The Girl Who Cries Colors, page 13
He wrote to Balls about the mechanics of it, because that subject was safe and routine, and it was about all he could manage. Coen and Elsie wrote to him about home, about the bakery, about his paintings and how well they were doing, but those letters were difficult to read.
It wasn’t until he was shipped off to Germany and he landed on the foreign soil that he realized he was homesick.
There’s something to be said about loneliness. It reminds you of the person you really are. Being alone strips you down to the genuine version of yourself, unaided by anyone else’s declaration. Being lonely meant that there was nothing left for you, but you.
David felt like a stranger.
Part II
The Storm
WILLOW
Prologue
When I first saw her, she was like the wind.
A force pushed us together. Call it nature, or fate, or God, but we were thrust together, and I was caught.
The wind was around her, allowing her to draw people in, but it was also inside of her. Sometimes she carried a breeze. Other times she carried a storm. Her wind was always ready to blow her away.
I’ll always remember the feel of the white silk gloves she wore on her hands. I’ll always remember the long sleeves of her dress and the tights on her legs, a wardrobe staple even on the hottest summer day. I’ll always remember the way she stuffed tissues in her pockets and licked her hands to get tearstains off her freckled cheeks.
I’ve loved her since I was ten years old. With braided hair and skinned knees, I loved everything about her. She trusted me with her secret, and I trusted her with my heart.
And then she left, and she took every color with her.
Years later, when I saw her, my heart stopped. She was staring up at the portrait that hung on the wall. It was the most famous painting I’d done. I was used to people staring at it, but the way she looked at it was personal, like she knew a secret.
And she did. Because the portrait was of her.
As she looked up at The Girl Who Cries Colors, she seemed quiet and still, but I knew better. She was never still. She couldn’t hide her wind. Not from me.
Her lip began to quiver, and then that quiver travelled down until her whole body seemed to shake.
I watched as that breeze inside of her raged into a storm.
I saw her gloved hand reach up to wipe away a tear. A smear of blue stretched from the corner of her eye to the edge of her cheek. The blue was so stark against her pale skin. It was the blue of a tempestuous sky, as deep as the groans of a solemn sea.
Blue wasn’t just on her. The blue was her.
She turned and walked away before I could decide to go to her. She blew out of the building and gusted through the crowds of the city sidewalk without looking back. The fingertips of her white glove were stained the same blue as her cheek.
That’s how I always pictured her. With a streak of blue across her face and gloves with drops blotted onto them like splotches of ink. I pictured her hair blowing around her as she stood in the center of a cyclone of colors, watching as a storm rained down colored tears.
Her hair carried the wind. Eyes carried the rain. Voice carried the thunder. Soul carried the storm. That was his Weeping Willow; The Girl Who Cries Colors. She raged and she despaired, but she also renewed and she shone.
Even after all that had happened, I still felt her wind trying to pull me back in. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t escape. I would always be drawn to her. Because she was a craze of colors and wind, but she was also just a girl.
She was my girl. She was my color.
And I?
I loved her. But I also hated her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Willow Collins stood in a sea.
A sea of people.
She was surrounded by them. Their bodies swiveling and twirling, a mess of limbs and lips dancing together with the press of dark lights shining down. When they moved, she moved with them.
She closed her eyes and felt their collective pulse that beat in time with the music. So many hearts in one place; so many emotions bottled inside of them. And she was the one who could pull the stoppers out.
“Willy!”
She opened her eyes and looked around at the voice, finding Marta waving her over. Willow wove her way through the gyrating bodies on the dance floor and sidled up next to the tall blonde. Marta towered over her at nearly five eleven, but she was a masseuse slash aspiring fashion model, so her height, along with her statuesque beauty, was to be expected. The group of guys around her was also to be expected.
“Hey,” Willow greeted.
“Willy! There you are,” she giggled, obviously already drunk. At the age of twenty-two, both of them had spent plenty of time hitting the bottles.
Marta threw her arms around Willow’s neck and kissed her on the cheek. “Hey, you don’t see him anywhere, right?”
Willow shook her head. “No. We’re good.”
“Good,” Marta straightened up and motioned toward the group of three guys behind her. “These guys invited us out to a party. You in?”
Willow gave them a cursory glance, but she didn’t need to size them up. She already knew what her answer was going to be.
“Definitely. Let’s get out of here.”
One of the guys smiled at her and threw an arm over her shoulder. “I like a girl who likes to party.”
“I’m always up for a party. Will there be a lot of people?”
She hoped so. The more people, the better. As long as she was surrounded, there was always a chance of someone’s emotions running high or low enough to give her what she craved.
“Yeah,” he answered, steering her out of the club and outside onto the sidewalk. Marta was giggling at the two guys walking with her.
They walked a few blocks away, and Willow’s feet were killing her from the heels she was wearing. Marta’s feet didn’t seem to bother her at all, although, she walked in heels for a living.
