The Celestial Kiss Read online

  Janna took me all over the city, as if I were a tourist who cared to see the statues and be told what each building housed. I gave up on asking questions after we stopped for cupcakes not even twenty minutes after she bought us muffins from a little girl set up on her apartment steps. We ate a ridiculous amount of food, drank coffee, went to the mall, visited the theater, perused a tiny bookstore, and walked all over the damn place. And all the while, Janna dropped folded paper bills into musician’s hats’ and paid for other people’s ice cream and bought scarves for a group of school girls admiring them from a street vendor. Despite what Janna had hoped for, I was not impressed by the city or her little acts of kindness.

  Sure, the little boy to whom she gave the ice cream cone had acted like she’d given him a puppy and the woman she’d bought coffee for outside the bank had almost cried, but I didn’t see how this stuff justified what she’d tried to pass off as God’s work. Feeding people and buying them things they didn’t really need was hardly what I would consider protecting humanity. And my feet hurt. I lamented all of this to Janna while we walked on an overcrowded sidewalk and she made eye contact with every stranger we passed.

  “I’m not trying to impress you.” She said. “I brought you because I need your help. All of this…the shopping and the bus and the cupcakes from Sweeties, all of that was for your benefit. You said you wanted a normal life…now it’s too boring for you?”

  I gave her a withering look, but she seemed undeterred. “Of all the people in the world, you needed me to hold your shopping bags?”

  “No. I need your help with a woman.”

  My stomach plummeted and I stared at her, wide eyed. “We’re not going to kill somebody?”

  “What?” Janna laughed. “No. There’s something seriously wrong with you if that’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say I need your help. I need you to talk to this girl. She has more in common with you than me and…I think you’ll know what to say.”

  Despite my suspicions, I followed her through the city for what felt like hours, getting run over by strangers in a hurry to get where they were going and running smack dab into people who stopped to consult maps. Finally we seemed to break away from the shops and the food carts and the musicians and artists, standing in the shadow of a massive grey building. Despite my hesitance, I followed Janna into the hospital and signed in to visit our ‘friend’ Katie in the ICU.

  I was ready to leave the moment we got there…it was something in the air…bad vibes or the smell. A middle aged blonde lady with her hair in a severe bun demanded we follow her through a mess of turns, up three stories in the elevator, and through two pairs of doors that locked on the inside. She deposited us at the last door at the left end of the hallway and shuffled away wordlessly. I turned to Janna, ready to run, but she ducked through the door to a room before I could open my mouth.

  The girl that lay in the hospital bed didn’t look like a girl. She didn’t even look like a person with her face purple and swollen. I stood, paralyzed, while Janna moved closer to her and grabbed her hand. Her eyes fluttered open…they were a really pretty light green like celery, but they were blood shot. She jumped a little. “Who are you?”

  “I’m here to help you.” Janna had a soothing voice. I’d never really noticed it before, but when she wasn’t being ridiculously perky, she was instilling calm in others. Even people who woke up in a hospital bed with little memory of how they got there and found themselves looking at a stranger.

  “I don’t know you?” But it was a question, and the girl didn’t seem sure of herself. I bit my lip, looking anywhere but at her unnaturally purple face, and noticed that the room was absolutely sterile. Nothing gave the slightest indication that a person was even in that room, no flowers, no balloons, no cards. Just that girl in the bed, looking at Janna like she recognized her from some distant memory.

  “We met once. I helped you before.” Janna took her hand. “I brought my friend, Lilith.”

  I came closer at the mention of my name, and saw that the girl’s arm was in a sling. She appeared to have played chicken with a truck… or an angry bull. Even her hair, cropped short and unkempt, had blood in it. The sight made me feel weak. “Hi.” I waved.

  “Who… are you?” Katie’s voice was raspy and wavered, as though it took a fair bit of effort to speak.

  “Lilith is here because she wanted to tell you something.”

  “I don’t know her.” Katie seemed like she may cry, her eyes brimming with confusion in the form of tears.

  “It’s okay.” Janna soothed. She squeezed Katie’s hand and looked at me. “Tell her about Xian.”

  My heart faltered, and I couldn’t be sure I trusted my own ears. The bedframe leant me support as I tried to catch my breath. And all the while, Janna just looked at me calmly, like we’d rehearsed this several times over and now this was opening night. I shook my head.

  “Last time I saw you, you looked different…better. But you were crying. You wouldn’t remember me, since you’d had quite a lot to drink, but that’s okay. I remember what you told me…about your friend Cam.”

  “Cam…?” She shook her head, then winced at the motion. “What about him?”

  “You told me what he did to you.”

  Katie bristled, her face tightening into what I imagine was supposed to be a neutral expression. It must have hurt, because she winced. “No.”

  “Lilith,” Janna looked at me, pleading. “Please tell her about Xian.”

  I didn’t know what Janna knew about Xian, or how she even knew his name. This was a topic I’d never broach, not with anyone, let alone a complete stranger. I shook my head, but the act felt like rattling my brain against my skull.

  “Cam loves me.” Katie said. “We’ve been together forever.”

