lips too were wrapped up in my body’s so-called revolt, never touching each other as I stared longingly. And my chest rose and fell as if it took grea
t pains to control its pattern.
“Do you like the artist then?” I could faintly hear Anthony ask me
– almost as if from a distance.
I swore my heart stopped momentarily then as I unintentionally squeezed his hand tightly – tighter than one should squeeze a hand she was holding for the first time.
The artist. If he only knew.
I still said nothing.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Julia?” he asked, sounding just short of worried.
No, was what I wanted to say, but I didn’t, as a decade of memories and what seemed as if it were a heartfelt confession flooded my mind and lay heavy on my jaded heart. I could tell Anthony was starting to grow concerned by my short leave of absence and my sudden, distressed state. His voice held a lingering uneasiness, and I knew I wasn’t being fair, but I still couldn’t tear my stare away from that old sedan even as the traffic light turned a blaring green and the vehicle sped away, taking its melody with it.
I stared for long, drawn-out seconds until I was unable to see the car any longer. Then my eyes followed a conscious path from my elbow to my clammy hand to his hand and then up to my company’s
questioning, soft, brown eyes.
“Yes, I’m fine. It’s nothing,” I said softly, hastily, habitually tucking a strand o
f my hair behind my ear.
His big, chocolate, long-suffering irises made him look like an anxious puppy, waiting for its master to recognize its presence, waiting for her to say something, waiting for her to come back to him. He was so gorgeous – the mysterious, foreign kind of gorgeous – if you could call the South a foreign land. Really, he was the kind that you dreamed about – and here I was getting lost in some loud, old sedan. I knew that he probably didn’t get this type of behavior very often. And he was so innocent, still so oblivious to my past and the people who had shaped it. And he looked as if he wanted me to say that I was fine and that my world hadn’t just turned on its end, but I wasn’t fine, and I wasn’t ready to act like I was either. I was
n’t ready to come back yet.
I took a second to take one more glance back at the cobble-stoned piece of the world where the old sedan had been resting just moments before. The car was definitely gone now, and by now a much larger, rusty pick-up truck with an early American flag plastered across its back window had replaced it. There was no music pouring from its speakers – no more lyrics, no more words. With the sedan, had gone the song, and it had left my world painfully quiet and eerily still.
I turned back toward the harbor as my eyes caught once again the surprisingly sultry creature still attached to my hand, still waiting unwaveringly for my reply. I counted it a blessing that he was still there, that he hadn’t fled in my brief lapse of worldly consciousness. It was time to come back. After all, it wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t just dropped the entire weight of my past onto my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “How about the pier?” I both asked and stated with the best sincere smile I could muster up, forcing my attention back to him, back to us. I must choose my words carefully, I reminded myself.
“And, no, he’s not my favorite
artist,” I said to him softly.
I took a deep breath in and then let it out slowly. Then, I flashed another half-hearted grin back up at him just before taking one last look over my shoulder.
“He used to be,” I whispered
.
I
could feel the fire warming my face as I stretched my bare fingers closer to its flames. The smell of burning logs filled the air around me and sunk deep into the fibers of my hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans. My eyes were entranced by the orange blaze, watching it sizzle and pop as it ate away pieces of the cedar’s bark little by little. The night surrounding the fire was unseasonably crisp, but not altogether unusual for a
Missouri
summer, and voices echoed in my background over the flames’ constant chatter.
“Hey, Julia,” I heard one of those voices call out from behind me.
Before I could turn around, a lanky, teen-aged boy jumped over the log I was sitting on and plopped down next to me.
“Oh, hi, Jeff,” I said cheerfully, after he was already making himself comfortable. “Getting a little chilly out there away from the fire?”
“Nah, I’m alright,” he said shyly, then paused.
“Hey, I can go get ya some hot chocolate, though. That should warm ya up, if you’re cold,” he added proudly as the corners of his mouth rose slightly.
I started to answer him when a tall, athletic-looking figure squatted down behind the lanky boy. I could see in the bonfire’s light the athletic boy’s hand come to his face and cover his mouth as he whispered something into the lanky boy’s ear.
Within seconds, the lanky boy stood up, dusted off his faded blue jeans and planted his eyes squarely on me.
“I’ll be right back,” the lanky boy announced. In his voice was an unspoken plea for me to stay exactly where I was.
Then, just as quickly as he had appeared, he disappeared back into the black night, unde
tectable by the fire’s flames.
I stared down the tall, athletic boy in front of me, my green eyes bright and suspecting of mischief.
“Will Stephens, what did you say to him?” I asked, scolding him playfully.
“I told him his truck lights were on,” Will said, grinning and taking a seat beside me on the log where the lanky boy had just been sitting.
“Are they?” I asked, somehow feeling as though I already knew the answer.
“No,” he mumbled, grinning softly into the fire’s flames.