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I stretch my legs in front of me and cross them. I used to love that sweet pain after reaching my limits during a good work out. But today I can’t even get my thoughts in order. I take a deep breath, burying my fingers in my hair. It’s long at the top, caressing my eyelashes, then cropped short on top and at the back. The movement distracts me enough to be able to breathe.
Somewhat.
Let’s start over.
“Do you remember that songSaint HopeI wrote?” I ask.
“You mean the song that went viral three times over and kick-started your whole freaking career? ThatSaint Hope?” Miki asks. “And ours?”
“That’s the one.” I’m not smiling.
“Shut up, Miki,” Jude says quietly. “We’re listening, Isaiah. What aboutSaint Hope?”
“It’s about her.”
“What? Her who?” Jude’s eyebrows shoot up.
“The… the girl who showed up last night. The poet.”
There’s dead silence for a bit.
“You wrote a song about that specific girl four years ago?” Miki sounds so confused.
“Not exactly. I wrote it for… She looks like…” I shut my eyes, feeling the tightness of tears at the back of my throat. Dammit. “Ok. There was this girl in my life who destroyed me. I’ve told no one about her, because it ended badly, and she kind of…” A laugh comes out, harsh as a sob. “She broke me, and I was ruined for a long time. But hey, a ton of songs came out of that pain, so win-win, right?”
I pause. No one laughs.
Jude looks white around the mouth.
“Anyway,” I go on, “that girl and I, we sort of began writing it together, back then. She was the reason I started writing for in the first place, and she is the reason I can’t anymore. She used to laugh at me and say I had ‘piercing eyes’ and that they could see clean into her soul.” A hollow, stupid sound that can’t even pretend to be a laugh comes out of my lips. “She used to read about those tragic Victorian heroines in her English lit books. She was always walking around with a tattered book under her elbow.”
Miki starts humming the beginning ofHeartbreaker:
Dead leaves, orange sky
Notebooks, dead flies
English lit novel under your arm
The day you came into my life
“Yep,” I nod, the words scraping my throat raw. “That’s where that comes from. That’s… that’s her.”
“Christ,” Miki says.
“She is the heartbreaker,” Jude adds in a hollow voice.
“Indeed.” I stand, unable to sit still any longer.
The images, the memories… They are pulling me under. I close my eyes and I see Eden. Inky-black hair, a fringe, huge eyes. An even bigger smile, just for a second.
“Hey.” Jude is beside me in a second, holding me up. When did my legs fold? I can barely stand. “Tell me where this girl is and I’ll kick her ass.” I try to smile. Can’t. “She messed you up real bad, huh?”
I push him away. He’s got an angry sunburn on his neck as well. I might have one too from sitting in the sun all day. I remember feeling the sun on my skin as if it happened centuries ago, in another life. Before the poet girl showed up. Before I started dying.
“So what’s last night got to do with it?” Miki asks, reaching out a hand to me. His other arm is playing a tune on the piano absent-mindedly. That’s Miki for you, absent-minded perfection.
“Oh, last night… The new poet I’m supposed to work with for the next eight months. She looks exactly like her,” I say it quietly, trying to believe it myself. It’s not working.
