Closer Than We Know Prologue

Prologue to "Closer Than We Know" Order your own paperback copy at [email protected]

Prologue.        

            I yanked the steering wheel to the only parking spot I could find in downtown San Luis Obispo.  My deep navy 1990 Volvo rolled over the curb and tapped a skinny tree, causing its branches to rattle loose leaves like snowflakes.  One passerby flinched at the car’s protrusion to the sidewalk and smacked the hood in a huff.  Others shouted for me to watch out.  On any other day I would have taken the time to apologize for interrupting the townspeople in midst of their evening strolls or shopping sprees�"better yet, I would’ve just re-parked so the front half of my car wasn’t barricading the sidewalk.  But there was no time because I was not too far from Third Street and Mission Avenue. 

      I cut the engine and jerked the keys from the ignition, my eyelids pinned to my head in a terrifying state of panic.  To some people’s protests, I abandoned the car and walked quickly down the sidewalk.  I pushed into a half-run as I contorted my body to steer  through the crowds and not fumble over smaller children.  But in mid-stride, I violently crumpled to the sidewalk and coveted my head with my arms.   That familiar agonizing strike of pain shot through my skull again.

      “Alright!” I screamed into my knees.  “Damnit, Jaden, I’m going!”

      It subsided and I instantly bolted into a sprint.  There would be no walking now.  Urgency pressed my strides faster and faster until the endless gift shops and ice cream parlors blurred into a mess of colors to my left.  And to my right, the steady-moving traffic in the street seemed to match my bolt.  People protested when I broke through their hand-holding or between their shoulder brushes.   Some grew so furious that they trotted after me, wanting to give that reckless teenager with the dark hair and silly skinny jeans a piece of their mind.   One man chased me through a shout of curses but he stopped short and dismissed me with a wave of his hand.  I was running too fast.  When his anger settled, he shook his head with a perplexed frown, wondering why the hell I was running so fast.

      But I couldn’t stop to rationalize myself to him or anyone who watched me with curious eyes.   I couldn’t dare slow down. 

      I kept running, yelling for people to move out of the way.  My breath was burning in my throat, my lungs were desperate for more oxygen, my heart was loudly pounding in the cave of my ears.  And when I made it to the intersection of Third and Mission, I stopped so quickly that the impulsion of my run nearly sent me flying into passing traffic.  I looked down Third�"nothing.  I looked up Mission�"nothing. 

      “Where are you?” I whispered, my eyes desperately skipping over surrounding buildings. 

      And then I saw it. 

      A small alley way just down Third street, obliquely across the intersection.  Its passage was hidden, blending it with a pizza parlor to its left and a jewelry store on its right, but I could see it.  I knew he was there.  He had to be. 

      The light was green yet I dove into the intersection anyways.  A man tried to catch me as I jumped from the curb into the traffic but I shoved him off.  Other people, good Samaritans, yelled for me to stop but I kept going. 

      They didn’t know.  They would never know.  They just saw a young girl with dark, wind-thrashed hair, running in silly red shoes with untied laces whipping her shins.  They just saw a reckless teenager diving headfirst into deadly oncoming traffic. 

      One car honked and swerved, barely skimming by from crashing into me.  Another one stopped just before my legs and I skidded to a halt, the impulsion throwing me forward.  I caught myself with a spread of my palms slapping against the hood.

      “Are you crazy?” the driver yelled from the window.

      I didn’t have time to affirm his question.  I didn’t have time to tell him yes, maybe I was a little bit.  Maybe this was all crazy�"me following the words of someone who was supposed to be dead. 

      But I didn’t think twice.  I didn’t apologize to the driver but just took off running again.  All he saw was a black haired girl with a pale-stricken face, her dark eyes wide and her rapid breaths bumping her chest to her chin.  The driver searched the corners of the intersection.  Perhaps she was running from the cops, or perhaps she just had a death wish.

      I ran diagonally across the intersection, my eyes only bouncing off the alley way when a flash of a car came my way.   I made it to the other side, taking a giant leap to the curbside of safety and instantly sprinted down the sidewalk.  I didn’t break speed when I veered into the alley, the momentum tripping me over my own ankles.  I stumbled violently into the bright graffiti of a wall.  It knocked the breath out of me and I gasped for air as I tried to keep running down the alley.  My legs beneath me were burning, my heart was racing too fast, my tongue was just a numb muscle flopping around in my mouth as I gasped for a breath, just one simple breath.

      But when I saw the two figures at the end of the alleyway, one figure atop the other, striking violently in down-ward punches, a last surge of adrenaline coursed through my exhausted muscles.  I started running again, a scream of protest trying to escape my throat.  But my mouth was too dry and my lungs were trying too hard to feed my body air.  A few small croaks escaped my throat through my sprint. 

