Killing The Sun: Part 1 Read online

  Killing the Sun

  A three part serial by K. Larsen & Mara White

  Copyright © 2016 by K. Larsen & Mara White

  Cover by: Cover Me Darling

  Interior Formatting: Integrity Formatting

  All rights are reserved to the author. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. The unauthorized reproduction for distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, character, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  About Mara White

  More K. Larsen

  Preview – Missed Connection by K. Larsen and Mara White

  The serpent tricked me and I ate.

  ~ Genesis 3:13

  I was born backwards into this world.

  Breeched.

  You tore me, she said.

  Those were words I remember my mother saying to me, as if I had done those things to her on purpose.

  Back first I came, my spine convex, the points of my vertebrae stretching my skin to reveal a miniature Appalachia, peaks and dips, craggy, unmarked indentations that had never seen the sun. I automatically straighten my spine thinking about it, tell my legs to relax, my gut to unwind.

  Now I am sun. So full of sun.

  You were late.

  You made me wait.

  But there would never have been enough time. My mother knew the soft strokes of motherhood didn’t suit her hands well, that my brothers’ crying had already scratched and clawed at her nerves like an unwanted emergency, a constant state of distress. But I pleased her. Her only daughter. She liked it when I brushed her hair; she would always close her eyes and hum a haunting song.

  I left him by the riverside,

  Then the sun set on both of us.

  Oh, I left him by the riverside,

  And no one came back to pick me up.

  She liked to look at me, to study my face. Not so much with affection but with a real curiosity that seemed out of place. She was lazy and unenthusiastic about most things, but she looked at me with gusto, almost like I’d been gone for a long time or as if she were searching for someone else in my face. In turn, I searched hers for recognition, some twitch or tic that signaled I belonged.

  Mom loved my twin brothers Storm and Farren as best she could. She doted on them the only way she knew how. Food was her most available medium and sugared cereal and boxed dinners were often forced upon them in place of hugs. Mom was big and her eyes an impossibly bright blue. Cotton candy blue, raspberry popsicle blue. Her clothes were twenty years out of date and her hair hung in the same two swooping hot dog curls she rolled daily, framing her round face. I saw the same two curls in her high school pictures, where she listed disco and the roller rink under hobbies. I liked to imagine her sailing quickly around a polished rink, her hands clasped behind her, one foot leisurely replacing the other while the snare beat of disco ticked out of the speakers. She’d have those two hot dog curls and electric blue laces in her skates. In my mind she’d be lighter on her feet and never once would she think she’d be confined to a trailer, her carefree youth whittled down to a sliver, like an old bar of soap in the dish by the tub. You scrub away that many layers and whatever’s left can barely get the job done. That soap’s no good for washing the dirt off. It’s not good for much at all.

  Our dad was never around. He carried a gun. Beer cans rolled in symphony, the gasping crescendo against the occasional bottle of schnapps in the footwells of his Dodge Dart. And he was missing a tooth in front; it made him whistle ever so slightly when he’d talk.

  “Come here, Aim-girl. Give your daddy a hug.”

  It wasn’t often. He’d storm in, fight with Mom, then take off in the sedan. He’d always park on the grass, tearing up the sod and leaving tire tracks of mud. I spent a lot of time on the swing set that belonged to the Dobsons. I also rode the Dobson girl’s grape-purple big wheel after the county bus picked her up for school. If Dad came home at night, he’d always show up drunk, yelling, slurring, sputtering. Sometimes retching.

  Mom would disengage even more. She’d sit at the card table and butter slice after slice of white bread, chew through them with the steadfastness of a monk. She could eat a whole loaf like that, staring at the wall. Sometimes I would think she was crying, that I could hear her sobs through the thin trailer walls. But if I’d ever go and check, she’d be glassy-eyed, far removed but never undone.

  The only time I saw her cry was at trial, when my brothers were both sentenced to life for capital murder. Storm and Farren—the little tow-headed boys my mom had dreamed would become professional wrestlers—they sealed their own fate because they’d had enough. I can’t help but believe my mom put them up to it. Dad was good for nothing but the worst he ever did was come home too drunk and knock us around; sometimes Mom would get hit bad. He’d yell, warble, then pass out in a lump on the carpet or in a chair by the TV.

  Storm and Farren burned his body in a fire pit twenty miles into the woods straight off of the highway juncture where I-35 crosses with Route Seven. I walked out of the courtroom when they hashed out the details. The gory bits about bone fragments and ashes and the stubborn threads from his tattered flannel. How sisal rope had cut into his flesh. They didn’t find the rope, but they did find bloody fibers. The binding was so tight it cut through the skin, leaving the faintest spatter of blood points against the blue tarp that they buried right on the border of Texas. A stupid shallow grave where they shoved in his beer cans and cigarette butts. They sunk the Dart in Veteran’s Lake by Sulphur. I know, I saw it all on 48 Hours.

