Sun Poisoned (The Sunshine Series) (6 page)

“
You know I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Myles continues. “I want you to tell me when I am.”

My eyes fix to the middle of the coffee table in front of us.
“It’s not you. I’m just dumb.”

Now his arm is around my shoulder.
“No you’re not, Sophie. I understand.”

If anyone could, it would be him. The guy who saw exactly what was done to me by Jack through Jack’s eyes. I cringe just thinking about it.

He hugs me again. “I love you, Sophie.” His voice is soft. “Nothing else matters to me.”

I change the subject.
“Are you busy tonight?”

“
I’m yours.” He leans back on the couch and I follow, settling my head under his chin and closing my eyes. I start to feel warm again. My eyelids start to get heavy. And a blink turns into a jolt into another nightmare. This time, it’s one of my very own memories that come up from the darkness to bite me.

***

“Please stop,” I said.

We were in the van. The rusty bottom was digging into my back and arms. He taped my wrists together.
“Why?” he asked.

I saw the glint of the knife.

My pulse, loud and desperate in my chest and throat and head.

“
I know you don’t like me or whatever, but you don’t have to do this.”

ThudThudThud.

His laugh, a feral fox choking on a bone. “It is not a question of whether I
like
you or not,” he said. “You simply cannot be a part of this.”

A flash, then the backs of my eyes were on fire in the backseat of my car.

I was screaming for it to stop over and over again.

I can hear him but I can’t see anything.

You are going to die. It could have been easy, but now I will make you suffer.

***

“Sophie, Sophie.” I hear it, but I can’t find where it’s coming from. Everything is so dark.

Arms around my wrists, holding me in place. No, wait. I’m on my side. The hands are around my own, held against my chest.

My eyes open but everything is fuzzy. “It’s not real,” the voice says.

I’m awake, but I still have to fight to keep things in focus, like at any moment I’ll be sucked back into the nightmare.

“I’m okay,” finally leaves my mouth.

Myles lets go of my arms and a light flips on. I’m in my room, in my bed. He’s sitting on the edge, like he put me here when I fell asleep and came back when I started flipping out. I lean back on my elbows, sitting myself against the headboard. Myles is staring at me.

“I’m fine.” I try to sound sure of that fact. I swipe a few sweaty strands of hair back and I smile weakly at his worried expression.

“
Sophie,” he starts, but then he closes his mouth.

I reach for his hand on top of my comforter and after a few seconds, he grasps it.

“I don’t think you understand how helpless this makes me feel.” Myles looks at me now, waiting for some type of a response.

“
I just don’t want you to think that you have to fix all my problems.” I shrug. “You don’t have to be responsible for what goes on in here.” I gesture with my free hand to my head. “It’s a mess in there. It was like that before, and it’s getting better because of you. I mean that. It’s just…I don’t want you to feel like I’m making you speed up the getting better.”

I trail off. I’m exhausted, my head hurts, and now I’m having trouble forming thoughts that make sense.

Myles lightly traces the edge of my jaw with his finger and I look back at him. His expression is calm now, the concern faded.
              “You can always tell me no,” he says. “But I wish you would let me help sometimes.”

I know what he wants to do in order to help and hone
stly, I don’t want to fight him even a little bit on this.

I place his hand
on the side of my head. I have no clue if this is how he does it, but I hope he gets the idea. I add on, “Okay.” Just to be sure.

Myles’ eyebrows knit together for a second, but he says,
“Get comfortable.”

I scoot down and lie on my side again, my head sinking into the pillow. I inch my body slightly backwards so there’s more room for him. I nod when I’m done and he situates himself on top of the blanket, his face in front of mine.

“So…” I say, “You’re just going to make me super tired until I black out, right?”

He laughs lightly.
“Only if that’s what you want.” One of his hands reaches to the back of my head, cradling it. The other holds onto my forearm loosely. “I had something else in mind.”

I close my eyes.

I wait for that heavy, tingly feeling.

And it starts where his hands are; in my arm and at the base of my skull. Then it begins to spread over my face and down my legs. Until I’m finally floating into sleep.

A few minutes pass before I open my eyes to find myself in the same place. Myles is next to me on my bed, smiling. The only reason I know it’s a dream at all is because of how distorted everything appears. My curtains look like they’re made out of liquid, and I’m sinking into my bed like it doesn’t want me to leave.

“
Hold on,” Myles says, and his voice echoes around me. I’m still staring at the curtains; they’ve stopped swaying as much and become less fluid-like and more fabric-like. “Is that better?” he asks.

The comforter starts to move on its own like it’s breathing. I begin to hear music playing, soft and far away, but growing in sound. I stare back at Myles, who is patiently waiting for his answer.

“This could work,” I say, and my voice comes out light and swirls between us before disappearing under the sound of low piano keys and a rhythmic, even drum beat. When I turn my attention back to my breathing bed, the black and white stripes on the blanket have become soft, fabric piano keys that play on their own. The drums sound closer now too, but I can’t find where they’re coming from.

I search for Myles again, and he’s standing, his hand outstretched toward me, so I take it and stand with him. The music gets even louder, and he starts twirling me around slowly; we’re dancing. My eyes move slowly, taking their time to absorb every detail. I stare at my black sweat pants, my old Rush T-shirt, Myles’ jeans, his plain grey V-neck.

I lay my head on his chest as we move around the floor. When I glance back up, we’re no longer in my room, but in a forest of red and orange leaves.

