Dancing & Demons - CH. 8

"Black is beautiful" said the Devil to the poor soul. - Waltraud Puzicha

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"No, I didn't find it," I hissed into my phone that I kept between my shoulder and my ear, "you couldn't find it? Melea, you never disappoint," the deep voice on the other end bellowed, "I'm sorry, I know. But I really can't talk right now."

The water from the cream-coloured water tap ran over my hands as I brushed some soap over them. The water was iced cold, but there was nothing I could do about that. There was colour all over my fingers from writing in History class – I needed to get it off, even if the temperature from the water tab was pure cruelty.

"Melea, he won't be happy about this. You've been helping him for years,!" the person on the other end roared, and now even I raised my voice, "well, then maybe he should start getting his own shit!"

"Why the sudden rage? You were always his favourite," my uncle's friend voice said now calmly, and I swallowed, "you want to abandon him now? Like the rest of your family?", his tone changed; there's was a clear rage in the words that he was saying so carefully.

"No. No, I'll..." I sighed deeply, "I just didn't find it. Just give me some time, I'll try again."

"Good girl," there was a clear relief I sensed, though we were thousands of kilometres apart, "you'll hear from me soon."

I groaned after I hung up and clenched my fists. I was so done.

The whole week had been more than bad. No, more than bad. Detestable. Teachers had been much harder on us this past week – the only late Christmas present we received from them were some 4,000 word Essays they expected us to hand in the day after we heard about them for the first time. As the birds sung outside and the sun shined in her most glorious way, it didn't feel like late winter to me. And today had been especially exhausting. Exhaustion was my word of the day. That one of my uncle's friends called to ensure that I would get him his stupid casket back made the day even worse.

Not even my father could light me up these days. Not that he would try. He hadn't been home for a month.

During Winter Break, one of the main firms he was cooperating with had been bankrupted – he had to search for a trustworthy new partner, who provided the right resources. He was gone most of the time, but not like he was right now. It felt different – like he wasn't even there in the moments where he was. And even when he sat down next to me under the Christmas tree, it felt like the world took him away from me. He used to tell me that in his dreams, he heard the sound of my feet on the loose ground when I made my first steps, and my laughter after I walked for some time and fell onto the wet grass. There were days where he'd recall a memory of us, a summer day, on which he held me so tight, and he described it with a few beautiful details he just added on the fly.

But the world took him away from me.

The last bell of the day rang. I looked up and looked through the schools bathroom, but I was still the only one in here. The bathroom had an earthy feel; the walls were great format tiles of cream-coloured travertine and the floor was covered by dull white tiles. The vanities were of cream-coloured tiles as well, and the counters were in a brilliant dark grey.

I startled when I heard students outside of the bathroom, sprinting towards the exit as if now was the only chance to get out – I joined them. I threw my notebooks into my bag, so hectically that a few notepad sheets fell out and wildly allocated themselves inside my bag. I strongly disliked chaos, but had no strength to be upset about the mess in my bag. I just zipped it and teared the heavy door open to run out of the school. I considered running back to class and apologizing for my "long stay at the nurse's office", but I decided not to. As I rushed through the hallway, I recognized Derek standing with two fair-haired lads and Taylor near the entrance of the 11thcompartment. They talked about something, something apparently adventurous-alike interesting – they all stared at one the two fair-haired lads whom I didn't know.

"Melea," Derek greeted me. My body screamed that I should continue walking towards the entrance and out of this hell, but Derek was my friend.

"Hey Derek," I therefore replied and he leaned forward, "long day?", he asked and I swallowed down some of my exhaustion, "you could say so."

I noticed that Taylor grazed at me, and suddenly joined the conversation by asking, "what are you doing now?"

"What?", I was flustered, "do you have any plans?", he added, and I shook my head in response, "um, none that I know of."

