Ecstasy

Chapter 27

Calla:

My feet padded at the ground, my heart thudded in my chest. The scenery whizzed by as I ran down the road. Ear buds in my ear spewed my favourite oldies music that my feet kept in step with as I eyed my house five hundred yards away I tried to control my labouring breath. The glow from sun was slowly disappearing to be overrun by the darkness of the approaching night, even though it was still summer the air was growing crisp. I made it to the house before the song ended and lent against the front porch balustrade and took one long guzzle of water from my bottle.

I stepped inside just as Mum drove in the driveway. I scuttled up stairs selfishly trying to outrun any chores mum would surely inflict on me once she's through the door. Stepping into the bathroom I quietly closed the door praying that Sylvie was asleep by now and that I wouldn't wake her. Dinner had been a nightmare with her refusing to eat and Dad did his little disappearing act again so I had to deal with the terror kindergardener.

I turned to the mirror after turning on the hot in the shower waiting for it to heat up. I found a brown eyed, red faced, sweaty girl looking back at me. I leaned in over the vanity to get a look at the sore spot on my chin. I knew that was going to be a pimple by tomorrow. I sighed and dismissed my reflection and turned back to my shower. After I was clean I walked into my room and found an envelope sitting on my desk.

I picked it up; it was addressed to me but had already been open. I recognised the little insignia on the top right hand side as the dyslexia testing clinic I went to the other month. I quickly ripped the contents out of the paper and scanned the first few lines. My excitement dulled and my shoulders slumped when I realised that my reading levels hadn't changed and they weren't likely to. I grunted and tossed the wad of paper onto my desk for another day of intensive pain to read through.

Picking up my sketch book I went to sit in bed with a few sticks of graphite pencil. I tried working on perfecting the hand I was drawing from memory the other day, but my concentration was wavering. I saw the hand in the super market when I was shopping with Mum. It was an old man; he limped and had white hair. He reached across me to grab the furthest from the front fruit in the grocers and his hands were all spotted and wrinkly like they were a perfect portrait of his life. A hard working life. Callused and sun worn. I wondered if those hands had ever held a gun. Perhaps in a war? He was old. Which led me to draw soldiers and horses fleeing battle.

I flipped through the pages of unfinished, unrefined drawings to a fresh page. I tapped my pencil on the page humming a tune I couldn't name before my eye's landed on one of my Elvis Presley records. Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain.

Blue eyes. Suddenly the image of Tyson looking at me with his impossible blue eyes in the hospital came to mind and before I even realised what I was doing I was drawing a portrait of Tyson. My fingers smudged the shading around the page and the only sound in the room was scratching pencil. It was late and I could feel my eyes starting to droop and before I knew it I was asleep.

***

I awoke with a start sitting up straight in bed. The room was silent but not in darkness. As I leaned over to turn off my bedside lamp I noticed my sketch book had fallen off the bed and my pencils were rolling after it. Suddenly the noise came again. The noise that woke me up.

A voice, almost a scream. I froze, holding my breath listening hard.

"Calla!"

My name. Someone was shouting my name. I jumped up out of bed and went to the window, knowing the voice wasn't coming from inside the house. Kneeling on the window seat I pushed the pane of glass encased in a wooden cross out away from the house.

"Calla!"

I was suddenly assaulted by the cool night air and the smell of jasmine, looking down to the back yard's lawn I shivered and my eye's widened. Standing there was none other that the person I'd fell asleep drawing.

"There you are," Sonny slurred, teetering back on his feet as he craned back to look up at me.

"What are you doing here?" I shout whispered in a terse voice. My frown grew as he flopped back on the grass with a thump.

"Came to see you gorgeous!" He shouted flapping his arms and legs on the grass as if he was making a snow angel.

My face heated at the way he addressed me as but I was more preoccupied by his questionable presence and my parents waking up to the noise. "Shhh! You'll wake my parents!" I paused taking a closer look at him. He held his hands up above his face and studied them with the most intense fascination.

"What? Are you high?" I knew the answer to my question by the way he giggled and was rolling on the grass.

"God," I mumbled under my breath as I witnessed him pull clumps of grass from the ground. I bit my lip debating what to do; I couldn't exactly leave him out in the cold, there was no way in knowing if he would leave or even be okay.

"Wait there, I'll come round the back and let you in," I called out into the night, making my decision.

I disappeared from the window and quietly opened my door. Clenching my teeth I tiptoed down the hallway and skipped down over the steps I'd learned were creaky. I then padded across the cold linoleum floor to the back kitchen door.

Grabbing the key off the hook I quickly opened the door and found Tyson sitting on the porch stairs, slumped against the railing with his eyes closed. He looked so vulnerable; fear clutched my heart at the realisation he wasn't moving.

Rushing to him I tilted his head up so I could see his face, "Tyson! Wake up!" I shook his shoulders and cursed.

He seemed to take forever to drag his eyes open and look at me with the same fear filled gaze he gave me at the hospital.

"I tried to make them go away but it doesn't work! It doesn't work." He groaned clutching his head.

My hands fluttered over his shoulders. What do I do?

"Come on let's go inside," I took his hand which led me to gasp at how cold it was. "You're freezing come on, come inside."

I opened the door and led him inside. I hesitated after closing the door after us; he seemed more interested in lying down and falling asleep. I had to pull him up from the floor after I locked the door.

"Come on," I held his hand behind my back and silently led him up the stairs and into my room.

He didn't speak at all but dropped my hand and went straight for the window seat sitting down and leaning against the wall.

I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room and appraised his body. He was wearing dark blue jeans and a grey t-shirt under a brown leather jacket. His hair was sticking up on all ends and I could swear he had grass and twigs in the brown waves. He looked at me again with his blue eyes the fear and worry now gone from their depths and I let out a breath that I didn't know I was holding.

I went to my chest and pulled out a fuzzy woollen blanket and set it on the seat beside him.

"Do you want something to drink?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest, then silently berating myself for asking the question like that. I corrected myself before he got any ideas; "a glass of water?"

He just nodded, not using his voice again as he closed his eyes and I turned my back to him and went to retrieve some water from the kitchen. When I returned from carefully carrying a tall glass of water up the stairs I found him fast asleep on the window seat, the blanket pulled over him, his breathing deep. I set the glass of water down on the top of my wooden carved chest and stood watching him for a second.

He looked almost younger when he was sleeping. Even though the shadow on his strong masculine jaw betrayed any indication of childishness he still looked vulnerable with his brown hair flopping over his forehead. I reached out and pulled a twig and a few leaves from his messy hair, he didn't even stir. Shaking my head I turned back to my own bed as I felt a wave of tiredness tug me towards it.

Slipping in between the cool sheets and turning off the beside table lamp I just hoped he'd be alright the next morning.