The party was inside a third story apartment where music blasted through an open door. Porn played on the television, people did lines of coke on the kitchen countertops, a group was tossing darts at the wall, making holes in the plaster, and everyone had a cup of beer in hand. A cloud of smoke hung in the air, making the already low lighting even hazier. “Couldn’t Get It Right” by Climax Blues Band was blasting on the stereo.
The guy steered her towards the living room and poured her some beer from the keg taking up floor space. “Here. What’d you say your name was?”
She took the cup and pressed it to her lips. “Willow.”
“Cool. Name’s Jones.”
“Cool.”
Willow’s eyes landed on Marta snorting lines with her new boy toys in the kitchen. Jones followed her gaze and smirked. The sleeve of his jacket pulled her hair where he had his arm slung over her. She shrugged him off. “You wanna do a line?” he asked.
“No, I’m good. I’ll go with you, though.”
He nodded and led her over. There was a group of people hovered over the countertops, using rolled up dollars to snort and playing cards to cut. Jones wasted no time in taking a turn. Marta was riding her high, dancing between the two guys, their hands groping every part of her that they could reach.
Someone passed Jones a joint, and he took a draw before passing it to her. Willow sucked in a long drag before passing it back. She blew the smoke out in one long stream, watching as it collected into the air around her like a gathering squall.
Her head buzzed with colors. They were always with her. They flitted around, bouncing off the walls of her body like a swarm of flies ready to break free.
Jones dragged her to the living room again where he downed more beer and took more hits off passing joints. It wasn’t long before she got a contact high, but it only made the colors inside of her more palpable. They raged against her now, browbeating her to release them.
She needed a hit. But not the kind that everyone else was getting.
Once it was clear she wasn’t going to get anything from Jones, who was all but staring vacantly, she left him hunched against the couch. She wove through the party, her ears open, eyes searching.
A couple of guys hit on her, one of them smacking her butt. She brushed them both off and kept up her search. It ended up being a fruitless search, though. Willow sighed to herself as she watched the depravity play out before eyes. Sometimes, when she stood still long enough, she’d look around and wonder how the hell she’d gotten there. This was one of those times.
Appearing in the hallway that Willow leaned against, Marta stumbled out of a back bedroom. Her dress was pulled up at the waist and one of the shoulder straps was broken. She frantically pulled down her skirt as she walked out, her blue eyes wide with angst. One of the guys they’d come there with came out of the bedroom behind her, hurrying to pull his pants up from around his ankles.
“Willy,” she said as she lurched forward. “I—I can’t.”
Willow caught her by the arms, barely managing to stay upright in her heels. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
The guy she was with finally got his pants all the way up and hurried over, grabbing onto Marta’s arm. She wrenched it out of his grasp and slapped his face before he could dodge her. “You crazy bitch!” he screamed in her face.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Bitch, you were begging for it!”
“Okay, back off,” Willow snapped, still struggling to hold onto a staggering Marta.
“Get her the fuck outta here!”
“Fuck you!” Marta screamed.
“We’re going,” Willow said through gritted teeth.
Somehow, she managed to pull Marta across the room and through the door. “I can’t, Willy,” Marta sobbed against her.
This was why Willow adopted wearing such heavy eye makeup. Thick, black eyeliner paired with brightly colored eye shadow was her go-to. It was gaudy and she disliked the way it looked, but when she came into sudden contact with someone inconsolable, her colored tears might be able to be dismissed with the excuse of running makeup.
“I know. Let’s go get you some whiskey, yeah?”
Marta nodded emphatically, a shaky breath escaping out of her. “Yeah. Whiskey. Yeah.”
Willow had learned very quickly how best to deal with Marta when she got like this. She partied hard, but she was a sprinter, not a marathon runner. She did it all within an hours or so, and then she would spiral. The routine was always the same. Dancing, drinking, pot, coke, sex, spiral. Willow was always ready to sweep her away with the promise of a shot of Jack.
Marta latched onto her, nails digging into Willow’s arms as she led her out of the building. She hailed a cab and pushed Marta inside. The leggy blonde pressed her cheek against the glass of the window. She sniffed, wiping away the rest of the white powder that had collected on her nose.
“Willy, this whole city stinks like shit.”
“Yeah, that’s because we’re walking over tunnels of it.”
“There’s always shit everywhere,” Marta slurred against the glass. “Can’t we ever get away from all the fucking shit?”
Willow stared out the window, watching the lights go by and didn’t answer.
“I want to get away from all of it.”
“I know. I know you do.”
When they arrived at Marta’s apartment, she helped her upstairs and opened her door just in time for Marta to rush to the toilet and start vomiting. Willow followed her in and held back her long blonde hair, rubbing a wad of wet toilet paper against her forehead and neck.
Marta heaved again and again, and Willow stayed to wipe her mouth and clean the blood off her nose. “I need that shot, Willy.” Her whole body shook as she spoke, her knees quaking against the cold bathroom tile.
“Yeah, honey. I’ll get it.”
Willow helped her into the bedroom and settled her on the mattress. She pulled off Marta’s shoes and set a trashcan beside her bed before going into the kitchen. She grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the cabinet and poured some into a shot glass before going back into the bedroom and helping Marta sit up. “Here you go.”
