Chapter 336: Danny XXXI—Bright Eyes
He couldn’t see her face, her long, glossy, raven black hair spilled and sparkled all over her shoulders, down her back to her waist, and tilted forward at such an angle, her features couldn’t be seen. He could see her knees, peeking from her pleated skirt and reddening in the sun, and she held onto a large binder, leafing through its pages. Hell he didn’t know how young she was, but he did know it was too young.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked over his shoulder feeling guilty, but what had he done? He only talked to her once a week when he saw her around and the only time he had ever touched her was after he had accidentally mowed her down trying to catch that damn football. No crime in that. Well, no one he knew watched him. He spit onto the grass and then approached her.
“Hey there bright eyes.”
Cecile looked up from her binder, snapped it shut and her face beamed with a smile. “Danny!” She exclaimed. "How are you doing?” Her eyes seemed a little pink though, her cheeks raw, as if she had been crying. His stomach knotted, he hated those weeks, when he could see she had been sad, and those were the weeks that he couldn’t bear to think about her.
“Just great, I’ve been thinking…” He stopped himself. He didn’t know what she would say if he told her that he’d been thinking about her.
Her smile softened. “You’ve been thinking?”
“Ah it doesn’t matter,” Danny said briskly and he sat down on the soft grass next to her. “Just about my future and all that, you know…” He stopped himself from saying “grown up stuff” because he definitely knew she wouldn’t take kindly to that one.
She lifted an ebony eyebrow. “I know?”
Danny coughed and looked away. “Oh just things.”
“Military school is pretty tough, huh?” Cecile said kindly.
“Sure,”
Danny replied. He didn’t know why he had told her he still attended
“Wasn’t?” Cecile asked, catching on immediately.
Danny
nodded. “I mean, ah, well, I didn’t tell you, I mean I didn’t let you believe
the entire truth actually.” He scratched his head. “I don’t go to
Cecile crossed her arms, and the look of worry on her face about killed him, those bright eyes of hers widening. “Drafted? Can they DO that? I mean there isn’t a war going on is there? They can’t just take a student and throw him into a uniform without him being ready to…”
Danny laughed. “No, no, hon, not the army.”
Cecile wrinkled her nose. “Ok I’m really confused now.”
“Hockey, I’ve been drafted by the NHL.” Maybe she’ll be impressed by that prospect, he thought. Argh, why the hell do I want to impress this kid anyway!
Cecile turned her face a little and half grinned. “Like the Rangers? That sort of thing?”
“Yeah!” Danny said more eagerly than he would have wanted to
and he almost patted her arm. “Yeah, except it’s in
“Sure,” Cecile said pursing her lips. “That’s a ton. I can imagine.” Cecile looked away from him; he could feel her snapping away. Danny felt his heart stop.
“Does that bother you?” He asked. “I mean is that too weird? Do you not like hockey?”
“Oh hockey’s just fine,” Cecile said but she didn’t look at him. Her pretty, dainty little profile twitched a little at the nose. “My school has a team, I’ve seen a little bit of it, real popular stuff. That’s great if that’s what you want to do but…” He saw her lips pinch closed, holding back. God why did he have to tell her anything?
“But?” Danny asked.
Cecile shrugged. “I’m just jealous I guess.” She laughed weakly. “Stupid huh?”
“Why? You want to play hockey?”
Cecile shook her head and looked at him, her eyes moist. “No not hockey, I mean… well you’ve got so many options with your life, so many plans, you’re so free! I guess I’m just jealous of that, I wish I could have your prospects. As it is I’ll probably spend the rest of my life in classes or a nun or something.”
Oh GOD no not a nun! What kind of waste would that be!
Danny smiled. “Hey, kiddo,” he said instantly hating himself when he saw her eyes flash quickly, “Look it’ll be a lot different when you’ve got your own car, and you’re driving by yourself, things’ll open up for you. Are you taking driver’s classes yet?”