"So Melea Aldridge," he suddenly grinned and rummaged something out of his pocket. I looked down at his hands and saw a key in his hands. The key laid in the palm of his hands, the cold metal on his skin. On this warm day there was a warmth to it, and the light coming through the window played gently over the curves. With a spark of joy, he let his fingers curl over it, "you're up for an adventure?"

"Here?", I asked and chuckled. He grinned, gave his friends a short hug and then turned back to me, "Come with me."

I followed him without asking further questions. I knew he wouldn't respond – so I didn't ask. But while walking, I felt like a poodle because I ran after him so blindly. He hadn't been talking to me at all since we danced. That was almost a month ago. And I actually hated surprises. You couldn't plan surprises. Not planning attracted the unexpected. The unexpected scared me.

A silver-grey Mercedes S600 parked in front of the school - it was the only car that parked in front of it, instead of parking on the actual parking lot. Taylor pressed some button on his keys and the car blinked. I startled when the blinkers turned on for a moment, and Taylor laughed at me for it. I gave him a mad glance that he responded to with his usual smirk, and held the passenger door open. I sat down on the passenger seat and Taylor closed the door after I sat down, just to sit on the driver's seat a few seconds after.

It started to drizzle slightly after Taylor had driven quite some time. The passenger seat offered such comfort, and the leather around me was so soft, that I barely thought about where we drove off to – my initial thought was that he was driving me home, but I realized that I never told him my address.

"Where are we driving off to?" I asked with a more than sceptical look on my face, "surprise," Taylor replied. Bad comeback.

I screamed on the inside.

By now, the rain outside wasn't a slight drizzle – it turned into pouring rain in just a couple of minutes, and beat against the window as if it was its way of a declaration of war. Despite the rain, the unexpected situation and the unfamiliar car, the ride through the city calmed me down; the raindrops splashed against the window, soft music was playing from the speakers, and the leaves of the trees outside flew back and forth through the light wind. It was unexpectedly reassuring.

I noticed that Taylor gazed at me once again, and noticed how his driving changed; from a safe driver that respected the city's rules and met these in an "okay"-matter, he missed some signs, drove in a wavy line and had problems keeping distance to drivers before us. I raised an eyebrow and caught his gaze, then gestured him with my eyes to look back on the street. He kept on gazing at me for a split of a second, then his eyes went back to the road.

"I have to admit, it's kind of hard to concentrate with you sitting next to me," he said, but I noticed the smirk he was supressing, "why, do you usually make out with the girls sitting on here?", I gestured to the passenger seat. He was surprised, but then stopped supressing his smirk, "usually yes," I chuckled.

Taylor stopped his car all of a sudden. The engine was off and he got out his key. When he looked back at me he earned a frown.

"Here?" I asked, confused. The only thing I saw was grass. Everywhere. It seemed like there was no deep brown soil – natural green grass covered every piece around us, in a type of green that was rarely seen in nature. There was a small clearing, a couple meter upwards. Other than that, there was nothing here but a few trees and the one-hundred-meter way back to the road.

Taylor just nodded in response, "It's raining," I stated the obvious, but he just shrugged, grabbed his jacket from one of the seats at the back and took out a Juul. T. C. Very likely, to be his own.

He took a few puffs, held it in my direction and smiled as I eyed him critically. All I got back was a challenging sparkle. It was noticeable that when his eyes were not dominated by ridicule, they were filled with emptiness.

The next second, he had opened the door and went out. The door made a dull sound as it fell shut and I could barely see him through the fogged glass. The passenger door suddenly opened and I turned away from Taylor's car door, and to the open passenger door. It was cold and wet, and I shivered when the cold wind blew into the heated car. Taylor stood there, next to me, and leaned against the open passenger seat door. Before I even realized what happened, he grabbed my hand and pulled me up from the seat under the crying sky. I squealed as I stepped into the middle of a puddle and tried to crawl back into the car, but Taylor closed the car door before I had the chance to do so. He took off his jacket and held it over our heads. And like that we ran up the clearing, still freezing, with Taylor's look on his face telling me that he was amused.

