Passages 7

Nothing's true and nothing's right
So let me be alone tonight
'Cause you can't change the way I am
Are you strong enough to be my man?

~ Strong Enough - Sheryl Crow



University - 10:30 AM


Nine thirty…or ten thirty, the clock didn’t keep time. Rayne looked at it, shifted uncomfortably in the chair she didn’t like at the table she didn’t like and glanced at the phone one more time. Colin hadn’t called her back. Maybe something was wrong. Something was wrong all right. Everything was wrong.


Nate was here. That was one thing that was wrong. Her mother had blasted out because of Stevie, finally, she should have confronted the bitch a long time ago but she’d done it not sure why but she’d done it. That didn’t count as something wrong. But Nate was here. Since she left that place last night, Rayne had gone through half the bottle of Bombay Sapphire she kept in the freezer and now Nate was here.


Rayne didn’t know why he was here. Fuzzy and emotional and restless, she looked at him. "You want some coffee?"


Nate leaned back and flashed that smile at her. "That'd be great thanks." Then sat there, looking at her expectantly.


Rayne glared at him. She’d made coffee, then decided she didn’t want it, but she could smell it and she was sure her brother could too. "It doesn't usually come when you whistle."

He got up, grumbling a little. "Thought you were offering to get it for me."


"No I wasn't. I don't fetch for anybody."

He grabbed a cup and stood in the kitchen doorway and eyed her. "Ok... I know you've got stuff to do, I wanted to make sure you know what's going on, you know, what your role is in this thing."


"My role in what thing?" Rayne asked cautiously. "What are you talking about?"

"Eric and me, we're setting it up so Dad can't find us, pay him back some for fucking around with Stevie." Nate leaned against the wall, looking comfortable. "We want to make sure you know the deal. You know, since you were there last night, you know where we are, you talked to Mom."


She had done that. She’d talked to her in the house Colin worked out for her, some kind of house on the other side of the bridge to Rockwood where it was cold and empty. Her mother had been angry and pacing and didn’t want to talk so not a lot of ‘talk’ had gone down. She drew an uneven breath, trying to focus. "Let me get this straight. You're trying to keep Dad from finding Mom."


He grinned. "Yeah. Eric fixed it so he can't get through on her cell. We've got a couple of things going."


Eric would have fixed it because Nate bullied him into fixing it. Rayne tried to think and nothing came through clearly except they’d done something that slammed her mother and slammed her father. And Nate thought it was funny and it was not funny. Not at all funny nothing close to funny. Absolutely nothing was funny and hadn’t been remotely like funny for a long time now. "And I'm guessing that she's not in on this."

Uncertain now, Nate replied carefully, "No."


Rayne curled her fingers around the hard edge of the chair seat and snapped at him, ”Neither am I."


And that obviously surprised him. He slammed the coffee cup down on the counter, crossed his arms and came right back at her. "We can cut you out Rayne. You going to tell me why you're not in on this? You know he's fucking Stevie. We’re supposed to sit around and do nothing?"


Was he? She'd seen Stevie move on him and didn't believe it was his idea, not that he might not give in but it wasn't his idea. Rayne eased up unsteadily, carefully, and looked out the kitchen window. The red maple leaves scattered outside the window. All those red trees and Ryan standing there in the middle of them looking like the earth had opened under his feet. It was just all so complicated. And she would do that to her father? Even if he sort of deserved it, that didn’t seem to make any difference anymore.

And here was her little brother with his stupid plan…


"I don't know it and you don't know it either! You don't know shit! You never stood there and watched someone you care about realize the person they love is gone forever, it's like watching them bleed to death in front of you! I said I'm not in on it and don't you fuck with me!" She was shouting, screaming at him, and she tried to bite back on the emotion but it slammed into her. Her eyes stung, her mouth tightened and she was crying. She couldn't take it back, shouldn't take it back.


Nate's expression changed. He was watching her now, distracted and wary and maybe wondering if she was going to hit him. And she might if he didn’t get out of here. "Damn Rainie. What the hell is going on with you? It's not that big a deal, couple of days at the most. We know he'll figure it out."


He started out the door, still watching her, and tossed out over his shoulder, “Maybe you should drink some of that coffee yourself Rayne. And I’m not making you any promises.”

She wanted him out of there. She wanted a drink and didn't want to grab the bottle in front of her little brother. "You and Eric unfix whatever you fixed. And I've got somewhere I need to be. Go...go fix it, unfix it, do it."


The wind blew the leaves across her bare arms, so much red. The little shit, he wasn’t going to make any promises…it didn’t matter. That was probably fixable. Some things were. But some things, the things she’d done, the things all the things, they were broken and scattered and blown far far away.

