deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 90: glass caskets

On Christmas morning, Sam received a phone call from both of her parents as well as a couple of gifts from them, sent from different addresses no less. Even if her senior project would only carry on for a short time, she knew that the whole thing between them would drag on for so long. Joey also called her right after to invite her to a New Year's party with just the two of them plus Marla and Belinda if they so wished. Not only was it to be her last Christmas with Joey nearby, but her final New Year's Eve with him. Sam thought about the time that Belinda had given him too much to drink, but she had faith that he had long passed that point. He would have to serve something more at the party, something more musical than something such as that.
Another thing that she received in the mail was a Christmas card from Testament as well as Anthrax, Metallica, and the Cherry Suicides; and Dan Lilker and Scott both sent her and Marla, as well as Belinda card on top of that. Dan's was a straight postcard with a photograph of him seated cross legged next to a fiery red Christmas tree and with his head propped up in one hand.
"Mr. Blue Eyes," Marla remarked as she perched his card on the shelf on the side of the room, right in the midst of the silver and pink garlands they had hung up in the mere two days before then. Scott and his bride to be sat at a small black table with glasses of egg nog in either hand; right behind them stood a small Christmas tree with white twinkling lights. Next to it on the shelf, strong and high like one of the skyscrapers in the heart of New York City, was a lit menorah. The golden flames from the candles shone over the room; even with a Polaroid camera at their helm, the room around them still managed to have a dark feeling all around.
"So moody and morose," Belinda remarked. "I love it, though. I can see them doing that without the flash of the camera, too."
"Yeah, I can, too," Sam added as she picked up the next Christmas card. Meanwhile, the Cherry Suicides had a photograph of the four of them in cherry red bikinis and with Santa hats, each of which had the Star of David embroidered on the fronts, atop their heads; Zelda and Rosita both had knives holstered to their hips while Morgan and Minerva had knives holstered to their ankles and fake blood splattered across their legs and their stomachs. Zelda also held a black and red sugar skull in one hand with a snowflake imprinted at the crown.
Metallica on the other hand dressed in Santa outfits: James and Kirk both had put on pairs of black sunglasses while Lars stuck out his tongue to the camera and Jason stood there with his arms folded across his chest.
"Hey, you know, at least the girls have the Star of David on their hats," Sam pointed out to Marla and Belinda.
"I know, right?" said the former. "And Scott and his girl have the menorah behind them. How 'bout Anthrax and Testament?"
Belinda picked up Anthrax's Christmas card, which had nothing more than the four of them bunched underneath a Christmas tree on the ceiling. Charlie and Frank had their backs to the wall while Dan hunkered down in front of them: it took Sam a few seconds to realize that they were imitating a family of three carrying in a tree. She turned it over and burst out laughing at Joey's black and white picture, of him standing there with his arms folded across his chest and with a nonchalant expression on his face. She laughed even harder at the "Merry Christmas from Anthrax" printed on the side of the card as well.
"I actually like that one," Marla chuckled.
"I do, too!" Belinda laughed with them. "Now how 'bout our five boys from California?"
Sam picked up the final Christmas card, the one that looked as though there had been more effort put into it and not a mere Polaroid photograph plastered on a piece of cardstock of the same size. Chuck sat in a big comfy looking chair at the center of it all with his bare brown legs out for them to see, and a pair of feathers which dangled from either side of his head. Next to him was Greg and Eric, the former with no shirt on and a gift wrapped present nestled right in between his cross legs, while the latter adjusted his dark red velvet Santa hat, which appeared to be too small for his head. Louie posed at the back with a big golden star held up above his head as if he had just found buried treasure. Alex meanwhile sat off to the side with his black hair tousled over his shoulder and a wreath of holly upon the crown of his head.
Sam took a second look to find that right in the midst of that holly was his yarmulke.
She turned it over to find, written in slender scarlet red ink, the words "Seasons Greetings from Testament. Love, Chuck, Eric, Alex, Greg, and Louie."
