Page 1 of Carver
Chapter 1
Carver
It’s not the nightmares that haunt my soul. It’s the sweet dreams that leave me gasping and I always wake soaked in a cold sweat.
It’s almost never the same dream twice, but the theme is constant.
The future that I’ll never have.
The woman I’ll never stop loving.
I shake my head like a wet dog, trying to dispel the lingering mist of the dream even though it’s been hours since I got up and got to work, but it’s stubborn. The images aren’t water. They’re claws that dig deep into tissue and bone.
I pull out the old metal chair to the side of my battered workbench and drop into it. I angle my left hand across my body so that I can grasp the right. I tug on my fingers, one by one, as if that will bring the muscle memory back and teach them to be useful again.
My left hand is calloused and dusty from hours of carving. It’s not like Avandale, an hour and a half southeast of Seattle is known for its sweltering weather and we’re well past summer, but today, it’s hot. I’m an early riser, not by choice, but more from habit, especially when I surface from one of those dreams. I want to be as busy as possible to distract my mind.
Not that it ever works.
I crept to the shop this morning when the sky was still an ambiguous shade of blue gray. I’ve been working on a new piece for the past few hours. Half man, half bull. I have several pieces of alabaster I considered, but the marble called to me.
I’ve been working for hours, and slowly, without my noticing, the sun has heated the place up. I’ll have an hour or two in here while it’s bearable, but then I’ll have to get out or suffocate.
My neck often cramps when I work, as though my body hasn’t quite adjusted to the one sided battle that I force it to perform. I only have proper use of my left hand, arm, and shoulder, but I’ve been forcing that side of my body to work twice as hard for a while now.
I lift my hand to my neck and try to ease the painful cramp that’s seized there. I tilt my head, rubbing hard with my calloused fingers against muscles that feel like they’ve also turned to stone.
I stand and start to pace. The dome is emptier than it’s been in years. It’s unnerving, now that so many of the sculptures are gone.
Without their carved faces, my world is even emptier.
I pace for a few minutes before I realize that I’m doing my physical therapy exercises with my right hand and arm. I’ve had so much practice over the past year and a half that it’s second nature.
My eyes steal from the worn section of the workbench with my tools spread out, over to the far right side of the shop, over to the place where I nearly died. I spent hours rocking back and forth, wedging a hole under the stone that toppled onto me,shimmying and bleeding out into the dirt, until I could drag myself back to the workbench for my phone.
I’m still thinking about the day I almost died, when I hear it. The crunch of gravel in my driveway before the truck door even bangs shut.
In the past, that hollow bang, metal on metal of a seventy-eight Ford pickup, used to bring me such unspeakable joy. Happiness, wild and untamable, because I never imaged that someone as pure and beautiful as Bronte could bemine.
My pulse picks up, enough adrenaline dumping through my veins that I’m able to wrench on my zip up and draw the hoodie in record time, ignoring the way the bones in my right shoulder grind together, and the fire that feels like tissues torn apart in my lower arm.
I have my bad side angled to the wall before the shop’s beat up metal door pushes in.
It’s so fitting that Bronte is ushered in by a beam of sunlight.
My heart slams against my ribs and rush of emotion clogs my throat—most of it anger. None of it at her, all of it directed to the unfair fucking universe.
I’ve never been someone who’s wanted to put my fist through a wall or break something. The last thing I ever wanted to become was my father, or one of my uncles. It’s engrained in my nature to run, to make myself invisible, as small as possible.
I can’t run now. There’s nowhere to hide. I hate this trapped, cornered sensation that closed over my head like a muddy bog, sucking me down into the black.
“Hey!” Bronte’s bow lips arch into a wide smile that I’ve done nothing to deserve. She shuts the door, cutting off the wind. But the sunlight is still here. It’s trapped inside of her, glowing on her skin, shining from her soft caramel eyes. Her voice is the music my soul has been yearning for. “You’re here.” She registers the empty space a second later, her smile falling away. “Whoa,” she breathes, doing a quick onceover of the workshop. “Where are all the sculptures?”
In the past, I’ve made arrangements with her to be here for pickups. Most customers purchase online, but their couriers or delivery people have to come here. Bronte makes sure that part of my job goes smoothly. Even before the accident, I shut out as much of the world as possible.
After tracing the near empty area where I cluster all the finished works, her eyes land back on me. There are windows punched haphazardly all around the shop. They let in more than enough light for me to work and they highlight the way Bronte’s face softens as soon as her gaze settles on me again.
She’s so in love with me, and as it always does, it chips away at my insides. I’m a block of stone, but not one that can be carved. I’m the one that goes wrong, that keeps breaking, pieces chipping off like shale, falling away and away and away, until there’s nothing left.
