As I Fade (One Breath at a Time: Book 1) (4 page)

Facing reality I fisted my fingers together, still trying to get the blood supply to circulate properly.

Inside one of my coat pockets, entwining with the fur lining, I detected the contrast of the delicate silver chain. I’d forgotten I put it there, earlier. It felt as cold as my fingers. I grasped at the heart pendant that dangled from it.

“
At least I still have the necklace he gave me,” I whispered to myself, carefully pulling it from my pocket. Without hesitation, I slipped the long thin chain over my head. For safekeeping, I tucked it beneath the neckline of my shirt. The weight of the pendant plummeted between my breasts. It felt like an ice cube as it shimmied further down past my bra against my stomach. As goose bumps traced over my flesh—
goose bumps
—a reminder of what he always evoked in me—I recalled how he’d begged me to wear the necklace at all times. In an instant, my neck muscles tightened. I irately swiped away the tears that pricked my eyelids. I couldn’t think about him right now. I mentally snapped my fingers again. Unsuccessfully. Too late, I’d let my emotions take over. A diversion was in order. Anything to distract me from my negative thoughts that were bursting at the seams.

Glancing around, I noticed the lady’s old newspaper in the empty seat next to me. The lady had forgotten her favorite find. She’d rambled on about how precious it was to her but had left it behind. I held back a laugh. Kooky little lady. I picked up the paper and examined it. It appeared genuine enough and pretty damn old.

My eyes scanned the headline on the front page, dodging the food stains of course. The stock market had dropped quite a bit that day; that was worthy news. In the lower corner of the paper the small print seemed to pop out like a neon sign.

How odd...

As I read the seventeen-year old news, I bit into the glazed donut that I’d purchased earlier. The article was about a little girl who had been kidnapped in my old neighborhood. Of course, it was years ago, but still interesting. The article soon drew me in that I forgot the fact that it wasn’t real. Damn, I wondered if she had been found and if my family knew of her. My parents knew most of the children in our neighborhood because they worked in the school system and it appeared the little girl had been missing for over several months.

Continue on page eight
...

Gosh, the paper didn’t even mention the little girl’s name on the front page; something that relevant should have been in the lead paragraph. Since it wasn’t only confirmed that the paper wasn’t authentic, after all. I turned to page eight and zoomed in on the article.

As I read it, I gasped, choking down a piece of the donut that caught in my windpipe.

“
The family is devastated,” said a neighbor appointed by the bereaved couple as their spokesperson upon learning that little Brielle Eden’s remains had been discovered in an abandoned old sewer plant in Queens, late last night.

My heart pounded out of my chest. I reread the sentence several times, questioning my eyesight. My stomach turned upside down.

“What the fuck,” I said out loud; a little too loud since there were children easily within earshot. My hands were shaking so badly that I dropped the donut. Was this some kind of sick joke? I stared at my name.
My name: Brielle Eden!
The world around me suddenly went blank for a few seconds. I went somewhere nonexistent; I don’t know where. I felt sick to my stomach, and it was only the excruciating nausea that brought me back to this plane of existence.

This isn’t true. It can’t be. I’m right here. It’s a mistake.

“You found my paper.” My eyes dully lifted, seeing, but not seeing, until they found the source of the voice. Once again, the little old lady stood above me. Her violet eyes glowed in the artificial light of the train.

My words caught in my lungs if that were possible. “What, what - is this?” I forced out.

“What?” she asked nonchalantly.

“
This?” I shoved the paper into her face. “Read it,” I ordered, shaking inside.

A man growled over my shoulder, “Hey Lady, what’s your problem? Why are you pushing her around?” I felt his eyes burning holes into my back. “Leave her alone!”

Automatically, I flipped my head around toward him. “Mind your own business,” I hissed.

Taken aback by my vehemence he didn’t respond openly but I could
hear
his continued snarling at me inside his head.

