An Odd Kind Of Wonderful

Chapter Twenty-Two

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"The moon was so beautiful the sea held up a mirror." (Ani DiFranco)

    I kiss her.

    A moment passes (yet it seems like a perpetual amount of time) since that initial kiss, and the nerve endings in my fingers and my toes have started buzzing with goosebumps. Raisa moves backward so I'm dragged with her; and she settles quietly on the grass with a toothy smile that looks up at me with curiosity, and hopefully impatience. I pull back, for a second, to look at her and try to work out what it is she wants, and why she wants it; what she thinks about when I catch her dreamy-eyed and starry.

    "We can't make out on my dad's grave, that's not." Raisa giggles breathlessly. "That's not really okay."

    "No," I smile, infectious, "Ethics, and all that."

    My wrist is taken and pulled upwards, and away until I've been dragged to the underneath of the giant tree, where no graves have been planted and in their place are daisies and other weeds of that genre, miniscule in the moonlight. "This okay?" I ask her, and I feel a wildflower or something brush my leg.

    "Yes." She says, and for the first time, I see her eyes say the same thing as her mouth.

    Another few moments occur in a sequence I won't detail but the result of it is this: I gingerly touch the soft skin underneath the hem of Raisa's stupid band shirt and instead of the smooth expanse I was expecting I get tiny lines of raised flesh. It's the same as what I've got on my wrists.

    My hand is grabbed and pulled back to Raisa's cheek but I feel myself going numb and possibly pale as well; I try to tell myself they're just cat or dog scratches or something but on someone's hips? "Raisa," I mumble, moving backward and repeating myself louder.

    A sort of undeniable realisation dawns on her face. "Nathan..."

    I place my palm on her shoulder. I don't know what to say, my mouth is too dry to speak even if I did know.

    Then my vision is blacked out—Raisa's hand over my eyes, childish and utterly Raisa, and then I'm re-gifted the sight of the cemetery, except this time it's empty. "Raisa?" I call out. "Raisa!"

    Nothing. Leaves rustle to the left of me but nothing is there.

    "Joel!" I try again, and attempt to figure out where the cigarette smell is coming from but I can't figure it out. I call his name a few more times. I can only hear an ambulance driving by down the street. I regret not getting Joel's mobile number. I don't even know if he has a mobile. I know nothing about these people.

    "Nathan?"

    "Joel!" I echo back at the voice, searching frantically for the owner. "Where are you?"

    A tall, skinny silhouetted figure emerges from the walkway down the middle of two sections. "What's wrong?" It asks.

    "Raisa ran off, I don't. I don't know what she's doing—where?" I breathe wildly, the sort of breathing where 'breathe' is not a word that can be used to describe it.

    "What did you do?" is what Joel asks.

    "I—did you see where she went?" I wish he wouldn't avoid me.

    "What did you do, Nathan?"    

    "I didn't do anything! Have you seen her?"

    Joel sighs, and places both his hands on my shoulders. They're heavy and they hold me in place. "I think I saw her. Wait, shh; you have to tell me what you did, so I can find out where she's going."