Wings of Fate: The Lost Ones

If Raven Matthews found the act of staring at her past to be terrifying, in a week she would also bury her face against the future. But until then she sat alone in her jeep on an isolated Saturday morning, staring through the car window at the single remaining edifice of her past.

It was a frightening, shadowy thing which, even after twenty years, still left her breathless. Rolling her window down a few inches, Raven struggled for cleansing air. Chocolate-colored gloved fingers tugged a matching scarf against her ears to ward off the biting wind as it whipped through the open window. The chill in the neighborhood air stirred nothing more than isolation.

Raven glanced around the empty street, remembering herself as a little girl sitting on the cement steps not thirty feet away from where she now sat parked. The ground surrounding the steps was a symphony of darkness and light. Most of the gleaming snow of the last several weeks was now mutated into dark sludge -- a combination of snow and mud carried by shoes into the pure flakes.

Here in the Bella Vida neighborhood it was impossible to feel any holiday cheer. Judging by the dismal silence of the street, it was doubtful Christmas decorations were displayed during the holiday. The tale-tell glow of red and green, hanging wreaths, and window clings were all conspicuously absent. The sludge-covered car owners did not bother with red bows to cover chipped paint and dents. And there were dozens of those cars. So much so that Raven was obligated to park her used jeep around the corner and, instead of climbing out of the vehicle, she sat staring up at the gray walls that used to represent the end of things.

The gray apartment walls exist as though silver tape was slapped over their mouths. The hundred year old acme brick, with its weather stained mortar, had been transformed into a canvas of multi colored graffiti, which the city’s unhappy youth left behind to mark their passage there. Those depressing walls offered shelter to poor families -- so poor it was beyond bearing to verbalize their home address.

Spiders scrambled along the walls in search of crevices leading indoors where threadbare carpet lay smothered by yellowed appliances as old as the brick. Once-bright and colorful secondhand toys lay broken on the floor -- forgotten by tiny hands -- left behind to provide entertainment to the roaches prevalent in the neighborhood.

Within those gray walls, people pressed together in the tiny kitchens -- washing dishes; making dinner with the meager discount food items available in their cabinets. And somewhere within the building, a baby always cried.

Raven didn’t have to walk through those dank halls to know the melon-colored paint peeled away from the walls. She need not stand on the threadbare floors to recall the nauseating smell of urine and vomit hovering there. She could stand blocks away and remember staring at the shadows between those walls -- the terrified five-year old whose wide green eyes were scarcely visible behind the untidy blonde hair coming loose from the braid her mother knotted three days earlier. No, she remembered too well what it was like to live within colorless walls like those.

Twenty years passed since she stood within those walls and Raven, now a twenty-five-year old realtor for SureCo Industries, sat only feet away from that building in the small district where renovations for an upscale condominium were just completed.

Raven closed her eyes to block out the sight of the dilapidated apartments beside her jeep. Rolling up her window, she turned her thoughts away from the shadows in her mind and tugged on the door handle. Biting wind exploded through the opening of her door, slamming into her with a freeze that caused her eyes to tear. Tugging the scarf closer to her neck, Raven climbed out and slammed her door shut.

The condominium was a big project and one her boss practically gift wrapped for her. The owners didn’t have a bottomless budget but close to it and Raven was around to watch the broken down apartment complex be transformed into a glistening, expensive, beauty.

Charred walls were knocked down with a wrecker truck driven be a man whose brown lips testified to years of dipping tobacco. The curling linoleum on the kitchen and bathroom floors had been ripped away. The near non-existent carpeting with its decayed padding had been pulled away from the concrete and tossed.

Pre-modern appliances, though mostly useless, had been auctioned off to the wealthiest of the needy and poor. Flawless window panes had been ordered only to be vandalized and ruined beyond repair, forcing the owners to spend more to replace the original panes (and to hire a small team of security officers to ensure the safe arrival of the second shipment).

It meant ceramic floors instead of marble.