"That's actually a really cute picture of them," Belinda remarked as Sam turned it back over.
"Wait, what was that other thing back there?" Marla stopped them right in their tracks. Sam turned it back over and indeed, there was a little note at the bottom of the cardstock, one written in graphite.
"What's it say?" Marla asked her.
"'Meet us up in Ithaca New Year's Eve for dinner. Eric.'"
"Again?" Belinda was stunned.
"Apparently so?" Sam shrugged her shoulders at that. "I haven't heard anything from the fan club about anything, though."
"Which means we're probably gonna have to leave here like early in the morning," Marla pointed out. "Four hour drive to Ithaca from here."
"Not necessarily, Mar," Belinda pointed out. "We can leave here like the middle of the afternoon, meet up with them for dinner and then bounce on down to Joey's place for the party."
"Does it at least say what time?" Marla asked Sam.
"No, it just says meet them for dinner. Yeah, I'm thinking we should leave at like two o'clock here."
Sam kept this on her mind over the final week of quite the hectic and intense year before the time finally came for them to leave for upstate New York once again, the second year in a row they did. She wondered what Testament had in store for them as she and Belinda climbed in Marla's car, wrapped in heavy winter coats and their big boots. Joey called that morning and told them that the lake effect snow had already begun to fall.
Before she started up the car, Marla set a black velvet beret atop her head, much to Sam's surprise.
"Whoa, where'd you get that?" she asked her.
"Rosita sent me this," Marla replied, "it came in the mail the day after Christmas. I forgot to tell you."
"Oh, it's alright. I dig it."
"I do, too!" Belinda chimed in.
They reached the highway in no time and before they left Hell's Kitchen, the first snowflakes began to fall over them. Within no time, the sides of the road would be utterly blanketed with pure fresh white snow. Another thing that Sam was going to miss while out in California: the New York snows, even with how seemingly unforgiving they were; their memory and the feeling of it all etched its way into the very fabric of her mind. She thought back to when she first met Charlie and she told him and the barista about the snow in Carson City. She thought for sure that the snow in Carson City was unique, and yet New York had shown her another ballpark for it. Something haunting and beautiful about the skyline against the incoming blizzards, and then there stood the forests in the upstate area, especially as they were when at night.
Four hours, and by the time they reached the turn off for Ithaca, the lake effect took hold all around them. The sky overhead had been gray up to that point, but the white glare of the snows had brightened everything above them. Sam peered out the windshield to the pure white sky as flakes the size of silver dollars pelted the rooftop and the road before them.
"I hope we can actually get there," Marla confessed at one point: it didn't help matters that it was getting late and the pure white soon gave way to dark gray again as well as cavernous royal blue. But lucky for them, Sam soon recognized the outskirts of the whole Finger Lakes area, even against the snow and the incoming darkness. The outside of Ithaca soon followed, as did that familiar narrow piece of road that led back to the hole in the wall. Right there across the street, at that restaurant, she spotted Eric and Chuck congregated outside the front door, underneath the awning away from the snow and under the golden lights as well: Sam recognized them even in the darkness.
"The men of the hour, I see," Belinda remarked, and Marla took the parking spot right in front of them. Eric nodded at Sam and she gave him a pretty little wave. She climbed out first and Chuck turned around and greeted her with a big sweet smile.
"Hey! There are our girls!"
Belinda climbed out from behind her and, careful not to slip on the fresh layer of snow on the blacktop, the two of them hurried up to Chuck, who held both of them close to him at the same time. Sam then embraced Eric, who seemed warmer and softer than she initially remembered, and Belinda followed suit.
"Thank you for that Christmas card, by the way," Sam told them.
"Nothin' to it, Sammich," Chuck said as he put his arm around Marla.
"And you should've seen Exodus' Christmas card, though," Eric assured her. "We got nothin' on them."