Southeast Metro Area – 10 PM


Cruz parked his bike, thinking about it, his place was one block away, he could walk, but he wanted some takeout and didn’t want to deal with calling them and waiting an hour for food he wanted now. Locking his keys into the chain on his belt, he walked around the no parking signs yeah so what, glanced down the street just in case the tow truck was somewhere nearby, and headed for Chang’s.


He got past the dumpster and the door into the private club he didn’t have the cash to join, if he’d been inclined to join, which he wasn’t, when the door opened and shut hard. One big metal slam and there she was, Rayne, teetering around like she was going to pass out on the sidewalk.


She fell against the fire escape, grabbing at it, and she was crying. Everything he’d thought he understood about her went right down right there. He knew something was wrong and here it was, right in his face. Take it and go with it or worry about it, and he wasn’t going to second guess his instinct. The girl needed him. He knew it and here it was again.

“Rainie?” Cruz took her arm, pulled her out from under the fire escape and into what light there was in that corner. “Hey, what’s going on? Come here, hang onto me, I’m not going to let you fall.”


She looked up at him and tried to stand up. “I fucked up so bad, and I can’t find him. Cruz? I can’t find him. And I fucking hate him.”


Cruz held onto her and tried to get some kind of view through the windows of that place. He couldn’t. It figured, somebody in that damned private club had done something to her, somebody who thought nobody would do anything about it. Angry, trying to shove down that fury, whoever it was, he was dead meat, he told her, “Yeah but Rainie you’re trashed, sweetheart, you’re totaled. Whoever the guy is, maybe we can figure it out together, I'm kind of good at that. But I’m taking you out of here.”


Rayne looked up at him, long and sad and strange and sorrowful. And drunk. They'd partied some but he'd never seen her like this. "Colin isn't him. You're not him. I can't find him. And I messed up Ryan’s life so maybe that’s why I can’t find him. It's payback.”


He didn’t know about Ryan. If she meant that bodyguard, he was supposed to be her mother’s problem. If Colin had done anything to her, and Cruz was guessing that was the guy she'd been hanging around, he could deal with that but not now. She was messed up and drunk and talking crazy; he wasn’t going to go after some guy because Rainie got drunk and imagined something. He'd been there himself. "We'll look for him tomorrow. You come with me now and we'll talk about this guy you're looking for. We'll find him. Is it a deal?"

She looked up at him, leaned into him, and said in a quiet, broken voice, "I wish it was you. Yeah. Deal."


They started slowly toward the parking, Cruz beginning to wonder how he was going to keep her from falling off, whether it would be better to walk back home, when Chang appeared, rushing out of the shadows, and took one look at him and yelled, “Jesus fucking Christ!"


Cruz tightened his grip on Rayne, his hand brushing her mouth, and glared at Chang. "What's your problem man? You look like you saw a damned ghost."


Chang took another cautious step toward them, raked Rayne over appreciatively, then shook his head and grinned. "Yeah, something like that. Sorry Cruz, didn't mean to scare your girl. For a second I thought you were someone else; he's dead though. One very bad and very dead ghost."

Read more...

Passages 6

Wastin' time like it was free
Will you ever find where you'll be
And I'd only do for you what you'd do for me
And I only would do for you what you'd do for me

~Touche - Godsmack



Cruz eased into the parking space right at the front of the club, mildly amazed he’d found one so close, he’d been prepared to walk a couple of blocks. He stretched, looked around before going into the place, and saw her.


Rayne had her back turned to him. She was wearing some kind of leather thing, her back bare, and that got to him, that long bare tanned back, her hair pulled up and the nape of her neck exposed. She was flanked by that blonde he’d privately tagged Sorority Sam and she was talking to a guy he’d never seen before. Flirting with him, one hand on his bare arm fingering the band around his bicep.


Sorority Sam saw him and knew he saw Rayne. She looked like she felt embarrassed or sorry for him, hands clasped behind her back and a funny expression on her face. It was bad enough to stand there and watch the girl he was having trouble getting over coming on to another man, but getting the pity look from her damned friend made it a hell of a lot worse.


Cruz swallowed hard, watching them. He’d spent most of the week trying to figure out what had happened with Rayne, why she’d walked out on him, whether the sex was bad, if he’d done something, if she was playing some kind of game and wanted him to chase her. He thought he knew her and she wasn’t a game sort of girl. After half a dozen phone calls, most of which she wouldn’t even answer, he decided if it was a game, he didn’t want to play. And he didn’t want her to think he was following her around, which meant he wasn’t taking one more damned step. He’d find another club.


