Chapter 7- Paved with Good Intentions (unfinished)

All that glitters is not gold

The next morning, the shadow let him up much easier. It barely gave a struggle as he rolled out of bed, hit the ground, rose to dress. At the meeting, Grace was nowhere to be found. He breathed deeply, smiled at the sleeping form in his lap. Perhaps it wasn’t all so bad.

On his way out, Shadow perked its head, leapt from him, raced in a slightly warmer direction. What was that smell? He sniffed, turned towards the scent of vanilla, coming from just around the corner of the building.

Anna!

She came around the corner, smiled brightly as she caught sight of him. “Will!”

His smile stretched as though it were trying to meet itself at the back of his head. “H-hey!” Shadow rolled in the flowers, rubbing its dark head on the petals in a kind of bliss. He tucked trembling hands into his pockets, tried to stop grinning so widely as he asked, “Are you with your dad? I didn’t see him at the meeting.”

Demurely, she shook her head, lowered her eyes. A falling petal brushed against her cheek and landed in her auburn hair, now loose in waves around her shoulders. “I wanted to see you.” She looked up into him, her eyes seemed to knock him backwards, to penetrate through him, searching for something. His pulse pounded in his ears. She was here for him? His body was a ghost, light and untouchable, unbreakable, he was flying. She could have what she wanted, as long as he could stay near her and be seen by those eyes.

“I was wondering,” she began, “if you’d want to walk with me? I live nearby, I love the way the air smells this time of year. So clean.”

He wondered if she was aware of the petals falling around her, the flowers blooming in the snowy ground she stood on, the warmth of the air like that perfect time between spring and summer. She must not be, he thought, just like she must not be able to smell that mix of vanilla and flowers, a perfumey, bakery kind of scent. She drowned out the briskness of the December air. Not that he minded.

“Um, yeah. Sure.” he nodded, still unable to take his eyes off her. “I live pretty close too, actually.”

As she walked, yellow petals left a path behind her. The closer Will moved to her, the warmer the air became. He tried to listen as she spoke, but found himself distracted�"noticing the way puddles skirted her feet, pushing themselves out of her way. Snow began to drift down in light flurries, and he half expected them to melt before they met her. Instead, they landed atop the daisies in her hair, in her dark eyelashes, and his heart leapt into his throat again when she smiled in delight and twirled, creating a small tornado of her flowers, her dark scarf whipping through the air.

 “Don’t you just love the winter?” she exclaimed, kicking up pieces of snow with her boots. Will nodded, grinned, and bent down to form a loosely packed snowball. She yelled when it hit her in the back, turned and threw snow back at him. He held up his arms in defeat. “You win! You win!” he said, laughing, as she rained snow down on him.

They kept walking, a new spark between them. Her cheeks were flushed, and he felt protective, possessive of this new joy. Nothing freed him of his shadow like this�"nothing made him feel so alive, so new, so strong. As the prints they left behind stretched farther and farther from them, forming a dotted trail to follow, they talked easily about themselves. He listened intently, tried out a joke, found reward in her laugh. She asked probing questions about his childhood, his life, his thoughts and dreams. He kept the worst of it from her�"the abuse and the depth of his depression. He didn’t tell her about the things he’d been seeing. About the shadow or the flowers. He did mention the worm girl, though. Not her worms�"just that she couldn’t seem to leave him alone.

“So… why do you drink?” she asked, her eyes intent on his. She faltered when he hesitated. “You don’t have to tell me. I know it can be hard to talk about. I was just wondering. My dad says you don’t ever talk in meetings… but you can tell me anything. I know you don’t really know me, but maybe that’s better. Anonymity and all. And I won’t tell anyone.”

Will looked at his shoes kicking tufts of snow into the air. His shadow loped along, prancing in the wake of flowers behind Anna. “Well…” his eyes met hers. “Can you keep a secret?”

She nodded, excited. Eyes bright against her pale skin, pink cheeks. “Of course! I won’t tell anyone.”

Will swallowed. “I used to drink because… I was really depressed, I think. And maybe a little bit crazy. I, uh… I had this thing.”

Anna waited for him to continue, watched him expectantly. “A thing?” she urged.

“Uh… I just… I would tell myself how terrible I was. It was like it wasn’t even me, saying those things. Like there was a voice following me around, telling me that no one liked me. That I was worthless. It said everything that would hurt me the most and make me the most self-conscious.”

She frowned and put her hand on his arm. Everything inside will tightened, hyperaware of her touch. His nerves on his arm, beneath her fingers, felt wildly alive. “I’m so sorry, Will.”

A sharp pain raked through his gut in memory of the past months. Before this… how had it been? Before barely being able to survive each day. Before wondering if death was preferable. He could barely imagine himself any other way. It seemed more dreamlike than even his dreams, more distant than the histories he studied, more separate from himself than even the people in his life he felt no relation with.

“It’s okay.” He said softly. The flowers around them seemed to glisten, their bright color a shock to Will, whose world had been painted in shades of grey until now. He wanted to feel close to her, wanted to confide in her. He wanted to know if this was real�"between them, and the things he had been experiencing. He bent and picked up a flower, held it to her. But before he could say anything, he saw her expression. Perplexed, curious, slightly smiling… could she see?