“
It’s okay, Claude. I can handle this, but thank you,” the old woman said to him, giving him an innocently childlike smile.

“
Anytime. You don’t deserve that kind of treatment.”

Oh my God, he made me sound like a monster.

“She means no harm, Claude.” Her eyes beheld me earnestly. “I think she’s in shock or something.”

They were talking about me as if I wasn’t there.

“Claude, isn’t it a lovely day? We should all rejoice.” The old woman tilted her chin high into the air, marveling on and on as if life were perfect. Needing to know what was going on and how this article, this
newspaper
even existed when I sat right here, alive and physically well, I interrupted their pleasantries.

I urgently tapped at the newspaper with my index finger to get the old woman’s attention. “Please, tell me what this is about?”

“Oh that...yes, it’s about...” She looked upward, closed her eyes, shook her head from side to side, flashed her eyes open again and looked down at me. “A sad story. So sad. So pitiful. I’ve read it many times, too. The little girl had such a pretty name...Brianna Edison. The evil man that kidnapped her stole her puppy, too. Such a sad story, it made me cry.”

I shook my head, confused. “Who?
Brianna
—no, the one about—me.”

“
You, dear?” Her eyes questioned me.

“
Yes, me,” my voice cracked as I grabbed the paper, targeting my eyes in on the little girl’s name again. “My name is right here—”
Brianna Edison.
I rapidly blinked my eyes to clear my vision, and then peered at the name again to insure my eyes weren’t deceiving me.

“
How could it be about you, Dear?” the old woman asked with a hint of sympathy. Her voice sounded far away and wobbly.

“
But—it said...” I looked down at the name again, dumbfounded. Although I felt overwhelmingly hot, my body broke out in such an intense cold sweat.

The old woman frowned at me. A worried expression clouded her eyes. “See, it’s not about you at all. Thank goodness, huh? I told you before—oh dear—it’s not a true story.” She sat down next to me and consolingly patted my shoulder.

“It’s not?” I asked automatically, as my mind spun on full cycle. Instantly, I felt as if I had morphed into a child as the little old lady comforted me.

“
Oh no, not at all, dearling. Look. I told you it wasn’t real.” She pointed to the bottom of the page. “But it still made me sad, of course.”

The footnote read:
These stories are not real events.

I stared at the print. The words blurred. Involuntary tears filled my eyes.

“Well, Dear, can I have my paper back?” she asked.

“
Yes...I’m not sure why...I mean—my eyes saw my name,” I stuttered as I handed her the newspaper.

“
It’s alright. Maybe you’re hungry and you’re sugar is low. You’re such a skinny ba-link.”

I tightened my lips nodding. “Yes, maybe that’s it.” I inhaled deeply.

“Listen, it’s nothing to cry over. Our eyes can play tricks on us sometimes. Don’t believe everything you read,” the old woman said with a motherly inflection in her voice.

“
Can I ask why you embarrassed me earlier? That wasn’t very nice.”

She shrugged. “You seemed so uptight. You should laugh more often. Even, if it’s at your own self. Why are you so serious? You’re too young to be worrying all the time. What in the world happened to you over the years? Did someone get under your skin one too many times?” She rushed out the series of questions in a single breath.

Feeling uncomfortable and shocked by her forwardness, I lied, of course. “It’s nothing like that. And, I’m not serious,” I quipped defensively.

The old woman sighed and said, “Could have fooled me.”

“Actually today—I had something happen that—” Why was I about to tell her my business? She’d probably blabber it to the entire crowd on the train. I continued, “I’m not serious, my friends and I laugh all the time. I’m just really tired.”

“
Dearling, you will have many blessings if you allow them to come to you.” Ironically, her tone turned serious. “You should be glad it wasn’t your name.”

“
Huh?” I murmured. Where did that come from?

“
See,
Brielle
, what you did years ago changed the lives of many little girls.” Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew what she was talking about.

