The Firefly Effect (28 page)

“Listen. You hear that?”

Cocking her head to one side, Melanie hesitates before giving me a puzzled look. “What? I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly my point.” Jumping to my feet, I take a quick peek through one of the narrow windowpanes beside the door before jerking it open. The wind has died down to a mild breeze, and the low-hanging clouds have parted to make way for strips of blue sky. There’s no more rain – it’s stopped altogether. The leaves on the azalea bushes are bright green and glistening with beads of water that drip onto the soaked grass.

If it weren’t for the fallen branches littering the ground and all the water gushing down the street into the storm drains, it would have been easy to pass this off as the remnants of just another summer storm.

From behind me, I hear Melanie commenting, “Well. That was abrupt.”

I move out of the doorway so she can step out on the stoop with me. “I know. I didn’t even realize the rain had stopped.”

“So that’s it? Huh. I thought it would last longer than this.”

“Don’t worry, it will.” Looking down at her, I smile. “Thought you were getting off easy, didn’t you? I hate to tell you this, but we’re smack dab in the middle of Elliott. This is just the eye. I’d say in about fifteen minutes or so we’ll start getting hammered with more of the same. Only from a different direction this time.”

“Oh. I didn’t even think about that.” Scanning her surroundings, she takes in the scene with an expression of awe. “I’ve never been in the eye of a hurricane before. It’s so still out here. Weird – the sky’s even blue in places.”

“Proof that Mother Nature’s one bipolar bitch.”

“Hey, look – there’s Mr. Sutton.” Raising an arm, she waves to the elderly man who is across the street, three houses down. He is standing in his front yard, inspecting the damage to his formerly impeccable landscaping. Mr. Sutton is retired and spends a lot of time tending to his flowerbeds so I can’t imagine him being all too happy about his yard being turned into a swamp.

Catching sight of us, he flutters a hand in response. “Y’all holdin’ up all right over there?” he hollers in a raspy voice.

“We’re fine,” she calls back before I have a chance to respond. “Everything okay with you?”

“Oh, yeah. Yard’s a damn mess.” Pointing to the sky, he warns us, “This ain’t over yet. Stay put now, don’t y’all go wanderin’ off nowhere.”

“I was just about to suggest the same thing to him,” I mutter under my breath.

“We won’t,” Melanie assures him. “Do you need anything?”

Waving dismissively, Sutton shakes his head as he turns to lope up the cobblestone steps toward his house. “I reckon not. Ain’t much I need to get by in the first place. Y’all better get on back inside now. Take care.”

“You do the same.”

We both stand there watching as he makes his way inside. Neither of us speak for a while as we listen to the water dripping from the eaves. There is something in the eerie stillness that makes us oddly reluctant to disturb the silence.

When Melanie finally speaks, her voice is hushed. “Is it just me or does it feel weird out here to you? I know this sounds crazy, but the air just doesn’t feel right.”

“No, I know what you mean. Could be the low barometric pressure, I guess. Or maybe the sudden quiet after listening to the wind all morning.” She’s right, though. It really does feel queer out here. Like the world has been thrown slightly off balance somehow.

“Ugh. I was hoping we were about done with the humidity,” she complains, fanning herself with a hand. “I’m sick of this heat. Fall needs to hurry up and get here.”

“Wouldn’t hurt my feelings any. You ready to go back inside?” Even with the power off, it’s still way cooler in the house. Besides, off in the distance I can see a hazy wall of rain approaching. We’re about to get a visit from the ass end of Elliott.

The first thing Melanie does after we’re back inside is kneel down and start putting the game pieces back in the box. I, on the other hand, have other things occupying my mind besides cleaning the damn house. There are things I want to know, and time is running out. If I can just persuade her to open up, maybe I can get some idea of what I’m dealing with here.

Dropping down beside her, I pull her hand away from the scattered cards she’s trying to collect. “Leave it. I’ll help you straighten up later.”

Arching her eyebrows, she slides her hand down to my crotch with a coy grin.

“Oh, hey now…” I scoot back out of her reach, albeit reluctantly. This girl knows exactly what to do to distract me. “Don’t give me that look, you dirty-minded little minx! I wasn’t trying to initiate sex. Not right now, anyway. What I want is to talk about what you said earlier.”

As I expected, her face instantly clouds over with a wary expression. Already she’s trying to close me off. “What about it?”

“I thought maybe you’d like to tell me what happened.”

I fully anticipate a solid
no
, but that’s okay. I’m prepared to keep badgering her until she gives in and talks. I want the full, unabridged story before I leave here. How else am I supposed to know what steps to take next? I want to pursue this relationship, but I can’t walk on eggshells wondering every minute if I’ve inadvertently said something that reminds her of her past.

A past I know nothing about.

Like when I called her an angel. The look on her face – it was as if she’d seen a ghost. Why did that simple endearment bother her so much? It upset her, and I don’t know why.

I need to know why.

Sitting back on her heels, she bites her bottom lip while scanning the room distractedly. I can tell she’s trying to make up her mind. Either she’ll relent and open up, or I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon nagging her until she threatens to lock me outside with Elliott.

I really don’t want to have to do that. Not saying I
won’t
, mind you…just saying I’d rather not.

To my relief, she finally looks back at me with a sigh. “All right. If you really want to know, I’ll tell you. But just remember, you asked.”

Outside, the wind has picked up again, and an all-too-familiar roar indicates that the rain has returned with a vengeance.

Crossing my legs, I make myself comfortable and give her my undivided attention. “I’m listening.”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

“That’s okay. I have nowhere to be.”

“It’s kind of off-the-wall, too.”

“I’m hardly in a position to judge. Go ahead. I’m all ears.”

“Okay. Well…” She twists a lock of her hair absently. “I’m not even sure where to start. Um…you remember me telling you that I dropped out of college, right?”

