Day Loves Night

Cecil

The candle flickers in the dark as he stares at it. Cecil can feel its brightness already becoming an after image in his eyes. With one quick puff it’s extinguished, and the scent of sweet vanilla becomes burnt.

He flops back down on his bed his blankets tangled around his legs. The ache in his chest swells as he stares at the ceiling. Glow in the dark stars from my past shine down from the ceiling.

Cecil only feels this lonely at night. During the day he feels fine, kind of, he means, He is a happy person. He just doesn’t want to feel so lonely.

He rolls onto his other side and stares at the dark blue wall turned black in the night. Cecil closes close his eyes and tries to force sleep to come snatch him up.

It doesn’t work.

He huffs and kicks his legs out from the blankets, suddenly too smothered to breathe. He is flat on his back now, one arm posed above his head, another below. And he breathes. Maybe he’ll meet his “soulmate” soon.

Cecil exhales and a laugh comes with it.

But for a moment he sees himself smiling. Cecil can see this fantasy as clearly as the stars on the ceiling. But like the stars this fantasy belongs in the past when he had a boyfriend. Groaning he picks his pillow up and puts it over his head, as if the fabric can block the image of his face.

But it comes nonetheless, and he just let it wash over him. It’s been a six months, so the pain Cecil feels is numbed but not completely gone. He was the first boy that Cecil trusted. Ever since then he hasn’t exactly missed him, Cecil’s missed the idea of him. The idea that someone cared about me the way (I thought) he did.

Now he’s dating some pretty track star and it’s okay. Cecil wishes them the best.

Cecil just wishes someone was wishing the best for him.

Sharp, quick barks from next door slash his sleep to pieces and Cecil opens his eyes. His eyelids get stronger with each blink as he tries and push the sleep out of them. Cecil rolls onto his stomach and grabs his phone. Cecil’s eyes water at the brightness. With one eye open he dims it all the way down and goes to his messages.

you’re coming tonight righttt?

My fingers hover over the keyboard as I try and think of a response. Tris is my bestfriend. Has been since 7th grade. They have been bugging him to go to this party since Monday. Cecil thinks back to how sad he was last night.

Shoving it down he almost laughs. That’s always how it goes with those late night sad boy hours, they always become laughable in the morning. That acute loneliness he felt last night is already gone.

probs

Cecil switches to Twitter and scrolls down his timeline. He is also aware of how cliché this is, but he does not care.

He puts his phone down as he gets up and walk to the bathroom. Its only 7:30 and he’s not sure if his parents are awake. He turns the faucet on cold and lets it run for one, two, three seconds and then he cups his hands beneath it and runs the freezing water over his face and back of neck.

Cecil involuntarily gasps as the last traces of sleep are erased from his body. He goes back into his room and grab the newest Steven King I’m currently reading and go downstairs. The carpeted stairs make no sound as he enters the kitchen.

Morning light dulls the monochromatic blues of the kitchen as Cecil grabs a mug and pours coffee into it. The coffee is still steaming having been brewed automatically at 7:15. Cecil takes the mug and book to the kitchen table and begins to read. By the time he’s finished the cup he hears his parents shuffling around upstairs and by the time he’s sat back down at the table with a fresh cup they burst in.

“Good morning,” they say right after one another.

His moms’ jet-black hair is somehow unruffled despite the fact she just woke up. His dad’s hair on the other hand is wild as a tornado.

“Good morning” Cecil responds.

His mom tilts her head at him, her dark brown eyes flitting from the coffee to him..

“You’re up early today? Did you recite your incantation?”

He huffs and shuts his book leaning back in the chair.

“No I didn’t,”

His dad smiles and his mom licks her teeth.

“Well,” she says.

Sighing he holds his hands out and closes his eyes

“Blessed mother, blessed moon. I call to you. I call to Selene the spirit of the moon. Grant me your powers, grant me your magic.”

Nothing, he feels nothing. Even with his eyes closed he knows that his parents are waiting with bated breath.

“So, anything?” his dad asks, his voice tinged with hope.

Cecil opens his eyes and shakes his head.

“Nothing,” he says.

My parents look at each other and he resists laughing.

“I have magic, I don’t see what’s so important about the incantation,”

His mom groans and squeezes her forehead.

“The point is that you’re showing your devotion,”

Now it’s Cecil’s turn to groan.

