Sun Poisoned (The Sunshine Series) (27 page)

My hand slowly raises, settling on top of my chest.

Without hesitation, Myles places his cool palm flat against the back of my hand. He moves in, eliminating the fraction of distance that remains between us. We don’t need to say a
nything, but he speaks anyway.

“
It’s still there,” he says.

He’s right. It is. But I don’t want to think of what shape it’s in. Or how Jade’s heart is, either.

“Why don’t you take a shower?” Myles says after a while, staring into my puffy eyes. It’s not a demand, just a gentle nudge. He kisses my forehead like it’ll convince me further. “Maybe you’ll feel a little bit better.”

I don’t answer but I follow him into the bathroom when he starts walking.

“Okay,” Myles says. “Adam dropped off some clothes for you.” He gestures to brown a leather suitcase on the tile floor. “And you can use any of the towels over there.” He points to a shelf with green fabric neatly folded on it. His voice is soft, like he’s afraid to jolt me into reality too fast.

“
What time do we have to leave?” I ask, my voice deep and hoarse from not talking for days.

“
It starts at three, we have plenty of time.”

I nod.

Myles steps out of the bathroom, quietly shutting the door behind him.

The first thing I do is open the suitcase. The clothes inside are plain, dark. Adam also packed a small cosmetics bag that I’ve had lying around my bathroom at Stevie and Jade’s from when I would sneak over for a weekend here and there.

It seems like such a long time ago.

I pull back the shower curtain,
turn on the water as hot as I can stand it, and jump in, remembering to strip off my clothes only moments before.

I don’t realize that I’ve brought the little plastic pink razor inside the shower with me.

I’m not sure if I can trust myself with it right now, but to prove that I’m okay, I shave my legs carefully, making sure to not get one nic or cut; and I succeed. The only red that washes down the drain is from the streaks in my hair.

It’s not until I’m out of the shower with a towel wrapped around me that I take a second to glance at the razor.

It’s like I’m moving through yet another dream, one I’ve had many, many times before. I bend the baby pink plastic until it turns white and gives way to free what’s inside. I pick what my body wants out of the plastic that was holding it in place with my fingertips. I let the cool, flat, shiny razor come to rest in my palm.

“
Sophie.”

I know Myles has opened the door. I know he’s here to stop me, but there’s no need for that. I’m not going to do anything.

“I just want to hold it,” I whisper back.

I hear him take a few steps forward, reach around me, and turn off the water. Then he places another towel over my shoulders, but it’s not enough
to block the light from glinting off of the metal, causing it to smile at me.

Several long minutes pass without any speaking, without any movement.

Myles kneels down in front of me. Instead of taking the razor away, he reaches around my shoulders for the towel and begins to dry my hair with it. Gently, like each strand will snap because they’re just as weak as I am.

He lets me hold my hand out in front of me and stare at the shiny, sharp object. He lets me think about how good it would feel to take its edge and slide it across my skin. Maybe on my thigh, where it would feel at home, maybe somewhere else where it would go as equally unnoticed. He lets me imagine the red line it would cause, slick and burning and then throbbing until it felt like nothing, the only evidence being the mark.

He doesn’t look at me or try to get me to talk. He only dries my hair, painstakingly slowly.

When Myles stops,
my hair hangs in magenta, pink, and rusty waves around my face. He takes the towel and sets it on the floor. I brave a quick glance at him, and that’s all it takes to make the tears start. They’re silent, small, warm things, but they flow steadily. They blur my vision and then disappear, only to start all over again.

Myles holds his hand out.
“Let me see?” he asks.

With one glance at the razor and then back at him, I nod.

He takes the metal from me, placing it in his open palm the way I had. Then he closes his fist so suddenly, I wouldn’t have realized it if not for the blood.

“
No!” comes out of my mouth, and I’m moving toward him.

Myles holds up his free hand, and I back away. He opens his palm, taking the crumpled razor out of it like it’s made out of tinfoil and wiping the blood away on the towel next to him.

“I’m fine,” he says, holding out his palm to me so I can see that there’s no blood, no wound.

Then I turn my attention to his other hand, where the bent up object is.

“It’s just a piece of metal,” he says softly. “If you choose to hurt yourself with it, you’ll feel better for a moment. Then you’ll return from wherever you’ve been and you’ll realize that your life is still the same as it was before.” He holds out his palm to me. “This can’t change anything. It doesn’t have to have any power over you.”

I swallow, wiping what’s left of the tears away from my cheek.

“But,” Myles says placing one palm on top of the other and sandwiching the mangled blade between them. Bright red seeps through his fingers again and I hold in my gasp. He repeats the same process of wiping off his hands and the now flattened razor on the towel.

“
It’s your decision.” Myles says, placing it on the edge of the tub. The metal is slightly beaten up now, but it’s still capable of getting the job done.

Myles steps out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind him and leaving me alone with my monsters.

***

I walk back into the kitchen
a few minutes later, after I've gathered myself as much as I can in order to keep from falling apart yet again. I dressed in the clothes that were packed for me. I don't really know who picked them out, but it doesn't really matter.

Whoever it was chose a plain black dress shirt and matching skirt. They’re
 the same clothes I wore to one of my great uncle's funeral a few years ago. I haven't been to that many funerals, but if the few I've been to in the past are any indication of what I'm about to step into, I don't think I'll ever be prepared.

