Between Black and Sunshine

  BETWEEN BLACK AND SUNSHINE

  - a novel -

  HAVEN FRANCIS

  Between Black and Sunshine

  Haven Francis

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2015 by Haven Francis

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the permission in writing from author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  For information: havenfrancis@comcast.net

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One - Jude

  Chapter Two - Luca

  Chapter Three - Jude

  Chapter Four - Jude

  Chapter Five - Jude

  Chapter Six - Luca

  Chapter Seven - Jude

  Chapter Eight - Luca

  Chapter Nine - Jude

  Chapter Ten - Luca

  Chapter Eleven - Luca

  Chapter Twelve - Jude

  Chapter Thirteen - Luca

  Chapter Fourteen - Jude

  Chapter Fifteen - Luca

  Chapter Sixteen - Jude

  Chapter Seventeen - Luca

  Chapter Eighteen - Jude

  Chapter Nineteen - Luca

  Chapter Twenty - Jude

  Chapter Twenty One - Luca

  Chapter Twenty Two - Jude

  Chapter Twenty Three - Luca

  Chapter Twenty Four - Jude

  Chapter Twenty Five - Luca

  Chapter Twenty Six - Jude

  Chapter Twenty Seven - Luca

  Chapter Twenty Eight - Jude

  Chapter Twenty Nine - Luca

  Chapter Thirty - Jude

  Chapter Thirty One - Luca

  Chapter Thirty Two - Jude

  Chapter Thirty Three - Luca

  Chapter Thirty Four - Luca

  Chapter Thirty Five - Jude

  Chapter Thirty Six - Luca

  Chapter Thirty Seven - Jude

  Chapter Thirty Eight - Luca

  Chapter Thirty Nine - Jude

  Chapter Forty - Luca

  Chapter Forty One - Jude

  Chapter Forty Two - Luca

  Chapter Forty Three - Jude

  Chapter Forty Four - Luca

  Chapter Forty Five - Jude

  Epilogue

  Chapter One - Jude

  “Why, honey? Why would you go so far away from us?” Patsy, my mother, asks me with confusion in her eyes. It hurts to see her upset but she’s so far away from me now that I know it’s just the idea of me gone that hurts her. She won’t actually miss me.

  “Why do you think, woman?” Arnie asks, his spit flying onto the kitchen table. “She’s following him. That’s where he is.”

  “Luca?” The word falls slowly from her mouth as if she produced it but didn't give it direction. She turns to me but her muddied eyes don’t really look at me. I wonder what’s happening inside of her head. Is there some kind of alternate universe spread out in there that she floats around in, or is it just an abyss with a few momentary ideas that she may or may not grab a hold of before they quickly fade into nothing?

  “Yes, he’s there. He’s why I’m going there.” I keep my answer as direct and simple as possible for Patsy; she no longer has the attention span needed to sit through justification-filled explanations or the ability to decipher innuendos. Besides, after Jonah died I realized that life is too short to be filtered through bullshit – the main component of my life pre-Jonah’s-death. A lot of things changed after Jonah left me. Everything changed. My new attitude and my mom’s perpetual medicated stupor are just two of them.

  “We’re not paying for you to follow that loser halfway across the country.” Arnie smashes his fist into the kitchen table causing the napkin holder to rattle but my mom and I are unfazed. That’s the problem with being mean and angry all the time – it loses its intended effect.

  The core of my life used to be my fear of Arnie’s hands and boots. For Arnie, it was no big deal to beat a submissive little girl. An angry girl with a mouth full of foul words? He was willing to beat that girl too. It wasn't until I returned home from my three month reprieve with Luca and was scary; unrecognizable from the girl I had been, that he became confused and unsure of his own hands. My scary phase could have been just that – a phase. But it became who I am. I adapted into a creature who could be safe in her own home for the first time since that asshole walked through the front door.

  “That account is in my name, it always has been. I’m eighteen. You can’t touch it,” I calmly inform him.

  “Bullshit,” he snarls.

  “Try it.” I shrug my shoulders. “I took Patsy’s name off it the day I turned eighteen. She was there with me; signed all the necessary forms.”

  His eyes turn to my mother who is lost in her fog and hasn't heard a word that’s been said. He knows there’s no point in getting mad at her; she no longer reacts to his fist in a gratifying way. I guess it’s no fun beating a woman who doesn't cry when you do so. So now, in this passive (Patsy) aggressive (me) house, he takes his beatings out on objects. Arnie, once again, pounds his fist into the table before standing and walking away. Seconds later, the front door slams and I take a deep breath.

  I reach out and grab my mom’s hand. I wait for her to look at me. I’m always waiting for her to look at me, or respond to me, or care about something. But it’s been years since I’ve seen any kind of life in her eyes. “Why don’t you go to bed, Mom,” I tell her.

  She simply nods, stands and walks off toward the hall like the zombie that she has become. I stand too, unsure of what to do with myself. I don’t have to leave since he’s already gone. I get tired of always having to find a place to go at night. I can’t wait to leave here; to have a space where I can be alone, where I don’t have to be so defensive. Where I can breathe.

