Beautiful Sorrows by Mercedes M. Yardley Page A

my bed in the dark, hugging my pillow and listening to the music. It was even more eclectic than usual, but most of the songs were familiar. There were songs sung by children, and ones with heavy, driving beats. One that was tragically ethereal, and another in Russian that I had never heard before. He had dedicated a song to me once, slow and nonsensical, and that was on there as well. I turned it off and leaned back against the headboard. I just needed to think for a while. It was as if a single life was being played out on that CD. A soundtrack, perhaps. I wondered if it was the soundtrack to Vel.
    The next day I stopped by his apartment.
    “Tell me what this is,” I demanded, throwing the CD onto the couch.
    He looked at it with his lazy eyes, and then directly at my face.
    “It’s a CD.”
    “Obviously. Tell me what you made it for.” I was nervous, and being nervous made me angry. I shoved my hands into my pockets so he wouldn’t see them shaking.
    He noticed this, then shrugged his shoulders and lolled his head over the back of the couch. He stared at the ceiling for a long time. A fly buzzed past his ear, but he didn’t even blink.
    “Vel. Don’t ignore me.”
    His sigh was gentle, but I heard the exasperation and the weariness in it.
    “It’s not for anything, okay? It’s just to...enjoy. So enjoy it.”
    Without looking, he scooped up the CD and flung it back at me. I couldn’t catch it on time. The case opened and the CD spilled out, hitting the floor with a sound that reminded me of broken eggs and car crashes. I fell to my knees, picking the disc up and running my fingers over the new, raw scratches. I felt strangely close to crying.
    “You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked. I bit my lip. “I kind of wondered if you had made it to be the soundtrack of your life. And then I wondered why you would feel the need to do that.” I couldn’t look directly at him, and shifted my gaze to somewhere off to his left.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him grin. “The soundtrack of my life, huh? I like that. If only I could be so lucky.”
    He seemed a bit happier after that, but only barely. Happiness for Vel was that elusive thing that never quite came to pass. He told me once that he was content with the shadows of other people’s happiness. That was why he hung out with me, I think. There were enough shadows to go around.
    But he started disappearing more often. He’d drive his car to the top of the cliffs, sitting on the hood and staring at the ocean. It was a pretty dangerous area, really, and had been fenced off a long time ago, but the fences had long since been torn down by the local kids.
    I used to go with him, every now and then, but lately I had the feeling that my company wouldn’t be tolerated, let alone appreciated. I’d just watch Vel stare down at the thrashing water, and I didn’t want to do that. It was like watching his soul slip away, and not being able to do anything about it. A soul is a soft, indefinable thing, but the feeling of it sliding through your fingertips is unmistakable. I feared this.
    I think he knew it. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it, and that was what really frightened me. He couldn’t make himself stay, not any more than I could. Each time that I saw him now, I unconsciously clenched my fists, somehow hoping to hold his presence around as long as possible. I saw it in the way his empty eyes traveled over my face and hair and then toward the sky. He was already disappearing.
     
    —
    “Come out to the cliffs,” he said. “And bring the CD.”
    I tossed his mix in the passenger side of my truck and drove up the winding path to his spot. The sun would be going down soon. The thought felt ominous.
    Vel was where I knew he would be, cross legged on the hood of his car. He barely glanced my way when he heard my footsteps, but that small sign of greeting was enough.
    “Put it in, would you?”
    I slid into the driver’s side and fed the CD into