  “And he wasn’t always so mean. But the man that you fell in love with is gone. Katie, I’m here because you’ve driven away all of your friends. It’s not easy to watch someone you care about tear themselves apart inside, and that’s what you’ve been doing for months.”

  “You don’t know me.” Katie accused. Her eyes were sunken, and I realized just how small she looked. Her eyes, though black and blue and swollen, seemed very wide and childlike…was she younger than I? “And you don’t know Cam. He’s my best friend.”

  “No,” Janna shook her head. “He’s killing you.”

  “Katie,” I ventured. My voice trembled in time with my hands. What was I supposed to say? “You don’t have to defend him.”

  “But…” Her lip wavered, a last line of defense before she let the sob loose. “I love him.”

  “Did Cam put you here?” My stomach twisted. “Did he do this to you?”

  Katie looked away, like she was trying to recall a memory. Or maybe she just couldn’t stand looking at me, a complete stranger asking intensely personal questions. When she finally spoke, it was a whisper so low I almost didn’t hear it. “He didn’t mean to.”

  Her words shouldn’t have phased me. She shouldn’t have phased me. But I felt my throat constricting, and thought I may be in danger of crying too. “You don’t love him. If he is treating you like this, if he is allowing you to end up here like this, you don’t love him. And he doesn’t love you.”

  As soon as the words left my mouth, I wished them back. They had been cruel, not the best way of dealing with a girl who was broken in every sense of the word. I turned to Janna. What were we even doing here? We needed to leave.

  The tears finally began to fall, leaving smudges of makeup down her ruddy cheeks. Janna squeezed her hand, and then looked up at me and said in a whisper, “Keep going.”

  “What?” I hissed. “You want me to torture her some more?”

  “You’re getting through to her. Keep going.”

  What else was there to be said? She was trying to delude herself into sticking around, making excuses to stay with this man that she had thought she loved. I couldn’t honestly say whether she had loved him, and I doubt she coul
d either. But I knew well enough that she thought she loved him, and that was just as strong. “Katie…you were right when you said I didn’t know you. But I know your story, and it doesn’t end well.”

  Katie looked from me to Janna, wide-eyed and breathless. “Can you…see the future?”

  Janna shook her head gently. “No. But Lilith has a lot in common with you. She used to have a boyfriend that she thought she loved very much. But he hurt her. You don’t hurt people you love, no matter what.”

  Hearing her talk about me like I wasn’t there, like I’d given her that information to pass around freely, made something inside me snap. I looked at Katie, and suddenly, though I felt bad that she was in pain and confused and alone, I didn’t feel any sympathy for her. “You will die if you stay with him, young and alone and probably too beat up for anybody to recognize you. He will kill you slowly and all at once if you stay with him, because people who abuse their friends don’t change. He will thrive on the power you give him by letting him control you, and he will find new ways to hurt you. The only chance you have to save yourself is to walk away.”

  “I can’t.” Her voice was a mousy little squeak. “He’ll kill me if I leave.”

  “He’ll kill you if you stay.” I snapped. “If you want to be someone’s doormat, go ahead. But if you want to live your own life, if you want to know how much more there is, then you should walk away while you still can.”

  Katie stared at me with her mouth open, as though she’d been planning words, but couldn’t make her tongue say them. She absolved into tears, shaking like a leaf in the breeze. I glared at Janna and strode from the room, throwing the door open so that the force of my anger could be transferred into it.

  Janna caught up to me while I was waiting to be buzzed out of the Intensive Care Unit. “I don’t know that I’ve ever been more proud.” She grinned at me, flashing those insanely white teeth like I should be proud too. I didn’t know what I felt, but pride didn’t even come close. “It was unorthodox,” She shrugged. “But I think you finally got through to her.”

  “That’s what you needed my help with? You wanted me to yell at a complete stranger for something that was beyond her control? You wanted me to tear her apart…for what? So that she can hate herself for letting herself be controlled by someone else, which is just going to make it easier for her to be controlled?” I shouldn’t have lost my temper, but Janna had edged me towards it, almost like she anticipated it.

  “No.” Janna’s voice stayed blessedly free of any emotion. “I wanted you to tear her apart so she doesn’t have to do it herself. I wanted you to tear her apart so she can put herself back together, stronger than she was before. I wanted her to see that there is hope, that she can walk away and never look back. I’ve met Katie before…this is her third trip to the ER in the past two years since she’s been with Cam.”

  “I don’t know what you think you know about me. But trust me when I say that what I just said to her isn’t going to miraculously make her find some strength she didn’t know she had and leave with it. What I just said is going to make her hate herself for allowing somebody else to own her, for being foolish enough to love a monster in the first place.”

  Janna grabbed my wrist, causing me to face her with unconcealed anger. She didn’t waver under it as I’d hoped she would. Actually, she seemed to stand a little taller. “Maybe it will. Maybe she will hate herself so much that she will consider ending her life. Maybe she will hate herself so much that she will consider taking his. Either way, she isn’t going to go back to that apartment that they share together and get pushed down the stairs for not spending her last ten dollars on beer.” She began to walk away from me, so that I almost didn’t hear her say, “At least she isn’t going to be a victim anymore.”

