Blood Storm

Tall, Dark, And An Asshat

When I woke up the next day, I felt a little more positive about the whole Rockport situation. I knew it wouldn’t last, though. I was always okay in the morning. It was at night, when the reality of my situation set in, that I really hated everyone and everything.

Determined to take advantage of my good mood while it lasted, I pulled myself up out of bed and started getting dressed for the day. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and dug a pair of wool leggings, a black skirt, and maroon sweater out of my suitcase. I grabbed my small bag of toiletries and went off to the hall bathroom.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror with contempt. The dark circles under my eyes showed my lack of sleep, even though it was after two in the afternoon. I had tossed and turned most of the night, uncomfortable with my new surroundings. My eyes, normally a light shade of onyx, appeared darker now when they were shadowed by the deep crescent moon shaped shadows under my eyes. I yanked a comb through my dark red curls.

I had never considered myself to be ugly, but I wouldn’t have called myself beautiful either. My lack of freckles didn’t match my dark red hair. I did get my delicate features and thin, willowy, narrow frame from my mother. I never saw much of my father in my looks themselves, but my mom always said he was there in my facial expressions. I hoped that was true.

I grabbed my book bag from my bedroom floor and slung it over my shoulder. I made a beeline for the front door, not so much as glancing in my mother’s direction, who was folding laundry in the living room. I let the front door to the dilapidated cottage slam shut behind me.

It was just a little of a walk back up the gravel drive, so I started off in that direction. I half-expected my mother to follow after me, but she was pretty good at reading my signals most of the time and, knowing I wanted to be alone, I assumed she decided to let me wander. How much trouble could I get into in Rockport anyway?

The overcast skies set a gloom over the cold afternoon. I huddled closer in my jacket, thankful that we’d had a harsh winter in North Carolina this year to prepare me for the cold here. I trudged on along the gravel road, my boots making a moist crunching noise on the rocks.

It wasn’t long before I approached the end of our drive and started to hear seagulls in the distance, and I knew I was nearing the beach. I had no desire to go anywhere near the damp beach, so I continued on down the road to the left past all of the colorful homes. It wasn’t lock before I was passing the docks with all of the red buildings; there wasn’t nearly as many boats in the water now, and I assumed the fisherman had gone out for the day. I wasn’t sure if there was a season for fishing or not.

It didn’t take long for the residential street to start looking more like a shopping area. I saw signs for a general store, a library, and a pharmacy. I decided to keep going in that direction.

A couple of passerby’s walking past me gave me a warm smile that I didn’t have time to register and return. Surprisingly, considering how devastatingly empty the town was last night, I assumed it would liven up during the day— I was mistaken. There were people out and about now, but not very many. Most of them were grumpy older men in yellow rain jackets, walking off towards the docks.

The little library was in front of me now. The tiny wooden building didn’t look like it could possibly hold anything of consequence, but despite wanting to just turn around and go home, I forced myself to walk up the creaking steps and inside.

Warmth hit me in the face, and I was thankful that the place had heat. I was beginning to think everyone was living in the eighteen hundreds here.

The first thing I noticed about the library was that it was unorganized. The shelf immediately to my left had no rhyme or reason to it, with books just thrown carelessly on the shelf. The whole place smelled like cedar and leather. I looked up, eyeing the old, scary looking rafters. It didn’t look like they were offering much support at all.

Behind the desk was a woman that, at first glance, appeared to me to be in her mid thirties. After more closely examining her, though, I wasn’t sure how old she was at all.

She had long, scraggly grey hair that hung straight and limp down to her bust. She had piercing blue eyes, but much to my surprise, she didn’t have many winkles at all in her pale face. I wouldn’t have called her beautiful so much as striking.

I got the sudden feeling that I was intruding on something— like I had just invaded someone’s privacy, or just walked straight into someone’s home. I was about to turn on my heels and walk out when the woman looked up at me and smiled.

“Oh, hello, dear,” she croaked. Her voice shocked me— it was scratchy and deep and did not match the young appearance of her face at all. “Is there something I can help you find?”

I shook it off, and smiled back at her. “Oh, no. I’m new to Rockport and I just wanted to take a look around.”

Her eyes crinkled up a bit. “I thought you were a new face,” she speculated. She came out from behind the counter and for the first time, I noticed what she was wearing. She was wearing a long, oversized purple dress, and she had what must of been a dozen necklaces dripping from her neck. “My name is Penelope.”