“It’s pointless, I can already use her magic” Cecil says, his voice flat.

His mom raises her hands in frustration but his dad just sighs.

“Let’s just drop it, okay?” his dad says with a forced smile.

Cecil nods his head and slumps back into his chair.

“So any fun plans today?” his dad asks while walking back to the coffee maker and pouring him and then his mom a cup.

Cecil slides my book away and shakes his head.

“Nope, I might practice for a while then after that I think I might go to a party tonight with Tris,”

Both his parents tense and his mom walks around the island. Any trace of her annoyance gone.

“A party? Will there be any boys there?”

Cecil snorts and swallows a laugh.

“Yes, it’s a high school party mom,”

She feigns shock.

“I was just asking because maybe he’ll be there,”

Cecil purses my lips and drops his head, looking at her through his eyelashes.

“Mom he’s not going to be there,”

She shrugs and turns to go get creamer.

“You never know Cecil. We never know where Helios spawn ended up,” she says from within the fridge.

“Okayyyy,” Cecil responds. Drawing it out as he thinks. “But how often do the Fallen ones end up in the same suburb?”

She shuts the fridge and looks at his dad, her eyes urging him on but he just smiles.

“I’m not getting into this again,”

“Cecil, I just want you to be happy. And yes it’s true that in the combined histories of the Basilica and Abbey the Fallen have rarely fallen together,” she says over the rim of her mug, taking a long sip.

Cecil gets up and carries the mug to the sink and rinses it out. He feels his parents stares on him as he puts it in the dishwasher and turns back to them, his hands gripping the stone countertop.

“If you want me to find him so bad why don’t you alert the Basilica of-“

“Absolutely not,” they both say in unison.

“It would make it all easier,”

Cecil’s mom places her mug down and steps towards him.

“It would be pointless to alert them, they would not help, and we also haven’t paid our dues this year,”

Cecil bobs his head back and forth and she leans to hug him.

“So many rules, it’s just so shitty,”

His mom rubs his back as he rests his head on her shoulder and his dad steps into the hug too.

“Language,”he says

He laughs into his dads shoulder and extracts himself from them.

“Everything will be okay,” his mom says smiling.

He smiles back, maybe not as genuine as hers but almost.

The coolness from the night lingers in the shadows. Cecil looks over his shoulder and sees his parents talking at the table. Turning back, he continues into the woods. No fence separates the edge of the forest from the yard, only from the neighbors.

A gust of wind rattles the leaves and rustles the legs of his pants. Cecil continus deeper into the forest until the sun is reduced to scattered beams. He shivers once in the breeze, the shadows deep and cold.

Cecil breaths in the smell of the forest, a scent of new growth and pine. Underneath it all is the smell of something burnt, a campfire somewhere. He closes his eyes and holds his palms up. Cecil stands still and just breaths. He feels her power coil in his hest, her gift to me. Cecil doesn’t know how long he stands there, tapped into himself and the nature surrounding him.

Behind my eyelids Cecil senses the world suddenly brighten and squints into the light. Cecil must have been there for several hours as the sun has risen to almost its peak. He shakes his head and smiles at the tendrils of dark smoke that had coiled around his arm.

A branch above him snaps and he whirls around. An owl stares down at him and Cecil starts at its alien eyes. One is bright white and the other inky black. Its feathers are a steel gray that shine in the now afternoon sun.

They just continue to stare at each other, Cecil can immediately tell this owl was sent by someone, by Selene herself. The owl cocks its head and blinks.

“Selene?” he whispers.

The owl shudders and screeches. Cecil jumps at the sound trip over a branch laying behind him. He falls back and the trees above him blur as he lands on his back. The air in his lungs rushes out. He hears the rustling of wings and the owl lands on a branch above him, looking down with its strange eyes.

“Cecil my sweet boy,” the owl says in a now very human voice.

“Selene?” he repeats.

The owl merely tilts its head again.

“What do you think?”

Cecil scrambles up onto his hands and her gaze follows him.

“Selene, w-what is the meaning of this,” he says.

The feathers around her mouth tug up in what must be her version of a smile.

“Stand,” is all she says.

Cecil obeys and gets to his feet as she flutters down and before she hits the ground a woman stands before me.

She is taller than Cecil with skin the same gray as the feathers of the owl and the same mismatched eyes. Her eyes are large and angular, and full of amusement. Her full lips are quirked up in a smile as she looks down her nose at him.