"So what'd you guys want while we're here?" Belinda asked him.
"Oh, nothing," Eric said with a shake of his head. "We just wanted to have dinner with you girls."
"I also wanted you girls to meet someone, too," Chuck added with a little smile on his face. Eric held the door for them: no one else in there except for Alex, Greg, Louie, and a blonde woman at the booth on the far side of the room. The three of them stood before the table and Chuck beheld the woman as if she was a bit of unearthed treasure, with her golden blonde hair, her bright eyes, and smooth skin.
"Sam, Belinda, Marla—this is my girlfriend Tiffany," he introduced.
"The infamous girls," she declared as she took each of their hands. "Or am I confusing you ladies with the punk band?"
"The Cherry Suicides? Maybe," Sam replied, and that coaxed a laugh out of Louie.
"Alright, kids, let's eat," Eric coaxed them; Sam and Belinda took their spots next to Alex, while Marla sat down next to Chuck and Tiffany.
The sun had gone down which gave the otherwise vacant restaurant a much more homey feeling to it. Their waitress showed up with cups of coffee, and a cup of hot chocolate for Alex.
"I just want you guys to know that the heater's been acting up lately," she told them at one point.
"Huddle in like a bunch of penguins," Greg joked, and they did just that right as a grating sound overhead caught their attention. A gust of warm air billowed out of the vent before it dissipated, and their corner of the room fell cool again. The fact the place was empty only added to the feeling.
"Man, remember how crowded it was in here last year?" Belinda asked her in a low voice. "When you and I were here with Joey?"
"Oh, yeah, I know, right?" Sam agreed with her; they had to shout across the table to each other. This time around, a whisper could carry over to the other side.
"I like you with black hair, by the way, Marla," Greg spoke at one point.
"I like the little streak at the front, too," Alex remarked with a gesture to his brow.
"It was Sam's idea, actually," she explained to them. "She had been wanting me to dye my hair a whole bunch of colors but I told her that would've been too much work. I like the single stripe myself."
"Imagine if Alex dyed those grays bright blue himself," Chuck joked.
"Or if they changed colors, babe," Tiffany chimed in.
"Ooh, yeah! They changed colors like during one of his solos."
"Song changes tempo," Eric cracked before he took a sip of his coffee.
"Or when Louie pulls a Zelda," Chuck added. Sam and Louie himself both burst out laughing at that, while Alex paid more attention to his cup of cocoa, which was piping hot even when their food came to their table.
"I kinda like doing this," Marla confessed at one point as she held a French fry close to her mouth. "Spending New Year's together."
"Sam's ahead of the curb, though," Louie told her with a nod of his head, "she and Belinda spent the last one with us, too."
"It was mainly her, though," Belinda pointed out.
Just the bunch of them there in that little corner of the restaurant where no one could bother them, except for the waitress who brought them refills and even offered them dessert of key lime pie or a hot fudge sundae.
"Wanna split a piece of pie with me and Bel, Alex?" Sam offered him.
"I dunno—I've barely touched my cocoa," he confessed.
"Trying to watch his girlish figure," Chuck laughed and at that point Alex bowed his head and laughed himself.
At one point, Chuck, Tiffany, and Marla all stood out of the way for Eric, who bowed out of there and into the darkness.
"Where's he going?" Marla asked them, even though Chuck and Tiffany didn't sit back down.
"Something important across the way," he answered with a twinkle in his eye.
"I'll help pitch in," Sam told them.
"Oh, no, we got it, Sam sweetie," Tiffany promised her. The front door opened again and Eric poked his head into the restaurant.
"Hey, Chuck!"
"That's my name, don't wear it out."
Belinda giggled at that.
"Louie, too—you two fellers in particular—better get your asses across the street quick. It's hella important."
"Oh, shit—" Louie drank down the rest of his water and then he slid out from the hard booth seats.
"Want me to warm up the van?" Greg called out to him.
