Glitch

"I'm not marrying you!" I state for the gazillionth time, loudly and with no possibility for misunderstanding, but Jasper is either deaf or doesn't understand English as well as I thought he did. I know that neither of those options is correct. If anything, he hears a little too well, and he has been telling me, in perfect English, for an equal number of times, that I am his bride today, and he is my groom. 

According to him, it has been decided somewhere among the stars... or by the stars... or something just as confusing. Looking up, all I see are pretty fairy lights. It's not even sunset yet, and the stars are all still happily doing what they normally do during the day. They definitely haven't made any decisions about who I should be marrying for the festival. I'm really not that important, after all, but Jasper is adamant about it (perhaps he is that important), and he keeps on lighting my candle to prove his point.

My fingertips are starting to hurt from wetting them and pinching out the flame. I really wish he'd give up, but quitting is not one of the behaviours programmed into him from childhood. Jasper is tenacious, he is quite tough and durable, and sometimes he is even funny... in a humour-related way, but he is also stubborn, conceited and endless, like a train when you're in a hurry to cross the tracks.

"Stop it! I mean it!" I tell him when he steps in my way again, sabotaging my attempt to flee.

 Six million years ago, I had the biggest crush on Jasper Townsend, Phantom's Rest's most desirable thoroughbred stallion. That was an actual title awarded to him by the local newspaper after a group of girls had an all-out, hair-pulling, décor-destroying brawl about him at a school dance last year. Well, I'm not in the horse breeding business, and I've since changed my mind about my ideal man. It is no longer cocky, Mr Hot-and-Bothered-Charm-on-Two-Legs.

I now prefer guys like Noah. Gentle and kind. Once upon a time, I found Jasper's wild ways and arrogant allure appealing, but that girl died, and I woke up in her place. Besides, I was just a kid back then, 15 years old and filled with crazy dreams of love and romance and a strong desire to become a rock star. No stage was too small for me to jump on and belt out the latest songs I wrote.

I don't write songs anymore. I don't even sing anymore. Singing hurts in a part of my soul that I cannot reach and cannot cradle, a part that is slowly dying. I think that is a good thing. I have no further need for that part, and it's becoming a painful phantom limb sprouting in the place of an amputated one.

Glaring at Jasper, I extinguish the candle he lit again. I know glaring is useless if you do it from behind cobwebs spun in a rainbow of colours around your head. Perhaps if I took off the veil, he'll realise that I'm not just saying no to play hard to get, but that would bring me face to face with him. I prefer seeing him through a waterfall of misty colours.

Truthfully, Jasper scares me a little. Not because I think he'll do something to me. He is obnoxious and overly confident sometimes, but he is not dangerous or cruel... well, not usually.

I'm afraid that his presence is constantly calling out to that dead girl locked away deep inside me. I'm afraid that he'll wake her up, and with her will come all the scary things I cannot remember and am fighting so hard to leave forgotten, to keep locked in a crate covered in chains forever, despite the doctors telling me to let it out and deal with it.

They might know the facts, but they don't know the truth. They cannot possibly understand the depth of horror almost-remembering drags me down into each time something starts to unlock those chains. I don't blame them for not understanding. I am glad that they don't because that means that they have not experienced any of it. I don't want anybody ever to experience pain like that. I don't remember the events - they are only vague monsters moving under the surface of dirty water - I just remember the pain. Vividly.

I cannot allow Jasper to awaken that girl.

"Come on; it will be fun, I promise."

"No."

"Please?"

"No!"

As my candle gets lit and extinguished over and over as though we're performing some ridiculous dance, I suddenly come to the realisation that we could quite effectively be used as the beacon on a lighthouse warning ships of hidden rocks. On and off and on and off. I wonder if that is how the first lighthouse was born.

"Don't!"

A breeze stirs around us, and almost as if in slow motion, I feel it yank cheekily at my veil until it finally, after many flirty attempts, dives beneath it, billowing out the material and causing it to take flight. I'm about to grab it, but instead, I freeze in horror, seeing one corner drag through the bossy flame of Jasper's candle.

A part of my numbed-in-shock brain registers that my veil is silk, and silk and flames do not partner well; their relationship is highly combustible and always ends in ashes. I try to grab it, but my reactions are sluggish with despair as I watch it rise, trailing its fiery tail and Jasper, as startled as I am, makes a grab for it.

I see the fingers folding over the flames and want to cry out, warning the hand of the danger of getting swallowed in flames, but the thought is too horrible for my voice to make a sound, and instead, I squish my eyes shut tightly. I do not want to see a person's hand burst into flames. I love the veil, but no matter how beautiful it is, scorching flesh is too big a sacrifice. What if the flames do not stop at the hand but greedily ignite the clothing attached to it and eat the entire arm and eventually the whole person?!

Barely able to breathe, I wait for screams of agony, for cries of fear and anguish, but all I hear is Jasper saying, "Oh," and then a slightly more husky voice gasping in wonder: "You're real."

I open my eyes, and at first, all I see is my veil happily waving in the breeze like a wispy flag, its burnt corner grasped in a hand that is not being devoured by flames. The skin of the fingers clasping it is unblistered and uncharred, and when I reach out to take the cloth, I touch that cool, smooth skin, and the hand lowers a fraction. Suddenly, I'm looking into eyes that are no longer red-rimmed, unfocussed or puffy, the way they were the last time I looked into them. Instead, the irises are clear and as grey as polished slate, reflecting all the colours of the veil floating on the breeze between us in their depths.

I feel the smile slide across my lips as I draw a long breath, unable to look away from those mesmerizing eyes for longer than it takes to register his cheeky hair, making naughty spikes in the front and the fact that he is standing by himself and that no crutch accompanied him today.

"So are you," I breathe. He is smiling too, and neither of us seems to have more words than that right now, but we don't need them because I can hear the boy clearly, and his smile matches mine. I know he hears me too.

"Wow! I'm so glad you two space cadets have established that you are both real," Jasper grumbles. "I'm not entirely sure I agree, though."

I can hear his voice as if from far away, but the dark-haired boy standing in front of me with eyes growing black as his pupils dilate is overwhelming me with a myriad of emotions that I do not quite understand but really would love to know.

"Hey!" Jasper snaps, when neither of us reacts to him, and I know he is about to light my candle again; we've repeated the ritual so many times already I can feel the signs without even glancing at him.

My eyes won't leave the tree boy's eyes for even a second; I'm too afraid to blink and find him gone when I can see again. If the stars could make decisions, as Jasper claimed earlier, I think it would've been them screaming their answer to me now. Taking another deep, happy breath, I step forward and dip my candle towards the boy's candle, causing their wicks to touch.

My heart sparks with joy, the light filling my mind containing a myriad of colours much brighter than the veil we're still both holding onto when I see his smile grow wider as he watches his candle create a cheerful flame with mine.

~~~