Possessed

Chapter 1

    You you you you you you you. It’s all I see. All I think about. All I dream. I worry your name between my teeth. You burn my tongue like acid, dripping, dripping down my throat. I choke on your face, like swallowing ashes. You.

            I’m not thinking about them. I can’t think about the sound of snapping bones or the feel of blood on my hands, sticky and hot; the smell of smoke or the sound of glass shattering like glitter into a thousand pieces as our bodies dried out on the scorching asphalt in the New Mexico sun; my voice impossibly hollow and empty as I tried to scream for help. I can’t think of that. I think of you.

            The rain shoots from the sky like tiny bullets aimed at the windows. I stare out the thick Plexiglas as we pass forests full of green and brown. This place reeks of Earth, dirt, mud. The car is warm, and I relish it. I know outside the weather will be unkind. I already miss the sun and the warm sand-dirt from New Mexico; that barren dessert. This place is so alive. The forest breathes; its heart beats.

            The car is quiet as we make our way through town. Nothing is how I remember it used to be. The shops are larger, more modern. Where before there had only been a downtown village crowded with small businesses, now there is a multitude of shopping plazas on every street corner. The grass is a bright, wicked green. The weeds are sprouting up, up towards the grey sky shrouded in swollen rain clouds. Francesca drives by a construction site. Mud sloshes around the gutter. I avert my eyes; the bright orange and yellow construction vests are starting to give me a headache. The road is slippery, and flooded with dirty rain water.

    I think back to when I used to live in Oregon, years ago; the color, the music, the thunder and lightning. Dancing in rain puddles and hiding in the woods where the shadows had almost swallowed me whole. Everything has changed.

            I sigh quietly as I peer out the window, biting my swollen lower lip and running my tongue over the small scrape there. It has almost healed. Francesca drums her fingers against the steering wheel nervously. There is something so nauseatingly perfect about fake French manicured nails stretching over leather.

    It is still and quiet in the car; the raindrops flecking onto the windshield puncture the silence. I swallow tightly. My eyelids feel heavy; my bones thin and chalky. It is dark outside, the rain drumming hypnotically against the windshield.

            “Some storm we’re having,” Francesca says. Her words seem loud in this tiny car. They echo in my ears. I want to say ‘It’s always storming,’ but I can’t find my voice, lodged somewhere deep in my throat. She coughs out a nervous little laugh and looks ahead. I can tell she is trying to make this situation less awkward than it already is. I would prefer if she just kept silent though, as I don’t quite feel like talking. Francesca sneaks a glance at me. I turn around and stare back. Her face is sympathetic; I can read the pity there, plain as day. When she catches me returning her stare, she tries to mask the look of sympathy with a smile, but instead she looks as though she is in pain. “Nate is going to love your hair,” She says, “it’s so long.” I tuck a piece of wavy, platinum hair behind my ear. The humidity has made it frizz. It is thick and falls lightly to above my waist. I twist it gently into a rope, hoping that maybe one day this week I can get it cut off.

            We finally pull up into the winding, wet driveway and coast toward the garage. Everything is soaked, like a watercolor painting. I’m grateful that the car ride is finally over, and that I can spend the night alone, in my old bedroom.

            The house is larger than life and more extravagant than I remember. It is white, rising off the ground to an unbelievable height. The lower level is almost hidden amongst the ivy that creeps along the siding, and the lavender which perfumes the air. It is secluded up here, hidden by a small, thick forest. The private dirt road is soggy and pebbled. There is a second floor wrap around porch, with French doors spaced evenly overhead. I can see my bedroom from inside the car. The light’s are off; it looks abandoned and dark, but I imagine that it’s warm and pristine inside; impossibly comforting.