      Trey was straddled over Robbie’s stomach, his knees pinning the other boy’s arms to the ground.  Trey raised his fist past his ear and punched down on his face in a powerful swing.  Robbie’s head, that had lifted to plea with Trey, snapped back into the pavement.  His face was coated in blood, bruises already turning his face purple and his eyes were lost behind swollen cheeks.  The other boy croaked in protest and tried to wiggle from Trey’s hold but he was fixed beneath the strong grip over his throat and the rough gravel of the pavement that burned into his back.  And then Trey flicked one of his brother’s red switchblades from beneath the hug of his jeans.  He tightened his fingertips over it and withdrew his arm back.  The fear in Robbie’s green eyes drove me to run faster. 

      “Trey, stop!” I forced my voice to scream.

      He looked up at me, his arm still in position.  I stopped in my running just a few feet from him.  I put my arms up on either side of my head as though I were looking up the barrel of a gun.

      “Stop,” I said through my pants.  “Please.”

      He looked at me questionably, his eyes a dark and unforgiving blue.  His threatening face softened at the sight of me but his arm and the switchblade still hovered over Robbie.  

      “Get out of here, Lexi! This has nothing to do with you!” he snapped, a sob making his voice uneasy.  Anger fluttered his words as though he were upset that I had stopped him in his rage; or that I was there to witness him commit murder; or that I had to see him like this.

      My eyes skipped nervously from the blade to its line of path into Robbie’s chest and to Robbie himself who was whimpering in soft sobs. 

      “It has everything to do with me,” I said through a step forward to Trey.  He tensed at my approach and I stopped.  “Your brother doesn’t want this for you.”

      Tears welled up in his eyes.  “Damnit Lexi, leave! Go!”

      “I’m not going anywhere,” I said calmly, risking a smaller step towards him. “Jaden wants me to stop you.  This isn’t Robbie’s fault.”

      Trey’s arm drooped at the elbow.  He looked down at Robbie, his blue eyes blinking tears from his vision.  His body relaxed over Robbie and his shoulders slouched as his eyes skipped over the other kid’s drastically battered face.  I gulped loudly and kept talking. 

      “He told me, Trey,” I said, taking a few slow steps closer.  “How do you think I knew exactly where you were?” Trey picked up his head, frowning at my words.  The blade in his hand quivered as he strained to make a decision.  “Jaden’s watching you.  He told me to come stop you.”

      A few beats went by.  Trey contemplating, Robbie choking on his own blood and me taking more and more small steps forward until I was just a few feet from them. 

      “Put the knife down, let Robbie go, we will forget this ever happened,” I whispered softly, my eyes glued to the knife.  If only I could just make a grab for it.  But to my relief, Trey’s arm was descending more and more from its fixed position.  His knuckles were nearly scathing the pavement.

      And then, Robbie spoke from beneath Trey’s clutch.  “Please, Trey.  He was�"he was my�"my friend,” he struggled through missing teeth and a blood pooled mouth.

      Though Robbie’s struggling words should have been heard as a plea, Trey heard them as something different.  They offended him, enraged him, made him remember why he had done this to the kid in the first place.  His ocean blue eyes flamed red again.  Robbie’s tormenting of his brother after the accident burned in his ears.  And then, Trey craved the taste of revenge.

      A breath sucked back into my lungs at the sudden anger that crossed his face.  Robbie’s eyes widened and he whimpered in panic. 

      “And he was my brother!” Trey shouted, raising the blade to his ear again. 

      “No!” I screamed, taking two big steps to collapse over his arm in its downswing.  I wrapped myself over his shoulder and tackled him to the pavement, my body falling in path of the blade.  The knife rolled beneath my stomach and my weight came crashing down.  Trey plummeted in a somersault and smacked violently against the pavement.  Robbie, relieved but suffering, fought to keep conscious.  I tumbled a few times until finally rolling onto my back.  Time elapsed, the sky was beckoning, and nausea thickened my skull.  Suddenly, there was no more air�"there was no more breathing.  Shock gripped my limbs into shivering convulsions.  Everything was tingling numb.

      Trey had rolled onto his stomach and oppressed his ribs with painful bruises.  After a few coughs, he lifted himself.  The switchblade, alone in its sharp victory, was just under his collarbone, the tip dipped in glistening crimson.  He patted his shirt for a wound but saw nothing.  He then looked to Robbie whose emerald eyes were fixed on me.  I turned my head to them as my heart beats slowed in my ears.  My head weakly nodded goodbye before my eyes yielded closed. 

      And from the heavens, Jaden smiled.