“No, mother didn’t let me sign up for any,” Cecile said glumly. “I don’t suspect she wants me driving until I’m eighteen at least. I mean she doesn’t see much point to it, because the city being so crowded and we have George who’ll take us everywhere.”
They had a chauffer? It never occurred to him how much money Cecile could be coming from. And then he thought about the tuition for her school, he knew that alone had to be a small fortune.
“Well that’s only a few months away?” Danny said carefully. He had never asked her age before, and she had never offered it so that signaled to him that both of them were wary of the subject.
Cecile grinned through her teeth, “Try a few years away.”
“Fifteen!” Danny exclaimed. “You’re only fifteen!” Already he could feel it, the licks of Hades’ fire crisping his flesh off his bones, turning him into a cinder.
“Hey, in October I’ll be sixteen, that’s, that’s still a lot younger than you thought I was, I’m sorry, really, I should have told you before, if you want to run now, I mean if you never want to see me again, I can understand. I mean, I’m just a kid.” She sighed, she swallowed, and she looked so damn helpless that Danny knew at that exact moment there would be no way in hell any other man would ever get near her without his permission. “It’s just, that you’re so nice.” She swallowed again, her hands shook. “I just liked it, I mean you’re so nice to me and not like any other boy, erm, guy, I just didn’t want to lose you that fast.”
“You’re afraid of losing me?” He couldn’t help grinning, especially when she turned scarlet to her ears and she pressed her hands to her cheeks, staring at the grass.
“Please, don’t pick on me.” She whispered. “I don’t like being teased.”
“No girl does,” Danny said softly, and he brushed a strand of hair off her forehead, seeing the goose bumps rise on her arms. “Hey do you want to learn how to drive then?”
Cecile peeked at him with kitty cat eyes. “Really?”
Danny nodded. “Sure, you don’t have to tell anyone. When do you have to be home?”
“By six, Mother thinks I’m at the library anyway.”
It struck Danny as so odd that she never said “Mom”. He couldn’t ever remember a kid saying “mother” so consistently.
She clung to him on the subway, her body pressed into his back, one arm around his waist and he knew it was because of fear. It would be a worthy bet to assume she had never been “huddled with the dirty masses” before. By the way she jumped at every moment he could tell she was terrified, at being caught defying her mom, just leaving what she felt comfortable with to follow a strange man. He wondered if she was beating herself up mentally now for even going through with this. In fact Danny had to wonder as well, he could be anyone trying to lure her away.
He closed his eyes. Oh God he could feel her breasts, her thighs pressing into him from behind. Sooner or later there was going to be some big trouble.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I’m staying just outside the city, there are some great places there to drive, not many people around….” Oh that sounded bad. No one to hear you scream my precious! She probably would bolt now.
“Oh,” she said in a soft, timid voice. “Sounds fun.”
“Okay slow down, slow down, BRAKE, BRAKE, BRAKE!”
The wheels squealed and Danny’s stomach flew into his stomach as Cecile finally stomped on the brakes slamming the car to a stop inches away from a fence marking the end of the road. “Holy…” Danny gasped, clutching his chest. He looked at Cecile who panted and smiled.
“How’d I do?”
“Girl are you a speed demon or what?”
Cecile blew out a breath. “Um, well it’s my first time. I’m sorry. Did I scare ya?”
Danny laughed. “Sure, I saw my untimely, grisly end, splattered on the hood of a car, not that scary.”
“Poo,” Cecile sniffed defensively. “You have a seatbelt on!” A flash of haughty, alabaster ice queen beauty peeked through, what she could be as a woman, fully fleshed and untouchable and Danny’s heart throbbed harder. She could be all mine! Look at her confidence; the way she holds her head, God would I love to have her in my palm!
“Oh hey,” Danny said quickly, tearing his gaze away from her, “Tossed your binder on the floor.” He leaned over to pick up the binder which had scattered some of its contents. It looked like newspaper clippings.
