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

Ariel: A Flickering in the Darkness (Part Two)

(Ariel, cont: unedited) 

The dance floor was crowded, colored spotlights throwing faces in shadow. There were a million bodies in a few meters of space, and navigating the tangled webs of limbs and laughing seemed impossible.

Somehow, Anya found her. Lipstick smudged, face flushed an unnatural shade of red, she looked like a bloodhound, honing in on her daughter. “Darling!” Her nails, filed into crimson talons, gripped Ariel’s elbow. “You haven’t congratulated your brother. He asked about you.”

Her stomach turned at the thought of facing her vagabond brother and his fanciful bride. She glanced over her shoulder, hoping to spot Katrina. Instead, she was faced with a cluster of people, so close that she could smell the alcohol rising off their expensive clothing.

“He could have come over.”

Anya sighed in exasperation. “He couldn’t find you. None of us could. Where did you disappear to?”

The bathroom. The depths of her mind, because it was a safer place to be than the teeming ballroom. Ariel extricated her elbow, wincing at the crescent indents on her skin. “I was right here.”

“Oh.” Her mother looked taken aback. “Well. I must have missed you.”

Again, Ariel wanted to say, but she kept silent. She had spent seventeen years idling time right here, in the sweet spot of naivety and depression. Being invisible seemed to be a talent, and given the sharpening curvature of her bones, she was getting better and better at it.

She followed Anya, squeezing around the dancers and dodging stiletto heels. Her brother was standing across the ballroom, hands hooked around his wife. Their smiles were commercial-white, and the pile of gifts on the table beside them seemed to obstruct all other decorations in the room.

When Anya had slid her way through hugs and grabbed a fresh glass of wine from one of the circling waiters, she motioned at Ariel. “Darling!” She was cooing, growing sloppier by the second. “Stop being so shy.”

She edged forward, staring at Nathan. This, standing before her, was the reason she had not come to congratulate him. Three years ago, he had vanished to this bustling town, surrounding himself with college students and crumpled coffee cups, with his lively girlfriend and the wonders of his new life. He hadn’t called. Hadn’t sent letters, even, with his spidery handwriting and hourglass stamps.  

Growing up, he hadn’t been much of a brother. He had been seventeen when she was ten. While she spent her afternoons alone on the playground, building castles from rubble and weaving dandelion crowns, he had been locked inside his room.

They both had forsaken territory – hers was the background, and his was his bedroom. It was his inner sanctum, and he had never bothered to let her in.

Facing down a stranger, who was six foot tall with the stubble of a man and the grin of a teenager, she was at a loss for words. Eventually, when Anya sighed suggestively, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms halfway around him.

“Congrats.” She said quietly.

Tentatively, his palms came to rest on her back. His fingers ran down the knobs of her spine, the wings of her shoulder blades. He smelled like disappointment, and when he pulled back he was frowning.

“Thanks. You’ve, uhm, changed. Quite a bit.” He took in her piercings, bleeding eyeliner, and thinning hair, judging the front she had created because he didn’t know her well enough to look behind it.

She hated herself. She hated him. Sometimes, she wanted to throw it all away – the physical barriers, the emotional instability. She despised the fact that she was so transparent about her problems.