Over and Over Again

4

"What do you know," someone said.

It was Warren, standing by the gaping entrance. She recognized him from the blurry haze of her memories. And, unlike all memories, which always do some violence to the moment that occurred themselves, she had not imagined him. He was as he was then: Wavy hair, like space gathered into a single pâté; that jaw which stuck out, daggerlike, all smooth, olive skin flowing into a jutting Adam's apple and contusing clavicle.

The only thing different was the loose, white shirt he now wore and the earthy cardigan pants that melded together like a concoction of cola and wine.

"What do you know," he repeated, evidently trying to get her attention. "You're awake. Mom was insistent on checking up on you. And she was right." Voice turned into an audible whisper. "She always is."

Emilia gawked at him.

She was scrambling to get a hold of that feeling, the feeling that always seized her whenever she met him during previous times. That feeling of ice and fire cascading. Like fireworks exploding in her stomach, juddering her to a stop and then to a chaotic frenzy.

But she couldn't find it. Was Warren not he?

"Don't you recognize me," Emilia asked.

Warren looked left, then right, as if trying to know who she was addressing. "You're...uh...the one Amalia brought?"

There was the movement of the white folds and the quick breaths.

"I want to leave," Emilia said, breaking the quiet.

"Amalia hasn't come back from the mall yet. Why don't you—?"

"I want to leave." A tightness in her chest, something she hadn't experienced...but the memories, they were incomplete. Perhaps she had experienced them, then, and they were that same uncomfortable heaviness, as if an anvil had been dropped on your torso, weighing you down, weighing you down.

He snapped his fingers. "Hey, miss! Wake up! Jeez. If you really want to leave, I'll drive you home. The city's only a few minutes from here, but you won't be getting any cars. Wouldn't want you dying, especially after Amalia saved you."

"Sure." She hesitated, grimaced. "Thanks."

Warren looked surprised.

"What," she asked.

"Just that...well, to be honest, I couldn't see you doing what Amalia told me you did." He smiled. Like the crescent moon did his lips extend. "Did you hear her? No? To cut it short, she told me you had saved her from a bunch of assholes trying to get their way with her—"

"They wouldn't have," Emilia said.

Warren fumbled for the words. He hadn't expected to be interrupted. "They might...They might have had, you know, if they did get a hold of her in that restroom."

"They wouldn't," Emilia said. "Least they would have done was slap her. Your sister—she has a good heart. And it takes pure evil to attack something that precious."

"There's a lot of things that are pure evil,"

"You..." she whispered, "are so simple."

They left the room, greeted air as they walked down the stairs, Lizaveta nowhere to be found.

"She comes about like a witch, my mother. She was only here a while ago. Goes as she wants in ghostly seances. Sometimes, you call out her name and there she is just behind you. During those moments, your stomach drops a thousand feet and your heart jumps to your ears." They roamed the amber-colored walls of the house, adorned with totems, about five chugging clocks, and innumerable ornaments of which Emilia knew nothing about. Butterflies, crosses, angels. "She decorates the house like a witch, too."

Emilia looked around, probed those variegated assortment of personality that perfused the wooden-tressed walls of the home. Probably religious trinkets, she thought. What she said wasn't far off from what I'm seeing. So far. Some were vaguely familiar to her but her tongue knew nothing of them. She sneered, however, in something like jealousy. Walking through the large rooms, a gallery of epochs that echoed each other, the prick of comparing herself to such a woman as Lizaveta resounded more. A feeling she had only shoved aside earlier. And in taste, the latter was clearly winning.

"Are you listening," Warren asked. In his hand was a silver hydro flask. "Clearly, you weren't. I'll ask again. Do you want some iced tea before we go?"

Emilia jumped. "Yeah...sure. I guess so."

Warren nodded, handed her a glassful of the drink. From his flask, he sipped. His throat moved.

Emilia looked away. She'd been staring at it, she felt, a moment longer than prudence deemed necessary. She grew up with the same music videos of Shakira and Beyonce, intensely seductive in posture, movement, act, and at once had castigated it, watched it again, and loved it ever since. She had rushed her way through high school—and yet, even then, as fate would have it, she was left with the same social skills as a middle-schooler. Barring none of the anxiety.

Warren noticed she had paled. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." She caught herself. "I'm fine. Can't we leave? Right now?"

He raised a brow, probably surprised at the forwardness. But if it bothered him, he didn't say anything. He only shrugged, motioned her to follow, and walked to the garage.

The Murlovs'—if that was their name—car was a sleek, black BMW that seemed to grin mischievously.

It blinked, momentarily. The doors swung into the air.

"Get in," Warren said.

Cushioned slams. Muffled grunts as they fitted into the space.

Inside, the smell of lemon flittered. The hood lay before them like a shark's pointed head. The car made a noise as the windows slid down.

"I don't see good," he explained, "when the windows aren't up."

Emilia only nodded.

The engine revved, the ignition starting. Emilia sank into the brown leather. The roof opened before her, revealing the progeny of stars that wandered the nightspace, constellations formed by human imagination. Imagination—but perhaps they lingered there, really lingered there. Perhaps the heavens knew that stars formed constellations of themselves, even though man was not there to perceive them.

"Beautiful, isn't it," Warren asked.

"It is,"

"You don't see that type of thing in the city, do you?"