  Those boys never did wash up well before dinner, and in the end, it cost them a bunch. I like to think that I loved them, but they had each other and I was always an afterthought. Born eight years too late to make it to the party. But it kept me out of trouble and ultimately, it kept me out of jail.

  So my brothers grew up with a mother they would kill for and I slipped through childhood without much commotion. I spent a lot of time playing by myself. Conquering the dirt mountains out behi
nd Arbuckle Lake. There were days I walked for miles dragging a stick and spitting into the dust until my sneakers turned almost red with dirt. I patched up my own scrapes with Band-Aids I swiped from Wal-Mart. And it’s not like my life was devoid of comfort; I was bussed into Sulphur for school and I thrived there. God knows I wasn’t the only kid surviving off of stained and pilled-up hand-me-downs, a grade D smorgasbord of free school lunch. My grades earned me the affection of all of my teachers. I was the only one in my family to graduate from high school. Aimee Olsen, high school graduate. Moving on up.

  And I made sure I had the kind of portfolio that could get me into college. I never once wasted my teenage years fooling around with boyfriends. I didn’t go to the drive-in to practice getting to all of the bases with boys who wore braces and were covered in pimples. I saved myself for something bigger, something grand that the kids in my town would only ever dream of.

  Some girls in my class wanted nothing more than to get married and start having babies. A trailer was enough for them; a split-style ranch would make them the envy of Sulphur. I wanted to get the hell out of Oklahoma. So I moved to New York City with a one-way Greyhound bus ticket and Storm’s old gym bag stuffed with my scrappy clothes and a clean set of sheets. I never expected to get much out of life. But I got more than I bargained for.

  I got Danny.

  Our first kiss.

  No, wait, back up.

  Even earlier than that.

  Sometimes I think I can pinpoint the exact moment when I fell in love with Danny. It was winter and we were walking down by the yards. He was wearing a black leather jacket and Italian calfskin gloves. When he looked down and saw a bullet casing lying on the frozen earth, he didn’t remove his gloves at the wrist to retrieve it, or even tug them off with his fingers.

  No, not Danny.

  Instead he brought the glove to his mouth and bit the tip of the middle finger, pulling the expensive glove off with his teeth. It was graceful and at the same time, sexual. He had a gold cap on his left canine. Maybe it was tacky, but I loved it. The tooth was the very first thing that made me want to fuck him. It told me that no matter how far he’d risen, Danny came from less than desirable stock—he wasn’t always an envied business tycoon. Danny was once a scrawny, bullied Brooklyn guido who wanted nothing more than to leave Bay Ridge and prove himself to the world. I can relate to that—a past that would only let up if you erased it entirely; just struck from your repertoire. Without looking back.

  The air that day down at the yards was cold and damp, not the best weather for falling in love. Everything was industrial and gray; even the colorful shipping containers were somehow muted against the Manhattan skyline. But all I saw was Danny. Maybe I was blind, but everything I looked at was beautiful when I was with him, and I wanted to contain it all, somehow capture it and hold it in my hands. I couldn’t tell you if he was feeling the same way; Danny was always kind of unreadable.

  His complexion was dark olive and his hair was just starting to gray. He fit perfectly into that skyline and somehow the glove removal made everything fall into place for me. I knew then and there I couldn’t leave him, no matter what happened between us. I knew that a man who bit his own glove off was the man I wanted forever.

  Me, on the other hand, I wasn’t business savvy or important. I wasn’t a self-made mogul. I didn’t possess any extraordinary skills. So how was I going to convince him that I was the right partner . . . that we fit together perfectly? I was one face in a million lost in the crowd. I survived my childhood and adolescence, and most of my scars were buried deep. I wasn’t much for looks or flirting. I’d barely even had any sexual activity. But I knew if I had to excel at one thing, to only ever be amazing at one thing, it would be loving Danny. And that’s what I became: the world’s best girlfriend.

  There are people who seem to be good at everything, like they’re multitasking perfection on every level imaginable. Danny was like that; drive ran through his blood like a disease. Success to him was extracting his revenge on the humble beginnings he came from. Not me—I was happy to sit back and watch him conquer the world. But looking back on it now, the entire time I was learning. Danny was teaching me and I was absorbing.

  I was a really good girlfriend—that I made sure of. I’m not being self-deprecating or trying to make people feel sorry for me when I say there wasn’t much else to me. It’s just that there was never anything in my life before that felt so right to me as being his woman did. It was a role I was born for.

  I didn’t know he was married. I didn’t know he was a criminal. Call me green if you want—but the way we met was magical; the way we evolved, so fluid. There was nothing that could stop us.

  That’s why my whole world ended when I found out he was cheating on me. I went from being somebody to being an absolute nothing. Danny knew that, he always knew that, and he held it over me.

