Free Bleed by Laurie Faria Stolarz Page A

back door, and let Mearl in.
    “Thank you, Derik,” she says, looking around.
    The main room is big and dirty, and there are torn pages strewn all over the place, but I don’t feel like reading them or seeing any more. Kevin, this kid from school, found an old patient’s notebook in here one time and actually took it. He brought it to school and passed it around. It had all this fucked-up shit in it. There was this one entry in there about this woman, sitting in the audience on amateur night at this place, smiling like it was her freakin’ birthday, but with blood pouring from her wrists, down the aisles. According to the notebook entry, one of the windows had broken and the orderlies hurried to pick up all the glass. They had put it together on a table like a puzzle, to make sure they got every piece. They didn’t.
    “This isn’t right.” Mearl is sweeping her arms through the air, pushing away the empty space around her, like she can see something I can’t. “The spirits don’t want me here. I’m sorry, Derik, but I don’t feel right about this.”
    No shit. I take her hand and we leave, and head back to the truck. But, before I can haul ass out of there, the cemetery catches her eye and she has to experience that space, too. She makes me pull over so that we can see the graves. They’re simply posts in the ground, marked with numbers.
    “Do you see what happens when you have no roots, Derik?” she asks, thumbing over the point of her crystal pendant. “You have no identity. You become just a number. How can all these souls rest when they have no one to claim them?”
    I put my arm around her and we walk back to the truck. I want to ask about her family and where she’s from, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t know about either, so I just stay silent.
    “I’m sorry I made you come here,” she says. “I was just curious. I thought I might be able to do some good, you know? Help peel away the rust.” She locks her door and then scoots in close to me. “It’s so tragic—to be just a number.”
    “You’re not just a number.” I stroke her cheek, just a little, and say, “I think you’re pretty great.” And I really mean it.
    She kisses me and rests her cheek against mine. “I want to know what it feels like to be from someplace. Not just some number. Not some unrested spirit without identity.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean I want to be with you. I want to experience it—your world of roots.”
    I feel kind of good bringing her to my house, showing her how nice it is, at the tip of a cul-de-sac overlooking all of Witchcraft Heights. We go inside and I ask her if she wants a drink, but all she wants is to see the inside of my room. So I take her there and she kicks off her shoes and barefoot-skates across my rug, all around my room.
    “Having fun?” I ask.
    She takes my hands and we spin around. At first I feel totally stupid doing it—but somehow with her, it’s actually kind of cool.
    “I think you’re truly wondrous,” she says. “And one day, when you put all that glitter out, and it’s just you and your porous thoughts and your smashing ideas, I hope I still know you—an intelligent and harvesting young man. But for now, you’re my karmic destiny.”
    We stop spinning and she kisses both my hands. And I know it’s cheesy and totally unlike anything I’ve ever felt or thought before, but here, with this girl, after all this time, I just want to hold her and kiss her and never let her go.
    “What’s wrong?” she asks, when I don’t say anything back.
    And then I realize I can feel my face, stuck in some sort of confused knot. “It’s just that nobody’s ever said anything like that to me before,” I say. “Wow, that just sounded so lame.” What is the matter with me?
    “It sounded honest, Derik. Honest.” She pats my hand. “Maybe you haven’t let anyone get close enough to say those things to you.”
    “Not until now,” I say. And I look at her. Really