Page 8 of Breaking the Dark

“Oh my God, you’re so drifty.”

Tara faces Anna as she says this, and they share a pulse of laughter.

“Drifty,” says one of the boys. “Is that even a word?”

“Whatever,” says Tara. “You know what I mean.” She turns back to Lark. “Are you okay? You’re just, like, so quiet.”

“Yeah. I’m good. I’m just zen.”

“Zen?”

“Yeah. You don’t need to worry about me. Just have fun.”

“But—we want you to have fun too. You’ve been looking forward to tonight for months. It was all you could talk about before you left this summer.”

Lark nods mechanically. “Yeah, I remember that. I remember being excited.”

“But now you’re not?”

“Yeah. I’m super excited. Just in a different way.”

“Are you okay, Lark?”

“Never better. Truly. Don’t worry about me. I’m perfect.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so.”

Then Tara throws her arms around Lark and squeezes her hard and the conversation moves away from Lark and on to other things, but Jessica’s eyes stay on Lark.

On her hands.

Her staring eyes.

On her perfect, perfect skin.

Thirty-eight years ago

Harlem, NYC

When you’ve seen the most beautiful woman in the world, you know it with every single piece of you. You know it with your eyes, your head, your gut—but you also know it in your blood, and with the veins that carry that blood to all the parts of the body that need to be informed that you’ve just seen the most beautiful woman in the world.

The blood is the important thing. Blood contains everything, every atom of who you are: Your mother, your father, a million mothers and fathers before them. It contains your fear, your passion, your weaknesses, your strengths. It contains your future and your past. It is the most powerful essence in the world.

For some people there is more than one most beautiful woman in the world. But not for me. There is only one. She is called Ophelia.

You might say that I’m obsessed. I wouldn’t blame you. She’s all I think about, every second of every day. My blood pumps harder when I think of her. It touches me in places that lie dormant the rest of the time. The blood sends a rosy flush to my cheeks, sends endorphins throughout my body, sends heat to my groin.

I am all blood. I cut myself, sometimes, when she’s left, just to see it, stare at it; it glows extra red, I’m sure, when it’s full of her.

She agrees to join me for dinner on the night of her twentieth birthday. At thirty-six I’m considerably older than her, and I feel maybe she is being polite, but I don’t show my doubt. Doubt observed is a killer.

I wear my favorite shirt; it’s blue with tiny white buttons on the collar tips that hold a tie in place. I have had a haircut and a professional shave. She’s only ever seen me in my plaid shirt and jeans behind the bar, and I want her to see who I really am.

At the restaurant, she orders clams in tomato sauce; I order a steak, rare, bleu.

She eats the clams straight out of their shells, the sauce leaving a red circle around her lips. Another rush of desire overcomes me, and I neutralize it with a nervous joke about the waiter’s mustache. My steak oozes blood onto my dinner plate each time I prod it, viscous, watery. I can smell the fear in it, smell the animal’s last moments of terror, picture its wide black eyes. I stifle a groan.