Discouraged, trying not to look at her, he turned to leave, taking one final look back. Rayne was following Sam inside into a blast of flickering light and heavy metal music, but the guy paused outside the door and looked down at him. He didn’t say anything or act like he intended to do anything, just stood there in that outfit with the gloves, tall and lean, maybe somebody in the band. Cruz set his hands on his hips and met his gaze.


Any other time he’d be all over somebody like that, but not this time. Cruz heard Rayne calling him, but the guy still stood there, watching him, more like he was curious than anything else. Kind of strange…whoever he was, he almost looked like he could be his own brother or cousin.


Fuck it, he didn’t have a brother or a cousin and he was out of here. He turned his back to the door and to the guy and to Rayne when he heard a woman shouting from the other side of the parking lot.

“Gabe?”

Cruz stopped and looked through the pool of parking lot light at a tall, striking woman striding purposely toward him, her voice loud, urgent.


“Gabe is that you?! Wait a minute! Don’t you walk away from me!” She used a voice that stopped a couple of pedestrians and sure got his attention, assuming she was talking to him.


He glanced around, didn’t see anybody else she could be yelling at, wondering if this was some kind of pickup, a whore, or a setup, but she was alone and didn’t seem like she was in a good mood. Had he bumped her car? “No,” he snapped. “You got the wrong guy.”


She crossed her arms. She was breathing hard, an impressive rack moving up and down with each agitated breath, and she was staring at him like she definitely recognized him and wasn’t particularly happy about it. Whoever the guy was, he must be on her major shit list. “Who are you?” she demanded.


This was the second time that week that someone came at him with that question, and he had no more idea what she was talking about than he had when Rayne said it. At least Rayne hadn’t confused him with some other guy. Cruz lowered his voice and responded, “Look lady, I don’t know who you think I am, but I don’t know you, and I’m leaving.”


Instead of apologizing for the mistake like a normal person, she reached out, grabbed his chin and turned his face into the light, what light there was, pink and purple neon and a couple of spotlights on the ground. Her long red nails scratched his skin as she murmured, “It can’t be but you look so much like him…”


Stunned, Cruz hesitated a second before striking her hand away and growling at her, “Hey bitch, keep your hands off me!”


“Who are you?” she insisted, her whole face tight and intent and close to scary like some kind of crazy stalker chick. “Who’s your father? What’s your name?”


His father? Completely taken aback, faced with a question that seemed insane, a question he couldn’t answer, he gaped at her, momentarily speechless. If this crazy bitch thought she recognized him, and, for all he knew, he might look like his father, whoever he was, and he was supposed to be dead, that’s what they’d told him, his real parents were dead, well it was her problem. He had enough weird shit in his life right now.


She had green eyes. She was so close he could see her pupils contract and expand in the flashing lights, camera shutters opening and closing, capturing him inside whatever lunatic brain she had. “I’m Camilla Lombardo and we need to talk.”


Cruz drew a deep breath. The name didn’t mean a thing to him. Wary, off balance, wanting nothing more than to get out of this place and away from her, but unnerved, he filed the name away. Maybe somebody at work had heard of her. “No we don’t. And you need to get the hell out of my way.”


Moving carefully, putting distance and his bike between them, Cruz started reaching for his keys, but she didn’t move out of his way. There was a strange sad look on her face now, dark, quiet, searching. Searching for what, his father? Why? The man was dead.


He didn’t understand it, and, for the first time in his life, Cruz wondered about his parents. He’d never wasted any time thinking about it, but he did now, looking at this woman who was so bent on knowing who he was, who his father was, he finally wondered. Who was the man?

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Passages 5

Traveling somewhere, could be anywhere
There's a coldness in the air but I don't care
We drift deeper...

~As The Rush Comes - Motorcycle


She’d left her house keys in the car, right there above the visor where anyone could get them, while the car had been parked in an alley for hours. And that, Rayne thought as she grabbed the metal ring, was a truly idiotic lapse of judgment. Take the key and go inside. Nobody stole the fucking car or the fucking keys. You think too much.



She slid out of the car, slammed the door, punched the alarm, pocketed the keys, where was her purse? She hadn’t brought it, why would she need a damned purse, she hadn’t needed a damned purse, she needed to get inside her place and sit down and stop thinking. It was almost dawn. Sky fading from purple to blue. The paper girl/boy/person had already thrown a newspaper onto the driveway, or maybe that was from yesterday. Rayne stepped over it. She never read them. She quit reading them. She wondered if she was paying for them and if it mattered if she wasn't.


