Midnight Lily (Signs of Love) (5 page)

Holden

I stood over the toilet, holding the bag of pills in my clammy, shaking hands. I hadn't taken any when I'd returned home the night before, though my body had been demanding them, and it was now daybreak. Letting out a deep groan, I threw the bag on the counter and slammed the lid of the toilet. I wasn't ready. I opened the bag hungrily and threw back two pills, cupping my hand under the faucet and swallowing big gulps of water.

For a moment, I stood looking at myself disgustedly in the mirror.
God among men.
It made me laugh at myself.

Lily. Her name is Lily. And she's beautiful.

I needed the pills if I was going to spend any time with Lily. If I went cold turkey today, I'd need at least three or four days to detox and recover.
At least.
There was no way I could meet her tonight if I was in the midst of withdrawal. And I wanted so badly to meet with her again. It was the first thing I’d actually wanted in a very long time. God, I had a million questions about her. Who was she? Where did she come from? Where did she live? Why had she watched me?

After taking a long shower and drinking half a pot of coffee, I went down and checked out Brandon's home gym. Switching on the light, I glanced around and let out a low whistle. Mirrors covered the entirety of the far wall. Top-of-the-line workout machines and weight benches were spread throughout the impressive room. There was a large-screen TV mounted in the opposite corner with a sound system set up beneath, its speakers fastened to the walls.

I spent half an hour on the treadmill, winded after fifteen minutes, but pushing myself to finish the full thirty. Then I spent a few minutes lifting, breaking a sweat after two reps.
Fuck, I was out of shape.
I'd been out for a season and a half, and I'd done nothing but party and pollute my body. And now I knew I was not only emotionally depressed, but my body was broken down, too. Feeling defeated, I flipped the lights off and left the gym.

I was antsy for the rest of the day, checking the time over and over. I'd looked it up online and the sun was supposed to set at seven twenty-one. At six thirty, I was walking toward the woods, telling myself I didn't want her to wait for me in case she got there early. My heart was thumping steadily and anticipation filled my chest.

It was a beautiful evening, the air crisp, but not overly cool, the sun warm on my back. I took my heavy sweatshirt off and tied it around my waist so I was just wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt. Pushing my sleeves up my arms, I entered the woods and leaned as casually as possible against a tree to wait.

When was the last time I'd waited for a girl? I honestly couldn't recall. High school, maybe? There was something deeply satisfying about it, with an edge of nervous excitement. What if she didn't come? What if she
did?

When seven twenty-one came and went, the sky changing from soft blue to bright shades of orange, I rubbed my palms on my jeans.
Would
she stand me up? Disappointment filled me as I considered that I might be walking back to the lodge alone in half an hour, Lily having never shown. Maybe she had forgotten. Maybe our "date" just didn't mean much to her. Maybe something had come up. Maybe I was an idiot for expecting her to want to come at all.

I looked up and she was standing a little ways away, watching me. Relief and happiness brought an immediate smile to my face. "You made it," I said, stepping toward her.

She tilted her head to the side, her black braid swinging over her shoulder. "Did you think I wouldn't?"

"I wasn't sure."

She tilted her head backward. "Come on, I want to show you something I think you'll like."

I followed. Again, she was wearing a dress—blue with buttons up the front. It looked as if it was from an era when women wore short, white gloves and small hats on a regular basis. Despite the old-fashioned look, the dress fit her well and I couldn't help that my eyes lingered on the feminine lines of her body. She was wearing black canvas sneakers on her feet and again, no coat. I felt my lips curve up and wondered who this girl was.
A girl. A flesh and blood girl.

We trudged through the woods, as the light around us grew dim. I couldn't see the horizon above the trees anymore and the sky was a pale shade of orange overhead. The air was fragrant with the tangy scent of pine, just covering the musky smell of the damp, rotting leaves underfoot.

"Watch your step," Lily said, pointing to her right. "There's a snake in the grass by that dead log."

