Dark Places

17 | the luz melo i know isn't scared of shit

❝every time i take your lead, feels like curse;
every time i try to stop, feels even worse.
baby, you're the devil i know,
better than the devil i don't.❞

☽

THE ONLY PERSON WHO KNOWS I was there, knows I called, knows me like this, down to those little things... is Drake Medina.

I mull over the precise timing of his presence, as I nodded, when Jeanine Porter told me to go get a new sketchbook after class, as I shivered in his cold confrontation, warned that I need to stay out of this if I want to get out of Portland alive, as I stood alone and wet on the cobble-stoned sidewalks of the Old Port, watching his silhouette fade into the fog, going west, up to Congress, as I relived the memories of casing The Art Mart for specific materials, perfectly plotted, yet perfectly out of place, with Drake.

My heart stutters slightly.

Anxiously, I look over my shoulder, but in the sheets of rain, drenching the shadows of the city, I can't find anything. The icy sensation of paranoia, pricking at my skin, grows hot with an invisible truth.

Someone is watching me.

Fuck.

Drake.

It adds up. It all adds up, down to the dirtiest details, but I can't quite figure out how he could've snatched my Metrocard... or how I could've not noticed that it was gone.

I trudge up the stairs and slip into the safety of our porch, remembering the trace of a taunt in his smile when he pressed the flimsy Metrocard into my palm last week. You're the only one person I know in Portland that carries a fucking Metrocard. His gaze, teeming with too many secrets. Stay quiet, Melo. Stay in the dark.

My blood runs cold.

Icy fear floods to my veins, numbing my fingertips.

It feels suffocating, like a trembling cage, trapping me in Portland—wood aching in the strokes of wind; thunder rumbling in the distance; the storm sputtering over the edges of the roof; thick curtains of rainfall concealing me from the silent street. I tuck myself further into the deafening darkness as I dig my phone from my pocket, in a skewed panic, skimming through the blur of wet lashes, my old Pratt ID, my NY ID, and my MECA ID. Fuck. It isn't there. Hesitantly, I release the Moleskine from its chokehold against my chest, and in the soft lull, with wet palms and slick, shaky fingers, I flick it open to find the ink-stained ivory page, subdued in shadows, barely exposing the increasingly haunting half-moon.

The inner pocket is stretched, used, and when I pull it open, my Metrocard comes fluttering out innocently, in all its gritty glory, angry streaks of white, scraped across yellow film, corners bent and creased, Spanish text, marred with Sharpie.

It's mine, and I don't know how long it's been gone.

You're the only person I know in Portland that carries a fucking Metrocard.

Drake stole it to scare me.

I always keep my Metrocard in my iPhone case, so... so how did he... get it?

Grinding my teeth together, I sulk into the apartment, dripping wet, only to be met with a hollow silence, an emptiness, nothingness. Friday night. It's as silent as the fucking grave. I'm alone, and I don't know why, but I feel like I'm not.

Stay quiet, Melo.

A chill runs down my spine.

Stay in the dark.