Second Sight

Second Sight

By

Maria Rachel Hooley

Second Sight

©2010 Maria Rachel Hooley

Smashwords Edition

Cover Art by Justine Hedman

Chapter One

There is a hum to the white noise of dreams,
a low resonance that slips down through the cracks, keeping me
under the weight of sleep like a drug. It’s constant, like a
florescent light, and just as warm, but I haven’t felt its
steadiness flow through me since Lev died.

Lev.

I open my eyes to find him lying next to me,
his arms draping my body, his wings furled around me, bathing us in
a soft, white glow. His eyelids are closed, his long, blond lashes
touch his cheeks. The even rise and fall of his bare chest suggests
sleep.

This is impossible, I know. But impossible or
not, I’m not willing to destroy whatever form of Lev lies near me.
He’s here for now, and that’s all I care about.

As if sensing my panic, his eyes slowly
flutter open, and a lazy smile crosses his face. “Hey, Elizabeth.”
His hand reaches out and touches the place just above my heart,
willing it to slow. But even that won’t make the fear go away.

“
Lev,” I whisper, my tone
clipped. Let this be real, not everything else, I think.

“
What’s the matter?” he
asks, his voice deep and husky. He pushes an errant strand of hair
from my face.

A million words splinter through me, but none
dare be spoken without destroying him. So I say nothing and bury my
head into his chest. Tears prick my eyes, and I wish I could drive
them away, but no matter how often I think I get rid of them, they
always come back. I’ll never be free of them.

“
Elizabeth?”

Panic. I feel my heart thundering in my
chest, and it’s hard to breathe. Then I feel the moisture beneath
my hands, and I force myself to pull away. Blood. My hands are
covered in it. Lev’s once expressive face is slack-jawed and
glassy-eyed. Wherever the blood comes from, it never runs out.

It is then morning jars me awake, and I jerk
upright in my bed. A scream rips through me, though it takes a
moment to realize it. It’s a wordless wail of torment. I could ask
why, again--just yell it at the top of my lungs, launching it like
a missile at the heavens. But I’d never get an answer. I wouldn’t
get Lev back, either.

“
Lizzie?” Jimmie jerks open
the door. Dark circles underscore his eyes, telling me he’s not
been sleeping any better than I have. Every night I wake screaming.
Six months out, and I still jerk from unconsciousness as though a
knife has been plunged into my chest. Jimmie lingers in the
doorway, his hand on the knob, his eyes unsure. He’s wearing a
white t-shirt and shorts—classic Jimmy—and his hair is rumpled,
standing on end.

“
I’m all right.” My voice
is flat, and I won’t look at him, afraid he’ll realize just how far
from okay I am.

For a moment, he just watches me, eyebrows
furrowed. The breath he’s been holding slowly slips free, his
shoulders sagging. His lips are pursed but frozen in place; he
wants to say something but the words fail him.

“
I’m all right,” I mutter
again, folding my arms around my body—as if that will contain the
anguish that claws at my insides like Constantine wire.

“’
Kay.” He nods and
retreats down the hallway, leaving me alone. I don’t sleep much
anymore. Funny, I used to have nightmares about dying; now I have
them about living…alone. No matter how much I try to forget it, I
remember the feel of Lev’s body next to mine, his skin as familiar
as my own. I ball my right hand into a fist, and the bracelet that
Lev gave me glitters in the pale sunlight ebbing around the
curtains.

Hesed
. Love. The script is beautiful. I blink and Lev’s face is
there—gold and pure. His timeless blue eyes peer back at me until
they are all I can see.

All gone.

Shaking, I drag my hand
through my hair, pulling the loose strands from my face. I turn to
the alarm clock. 7:30. It’s Saturday. Jimmie probably would have
slept in if I hadn’t woken him. I swallow hard. Six months since
Lev’s death, and I yet find myself looking for angels. Looking
for
him
. Is it too
much to ask that a town as simple as Tellico Plains, Tennessee,
needs more angels—and that if I should somehow be able to somehow
find one, could he tell me the truth?

Yeah. Right. The truth.

I force myself to sit up, knowing it was
nothing short of a miracle I ever knew Lev for what he was—would I
be able to recognize others? I pull the rubber band from my wrist,
wrapping it around my long mane of hair just to get it out of my
face. As the tears resurface, I rest my arms on my knees and let
them rip through me. Tears of grief become tears of anger, which is
all I have left.

Damn
him.

When the emotional storm has finished with
me, I wipe my face and try to ignore the headache. There’s no point
in tears, I know. They serve no purpose except to remind me of all
the things my life is not and never will be again. I stumble from
the bed to the closet. Inside, I find lots of winter clothes left
over from my brief stint in Hauser’s Landing, Massachusetts. Never
mind that it’s summer now in Tellico Plains, not that I’d wear a
lot of this stuff again anyway. Not now.

I settle on black jeans and
a purple tank top, colors I’d not normally choose. Maybe it’s my
way of saying if I could be someone else, I would be. In passing, I
see my reflection in my bureau mirror—haunted and gaunt. But the
eyes are the same. They have
always
been the same.
Hello. Is
Elizabeth in there somewhere?

I shun the mirror and keep moving until I
reach the kitchen, where Jimmie calmly sits at the table, a mug of
coffee already in front of him. Although I’m expecting him to break
out a pack of Marlboros any moment, right now he’s still adamant
about quitting.

Opening a cabinet, I pretend to forage; the
one thing that always gets Jimmie’s attention is when I don’t eat.
It’s like a red flag, with Jimmie as the bull. So I grab a box of
cereal. Once the flakes have tumbled into a bowl, I douse them in
milk and feign eating, hoping Jimmie takes the bait. I’m hoping he
won’t sense my upcoming road trip away from this stupid place—just
another hick town with more trees than people. More classic Jimmie.
I can’t say I share his enthusiasm.

