Breathing Black Read online

  But after I got home that night and tucked Nancy into bed, I grabbed her tin that was hidden under the floorboard and went and poured myself a bath. I knew I had to leave her. I couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t slowly killing me. I wanted a different life. I didn’t just want to run, I wanted to be free.

  Nancy hadn’t always been a drug addict and a drunk. Once, a long time ago, she was beautiful in my eyes. She’d always battled her demons, but for one small moment I was the center of her world and I loved her so much. She named me after a songbird—a Lark. She said that even as a child my cries were a sweet melody to her. I remember her singing me to sleep and tucking me in bed, telling me stories of our future together. She had a beautiful voice; it eventually became the one positive thing I could still say about her.

  But as I grew I realized that the love she’d shown me had turned to resentment, and suddenly our roles reversed; I was the mother and she the child. The morning of my high school graduation I made her breakfast and ironed her favorite dress. I was hoping with those two things out of the way the only thing she had to do on her own was brush her teeth and I could convince her to go. It was going to be the last time I ever saw her. June and I were going to leave Aspen that night. I knew it was silly but I wanted her to be proud of me. I wanted my last memory with her to be happy, but when I walked into her room to wake her up, to beg her to go to my graduation, I found her dead, lying in a puddle of her own vomit.

  Somehow in that moment, my life became even more fucked-up than it already was. I was hours away from starting over and yet the cruel world forced me to stay and suffer the consequences.

  “You okay?” June asked, startling me out of my memory as she leaned against the bathroom doorway with her arms folded. She wore her favorite kimono with floral accents and fringe that made her eyes stand out like some big blue-eyed American geisha.

  I blinked a few times until my blurry eyes refocused on the face staring back at me in the mirror. “Yeah. I just got distracted that’s all.” I quickly swiped gloss across my lips, ignoring June’s worried glare. “Juju, can you grab me a razor so I can hurry and touch up my legs?” June paused for a moment eyeing me warily before leaving the bathroom.

  It had always kind of been our thing to be home to see each other off on a first date. Not that there had been very many between us, and not that I consider this a date, I still couldn’t quite decide if I was going to tell him to go fuck himself or not.

  “Here.” She walked into the bathroom and handed me the razor.

  “Thanks.” I smiled at her reassuringly. I wanted her to stop worrying about me. Sometimes I felt like it was her excuse not to deal with her own problems. I lifted my leg up on the toilet and quickly did a dry shave on any area that would show skin.

  “You look beautiful, Lark. Just be you tonight. You deserve to find happiness with someone who likes girls that are a little insane.” She started out sweet but finished her sentence giggling.

  “You’re a dick.” I laughed, snapping the cap back on my razor and throwing it at her.

  At 7:00 p.m. I walked inside Echo Sushi Restaurant. I’d been sitting in my Bronco for the past five minutes, nervously staring at the building. Eventually I hit my glove box, pulled out a flask, and took a shot of liquid courage, which helped me grab my coat and walk inside.

  The restaurant had once been an old church built in the nineteenth century. It still had its original brick and mortar, but the renovations were amazing. My favorite hostess, Annie, who always wore purple eye shadow and had a thick Japanese accent, sat me at a private table located on the upper level of the restaurant, which had once been a large choir loft. The sun had already set but the brightness of the snow dimly lit the stained glass windows from outside. It was like a kaleidoscope. Hoping to calm my nerves, I counted the colors, along with my uneven breaths, as they danced on the floor.

  “God, you’re sexy.” Landon paused at the top of the stairway, staring at me. His hand rested on the bannister and the look on his face was something of complete awe, eyes wide and mouth slack.

  The moment he came into my view I saw him differently. He was not the same boy I thought I once knew. He was a man now, with a strong jaw and a muscular chest that filled out his shirt. He’d always been handsome and clean cut, but long gone were the days where he shuffled his sneakers in uncertainty. This Landon was arrogant and knew exactly what he wanted.

  Since the parking lot incident he’d been aggressively persistent, kind, and generous, but I couldn’t help but feel there was something more to it, and I wasn’t quite sure what. He walked toward me with a smile, dressed to men’s perfection: dress shirt, tie, vest, and sport coat. It was sexy as hell. They say a well-tailored suit is to women what lingerie is to men. My vibrator might dust the cobwebs away tonight.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said as he sat down at the table. “I wasn’t quite sure you would.”

  “Neither was I,” I said more breathlessly than I would’ve liked.

  “You really do look stunning. I look forward to escorting you out of here tonight, because I will get to watch every jealous man watch us leave, wishing they were me.”

  “You’re very smooth with words,” I replied with a slightly snarky smile.

  “Ah, Larkin,” he said, raising an eyebrow, “I didn’t know you knew how to give compliments.”

  “I didn’t know you’d take it as one.” He laughed loudly at my jab and motioned for our waitress to come over, ordering our drinks and food. I found it curious and a bit high-handed that he knew exactly what I wanted to order.

  “So why did you change your mind about us?” he asked, looking sincerely intrigued as he leaned back in his chair.

  Us? “I’m not sure I have, but suddenly it’s becoming harder to stay away from you.” I looked down at my water glass and twisted it back and forth on the table, hating the sound of my own admission.