  Danny and I had been together since I was just nineteen. Little girl in the big city—all it took was him being nice to me. Just nice. I was that easy.

  Him? Seasoned predator. Me? Easy catch. Now all of my friends say I should have seen the signs, should have put the pieces together. But after six years in a relationship, the least you can hope for is that your partner isn’t lying. And we were partners. He swept me off my feet, he doted on me, he made me feel safe. That’s why it was easy to look past the almost thirty-year age difference. Danny could have been my dad . . . or even my grandfather. None of that mattered.

  I knew it was shocking but I was so used to it—anything else sounded unusual. I couldn’t even imagine dating a man my own age. They all seemed like kids, more trouble than they were worth. Who wanted to compete with other women vying for attention or coercing some young stud into marriage before he felt ready? I’d have taken Danny any day over someone just starting out. With a man my own age, I’d have to teach him how to give head while simultaneously managing his checkbook and making sure he had clean socks to wear. Danny took care of me. Nobody had ever taken care of me.

  My few friends from work were supportive when I decided to leave him. In fact, they were overjoyed—maybe a little too happy for my taste. They helped me find my bearings and get settled as far away from him as possible.

  But I was lost in San Francisco. In New York I could lose myself, forget about being different. San Francisco made me stick out like a giant sore thumb. I got a job waitressing; I was too devastated to do much else. So I served people overly-salted skirt steak with whipped mash at an old fashioned steak and seafood joint.

  The Chop House. It was dark and it smelled like cigars. I was used to places like that—they reminded me of him.

  I thought maybe I would eventually volunteer or find a creative way to get into the community, but every night seemed to end with me, my cats, a bottle of wine and tears in my bedroom. Me. Formerly of Oklahoma, failure at San Francisco. A brother on death row in Oklahoma and another in Texas. And one dead father at the hands of his own children. A mother addicted to the home shopping network and living in a trailer, clipping coupons and eating packaged food from the discount store, her gut growing and expanding as her universe shrinks. Her life was Wal-Mart and Taco Bell, maybe bingo in a church basement for a few nights after the social security checks rolled in. My whole family was wounded and I was a part of that legacy, no matter how far or fast I ran from it.

  Then came the drunk phone call. The call I knew I shouldn’t have answered but did.

  “Sunshine, come back to New York, for Christ’s sake. Stop being stupid. Take the red-eye. You’ll be here by morning. We’ll get breakfast.”

  I exploded upon hearing his voice.

  “You lied to me, Danny!”

  “I was protecting you. Stop trying to run away from something that’s bigger than you.”

  “I have to learn to take care of myself!”

  “This is nonsense. You’re torturing us both!”

  “You’re married!”

  “Sunshine, I love you.”

/>   It’s raining when my plane taxis into its gate at JFK. I couldn’t do it. Six miserable months—that’s as long as I made it. Broke my lease. Threw out the wicker furniture and the mismatched dishes from the Salvation Army. Oh, I forgot to mention Danny cut me off when I decided to walk out on him. Access to money stopped, and I had to make my own living. I could have survived, but I couldn’t send anything home anymore.

  Danny is meeting me; he even got me back my old place, in the same building, on the same floor. He couldn’t get me the exact same apartment but, he said, “It’s a good thing.“ It will help remind us that this is us starting over, not going back to who we were before,” he coaxed.

  I agreed. Everyone at work thinks I’m stupid for taking him back. But it’s okay. They already all thought I was anyway. Although I kind of hate myself too, but without him, I’m just not okay; I’m lost, I’m alone. Maybe I’m childish. Maybe I’m weak. Or maybe Danny is telling the truth and he really will leave her. Maybe he really does love me.

  Danny told me he was taking me out to dinner. I was excited to have some alone time together. A date.

  “Do you want me to order for you?”

  “No thanks. I already know what I want.”

  I order eel and octopus at the ritzy Japanese restaurant in midtown. He barely touches his food and can’t take his eyes off of me. I stir wasabi into my soy sauce dish, take a sip of sake. I missed cloth napkins, waiters pulling the chair out for me.

  See? I’ve come a long way. I’m no longer Aimee from the trailer park. Danny gets two texts on his phone and suddenly he has to run and can’t spend the night with me. We’re off to a bad start and I haven’t even been back twenty-four hours. His hug at the airport was lackluster, almost an afterthought.

  I hate being an afterthought.

  “I got you some furniture, stuff from Restoration and Pottery Barn. I tried to remember what you had, but be forewarned, it’s not perfect yet.” He wipes his mouth on a cloth napkin and removes his card from the billfold. He never waits for the check to come; Danny always hands his card directly to the waiter. Black Amex. I can remember the weight of it in my hand—it’s metal, not plastic. This new Aimee will also have to be made out of metal. Resilient. Like a special agent. A perfect girlfriend with a mission. This time, Sunshine knows exactly what she wants.