Harley

"You left me behind." A raspy hiss sounds from behind me.

"Adrian?" I call, turning around.

Nobody's there. "You left me behind." The voice hisses again, this time, right into my ear.

"Adrian, I'm sorry." I say, turning around again.

"It's too late for that." The voice is farther away this time. "You'll pay for what you did to me."

The rushing of water sounds at my feet. I look down. 

The water comes up faster this time. It covers my waist now.

"Adrian, please!" I beg, unable to move my feet. He doesn't care.

The water comes up faster now, faster and faster until it covers my mouth.

I yell as loud as I can, but nobody can hear me.

I jolt awake, screaming. I'm covered in sweat, and my thin sheets are kicked off of my bed, balled up on my floor.

I ache all over, still shaken from the water. It takes me a while to get my breathing under control and I shiver from the cold air seeping through my open window. Why does this keep happening? I think to myself as I stand up and close the window. My alarm clock reads 12:40 AM, and I sit on the edge of my unmade bed, sighing.

I'm not going to be able to go back to sleep. Everytime I get these nightmares, it's the same. I'm drowning, I wake up in a cold sweat, and I'm too rattled to go back to sleep. 

It's so fun.

I stand up and move across the room. Grabbing my chipped, black, electric guitar, I sit on my floor and begin to strum, calming myself.

He's dead. The sooner I accept that, the better.

"In 1776, The Declaration of Independence was signed. One of the signers, John Hancock..." Mrs. Rosenburg continues to prattle, and I tune her out, putting my feet up on my desk. Thin rays of sunlight filter in through the closed blinds, but other than that, nobody can see me in the back corner.

It's not that I don't like history class. It's just that I couldn't care less about ancient old men signing documents that were some important part of history at one point. I prefer to focus on the future, not the past.

Mrs. Rosenberg is pretty hot though.

"Mr. Davis," Mrs. Rosenberg's stilettos click as she makes her way down the aisles, "Could you answer the question?" She stands in front of my desk, placing her fiery red nails on my sneakers. Mrs. Rosenberg is a looker, plain and simple. She's happily married to a state senator who's away half the time, but I once caught her making out with the gym teacher in the broom closet. I'm pretty sure that it would've gone further if I hadn't knocked on the door and politely reminded him that he was late for class.

Now, both of them are afraid of me.

"What was the question?" I say, looking up at her, innocently.

"Name three signers of the Declaration of Independence." she says, glaring at me.

"Hancock, Franklin, Hamilton. Can I go now?" I don't wait for her to answer. I gather my things and walk out of the room, slamming the door behind me.

I don't need that class anyway.

Mrs. Rosenberg's classroom is at the edge of a hallway. Turn right, you go to the gym. Turn left, you go to the music room and the doors that lead to the outside of the building. I head that way now, towards freedom.

Piano music flows out of the music classroom. The music flows like water, the crescendos light and beautiful.  The music transfixes me and I find my feet stopping, and walking backwards towards the classroom, under a spell.

I peek through the small window of the thick wooden door, curious. The room is large, so it takes me a while to find the source of the music. 

Autumn.

Her normally vibrant eyes are closed, lost in the music. Her hands dance over the keys, a story moving around inside her head. She doesn't need sheet music, her hands hitting the correct keys as if she's known this piece all her life. She tells a story, one that even the most talented of pianists struggle to tell. Her music has me under a spell, one I can't seem to break free of.

My breath fogs the glass. Move, Harley, before she catches you gawking at her like a complete stalker,  I think to myself as I back away from the door.

And trip over a garbage bin in the center of the hall.

The resounding crash can be heard all around the school. I stand up, brushing slips of old hall passes and banana peels off of my jeans. Looking around, I try to fight back the rising blush on my face. 

I'm normally not this clumsy.

Autumn stops playing. Footsteps get closer and closer to the door. I quickly stand the garbage can upright, and speed walk down the hall, nearly crashing into several teachers. 