  “I’m glad.” His voice was genuine and I smiled at his words. I could hear his phone vibrating in his pocket, but he took it out and shut it off, scowling at whomever was interrupting. He seemed discombobulated for a moment, taking time to collect his thoughts. Finally he cleared his voice and continued, “You’ve been a fascinating mystery to me, Larkin. I’ve found myself listening to you on the radio trying to figure you out, but it only makes me more frustrated and curious wanting to get to know you more.”

  “I’m completely myself on the air.” I tilted my head to the side, narrowing my eyes.

  “It’s not that,” he said. “You’re complex. You never get too personal or talk about anything that has defined you—your life before the here and now, that is. I feel like I know so much about you from listening to your show, but really it’s nothing at all.”

  “What do you think you know about me?” I smirked, folding my arms—a challenge he accepted with a devilish grin.

  “I know that you’re always the first one in the office to get to work, you take yoga classes, you hate coffee, you like to read, you quote your own philosophical statements all the time on air and they completely amaze me. You’re stubborn, you’re witty and sexy and you don’t even have to try. You’ve said on air that you like horror movies, the guys you work with are like family, you probably own at least a hundred different scarfs, and you listen to music no one has ever heard of.” He paused. “How did I do?”

  “You’re very observant.”

  “Exactly, they are all observations. I want to know more about you. I want to know why you hate coffee and why you like horror movies.”

  If I was honest, the fact that Landon had paid enough attention to list even a few characteristics of mine made my heart skip a little. Never once did he look my way in high school, not that I blame him, but I still would sit and imagine the day he finally would. I never pictured it would be like this. In this moment everything was different. I was different. I wanted tonight. I’d always wanted tonight. There was nothing natural in what I was about to do. I didn’t trust anyone, let alone
open up to them. Which sounded ridiculous since most of my life was now broadcasted on the radio. But I still got to choose what I wanted people to know about me. What I wanted them to see.

  I straightened my back, squaring my shoulders. “First off, just so we’re clear, I’m giving you back everything from your ridiculous present.” He started to object, but I raised my hand and continued. “That being said, if you really want to know who I am, I’ll show you.” Even though my insides were trembling I shrugged and smiled with confidence. He gave me a huge grin in return.

  I felt so reckless. There were three people in my life that actually knew me, the real me—the one that was damaged, chaotic, and jaded. Have you ever wanted to throw your arms up in the air and just say fuck it? Well, I was at my fuck it point. If anyone was going to shred my heart, I might as well let it be Landon Black, the one who started it beating in the first place. If he wanted to know who I was, I’d show him. I had a plan and hopefully it wouldn’t backfire in my face.

  “Well then … I guess we can start. How did you know I hate coffee?” I pretend to be all businesslike, propping my elbows on the table with my hands clasped together.

  “I’ve always seen you with hot chocolate instead of coffee.” He smirked at my interrogation.

  “And what about how you just so happened to choose my favorite restaurant and order my favorite rolls?”

  “Lucky guess.” He smirked.

  “Oh yeah, like I’m that predictable.” I raised my brows, knowing I had to kick either Austin or Max’s ass tomorrow for helping Landon out.

  “Actually, that’s what I love about you.” He slowly leaned across the table, closer to me, our hands inches from each other, letting the word love float around like that was just a normal word to say right now. “I love that you’re completely unpredictable. I never know what you’re going to do or say next.” His voice became softer. I looked down as he gently touched my skin, his fingertips tracing themselves lightly on my clasped hands that rested on the table in front of us. I almost closed my eyes and sighed.

  “Does it mean something?” He nodded toward my wrist. The sleeve of my dress was raised up just enough that you could see the ink of my tattoo barely poking out.

  “It’s nothing.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Just something I got done when I was twenty-one.” I pulled down my sleeve, twisting my hand so he could no longer see it.

  “What is it?” He smiled with curiosity, ignoring my attempt to hide my tattoo. His fingers slid over my wrist, gently twisting my hand back over until he lifted up my sleeve. His fingers touched my skin lightly as he examined the ink; I took a breath, realizing this was the third time he’d touched me there and he didn’t even know it.

  “A feather?” The words came out of his mouth hushed and slow. His eyes widened but the disbelief and shock vanished from his face as quickly as it appeared.

  He couldn’t possibly remember the feather. It had been years. Something that was completely insignificant in his life, like Groundhog Day or eating saltine crackers. An unimportant event that was mundane and forgettable, but for me I’d never forget. Years ago, the black feather I drew on his hand was a piece of me I’d given to him without words—a cryptic message to decode. I wanted to leave my mark on him and be the only person who knew what it meant.

  I quickly pulled my hand away from his grasp tucking it under the table, hiding my truth that was too easily seen. “When someone finds a black feather, it’s supposed to remind them they’re not fighting life’s battles alone.” The words came out of my mouth like a nostalgic reflex. I’d given myself away without even intending to, saying what I wished I could’ve said back then.

  “Black? But yours is white?” I could see him thinking, rolling the words I’d just said around in his head. I wasn’t ready for him to know of our history or my past just yet. I wanted more time.