“Oh let me
get that!” Cecile cried so quickly and desperately that Danny’s “peeking in the
forbidden journal” radar went off.
“Why what is it?” Danny asked
teasingly and he grabbed one of the papers and used his shoulder to fend her
feeble attacks off. “Something secret? Something” he gasped mockingly,
“forbidden?”
“Oh just give it back!” Cecile exclaimed.
Danny read
the clipping, only a short photo copy of an article and he frowned. Something
about the owner of a junior hockey team committing suicide from years ago.
Granby Bisons, he knew that team, somewhere in
“Cecilia?” he asked.
Cecile’s face blanched and she tugged at one of her ears nervously. No piercings there, he noticed. He had never noticed that before. Not even her ears were pierced. “Only Mother calls me that sometimes. I hate it.”
“I…” Danny tucked the article back in the binder feeling like the biggest shit of all. “Look I’m sorry it’s none of my business, I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I never knew him,” Cecile said softly, “Well I mean obviously, he was dead before I was born. It’s not like I have any emotional investments, I got that out of the library today, I was just curious, it’s weird finding things like that about your past, you know? Kinda scary.”
“You mean you never knew?” Danny asked.
Cecile shook her head. “Mother never told me. I guess she protected me and all that, but I just wanted to know about my real father, and so I just took a chance that maybe it would be in the newspaper archives or something. I don’t really know what to think about it.”
“Yeah,” Danny said. “I can see that being real confusing.” He put it back on the dashboard.
“It’s nothing real private I guess, it’s just a scrapbook, you can look at it if you want.” Her voice sounded so light and childish, that Danny grinned. He opened it up and looked at the collection of newspaper articles.
“So what kind of stuff are you collecting? All about your family?”
“Kinda,” Cecile said and she sounded so excited, perhaps relieved to actually share this with someone. “I don’t know it seems like something neat to pass on someday, just clippings of stories and stuff that interest me or are about my family. So like, someone someday can maybe guess about what was really important to me.”
“Mmhmm,” Danny replied, pausing on an article mentioning her
mother’s sale of the hockey team in
“Is that real pathetic?” Cecile asked in a worried voice.
Danny closed the binder. “Not at all bright eyes,” and he felt so pleased at her pink cheeks and smile. She obviously liked that nick name. “Can I kiss you?” Oh you stupid shit, you really are a stupid shit Danny!
Cecile’s expression froze, her eyes like round marbles, her lips slightly open. “No,” she said quickly, with a terrified gasp. “Of course not.”
A sigh of relief rattled in Danny’s breast, she had relieved him of responsibility, things could die right here, and just remain an awkward, unspoken memory. Sure he scared the poor kid, but at least he wouldn’t have to wonder. “Yeah, I’m sorry,” he shook his head, “I shouldn’t have, I mean it must have been my near death experience just a couple of minutes…”
He felt her fingers over his ears, her cool palms against his cheeks and her soft lips pressed against his. Danny’s eyes widened and he looked into her eyes which sparkled with green fire and childish desperation. She didn’t know how to kiss; he just felt the pressure of her lips, the innocence of them. He touched the side of her neck with his palm, just lightly, he thought about opening her lips, tasting her a little more, but he knew that would be out of the…
Danny’s stomach quivered. He knew he hadn’t done it, but her lips opened and encouraged him in, just briefly into her heated little mouth and his brain bubbled over with bliss, an ecstasy unparalleled, a pleasure intense from just a kiss. Already he recognized addiction, and he knew there wasn’t an escape from it.
“Gah!” He gasped, and he fell back when she suddenly pushed him. She fumbled with the door handle and seatbelt, rolled out of the car and began to fun.
“Cecile!” He called out, his heart pounding with fear and desire. Too far, too much. How scared must she be? “Cecile wait!” Damn she ran fast! “Cecile!” He cursed when she disappeared into a grove of trees, and he ran faster, not wanting her to find some passerby and beg to be rescued. “Cecile!”