The drumming becomes louder, almost drowning out the piano altogether. I now realize that it’s coming from within Myles’ chest, bumping beneath my ear.

“Did you write this song?” I ask, but I don’t remember opening my mouth.

He strokes my hair.
“No. This is your song,” he says. “The drum is mine, but it only follows the piano the way you wrote it.”

So that’s how we spend the entire night. My subconscious writes us both a song that stretches on and on, and nothing comes out of the forest to grab me and drag us apart.

Marker

Chapter 3

“Tissue and Bones. It was a Trick.”—Grizzly Bear

The outside of White Dragon looks about the same as it did when I first came here four years ago. Jade's known Cookie since they went to Lucky High School, so when he first brought me here for Spring Break when I was fifteen and asked if she would be willing to tattoo me if he signed the release forms, she agreed. Cookie did my wings in two six hour sessions so it would be finished by the time I had to go back to school.

Standing outside of the
melon painted building sandwiched between a bakery and a clothing store, I'm kind of nervous. Cookie hasn't seen me since last summer, when she tattooed a tiny silhouette of a black cat on my inner right wrist. She asked to see how my wings were doing, as she always does whenever she sees me, and I showed her, only after she pulled my t-shirt away to look.

Cookie has her own problem with sharp objects. She doesn't try to hide it; the thin lines decorating her inner wrists cannot be mistaken for anything else. If you ask her, she'll openly tell you when she did it, what she used, and why.

But she respects my decision to keep it a secret. We're part of this club where only the members can recognize that you belong. There are these unspoken rules.

I'm nervous about her seeing my scars. She's seen many before, some mine, some hers, some from other people that she's maybe only met once or twice. But she’s the type of person who likes hearing about how people get theirs. I like Cookie, but I’m not that close to her. The only person who knows about the memories attached to the ones on my back is Myles. I’d like to keep it that way.

I take a deep breath. I didn’t save up all this money when I was working at the bookstore to back down now and buy something practical, like, say, a car, so I might as well go in. Stevie and Jade are already waiting for me on one of the leather couches when I open the door.

“
Hey, guys,” I take the few steps across the black and white checkered linoleum floor to hug them. “So what's this surprise you wanted to tell me about?” I ask, already tugging at the collar of my trench coat to yank it off. “You guys getting matching butterflies?”

I told them about this appointment weeks ago; they said they’d be busy, but suddenly this morning they wanted to meet me to get some mysterious tattoos.

Stevie tucks a thick curl behind his ear only to have the black strand spring free when he playfully slaps Jade on the arm. “You told her,” he teases.

“
No, it was just a ploy!” Jade says in the same tone. “I knew she wouldn't pass up the opportunity to see that.”

“
Did I hear Little Miss Sunshine in the shop?” Cookie's voice echoes from down the hall. She emerges from around the corner soon after; her bright purple hair seems to appear before the rest of her. The only blue that remains in her short bob is at the very ends, where a light pastel form of it hangs on. Her septum ring wiggles when she smiles, closing in for a hug of her own.

“
Hey, Cookie. How've you been?” I ask.

“
Oh just awesome,” she says as she releases me from her bony arms. I try hard not to let my eyes linger on the three pink lines I notice on her inner bicep, one of the only places not covered in images of cartoon characters like Rainbow Brite, Care bears, and My Little Pony.

“
I've been looking forward to touching up those wings all week!” she says, her eyes traveling to Jade and Stevie behind me. “And of course, now these two want something.” Cookie steps around me to enclose them in a joint hug now.

“Okay, so who's going first?” she asks once the hugging is over.

“
Actually, we have an appointment with Rocko,” Stevie says. “We figured Sophie's would take a while.”

Cookie mocks offense by sticking her nose up in the air, but then smiles and giggles again.
“Well, I guess that'll give us time to catch up,” she says, turning to me.

Taking my hand, Cookie leads me back down the hall where there's a private room away from all of the open space of the rest of the shop. It's basically a closet with no door, but big enough for her station, which consists of a table that resembles one at a doctor's office, and a chair that looks like it would be more at home in a place where they pull teeth rather than a place where people make permanent art in skin.

“So,” she says, opening a drawer and taking out the very same light blue paper material they use for the gowns in a hospital. She makes her way past me and over to the table, taping the paper over the plastic. “How's life? Still playing piano?”

“
Yeah.” I set my bag, umbrella, and coat down on the floor in the corner. “Actually, my band and I have been playing at this club in Chinatown.”

Cookie stops what she's doing.
“Midnight?” she asks. Her eyes say that she doesn’t believe me, but her smile is proud.

“
You've heard of it?” I laugh.

“
Uh, yeah.” She laughs back, rolling a table she has her ink and tattoo gun set up on over to where I’ll be lying for the next few hours. “I used to go there a lot when I first got to New York. My ex-boyfriend was in one of the bands.”

“
Oh yeah?” I sit on the edge of tattoo bench, the paper crinkling under me. “Does he still play there? Maybe I know him.”

“
No, he doesn't.” Her tone is flat. “He got too big, started touring a lot. Never went back to Midnight.” She begins slipping on a pair of black rubber gloves. “And he never came back to me, either.” She sighs.

“
But,” she says, her tone lighter now. “It's really awesome that you're playing there. I'm all for people following their dreams, especially when it comes to the creative ones like band member, tattoo artist, or contortionist.”

“
Yeah,” I agree.

“
So, you ready?” she asks.

I swallow what would have been a lump forming in my throat before it get
s the chance to make me choke.