Rayne left the lights off, sat in the dark in the hard chair with the iron back at the table with the iron legs. She could still smell Cruz on her skin. It was a good smell, musky and smoky and warm, and she should go right now and shower and get it out of her head, along with everything else in her head about him. But she was kind of tired, very tired, and didn’t want to do that. Not yet. She would just wait.


The phone she had left on the table rang, and rang, loud and sharp in the 6 AM silence. Rayne glanced at the caller ID although she knew it could be only one person. Don’t answer it, she told herself sternly. Cut it off now. He’s not the right one. You know it. Cut it off.


She couldn’t force herself to do that, and that was a weakness she was going to have to overcome, worrying about how he felt. She’d gotten too close to him; she liked him. Steadying herself, Rayne reached for the phone, picked it up and found her voice somewhere under the table. It sounded, to her own ears, like something she really had tossed under the table, something she’d stepped on, flat and torn and full of holes.


“Hi,” she said, liking the sound of his voice, deep with that edge, he could probably sing no he wouldn’t do that, “No everything’s good, I left because I have an early class…it really is fine, Cruz it’s ok. I should have gotten you up, but I thought, I thought you had to go to work or something. I didn’t want to wake you up.”


The handset felt slick, cold sweat slick. Rayne switched it to her left hand and listened to him continue to talk, quietly, but she could hear the confusion. The BIG night and she’d walked out on him, and he didn’t understand. He was being cool about it. It wasn’t like she was his first. Still, she felt, she felt, she felt something she didn’t want to feel, and that wasn’t supposed to happen. That wasn’t her plan.

“I don’t know,” she hedged, finally finding her voice, “maybe we can get together later. Maybe tonight. I’ll call you…yeah I will. Later. Bye.”



Rayne got up, shoved the phone aside and looked around the dark and empty room. The refrigerator hummed into life, the life of a refrigerator, mechanical, making ice, making cold, making things cold and dry. Her inspiration. A refrigerator. How sad was that?

I need a drink…I need a thousand drinks.

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Passages 4

The first cut is the deepest
Baby I know
The first cut is the deepest...

~ The First Cut is the Deepest - Sheryl Crow


Ryan turned his back to her, breathing so hard she could see his shoulders shake. She expected that to last about ten seconds before he wheeled around and let her have it. So ok, she had five seconds to think about what she should have planned before she hit him with this. She could have a thousand seconds and she couldn’t come up with anything. As it was, she didn’t even have five.


Scene 1


Ryan grabbed her arm, his grasp tight, tight enough to hurt, tight enough to leave a bruise. “Why?” he demanded. “Did I ever give you one damned reason to think I wanted to take you to bed? Why would you do that? Goddamn it Rainie! Do you have any fucking idea what you’ve done?”


If he had been anyone else, Rayne would have ripped right out of that grip. She knew how to do that; she knew how because he’d taught her how. She stood there, letting him crush her arm, looking up at him, searching for clarity or light or a word, one word, any word. There was only one. “Yes,” she said clearly, quietly.


He backed off, dropping the grip as fast as he had taken it, as if the contact with her bare skin stung, as if it was corrosive. “Why.” He repeated it in a low and rough and terrible voice. “Explain. Now.”


Oh yeah, like she could ‘explain’ about a dream and someone she thought he might be but wasn’t. It no longer made sense even to her; it was crazy; it was drearily juvenile. She looked past him through the avenue of delicate scarlet leaves, red lace on the wind. The leaves rattled, autumn in the leaves, dry and cold.


Rayne looked back up at him, probably looking at him for the last time, taking the autumn into her heart, using it, and it hurt.


Direct and clear eyed, she told him, “I can’t explain. It wasn’t your fault, and I’m sorry, but I can’t explain. You need to forget about her and forget about me. Goodbye, Ryan.”

Between Scenes...


Her mother stood by the balustrade outside the beach house looking out at the rocks and the ocean. It was the beach house, wasn’t it? But what was that THING down at the end of the patio? Was it a mountain? The gigantic looming face of a glacier?


"Mom? He's in love with you. Do you know that?" If her mother heard her, she didn't respond, still looking down and away into the dark as if she were watching something or someone, or watching the wall of rock ice grind slowly and inevitably toward them.


It was cold. It was bitterly cold. Rayne began to shiver and to try to find a way out of here, this place that should not be cold but was so so cold.


“You should leave it alone. You really have done enough.”

She looked at herself standing way down at the end of the patio in the dark, light behind her, light that came from nowhere, condemnation in her face.