I nod to the cereal box and milk. “You want
some?”

“
Nope.” He taps his mug. “I
got the breakfast of champions right here.” He takes a
sip.

“
Going fishing?” I ask,
hoping for the distraction. Jimmie’s been watching me too closely
these days, like he’s expecting me to fall apart. Maybe he’s
right.

“
Thought about it. I guess
it depends on what you’ve got planned.”

That’s code for “I’ll decide what I’m doing
when I know you’re not getting into trouble.” I shrug and push my
spoon around in the bowl.

“
Well, what are you going
to do?” he finally asks, sensing his hint has garnered no
response.

“
Thought about looking
around and unpacking.” It’s not a lie, exactly. I am going to look
around. It’ll just be in Knoxville, not Tellico Plains. I’m not
expecting to find any celestial beings in this little town. Hell,
with a population this small, nobody gets to die; if anyone did the
town might just drop off the face of the earth.

“
Lizzie?” His tone harbors
a warning.

“
I’m fine, Jimmie.” I carry
my half-empty bowl to the sink. “I told you that.

“
Yeah, that’s why you woke
from a nightmare screaming your head off.”

My back stiffens, and I wish I could make him
drop this topic. I’ve been wishing that since Lev died. “I said I
was fine, Jimmie.”

“
I know. But that only
makes you a liar, Lizzie. It doesn’t mean you’re not hurting. I
still think we need to set up an appointment—”

“
I’m not doing the shrink
thing!” I yell, glaring. “Period.” I grip the counter to find some
way of occupying my hands.

“
Lizzie, you loved a boy
who died in your arms. That leaves a mark.” He stands, and I just
know he’s coming toward me regardless of whether I want him to.
With the counter at my back, it’s not like I have anywhere to
go.

“
I don’t want to talk about
this.” My heart starts to gallop, and breathing gets harder as an
image of Lev jumps into my head. My throat is dry, and I start
shaking even though it’s easily seventy degrees in here. I wish
Jimmie would leave me alone. He doesn’t get it, and he won’t.
Jimmie has one way of dealing with everything—barrel through and
forget the pieces. No harm, no foul. No point.

“
You can’t keep it bottled
up forever. It’s going to eat you up until there is nothing left.”
Jimmie steps toward me, and I launch myself away from the counter,
dodging him. Still, he manages to lay his hand on my shoulder, and
with it comes the weight of the world. Tears prick my eyes, and if
I have any hope of putting the pain back inside, I have to get away
from him. I shrug him off.

“
Lev is dead, Jimmie. I
know that. He’s never coming back. Is that what you want to
hear?”

“
This isn’t about what I
want,” Jimmie says, his tone resigned. “It’s about what you need to
get through this, and you don’t want to talk to me about whatever
is locked inside your head.”

Oh, but it
is
what he wants. It
always
has
been.
His time, his way.

I grit my teeth, stunned. “So you think I’m
going to talk to a complete stranger because she has the right
credentials? Didn’t it ever occur to you maybe I just don’t want to
talk to anybody right now?” The lump in my throat is building, just
another clue that at any moment, if I don’t get out of here, it’s
all going to come tumbling down, and if I fall apart, I’m not sure
I’ll be able to put the pieces back together. But, then, damn the
pieces, right? Plow through.

Jimmie, clueless as ever, reaches out and
pushes a strand of hair from my eyes. That simple gesture unlocks
my heart, and all the pain I’ve been carefully stacking there like
an internal game of Tetris, falls beyond my control as I start
crying, gasping, and falling. Jimmie’s arms enfold me, and he keeps
whispering that it will all be okay, but I know better. Jimmie
doesn’t control the alignment of the stars any more than I do. He
can’t promise me I’ll be okay. The only thing he can promise that
the he’ll never ever leave this alone. For him, I’m like the only
crooked frame of all the straight ones. If he doesn’t fix me, he’ll
never be able to let me be.

Still, for the moment, it feels good to be
held and have someone else taking note of everything I can’t
control. Not even my heart obeys me anymore. It’s stubborn like
that, and maybe if Lev were here, things would be different.

My only chance is to find him, wherever he
may be. Knoxville, Tennessee, sounds like as good a place as
any.

I take a shuddering breath and test to see if
Jimmie’s ready to let go. The way his arms reluctantly release me
affirm my attempt, but the concern in his tight-lipped frown
appears no less, which sucks because at least one of us should feel
better after that moment of despair, and it’s not me. Looking away,
I brush the tears from my face and head back to my room. I’ve had
about all the bonding I can stomach.

“
I’m worried about you,”
Jimmie calls. I want to yell back that worry is seriously
over-rated and useless. Thing is, with Jimmie these days, I’m never
quite sure exactly what he’s worried about. Me? Maybe. But in all
truth, I don’t even know what that means. Yet the simple fact of
the matter is I’m worried, too.

Jimmie would absolutely kill me if he had any
idea my vision of exploring included driving to a city that could
swallow Tellico Plains whole and ask for seconds and thirds. But as
I start seeing the fringes of the city ahead, I tell myself it
really doesn’t matter; Jimmie isn’t going to find out. And even if
he does, so what?

I’ve driven in Dallas, so the traffic isn’t
that much of a headache. No, what sets me on edge is the fact I’m
not even really sure what I’m looking for, only that I’m sure I’ll
recognize it when I run across it.

As I start to drive around, I stick to the
main streets, but all that results in is pretty buildings with
beautiful landscaping. Tourism in all its glory. I shake my head at
the mall to my left filled with lots of trendy, expensive vehicles,
each complete with nicely dressed people obtuse amid their
affluence, which tells me one thing for certain: I’m in the wrong
part of town to find Lev.