"Yes!"
Eric bowed back out to the darkness while Tiffany to the register at the front of the restaurant. Louie slipped on his jacket as he ducked out of there after him. Greg soon followed suit with the keys to the van jingling in his jeans pocket.
"I'll warm up the car, too," Marla told Chuck.
"Oh, yeah, definitely—go get warm." Belinda then stood to her feet and followed Marla to the front door. That left Sam and Alex there in the corner.
"We'll leave you kids here alone so you can finish your cocoa," Chuck told them with a wink and a nod, and then he followed Marla and Belinda to the front door. The rest of the cafe had fallen quiet in their wake; and Sam turned her attention to Alex, who had taken off his coat and showed off a little bit of his chest from under those little pearl buttons. The thin black fabric hugged his lanky little body: nineteen years old, and he still had that stubborn little tummy on him, but she could tell he had slimmed down a bit over the last few months. He gave his black hair a toss back and he showed her a quaint little smile.
"Hey you," she greeted him.
"Gonna be you and me for a little bit," he remarked as he set his left hand down by the cup of hot chocolate.
"Just like last year," she recalled; she glanced down at his mug. "That's got to have cooled down by this point. It's been over thirty minutes."
"Kinda. It's one of those real heavy mugs where the heat gets trapped in it. That, and it was scalding hot when the waitress brought it. Glad I didn't take a drink yet." He set his hand on the side and then shrugged his shoulders.
"So I hear you're heading out to California soon?" he said with those sharp eyebrows raised a bit, to which she nodded her head.
"Yeah. It's for school, but yeah—I'm going out there with my counselor the last day of July."
"Wow." He knitted his eyebrows together at that. "Well—and you heard this from me, too—and I think Eric and Chuck'll both agree with me on this, come to think of it—but Testament will be making our new album at the crack of New Year's Day, exactly the same as this past year with our debut. No exaggeration, we looked at our contract just two days ago and went 'shit, we gotta make another one?' I guess we're going to be at the same place as before."
"The hole in the wall?" Sam recalled, stunned.
"Yeah. That's according to the text. I don't know if we'll be there by the time you leave—July, you said?"
"Yeah."
Alex pursed his lips. "Yeah, I have no clue if we'll still be there by the time you go out there. I hope not because we know what we've got ourselves into at this point after the first time. We record, release it into the world, and then we go out on tour to promote it."
"Like no time to rest," Sam remarked.
"Not really, no. I will say this, though, it does get me out of my parents' house."
"I hope you guys don't have to go all the way to New York just to start putting together an album, though," she confessed.
"Yeah, that's probably the one drag with that," he said as he rubbed the tip of his nose, "is we have to go far just to lay down tracks and whatnot. I do like New York, though—you know, my parents hail from here so I feel weirdly at peace whenever we go down to the main city. I hope we can do more back home in California to be honest. I can hope all I want to, but I haven't heard anything from Aurora, though."
He leaned back in his seat and rested his hand back upon the surface of the table, right next to his cup of hot chocolate. Sam gazed on at the side of his face and the stoic expression there. He then cleared his throat and turned his attention to her.
"Have you—spoken to Aurora at all?" he asked her in a low voice. "Because I know the two of you are friends and all." Sam shook her head.
"I haven't spoken to her since your birthday," she told him.
"Oh, wow." He was taken aback by that. "Oh, man, that sucks."
"Yeah." She nodded and rolled her eyes a bit. "But Belinda saw her recently, though, and she and Emile were shopping for baby clothes. That was a couple of months ago, like October. You know what I can't believe is how she made your day all about herself. I didn't think she could be so selfish."
"Were you able to do anything about that?" he asked her, and she shook her head. It was there she hoped that Osegueda had been the one to do the trick on Aurora; maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have been so egotistical on the day that was supposed to be about Alex. At least she had a laugh about that.
