Sun Damage (The Sunshine Series) (25 page)

“
Myles…” I say, but I have to clear my throat before continuing. I also stare down at my hands planted on the edge of the sink. “He knew our dad. We all knew him...but he took it away. He took it all away because of me.”

Jade tosses my shirt to the side. It tumbles off the dryer and settles on the dirty linoleum floor. He moves closer to me so when he speaks next, it’s practically in my ear.
“Tell me,” he says. “Tell me everything.”

So I do. I tell him about Michael. About every single dream or hallucination I’ve had about or with him. I tell him about dying, about the water and the exact replica of his house with his dead
fiancé waiting inside. And I tell him about Myles. How he’s kept everything from me, including the fact that when we were small he was in our lives. When our father left, it was because of me and that Myles stayed.

I tell him how if I was basically never born, none of this would be happening and maybe the rest of my family would have normal lives.
Then I tell him about me. I tell him about my blood and how
different
I am because of it. How our father was the same way. How he’s dead now because of it. How Michael is after me for the same reason. How I may not survive very long as a vampire at all. It takes no more than ten minutes because I speak so quickly, giving my brother no time to react. And he takes it all in, staring at the mirror and the both of us.

“
Anything else?” he asks under his breath.

I shake my head, unable to speak anymore.

I sit back down on the closed toilet lid. Jade hands me my shirt without a word. There’s no red on it anymore, just a stretched out shade of brown. When I take it from him, my hand touches his and I can’t stop it from latching on. I can’t help that he feels so warm when I’m so cold.

Cold, like a hole in the ground.
Like the earth my mother left me in.

“
Sophie?” Jade’s voice is strained. A note I can bend and break if I choose to, depending on how hard I squeeze his arm. “Sophie,” he whispers, but it’s a far off sound. It means nothing. “You’re scaring me.”

The colors come next.
Yellow and then brown. I realize what they mean without anyone having to tell me. Concern that singes away into fear. I can taste it on my tongue like dust.

“
Sophie.” Now his voice is even, but the colors don’t fade away. He’s still scared. Part of me wants to stop, but the bigger part of me–the monster in me–wants it. I want all of it.

He moves his arm, but it only makes us come closer. My head is almost against his chest when he says,
“You were nervous when you got your wings tattooed.”

That almost makes me stop, but it’s a memory I can’t hold on to, not like this. Not like him. Not like life and warmth and color.

I hear him–feel him, deep in my bones, rattling them, making my fingers ache. “You were really excited,” he whispers. “And I did all the paperwork and Cookie drew up the whole thing and put it on your back and when she walked out of the room, do you remember what you said to me?”

I don’t answer, but my fingers loosen, probably not enough for him to notice, but they do.

“You said,” he whispers. “‘I don’t think I deserve this’.”

My mind flashes back to that place and time, when I was fourteen, sitting on the table with my hoodie reversed so my back was bare and wet with the stencil. I said the words when Cookie left to answer the phone and Jade was sitting in a chair across the room. He got up, scooped me into a hug, and said into my ear,
“You do.”

I blink a few times, something I don’t think I’ve done in at least a few minutes. In the time it takes me to do that, my grip on Jade’s arm loosens completely and he pulls his arm free. The warmth is drained from my face and fingers, causing
goose bumps on my exposed skin. The look in my brother’s eyes is familiar; it’s the same one I saw when he scooped me out of the pool when I was little. The same as when he came out of that hospital room Stevie was in. He’s terrified. Uncertain of what is going to happen next, but he probably thinks the outcome can only be one way.

“
I–” I say. “I’m sorry.”

Jade looks down at his wrist and I notice how red it is.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, my voice cracking and breaking like ice. “I didn’t mean to.”

He glances up at me again,
“It’s okay.” He flexes his fingers.

“
I really am,” I say, tears finally clogging up my mouth so it doesn’t come out the way I want it to sound. “For everything.”

“
It’s fine,” he says. “Put your shirt on. We’ve been in here too long.”

I do as he says, not looking at the stain or my collarbone or him.

“Where’s your coat?” he asks.

I gulp down the rest of the tears, understanding what I’m supposed to do. Act normal now, fall apart late
r. I don’t have to answer Jade; he turns around and finds it on the floor. “Use it to cover up the stain until you can change your shirt, okay?”
I nod.

Jade doesn’t wait for me to button it up before he leaves the room.

Chapter 14

Found

“
In this time, in this moment, we could crash together.”—Digital Daggers
 

The show is during the afternoon.
And outside. Fortunately enough, it’s in a huge tent on a beach, which is only a block away from our hotel. I don’t have to worry about the sun. I didn’t have time to go home and change, so I wear the trench coat onstage anyway. Jade told us he wasn’t feeling well so he went to lie down in our hotel room. He isn’t coming to our show and I couldn’t bring myself to be alone with him. I can’t see that look on his face again. I won’t risk it. I meet Boo and Trei onstage for sound check, which is right before our performance this time around. No one makes a fuss when they see us come out from behind the curtain, but that’s pretty much what we were expecting. It’s hot inside the tent; the air thickens as the crowd starts to gather.

“
You okay?” Trei asks as I sit down at the keyboard. “You didn’t really eat anything.”

I watch the back of the crowd where the sound guy is set up. He signals for me to speak into the microphone and I do,
“One, two, one, two.”

He gives me
a thumbs up and then he moves onto how the keyboard sounds, then Boo and Trei.

“
You have the set list?” Boo asks. It takes me longer than it should to realize it’s directed at me.