  I go to my room and take out my phone. It’s nine o’clock; hours before I usually call Luca to say goodnight. I’m afraid to call him, to tell him the decision I've made. Luca left me two years ago and hasn’t been back since. I know why he left. We spent hours… days… talking about it. He doesn't want me to want him and he doesn't want to want me.

  I gave him two years and nothing’s changed. He’s still the only person I want to be near. He’s still the only thing keeping me here in this life, and now my life is up to me and I’m choosing to live it with him. Now, I just have to tell him that. I have to listen to him tell me he doesn't want me there. I have to tell him I’m coming anyway.

  I hit the call button and my hand starts to shake.

  He answers immediately. “Hey, sweet girl. Something wrong?”

  “No,” I say slowly as my hand stops shaking at the sound of his deep voice. “I’m staying in tonight so I thought I’d call a little earlier.”

  “Alright, give me a minute.” I hear him talking to whoever he’s with. He’s leaving to go to his room; he’s always in his room when he talks to me. “What’s going on?” he asks.

  “I have something I need to tell you.”

  “Shit, what happened?” He can tell that this something isn't good.

  “I got a letter in the mail today. I’m coming… to Portland.”

  “Jude, what the hell?”

  “Don’t start with me, Luca. I need to be with you.”

  It sounds like he holds the phone away from his mouth as a frustrated growl rips out of his chest followed, a moment later, by his labored breaths. “No, you don’t. You need to go somewhere new.
.. where you don’t know anyone. Where you can start living. Jude, you need to start cutting this damn tie I have around you. I swear to god, do I need to cut you off completely? ‘Cause I don’t want to do that, but I will. What the hell happened? I thought we talked about this. We had a plan. You were going to go away – from everything. Not crawling back to me to start this shit all over again.”

  “Luca, that was your plan. I've been telling you since the day you left that I was coming as soon as I could. I've sat here for two years. You wasted all of that time staying away from me and I let you, but it’s my choice now, and I still choose you.”

  I can hear his angry breathes on the other end of the phone but he’s not talking. I can see him; he’s running his hand through his black hair, his chiseled jaw is flexed and his dark blue irises are masked by clenched skin.

  “You can be as mean to me as you want, you can stop answering my calls- it won’t change anything. When I get there you can pretend like you don’t know me, but it won’t change anything,” I say before he can tell me exactly how he’s planning to cut me off.

  “Jude, I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “Then don’t do this to us.”

  “You don’t do this to us. I’m eighteen-years-old. Why can’t you let me make my own decisions? What the hell do you want from me? You want me to pack up and move to Siberia and pretend like I don’t have a past? You want me to forget everything painful and dance around in a cute little dress? You want me back on meds that take everything away like my mom? What the hell do you want?” I yell into the phone, shaking again; this time from anger.

  “Sweet girl,” he says, sounding depleted. “I want you happy and safe. I want you to move on to a place that’s good for you. I’m your hole, Jude. I’m your bottom. I’m where you go when you’re at your lowest. I’m your depression. I’m not where you need to be.”

  “Why do you have to say that? Why can’t you accept who I am? If what you’re really afraid of is me being your hole, of me ruining your life, then stop being a coward and just tell me.”

  “Stop it, Jude. You know that’s not true. I live for you. Thinking of you is the only good thing I have,” he says, his voice becoming even more intense.

  “Then what the hell? The happiest I’m ever going to be is with you. The me… that’s with you… that’s it. That’s as happy as I get. Why isn't that good enough for you?”

  “I want you to be who you were before us. You were better then. You were happy.”

  I let out an amused laugh - he’s so delusional. “That girl wasn’t me and she wasn’t happy. There is a difference between being perfectly obedient and perfectly happy. If you want me to put on a long skirt and braid my hair, then I will. If you want me to keep the real me hidden under a fake smile, then I will. If you want the pretend me, then you can have her. I don’t give a shit what version of me you have, just as long as I’m yours.”

  “This is a mistake, Jude. Come here if that’s what you want, but I’m not going to enable us. I’m not going to let us fall back into each other. You deserve more than me and you know it. The only thing I'm capable of is hurting you, of putting you through the worst pain you've ever felt. Come here, if that’s what you want, but I’m not giving into you.”

  “You can be such a cold bastard, you know that? You keep pushing me away and I’ll keep pushing into you. I’m not going to stop, so you might as well.” We've had this conversation so many times and I know my words won’t change anything, but I don’t stop saying them.

  “We’re not going where we were. I won’t let us.”

  “Fine, Luca. Where are we going then? Because it’s gotta be somewhere.”

  “I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out when you get here,” he says, under his breath.

  “Whatever. I changed my mind, I’m going out. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid. Call me when you get home.”

  “Don’t act like you give a crap.”

  “Don’t act like I don’t. You know the deal. You know I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I hiss, hitting the end button on my phone.

  I throw my phone across the bed and close my eyes. He’s so damn infuriating. I still love him and he still loves me so why is he still fighting me?

