Chapter 2
“One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul, and yet no one ever comes to sit by it,” Melissa’s art teacher began. “At least that’s what the famous artist Vincent van Gogh was quoted as saying.”
Mr. Clancy, Melissa’s advanced placement art instructor was known for his dynamic lectures infused with passion and enthusiasm. His lessons were often laced with pithy quotations from artists, authors, politicians and religious leaders that were inspirational, motivating. Melissa did not find his current choice to be consistent with his usual selection.
Tall, dark and handsome and in his mid-thirties, Mr. Clancy was the object of just about all of his mostly female class’s affection. But his appearance had little to do with Melissa’s decision to switch to his section during the start of the January semester. She chose his class because he challenged his students, demanded nothing short of excellence from each student.
Mr. Clancy’s class, complete with lengthy assignments, projects and field trips was a brilliant distraction from the profound unhappiness she had felt during the months leading up to the switch.
“As you can see when examining van Gogh’s pieces like Starry Night Over the Rhone and Wheatfield with Crows, loneliness is evident. In Wheatfields, the sky appears angry; the landscape is vast and sad. The overall tone of the piece is one of extreme desolation, of solitude,” Mr. Clancy continued.
Typically, Melissa enjoyed her teacher’s interpretations of various pieces. His current lecture was touching upon a very exposed nerve, however, and beginning to upset her.
“In Starry Night Over the Rhone, we see distant, almost intangible heavens as the backdrop of the piece. Two lovers walk along clutching each other as lights in the distance are reflected off the water. To me, it is a haunting image, very melancholy, very forlorn,” he persisted.
Melissa felt immobilized by a kindred sense of understanding of the late Mr. Vincent van Gogh. His work echoed her sentiments: sadness, loneliness, despair. But her distant, intangible heavens were unlike his; they were neither stars nor the anticipation of a realm of paradise beyond Earth. It was Gabriel.
Gabriel James was the distant, intangible light she longed for. They had not been together long and many had considered her incessant pining ridiculous, unnecessary. But she could not change her feelings; she would if it were in her power to do so. She had fallen for him, hard and fast. And he seemed to share her feelings. He had been willing to die for her, had risked his life for her safety. She had always thought that love and devotion such as the kind he exampled was much like the Loch Ness monster in that everyone had heard of it, but no one had actually encountered it. Her feelings for him had developed just as unexpectedly as his arrival to Harbingers Falls.
Though sudden and confusing at times, their mutual affection was love; she was certain of it. Their love was rare, the subject of romantic films and novels. The fact that he was the product of altered genetic material by the deranged geneticist Dr. Franklin Terzini was an issue she had struggled with initially but overcame quickly. After all, he was not what he was created to be: an emotionless experiment sent to transform humanity. His physical perfection was as much a success on his creator’s part as it was an attribute she enjoyed. Thankfully, he was much more than his exquisite appearance. Emotions had evolved in him, emotions he claimed she was responsible for awakening, and kindness transcended his looks. Each of his unique and magnificent qualities made accepting his absence that much harder. Their love story, the likes of which authors penned about and Hollywood producers sought scripts for, ended far too soon. Parting with Gabriel had felt more like a horror film.
Far away in an unknown corner of the planet, Gabriel sequestered himself just before Thanksgiving. Melissa had been left to either answer, or deflect innumerable questions surrounding his abrupt departure. But the countless inquiries had proved far easier to cope with by comparison. Her broken heart posed a greater challenge.
For weeks following Gabriel’s parting, Melissa had had no communication with him. The silence had been agonizing, unbearable. It brought about a rebuttal to the many philosophical quotations concerning silence Melissa had read about and subscribed to throughout her high school years, the beauty of it; the necessity of it. She found no solace in silence. It did not nourish her or refresh her. The beauty of nature was not revealed in silence. To the contrary, silence revealed the austerity of the world around her. The winter air felt colder. Barren trees had pierced navy skies with sharp and blackened branches more markedly. She had felt stripped; drained and depleted.
Winter had been a dark and dreary time for Melissa. Gabriel had gone. Her life felt empty, meaningless. She disappeared deeper into the obscurity of high school, vanished. When Gabriel finally did contact her and they began correspondence, it was at irregular intervals, unpredictable, unreliable. She alternated between feeling profoundly saddened by his absence and profoundly angered by it. She willed herself to stop caring, but could not; her heart failed to cooperate.