He stopped. A stream cut through the grove and he found Cecile on the bank, on her knees in the damp, mossy ground. She had her face tilted to the sky, her pale throat exposed as if ready for a sacrificial knife; her lips moved rapidly, he couldn’t understand her whispers. Her hands clutched something at her breast, her hair tousled and glossied in all directions.
His breath stopped. A painting, a sculpture, a myth, a fairy tale, a saint, a unicorn, he recognized magic when he saw it. He recognized blessings, and suddenly something seemed so right to him, everything he had ever wondered about was explained. All of those times he had pushed women away in bars, women he could have gone home with, women his friends went to bed with, women he could have dated, all of those times he could never explain why he never plain screwed a woman senseless, became clear to him. What he had been waiting for, he had never recognized until now. Here she was. His, she belonged to him because he had found her first.
At that moment he knew he could stand there, watching her forever in this pose, did she know how she looked to him? Did she know that he was even there? He licked his lips and shuffled. Only when he saw a line of blood trickling down the back of her hands, down the line of her arm and onto the white of her shirt did he intervene.
“Cecile!” he exclaimed running to her side. “You’re bleeding!” He grabbed her hands and her eyes opened, her mouth closed. She didn’t say anything or protest as he coaxed her fingers open and looked at her wounds. They were half circle gouges, tiny but enough to bleed on the back of her knuckles, pressed into her palm was a glinting, emerald crucifix. “What did you do to yourself?”
She didn’t answer and he looked at those wounds, realizing that they were from her fingernails. That’s how tightly she had her hands clasped. “Are you a little bit insane?” he asked softly, loving her all the more for it. A damaged little creature to take care of and worship.
“I had a dream last night,” she whispered. “That I was alone in a dark room, with no light and then I could feel someone near me, someone warm and I couldn’t see who it was until a flash, a bang. It was almost like a gun shot and I felt it in my breast,” she touched her hand to her chest, “Right here. I felt it sharp and burning and the blood spread all over and I got cold. I supposed I was dying and I didn’t know why, it was like someone shot me.”
Danny touched her cheeks, her eyes shone with tears and spiritual radiance, her skin blotched pink with emotion. He kissed her as she spoke, her forehead and her cheeks and her chin. Just soft little kisses.
“I didn’t know what it meant, I didn’t know why I would dream about being shot and now I do.”
Danny hugged her close to him, her cheek soft and damp on his chest. “You do?”
“Yes,” Cecile whispered. “When you asked if you could kiss me, it hurt me so much in my heart, it felt as if I were being bombed inside, shot through. And when I kissed you I felt so cold and soft, and relaxed inside as if some inflammation inside me were cured. And it will kill me because it forces me to break a promise.” Her arms wrapped around him. “I’m sorry.”
“What promise is that?” Danny asked already resolved to fight and eliminate the source of her promise to keep her.
“I promised God that I would belong to Him forever and ever, I would belong to no other. Because my love for Him and my duties to him are pure, and they’re something not even Mother can take from me. I talk to Him all the time, and, He must know my promise so well by now, and here I am, breaking it.”
Danny closed his eyes. “Wouldn’t He want you to be happy?”
“But what will we do right now?” Cecile whispered and he could feel her pulse racing. “Make love? Sin? Defy everything that He wrote down because of our wants? Danny I said I was jealous of you and that I wouldn’t want to die a Nun but really, deep down I know that’s where I belong and…”
“Oh stop it!” Danny snapped and he gripped onto her shoulders and held her at arms length. The girl wasn’t insane; she was simply overwrought with adolescent passion for religion. “I won’t force you to do anything you feel would compromise you okay? But you must do what you feel you can, not what you feel you’re compelled to. Your heart, Cecile, God didn’t give you a heart to ignore it, did He?”
Her lip trembled. “No I suppose He wouldn’t.”
“If you believe that, kiss me right now, and then I’ll take you home.”
Her lips
joined his before he could breathe.