Alex himself meanwhile tilted his head to the side a bit; Sam followed his gaze to the other side of the room, but she had no clue as to what he looked at over there.
"What's up?" she inquired right into his ear, and he turned his attention back to her. He flicked his head a bit so his fine black bangs covered part of his eyes.
"You got any spare change on you?" he asked her.
"Yeah." She opened her purse and took out her wallet from the bottom there. Then she paused. "Why? Do you need any change?"
"There's a payphone right over there," he stated and he pointed to across the room; indeed, there stood a white and silver payphone on the wall right next to the front door. "Go call her."
"Right now?" she asked him, stunned.
"Yeah. Samantha, it may be the last time you ever get to talk to her. She's gonna be a mom soon and you're gonna go out in the wilderness for who knows how long."
She frowned at that.
"Besides, it's Christmas and she's—she's—fucking growing a baby." He almost grimaced when he said those last few words. "She's probably not doing anything right now."
"Except growing a baby," Sam joked.
"Except growing a baby, right!" That brought a laugh out of him. She let out a long low whistle and then she took out a pair of quarters from her wallet, and she climbed to her feet. Alex took a sip from his hot chocolate as she made her way over to the other side of the room to the phone. She picked the receiver off of the wall and she slipped in both quarters into the slot. She dialed their number and waited a few seconds. She expected Aurora to answer it given she was always so assertive herself—she helped organize full on tours for three bands after all.
"Hello?" She was greeted by a man's voice instead.
"Hi, Emile—it's Sam."
"Oh, Miss Shelley!" he proclaimed. "I was just thinkin' about you and Aurora and I were gonna send you a Christmas card."
"Aw—oh my god, that's so kind of you," Sam sputtered out at that, and then she caught herself. "Um—is Aurora around at all?"
"Yeah, she's right here. Only three months along and she's already showing!"
Sam sighed as Emile handed the phone over to Aurora.
"Sam I am! I haven't heard from you in so long! How's it going?"
It was right then, by the mere sound of her voice, that the Aurora Young who answered the phone there was not the Aurora Young whom Sam met the first week in New York City. This Aurora Young had a high grating whine to her voice and, by the sound it, no sense of logistics at all. Her sense of culture gone and the soft gentle tone to her voice now given away to a loud rattling shriek of sorts. Locked away in her new home, her new nest, for a great length of time and Sam could tell that she had lost her mind.
"Um—things are going," Sam sputtered out. "How about all of you? I mean, the two of you?"
"Oh, my god, things are just wonderful, Sam! Emile and I have the room set up for the baby and we're making everything for kids now. You know, I didn't think I would have kids some day, but I just love it, though! He and I are planning on having at least two more after this first one. I love it. I love every minute of it."
Sam closed her eyes and bowed her head a bit. Her best friend had become someone else.
"Is everything okay?" Aurora asked out of the blue. "Are you there?"
"Yes," said Sam as she raised her head. "I want—to talk to you—about something." She cleared her throat.
"Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead—" In the background, Emile echoed that in song, much to Sam's grimacing.
"I wanted to tell you that—you know when you announced you were pregnant, it was during Alex's birthday party?"
"Yeah?" Aurora had a bit of reluctance to her voice.
"Well," Sam tried to keep herself calm all the while, "—it was during Alex's birthday party."
"And?"
"It was during Alex's birthday party," Sam repeated. "Well, it was supposed to be about him." She clenched her free fist down by her side and she let out a shuddered sigh. She could feel herself quivering and quaking at the very notion of Aurora being so dense right then. It was so unlike her, and she knew that Aurora was so much smarter than that, and yet it felt as though she had grown dumb within a matter of a quick flash and a whir. Her best friend, now a different person altogether. If only she could see what Sam saw through her eyes. If only she could understand what she was trying to tell her.
"Sam, what're you—"
"How could you have been so selfish, Aurora?" Sam interrupted her, furious. "That day was supposed to be about him!"