“You need to love again,” she says.

Her words shock him so much Cecil gasps.

“Why has everyone been saying that to me today,”

“Because it’s true, you are a piece of me and your destiny is to be happy, to have a love so powerful the world dims,”

Cecil lowers his eyes.

“I’m not ready,” Cecil says, his voice but a whisper.

Her hand guides his chin up so that she is looking at him.

“Yes you are,”

And from one blink to another Cecil is alone in the clearing, with just the wind and feathers floating around him.

Heli

Heli rolls over and lands with a thump onto the carpet. His face is mashed into the carpet and he keeps his sleep crusted eyes closed.

Heli groans into the carpet and rolls onto his back.

He blinks several times and forces his eyes to stay open. Bright morning light turns his gauzy white curtains yellow, He reaches above him to his nightstand and grabs his phone.

12:33

Heli drops his phone onto the carpet and runs his hand over his face and stops with them tugging the skin of his face down. His eyes tingle at the sensation of being pulled open, until the tingle turns to a sting as they dry.

Heli heaves himself to sit and then pushes himself to his feet, his legs aching from the remnants of yesterdays run. He strides to the bathroom and turn the faucet on hot and waits until steam rises from it and then Heli cups it and runs it over his face and neck.

Going back into his room, Heli walks to both curtains and pull them open. The thin filter that was the gauzy fabric blocked more light than Heli thought. Heli recoils at the sudden flood of white light.

He crinkles his face and blinks to erase the spots from his eyes.

“You’d think that Helios’s fallen would be used to sunlight,” a voice says from the doorway.

Heli turns and through the splotches of light covering his vision he sees his mom, smiling at him.

“I didn’t plan on sleeping this late,” is all he says.

She smiles a bemused smile and leans against the doorframe.

“I almost came into check if you were alive, like I did when you were younger,”

He shakes his head and smiles at the memory. When he was younger he almost always used to sleep through school so his mom would sneak in and lie down on top of him and tickle him teasing, asking if he was alive.

“How late did you say up last night?” she asks, a hint of sternness creeping into her voice.

Heli rubs the back of his neck and looks at the floor. There is no point in lying, she’ll know.

“I came back at 2:00 but stayed up texting Malcolm till 3:00,”

She just stares at me.

“Heli you know the rules, curfew is 1:00 on the weekend,”

Heli just keeps looking at the floor nodding, the memory of last night coming back. Heli can still taste the tears and snot as Malcolm yelled.

The carpet shuffle as his mom makes her way closer to him. She presses both her soft hands to the side of his face raises his face to look at hers.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, her voice as soft as her hands.

Heli bites his lip to hold back the tears that threaten to overwhelm the rims of his eyes and pour down his face.

“I don’t think Malcolm loves me anymore,” Helis says, the words biting and sharp.

Her face crinkles in shock.

“What happened?” she asks.

Heli breaks out of her grip and turns to face the window, watching a pair of birds chase each other up and down the branches.

“He said his feelings have changed, that he’s not sure he can do it anymore, that he feels as if he’s,” Heli stops himself, throat clogging with grief.

He turns to face her and the tears spill down his face. The resolve he had built in my sleep crumbles and he suddenly feels very cold, a feeling he is not used to.

“He feels like he’s wasting his time with me,”

Heli sees his own pain reflected back in her face and she envelops him in a hug.

“I think you need to break up with him,” she says her voice muted as she kisses my hair.

He shakes his head and she pulls back and looks into his eyes.

“I can’t mom, I love him,”

She chews on her lip and then forces a smile.

“If he loves you back things will work out,”

He nods and she smiles again, this one less forced.

“I have to head to work, so if you need anything, or need to talk, call me,”

Heli is looking anywhere but her face.

“Okay?” she asks, moving her face so Heli has no choice but to look at her blurred vision.

“Yes, I know,” he says.

She backs up. Her eyes are full of pain as she looks at him then turns, walks down the hall, down the stairs and out of the house. Heli is still standing where she left him until he hears the door open and close. He takes a shaky breath and then wipes the already drying tears away.

Now that his emotions have rebalanced, Heli is shocked at how quick and sharp the pain was. He never wants to feel like that again. He picks his phone up off the nightstand and opens it.

