“Why not? It might help you loosen up. You seem a little… uptight.”
Lilah felt a sharp stab of embarrassment as Seth’s voice echoed alongside Jace’s comment: Jesus, Li. When are you gonna grow out of this lame Goody Two-shoes phase? You’re so boring sometimes! Her hand flew to her breast pocket, where a tiny purple pill was burning a hole through it. Sam had given it to her in the parking lot, once more reminding her that she needed to let loose and live a little. She grasped it between her fingers for a moment, trying to make out the tiny markings in the darkness. Somewhere in the back of her mind, her father’s voice was yelling at her: Stupid! Reckless! Totally irresponsible!
“What’s that?” Jace asked.
That persistent, insecure voice that plagues every teenage girl at one time or another drowned out the sound of her father: This is your one and only chance to impress him. After tonight, he’ll be back at the jock table, laughing with the prettiest girl in town.
“Something to make me less uptight.”
Before he could reply, she popped the pill in her mouth, taking a large swig of Jace’s beer to choke it down. But a half-second later, she spit the beer back out, not realizing that the little purple pill had sloshed to the bottom of the cup along with it. As dark as the balcony was, Jace hadn’t noticed either. Lilah choked back a gag. The beer tasted so bitter! Why would anyone drink that stuff willingly? She clenched her eyes shut, trying to rid herself of the caustic taste in her mouth, as well as the nausea that accompanied it. When she opened her eyes again, Jace was staring at her with a mix of awe and concern.
“I… wow, Lilah. I didn’t take you for a, well… Yeah.” He took his beer back from her and downed the rest of it in one gulp. That time, he grimaced too, and Lilah blushed, crimson shame filling her cheeks.
Lilah couldn’t have known that it wasn’t the backwash that made Jace’s face contort into a scowl; he desperately wanted to tell Lilah that he’d never downed a beer before in his life, that he didn’t like the taste either but his stepfather – a devout alcoholic – had always claimed it helped with anxiety. But the moment Lilah swallowed that pill – or so he thought – his mind went completely blank. He was shocked – and more than a little buzzed.
Lilah, in the meantime, was doing her best not to hyperventilate. What have I done? she fretted to herself, hot tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. What’s going to happen to me now? She leaned over the balcony, pretending to be engrossed in the concert so Jace couldn’t see the panic that was gripping her. The strobe lights blinked and pulsed against her dilated pupils, and she felt another wave of nausea threatening to overtake her. The music suddenly felt very far away, as though a long narrow tunnel separated her from the speakers. And as her pulse began to rise and her breaths began to quicken, the lights themselves appeared to slow. With every ragged breath, the entire venue – the walls, the stage, every person crammed onto its palpitating floor – became washed out in blinding white light; then, in what felt like an interminable moment later, everything faded to utter blackness, as though nothing and no one remained in that obsidian void. White to black, black to white, each transition was slower than the last.
Vomit burned at the back of Lilah’s throat as a soft groan escaped her lips. She tried to squeeze her eyes shut to block out the dizzying strobes, but her eyelids were stuck wide open. Her fingernails dug into the ledge of the balcony as every muscle in her arms and legs began to seize. Somewhere in the very back of her mind, she wondered what exactly was in that pill.
“Lilah?” someone asked. “Are you okay?”
She tried to answer, but her mouth wasn’t cooperating. Jace had begun to shout, his face intermittently light and dark, light and dark. Lilah could only watch with vacant eyes as something strange began to happen to him in between the interludes of darkness. Alone in the void, a single thought gripped the back of her mind: If I die here, Dad will be all alone…
As dazzling white light once more illuminated the room, Jace was gone; in his place stood a young boy with chin-length blond hair. His eyes were wide with alarm as he looked up at her, shouting frightened questions – questions she was unable to answer, unable to hear.
Blackness enveloped the venue once more, plunging the boy and the balcony into darkness. For everyone else at the concert, the eclipse only lasted a fraction of a second. But for Lilah, it stretched on for eternity.
Flash! Blinding strobe lights seared the edges of Lilah’s vision as a bearded man with glasses and a receding hairline stood before her. He, too, was shouting at Lilah frantically, unaware that he had been a boy of no more than eight a fraction of a moment ago.
Blackness. The only sounds Lilah could hear were her own ragged breaths, quick and shallow as a stream.
Flash! The little boy was back once more, even younger than before. Tears gathered in his round, blue eyes. Lilah wanted to comfort him, to say something – anything – but pain was ripping through her head, blocking her ability to speak. The boy let out a scream as the ground gave way beneath them, sending them both tumbling through the space where the floor used to be.
Blackness.
Then all was silent.
Chapter 8
Broken Promises
“I’m cold, Stan,” Marie whispered. “Would you bring me another blanket?”
Stanley jumped up from his chair, rushing to the pile of blankets one of the nurses had left for her. He draped two of them over his wife, careful not to brush the IV tubes that were sticking out of her slender arms.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
He stood beside her hospital bed, caressing her cheek gently. Though her face was pale and drawn, he couldn’t help but think how lovely she was, how lovely she would always be. From somewhere beneath the warm blankets, cradled safely in Marie’s arms, Lilah snored softly.
“What else can I get you, honey?” he asked, forcing a smile on his face as he brushed a strand of dark hair from her eyes. “I know your appetite is gone, but Dr. Kreuter said you can have as much mint chocolate ice cream as you’d like. Can I get you some?”
Marie smiled, and unlike Stanley’s, her smile was sincere. “Have I told you how much I love you lately?”
“Not in the last five minutes, you haven’t.”
“More than anything in this world, Stanley, I love you.”
“I love you too,” he said softly, his smile wavering only slightly. “So much.”
“I need you to promise me something, Stanley,” she whispered, her voice so low he had to kneel beside her to hear. “I need you to promise me that you’ll take care of yourself, that you’ll find it in your heart to be happy, even when I’m gone.”
“Please, don’t—” Stanley started.
“But even more importantly,” his wife continued, determination filling her fragile voice, “I need you to promise that you’ll take good care of Lilah. She has no one in this world, Stanley. No one. You have to promise me that when I’m gone, you’ll love her as I have for these past ten months.”
Stanley grasped his wife’s free hand in both of his, nodding as he kissed her cool knuckles. Tears streamed down his cheeks, but he didn’t dare release his wife’s fingers to wipe them away. “I promise, sweetheart.”