The worst way to miss someone is when youre sitting right next to them, knowing you cant have them.
Johnny and I walked home together after lecture today which was brutal might I add. Four exasperating hours explaining to class how the American media is entitled, no matter what the costs are, to find and investigate their story. I sat there, my computer open, as I typed away mindlessly at what the professor was saying. I was day dreaming though - thinking about the reporters that were entitled to investigate their story in Iraq, or some area devastated by earthquakes and still suffering aftershocks. Those entitled reporters die. What a lovely thing for a nineteen-year-old college student to be visualizing during the middle of her journalism class. The truth is, I never wanted to be a journalist at all. But I was good at it. Writing - that was my gift, and the only personal way I could escape my uncle. Death. I thought about death a lot.
Johnny kicked a small pebble hard with the toe of his black all-stars into the front of the familiar, black, iron gate as we approached it. I squinted up at the large house - the setting sun blinding me with it’s golden, end-of-the-day light. Its one tower was silhouetted against the sky and I could barely make out the long, white face that stared back at me through the arched, staircase window. He did not show up to class today. Perhaps that’s why it seemed entirely too long. My eyes burned as I continued to try and make out his features from the distance. But all I could clearly see was that he was continuing to stare – waiting. Waiting for Johnny to leave. I turned and looked at my friend expectantly.
“So, am I leaving you here then?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He leaned back on his heals.
I looked back up at the house, not saying anything.
“Are they even home? Raphael hasn’t been to class in a while.” Johnny said and blinked his smudgy, liner-stained eyes at me.
I cleared my throat and brushed the hair out of my face. “Yeah, Raphael is home. He’s been really sick.” I lied.
Johnny’s black eyes widened as I said this. “Sick? This whole freaking town’s getting sick. Chris can’t even gig tonight because she told me she was getting sick!” He blanched and scratched at his spiky, black head.
I shook my head at him, trying desperately to hide the fact that “disease” was not the real issue here. “I think they’ll both be okay. Raphael just has…a…cold.” That excuse sounded lame, even to my ears and I have always been a little naïve.
Johnny squinted at me and leaned up on the closed gate. “Oh yeah? A cold, huh?”
A cleared my throat, not knowing where his suspicions were going. “Yeah. That’s what I said.”
“So who gave it to him?” He started laughing, sending jabs flying into my middle. I laughed it off awkwardly, as I tried to block his hands from my stomach. He stopped laughing and looked back up to the house. “So are you sure you wanna go in, then? I mean if he’s sick you don’t want to catch it.”
I thought of my uncle. “Well, I don’t want to go home either.”
“So don’t go home! Come to my house! Have dinner and we’ll do our essays together. I swear if Anon gives me another flipping 80 percent-“
“It’s okay, Johnny, really.” I looked back to the window to see that Raphael’s face had disappeared from it already. “I have to catch Raphael up anyway or he’ll fall behind. I promise, I’ll stay at an arms distance.” I said.
“Yeah right, like I believe that last one.” He rolled his eyes and I dropped my gaze, blushing slightly. But he finally decided to give up. “Alright then, I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” He asked as he started to back away.
“Bright and early, as always.” I smiled.
Without another word, he waved a half-hearted goodbye to me and re-began his journey toward his home. I understood how he felt – like he was starting to loose me. Johnny had been my best friend over the years we were growing up. We got our lunch money stolen together, shoved into lockers together, dumped into trash bins together. It was a fabulous childhood. And after all that time not having a boyfriend, I could understand how one day, when a new “family” moves in down the street and turns all of that upside-down, he could feel a little left out. I sighed as I watched him walk away from me, regretting it. But when the large, black gate creaked and slowly began to open by some unseen force, I knew that I really had no choice anymore. Fate had found me. His name was Raphael. And there was nothing I could do.
I hugged my bag tighter to my side as I stepped past the gate, over the bricked driveway. Raphael had been staying at home since Bianca – his little commander – had utterly disappeared off the face of the planet. We both knew she wasn’t ever too far away, always watching. But he decided if he remained a…haunt at the house until she showed up again, then he could intercept whatever plan she was concocting.