Heli scrolls to his messages and sees the one he left unopened from Mal last night. All he can read is

I’m sorry that-

Heli takes a breath and taps on it.

I’m sorry that I was so mean, I’ve just had a lot on my mind recently and I took it out on you. I’m sorry, I still love you…so much.

He almost gasps in relief. His fingers fly over the keyboard.

it’s okay! are you going to the part tonight??

whoops i mean *party

He stares at his phone and watchs as the three dots appear and then disappear, his heart rate slowing down as his eyes dry.

yes, will I be seeing your cute self there?

Heli smiles at this, respond and put his phone back down.

yes :)

Heli heads out into the hall the carpet changing from red to white. He swings around the corner, elation filling his chest as he walks down the stairs. Heli walks into kitchen, a daisy yellow explosion of painted walls and cream-colored tiles.

Heli walks to the cabinet and slides the last couple inches across the floor.

Malcolm still likes Heli, still loves him, Heli thinks to himself as he pulls out some cereal. He grabs almond milk from the fridge and takes a bowl, cereal, and the milk to the table. Heli pours a bowl and chews it while he stares out of the bank of windows.

The taste of honey swirls with the vanilla of the milk as he loses himself to thought.

Maybe Heli was overreacting last night. Malcolm did say he had been in a rough patch earlier this week, but Heli had just shrugged it off as stress. But maybe he should have read the signs and given Mal a little space.

Heli nods to himself and pushs the cereal around in the bowl.

That must be it. Heli should have been more understanding. He should have known Mal was struggling.

He finishs his cereal and takes it to the sink.

“That’s bullshit you know, it wasn’t your fault,”

Heli screams and drops the bowl. It explodes against the floor and he whirls around to face whoever said that.

A lioness is laying on the table he was eating at moments ago. It looks at him with fiery orange eyes and a bemused smile, not much unlike the smile my mother flashed this morning, except before me is not my mother.

“Helios,” Heli says his voice strained.

The lion nods and tilts its head at him.

“Who else would it be?”

Most of his panic has dissipated and is now replaced by a profound sense of shock.

“W-what are you doing here?”

“I’m here because you’re screwing it up,”

Heli furrows his brow at this.

“Screwing what up?” he asks.

She licks her lips, which would be menacing if Heli thought her intentions foul. By the time it takes for her to leap down to the tile she went from lioness to woman. Her skin is a swirling mosaic of reds, oranges, and yellows and her eyes seem to glow like miniature suns themselves. Red frames her long face.

“Screwing up the same thing I screwed up,” she says. “Has the Abbey told you nothing?”

The mention of the Abbey elicits a laugh from him.

“The Abbey doesn’t care much about my ascension it’s almost gone,”

Helios looks shocked at this.

“But you do know what you are correct?”

Heli resists the urge to roll his eyes because he is an extension of her.

“Yes, I’m the piece of you that falls to the earth,”

“You must find him,” she says her voice serious.

Heli backs up into the counter and grips the cool stone.

“Find who?”

She laughs, a noise much like the rumble of thunder.

“Your celestial pairing, it is your destiny,”

Heli looks around the kitchen, thinking. His eyes run over the sleek wooden cabinets, the glassy stovetop, the stack of clean plates that need to be put away.

“I have a boyfriend, one that I love. Also weren’t you and Selene siblings?” Heli says, attempting deflect

She laughs again this one with a bit more bite.

“That fool does not love you, do not make the same mistake I made, and no of course not. Those old Greek fools didn’t know a Titan from a toad. Artemis and Apollo are the siblings not Selene and I.”

Heli brings his eyes back to her. Helios eyes are literally blazing with conviction. Heli feels his eyes begin to blaze just the same.

“I’m happy with Malcolm,”

Helios shakes her head and runs her hand through Heli’s short hair.

“No you’re not, and that’s all I want for you is to be happy,” she pauses and brings her hand away slowly.

“Unlike me,” she finishes.

Heli blinks and the kitchen is empty save for a few embers twirling out of existence.

Every one hundred years both Helios and Selene take a piece of their soul, and form it into whatever likeness they please.

They then take that bit of soul and bring it to earth. Neither one knows where the other one has placed their Fallen one, but they both hope that they are close

They both pray to deities larger than them that the two Fallen ones will find each other. That they will find each other and be able to have the love that they couldn’t

A love that will eclipse the world.