Like a great funeral shroud, sadness eclipsed Melissa’s life, enveloped her in darkness. Conversations with Gabriel were few and kept her hanging on, kept her from moving on.
Her father had been instrumental in preventing her from slipping into a deep, depressive state, from being completely encompassed by gloom. He did not shy away from her grieving as other fathers might have. True to his personality, he tackled his daughter’s first heartbreak head-on. She never would have expected him to be so honest and open with her regarding matters of the heart.
Melissa’s mind swirled around the painful memory of the days and weeks after Gabriel left. She succumbed to the familiar pain only briefly before a voice distracted her from her brooding.
“Hello! Earth to Melissa!” Alexandra exclaimed from her seat beside her.
“What?” Melissa replied testily.
“Mr. Hotness just gave us our project and you haven’t moved. Did you even hear him?”
“Yes,” Melissa lied.
“Yeah right! I know when you’re lying,” Alexandra accused. “I know it’s hard to concentrate. This guy is so hot I can barely focus on what he’s saying. I wish he’d just shut up and take his shirt off. Right?”
Melissa did not respond.
“You do have eyes don’t you, Melissa?”
“Yes, of course.”
“You do realize we have, like, the hottest teacher on the planet, right?”
“He’s okay I guess.”
“Just okay? Are you kidding me?” Alexandra asked incredulously. “The guy is off-the-charts gorgeous!”
“Whatever, Alex. If you say so.”
“Are you ever going to join the living. I mean my God, it’s been like five months. When are you going to just get over Gabriel,” Alexandra asked.
“I don’t know,” Melissa answered honestly. “Maybe never.”
“Well, you’d better get your shit together. Spring break is coming up and I don’t want to spend it with some sorry-ass girl all moping over a guy.”
“Don’t worry, Alex. I’ll be fine,” Melissa asserted.
Though Melissa told her friend she would be fine in a matter of days, she knew it was a lie. She could not be certain she would be fine in weeks, months, maybe even years. She would not be fine until Gabriel returned.
For five months, Gabriel James had been communicating with her sporadically, sending her cryptic text messages and e-mails. They had spoken on the phone only a handful of times, but hearing his voice managed to buoy her spirits enough to get her through the seemingly interminable weeks of non-correspondence she was beginning to resent. The rational part of her brain understood that Gabriel’s absence was warranted, necessary even, but her heart begged to differ.
Though she took comfort in knowing that he was safe, she was not comforted in the least being kept in the dark regarding his whereabouts. She did not have the slightest clue of his lo
cation. All of the unanswered questions festered at times, gave way to doubt. Once a seed of doubt had been planted in her mind, invariably, a field of insecurity would grow.
The insecurity overwhelmed her at times. It had been far worse in the beginning, during the first days after Gabriel left. Shortened days were spent at school where the entire student body wondered where three of their four most beloved athletes had gone. Melissa had shared what she’d seen in the woods; that she believed they were dead. But their bodies were never found and doubt abounded. Furthermore, the doubt of her classmates was confounded because Eric Sala, the only other person present in the woods that remained in Harbingers Falls currently, had not corroborated her account. His presence, along with his silence, was a source of confusion for Melissa. She wondered if his reticence was out of fear, fear that his attack on her, though thwarted by Gabriel hurling an aluminum baseball bat at him as he was about to strike her, would result in charges brought against him. Regardless, everyone maintained his or her own opinions and speculated about various potential scenarios regarding what happened to Kevin, Chis and John. They did not know the truth. But Melissa did.
Melissa knew they had been murdered in the woods behind Harbingers High School, that Eugene, Dr. Franklin Terzini’s earliest and most lethal creation, was responsible for their deaths. Her knowledge was an unimaginable burden more weighted than any she could fathom. As classmates guessed about the circumstances surrounding the trio’s disappearance, their whereabouts and fate, Melissa silently agonized over the information she possessed. She knew the full story, had heard their tortured screams as they suffered at Eugene’s hands.
Their screams still echoed in her memory, kept her awake some nights. Her friends did not know the full extent of what had happened in the woods five months earlier. She had told them as much as she could; shared with them more than she had shared with the rest of her classmates and the police, but withheld details that were too haunting to speak of, to relive. Daniella and Alexandra did not know what life was like for her, how she not only bore the burden of Gabriel’s absence, but the unspeakable truths and the memories that accompanied those truths served to trouble her in multiple ways as well. She could not bring herself to tell them everything; they worried so much already. Her friends loved her and wanted her to be happy again.
