Saved By The Music by Selene Castrovilla

Author:Selene Castrovilla [Castrovilla, Selene]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: ASD Publishing
Published: 2013-05-13T04:00:00+00:00

18

Life’s Fitful Fever

I woke up in the dark, tangled in covers. Sweating, burning, but still so cold.

“Axel?”

No answer.

“Axel?”

“What’s up?” Axel’s voice came from the other room. His head peeked in the door. “What’s wrong?”

I felt so dizzy, and my heart was pounding. “I don’t know. … I don’t know… .”

He kneeled next to me. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m here.”

“Can you lie down with me?”

He hesitated for a second, then climbed under the covers, wedged against me, put his arm around me. “That better?”

“Yeah.” There I was, bothering him again. But I was scared out of my skull to be alone in the blackness. “Wh-what did my aunt say?”

“Let’s talk about this in the morning.”

“Why? Was she mad at me?”

“No! No one’s mad at you, Willow, except you. She was upset, but not with you.”

“But I messed up her plans… .”

“Get out of here. That shithead was hardly indispensable.”

“And now she has to deal with my crap… .”

“She wants to deal with your crap, Willow. She’s your aunt. You’ll see. You’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

I felt a hot, stinging pain in my chest and throat. “She’s coming here?”

“Did you think she wouldn’t?”

I didn’t answer.

“Calm down. I can feel your heart racing, for God’s sake. What do you think Agatha’s gonna do, whip you?”

“She’s gonna say what she always says, and right now, I really can’t deal with the righteousness of it all.”

“She’s not a preacher… .”

“She could write scripture. The gospel by Agatha Moon. It wouldn’t be a real effort. She could just write down whatever comes out of her mouth.”

“Stop. You’re not being fair.”

“Oh, yeah? Well … fair is foul, and foul is fair.”

“Hey, you stealing my Shakespeare quotes?” He laughed. “Are you going back to sleep, or what? Otherwise, I’ll make us something to eat. You realize we didn’t eat dinner?”

I realized a lot of things. Having missed a meal was the least of them. “I’m not hungry.”

“All right, that’s something else we need to discuss. You’re turning orange from all the damn carrots you eat.”

The tears started again. Who knew why … ?

“Hey, hey … don’t start crying again. I’ll leave you and your carrots alone for now; don’t worry.”

I sniffed. “How’d you know I was crying? I didn’t make any noise.”

“Your whole body got stiff. Believe me, I know all the signs of your crying by now.”

I started sobbing.

“Oh, Jesus. I didn’t mean… . Turn around, will ya?”

I shook my head no, pressed my hands against my eyes.

“Willow … I’m kind of used to only answering to myself, being alone with my fucked-up thoughts. So if I say the wrong thing, you have to forgive and forget it, okay?”

I faced him, fat drops rolling down my cheeks. “I’m not crying because of you. I’m crying because of me.”

He held his pinky against my cheek, let a tear land on it, whooshed it like a windshield wiper. “You’re entirely too hard on yourself.”

But nowhere near as hard as Aunt Agatha was going to be.

* * *

The morning had to come, and so it did.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.