The razor is still in my hand when I sit down next to Myles at the table. I place it on the dark surface, smooth metal against cool wood. Without comment, he slips the object into his palm and chucks it in the trash can beside the sink.

“Are you hungry?” he asks.

I shrug. Not really. Does it matter?

Does anything?

Myles turns and opens a cabinet behind me. He places a granola bar and a cup of what I'm guessing is tea by the little white string hanging out of it in front of me.

I wrap my hands around the dark blue mug, letting the heat seep through to my skin.

Myles sits down directly across from me.

I know that he's probably studying me, waiting for me to do or say something. I'm slightly aware that he has his own mug in front of him, sipping from it every now and then, but I know his eyes are trained on me.

Just to break the silence, I start unwrapping the cereal bar in front of me. The bright orange paper crinkles and fills the space between our words—words that I'm not sure will come.

But eventually, after I've taken half of a bite and let it scrape down my throat, I start to ask him questions I wasn’t even sure I had until this moment.

“
Could you feel what he felt?” My voice fades just as abruptly as it had appeared.

Myles sets his mug down. I don't look up from the steam rising from mine, but I can see that he's folded
his hands on top of the table.

“
Yes,” he answers, and his voice is almost as flimsy as mine.

“
Did it hurt?”

“
No.”

“
Couldn’t. . .” I have to clear my throat, making sure that I really want to ask what I'm about to ask. “Could you have . . .” I lose my nerve before I can finish the sentence.

“
Turned him?” He seems to know just how to finish it for me. “Is that what you want to know?”

I was afraid there would be something in his voice that would hint at him being offended, or confused, but there isn't. It's just a question he needs to ask in order to answer mine.

I nod once. I squeeze my eyes shut as I start to feel new tears welling. It works. They crawl back to where they came from.

“
No.” Myles' voice is even softer when he answers. “His injuries made him too weak. Even if he had wanted me to, he most likely would have not survived turning.” I can tell by his tone that he's concentrating hard on sounding like he's only describing the process of things to me.

It's like I'm made out of fine china and he holds the hammer. He doesn't want to swing it hard enough to shatter me, but there's no way he's going to be able to explain things without causing a few cracks.

“Did you talk to him?” I ask.

“
I checked on him while I was there.” A pause, then, “He couldn't communicate all that well.”

I take in a deep breath, and it's like there are particles of barbed wire in the air around me.

“What did you say?” I whisper. I keep my eyes focused on the mug in front of me. If I even glance at anything else, I know I'll come undone. Unravel at his feet.

Myles clears his throat and shifts in his chair like he's thinking of the best way to word things for me.

“I just told him that it was okay,” he says. “I asked him if there was anything he wanted me to do and he told me to take care of you and Jade.”

“
He did?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him nod.

I sniff.

“
He loved you like a sister,” he says, and those words—words that I have always known in my heart, things that I never questioned feeling—are almost enough to push the tears out of my eyes and onto my cheeks, but I hold them in well.

“
He wouldn't want either of you to be sad,” Myles continues, and he reaches across the table to place a hand on top of mine.

Finally, I feel brave enough to look at him, and when I do, his expressio
n is almost a mirror of my own.

“
Okay,” I choke out around a lump in my throat. I sniff again. “Thank you.”

He nods. There's something in his body language that tells me that he wants to hug me, but I know if he does, I'll just start crying again. Right now, with only a short amount of time before we have to leave, I don't want to fall apart.

Without any other words exchanged between us, I finish my granola bar and drink about half of my tea while Myles drinks his.

When it’s time to go, I shrug on my trench coat and slip on my glasses. Myles grabs his keys and we walk to the car. We don't play music on the way there, which usually makes me nervous. But the only sound I can seem to handle right now is the air coming out of the vents in front of my seat and the tiny jingle of his keys whenever we turn onto a different street.

The funeral home is one that I've never been to before. When we walk inside, the room is bright and cheery. There are fake lavender flowers in vases and there's off-white wallpaper.

There are a few people that I don’t recognize wearing suits and black dresses. I’m not sure if it’s the trench coat and sunglasses or my expression when I take them off
 that causes them take one look at me and the avert their gazes to something else.

The only indication that this is a room for someone who has died are the photos. On stands, there are pictures of Stevie painting, Stevie laughing. There's one of Stevie and Jade at the boardwalk in front of the
Ferris wheel. Their arms are around each other, my brother's chin is resting in Stevie’s thick black curls and Stevie’s staring directly at the camera.

Between the two tables of photographs is a wooden podium, and when my eyes travel past it, they settle on a small wooden box on the table to its right. Plain and something that seems like it would be impossible to hold Stevie. How can something so small encase someone who was such a big part of our lives? Someone who was so much bigger than that box, or these pictures, or any of these sad, crying people in this small, happy room.

I spot Boo and Trei sitting in the third row from the front of the room, so  Myles and I sit next to them.

“
Hey,” Trei says to me, playing with the hem of her dark brown dress.

“
Hey,” I answer back.

The rest of my family files in. Laura is wearing a black dress almost identical
to everyone else’s, Adam is wearing a suit that looks like everyone else's’, and Mom is wearing a grey shirt and a short black skirt. Laura sits down next to Boo as Mom and Adam take the row behind us. I’m guessing someone’s watching Leena because she’s not here. I’m grateful she doesn’t have to be.