Over the proceeding several weeks she pitched the property to almost two-dozen prospects but once they saw the adjacent neighborhood, most had been uninterested in anything more than a cursory glance at the condos. The surrounding neighborhood was derelict. Residents could live in luxury within the russet-colored bricks but stepping beyond the bolted front door would find crime bleeding on their doorstep. Fear caused the interested renters to balk.

Despite the unrelenting disappointment of failing to recruit a renter, today Raven was optimistic. Today the disappointment following her was going to be chased away by the potential renter she was to meet at the Bella Vida condo building. And he was going to sign.

The possible renter was Mr. Jones who had, over the phone, given her the impression of a playboy beyond his best years whose lascivious comments left her desiring a bar of soap.

Raven shuddered again in memory of the disgust that overwhelmed her into gape-jawed speechlessness. If sales hadn’t been so hard to come by, if money hadn’t been tight, if she wasn’t struggling to stay on her feet, she would have told the revolting man to go get bent. But sales were hard to come by, money was tight, and she was trying to stay on her feet.

She brought her head up, startled by a car door, and was relieved to see the likely Mr. Jones rounding the back of a small two-door Audi. “Ms. Matthews!” he called with smile that shone with simplicity. She hid her frown at the flash of startled surprise blazing across his blue eyes as he jogged across the sidewalk in faded blue jeans and a cream turtleneck.

Soft loafers were almost invisible beneath the long-legged jeans, but they added a perfect touch to the brown coat that moved gracefully with his stride. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.” He said as he ascended the stairs.

“No, not at all, Mr. Jones, thank you for meeting me.” She held a gloved hand toward him, trying to cover her discomfort over his appearance and its total contradiction to her impression of him over the phone.

“Please, call me Kelley.” He suggested as she turned to unlock the front door.

“Thank you, Kelley,” she paused with a wide smile, “call me Raven.” When the bolt slid open she sucked in a breath and launched into the speech she used on all the previous visitors. “Welcome to Bella Vida.”

When Raven unlocked the door to the apartment she shared with Tom, her boyfriend of four years, she was met by hushed shadows. Having imagined an excited recital of her good news, she was disappointed he was not there to greet her. Her frown was hidden by the dark as she set her keys and purse down on the kitchen counter. With a dismissive shrug, she removed her coat and scarf, laying them on the dining room table as she passed into the living room.

She was caught up short, finding Tom standing motionless before the window as he looked down on the busy street below. With a frown, she moved around the sofa and approached on silent feet to wrap her arms around his waist. He did not drape his arms across hers or lean backwards into the hug as he usually did but she rubbed her cheek against his sweater anyway, relieved he was home after all.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, her voice muffled against his back. The cottony softness of his shirt tickled her lips, and she smiled again. Tom’s chest expanded with a deep breath and his body stiffened as though in pain. Pulling her arms away, Raven circled round him with her palms flat against his chest.

Tilting her head back, she marveled again at his beauty, for Tom had always been stunning. His wide lips, typically pensive, at times stretched with laughter, were now pinched. His dark eyes stared at something through the window as though he could pierce through whatever he watched, but as she searched his expression, his hooded gaze lowered to her face.

Tom never ceased to remind her of the passionate Don Vito Corleone in the movie The Godfather, and she frequently wondered if he would grow to look like the elderly Godfather. Not the same actor, she thought, returning her attention to the man in her arms. Tom’s stare shifted from her left eye to her right and then back again. Pale wintry light shone through the window behind her, reflecting in his eyes. A small sliver of the light echoed back as though his dark eyes were lit from within. Raven could see herself in them but could not read his expression.

His heart pounded steadily beneath the palm of her hand as they locked eyes. Raven’s fingertips itched to touch his lips, those exquisite lips, to touch them with her hands, to touch them with her mouth. His eyes bored into hers as though he could touch her with his stare alone. As his eyes pinned her in place, heat flourished in her stomach, warming to such a level she longed to pull her clothes off and wrap her naked self around him.

Desire shot through her as she pictured his rough hands gliding across her thighs, his bruising lips on her mouth. So clearly could she visualize it she could almost feel the heat from his hands. Pulling herself closer to him, Raven rolled to her toes to press her lips against his mouth.