“
No,” I say.

Bo
o sighs and I shouldn’t hear it, but even if I didn’t, he exaggerates shrugging his shoulders so much I wouldn’t be able to miss it. “Okay,” he says walking over to me, taking a pen out of his pocket.

My body tenses when he tries to take my hand, but I think fast and grab the pen from him as quickly as possible, minimizing the chance that I touch him.
“Just tell me the songs.”

Boo rattles off a different combination of the same songs we’ve played for almost two weeks now and I jot them all down on my wrist.

“No encore tonight,” Boo says. “And our merch is being sold by the venue, not us.”

“
Okay,” I say, but it isn’t loud enough for him to hear. I toss his pen back at him and we wait patiently for the sound guy to tell us when to begin.

I decide that maybe going through the motions, the way I had been before the whole crowd-walking incident, is the best way to do this. I don’t open myself up for all of these strangers to see. I don’t get lost in the songs, letting them cover me once I’m exposed. All I worry about is getting through our set without
messing up the notes or lyrics and I count them down, feeling more and more relieved with every one that’s finished, the crowd eating up what we’ve given them, even though my portion of the performance is stale.

Again, I don’t remember it starting or ending. Just clips of son
gs and sounds before we’re backstage again. Maybe music makes my brain shut off more than it did before and that’s why everything is a blur. Of course the one thing that would bring me comfort would be forgotten when I need it. Nothing else is going right, so why should I expect solace, even the littlest bit?

When it’s over, we head backstage, like we’ve done at every show since the beginning. Only I can’t stay in that enclosed space with all of the people outside, cheering as Honus takes the stage.

“I’m going to get some air,” I announce.

Boo looks up from his phone and Trei stops putting away her violin.
“We were going to watch Honus play, but do you want us to go with you?”

“
Nah,” I say, trying for nonchalance. “You guys stay and have fun. I’m feeling kind of sick.” I grab my sunglasses from my coat pocket and put them on.

Sympathetic faces all around. I’ve fooled them once again.
“Well, if you need a ride back to the hotel, just let one of us know.” Boo says.

“
Right,” Trei retorts. “Because we brought our cars on tour.”

“
Shut up,” Boo says in the least threatening way. “I’m just trying to help.” He stares back at me. “We’ll help you get a cab or something. Okay?”

I nod, even giving them half a smile before I walk out of the backstage area and leave the tent.
I feel guilty stalking off, separating myself from my bandmates again, when I haven’t exactly been present for tour. They haven’t said anything concerning that, but I know deep down, they must have noticed it at some point. Maybe they think I’m having a hard time adjusting to touring. Maybe they think I’m still upset about Stevie. Normal problems.

Outside it’s brighter
and even though I’m wearing my shades, I can’t stare directly ahead of me. The sunlight reflects off of each granule of sand so brightly that my head starts to throb, which makes my stomach hurt. I’m hungry, I realize, and I also realize that I don’t know what that means anymore. Food disinterests me and blood makes me sick. I suck energy from whoever touches me and even that doesn’t seem to help for long.

Once I’ve steadied myself, I take a chance by looking around. Everything is still too bright, but at least I can see now. Behind me is the tent, where the booming sound of Honus plays on. Ahead of me is some kind of boardwalk with games and people in bathing suits.

I only mean to take a few steps toward the water, but suddenly, I find myself sitting at the edge of the waves, the foam licking at my boots. I take a few steps back, wondering how I got here so fast. Did I walk and not remember it, or did I run so fast that my brain didn’t process it? My knees buckle then and my butt comes into contact with the hot sand. I feel it through my coat and jeans as if I weren’t wearing anything at all. I dig my hands into it, until I can feel the damp, cool layer underneath.

My mind flashes back to the night my mom freaked out, throwing my things out the window, into trees and all over the lawn.

“He’s never coming back, you know,”
she said.
“He doesn’t love you
.”

Mom was talking about Ryan—our dad. She had to be.

Did he? Did he love me–us–enough to walk away? Or did he just leave so he could protect himself, so he wasn’t just sitting at home waiting for Michael to pick him off?

I shake my head, forcing myself to think about what happened after that.

Myles following me to the beach, finding me, sensing where I went. Him placing his jacket over me, sitting with me in the rain until I was ready to get back up.

“
Things will get better,”
he said.
“They always do.”

A hand on my arm breaks my concentration and I don’t have to look to see who it is. Grey
floods my vision. Two grey eyes staring down at me as Iron Maiden echoes faintly down the hallway of my brain.

“
If you want to keep that hand,” I say. “I suggest you remove it.” I don’t move. I don’t open my eyes. The color fades away and I finally look to my left, hoping that it’s some form of a memory and not any form of reality. But there he is, sitting in the sand. Dirty blond hair, stubble that scraped my chin. It’s all there, in front of me.

“
Please don’t be upset,” he says straight off. He backs up another few inches. I want to throw him into the water. Even if he got swept up in a riptide, he wouldn’t be far enough away.

“
How did you find me?” My hands feel hot and my pulse thuds in my temples. I stare at the ocean ahead.

“
You have tour dates posted online,” he says. “Anyone could find you.”

Of course.
How dumb was I to go on tour? How fucking stupid can one person be?

“
Why are you here, Jack?” I try to keep my voice even.

How can it be that now, when I’m so different, so
powerful
, that this one person can still have the ability to get underneath my skin and make it crawl, like it doesn’t even belong to me?

“
If you touch me again, I’ll kill you,” and it isn’t until it’s left my mouth that I believe it.