Fireflies Glow Only in the Dark Read online

  Fireflies Glow Only in the Dark

  Ruth Morse

  Copyright © 2018 Ruth Morse

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For my beautiful Ev.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Lana-banana, Lana-banana—”

  “Go to your room!”

  “Lana-banana, look over here!”

  I turn around as an overripe banana hits my shoulder. It opens up, leaving rotten yellow skid marks on my nightie.

  “You’re gonna regret this!”

  I rush to my brother. Jax runs into the kitchen and hides behind Mom, squealing. His shrieks are so jarring, I want to shut his mouth with the hem of his own pajama shirt. Mom puts aside a ball of dough and straightens her back. Languidly, she flicks the hair away from her wet forehead.

  Jaxen looks at me from behind her, sticking out his tongue and shaking his head, a mocking smile on his face. He blinks at me one eye at a time like a broken traffic light. One moment and his face changes. His lips are curved now, his white eyebrows scrunched together in a frown so deep the wrinkle splits the bridge of his nose in half. He starts to sob.

  “Mommy, Lana hit me!” he cries, pulling Mom by the sleeve.

  “Is that true?” Mom sets her flour-covered hands on her hips.

  “Yes, she hit me! Look!”

  Jax rolls up his sleeve. There’s a yellow bruise on his thin arm. Mom’s face darkens. With two quick steps she approaches me, grabs me by the elbow, and pulls me to her side. Her grip leaves flour fingerprints on my skin.

  “Apologize to your brother!”

  “Mom, I—”

  “Right now!”

  I can’t say anything. A lump in my throat prevents me from speaking. Tears gush from my eyes.

  Mom’s mouth twists angrily. “Go wash your face. And if I ever—EVER—hear that you hit Jaxen…” She shakes her fist at me. I nod, stepping back, my legs are numb from fear. Jax stops crying as quickly as he began. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch him smiling. I glance at him and then halt. The smile melts from his face. Little plump lips slip down to his chin, leaving a black hole where his mouth once was. A trickle of dark purple liquid starts to flow from the black hole, creating puddles on the floor. The puddles grow too quickly. I back away until I hit the wall. Tears drip from my eyes and fall to the floor, mingling with the purple liquid already reaching my ankles. Its warm touch makes my skin crawl. I try to take a step forward, but my feet are stuck in the viscous fluid as if it’s sticky glue. I can’t move.

  Mom kneels in front of Jaxen. When she looks at him, tenderness and love flash through her eyes. I see the pain too. Her lips stretch into a smile, but her chin trembles as her jaw flexes with hidden tension. She strokes Jaxen’s hair; his head tilts side to side with her over-zealous movements. Tears gleam in her eyes, but her smile only becomes wider. She raises her head and stares at me.

  “It’s you, Lana.” Mom’s voice sounds so close it’s as if she’s whispering in my ear, yet her lips remain tightly closed.

  I look down. The liquid has already reached my neck. It has become firm and heavy, squeezing my whole body like hardening cement. I make one last attempt to raise my head. My gaze falls on Jax. His eyes are closed, and his skin is bloodlessly white against the black hole that grows and changes like a living thing, devouring more and more of his face. Somehow I know he can’t hear me, but I whisper anyway:

  “I’m sorry…”

  The liquid covers my nose. The remaining oxygen puts pressure on my lungs. The air seems now to be foreign, strange, too painful to bear it inside me any longer. It starts to tear at my chest. I need to exhale. I need to take one more breath, and it all will be gone. Everything will be okay again. Just one. More. Breath…

  Gasping, I propped myself up on my elbows, the sheets sticking to my body, wet from tears and sweat. I rubbed my eyes, trying to calm my breathing. The moon shone brightly outside my foggy window, its light breaking through a thin layer of clouds. I closed my eyes and examined myself; my whole body ached, but my breathing was much smoother. Another battle with my nightmares was over. I didn’t taste the victory or the loss, only the salty, metallic flavor in my mouth. I stood up and stretched my shoulders.

  The light of my phone screen blinded me for a moment. It was three in the morning.

  I changed the sheets, took a quick shower, and returned to bed. Staring at the barely visible ceiling, I tried to think about something nice, something beautiful, like Mel. She was beautiful indeed. A slight smile touched my lips. I burrowed into the pillows and focused on staying relaxed. I laid in the most comfortable position I could: lying on my back with my arms flung wide on the bed and my legs bent at the knees, brought together to one side, much like an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic—if they ever drew sloppy, lanky girls with messy hair and puffy eyes. Despite my efforts, I couldn’t find the pleasant heaviness that foreshadowed sleep. I only felt stupid, lying like that and picturing myself as some Egyptian goddess—the one with a head of a giant bird would definitely suit me.