There didn’t seem to be any way to respond to that because, for one thing, she wasn’t sure she had done enough. She was scared; her mother still didn’t look at her or help her. She might be frozen; she hadn’t moved at all. Rayne whimpered, “He's never going to speak to me again.”


The other Rayne spat at her. “The question is, how are you going to speak to him again? At least what they feel is real. This happened because you keep chasing something that's not real. You did this to Ryan for nothing. There’s nothing there. A whole lot of nothing. You’re so stupid! You’ll freeze in hell before you ever find him!”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *



Nothing...falling and falling...Rayne went down on her knees, wanting to vomit, to vanish, to lie very quiet and never move again. It was warm here though, the light hot and heavy and golden. A small hand, a child’s hand, touched her on the shoulder. "You know it's not nothing. Don’t you remember? You still have the sword."


Rayne put out one hand to steady herself, clawing, reaching uselessly for the child with the other hand. "What?" she cried. "That thing? That's a piece of junk!"


The little girl shook her head and pointed down the beach, past the drifting sand, the drifting water. "No, it's not. See? It's real. You can't forget. You promised."


He stood out there in the water, glimmering, a smile like the bolt from a crossbow, slicing right through flesh and bone and lodging deep and painful in her heart...

“See?” the child whispered again. “You remember now. You can’t ever forget.”

Scene 4



Whoever you are, I hate you for this. And I am going to find you.


If you wear a different face, a different body, I’ll know you. You can’t hide. I will track you down.


Scene 5


Cruz cracked open the door and peered out, his face creased with sleep. “Rainie? What’re you doing here? What time is it?”


She pushed him aside, slammed the door behind her and reached for him, circling his bare waist with her arms. His skin was warm, under the blankets warm. Obviously surprised, half awake, uncertain, he looked down at her but didn’t ask anything more. Rayne expected to feel something, to feel aroused. She didn’t. “I’m going to find out who you are,” she told him, still, cold, and inert, her body like granite locked in ice.


“What’re you talking about?” He was waking up, searching her face, confused. “What’s going on?”

Rayne murmured hush shhh against his mouth, slid her lips to his neck, felt his pulse quicken, beating hard. She slipped her right hand down into his sweats, and Cruz was definitely neither cold nor inert.


Ryan had been a mistake. Ryan got hurt. This time there was no pain. There was nothing but the test, the one way she would know what was real and what was not real. If she had to go through a hundred men, five hundred, to find him, the only price, the only disappointment, the only pain would be her own, and his, once she found him. But it had to be worth it.


Nothing, nothing else in her life had ever been as real.

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Passages 3

You can't await your own arrival
You've got 20 seconds to comply...

~Let Go - Frou Frou


She paced down the length of courtyard, under the lanterns, dark now even in the shadow, walked up to him, and stopped, and waited. He did not speak first. Match point one for him. “You know,” Rayne told him, trying to match Ryan’s smile, “you called me at a really bad time. I was kind of busy.”

The mid morning sunlight was warm, streaming over his face and shoulders. He laughed and shook his head. “You could have called me back later, you know that.”




Relieved, this didn’t feel like anything terrible, starting to finally feel warmer, sun chasing the chill, Rayne breathed a little easier. However, it had been so long since she’d heard from him, the call still seemed odd, out of place; it was hard to understand why he would suddenly just call like that. “I thought it might be urgent or something.”


“With all due respect,” Ryan grinned, “if I need backup, you’re not going to be the one I call.”


That explained exactly nothing. She let it go for now as they laughed together easily and started down the stairs toward the park squeezed between the bus station, the overpass, and the bars and restaurants of Chinatown. “I got your card,” he was saying as he walked beside her. “Thanks, Rainie. It was good to hear from you.”


He sent her a birthday card, he always did. Not Christmas cards or anything, but then she didn’t send those either. She’d found one of those ‘hey I moved’ cards when she was shopping for presents for the twins and decided to send it to him, but that was months ago. Smiling at him, Rayne said warmly, “Well sure, I don’t forget. How’s Riley?”

“You wouldn’t recognize him. Or maybe you would, he’s got the red hair.”


They paused at the fountain. Rayne glanced down into it – the water was dark with grime. She was tired and despite feeling better about this, didn’t know what else to say. Was this really it? He just wanted to talk? He’d called her out of nowhere to chat?

“How’s your mother?” Ryan asked quietly, rubbing his arm where the water splashed up against his skin. “I saw the latest about the Holloway woman; it made two or three tabloid covers.”