“
What?” I shook my head as chills tingled over my flesh. “How do you know my name? I never told you—and—”

“
Sure you did. Don’t you remember?” She pushed up from the seat.

“
No, I didn’t,” I protested firmly because if anything I knew I hadn’t told her my birth name. I wasn’t going to let her escape without a worthy explanation.

She shrugged. “Hmmm, I thought you did. By the way, my name is Mary,” she said coyly, trying to change the subject. She reached out her hand to shake mine. Unwillingly, I offered her a lame handshake, only grazing the edge of her fingertips. A tinge of electricity entered into my body. “Did you feel that?” she asked and laughed. “Osmosis! Wow, we’re connected, huh?”

“Osmosis???”
I thought, blinking up at her. Was this woman cracked, or what? “I don’t know what’s going on here. To be honest I don’t think—” I paused.

Mary stuck out her bottom lip and tilted her head, slightly. “I got the third eye,” she piped out, touching her index finger to the middle of her creased forehead. “I’m for real. Not one of those fakes who’ll make you pay big dollars for a bunch of nonsense.
Real
insight,
valuable
insight should be free. If someone really knows something worth telling they should tell it.
I’ll
tell you profound things for free,” she boasted, totally convinced by the definition of her words. She wagged her head from side to side, saying, “No, sir! Won’t see me charging good folks money for honest insight.”

I sighed, pondering her words—her homeless, poor little old lady gambit seemed a little sketchy to me. Hell, I gifted her 50 euros and got nothing in return except an embarrassing moment. The only “valuable insight” she had given me was to not trust anyone. She’d just blurted out a bunch of obscure, convoluted bullshit that held no truth—proof—to back up her empty words. So what, she knew my name. Insight my ass!

The train jerked. Her arms dramatically waved into the air, then grabbed onto the back of the seat, catching her balance. “Wheee...that was fun!” she said with a gleeful grin. “See, you should lighten up and have some fun, like me. Enjoy the ride!”

Bullshit though it was, I couldn’t help myself; I wanted proof of her self-professed abilities. “Yeah...but Ma’am—wait, please, just a minute,” I stuttered, swallowing against the hoarseness in my throat. “What did you mean by what I did years ago changed many lives?”

Her body stiffened for just a moment, but her jovial mien returned almost immediately. “Gods, to go,” she chortled. “I mean
gots
to go. Things to do, ya know.” She turned on her heels and exited into the connecting train so quickly it seemed she vanished right before my eyes. As if she had just...
Faded!

What the fuck was that all about?

Flabbergasted, I sank into my seat, trying to make sense of what had just happened. My heart raced, my chest tightened and my eyes watered from the pain. I felt feverish, flushed and encased in ice all at once. The old woman, and how she knew my name, the newspaper article, none of it made sense. Surely it was all just a strange act of coincidence—the kind that sends you into a feverish delirium—and a crazy old lady who thought she possessed the Third Eye, she must have seen me somewhere before. That had to be the case. It was the only rational explanation my brain would accept for what had just happened. It was either that or the unthinkable: I—myself, was going nuts.

Attempting to pull my thoughts together, I diverted my attention to my fingers. Yuck. They were ink-stained from the newspaper, and God only knew whatever else had been on it. I rummaged through the contents of my purse, searching for hand sanitizer. Eyeing the small container, something felt terribly amiss. I panicked.

“Wait! I squealed aloud. “Where’s my credit card?” I frantically fumbled through the contents of my purse, rechecking it several times, and then scanned the area around me, looking for the shiny plastic rectangle. I searched everywhere, on the floor beneath me, on my seat, the one next to me, my jeans and in my coat pockets. Nothing. It was gone. The sweet little lady
(what an understatement)
must have taken it.
Her
“insight” obviously told her I was an easy mark. She had somehow managed to pickpocket my card with her sticky little fingers. In a way I felt a sense of relief, stealing my credit card explained how she’d known my name.