We are The Gray
Chapter Ten
Harry styles- Sign of the times
Welcome to the game of cups,
We flip em upside down,
Welcome to the song of days gone old,
We sing about what we know,
Come back
let me tell ya bout the years
gone wrong
as I welcome you back
to a twisted tongue
leaning on my own handgun
A man holding a black umbrella under an onslaught of rain stood next to a tree. If he had a cigarette at the moment it would be impossible to light. Pellets of liquid beat down on him as if he was trying to fight a war against an undying fire. People crowded around him talking about a tragedy of a seventeen-year-old girl. How they loved her smile, loved her music taste, and enjoyed her personality. Words soaked in fake promises began to sound like twisted phrases coming from people who pretended to give a damn.
If any of them truly cared for her she would not be six feet under but would still be joyfully breathing. A sigh passed his lips. He really wanted to light a cig but the rain beat against the umbrella making it impossible for him. “ Rex, you look like shit.”
“Wouldn’t you if your girlfriend just died?”
“Just trying to poke some fun at you. I know the funeral thang isn’t your style.” He was a man about the age of twenty five and works for the Norwich Police Department which his uniform clearly showed, Rex had been on the force for a little under six months.
“It’s alright.” Rex gripped the umbrella a little harder as images of misty surfaced into his mind.
Misty’s raven hair flowed over her emerald eyes sipping on a Mocha Latte from Starbucks with pearly diamond teeth. Sun glistened down on her and he remembered his heart skipping tracks like the day he saw her first.
Another jarring image of her with nothing but a pink nightgown, and a rose between her teeth came to his head.
He was pulled away from his thoughts like a chain wrapped around his hands and tugged on till they were raw. Misty’s brother was heading his way with a stern frown. It was ok to be a cop with a wife, but not ok to be dating an underage girl.
No one would understand the horror of being the cause of her death. If only he didn’t impregnate her with a blossom of life. If only the strong depression didn’t rapidly change her view on life. He heaved a sigh. The guilt was his alone to carry. Pelting rain whipped against the funeralgoers. There was a great divide between them and him. His job transferred him to Rainville as a chief detective after the incident with his girlfriend’s suicide. Staying meant being known as a law breaking officer who managed to keep his badge because his father was chieftain. Such accusations hurt his pride as he’d much rather pay for his crime tenfold. Greenville is a tragedy for him. Tragedy like a Unicorn losing its horn.
Chitter chatter from under the funeralgoers’ umbrellas resounded around him. The priest’s final words echoed over the rain.“ We lay to rest Misty Rivetin or someday may have been known as Misty Florester. A wonderful girl who donated every second of her time to helping others-”
Misty’s height tended to average her about 5’7. A Giraffe in terms of women. He always had to pretend that she wasn’t sneaking into bars using her Mother’s ID like your average hooligan of a teenager. Her ability to act as a young college student at the time made it so he couldn’t distinguish her actual age upon first sight. A slender black dress with crazy heels during a Halloween party had him feeling some sort of way. His stomach clenched in knots like a nervous schoolboy about to embark upon his first crush.
She danced over him like an exotic belly dancer with a glass of wine, and amber cat eyes asking about his sexy raven hair. Her Halloween outfit is between a sexy witch and god knows what else. Their night consisted of fancy sweet talk, playing darts, and ending in his apartment before bringing her home at two am. She began to climb a tree to sneak back into her house due to not having an extra set of keys. At that moment he knew- she was still in high school.
Karma struck. Here he was staring at the barrel of death. Awkwardly he walked away from the tree as whispers between the seats softly flowed.He approached the casket. “For those that know me as a young cop, I am often giving out speeding tickets or placing a criminal in cuffs. I want to say I live to serve and serve I must. Rex at your service. I know all of you high school students are chattering away about how a law abiding citizen broke a law. Dating an underage girl. But she was someone I loved who was carrying my child, and like her parents, this loss has made me question the sanctity of my job. If you even try to slander or tarnish her reputation- the force will come down on each of you as Yoda tries to bash in kindness to all you.” A hum of silence deafening against relentless tears of the sky. Scents of dirty mud, cigarettes, fresh water, and roses wafted around as liquid sprays teased his cheek without regret. Guilt is a wretched feeling.