"Sam—I wanted to surprise everyone there."
"Do you even understand what I'm trying to tell you?" Sam demanded, heated. "That day, the twenty ninth of September, was the day Alex Skolnick came forth on the earth's surface with a guitar in one hand. It was supposed to be about him and you made it all about yourself." She trembled a bit from the feeling. "I can't believe you did that, Aurora. That was just—that—that—fucking—" She could hardly talk.
"Sam, be happy that I'm going to be a mommy soon," Aurora scoffed. "We're supposed to be due—let's see, I'm three months along—what's it in six months?"
Something inside of Sam snapped right then. Her best friend, once open and diligent and humble and smart, had become a complete husk of herself. Add to this, she still made it about herself.
"No, stop!" she said in a loud voice, such that it shut Aurora up. Her hands shook and her heart pounded inside of her chest, but she persisted especially with the silence that surrounded her. "No, Aurora. I can't be ever happy for you and Emile when all you do is make every last little thing about yourself. You also didn't even thank me and Alex for being in your wedding, either, for god's sake! When you got knocked up, your brain did, too, apparently. Jesus, what the hell happened to you, Aurora? You are supposed to be my best friend, for crying out loud! You and I were inseparable even when I lived in the Bronx and you in Brooklyn. But no, instead you get married and you left your own best friend at the curb because apparently she's not as willing as you are to spread your legs to the next guy who smiles at you. Whatever. Have your baby. Have a million babies and let your uterus fall out, I don't care. When you bleed out of control, think of me. Merry fucking Christmas." She slammed the phone down and turned away from the wall with a flushed feeling in her face. Her heart hammered in her chest all the while she strode on back to Alex.
He looked on at her with the cup of cocoa still right next to his hand.
"Congratulations, you're the thousandth person to say I was born with a guitar in one hand," he said with a straight face once she came into earshot.
"Wait." She hesitated right before the table. "You heard me?"
"Heard the whole thing," he told her, and he giggled like a little boy. And then he straightened himself up. "But—damn. I can't believe she actually wasn't willing to listen to you and talk things out."
Sam shook her head and she returned to her spot right next to him at the table. She wanted to cry but no tears came forth in her eyes. She also couldn't bear the thought of crying before a boy she didn't know too well, either. Instead, she just propped her chin up in the palm of her hand.
"I don't know what happened to her, Alex," she confessed; she glanced over at him, and she brought her attention to his waist, still slightly full, and then the rest of his body. Even sitting there, he looked graceful. "She's—completely different person from when I first met her. I almost don't even recognize her anymore. I remember, it wasn't even that long ago, we were sitting in this Vietnamese restaurant eating pho together and she was telling me about her Korean heritage, all the little rituals they do and everything. Come to think of it, that was the last time she and I had a genuine intelligent conversation with each other."
Alex shook his head at that. Sam sighed through her nose and she leaned back in the seat next to him. His long lanky fingers twitched a little bit on the surface of the table. A guitar player with too much energy.
Indeed, he brought his hand closer to his face and he pulsated his fingers a bit.
"You alright?" she asked him.
"I get cramps in my hand sometimes. 'No pain, no game' as it's often referred to as."
He then picked up his hot cocoa and, after he blew on the surface a little bit, he took a sip of it. She glanced down at his body again.
"You look really good, by the way," she complimented him.
"You think so?" he said as he set the cup down.
"Yeah. Your tummy's not poking out so much. Within time, you'll be all willowy and thin as a rail."
"I've lost a little weight," he said with a gentle little pat of his stomach, "not much—like, seven or eight pounds, but I do feel it. I remember it wasn't even like a year ago, I had this roll on my waist and it hung over my jeans. It's just that I like to eat, though."
"Don't we all?" she laughed.