They were out in what looked like backwoods. And below, clearly shining, effulgent, just as the stars were, but not particularly beautiful or striking, was New Angeles City, with its towers, with its infinite pleasures, with its drunk festivities and celebrations. Enchanting. Fleeting. Distressing.

Emilia felt something like displeasure at the sight of it.

"No. No, you don't. There aren't any stars within the city. I mean, looking from there, the hot air about you. Nothing. Only glass and metal."

"That's the longest you've talked to me," Warren chuckled. "You're pretty. Do you know that?"

Emilia flushed.

It was a stupid question. She had looked in front of the mirror a thousand times, at least. Of course she knew! But why was she blushing? Why couldn't she stop herself from feeling giddy? Why, after countless talks with herself, after countless rejections of other people, couldn't she control her emotions around him?

"Are you crazy," she growled.

He laughed.

***

They entered a highway, the trees on the side of the road now filtered through and partitioned from the gravel path with rusting rails, effortfully painted now and then by men.

She rested her chin on her shoulders, gazed at those items. Do they not know? Are they not aware? That this, too, shall pass? That everything they hold close to them will cease to be? Someday, all this'll rot. And it's useless to partition humans from Nature. Because, at the end of the day, we are a part of Nature. No matter how much we writhe about, pretending that we aren’t, we’ll likely fall into Its clutches, anyway. What’s the use of pretending to be larger than we really are? We’re ants waiting to be crushed by the foot of a giant.

Emilia’s head pulsed. She massaged it.

There was something like malevolence in the car. She didn’t know how she knew. But she did. A hint of it. But even a tiny amount of poison could kill an elephant. Well, she wasn’t sure of that. But it was probable.

Warren was looking at her. “Your head hurt?”

“Maybe…No. Keep driving.”

“Are you afraid of me, by any chance?”

“If I were, I wouldn’t have gone with you,”

“Not that. You know I’m not that type of person. You’re afraid of something else about me, aren’t you?”

Emilia’s stomach sank. “Why, would you believe me, if I told you?”

“I would,”

She didn’t tell.

In about a quarter of an hour, they were within the confines of the city, with its mazelike swinging of streets and avenues and boulevards. Neon lights. Screeching horns. Raucous laughter. The aesthetic of the nightlife on full display.

Emilia noticed a landmark. Her house was a minute’s walk away from here. She told him to stop.

He pulled over. “Here?” There was only a stretch of brickhouse after brickhouse, dabbed in passing moonlight and shadow, shifting ever so swiftly you wondered if they hid anything from the eye. Spiked gates, blackened with paint and time. Bursting orchards. Warren repeated, increasingly more dubious. “Here? Really?”

“Yes. Here. Really. My apartment’s down the street.”

“Then why don’t I drive you down the street?”

“Because I don’t want you to?”

“Does it have anything to do with what I asked a while ago?”

Emilia scrunched her face. “What—No! I just—I just don’t want you to. Okay?”

She had said it with such force that Warren was taken aback. He felt a prick of annoyance and wanted to tease her just a bit more. Not for any aim of revenge, no. But only to see if she’d just say it straight, why she seemed to hate him so much. “If I were none the wiser, I’d have believed you flustered because you had a crush on me.”

Emilia scowled.

Warren shrugged. “I’m kidding.”

She had taken off her seatbelt and was just about to leave when she turned to face him. The night-chill drifted into the car, secreted the perfumes of cigarette-smoke and bitter yet fresh air. The canopy of an apple orchard swayed, covering them in darkness. “Would you believe me?”

“What?”

“I asked you earlier,” she said. “Would you believe me if I told you?”

He shrugged. “I might. Why, is it something crazy?”

“I’m from your past,” she said.

Warren shook his head. “Like an ex? Wow, you literally lucked your way into my place.”

“No, i***t! Like a lover past!” Emilia hissed.

“Isn’t that the same, though,” Warren asked.

“I’m…” Emilia hesitated. “We were once together, before we died. In another life, during another time. Then, we were together again. Before we died. We’re caught together in the spiderweb of fate, the two of us. We’re yin and yang meant to be together until the end. If you are who I believe you are.”

He looked her dead in the eye. Then he burst out laughing, the light and melodic tune of his chuckle resounding throughout the beetle-dark car. “Funny! You’re hilarioouusss! Just like my mother, going on and on about fate and the like.” He heaved a sigh, looked content. Absolutely glittering, his eyes glinted like stars, plucked from the sky. Emilia felt a slight pinch of joy in her chest; pushed it down. He looked at her, noticed her bracelets. “Girls are fantastic. I’ve never quite been able to believe in those things. It’s a wonderful thing that you do. Life would be boring without some spark of joy, wouldn’t it?”

He was almost sincere with what he said, was Warren. But Emilia thought he was being patronizing, that he was ridiculing her. She was flushed with fury.

“Thanks,” she growled.

“Any time, Em,” Warren said.

“Don’t call me that,”

“I won’t,” Warren snickered. “Em.”

Emilia closed the car-door gently. Waving goodbye, she was frenetic to make him pay. Like a gentleman, she noted, Warren was still looking at her to see if anything bad had happened. His honor only set him up, however, for her revenge. At a certain distance, shivering with fury, Emilia at once lifted her hand.

There was the crackle of woods. A few birds alighted as a branch from the apple-orchard fell and landed on the hood.

She was far enough to pretend she heard nothing. She smiled, content. And walked away from the scene, all maliciousness and righteousness.