Blackout By Hallie (halmart@newmex.com)
Blackout Author’s Note: This fic was inspired by the state-wide blackout that happened in March. I live in Taos, so I got to experience it first-hand and this is what the darkness felt like to me, although I don’t have an overwhelming fear of the dark. After it ended I knew I had to play on it for a fic.
Feedback: I just got my first feedback letter for my story “Magic” and I just realized how rewarding it can be. Please send me some to feed my meager self-esteem. Thanks!
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Maria watched the light from her scented candle dance on the ceiling of her room. The wildberry scent enveloped her, taking the edge off her complete and utter fear.
She had always been afraid of the dark. No, that’s not true. It had started when the fights had. She would lie in bed in the dark, cowering to sound of her mother crying and her father screaming. Since then she had come to see the dark as a foe, as a curse that could not be lifted. It was in the night when her father had left, when she had broken her arm trying to get to the kitchen for water, when her mother would come in with a burgeoning black eye and rock her to sleep.
Liz and Alex were the only ones who knew about her incredible fear of the dark. They would sleep over when they were younger and she would always insist on leaving the light on. At first they teased her about it, but slowly they understood her as more about her father came out. Then they just stopped talking about it, and suffered through the night-light.
She was listening to KTAO for company. The company was usually just static, but when she got the antennae at just a certain angle, she could get something that she could make out as speech. “State-wide blackout . . . forty hour . . . no power . . . haha.”
Maria could catch the jist.
Hers was one of the, like, two phones that was working in the goddamn town. Liz’s wasn’t. Or Alex’s. She had even tried Michael out of desperation. But no go. Might as well. She was upset enough without riding the Michael-Roller-Coaster-of-Emotions. Fun for the whole family.
She then had a thought that she quickly shut out of her mind then reeled it back in.
Isabel.
No, no, no. Not the ice princess. She used to be ice queen but got demoted in her very wide-set tid-bits of emotion. Plus, if she called the Evans’ she would probably have to talk to Max, who she had not been able to look at or talk to without picturing him with his shirt off, on top of Liz. Uh.
Maria liked Max, she really did. But for some reason, she looked at him no more than a brother and picturing him in any sexual situation made her all queasy inside. Come to think of it, thinking of any guy in a sexual situation kind of made her queasy.
Damn Michael. It was all his fault. Now she couldn’t have any relationship with any NORMAL guy because of him.
Maria noticed that she was squeezing the neck of her stuffed elephant that was always on her bed, but she rarely cuddled with. Only in the dark.
Oh what the hell, she thought. Might as well. Her hand searched for the phone in the dark, grasping the receiver and pulling it toward her ear with the skilled hand of an experienced talker. Her fingertips danced over the glowing green numbers and the familiar sound of a dial tone rang in her head. “Hello?”
Damn. It was Max.
“Uh, hey it’s, Maria.” Don’t think about Max, don’t think about Max, don’t think about Max.
“Oh, hey, Maria. The blackout thing at your house too?”
Maria relaxed about a centimeter. “Yeah.”
“Oh. I tried Liz. No go.”
Maria relaxed a little more. “Yeah. I tried her too. And Alex. And Michael.”
Max laughed one of those very rare laughs. “Sounds like you’ve been busy.”
Maria decided talking to Max wasn’t so bad. “Well, I had to have someone to talk to. I’m afraid of the dark, and I kind of get over my fear by talking.”
“You’re afraid of the dark?”
Now why the hell did you have to blurt that out, Maria? “Not a big fear. Not a big fear.” She repeated herself a little quieter the second time, trying to convince herself.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
She sat in silence for a second listening to her best friend’s boyfriend breath, in and out. It was kind of reassuring, listening to him breathe.
“So is Isabel there?”
“Nope. She’s at Gracie’s. Mom told her not to drive home.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
They sat in silence for so long that Maria almost forgot that she had the phone to her ear. Then Max asked something that totally caught her off-guard. “So what’s up with you and Michael?”
She didn’t answer for a while. Max wondered if he had offended her. He wasn’t really used to the idea of having friends yet. Outside of Michael and Isabel.
“I don’t know.” Her voice was so quiet that Max could hardly make it out.
“Maria, Michael’s crazy about you. He just doesn’t know how much yet. He’ll come through. He always does.”
She stayed quiet. Max let her think, fingering the chain around his neck. Liz had given it to him. It was so fine that the metal flowed through his fingers like water. His hand slowly traveled down it until it reached the middle of his chest, where a pendant lay cool against his bare skin. It was shaped like the symbol from the cave painting. Liz had drawn it and had it made for him. Sometimes Max thought about the jeweler, if he ever wondered what they strange symbol was. But all those thoughts drifted out of his mind when he thought about the hopeful look on Liz’s face when he had opened the box.
Max was so caught up in his own thoughts that he hadn’t even realized that Maria had spoken.
“What?”
“I said, if you hurt her again I will have to reach down your throat and pull out your esophagus.”
Max couldn’t help but laugh at Maria’s serious tone and the picture of the blonde-haired pixie with her hand down his throat. “Trust me, if I do hurt her again, I’ll ask you to.”
Maria smiled at Max’s serious response. “Understood.”
They sat in silence for a while longer, though this period of quiet was slightly less uncomfortable.
Maria was suddenly blinded by the light of her overhead lamp. The lights were on! “Some forty hour blackout,” she grumbled.
“Yeah.”
She started at Max’s voice. Once again she had forgotten he was there.
“Thanks for keeping me company, Max.”
“No prob. You up for a bite at the Crashdown? I want to see how Liz is doing.”
“Yeah. I’ll pick you up.”
“Thanks. And Maria?”
“Yeah?”
“Call Michael.”
“I will.”
“Good. Bye.”
“Later.”