“Enough is enough, Melissa,” Alexandra said and returned her thoughts to their conversation. “You have to accept that he might not be coming back.”
Her words stung. Melissa had no retort. She did not know for sure whether Gabriel would ever return. All she had was a promise he made to her five months earlier before he climbed out of her window to the roof of the garage and disappeared into the night.
Melissa looked to Alexandra and shrugged in defeat and struggled to steady her voice. “You’re right,” she replied. “What can I say? You’re right.”
“Shit! Please don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Alexandra panicked. “I’m just sick of seeing you so sad all the time. You’re better than you were, don’t get me wrong, but not right by a longshot.”
“Girls, I believe you were given an assignment,” Mr. Clancy reminded them.
Alexandra and Melissa immediately busied themselves rummaging through their supplies. Alexandra bent down and pretended to look through her backpack for a phantom article.
As she bowed forward, she whispered to Melissa, “I can think of an assignment I’d like him to give me” and then winked and smiled mischievously.
Melissa began to laugh softly at first, then more heartily. Suddenly, she could not control herself. She laughed hysterically until tears spilled from her eyes.
“Is something funny, Miss Martin?” Mr. Clancy asked.
Melissa could not answer. She could not catch her breath. She had not laughed in what felt like an eternity.
Classmates turned in their seats to gawk at her but she did not care. The laughter felt too good.
“Perhaps you need to excuse yourself, Miss Martin,” Mr. Clancy concluded in frustration.
Melissa sucked her cheeks in and tried to compose herself. She tipped her chin up in defiance of the fit of giggles that threatened once again.
“I’m fine. Really,” Melissa managed then turned to look at Alexandra who stared at her wide-eyed.
She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly before focusing on her assignment.
Once adequately collected and confident a recurrence of laughter was at bay, she worked diligently and continued until the electronic pealing of a bell signified the end of her advanced placement art class.
As she gathered her belongings, Alexandra spoke.
“Geez, I know I’m funny but what the hell?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe I had some kind of breakdown or something,” Melissa speculated.
“Maybe,” Alexandra agreed.
“I just couldn’t stop laughing. I don’t know why.”
“Well whatever the reason, it was good to hear you laugh again, that’s for sure. I was beginning to forget what it sounded like,” Alexandra quipped. “By the way, you snort a little when you laugh.”
“Thanks, Alex,” Melissa said and rolled her eyes.
“I’m just saying, it’s not attractive to make pig sounds when you laugh,” Alexandra joked.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Melissa responded with exaggerated enthusiasm.
Alexandra laughed.
“Seriously, though. It was good to hear you laugh,” she said earnestly.
“Even if I snort?” Melissa smiled.
“Come on! Don’t be an idiot. I’m being serious here.”
“I know, I know. I just don’t want to get into a heavy conversation, that’s all.”
“No complaints here! I would much rather talk about Mr. Clancy’s ass.”
“Oh brother! I gotta go, Alex,” Melissa said.
“All right, we’ll pick up this conversation later, you can bet on that.”
“Oh, I’m sure we will,” Melissa said and offered a tortured smile.
“See you later.”
“You bet!”
Melissa strode away from Alexandra and headed toward her third period English class. Mr. Adams implemented the exact opposite teaching style of Mr. Clancy. The boring nature of his lectures was a guarantee that her mind would begin to wander. And when her mind strayed, it invariably found its way to thoughts of Gabriel.
Of late, her thoughts flirted with “what ifs.” She wondered what her life would have been like had she never met Gabriel. What if she met him but never allowed him to get close to her? What if he chose to stay rather than leave? The last “what if” was the most painful to pose; it was the only one that had ever been an option.
No matter how many times she entertained such notions, she always chastised herself immediately after. Gabriel was everything to her. He had his reasons for leaving, even if the most selfish part of her refused to comprehend them.
Regardless of whether every part of her understood his absence, the fact still remained that she was in Harbingers Falls and Gabriel was elsewhere on the planet in a secret location. Melissa knew the time had come for her to make a concerted effort to stop thinking about him and accept that which she could not change, that which she had no control over. She needed to move on. She hoped he would return. But with each day, week and month that passed a return seemed less likely.
Acceptance struck her like a blow, winded her briefly, before Melissa clutched her books tightly to her chest and moved resolutely to her English class.