I swiveled my head left as Lily giggled. I looked at the log and at the ground around it but didn't see a thing. "Were you kidding?" I asked.

Lily glanced at me. "No. It won't hurt you, though. Not unless you get in its way."

I cleared my throat doing my best not to shudder. I hadn't even thought about snakes being in these woods. I fucking hated snakes.

I chuckled, feeling like an idiot. But when I looked over at her, she was smiling at me in a way that made me smile back.

I watched her walk away for a moment and then jogged to catch up. "Lily, do you . . . what I mean is . . ." The area directly ahead of us was bare of trees or bushes and so I walked more quickly to move in front and turned around so I was walking backward and she was looking at me.

"Be careful you don't step on a snake walking backward like that. It isn't smart to turn your back on what you can't trust."

I laughed softly and turned so I was walking next to her, and she smiled in obvious amusement. "Ha ha. What I was trying to ask is, do you
live
in these woods?"
Was that even possible?

She shot me a strange look. "No, Holden, I don't
live
in these woods. I'm just familiar with them. Come on." She turned abruptly, pulling my arm so I'd follow her.

"Well, where do you live? I don’t mean to pry, it's just I was told there was no one close by."

"I live a little ways from here."

I looked around, wondering what she meant by a little ways from here. It was the same answer she'd given me before. From what I could see from the deck of the lodge, there was nothing but woods for hundreds of square miles. "Oh, okay, so like in the middle of nowhere then?"

Lily laughed. "Yes, I guess you could say that. But then again, so do you."

I smiled. "True, but just temporarily."

"Maybe I'm only here temporarily, too."

"Oh, so what do you—"

"Why so many questions?"

"I just want—"

"Follow me," she said as she made a sudden turn between two trees. The terrain grew slightly rockier, the forest less dense. I followed behind Lily because the trees were spaced in a way that didn't leave room for two to walk side by side. After ten minutes or so, the trees opened up even more, and I caught up to Lily. A few minutes after that, we came to the edge of a cliff, and I cautiously looked over. It wasn't very far to the ground and I released a huff of air, turning away anyway. I'd never minded heights particularly, but after Ryan . . . 

"Over here," Lily said, giving me a hand gesture to follow her. I did. She looked down. "It starts here." I joined her and saw a crude set of stairs carved right into the rock.

"Whoa," I said, looking down. The steps went all the way to the ground below. "Who made these?"

"I don't know," she said, taking a step down.

"Wait, Lily, let me go first," I said.

She looked back at me. "I've been down them before."

"I know . . . I just . . ."
They could be crumbly, you could fall. I can't let you fall.
"Just humor me." I smiled. "Please."

She hesitated, but then moved aside as I passed her. "Thanks," I said, smiling at her again.

The color of the sky dimmed, and the moon appeared, lighting the small canyon with a muted glow. When I'd almost reached the bottom, the last two stairs fell away. I hopped down and then reached my hands up to Lily. "Here," I said, placing my hands around her waist, "let me lift you down." Something about my hands around her waist felt more intimate than I'd intended and warmth filled me as I lifted her down to the ground and she stood in front of me, looking up into my face. "Okay?" I asked. My voice sounded strange in my ears, hoarse, gravelly.

"Yes, I'm good. But you're still . . ." She looked down to where my hands still rested. I pulled them away quickly.

"Sorry," I breathed, shaking my head. I looked up and around. "What is this place?"

"I'm not sure," Lily said, stepping away from me. "But here, look." She moved to a large rock at the edge of where the rocks met vegetation and pushed some leaves aside. Carved into the rock was a kind of very small room with a window, perfectly square and obviously man-made. And at the top of the window was a carving of some sort. I looked more closely.

"Are those hands?" I asked.

"Yes. They look like they're reaching for each other, the fingertips just barely touching."

"Huh," I said in wonder.

"There's a place several hours from here where ancient people built whole houses under cliffs—right into the rock. It's almost like they just barely started one here and then decided to go somewhere else instead."

