There was only one light on inside as he approached and it shone from her bedroom. The one at the very top of the house, the only one with a straight view of the ocean.
The wall of windows left her little privacy and he stood in the pouring rain, just watching her pace back and forth. He couldn’t read the emotions on her face, but he knew that they were complicated. The rain contaminated his vision but it certainly did not stop her from catching a glimpse of his figure, as the lighting struck in the background.
Picking up a small rectangular object from the nightstand, he knew what she was about to do. A tiny grin was all that he saw from her before the curtains zoomed shut over the windows. He grinned slightly himself because he knew what she was thinking.
He walked towards the back door, knowing that she would have locked the front door, just to spite him out of anger.
If she couldn’t see him, he didn’t exist to her that was just how it was. She had learned a long time ago that she could block him out if she wasn’t looking at him. Storing away all the memories and pain that they had in the past had become routine and she was very good at keeping him out of her life.
A silver picture frame caught her eye as she went to sit on the corner of her bed. The same cynical grin covered her features as she stared into his eyes.
They had always been so clear, like the crystal blue of the deep ocean when it was smooth as ice. As they grew older though, they grew with him and became cloudy and deceptive, like a storm had rolled in from the horizon.
She didn’t know where it came from, but she knew that it was circling and didn’t look like it was leaving.
One movement turned the frame on its end and thus removed him from her sight again.
Locking the door behind him shut the noise of the storm outside of the old beach house. It could still be felt though as he began his path towards his own bedroom.
The house swayed slightly on its risers under the pressure of the winds that hit it from all sides. She had stopped pacing, at least from what he could hear.
He could imagine her sitting all alone in her room, staring at that picture of them when they were 10, looking like nothing would ever separate them, like they would withstand the test of time.
Pictures lie; it was as simple as that.
Cosmo would have a field day analyzing a collection of pictures of the two of them together. Trying to decide it they would make it the whole way.
God himself would be hard pressed to try and decide the fate of JC and Corrine, it was burdened by a past that neither one of them were willing to face.
He hadn’t even made it to his room, because he had cocked his head up and was trying to listen for her movement above him. The distinct sound of a door flying open and slamming into the wall behind it came through the ceiling and to his ears before her words did.
“Joshua Scott Chasez, I don’t know if this is some sort of sick game that you are playing on me here or if you really have lost it, but you have gone a little too far with all of this.” A barrage of papers and pictures flew down the stairs along with the folder that they had been in.
“Well Corrine Alexandria Rosemont, I don’t think there is an issue with the health of the game that I am playing with you. I do love that you are using full names, it makes things all the more dramatic.” His mood had shifted dramatically since they had been on the beach, the pining man that she had left had Jeckyl and Hyded her all the way to cool, calm, and sarcastic JC.
“So you admit it, you are playing a game here.”
“This not a game, this is a real life investment.” He bent down to collect the papers that had been lying at his feet. “And I don’t appreciate you throwing my things down on the ground, you know what kind of a neat freak that I am.”
“And I don’t appreciate the fact that you are being all snarky about this.” She finally emerged from the top of the stairs and he caught his first glimpse of her in all her angriful glory.
Her hands here balled into fists at her sides and her face had taken on, what he thought to be, a very sexy shade of red.
Tapping the papers together into a neat pile on the nearby table he didn’t take his eyes off of her. She reached the bottom of the steps and placed her hands on her hips before settling in on glaring at him.
“Snarky, now that is a nice word that you came up with there, did you make that one up all by yourself or is it actually in a dictionary?”
“I am about to get all snarky up on your ass if about five seconds if you don’t get on with explaining your thinking about all that.”
“Is that really something that an adult would say to her best friend?”
“You are treading on thin ice buddy, explain yourself.” She didn’t move, and her eyes didn’t falter, the icy shade of gray that they had become caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end.
“I bought that house, pretty great isn’t it?” He sorted out the picture that he wanted and held it up for her to look at. The dilapidated old mansion was standing on 200 acres of land, begging to be restored to all of its former glory.
“Yeah I looked at the pictures, you don’t need to show me.” He could see the thoughtful look that flew through her eyes as she looked at the picture, that was her passion and he knew it. “I am not a doll that you can fuck around with Josh. That right there, that is my life, you can’t dangle something in front of me like that when you know that I can’t do anything about it.” She pointed at the picture that he was holding out in front of himself before she snatched it away and traced a finger along the covered porch that had seen so much history.
“I want you to restore it for me. I was thinking I would move there, settle down, and live a good old-fashioned normal life in a couple years. I can’t very well do that with it looking the way that it does. There’s a family of raccoons living in the cellar right now, I would really rather our kids to run around in the backyard.”
“Comedy. Really, I mean you should have pursued a career in comedy, hell, do it now, quit singing and tell jokes, cause that right there, that was the funniest thing that I have ever heard a human being say.”