Tom stepped back. The intensity in his gaze never altered. Overwhelming desire had her nearly shedding her clothes, wanting every inch of his heat against her body, and he felt --nothing? Raven frowned, lowering her hands to her sides and raising her eyes to his blank expression.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, murmuring so as not to shatter the fragility of the room. She fought against the instinctive reaction to shut him out, to slam the imaginary door in the imaginary walls she kept erected around herself.

The expression in his eyes didn’t waver. “I have to go.” He pulled his heavy coat off the jacket hook beside the door, rattled his pocket to check for the jangling of his keys, and in just under a minute he was gone.

“Mr. Jones signed on the spot, can you believe it?” Raven asked Tom. “I couldn’t believe it and I was right there.” She mumbled.

Scalding water pattered on her head, dripping from the ten-inch round shower head she spent a ridiculous amount of money on with the excuse of her great love for showers. Other people spent hordes of money on bedding so they could sleep with a deep sense of comfort, why shouldn’t she have the same satisfaction while in the shower? Tom often complained it took longer to bathe because the spatter took three times as long to wash away the soap suds, but she loved it.

Through the clear curtain she watched Tom lean over the sink while he brushed his teeth. Standing as he was, bent over at the waist wearing only a beige towel knotted around his hips, Raven took a moment to watch him. The first feature that drew her attention to Tom had been his height. Having an affinity for tall men, Tom’s six-foot-four frame had appealed to her inherent desire to feel feminine. Being emotionally stymied, with a strong career drive, had led to a bewildering sensation of being more man than woman.

But Tom towered over her five-foot-five frame and was half again as wide in the shoulder as she was. Raven let her gaze slide appreciatively over the olive color of his shoulders and the tight stretch of skin, tapering towards the towel cinched at his hips, disappearing altogether beyond the folds. He remained silent, not responding to her five-minute commentary on Mr. Jones. In fact, she was only keeping the conversation going until he became a participant in it.

After leaving yesterday, he did not return until nine, at which time he took a quick shower and went to bed. All without saying any more than a mumbled, “I’m home,” as he hung up his coat. She considered following him to bed to wrap her body around his and ask, again, what was wrong. But she left him alone.

In part, because she understood the need to sulk at times, to be allowed a bad day. She didn’t enjoy having to explain every little mood she had and so, out of respect for the great man he was, left him alone to it. The other part of her decision was selfish. She couldn’t face rejection twice in one day.

“Tom.” She said now. The word sounded more demanding than she meant to and less like the question she was asking. Tom paused with one hand hovering above the ceramic toothbrush stand, but he appeared uninterested as he turned to leave. Raven pulled the shower curtain to the side, stepped into the chill of the open bathroom, and barked his name.

He jerked to a halt and turned to face her. Dark, angry eyes met her enraged stare for only the briefest of moments before his attention was snagged by the slow, gliding descent of water as it slid over her collar bone. Raven pulled in and swallowed heavy air as the bathroom began to steam. Wet heat spiraled between them but she noticed nothing but the intense heat in his eyes as they shifted across her skin.

The following morning Raven rolled over, tangled in cotton sheets, and stretched a long bare arm toward the opposite side of the bed.

She encountered only cold sheets.

Sliding her eyes open, Raven caught the eerie green glow of Tom’s alarm clock. Five a.m. In another fifteen minutes her alarm would begin to buzz. She was not a morning person and had, in the past, resorted to using multiple alarms just to make it to work on time. Sighing inwardly, she rolled over to shut off the alarm before it began its brow beating and in the process of moving, caught sight of Tom. He stood in front of the shadowed window, his hands stuffed in the pockets of a dark business suit, looking outside.

She frowned at the rigidity of his posture. “Tom?”

He didn’t turn to her. After last nights’ episode, during which he seemed angry and passionate, though perhaps passionately angry would more aptly describe the experience, she had hoped he would move beyond whatever mood set in. Afterwards -- well, after they found their way into bed and exercised his frustrations long into the night, Tom rolled away from her -- asleep within moments. Before closing her eyes, Raven stared at his back, always at his back these days, she thought now.