Rayne walked away from the fountain and sat gingerly on a dirty bench and avoided looking at him for a few moments. Now she understood why he’d called. It wasn’t about her; it was about her mother. She slid her hand through her hair and kept on ignoring him. He was sitting just a few inches away from her and waiting. Waiting and waiting while the bus belched exhaust and the chess people argued and the sun would set and rise again and he would still be waiting.


She remembered the anxiety, the fear that had driven her the morning after she’d gone to Ryan’s house and spent the night with him. She’d been afraid she was going to get caught, get in trouble; that he would find out it was her; that he would go to jail; but it had been about her, not really about him. What she had not understood was how he would feel. He thought the woman he loved had finally come to him. He still believed it. She had not done that, and, as far as Rayne could tell, she never would.


The dream snagged at her thoughts, catching and ripping them. She yanked away but felt the pain, the hole of absence and useless hope. She was waiting too. If someone had done that to her and left her believing a lie, waiting and waiting and hoping…it made her sick, gasping sick.


“I haven’t talked to her in a while,” she told him carefully, pulling herself together with an effort since she didn’t know what to do about any of this. She didn’t see it, not yet. “I guess she’s hoping it just goes away.”

He leaned back, clasped his hands behind his head and came out with a deep, rough sigh. “For her sake, I wish I could say I thought it would. It’s not going to change. She needs to quit waiting for it to happen, make her own move, force her own change.”


Agitated, Rayne stood back up again and yanked restlessly at the leaves on the Japanese maple. “She’s not going to leave him, Ryan. Even with Stevie and my dad – and I’ve seen them - and Stevie saying stupid shit about her, and my dad hasn’t done a thing to shut her up, my mom isn’t leaving. I don’t think she’s ever even considered leaving my dad.”


Ryan turned sideways on the bench and gazed up at her. “You do her an injustice,” he responded, his voice deep and quiet. “She’s considered it. She came damn close." He broke off and stood up.


No, she hadn’t. She had not come close. And it was her fault he thought she had. Rayne bit her lip, clenched her hands together so tight that her nails dug into the flesh of her palms. If she did this, he was going to be as puke horrified as Miranda had said he would be. She was going to lose him. If she didn’t do it, he would keep waiting and believing a complete fantasy. He didn’t deserve that.


Now she did see it. Wait until you see it. She saw it.

Rayne crossed her arms, drew a deep breath, looked at him directly and said, “No she didn’t, Ryan. She never did – she – you see that wasn’t her. The woman who came to you that night and slept with you and said she loved you…”


His face changed. He stared down at her. He set his massive hands on his hips, pulled back his shoulders, probably already knowing what was coming, preparing for it. She’d never seen that look in his eyes on any other person in her life.

“Go on,” Ryan ordered in a flat, hard voice.

This was going to crush him, take everything away from him, every single little thing cut it to pieces and leave him with just nothing but that hardness. Did she see it? Did she really see it? Was that empty nothing better than hoping for what wasn't real? It had to be because it was too late now.


“That woman,” Rayne finished, forcing herself, finishing everything, no way to back out now, going flat out for it no matter what, this was finally going to be out there, no more waiting, not for him, “that woman was me.”

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Passages 2

Got up early, found something's missing
My only name
No one else sees, but I got stuck
And soon forever came
Stopped pushing on for just a second
Then nothing's changed
Who am I this time, where's my name?
Guess it crept away

~ Beautiful Things - Andain


The wind sighed, lifting the silk, weighing it, dropping it. He was kneeling on the end of the bed, looking down at her, framed in silk.


Scene 1


Rayne breathed, soft and careful, in case, just in case she was not dreaming. "You're not real."


He shifted, drawing up one long leg, heavy boots, biker’s boots, leather and denim and light in his blue eyes. The bed did not move the way it would, the way it should, if he were real. He wasn’t really there. He said, "I'm not a dream."


It was a dream though. She was circling the blurry event horizon between dream and reality but she could see down into it and it was, it was a dream. Her dream self sat up and tried to reach out to him with dream arms that did not respond, broken wooden things hanging from her shoulders. “You've been there so long. Why can't I find you? I keep looking but I can't find you. What are you? Who are you?"


"You named me, Rainie."


The bottom fell out of it, cold wind in the candle flame. She was awake. Of course it hadn’t been real.

She had not named him...if she had, if she could name him, maybe she could find him. She was drifting in the dark with no name. She couldn’t even hold onto the dream much less the man. Awake in this silent place, she wasn't used to so much silence, very much alone and no closer than she had ever been to understanding anything.


Rayne tucked her head under her arm, slid her cheek against the cool cotton pillowcase, feeling it against her skin, feeling the loss. She was cold. She wanted to go home. She wanted to be five years old again tucked in her own bed. She clenched her hands in the sheet and cried.