“Like a shot to the heart your sarcasm is.”
“I wasn’t being sarcastic, it really was quite funny. First the fact that you actually think that you could live in a place like that without going insane, and secondly the little comment about our children was off the freaking hook.” JC stared at her while he leaned up against the back of the couch, a look of pure amusement on his features.
“Why, my dear, wouldn’t I be able to live in a place like that? Someplace that is perfect for raising a family, far enough from civilization to be private and close enough to not be closed off. It is the fundamental perfect place to run away to after a long time in the public eye.”
“You would die without that public eye. As much as you say that you love the privacy and that you hate people prying into your life, you live for it. Your being fears the darkness that comes with being away from all that you are.”
That hit a chord, JC did hate the people that risked their lives to get a glimpse into his private life, yet at the same time he lived for those people. Corrine was the only person that knew that.
He liked the chase; he liked the hunt that went on. The hunt for the perfect picture, the perfect story, JC loved every second of it, while maintaining a perfectly manicured scowl for the public.
The one thing that she didn’t know was that he was ready to pull himself away from it, he needed to pull himself away from it. He was becoming cynical about everything and that wasn’t the life that he wanted to live.
That wasn’t the life that he wanted for his children, he didn’t want them to be prey from the moment they were born, even though JC knew there was little hope for that.
“I do fear that darkness.” His eyes pivoted to the floor and towards his feet.
“That house, that place, its pitch black Josh.”
“That is why I need you there, to flip the switches on for me.” Corrine let out a breath that had been caught in her throat.
They had this conversation before, when they were small. He had always been afraid of the dark, a simple irrational childhood fear that held a whole new world of meaning now.
She told him back then that whenever he was too afraid to move, she would flip those switched on for him and he would be safe, she would be his light.
“You don’t forget anything, do you?” JC tilted his head up to look at her.
“Neither do you, and that is what I was counting on.”
“That is so much like you Josh, always planning things out long before they actually happen, never just living in the moment.”
“I bought that house on a whim. The planning came long after the check had been signed.” Corrine walked around him to the window, his eyes following her form.
“I love that house.”
“I knew you would.”
“I know. That is why it hurts so much that I will never be able to be there in person. Never be able to touch that framework that has been around longer than both of us, that holds the history of so many lives before us, that kills me.”
“Why can’t you Corrine? I bought it for you, you and me. I bought that house for us.”
“There is no us Josh, why can’t you see that?” As if God was playing a cruel joke the lights flickered once, then twice, before the darkness gripped the entire island.
“Funny, isn’t it? Without you, my life is total darkness.” The glow from a candle lit up her entire face from across the room as she hit the drawer shut with her hip. “You keep me out of the dark.”
“What’s the catch?” Corrine set the candle down on the table, next to the folder and pictures that had been lying there, before sitting down on a stool.
“What do you mean?” JC moved to the stool next to her and they were once again facing one another. The flickering light from the candle casting an eeiry glow over the proceedings.
“You know what I mean. The house, me and the house, you and the house, you and me, there is a catch there somewhere.”
“Well, you already know that I want us to be together, and you are not making this easy.”
“Did you think that it would be easy?” JC scoffed out loud at her comment, she never was a person to go easy on him.
“Go to the house, take your crew, make it the place where memories have been made.”
“There is more to it than that.”
“I will be around, of course.”
“Oh, of course.” Sarcasm dripped from her words and lightning struck, lighting the room in a sharp white light, accentuating her anger.
“If by the time you are finished, you and I still don’t exist, we will be over than hill. I will give up on there ever being an us. Hell, I’ll set you up with anyone that you would ever want to be with, anytime that you want to be with them.” Her eyes narrowed, not believing a word of what he was saying, not liking it either.
She didn’t want him out of her life; she needed him like he needed the light.
“You have to be pretty sure of yourself to make a deal like that.”
“Not sure, I know how stubborn you are, just desperate.”
“I don’t want to be without you, but if you run away from me again that is what will happen, I can’t trust you.”
“Let me earn your trust back. I will be like I was before we ever were a couple, back when we were little and you were on the tallest pedestal I could find.”
“I don’t want to be on your pedestal, I want to be at your side, and I want to know that you will stand there, unwavering, even when you are scared of the future.”
“I will show you I can do that, just tell me that you will be there at the house next week to get started.”
“I am probably making the biggest mistake of my life.” Corrine rolled her neck to the side and sighed deeply before turning back to the man in front of her. “I’ll be there.”
It was as if her words were what the electricity had been waiting on, because as soon as they were uttered, the lighted seemed to burst back into the room. The lights were back on in the house and to the island, but his light, that was just a flicker in the distance, he could see it, and hopefully in time, he would reach it.
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