“A flower for you, my lady.” He flourished the bloom in his hand and bowed slightly.

Anna cocked her head, pretended to take it from his hand. But she didn’t quite grasp it. It remained in Will’s hand. “Why, thank you! What kind of flower is this?” she asked, peering at nothing.

His heart dropped. Of course she couldn’t see it. Of course it wasn’t real. “A rose, of course.” He said, letting the daisy fall from his hand.

Was he… hallucinating? Had he felt the vine? He couldn’t remember. How could he not remember? It had happened a second ago. His head rose, spinning, above itself, and his stomach turned to coils.

“Will? Will!”

His knees were cold. Wetness was seeping into his jeans. Why was the ground so close?

“Are you okay?”

He didn’t think he’d taken a breath for several minutes. Was that possible? Will searched his mind for his last memory of breath and came up empty. His lungs were two-dimensional all of a sudden. Flat lungs don’t contract.

“Will, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

The trembling panic in her voice brought his chin up, his eyes to hers. She appeared to be backlit by an intense light, her face dark. Were those wings, large and feathered, behind her back? “I’m crazy, Anna,” someone told her in a hoarse voice. Her eyes now contained the ingredient of fear. A stab of pain in Will’s gut. She swallowed, and held out her hand to him. “Come on. I’ll help you. You can come over, I’ll warm up some soup for you and you can borrow some sweatpants. It’ll be okay, Will.”

“You’re okay. It’s okay. Come on.”

“Good, that’s it. You can lean on me.”

Her voice was soft and comforting. He followed it, as one might follow a brightly lit road that has no turn-offs, just a straight, rambling path. Onwards and upwards. Her hand was warm in his. He felt himself moving, walking, and nodding to the things she was telling him. But he was not present in his body. He was Elsewhere.

 

 

Anna clutched Will’s clammy hand. He looked very different; his expression flat, his eyes dark. Fear flitted like small butterflies in trails that traced her veins, from the large ones in her legs to the tiny capillaries in her fingertips. Excitement, too. Anticipation. She’d known from the first day that something was off. Now it was time to find out what. Maybe she could even help.

She viewed his darkness like a pool she wanted to dive into, explore the deepest corners, absorb it all into her fair skin. Adventure into his mind. Escape from the dullness of her life, where everyone was predictable and nothing truly new ever occurred. Her father disapproved, but he didn’t have to know. It only added to the fun.

 

 

 

Purple.

Purple?

It stretched around his field of vision like a fisheye lens. Around a sickly angle; a low whistle. He took a breath, and reality came rushing to him all at once: suddenly he knew he was lying down in Anna’s apartment on her couch staring at her purple ceiling. The water was boiling�"she was just visible in the other room. Had he passed out? He had a towel wrapped around his shoulders, his hair was dripping, his pants wet around the knees and his shoes soaked through.

Anna walked in. She had changed, Will noticed, and her hair was dripping as well. He looked helplessly at her. When she saw his expression, her demeanor transformed rapidly. From a comforting ease to an eager concern. “Will! Are you okay? You… you disappeared! It was so strange. You wouldn’t respond or say anything or even look at me.” She bent down in front of him and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead.

“No fever…” she said quietly to herself. She looked into Will’s eyes. “Talk to me, Will. What are you feeling?”

Her worry was unnerving. She was so intent on him, like a scientist taking notes on their most promising experiment. His shadow whispered confidently in his ear that she didn’t care about him. She knew he was nuts. She wanted to take advantage somehow… make fun of him… document his words to throw back in his face later.

Just as Will was about to say something harsh, something to get her to lay off, to push her away from him, he realized with a terrible ache that his shadow was no longer incapacitated. There were no yellow flowers. No warmth. In fact, as he looked around, the room felt just as cold as the air outside had been. Every edge appeared exaggerated�"her apartment was a den of deadly angles, cold wind, and deeply uninviting.

He began breathing rapidly, and shuddered away when she put a hand on his shoulder. “Will…” her voice was soft and kind. The winds stopped and he caught a slight hint of vanilla.

“Anna,” his voice sounded strange, and not like his own. He didn’t look up at her. He kept his eyes down. He was afraid to watch the world change in front of him and know it wasn’t really changing. “I see things that aren’t there. But I didn’t really think too much about it until today. That um, flower that I handed you?” he waited a beat. “I really had a flower in my hand. But you didn’t take it. You just pretended to take it. Because you couldn’t see it. Because it wasn’t real.”

He didn’t know how she was reacting, because he was keeping his eyes low, and she wasn’t saying anything. But he couldn’t look up. He just couldn’t. Seeing her would make this all far more real than he was prepared to handle. Yet, somehow, he couldn’t stop himself from continuing. He hadn’t been able to tell anyone about his intense experiences.

“It’s different with everyone. The girl who was stalking me, she… she was covered in worms. It was really unnerving. And gross. Lavender worms. And my neighbor, he’s covered in armor. It’s the funniest thing, this steel-plated armor, I thought he was crazy until I realized it was just me. The woman across the hall bleeds sometimes. It doesn’t happen everyday. But every once in a while, her skin will crack, and it’s like she’s losing her weight in blood as she walks around.”