Not a word of unrest against him. The bouquet of roses in his hand dropped atop the silver casket as it began to descend into darkness like his soul.“Thank you all for the support to her family, friends, and pets as we lay her to rest. I beg of you to not be light with me.” For the rest of the night went with calls of encouragement, or check-ins as he packed. Rainville hopefully would treat him better than the locals here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A neon green light on the left side of the highway with chicken scratch said “Welcome to California.” with miles labeled for tourists. My eyes fluttering open felt as heavy as a nine pound bowling ball. A flutter in my heart as a place called home would soon be in my grasp.
“Honey, we might get to see waves from our town.”
“We’ll live off the beach…aren’t your rich parents nice?”
“Knowing my dad, our house is a hut.”
“Do we have a name for our town?”
“Rainville,” Laughter as if we discovered a dirty pun resounded over the radio playing in the background.
“I wonder how wet the people are there.” A thin smile spread from my cheeks as the raging sun smeared its burning rays over my body.
Up North even the hottest summer was like walking out in winter with an ice cream cone. I’d be burned toast if the sun kept its continuous work on me. I pressed the visor for the window down to block out as much of it as possible. “You think I’m going to look like charcoal in a year from now?”
“You’ll look like a California babe seen on television with beautiful abs, and a great hipline.” The droning of continuous top forty songs started to sound like the voices of the parents from the Charlie Brown cartoon. My cell phone’s charger nowhere to be found — which meant our radio was all we have.
Driving on for about another twenty minutes we finally turned the radio off in defeat. I caught a sign on the highway with the words “Rainville 5.5 miles exit 10” I sighed in relief at that sign. “A body like that is going to take longer than three months baby. I’ll have to exercise and do all sorts of stuff for that kind of a body.”
“Should be easy, like riding a bike. You’ll just have miles to walk to find a store. “
You have to be kidding me. Riding a bike took me years to learn and like fifteen bruises to show. Your father would not dare buy us a house in the middle of nowhere.”
“Unless he wanted us out of town faster than Tony threw Captain America away. You can’t be a Captain of a team that does not exist.” He heaved a sigh, shocking me for a minute as I shut my eyes against the glaring sun to relish in the sound of his breathing.
“Captain didn’t go quietly into Tony’s goodnight. He raged shield and fists against the robotic genius.” I wondered for a split second if he just bought a shack to force us to fend for ourselves.
“I mean who really won that battle?” A twisty bend down the road and we approached a welcoming sign that was tilted with graffiti on it.
“Captain Forever won that.” Palm trees touching the horizon littered the side of the road with houses covered by solar paneled roofs with sports cars along the roads. A diamond picket fence town it is.
Through the passenger window scents of salt water emanating from the sea like whispers of the wind floated in. The further we got the rougher the terrain and houses looked. Some with their roofs having holes, and certain houses had abandoned flyers on the door. Dread filled me as they made me think the worst for what his dear old father had in store for us.
A blue sign splashed with white had the words ‘Welcome to Rainville- home of the sea ’.Finally, I can breathe outside of a confined space. A giant house made of marble bricks, and front French doors glistened as we approached the outskirts of town.
We reached town where the majority of businesses either were well kept or not occupied with glass shards littering the ground. No one walking the streets as if a hidden gang war occurs here daily. A decrepit sign hung loosely from a pole ‘ Rainville- beach-3.5 miles away’ but the words starting to fade off looked more like ‘rain — be-3.5 mi away. I guess it's not a hotspot anymore.
Our road is just a giant hill that felt the size of one of the steep steps for an ancient temple. It just keeps going up, and up till we managed to turn into a side driveway where the mailbox bent with an odd number on it. My heart sank like the tilted mailbox..damn his father’s sense of humor.
The house looked like a cheap one. It looked unkempt from the outside with chipped paint, a few loose shingles, and a tilted white porch swing. I couldn’t help but picture the house being haunted by a poltergeist. A perfect horror story in the making. The wrap around porch with the big glass windows made me shutter.
I’d say it makes for a cryptic vampire’s home. Although it did not look like any of the houses back North because it’s raised off the ground due to flooding over the years. It would be a real task to unpack the car and bring all of our stuff into this home.