Gullwitch Cove High School is one floor, shaped like a U. That's why, as soon as the bell rings, I'm able to hide as I run outside, with the rest of the eighteen year old cutters. The 'seniors' of the school are the ones who call the shots but are also the ones who skip the most class. There are about thirty of us out here everyday, the 'loners' and the 'bad kids' of the school.

"Harley Davis, is that you?" A voice calls behind me. I turn, jogging a little slower so they can catch up with me.

"Shauna." Shauna White: the senior class 'bad girl', sweetheart, soccer star, and one of my closest friends. Everyone always believed that the two of us would date one day. We were so alike and in sync, blowing off class together, listening to the same music, having the same tastes in practically everything.

She was more of a sister that I never had then a girlfriend.

"How've you been, Harley?" Shauna runs a carefree hand through her platinum blonde pixie cut and bumps my shoulder roughly. "I haven't seen you in so long." 

"Fine." I keep my answers short as I speed up. We're almost to the parking lot behind the school, the scraggly, overgrown lot that is kept secret to all but the seniors. Shauna speeds up with me, her long soccer legs keeping up with mine. 

"How was the tour?" she asks. I roll my eyes. I love Shauna, but ever since I came back from tour, I've been distant.

The boys from the band have realized it. My family has realized it. I've been cold, detaching myself from all of them. I haven't shown up to practice for weeks, choosing to hide in my room instead of interacting with people. I barely leave my room, only coming down to eat and grab water.

Going to Friendly's yesterday wasn't even my idea. Jayden stood me up and I decided to stay and eat something actually edible.

I never planned to meet her.

She was sitting at a table right next to the window, the brightest spot in the diner. Something about her fiery red hair and her beautiful laugh drew me in. She glowed in the sun, absolutely stunning.

So I sat down next to her.

The thing about having a reputation is that nobody gets to know the real you. I keep everyone on the outside, hiding a side of me that I'm afraid to show people. It's ironic, really. The 'bad boy' is afraid. That's something you don't read about in novels.

"The tour was fine." I say. We reach the parking lot, waiting as the cutters at the edge of the pack push aside the branches covering the chain link fence that cuts you if you're not careful. The long haired boy at the beginning of the group begins to climb, and slowly the line starts to dwindle.

"Hey, do you want to go to lunch? We can catch up." Shauna moves so that she's walking backwards in front of me. I try to speed up without hitting her but it's no use.

I'm trapped.

"I can't."

"Why not?" She asks, putting a foot up to the fence and pulling herself up. "It's not like you have anywhere else to go."

I find a spot next to her and pull myself up the fence, wincing as I slice open my hand. Dammit. She has a point, I think, silently cursing myself. That's one thing about Shauna: she's smart, often seeing right through your lies. 

"You're right," I grunt, shielding my injured hand as I reach the top of the fence, "Let me bandage this and I'll meet you at Friendly's. Is thirty minutes enough time?"

Shauna hops down the fence effortlessly, and I feel embarrassed. "You're paying." She says as she waves and hops into her black Jeep. Smoothing down her blonde hair and applying a layer of red lipstick to her already vibrant lips, she winks at me in the rearview mirror and drives out of the parking lot.

I move over to my black motorcycle, parked at the very edge of the cramped, rocky parking lot. Running my good hand over the smooth handlebars, I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and grin a little bit.

Maybe one day I'll begin to feel normal again. I just don't know what normal is anymore. Is it moving on without him? Is it mourning his death for the rest of my life? Is it giving up on music for the rest of my life, giving up the one thing I love more than anything, so that he'll leave me alone?

I sigh, revving up the engine. I don't put my helmet on. I've never needed it before so there's no point in 'being safe'.

Especially since I've already cheated Death once.

I pull out of the lot, careful not the bump a white SUV that probably belongs to some poor, coddled kids mom, and pull out of the parking lot onto the rocky path that leads to the main road. For once, I smile. For once, I feel free again, ignoring the pain in my hand, ignoring everything I've lost.

Freedom doesn't last forever though. Sooner or later, I'll start to feel like crap again. Sooner or later, I'll be back to drowning in my grief.

But for now, I do the only thing I can do.

I fly.