  My room was too quiet, too suffocating. I stood up from the bed and opened the window. The damp air soothed my skin as if someone were touching me with a warm, wet towel. The sky was gray now, barely illuminated by the blurry imprint of the sun. It looked like the sun already regretted coming up over the horizon. I took a deep breath, but the stuffiness just wouldn’t leave me. God, I hoped that a storm would come and wash away this unbearable silence.

  I lowered myself into my creaky desk. Crumpled paper and fresh spots of ink—I just couldn’t throw my lovely pen away, even if it was defective—greeted me with a silent call to action. I sighed. I hadn’t even begun to write but I was already tired of writing.

  The black crosses on my calendar were approaching the red circle dangerously quick. I stared at the exclamation marks and hearts that Mel and I added to the deadline date back when I had just signed up for the Teens and Literature contest.

  What on earth will I say to Mrs. Amber when she finds out I didn’t hand over the story for the contest?

  I wished I could disappear, but that wasn’t possible in a small town like Lakewood. I graduated almost two
months ago, and not a single day passed where I didn’t run into one of my classmates. I’d likely bump into Mrs. Amber after they announced the names of the participants—names that wouldn’t include mine.

  Connect with a generation of new voices was written on the colorful brochure Mrs. Amber, my literature teacher, gave me in front of the whole class. So inspired and so naive, I took that brochure. My heart was ready to jump out of my chest with excitement, and my head was dizzy from new ideas, fragments of phrases I couldn’t wait to add to my next award-winning story.

  I guess it was a lot easier as a kid. It felt like I could do anything I wanted, like whatever I imagined could all be real, and therefore I could be real too. That peaceful feeling inside me was why I’d started to write in the first place. While imagining myself being a writer, I nearly ruined my vision stealing Mom’s glasses and wandering around the house with the too-huge-for-my-face glasses on the tip of my nose and an incredibly serious expression on my face. All that imagining finally became reality when my little story All Angels Have Wings won first place in a school competition for the third graders. My parents had been so proud. If I knew that they would forget, and I would be left on my own with the emptiness inside me, I wouldn’t have participated. I would have burned that story so it never would have led me to that damn red circle that made me want to rip the calendar off the wall and tear it to shreds.

  The stuffiness and anger wouldn’t let me think straight. If I stayed in my room for another second, my brain would start to melt. I had to get out. I jumped to my feet and rushed out of my room. I shut the door quietly enough not to wake my parents—I was still grounded after all—and ran down the stairs, fighting with my sweatshirt on the way. Screw that zipper! It never closed on the first try.

  With a slight push of my shoulder, the front door cracked open. Something squeaked in the kitchen. I froze. My parents’ bedroom remained quiet. After a few seconds of tense waiting, the usual rattling of the refrigerator started up. Nothing but the sleepy murmur of an old house.

  Once outside, I realized that I’d been holding my breath for some time. I threw my head back and peered at the sky. The morning wasn’t much brighter than the former night. A tiny raindrop fell onto the tip of my nose. I pulled the hood over my head and slowly moved forward.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Muddy water consumed Fort Steilacoom Park. The rain, though shy at the beginning, had gotten insanely heavy by the time I sat on the bench. Shivering, I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. Well, at least I was alone.

  I rummaged in my hoodie pocket and sighed. No music player. My escape was so sudden that I didn’t bring anything with me. No phone, no jacket, and most disappointing… no music.

  Still distraught from my dream, I took in my surroundings, only half paying attention. In front of me was a molting bench. Its green paint was flaking away, revealing the bench had once been blue. A bud of an orange orchid sank in a deep puddle a few feet away from me, pathetically trembling under each raindrop that pummeled it. How did it even get here?

  I winced. Mom would be so upset seeing that poor creature dying in the mud. She was obsessed with all that green stuff despite Dad’s complaints; he wasn’t a fan of her hobby, especially when the plants blocked the TV. These meaningless beauties were one of the reasons my parents had been arguing so much.

  Silence paralyzed the flow of my thoughts; it made them dim and viscous like linden honey. How long had I been sitting like this, staring off into the distance between the trees? I shook my head. I could only take so much rain and sadness in one morning, especially when I could start a flood by squeezing the water out of my sweatshirt. I slowly got off the bench and left.

  On my way out of the park, I noticed a stranger on a bench underneath the weeping willow. A black hood covered their face. Something about their hunched-over figure made me want to shy away, so I quickened my pace. I was about to turn onto the street, but stopped, not believing my eyes: tobacco, paper, and weed were scattered across their knees as they tried to roll a joint. The tobacco and weed wouldn’t fit into the paper. They tried again and again, leaning over so their back protected the joint from the rain. Their arms, skinny even through the oversized jacket, were trembling. Were they cold?