Scene 2


"Ryan called? Right in the middle of everything like that?"


Rayne cradled the cup of coffee, savoring the warmth in her hands as well as her mouth. She was still chilled, could not seem to get warm. She poked at the cold iron chair leg with her toe. "Yeah he did. He wants to talk."


The sunlight never quite reached the balcony on the north side of the rental; it felt filtered, light brewed through a coffee filter. Rayne had discovered moss on the floor, discovered it after she slipped and fell. The dream hung over her. She couldn't shake it, and she shivered again.


"Why did you even answer the phone?” Miranda demanded. “ Wasn't Cruz pissed?"

"I don't know why I answered, it surprised me, and yeah he was pissed. Major pissed. He asked a lot of questions. It'll be ok, I'll make it up to him."


They sat there for a while in the deep early morning quiet. "You look kind of ragged," Miranda commented. "Actually you look like shit. Are you ok?"


She was anything but ok, not after dreaming about HIM again, not with some kind of thing with Ryan looming out there. Never, never had she said anything to anyone about that dream man, and she never would, but at least she could talk to Randi about Ryan. Shaking herself, Rayne tried to focus. "I can't sleep here, that's all. It's too quiet. There's no way Ryan knows, is there? You didn't tell anyone, did you?"


"Of course I didn't. My dad didn't tell anyone but your mom. I'm positive he didn't. And you know she’s never going to breathe a word about it. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe he just wants to say hi."


She doubted that. Rayne stood up, watching her own feet carefully, avoiding the freaking moss. "Be careful, it's slick out here. I fell on my ass the other day. I need to talk to my dad about fixing it somehow.”


Rayne turned in the landing above the stairs, deeply uneasy, reluctant to let Randi go yet. “Do you really think he just wanted to say ‘hi’?”

They looked at each other. If he had wanted to say ‘hi’, he would have done that over the phone. Rayne knew it. She could tell Randi knew it too. "I don't know," Randi told her quietly. "All you can do is keep saying nothing happened. If that’s what you want to do."


Of course that’s what she wanted to do. Rayne followed her back downstairs. The world outside was waking up, trash can rattling, somebody across the street yelling about something. It might have been Wyatt, it sounded like him. Maybe the garbage truck was in his way.

At the front door, Randi paused. “You know I wish we’d been able to share a place like we planned. It wouldn’t have been so quiet.”


Rayne finally squeezed out a smile. “Yeah, but your dad stopped that. Mine would have been good with it. He actually knows who you are and I think he likes you.”


Miranda laughed as she walked out. “He doesn’t know me that well then. Call me as soon as you get back from Ryan, k?”


She wandered back upstairs and stood there for a while, trying to ignore the ache in her back. She’d slept wrong. She had to get dressed. She had to calm down. Maybe she was going about this the wrong way. Maybe she should just come right out and tell him. That’s probably what he would do. If that’s what this was about, maybe that’s what she should do. No, she couldn’t do that, it would kill him to know…that would be sacrificing him for her own peace of mind, to get it over with. Keep the secret. Always keep the secrets.


“Okay,” she whispered aloud. “Let’s go do this.”

Scene 3

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Passages 1

Blue on black
Tears on a river
Push on a shove
It dont mean much

~ Blue on Black - Kenny Wayne Shepherd


“I don’t get it, why do you keep putting off your dad? Isn’t this the third time he’s tried to come over?” It wasn't the third time. There was never a 'third time' with Cooper. Nor had Rayne really 'put him off'; he'd had conflicts, and she'd come up with 'conflicts' too. She thought she knew what he'd been doing. Her 'conflicts' were dry, papery, weighted not with sex, weighted with only her lame excuses, and he had, eventually, blown them away.



Scene 1


Rayne looked down at Samantha. She was curled up on the floor in her bedroom in the college rental, smiling, trying to be helpful. She wasn't helpful. She was actually kind of clueless.


The bedroom spanned the length and width of the second floor, view of the pool and a park and, directly to the northwest, Wyatt’s place. Her brother could lean over his deck and get a good clear look at anything and everything that was going on. Which was, of course, the whole point; that’s why she was in this place instead of the one she wanted on the other side of the campus.


Samantha was still talking. Sam’s family had money but it was old money, sit behind the mossy stone wall and contemplate the cognac money. Randi understood but she doubted Sam ever would, not about Wyatt, not about her mother, certainly not about her father. “He’ll get over it. He’ll go check out Stevie; she’ll make it all better.”


Sam shifted uncomfortably. “You don’t think that’s a load of crap?”