I would never forget the first night I met Bianca. Skin, pallid and sheer like parchment – like you could see every capillary she had ever burst under its icy cover when she had been alive. Her eyes – jet - invaded the forefront of my consciousness when she looked at me. I wasn’t positive, but I was sure just based on that moment she became aware of every thought I had ever had and then some. I remembered the feeling when she grabbed onto my wrist and hurtled me through the air - her touch soft and ghostly, like it questioned your sanity that she was ever really there.
“Hello, Marnie.”
I jumped a foot in the air, dropping my bag, when his voice smashed my reverie. I looked up into his face. There, standing in the threshold of the large, riverside manor was Raphael, with one gloved hand leaned up against the open door. His long, brown hair fell into his smug face, and when he smiled at the fact that he had succeeded in scaring me, all of the breath in my lungs swept out of me like a vacuum. He caressed my jaw with one, leather finger before he dropped his hand sadly.
I loved Raphael more than I think I have ever loved anyone else – alive or dead. But he could not touch me. We tried, every so often, because sometimes I just needed to actually feel that he was really there in front of me. But he could see that the dark circles under my eyes were already beginning to form.
People in Spoon River were not merely “getting sick”, but rather “getting drained” by these…things. Things that made absolutely no sense to me and that I’ve hardly ever read a single written word about. Things that wanted to drain the very life from us until we had absolutely nothing left. And there was one of these things standing right in front me now, pleading to me with his eyes, begging me to stay, praying that he wouldn’t hurt me today. He stepped aside, and I walked in.
The house was dark and seemingly void of anyone else other than the two of us. However, with spirits you could never be too certain. I walked in just a few steps and looked around, up at the tall ceilings, the gothic chandelier, and over the large stone fireplace where Raphael had first confessed to me exactly what he was, and what he would do to me. I felt his eyes on the back of my neck as he walked up behind me and then the gloved fingertips touch my hair. I spun around to look him in the face.
“Are any of them here?” By ‘them’, I meant the others in his group; Olivia, Michael, and of course Bianca.
His curious blue eyes shifted around once about the walls of the house. “Michael is, but not for long. And he won’t come out. He doesn’t want to scare you.”
Raphael’s voice was baritone and unearthly at times when he didn’t mean for it to be. He had an accent, leftover from a past life – Slovakian - that slurred some of his words beautifully. It didn’t matter what he was saying to me when he spoke. I always found a way of zoning out just to listen.
“Why would he care about scaring me?” I asked and began walking away to the couch.
Raphael disappeared behind me and reappeared on the couch next to me as soon as I sat down. Flames flickered to life in the fireplace next to me as he carefully slid his sleeved hand over my shoulders.
“I think he is the only one, besides me of course, who doesn’t want to scare you.” He chuckled. “He respects you.”
I looked up at the rest of the house and smiled as if to say a ‘thank you’ to wherever Michael was invisibly lingering. “And Olivia?” I asked as I pulled out my day planner.
“Out.” He said shortly.
I changed the subject then when I looked at him, seeing that he still looked sort of sad. “I want to kiss you.” I said simply.
He smiled slightly and dropped his gaze. “That’s a nice thought, Marnie.” He rubbed his gloved hands together in front of him and the leather made this sick sort of squishing noise. “What is that?” He asked finally as I pulled out a pen and a different notebook.
I slid off the couch and onto the floor, laying my book atop the transparent, glass coffee table. “Yesterday’s essay that I didn’t write, so I’m turning it in for half credit. Do you want to help me?” I smiled back up at him, but found that he had disappeared as soon as I asked that question. I frowned, dropping the pen, and crossed my arms over my chest. “Wow, what a sweetheart. Thanks Raphael.”
Ghostly laughter could be heard then, distant, but ever present bouncing off the ceiling rafters and the edges of walls. As long as Bianca stayed away, and the fire stayed warm, I was safe within the walls of that house. By myself, but then again, not.
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