Marta took the glass and tossed the shot back. She grimaced and swallowed it whole, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. As soon as the burn hit the back of her throat, she visibly calmed. Willow took the glass from her and helped her to lie down.
Marta opened her blue eyes and stared up at the ceiling. “I hate him, Willy,” she said, her voice barely loud enough to hear.
Willow sat on the side of the bed. “I know.”
“Why’d he do that to me?” she asked in such a broken voice that it ripped Willow’s heart into pieces.
“Because some people have monsters inside of them.”
Marta swallowed thickly and closed her eyes. “I just want it to go away.”
Willow reached forward and linked Marta’s fingers with her own, squeezing tight. Immediately, Marta’s pain traveled up from their joined hands and infested Willow’s body. Dark, terrible pain crept up to her chest and then filled up her eyes. With a blink, Willow let the color of Marta’s pain leak out of her.
“He always poured me a shot of Jack after he was done with me,” Marta whispered, eyes still closed. “I hate the taste of whiskey.”
“I know, honey.”
“But I need to drink it, Willy. Because when I drink it, I know it’s over. At least for the night. I taste the whiskey, and I know he’s gonna leave me alone.”
The terrible, consuming pain raged through their link, and Willow let the tears trail down her cheeks and drip onto her shirt. She stroked Marta’s sweaty hair from her face until the last of the girl’s hurt drained into Willow and her breathing evened out in sleep. Letting go of Marta’s hand, Willow gently brought a blanket to cover her before leaving her room.
Willow retreated to the bathroom and flipped on the light. She stood in front of the mirror, hands propped up on the sink, and stared. She stared at her gray eyes, at the colored tracks that stained her cheeks and neck. Every time she cried for someone, the warring colors beneath her skin seemed to calm. But never for long. They’d come roaring back too soon, demanding more from her.
Willow had cried so much over the past couple of years that she’d lost track. But unlike when Willow was a naive kid, she knew now that crying for people didn’t help. Not really. It was just a brief respite for them. Willow took over the hurt for a moment, but their hurt always came back.
Marta’s pain was like a record spinning without sound. Around and around it went. Years of sexual abuse, and she was trapped on the dark rotation without a voice.
Her pain was the color of corroded pipes and a shot of whiskey.
Slowly, Willow stripped off her clothes that reeked of smoke and beer, and then stood in the shower under the sting of cold water. She felt like a leech. A hanger-on. Always surrounded by broken people whose pain filled her.
And she hated herself for it.
She wanted to stop. She wanted to go back. To reverse the momentum of her own spiral. If only she could go back to crying for people out of want, rather than need…but she couldn’t.
The turbulent colors ruled her, and she was addicted to the emotions they brought her. Everything she did revolved around the color-saturated tears and how to get more of them. She’d been used too much over the years. Wrung out of every color that ever existed. She knew what color it was when someone wished for death. She knew every single hue of fear.
So that’s why she surrounded herself with dark pain and violent grief whenever she could. She partied with the addicts and abuse victims. She visited hospitals and churches. She prowled darkened streets, drawing in every hurting person that she could uncover.
She found them sniffling in public restrooms, hunched over in café corners, shooting up in hotel rooms, getting groped in alleyways, hovering over a deathbed, silent over a grave. She found them and she swooped in, trailing a finger against their skin and filling up with their heartache. The tears would pour out, the colors unbound, and that incessant flood inside of her would go still. She could look around and not be drowned by the colors.
But it never lasted.
She’d need it again. And again after that. Her need was never ending.
She couldn’t stand to be inside herself without feeling what someone else felt. She needed the release of others’ grief, yearned to let the colors out of her turbulent body, or else they stormed and raged inside of her until she couldn’t breathe.
Willow stayed under the cold spray of water until she couldn’t feel her fingers or toes anymore. She pulled herself out of the shower and then wrapped herself in a towel and walked into the living room. She dug through her bag for clothes and was just pulling on a pair of shorts and an oversized shirt to sleep in when she heard Marta’s phone ringing.
Willow rushed out of the bathroom to answer it, cursing the loud, shrill tone. She didn’t want it to wake Marta.
“Hello?”
“Willow.”
Her mouth tightened into a thin line at the sound of his voice. “Archie? What do you want?” She knew exactly what he wanted. But she couldn’t give it to him. She wasn’t suicidal.
He sighed. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but there’s new information. Lots of it. He’s gotten sloppy and if you just—”
“No.”
“Willow, I’m telling you, I’ll protect you.”
She laughed bitterly, humorlessly. “You can’t protect me. He has people everywhere. There’s nowhere I could hide. The only reason I’m not with him now is because he went too far even for him,” she admitted. She didn’t let herself dwell on that memory. “But this break won’t last.”
“You walked away,” he said insistently.
“Don’t be naïve. He let me walk away,” she snapped. “And I’ll have to go back sooner or later. We both know that.”
“Willow, just come down and meet with me. Hear what I have to say. I want to help you.”
