Stained Glass Souls (Wattys 2014, Collector's Dream Award Winner)

Charliegh: Black Markets & First Forevers

(Charliegh: unedited)

She was not sure how, exactly, she had wound up on Price’s porch, staring at the weathered lines of the red front door. After she left the graveyard, she had just wandered. At first, it was lonely, walking sandwiched between the brewing sky and the loamy, cold ground. It was eerily similar to That Day, when Randall died. Come to think of it, that was the last time she had really wandered. Because, wandering wasn’t moving without a destination – it was finding alternate routes to reach an ending, a conclusion.

Life after Randall hadn’t had a conclusion. It stretched out, full of empty days and cold, sleepless nights, when she almost fooled herself into thinking that it would have been nice to wake up next to his warm body. She had become a marionette, strings torn, limbs flopping her uselessly through the months After.

Before, she didn’t have to search for purpose – it stood right in front of her, all six feet of spindly and raspy and a quiet, uneasy smile. It had a kind heart, a gentle touch, and came in the form of a boy everybody liked to think they could understand. He had carried her through Earnest’s betrayal, Faith’s budding relationship. He was the brick wall, a blockade against the beautiful, alluring Sylas, who tried entirely too hard to pull her in.

It was so strange, she thought, how things were different. Purpose was gone. The blockade lay in bricks around her feet, crumbling, along with every other faucet of her being. Sylas had been changed by That Day, too – he was the boy she called in emergencies, who gave hugs that smelled like cinnamon. Sometimes, Charliegh felt like she was stuck in a vicious cycle; regretting to boy who had loved her, and died. Trusting the boy whom she had never liked, who was the only thing she had left.

“Hello?” The red swung backwards, banging against the wall, revealing the narrow, dimly lit interior of the house. It was Price. He didn’t smile, his eyes didn’t glint. He just…stared.

“Price.” Charliegh stuffed her hands into her coat, because she didn’t know what else to do with them. What could she say? How could she explain this, a random appearance on his doorstep? She was acutely aware of the heat leaking from the inside of the house, piercing through the cold like a needle. The clouds warned of snow, and she didn’t want to make a confessional or something equally daunting, shivering in the Maine weather. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah. Sure.”  It came out like a question. Price held the door open wider, disbelief written across his face.

“Price?” It was Sylas’s voice. Sylas. Charliegh took a deep breath, steadying herself. What was he doing here? As far as she knew, he hadn’t even met Price. The name of her best friend and her sometimes father’s son had been swapped interchangeably in conversations, but it hadn’t gone as far as actual contact. Nerves contracted in her stomach as Sylas emerged from the living room, carrying a mug, the top of his flannel shirt unbuttoned, the smooth, olive skin of his chest showing. He looked angry. Confused. And, most of all, hurt.

“Hey.” Charliegh stepped inside, watching warily as the two boys stepped, almost in unison, back. It was as if she was an apparition. God, but she wanted a cinnamon hug right now. She hunched her shoulders, fighting the temptation.

Sylas moved first. He set his coffee cup on the floor and crossed the floor in one quick, sure step, wrapping his strong arms around her. “C.” He murmured into her hair. “Reconcile yourself yet?”

She flinched back. The cinnamon suddenly felt overpowering, sinking into her skin, her pores, like a sharp, itching blanket. “Sylas…” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying not to cry. Again. Crying, and crying, and crying.