"Hmm," I hummed. "I wonder why." I ran my hand along the sill of the window before moving aside and leaning into the small opening, barely big enough for two people to lie down. When I leaned back out, Lily was tracing the carved hands with her finger.

"It's just so strange to think about someone standing here once upon a time carving these hands, thinking whatever he was thinking, maybe worrying about something, maybe annoyed about someone." She smiled softly as she watched her own finger moving around the carving of the hands. There was something sensual about watching her finger move that way, and I almost felt as if I could feel it on my own skin, tracing, exploring . . . I couldn't help the warm shiver that moved through my body.

"Maybe thinking about a girl," I supplied.

She looked at me and her smile grew. "Maybe." She looked back to the window and put her hand on the sill, tilting her head. "Seems so funny that a person, all his thoughts, all his ideas, all his feelings, can be here one minute and just . . . gone the next."

I studied her profile as she continued to stare through the window. And I knew just what she meant. I'd thought the same thing when I'd lost my best friend. How could he be so alive, so vibrant, so filled with all those things that were only
him
, and then just . . . gone. Where did he go? "I know what you mean, Lily," I said. "I've thought the same thing."

Lily's lips tilted up ever so slightly though she continued to stare ahead. "But you know what's even worse?" She looked over at me, her smile fading, her expression becoming sad. "Leaving nothing behind. No proof that you ever existed, not something like this," she moved her hand on the sill, "and no one to remind the world that you were here, even for a small moment in time. No one who might brush their fingertips against your own and know the feel of you, even in the dark."

I blinked at her, opening my mouth to speak and then closing it again. What she'd said hit me as so very
profound
. For some reason I felt filled with emotion. That was my job now. My job was to keep my best friend's memory alive, the him that only I knew, the him he didn't show anyone else. His parents were gone; he didn't have any brothers or sisters. I was the only one here on earth who had known the
real
him. Something about that thought, the responsibility it suggested, both filled me with a sudden surge of joy, and a strange aching sadness, maybe even fear. "I . . . yes," I said, my voice cracking slightly. Lily seemed to come back to the moment, shaking her head slightly.

"I guess this place just makes me sort of introspective." She gave me an embarrassed tilt of her lips "And something about it makes me feel as if I've been here before. A sort of . . . déjà vu maybe. Isn't that strange?"

I looked at the small rock space, thinking that maybe I felt the same way, too. There was something about the width of the sill beneath my hand that had felt familiar somehow, as if my skin knew every bump and groove before I'd really even felt it. No, not entirely strange. "Maybe we
have
been here before," I teased. "Maybe you were an Indian princess and I was a . . . chief. Maybe we met in another lifetime." I grinned at her, leaning my hip against the rock.

She laughed, the sound of it echoing into the cavernous space in which we were standing. "How come when people imagine their past lives, they always cast themselves as someone famous or important?" She tilted her head. "Everyone is Elvis or Cleopatra or Einstein. Why wasn't anyone ever Joe Green, a mechanic from Long Beach in a past life?"

I chuckled. "When it comes to other lives, I say dream big or go home."

She laughed as she shook her head, raising her delicate eyebrows. "I'd rather be someone simple, with a simple life, simple problems." She looked around. "Not a princess. Maybe just a gatherer. I'd walk the forest all day looking for roots, flowers, and herbs, and I'd be happy. It would be enough." She shot me a smile. And I had to agree with her, because I'd had all the fancy things, the best that money could buy, and yet, in this quiet place, there was . . . happiness? Peacefulness? The very antithesis of everything else in my life: simplicity. Surrounded by nothing but trees and sky, in the middle of the forest, with this girl felt . . .
right.
We were looking at each other seriously now, a current of some kind flowing between us. Something I wasn't entirely sure I understood, because it seemed like so
much
, so soon. Lily looked away first, just as I caught the first tinge of blush in her cheeks.