"You want to kill me!" I hissed loudly. Taylor didn't bother to answer with a smart comeback, but grabbed my hand and pulled me closer. We stood there now, face to face, our eyes looking directly into one another.

"Now what?" I asked when he just looked at me for a moment, "Now we're going to dance," he said with a grin. Before I could protest, he had given me his jacket and his one hand rested on my hip while his other hand was asking for mine. When he noticed my protesting look, he rolled his eyes and turned me in a way that made me stumble two steps backwards before he turned me in again and intertwined our fingers with one another.

"You're crazy!" I said, but at the same time I found cheer in his amused smile. Because the longer we danced together, the more the corners of his mouth lifted, his facial features relaxed and again this ... sparkle of life in his eyes sparked. We danced closer together and I put my head on his shoulder. And I noticed that maybe everything was going to be okay as long as we just stayed here.

The rain had already stopped when Taylor put an end to the engine howl as he parked in front of my house and pulled out the key. The wind had passed by as well. Taylor turned his head to me and put on a smile again, but it was not convincing enough for me to look real.

"Thanks for the brief distraction, Melea," he said, "I should thank you," I grinned, opened the passenger door and turning once more to pass him a spare part from his Juul, which had fallen out of his jacket pocket earlier. C.P.

Taylor ran his fingertips over the engraving and sighed softly before putting it back in his pocket. His eyes looked back at me and he gave me a short nod, "Don't get caught by your demons, Melea."

Then he leaned over and closed the passenger door. He jerked away, and the only thing that could be heard miles away was the engine that howled so loudly as if he was on the run. I had the feeling that his demons had long ago defeated him.

"You've never been there? Have you ever heard of...okay, thanks anyway," I crossed another name off my list and groaned. It was a list with the names of partners I've had, or people that knew my uncle and his "business" quite well. I needed to find that casket. I never had problems with finding things for him. I couldn't disappoint him now. Though it weren't too many names, as most of my partners wanted to remain anonymous, the paper looked like a battle field with all the huge X's on them. Only one name remained on the list. I sighed and took my phone out for the last call.

I stopped my every move when I heard an engine howl. An engine that could be heard miles away. A car that jibed at speed limits.

I put down my phone and walked towards the wide-open window. A big, silver-grey car parked in front of my house. It was Taylor's.

Slowly, I put my phone down and walked down the spacious stairs. I opened the front door and saw him already walking towards the door through the window right next to it before the door was even opened. He smirked when he saw me coming out of the house.

"Is everything okay?", I asked and a slight piece of anxiousness grasped me for a moment. He chuckled when he noticed it, "you worry too much."

He opened his fist and I saw a key in his hands. My second house key. It must have fallen out of my jacket when he pulled me out of the car to get up the ceiling.

"I guess these belong to you?," he asked me a question he knew the answer to and I nodded. He walked a couple more steps towards me, opened my hands and put the key inside.

"Thank you," I replied and a smile graced my face, which was followed by his.

"Goodnight, Taylor," I said on my way back into the house. I heard him sighing behind me. In his sigh was a kind of concern – a kind of concern I recognized from before. It sounded like the kind of concern I saw in his eyes during the police search. What had happened?

I heard him opening his car door – it was almost a familiar sound. Everything about his car seemed to stamp itself in my head, which was why I realized in the split of the next second that he never closed it. I stopped walking towards my door and listened to his voice. He whispered something. I wouldn't have heard it if he would've just closed his damn door. I wouldn't have been wondering about the Whyall night. I wouldn't have been cursing him in my nightmares. But he didn't.

He said these three letters carefully. He chose them well. These three letters that weren't his. That were someone else's. The three letters I couldn't escape. Their taste was the one of stolen, bitter sweetness.

"Goodnight, Mel."

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