"I kinda want to be the type of musician who's real thin but there's something graceful about him, though. Like how Cliff was—he was like this classically educated musician and so thin and elegant. Or like David Bowie about ten years ago—minus the whole 'thin white duke' thing of course. Something radically different from your typical coke nosed rock star, you know?" He then cleared his throat. "You said you and Aurora had pho together. You know, I have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area my whole entire life and I've never eaten pho before. There's a whole Asian sector up there, too. Can you believe that?"
"Really?"
"Yeah. I always wanted to try it, though, just because it looks yummy. There's so much I wanna try out, too."
"So much to eat and so much to do. All the world's a stage, after all."
"Right?" He had a twinkle in his eye when she said that, the first time she had seen a twinkle in his eye.
"The only drawback is I imagine getting very fat because of all the tasty food you're eating."
"Watch, I'll have this big round Buddha belly on me by the time I'm my dad's age—like around fifty."
"You can rub it for good luck," she joked, "seeing as you'll be like Buddha."
"Yeah, I'll be like 'hey, want a bit of good luck? Come rub my belly'." And she burst out laughing at that. Without another word, Alex downed the rest of his hot cocoa, which apparently had plenty cooled off enough at that point. Indeed, she pictured him a little bit on the round side, and his handsome face made even more lovely with some extra pounds. Joey had the round face himself, and there was something so precious about it as well, except Alex had that milky soft skin just like the full moon at night. Soft and round, just like the full moon.
Sam then climbed to her feet so she could let him stand up and put on his coat once more: tall and growing slim, made even slimmer and more graceful with that dark peacoat wrapped around his body. He lifted his hair out from underneath his coat collar so it all sprawled out over his shoulders.
She led him out of there and into the cold darkness that fell over Ithaca: the sole lights out there came from the tail lights on Testament's van that awaited him at the curb. Right up the block stood Marla's car, ready to take Sam to see Joey down in Camillus for the New Year. She turned to Alex as he rubbed his hands together to better keep in the warmth.
"I will say this," he started again as he adjusted the lapels of his coat, "seeing as you'll be closer to us, if and when you come out to California, we should see each other more."
"You wanna take me out on a date?" she teased him with a giddy little chuckle.
"No, no, no," he said with a lopsided grin on his face. "I mean, when the dust eventually settles on our end, like when we can finally take a little bit of time off and get the chance to breathe, you and I should hang out together." He glanced off to the side. "If I'm honest, Samantha, I kinda like hanging out with you."
As soon as the words left his lips, the first flurries from the lake effect fell over their heads. He glanced up to the sky: the little tuft of gray over his brow resembled to one of those few little snowflakes around them. The darkness that enveloped around them meanwhile made him resemble to a ghost.
"You know what?" she stated as she tucked her hands into her coat pockets. "I like hanging out with you. You're easy to talk to."
"Well, I dunno 'bout that," he said with a shrug of his shoulders and a slight roll of his eyes, "I'm still trying to figure out as to how to interact with people on tour. I just come to you because you're familiar to me. I recognize you as Samantha Shelley, the girl whom Cliff dated for a bit before he was killed, and also the first member of our fan club. You're familiar so I can admit that I am at the very least, a little comfortable with you."
"You're also aware of other people, too," she added, "like—you don't make things about yourself. At least not in that way."
"Growing up with parents who studied social science for literal decades will do that to a guy," he said with another shrug of his shoulders. More flurries floated down from the pitch black sky and he gazed up once more: the shadows accentuated the depth of his eyes such that he in fact resembled to a creature from another world. Indeed, therein lay something ancient and shadowy about Alex, as if he was a time traveler from the distant future who had come to guide her, or a dark prince. The touch of gray upon his head only added to the feeling.
"Sam!" Belinda called out from the backseat of the car.
"I gotta go," she told him.
"I do, too."
"Um—will I see you soon?" she asked him.
"I hope we can see each other again soon," he said with a thoughtful expression on his face, "in the mean time, you take care of yourself."
"You, too—and Happy New Year, too."
"And Happy New Year to you, too!"