  He seems so much better now. He has a life in Portland: he has friends and he’s going to school. Whatever was eating up his brain before he left me can’t still be an issue. He’s not the kid he used to be. He’s so much stronger and so much more independent. He can handle anything. Even me. Maybe I should just give up on us like he wants me to. But I can’t. I can’t live a life without him. I know that.

  For two years I haven’t given up on him… on us. Not even for a second. If that’s not enough to convince him that what we had was more than some childhood crush, than I don’t know what is. I don’t know what I can do to convince him that he’s good for me, that he’s what I need and that he’s my only happiness. All I know is that I have to figure it out.

  Chapter Two - Luca

  I pace the floor of my room and mutter obscenities into the air. My head is spinning and my body is buzzing and I know I’m losing control. Just the thought of her coming here is bringing back all the anxiety at the loss of control I experienced during my last year in Iowa when my mind seemed to take a step into crazy town, one piece at a time, until it became where I lived permanently.

  Tonight Jude told me she got into Portland University. Tonight, she told me she’s leaving Iowa and coming – to me. I want her here; I miss her so damn bad. The nightly conversations we have aren't effective. They’re not enough to make me feel as close to her as I need to be. They’re more than enough to let me know that it will always, and only, be Jude.

  But I know there is only one way things can end with us and I know the only way to prevent that ending is to stay away from her. But that is no longer an option.

  “Damn it,” I growl, slamming my hand into the metal tool chest.

  “What are you flipping out about in here, man?” My roommate, Rake, says, pushing a hand into my arm to get my attention.

  “Jude,” I manage to mutter.

  “What about her?”

  “Shit… she’s coming – here. To live here. To go to school here.” Saying it out loud makes my blood pressure rise. She’s going to be here. On her own with no one to watch out for her but me.

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  I stop my pacing and pierce him with my eyes. “Yes, Rake. It’s a bad fucking thing.”

  He shakes his head at me. “I don’t get you, man. How can the girl you’re in love with, coming to the same city as you, be a bad thing?”

  I just stare at him. I shouldn’t have to explain this to him. I’ve been living with him since the day I showed up in this city.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he says, with a smile. “If you think I’ve got your goofy ass figured out, trust me, I don’t. This is the girl you’ve been obsessed with since the minute you came here. She’s the reason why you were such a shit show for the first six months after you showed up here, right? Because you couldn’t stand being away from her.”

  “Exactly,” I tell him. “It’s taken me two years to build some kind of life where I can function without her. I still think about her every minute of every day. How the hell am I gonna stay away from her once she’s in the same city as me?”

  “I never understood what the hell this girl did to mess you up so bad. What’d she do that broke your heart like that?”

  “She didn’t break my heart,” I growl at him out of frustration. “She’s never been anything but completely devoted to me. I mean, hell, when I left her I never thought that she’d do exactly what she said she was gonna do and hold onto me. I figured after a while she would start living her life and forget about me.”

  “Hold up. I thought you were in love with this girl? What am I missing here?”

  I run my hands through
my hair and have a strong urge to just yank it the hell out of my scalp. “Forget it, man. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Oh, hell no. I’ve seen what that girl can do to you. You think I don’t realize that every time you get into one of your psychotic crazy ass moods that it’s because of her? Because of something she said to you or something you saw on that Facebook page you’re always looking at? The way you react around women who get too handsy with you isn’t normal either. And if you think I’m ever gonna forget that scary, shutdown, asshole that I had to live with when you first came here, you’re wrong. So if I’m about to be living with Zombie, Crazy or Irrational Luca once she shows up, I need some fair warning. Let’s get this shit straightened out.”

  “It’s not gonna be good – I can tell you that.”

  “Why? You love the girl, she loves you, she’s moving here to be with you. Why is that bad?”

  “I can’t be with her, Rake. You’ve seen how I get. You know what an asshole I am… the violent shit I’m capable of. And you’re right… when I get angry or I shut down or start using or drinking too much, it’s because of something she said or something I saw or a memory of us or Jonah that I can’t extract from my brain. I can’t even think about us, about who we were, about Jonah, without losing it. The phone calls are almost more than I can handle…”

  “So, what? You’re afraid you’re gonna hurt her?”

  “Yeah. Always. But mostly it’s the loss of control. She was in her corner of the world where I couldn’t touch her. It didn’t matter what I thought or did because none of that affected her. She was in her box where I couldn’t hurt her. It hurts like hell being away from her. But it was such a monumental relief knowing that I wasn’t going to fuck her life up, that she was free to move on, find her life, fall in love with someone else. Once she comes here I don’t know how anything besides the two of us falling right back into who we were is gonna be an option.”

  “Shit, Luca. That’s some weighty crap. Seems like you’re stressing way too much over the whole situation. Ninety nine percent of the time you’re a good guy – one of the best guys I’ve ever known. I mean, hell, if I had to present someone with the best buddy title it would definitely be you. And I’ve never seen anyone so in love with and committed to another person as you are to that girl. The girl you haven’t even seen for years. That’s gotta be enough to keep you in the good guy zone, right? I mean, I can’t see Asshole Luca going anywhere near the girl that you’re so in love with.”