The doorbell rang, filling the place with the long and annoying first phrase from the theme from Mission Impossible. That was not something her mother had chosen, maybe Wyatt’s lame joke. She kept forgetting to change it. Rayne shrugged and started downstairs. “Just because it stinks doesn’t mean it’s not true. Give me about a minute and come on down. I want to find out if he even knows who you are since we've been friends since like first grade. He probably won't.”


“Sure,” Samantha said at her retreating back, sounding even more uncomfortable. Or something like sure. Rayne had quit listening to her.


"Hi Dad." She stepped aside. She had to step aside. He strode through the doorway, impatient. She'd put him off, deliberately put him off, and he definitely did not like being put off. "It's what you expected, isn't it? Wyatt's place is right next door. Right exactly across the street next door."

Cooper swept the place, taking it all in. One long, hard sweep and one long look right back at her, softened with a smile. She knew he was trying, working it. "I didn't want you in a place by yourself. Wyatt is close, yeah I know that, that's why I agreed to this. But it looks good, Rayne."


It looked good? However it looked, she had nothing to do with it.

"Mom's good for something, isn't she?” She said it and waited, waited for him to hear it, waited until it hit him. It did. She saw it sink in. Then she continued, “No stage presence; she can’t play a guitar; she can’t play drums; but she can sure paint a wall. Just give her a brush and she can cover up just about anything."


He stopped looking at the furniture. He took a step closer, very much closer, staring her down. "Rayne.” It was one deep note, low and unyielding. "Back down now. That's way out of line."


It might be. Considering everything, including everything he didn't know, it probably was way out of line. If she followed the road way way down into a place he knew nothing about, he was right. But not for the right reasons. It had come out the wrong way. Eventually the road lines led off a cliff. Eventually everything came out wrong.


Rayne thought of apologizing. She didn’t. The apology wasn’t owed to him anyway. Neither of them really deserved anything like an apology.


Samantha edged quietly into the room. Cooper glanced at her, distracted, no recognition in his eyes at all. Surprise surprise…


Sam had been one of her best friends since kindergarten but he obviously didn’t know her. If she’d been one of Wyatt’s friends, or if she’d shown up backstage with her panties in her hand, he probably would have remembered her, no problem. He said he never forgot a face. Evidently that depended on where he’d seen that face, and it wasn’t in her company.


“I have things to do,” Rayne told him coolly. “Thanks so much for stopping by. We have to do it again someday.”

Scene 2


"Do you like boats?"


Rayne looked out at the boat. "Not particularly; I get seasick." And that was something she had never admitted. Ryan would have been all over her if she had ever complained about getting seasick. Fuck that. That was done. She was going to keep looking. "Why, do you have one?"


Cruz tossed a pebble off the deck in the general direction of the boat. "No. And I don't want one."


She followed the path of the pebble. It hit the boat with a soft thunk, bounced off, fell into the oily black water under the prow. "So why did you ask?"

He smiled. "Something to say."


They stood there. Close. His bare arm slung over her shoulder. Heavy and hot. His thigh pressed against hers. Looking at the boats. It was dark. It was dirty. There was slime. Even the water smelled bad.

She liked it.

"You're not going to college, are you?"

"You and boats, that's me and school. I get schoolsick. Hurl right off the deck."


Rayne turned her back to the boat and looked up at him, amused. He'd brought here for a reason, and it had nothing to do with boats. And she hadn’t come with him because she wanted to do boats. She smiled to herself, thinking about her father’s reaction if he knew she was involved with this guy, whoever he was, whatever he was, maybe not the one she was looking for, but for now, he would do. He would definitely do. She wanted him. She was going to take what she wanted. "If it makes you that sick, why are you hanging around?"


"Maybe I like the weather." Cruz leaned back against a stack of crates, still smiling. They creaked under his weight but he didn't seem concerned. Murky strange boat light in his face and eyes. "Real good weather. Partly cloudy. And chance of rain."


They moved together, his skin warm, his mouth warm, open, taking her tongue, giving her his, a buoy clanging somewhere out in the mist and the dark, sea rhythm moving with them, maybe right here and right now. Right here in the dark between the boats and the dirty boxes.


Her cell rang. Rang again. And again. “Damn,” Cruz murmured, breath hot and uneven, “you always have that thing on?”


Rayne dragged it out, fumbling, trying to turn the freaking thing off, and focused briefly on the caller ID. And everything changed. Her stomach turned over.


She inhaled hard, turned her back to Cruz, giving him no explanation, gripping the cell, and said, carefully, quietly, “Hi Ryan.”

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