They parted ways, and Sam bowed into the front seat next to Marla, who had switched on the heater full blast. More time with Alex and she could finally uncover yet another glimmer from beneath the cool demeanor. There was a young boy in there: she had to coax him out somehow.
The darkness had fallen over upstate New York, but Marla had hope that they would reach Camillus in no time. Granted, the snow forced her to slow down a great deal but the lights of the Syracuse skyline glowed through the low clouds all around them. Sam thought about that little encounter she had had with Alex back there, and she couldn't stop thinking about it.
"Not the first time I've had to do this," she assured Sam and Belinda; the former thought back to when she, Frank, and Charlie had to rescue Joey from the side of the road. And now she was going to see him again, that time for the real stroke of midnight for the New Year.
Indeed, they finally reached Joey's place a block away from the art shop, closed up for the night; Sam thought about the stained glass window she wanted to make of Joey, and she wondered if Belinda had finally used her powers of recommendation and convincing to snag her a spot in the realm of art glass for the next quarter. At that point, however, it was almost nine o'clock at night, which meant the party would be starting late.
The warmth from the heater and sitting close to Alex that whole time had left Sam feeling all manner of cozy. By the time they made their way into Joey's apartment, she already could feel her eyelids sinking low. But she had to stay awake for him. She had to be next to him at the stroke of another brand new year there in upstate New York.
She opened her eyes at one point, and she found herself seated upright on his couch. Joey took his seat right next to her, while Marla and Belinda giggled about something in the next room.
"Joey," she breathed out, and her voice broke. She cleared her throat. "What time is it?"
"About five minutes to midnight," he told her with a glimpse down at his wristwatch. "I've just been waitin' for you to wake up for the past two hours."
"I don't even remember falling asleep," she admitted with a shake of her head.
"You just walked in through the front door and collapsed on the floor. Marla and I put you here because we knew you would wake up. Just when was the only question about it."
He then cleared his throat, and his brown eyes wandered over to the kitchen doorway behind them.
"I like watching you," he confessed in a low voice. "You look so soft. I wish you could see in you what I see in you."
"You know, it's funny, I—feel the same about you. I wish you could see in you what I see in you."
He ran his tongue along his dark lips. Their last New Year together. Not a shred of mistletoe for Christmas but the feeling of her leaving in a few months time served to be enough for them.
"Two minutes now, Bel!" Marla proclaimed from the kitchen.
Sam lifted her head from the top of the couch. If she was going to be closer to Testament from that point onward, she had to give Joey the one thing he so desired. She had to give to him what she couldn't give to Cliff when he was alive not even the year before.
"Shall we?" Joey offered her as he lingered closer to her.
"Sixty seconds now."
Sam sighed through her nose and she brought her face closer to him. That soft soapy musk on the side of his neck. The even softer aroma embedded in the roots of his black curls. The softness and smoothness of his skin. She left it all for him, and now she was about to leave him come the summer time.
She lingered closer to his face.
"Thirty seconds."
Joey ran his tongue along his dark lips again. He put his arm around her: and she realized that Chuck had put his arm about Marla but not her at the restaurant.
"Let's make this count," Sam told him as she gazed into his brown eyes, as dark as the snowy night outside there.
"Every last part of it," Joey added, and his soft expression hardened. She had been sitting next to Alex for the better part of an hour, but she needed him to be present.
"Fifteen."
She closed her eyes. Like waiting for Christmas itself to come.
"Ten—nine—eight—"
She relaxed every inch of her body and the mysterious man in her dreams burst into mind, albeit for a fleeting few seconds.
"—four—" Marla joined in with Belinda. "—three—two—one!"
Joey pressed his lips onto hers almost immediately, and Marla and Belinda clapped in the brand new year. A brand new year of brand new adventures, especially for Sam as she drank down some more of Joey's venom. Something to take along with her out to California and put on display for all the world to see for itself.