  I took a step forward and the stranger raised their head, staring at me. Our eyes met. He’s so young, no older than my age. He studied me for a moment. Only then did I notice the skin under his eyes was wet, and his eyes were red and glassy. He wiped his face.

  I said the first thing that popped into my head. “You’re doing it wrong.”

  He nodded, not shifting his unreadable gaze from me.

  “You want me to try?” I asked.

  His lips twitched in a fleeting smile.

  “Do you have a filter?”

  He shook his head. I sat down next to him and took the paper carefully. With habitual quickness, my hands rolled a joint, laying a tiny piece of paper down as an improvised filter, and closed it. In a few seconds everything was ready. “You’re welcome.”

  He flicked the lighter and inhaled excessively yet without holding the smoke inside his lungs; he held his breath no more than a second, then exhaled hurriedly. He coughed.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  He looked at the cigarette with disgust and threw it away. “I guess I should have offered it to you,” he finally said when the coughing fit passed.

  “Me? Oh, no, I don’t really smoke.”

  “You make a joint like a pro, but you don’t smoke?”

  “That’s right,” I replied. He squinted at me, his lips stretching in an incredulous smile. “My friend smokes pot a lot. I just like rolling it for her. It’s much easier with a rolling machine, but I prefer the classics.”

  “You’re pretty good at it. Your friend is lucky,” he said.

  He scowled and averted his eyes, reaching his hand toward his face to wipe away the tears. I lowered my head and pretended there was something in my pockets that I really wanted to find.

  The rain eventually subsided, and an annoying patchy drizzle came into the scene. I couldn’t imagine how I looked: my hood was drenched, my hair completely crazy after that endless shower. I felt like a poor wet sheep lost from its herd, and something told me that wasn’t too far from the truth.

  “Why are you alone out here?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his head.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you running from something?”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  “’Cause people come to the most unbearable places when they can no longer bear themselves.”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  He smiled. “Answer me first.”

  I shrugged. “Well, actually, I did run away.”

  “From what?”

  “I’m kinda grounded.”

  “Then you didn’t run. You just went for a walk,” he said with a short laugh. “What’s your name?”

  “Lana.”

  “I’m Max.”

  We shook hands. His cold fingers barely touched mine when he pulled his hand away and put it into his jacket pocket.

  “What about you?” I asked. The tone of my own voice surprised me. I didn’t expect it to be that soft and child-like.

  He looked at me questioningly.

  “What brought you here? All normal people are at home, sleeping in their warm beds,” I said.

  “But you’re here…”

  “Who said I’m normal?”

  He smiled again. “Many people who think they’re different don’t really differ that much from one another.”

  “You think it’s for the best?”

  He licked his lips reflectively, pondering over my question. “It’s just the way things work, I guess,” he said finally. “Anyway, I adore rain. That’s why I came here when no one’s around.”

  “Don’t mind being alone?”

  “Just like you, I’ll take it.�
��

  “Which makes me a little less unique than I thought I was before meeting you,” I said, chuckling.

  Max nodded. “From this moment, you’re more normal than you were before we met.”

  He took off his hood. A little bracelet peeked out from under his jacket sleeve. It was most likely handmade. The colored beads in the middle were different sizes, and the string looked like many knots had been woven together. That bracelet was the only splash of color in his all-black outfit. He followed my gaze and pulled down his sleeve.

  “Why are you grounded?” he asked in a casual tone.

  “I… My parents think I smoke pot.”

  “Because of your friend?”

  “Yep. So stupid. She forgot her pipe on my desk, and my mom found it.”

  “Damn. They didn’t believe it wasn’t yours?”

  “I didn’t try to explain.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t want to expose Mel. Besides, they wouldn’t believe me either way.”

  “That sucks.” Max frowned.

  I bit my lower lip. “You couldn’t find a better time to make your first joint?” I asked, hoping that my smile looked natural enough to hide how nervous I was talking about my parents.

  “I didn’t really want it, to be honest.”

  “Then why even bothering trying?”

  “I was thinking.”

  “About what?”

  Instead of answering, he tilted his head to one side, his gaze full of a mocking sparkle.

  “Will you at least tell me if your thoughts were good or bad?”

  “Do you know many people who start smoking because of good thoughts?” Max asked.

  Now it was my turn to give him a meaningful glance. “It’s only weed. The people I know smoke it for fun,” I said.

  “Well, I didn’t have fun. Not a bit,” he muttered and then added, with a big smile that made his face look a bit childish, “You’re a hell of a rebel, aren’t you? Ran away from home, made a joint for a total stranger.”

  “I’m not always this brave.” I giggled.