“Tom?” she repeated, “What’s eating at you?”

He sighed heavily and the heat from his breath created a circular pattern on their frozen window pane. “Mark called yesterday and invited me out for drinks.”

“That’s wonderful,” she said, trying to mask her confusion. Mark was a long-time friend of Tom’s. The two met in college and Mark had been around through most of the rough times in Tom’s life, including getting arrested for drunk driving one night not long after Tom’s mom died of breast cancer. Mark frequently appeared on their doorstep for dinner or Scrabble.

At thirty-one years old and six foot-three, the seasoned accountant for a prestigious firm in upstate New York was all tall, dark and handsome broodiness – a perfect winner for any single girl. Even though he had more than his share of sour experiences, Mark managed to make light of those situations and always came out ahead. For Tom, he was an energy outlet and a source for male bonding. All of which confused her in regards to Tom’s current mulishness. “Isn’t it?” Raven asked.

He sighed heavily again. “Yes, of course.” Afterwards Tom paused for so long a moment Raven began to give up on the subject. She slid her feet onto the monotonous cream-colored carpet covering the entire apartment. “He’s getting married.” Tom said, still staring out the window.

Raven glanced at him, pausing in the act of getting out of bed. “Okay...?” she responded, questioningly. “I didn’t realize he was dating anyone that serious.”

“He wasn’t, not really.” He answered, shoving fingers through his hair. “She’s pregnant.”

“Ah.” Raven responded, nodding as if that explained it all. And it did, sort of, though it really was too bad it happened that way. She would hate to accidentally become pregnant -- but, of course, she made sure it wouldn’t happen.

Tom rounded on her, interrupting her thoughts. “You say ah like it’s a bad thing.” He accused, twisting his dark head to glare at her.

“No,” she corrected, cocking her head at him as she stood. “I say ah like, oh, that makes sense.”

“Why does it make sense?”

“It makes sense because he is marrying someone, when we didn’t even know he was seriously dating anyone, it’s a sudden thing -- and it’s sudden because she’s pregnant, so, ah.” She repeated, sarcastically drawing out the syllable.

“My best friend from college will have a wife in a month and a baby in six months.” He spat the words at her, throwing a gauntlet and waiting wordlessly for her to pick it up.

“Okay.” Raven replied, less willing to prod into the subject now that she had an idea of where it was heading. She held out hope his entire emotional upheaval of the last twenty-four hours was something other than marriage and babies. “Where are you going with this?”

Tom turned toward her then, taking a step forward. “You said we could talk about a family again after a year, it’s been two years and we’re no closer to that talk than we were before.”

“I told you we could talk about it when I was ready, and-”

“You’re never going to be ready.” He argued, cutting her off. He jerked his arm in a flat line as though cutting the air in half. The room was still cloaked in early morning light and not likely to provide any more illumination for another half hour or so but she tried to read his expression through the shadows coating the room. Honestly, she felt more like walking away than standing there arguing with him.

The truth was, she wasn’t ready, and she didn’t know if she ever would be. She had been the child without parents, the child who was afraid she wouldn’t have anything to eat that night, the child who woke up screaming from nightmares. She didn’t want the pressure of protecting a child from the world’s evils, and she couldn’t have a baby with no promise in sight of being able to stay alive long enough for the baby to reach adulthood.

“I’m just not ready right now Tom, can’t you wait just a little longer?” Raven tamped down on the pleading tone in her voice -- she didn’t want to beg him to wait for her.

In the shadows of the room she watched his head tilt backwards a couple of inches as though pointing his nose up at the ceiling. Silence reverberated through the room and she felt as though she waited for the jury’s verdict in a courtroom as opposed to holding her breath while her boyfriend decided their fate.

At the end of her wait, when the gavel sounded, it echoed through the room like a shot; or the sound of a slamming door behind the man who clearly said the word no.