This is My Kingdom. [Part Two]

This is My Kingdom. [Part Two]

“Devlin, are you okay?”

From beneath my comforter, I moaned. “I told you to leave me alone, Randy.”

“It’s not Randy, Dev. It’s Blake.”

“Go away.”

“I’m not leaving until you come out and talk to someone.”

“Well, then you’re gonna be waiting for awhile.” I buried deeper beneath the covers, taking solace in the built up heat that lay stagnant in the air I breathed -- or what was left of it. The fire that consumed my body nibbled hungrily at the oxygen. Not to mention the humming; I could hardly think past the goddamned humming.

“It’s been days. You have to come out.” Silence, as if he were waiting for my response, before he resigned himself to the fact that I wasn’t going to give one. “It wasn’t your fault, Devlin.”

I was so numb, I hardly noticed when I slipped out of my bed and opened the door to face him. There were dark rings around his eyes, and his hair was mussed; it was obvious that I wasn’t the only one who had been staying up.

“Can’t you see that I’m on fire?”

Blake blinked. “Dev…”

“Answer me!” I grabbed his arms and shook him frantically. His muscles were tense beneath my harsh grip. “Am I on fire?”

Trembling, he gently brought down my white-knuckled hands and held them in his own. They were relievingly colder than my burning skin.

“No, Dev. You’re not on fire.”

I looked away, embarrassed. The flames on my body ebbed away, a little, and thinking suddenly wasn’t so hard.

“How about the humming?” I asked, voice raspy. “Can you hear the humming?”

He didn’t answer that time.

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

Blake sighed. “No. I think that you’re traumatized and stressed -- ”

“You’re lying! Get out of here!”

I pushed him away, as hard as my painfully blazing muscles would let me, and locked the door. It wouldn’t be the first time that I had pressed myself against my door and slid to the floor, but this was the first time that its cool surface didn’t calm me.

I wondered why Blake had come. I wondered why he even cared. I was just the girl who had lied to him, who had gotten his hopes up that a major critic liked his work and that he could somehow survive in the violent world that was the book-selling business. I didn’t understand, and the ceaseless humming wasn’t helping.

Nights became ridden with a guilt I couldn’t explain. Things were going wrong, all wrong -- and I could hardly contemplate ways to fix them all beyond the droning that never ended.





I had to finally consent to go back to school a week or so later, due to my mother’s suddenly uncharacteristic fear that I would be held back if I didn’t. Classes became more meaningless than ever, and my grades began to drop lower than the bare minimum of passing I had so skillfully maintained. Instead, I watched the other students, observed them, monitored their movements with a bored expression on my face so that they wouldn’t know how intent I had grown.

“Ms. Northgate,” my English teacher said, and I snapped out of my daze somewhat-violently as she handed me back another paper stamped with an ‘F’ at the top. “’F’ does not stand for ‘fantastic.’ Or ‘funny.’ There is nothing fantastic -- or funny -- about a girl set on fire. I will not allow such graphic images in this class, especially since the assignment asked for a realistic description of yourself.”

I didn’t answer her. I could hardly hear her, anyway.

“Do you see yourself as ‘on fire’, Devlin?”

“I -- ”

Blake stood up. “Mrs. Hathaway, Devlin looks very pale and is still recovering from the shock of Jocelyn’s death. Let me take her to the nurse.”

The woman stared at him fiercely. He didn’t back down.

“Very well. Don’t forget to come right back here once she’s settled.”

He already had an arm around my shoulder, leading me out of the room, shielding me from the curious eyes of my classmates. In the hallway he propped me up against a locker, worry creasing his brow; I couldn’t meet his deep blue eyes -- I didn’t think I even had enough strength to look up. Blake took off his sweater vest and rested it on my forehead to soak up the sweat that dripped there; I had no doubt that I looked a horrible mess. He confirmed it.

“Dev, you look like hell.”

I laughed weakly. “I’m the snowball in the basket we’re all going in.”

Though he didn’t show it, I could see him breaking. He wasn’t ready for this, for my crap adding to his own. My hand pressed against his chest, leaving a burning image of the print there, on his shirt, eating through his skin. Showing the irrepairable damage I had done.

“You’re sick. But I’m assuming you don’t want to go to the nurse, right?”

“Where’s Randy? I haven’t seen him around.”

“I need a computer, then.”

I took the next rise in my temperature as this fire’s version of a bad feeling and snatched Blake’s iPhone out of his hand. My fingers stumbled over the glass, clumsily typing in letters on the keyboard that had the letters spaced too close together. I vaguely register that I had never in my life taken more than a minute to log on to my e-mail.

There it was -- bold and flashing. An unopen e-mail from Randy. Now that I looked, there were several, all addressed to my stage manager persona. As I read the words, I could feel the delicate balance I had created shift, ever so slightly, out of my control.

No. No.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He’s going to get there, faced only with disappointment. Anger. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I had everything under control. No -- I had screwed everything up.

The thrumming in my head deepened.

I could no longer concentrate; I dropped the handheld device and slid down the wall, unable to hold myself up any longer. Blake just barely managed to catch me in time.

“Dev, what’s happening? Really,” he muttered, “now you’re scaring me.”

I could fix it. I could fix it all, if only my mind would allow it. If only these painful distractions would stop. But how? How do you stop a fire? All I needed was to stop these flames, this humming, and think.

Blake helped me to my feet. “C’mon. Before the bell rings, and everyone wonders what we’re doing here.”

Water. Of course.

“Let’s go, Dev.”

Water puts out fire.

“We need to get to Sutter’s Creek.” I scrambled to a standing position. “Blake, I need to get to Sutter’s Creek.”





All the way there, I felt as if I could hardly move. Blake practically dragged my semi-limp body down the sidewalks -- I was sure those who passed by thought that I was drunk or something, which was fine by me. I didn’t care.

“Devlin,” Blake said after awhile, “are you really feeling that hot?”

“Yeah. You probably would have killed yourself by now,” I muttered under my breath. He just laughed.

“I think I’m made of stronger stuff than that.”

“I thought I was, too.”

We rounded a bend in the sidewalk, and Sutter’s Creek came into view.

Water.

My heart lurched at the sight of it, and my nails dug into Blake’s shoulder. He flinched.

I turned my eyes to him. “Thanks, Blake. For everything.”

The action was involuntary.

“Yeah,” he said. “No problem.”

Why did it feel like I was saying good bye?

A deep-set survival instinct set my feet off at a run.

My breath caught in my throat as I panicked and found that it was hard to coordinate both of my legs to move as one unit, sliding down the grass that seemed colder than the carpet of sun-warmed green Randy and I lay in only days before. From previous knowledge, I knew that there was a sharply sloping cliff not far from the edge of the shore made from rocks slick with years of wearing erosion, but in my haste I couldn’t have cared less. All that was important was that there was water, and water put out fire. Nothing else mattered, not even when I slipped, and the sharp crack from my skull connecting with the edge of a boulder brought it back to mind.

The cold rush of the river was what woke me after a bout of mild shock. I blinked blearily when I saw the bright sunlight from the surface waver above me and I slipped beneath the water. Somewhere, in the far-off distance, I heard Blake’s voice calling my name.

But I wasn’t hot anymore. There was no more fire.

It actually surprised me that I could be so calm in this situation; either that or it was the overwhelmingly comforting feeling of being completely numb -- a different kind of numb that left you devoid of any and all emotion at all. Black alternated with red as I began to lose consciousness, and I closed my eyes in weary resignation.

Finally.

Sweet, blessed silence.