I nod wordlessly, having no intention of distracting her from her mission.

“It was Flagler, in case I didn’t mention it before. Oh, wait – you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Once again, I nod.

“Don’t get me wrong, I loved it there. It’s a first-rate school and the faculty is amazing. That wasn’t why I left or anything. As a matter of fact, I would have gone back except after what happened…well, I don’t know why but after what happened I started having this social anxiety. So for a while there I just sort of shut myself off from people. That’s when I first started writing.

“But back to the beginning – like I said, everything was fine at first. I made a lot of friends and I was doing fairly well in all my classes. Life was good. Then it all went straight downhill. So fast I never saw it coming. See, there was this guy…”

Ah, yes. I knew there would be.

“We were in the same sociology class. His name was Luka. Luka Martelli. To describe him…well, that would be something of a challenge. All I can say for one hundred percent certain is that he was different. And by different, I’m not talking in a good way. He was strange. I really didn’t know
how
strange at first – I mean, the way he acted, I just figured he was shy. He hardly ever said anything and nobody ever talked to him. I always tried to make a point of smiling and saying hello because nobody else bothered to and I felt bad for him. He just seemed so out of place. At the time I thought it was pretty shitty that everyone ignored him, like he was invisible or had a contagious disease or something. In retrospect, maybe it’s just that I wasn’t perceptive enough. Because clearly they all sensed something I didn’t.

“So anyway, when he came up to me and asked if I would have dinner with him, I accepted. Just to be nice, you know? It was only one date, I figured it couldn’t hurt. And to be honest the evening wasn’t
that
bad, just…not what I expected. At all. It was a very bizarre experience.”

Melanie grows silent as she gazes off into space, and I gently prompt her by asking, “Bizarre how?”

“It’s hard to explain. Just the way he acted, I guess. The things he said. It struck me as odd that for someone so introverted, he did nothing but talk about himself the whole time. Like he was trying to prove how much smarter he was than the rest of the world. And he
was
highly intelligent, that’s true, but he had this narcissistic personality, which totally surprised me because it didn’t make sense for someone who’d always been so quiet and withdrawn. It’s like everything about him was inconsistent. Nothing added up. I couldn’t figure him out.”

I feel a knot tightening like a belt around my gut as I wonder exactly what it is that this Martelli character has done to her.

“Even though I wasn’t impressed with all his self-exaltation,” she continues, “I still agreed to have coffee with him the week after that. And that’s when things got
really
weird. You wouldn’t believe the crazy accusations he was making.”

“Like what?”

“Like how all my friends were shallow, stupid bitches that apparently weren’t good enough to breathe the same air as him, seeing as how he was intellectually superior. At least, that’s how he saw it in his own mind. Then he gets all pissed off when I won’t commit to another date with him. And
then
he refers to me as his girlfriend – after one date, mind you – and proceeds to inform me that it’s my obligation to provide him with sex.”

What?!
Holy fuckballs in a funny farm – she wasn’t kidding about the weird factor! Sounds like this guy was a few fries short of a Happy Meal. “No shit! He actually said that?”

“He said that. Which is when I began to realize this guy wasn’t just quirky – there was something not quite right about him. So of course, after that I went out of my way to avoid him whenever possible. I wasn’t deliberately rude to him or anything, I still said hello and tried to be nice but that was probably the wrong thing to do. Because he didn’t give up. He started sending me gifts, really inappropriate things like body oils and lingerie, creepy stuff like that. He kept calling, and when I wouldn’t answer he started in with the constant texts until I had to block him.

“And he was following me around. It seemed like every time I looked up, there he was. Watching me. It got so bad I finally reported him to the Behavioral Intervention Team. He was reprimanded, instructed to stay away from me and sent to counseling, but it didn’t do any good. I came back to my dorm room one night to find him waiting there for me. It turned into an ugly scene.”

I take it back – forget the fries, he’s missing an entire cheeseburger. I have to fight the urge to clench my teeth. If she tells me this fuckwit did anything to hurt her, I think I’ll flip my shit. “What did he want?”

“He wanted me to go away with him. Said he’d already made reservations at some hotel in Daytona. It was the end of spring quarter, see, and we were about to have a couple of weeks off so I guess he got it into his head that we were going to have some sort of romantic rendezvous or something. To which I told him not just no but
hell
no, and then he got all handsy so I punched him in the face and threw him out.”

“Good girl.” I’m glad to hear that she knows how to defend herself. “Did you call the police? Get a restraining order?”

I realize when she lowers her gaze that I’ve said the wrong thing. She looks abashed, ashamed for me to know that she neglected to do what should have been obvious, and I belatedly wish I’d kept my mouth shut. The last thing she needs is to be criticized for the choices she made years ago.

“No,” she admits softly. “I was going to call campus security, but he begged me not to. He would’ve lost his scholarship and I didn’t want that on my conscience.”

“Of course. I understand.” Maybe I don’t, not really, but I don’t want to give her the impression that I find her decision a foolish one. She seems to be harboring enough guilt already.

“Besides, I was leaving in the morning to go home. I figured getting away from him for a while would solve everything. I guess I thought he’d just…get over it.”

“But he didn’t,” I speculate.

“No.” Taking a deep breath, she releases it slowly before resuming her story. “I’d been home for four days. My sister was back from college too, and that night she was babysitting so I thought…I thought it would be fun if we all went to see a movie. We even talked my parents into going along. And then after the movie we couldn’t agree on whether to go out for dinner or just pick up a pizza and go back home. I voted for pizza at home, but then Madelyn mentioned some new Chinese restaurant that had just opened up. And Penny – the little girl she was babysitting – well, she loves to read the fortune cookies so in the end we let her have her way. Which probably saved all our lives.”