  “A white feather,” I added in recovery, “means purity, hope, bravery, protection, and peace. But they’re also contradictory representing pain, cowardice, shame, and death. I think of it as life’s balance. There’s a fine line between love and hate, pleasure and pain, good and evil. I guess it helps remind me there will always be both, but more importantly it helps remind me I have a choice between the two.” I gently traced the raised, uneven stigma of skin—a map of tormented ridges hiding underneath the table. “I know it sounds weird but white feathers have always just shown up in unpredictable places throughout my life. It’s happened as far back as I can remember. Sometimes I don’t even realize they’re there.”

  “Hmmm,” was all he managed to say, a monotone noise forced from his chest.

  He picked up his drink and finished the glass that was more than halfway full. I watched with hesitation, hating that I turned our conversation to this—my deep thinking that always borderlines crazy.

  Our waitress arrived right at that moment with our food so I didn’t continue. I was thankful for the interruption since Landon had become unusually quiet.

  The rest of our dinner conversation was superficial but still enjoyable. He talked about coming to Salt Lake to oversee the construction and development of a ski resort his family was building in Park City. I didn’t want to seem overly interested so I didn’t ask if he was staying here temporarily or long term, even though it was something I desperately wanted to know.

  As he spoke I studied him like I used to in high school. My eyes traced over the tiny mole on his neck, then to his dark eyelashes and slightly crooked nose. I’d almost forgotten about the way his smile turned up a little more on the left side, something he only did when he was giving you a mannered smile … which made me nervous. I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or just polite because he still had that same charming facade of perfection.

  After the table was cleared, I slowly stood, leaning over to softly whisper in his ear. “If you want to know all about me in one night we better get going.” I straightened my body to put on my coat. In an instant he was by my side, leading me to the exit of the restaurant, holding my hand.

  “I’ll have my driver pick us up and take us anywhere you’d like to go,” Landon said as we stepped out into the frigid winter night.

  I laughed like it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. “Landon, I’m showing you my world, and in my world I don’t have a chauffeur. Plus I thought you’d enjoy my 302 V8.” I looked up at him with a smirk, but his face was serious and I could tell he really didn’t want to ride in the Bronco.

  “There’s ice on the roads. I’d rather we just go with my driver.” I arched my eyebrow at his reasoning, about to boast about my excellent driving skills. I’d been driving since my Jellies could reach the pedals and I could see over the steering wheel with the help of a phonebook or two; someone had to pick my mom up at the bar. “I know this sounds silly, but I want to be as close to you as possible, without the distraction of one of us behind the wheel.” He smiled, placing his hand gently on my lower back guiding me toward the waiting luxury town car.

  I sat inside the warm leather interior as Landon explained to his driver we’d be making a few stops around the city. “Where to first?” he asked, sliding in next to me.

  “What’s his name? I asked, nodding toward the plump driver who made the car slant as he sat behind the wheel.

  “I have no idea.” He shook his head, unsure of why I’d ask.

  I slid across the seat up to the open privacy partition, “Hi, I’m Larkin, it’s so nice to meet you.” I stuck my hand through so he could reach around to shake it. He was an older man with a toothy smile, silver hair, and a round stomach.

  “William, and the pleasure is all mine, miss.” William shook my hand and after I gave him the address to our first destination, he pulled away from the restaurant, hitting a button to raise the divider so Landon and I were completely alone.

  “How long has William been your driver?” I asked, sliding back next to him. I had a grin on my face because William smelled like a Christmas gingerbread cookie.<
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  “A little over a month, why?”

  “Oh, um … no reason.” I shrugged, leaning back in my seat, about to start twisting a strand of hair. It was already in my fingers ready to go, but when I saw Landon watching me inquisitively, I tucked it behind my ear instead.

  His eyebrows went up with amusement. “Just say it.” He laughed as he draped his arm across my legs pulling me closer. This time I could tell his smile was genuine.

  “It’s nothing,” I evaded but then rolled my eyes when I looked up to see he wasn’t going to let me off the hook.

  “Fine,” I said, taking air into my lungs before I let out, “My mailman’s name is Mr. Bennett, the old man that walks his dogs down my street every Tuesday and Thursday is Lloyd, the UPS guy who makes deliveries to our office is Ricky, the checkers at the grocery store around the corner from my house are Danie, Jasmine, Drew, and Julie, and the janitors at our office building are Abe and Louisa.” I scrunched my nose realizing how silly I just sounded. “I like to know peoples’ names, that’s all. I was invisible to so many people for so long that the normal everyday people everyone ignores always stick out to me; I always want to meet them.”

  He pondered what I’d just said and laughed a little. “I guess it never seemed important to me because drivers come and go.” He loosened his tie, shaking his head like he was criticizing himself. “You keep surprising me, Larkin.” His barely above a whisper tone and marveled eyes made me feel like he expected something different. I smiled but turned my head toward the window so he couldn’t see. Surprising is good, right?

  “I’ve really enjoyed listening to you on the radio. It’s become an addiction to hear your beautiful voice each morning.” Landon softly traced tiny circles on my leg. “How did you end up working at the station?”