Shane put considerable distance between herself and Roselyn, though Roselyn hadn't followed. Roselyn was not of the mindset where one chased conflict, having always known people to return when the sting subsided and heads were clearer. If they didn't return, they weren't supposed to. It was the will of the Goddess and had nothing to do with her, so much so that she admonished herself not to feel guilt about such things. Shane was of the opinion that all logical faculties took a vacation when any negative emotion reared its head. The logical core of her brain understood that hers was not the better way, but Logic had no place once Emotion came to town.
Shane knew it wasn't Roselyn that upset her, but being so brashly asked about Eliot reopened the wound and she felt like her blood was pouring out. There was no way to run or hide from that, though it hadn't stopped her from trying, and certainly no way of explaining it to Roselyn. At best, she could put the pain away for a few days and the scar would be less prominent. Nothing fully healed or ever could. She couldn't stop reliving it. Picking at it. Emphasizing the scarring in memory of him.
It happened over a year ago, while she was on vacation. She had ached for Eliot despite her best intentions. Though they never saw one another on weekends, this long distance deprivation stirred up wanting emptiness inside of her. She wondered how he was, what he was doing each moment of the party, who he was with. She even caught herself musing what he might be wearing and chided herself for being so moony. Adoring the boy was one thing, obsessing over his wardrobe quite another.
She took to closing her eyes and imagining the party, which served to make her mother think that she had fallen asleep on the car ride. If her mother thought she was sleeping, she kept the music low and did not direct conversation Shane's way, both conditions which suited Shane fine.
The trip itself was a blur of distant relatives, roadside attractions, and chilly caverns that she had seen every year since she was seven. She would have said it flew by, but only judging by the amount she actually retained. To her soul, it felt like weeks had gone by in a haze.
She returned that Sunday night and dashed to the phone to call Eliot. She only ever called his cell phone, and then only when she knew it was off so she could leave bits of poetry on his voice mail for him to hear when he awoke. Beyond that, it was understood where and when they would meet.
There was no answer, as she expected, so she misquoted an Elizabeth Bishop poem after the mechanical beep ("the joking voice, a gesture I love") and hung up.
She rifled through her nightstand for Eliot's home phone number. When he gave it to her, he cautioned her to only use it for an emergency because, in his words, "no one should be subjected to my mom's phone manner." She found the number on a crumpled receipt and wondered aloud if this was emergency enough. Shane had never spoken to Eliot's mom and was frightened to change this. Still, she needed to be with him this very night. Fantasizing what he would say about her to his friends had made his absence from her lips the sepia filter through which she saw the world. She dialed.
"Hello," a haggard voice on the other end of the phone asked.
"Hi… Ma'am. I was wondering if Eliot was in?" Shane never knew how to address her friends' parents. She really wanted to call her Mrs. Eliot's Mom, but knew that the cutesiness would not be understood and appreciated.
There was silence on the other line and Shane was about to say hello again when the voice demanded abruptly, "Who is this?"
"It's… I'm Shane. I'm Eliot's… friend." She had also never given much thought to how she wished to be addressed.
"Oh, Shane darlin'. I was hoping he was with you. I didn't think but..." The voice sounded like she was about to wither and blow away. Shane felt certain she had become the bearer of bad knew that she did not yet know. Her body tightened, awaiting the next words. Her chest wouldn't allow in breath.
"Where is he? Should he be with me?" Shane gasped, air beginning to find her lungs again. Nature abhors a vacuum.
"He told me you'd be goin' on a trip... I didn't want to believe… when the police called… I…" In the pause that followed, Shane understood why people said their hearts broke. She thought it was a weak metaphor of strong emotion, but she was wrong. She could feel each bit of shrapnel from her heart stab at her other organs, mostly her stomach and lungs. Her knees gave out beneath her as she heard the voice tell her what she already knew in her fragments of heart.
"They found a body, but I told the police it wasn't my boy, that he was fine…" The voice cracked and wracking sobs took over the other end of the line.
All the emotion within Shane hit its peak and shorted out. She felt completely numb. "Thank you for telling me, ma'am," was all she could say before hanging up the phone. It was like… Shane thought, but realized it wasn't like anything. Death, real death, was well beyond her ken. No simile sufficed.
Shane touched her face and was objectively fascinated when her hands came away wet. In the back of her mind, where the words had yet to absorb, she wondered if her tears now were chemically different than the tears she shed as a child and fell off her bike. Could her body have known?
We Shadows is a serialized novel being written by Xen, also known as Thomm Quackenbush. It didn't happen to you, your best friend, or his cousin. Why? Because it didn't happen. All persons, living, dead, undead, or unliving are purely coincidental. Any real persons are used fictiously. What you are about to read is not a news broadcast. No portion of this book may be distributed without the expressed written consent of Xen. Feel free to rope your friends into reading it, though. Do it or I start shooting PuppyOrphans.
