Grayson's Body

Descended

Chapter 19: Descended

Descend

[dih-send]

verb (used without object)

1. to go or pass from a higher to a lower place; move or come down. .

2. to pass from higher to lower in any scale or series.

3. to slope, tend, or lead downward

I let my mind wander as I laid there in the bed, the ceiling fan spinning around and around above me. The air was so cool that I let it. I had stood at that window, my body bend over the hard desk, for over five minutes after he had left. I had closed the it fully when I realized he wasn't coming back, that he wasn't playing with me. For a moment I wondered if he had gone to his own front door, had pulled it open, had slipped into his room as though nothing had happened.

I wondered if he cared. I wondered if he had the capacity to do so. 

I shut the window and made sure the clasp was secure, my fingers against the cold metal. I tugged at it a few times and closed my eyes, letting my mind walk as I walked over to my bed and pulled the covers back, slipping under, my heart still thudding in my chest. The sheets smelled just like Grayson and I turned over clicking off my lamp, my eyes stilling on the switch blade just lying there on the table top.

They smelled like him, that kind of woodsy cologne he always sprayed over his body like it was going out of style, and that unsettled me. I closed my eyes and let the exhaustion calm my pounding heart. 

I tried to sleep that night. My phone was off, and I knew that I probably needed to turn it on before I fell unconscious, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I'd know how many texts I would have from Chip, how many frantic, desperate calls. She would want to know what had happened, to know why I had flipped out on her.

I mean, I would too.

That night I had a dream as I passed out on the bed. It pulled at me and took me under until all I could see was it, all that I could feel was it. 

I was running through the woods, my feet hitting the forest floor swiftly, inaudibly. The air was that sweetness you could only find in the Minnesota woods: musky, like pine, and saccharine like blooming flowers.

I wasn't scared, though, that much I could tell. I could feel the sweat clinging to the back of my neck, and my heart was pounding in my chest, my breathing steady as I moved my arms. If anything, I was enjoying myself. I had never been the athletic type, even though I was a prolific swimmer, but it seemed there I was, running through the woods and actually enjoying the act itself. I was a natural, it seemed. 

I was moving through the woodlands, my feet hitting logs at just the right angle to hurdle over them, my eyes leveled on the rich spring foliage around me. But then I stopped suddenly, my feet grounding themselves and I turned to a sound sharp and pointed, kind of like a whistle. I didn't know why I wanted to stop, I just had. It was gentle, floating in and out of my hearing range, and I closed my eyes for a moment.

"Ethan," came a voice softly and a large hand was grasping my arm casually, tenderly, and my eyes snapped open in surprise.

What the hell was this now?

But I wasn't there anymore in those woods. I was in Kettle cemetery, my feet against the perfectly cut green grass. 

My dad had been buried there after the accident, when his body finally betrayed him in that sterile white hospital bed, and it looked just like it did when I was seven. The cemetery, I mean. My eyes traced the budding Japanese Cherry Blossoms, all white and fresh, and the oak trees that surrounded the large grounds. There were rows upon rows of neatly placed headstones. Some where stuck out of the ground, some were not. Some were laying flat and part way in the ground, as though stuck. I got a feeling inside of me as I turned around, and it felt like I was seven again, even though ten long years had past between that time and this time.