She reached for my hand at the same time as I reached for hers. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Colette.”

Her hand was smooth and firm. It felt youthful and strong. “Are you a book worm, Colette?”

“Sort of, I guess. I like libraries when I’m in new places. I feel like it helps me connect to the place a little bit.”

“You aren’t wrong about that,” she smiled again. “If you’re looking for history on Rockport, it’s all on that shelf over there.” She gestured to the very disorganized shelf I had noticed when I first came in. “Although, I can’t promise it won’t bore you to death,” she chuckled.

“Thank you,” I told her. “Have you worked here for very long?” I couldn’t keep myself from asking the question. I was hoping the answer would give me some kind of insight into how old she was.

“About fifteen years. My mother was here before me, and my grandmother before her.”

Fifteen years. I supposed if she started working at twenty, my guess about her being thirty five or so could have been correct. It just didn’t fit her hair or voice, but I guess she could have dyed hair or have been a smoker.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” she interrupted my thoughts. “But are you related to Rachel Larson?” Her face was inquisitive.

The sound of my mother’s name shocked me a bit, and I had to work to control my expression. “Uh— yeah, that’s my mom.”

She clapped joyfully. “I knew it. Sorry, dear, it’s just the eyes— I’ve only ever seen eyes like that on your mother, and your late grandmother. I assumed you had to be related.”

I nodded. I supposed that made sense. Our grey eyes were a family trait, but they were still sort of odd— especially paired with the deep auburn hair. They tended to make an impression, and it wasn’t the first time I’d heard this.

“Do I need to get a library card if I want to check something out?”

She laughed. “Oh, no. Just take what you’d like. We don’t have a lot of fans of literature around here. Just bring it back when you’re finished.”

I smiled and nodded, turning to walk back through the rows of books. I saw a lot of my favorites; Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird. I guessed Penelope went back to whatever she was doing before I interrupted her day, because I never heard her so much as rustling around near me.

Finally, I decided to pluck The Scarlet Letter off of the shelf and find a cozy little armchair in the back of the rows to settle down into. It was very dim back here, dusty and quiet. I was thankful for the silence and the comfort that the smell of paper and leather bound books always seemed to bring me as I curled my legs underneath me and flipped open the book to a random page.

I skimmed through a few pages, trying to force myself to be interested. Bored, I flipped through a few more times, trying to find a part of the novel I wasn’t yet bored of.

She could no longer borrow from the future to ease her present grief.

I froze, eyes on the page. I felt like someone had slapped me.

It felt like everything reminded me of my own grief these days, and while I knew I was being overly sensitive, I felt like I could never escape it. Even on my good days, the days where I felt like everything might fall into place, the days where I felt like I may make a little progress— something usually reminded me of exactly how much I’d lost when I lost my father, and the stabbing pain in my heart would creep back up on me until I felt like my own grief was grabbing me by my throat and cutting off my airway.

And here it was, on this page, in the stupid Rockport library. The quote in context with the novel was not relatable to my situation at all, but when you read it on its own, I felt like it was telling me I would never be able to escape my grief. That was a feeling I felt often, when I felt like I was drowning in the pain.

I was going to have to get it together. The world was going to keep on moving out without me if I didn’t catch up. While I was here, frozen, grieving, anguished— everyone else had moved on. I knew that no one would feel this loss with as much gravity as my mother and I. I knew that the day it happened, and I saw my cousin tear up at the hospital. To my cousin, she would always have fond memories of her Uncle John. She would laugh and tell stories of when he almost caught the grill on fire at the Memorial Day cook out. But for me— all I could think about is all of the things my dad wouldn’t be there for. He would never celebrate his next anniversary with my mother. He would never see me get married. He would never sniffle and try to hide his tears when he dropped me off at college. The absence of him in all of my future memories loomed over all of the happy memories I did have, making it impossible for me to see the good right now.

“Does The Scarlet Letter personally offend you?”

My head snapped up, looking for the body in which the snarky, arrogant voice I had just heard came from, and fully preparing to launch the paperback in my hands at their head.

I found what I was looking for, but all thoughts of violence in my head completely vanished.

Because, Jesus Christ, I felt like I was looking at Zeus in the flesh.