  “Really?” I sneered. I couldn’t expect her to understand it, and I wouldn’t have needed her to if she didn’t insist on being right when she had no practical experience in the matter. “Walking away doesn’t undo whatever damage he’s already caused. It doesn’t change who she is.”

  “You’re wrong.” Janna said. “She will never be the same as she was before she met you. You’ve just changed the course of someone’s life and you refuse to see it. It may not seem like much to you, but she won’t die because an old guy friend texted her asking how she was. I don’t know where her path leads from here and I don’t need to know. But don’t you dare tell me that we didn’t make a difference. This is what we do, Lilith. Not grand, ostentatious acts like throwing yourself in front of a bus or running into a burning building. Our faces and names should not be remembered, nor should the things we say. But the way that we make people feel, paying for their coffee and giving them warmth on a chilly day, and making them realize they are worth more than they think…those things are what we do to preserve peace. Those are the things we do to save the humans. I’m sorry if you were expecting something more, but that is all I have to offer. And to me, that is enough. Because you were wrong, Lilith. Katie is different now, thanks to you. Maybe you didn’t see it, maybe you didn’t feel it, but she did quit being a victim, as easily as if she were quitting a dead-end job. She quit being a victim, and she became something far greater, something you refuse to see even in yourself. She is a survivor.” 

  I refused to talk to Janna the whole way home, mostly because I knew she would try to pretend that my cold shoulder was not driving her mad. She led me through a shortcut, making idle chatter all the way, and casually told me that this way was dangerous, that her brother’s had forced her to quit taking this path. But what James didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him, she said, and besides, nobody would mess with me in my current state. I was still very much disappointed in what she had gotten me to say. I was even more disappointed that James had told her about Xian. It was the only way she could know, and yet it didn’t even make sense for James to know that much.

  Despite Janna’s shortcut, which didn’t feel any shorter than the original route and lead us above ground and back under, through three short tunnels and lots of overgrown trees, it was dark when we got back. James was standing on the steps, arms crossed, almost as if he had been waiting for us to return. His eyebrows were knitted together, a look that made him even more unreadable than usual. Concern, perhaps? When he blocked our path inside, I realized he had, indeed, been waiting for us. “Janna.” His voice was firm, disapproving. “Where were you?”

  “I took Lilith out for a day in the city.” She shrugged and held up the bags; I wondered whether she’d dragged me into the mall just to produce some proof when her over-protective brother started asking questions.

  “You’ve been shopping all day?”

  “You’ve been waiting for me all day?” She challenged. “Lilith is free to go whenever and wherever she wishes. I thought a day out would be a nice change of pace for her.”

  James’ eye sharpened on her, and Janna straightened a little. Their family drama didn’t appeal to me; I moved to push past James. He stepped in front of me at the last second, so that I ran into him. Our collision knocked me off my balance, but he steadied me, and with a hand still on my arm, asked me, “Are you okay?” The weight of his touch was strange, different then it had been before.

  Was I okay? I considered the question a moment too long, wondering whether he actually cared. I stood on an uncomfortable plane of existence with him, teetering somewhere in the unknown. Did I hate him still for the circumstances that had drawn us together, or had our brief tolerance of each other changed things? I appraised him, trying to see what exactly those eyes were hiding. He offered me no lead, maybe because he didn’t know how we should treat each other either.

  “I’m fine.” He watched me hesitantly, and then let go. I pushed past him and took the stairs two at a time. Just before I opened the door, I heard him ask his sister in a low voice what she had done to me. Janna’s reply was swallowed when it closed.

  I flopped down on my bed, trying to imagine them talking about me. What had James
said to her, about Xian? How had he figured it out? I didn’t like the idea of them sitting together, discussing my past, my present, and my future, all without me. Janna wanted me to berate Katie for not taking control of her life, wanted me to be all the proof Katie would need that you could walk away and live to talk about it. But I had walked away, I had taken control of my life, and it still felt as out of control as ever.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I slept well into the morning, showered, and curled onto the window seat with the diary of the stranger, allowing the words of a dreamer to wash over me. It was how James found me.

  “Lilith?”

  I jumped at his sudden intrusion and felt my face redden at having been caught. He moved closer, his tentative smile slipping when his eyes fell on the book I’d slammed shut. “Where did you get that?” His voice quivered just the slightest bit, with something I couldn’t name…anger? But I’d been witness to his anger. This was different, whatever it was. It did not scare me as his rage had; instead it sparked my curiosity.

  “It was on the bookshelf.” I gestured vaguely to the corner, but his eyes stayed trained on me.

  James held out an upturned hand and with great reluctance, I relinquished it. The way that he eyed the book, as though it were some evil form of witchcraft, only made my curiosity grow. “You know who wrote that,” I accused.

  “Yeah,” He agreed, turning it over in his hands. His voice was distant, his mind in another place. “I do.”

  “Who?” I demanded. “Was it another person that you trapped here?” James was quiet. “Was it another prisoner?” I repeated, my voice rising with the indignation of that idea.

  “What?” James looked up, his face a mask of confusion. “No, of course not.”