It's one thing to load the tiny beast, another to remember how to get to everything out without looking crazy. We moved the giant flat screen from the trunk carrying it over decaying front steps, pushing it past a creaky front door, and wobbling it into a wide room that leads into a kitchen, dining room, and living room.
A stairwell at the center of the room lead to our bathroom upstairs with an extra room and looked nice compared to our small apartment from back North. We managed to move everything accordingly with kitchen utensils in the kitchen, folding chairs in the living room, our air mattress in a bedroom painted in blue, and bathroom stuff in the bathroom that was connected to our room.
By the time I got to bed neither of us had a single bit of energy left to frolic with each other. We just slept like we were bears in the middle of winter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first day I laid eyes on his mysteriously handsome self -like a stealthy robin hood -he was walking past our house. A sleek blackberry cellphone glued to his ears as if a major agenda needed his attention. Our faded red hatchback yet to start was sputtering, and stalling out consistently.
I could hear aggravating groans coming from Aaron like a politician who just lost a running against their enemy. When he gets mad it usually ends with black and blue marks and a few bloody gashes on my body as if I was his pet needing some punishment. Four months had passed since we reached Rainvlle. And I was still regretting never heading my mother’s advice.
“God damn this thing. I really need to get to work but this piece of shit won’t ever start for me.” He punched the side of the hatchback in frustration as his calloused knuckles dripped scarlet droplets from the impact. The hatchback had a cavity resting on the side of the passenger door now.
“Yea. I’d say the thing has seen better days.” A stranger with a soothing voice spoke up. I turned in time to see a man who was now shoving a sleek black phone back into his demi-pants pockets like it was a habit. He’s the same man I saw walking past our house nearly every day.
A sandy paper dangled from his lips as the end burned a faint rose leaving black down the burned side. His smooth raven hair looking disheveled like someone forgot to rake a comb through it in the morning with a shirt having a depiction of a skull and crossbones on it.
“Do you think I could look at it?”
“Why? So you can tell me to go see an actual mechanic?” Aaron rubbed away scarlet flakes off his knuckles fiercely. His fair hair just barely escaping past his ears, and light sky eyes staring at the stranger as if burning him alive.
“I might be able to fix it myself using my handy dandy mechanic hands” He exhaled a billowy gray into the air decorating it.
“Sure, take a look at it.” Aaron skedaddled to the shack. This left me with the newfound stranger staring at our hatchback that looked like it was dragged through mud, into a river, and smacked hood first into a boulder.
The visitor opened the butt of the hatchback making his thin calloused hands dig through a multitude of rusted tools before coming upon what he desired. A slim ratchet with dried blood on it hung between his fingers. My heart sank. Out of all the rusted tools, he had to pick that one.
His eyes looked up at me displaying salty amber eyes that gleamed from tiny rays of sunlight. Why does-”
“Just wash it. We killed a rattlesnake with it when we first moved in.”
“Wash it? Do you have a hose I could borrow?”
“Our hose is chock full of rust. You are better off using our bathroom. But be wear its a mess.” He set foot into the treacherous hole in the wall coming back with a shining silver hatchet that could yank the hood open.
His hands tugged at the butt till he stared at a rotting engine or half of one..Rust covered specs of silver metal, and wires twisted around the engine as if confused on where to be.
The hatchback a side job for Aaron. He liked to act like it's a constant reminder of our friend, and why we ran away from home so fast. A twisted idea is to park the perfectly good truck in our lawn near a large pine tree so people think we don’t have a working vehicle.
“Needs a little more than just work on it.”
“We have been slaving away trying to get it to run but he managed to buy a new truck that I hate.”
“What model?”
“Ford. The destructive power of Ford.” Laughter echoed in the empty driveway as he pretended to struggle with a loose wire.
“I’ll tell you what..You can take time out of my day on my days off to work on this fella for free. No matter how long it takes my hands are pretty solid to get the job done. This way a lady like you can have a vehicle as well.” I shook my head with his in agreement taking down his cell number for assurance that he wasn’t just talking up game to me. His hands flicked the rest of the cigarette onto the ground before slamming his foot over it to put out the cig.
This began a whirlwind of events.
