In the Process of Disappearing
Michael Jasper
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Published by Michael Jasper at Smashwords
In the Process of Disappearing
Copyright © 2011 by Michael Jasper
This story is a prequel of sorts to the digital comic In Maps & Legends by Michael Jasper and Niki Smith: http://InMapsAndLegendsComic.com
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
BONUS: At the end of this ebook, read excerpts from two of Michael's novels (also available in ebook format)!
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Also by Michael Jasper:
Gunning for the Buddha (stories)
Heart's Revenge
The Wannoshay Cycle
A Gathering of Doorways
The Prodigal Sons
The All Nations Team
Family, Pack
In Maps & Legends (a digital comic)
The Contagious Magic series:
A Sudden Outbreak of Magic
A Wild Epidemic of Magic (coming November 2011)
A Lasting Cure for Magic (coming early 2012)
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In the Process of Disappearing
"So that's it? You're just ending it like that? At a freakin' Hardees, Kait?"
Looking down at her tray of cooling fries and the untouched chicken sandwich , along with the wreckage of greasy papers and cardboard strewn across Jeremy's tray, not to mention Jeremy himself—his shocked face growing red across from her—Kait realized that this was all a really, really bad idea.
But when do you ever have a roadmap for breaking up with someone?
This was way overdue, she thought, reaching out a hand for poor Jeremy before he made an even bigger scene than he was currently making.
"It's because I haven't made it yet, isn't it?" Jeremy avoided her touch and scrubbed his unshaven cheek with a dry, scratching sound. His dishwater-blonde hair now hung in his face, and with the dazed look on his face, he looked more like Shaggy from Scooby Doo than the handsome guy with the fire in his eyes she used to know.
And there was something else about him lately. The way he stared off into the distance while she talked to him. Like he wasn't really there. As if he were in the process of disappearing.
"No Jeremy," she said at last. "That's got nothing to do with it at all."
"Right," he shot back, staring at the greasy, torn papers on his tray. "Right."
Poor Jeremy, Kait thought, and then she stopped that train of thought. I never used to think of him that way. Back when he was fun and full of stories—at least fifty percent of them true, as far as I could make out. I used to enjoy trying to figure out which were which. But not anymore.
"You've been beating yourself up so much the past few months," she began, determined to set things straight before he completely fell apart. "I can't keep defending you from yourself. I know your friends from grad school are getting agents and contracts and all that. But from what I've seen of the publishing industry with my job, it's pretty cutthroat. Your time will come."
"Oh God," Jeremy said, running a hand through his lank hair, making it stick up at wild angles. "If I'd just sold that novella, or that chapbook of poems, this wouldn't be happening..."
He's not hearing a word I'm saying, Kait thought. She fought the urge to pick up her tray and smack him over the head with it.
"No," she said. "It's what you're letting happen to yourself. You're giving up on yourself, right when you're so close. And—" she took a deep breath "—I think you're drinking too much."
Jeremy sat up straight at that, eyes wide. Kait half-expected him to say "Zoinks!" just like Shaggy in the cartoons. But he just opened and closed his mouth twice, and then swiped his tray off the table. As it clattered to the floor, he pushed himself up out of his chair and stood.
"This," he said, one hand on the table, the other squashing her chicken sandwich flat, "is the last time you'll ever see me, Kaitlin."
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By the time she got back to the House almost half an hour later, Kait was starving.
She was also feeling shaky from crying all the way home, not so much for the scene in the restaurant. It's the loss, she realized, of my initial vision of him as someone who'd let me into his world and teach me all the wonderful things about his life. And then I could let him into mine and do the same for him. We started off that way, but things got sidetracked somewhere.
And he was the only guy I'd dated since moving here that I'd told about Grandpa.
"Wish I hadn't told Jeremy about him now," Kait mumbled as she pulled into the gravel drive leading up to the big brick two-story building set back a hundred feet from Jones Ferry Road.
Rubbing her growling belly, she walked around the wide black boulder poking up out of the brown grass ten feet from the north entrance to the House. If it hadn't been mid-July and ninety-something out here, she would've taken a seat on that boulder and waited for LaVonne to get back from her dance class. But the twenty-foot-wide rock—which they'd nicknamed Behemoth's Knuckle for the way it jutted up out of the ground, like part of a massive fist—would be hot to the touch from the blazing Carolina sun beating down on it.
Inside, Kait thought, to the AC and whatever's in my fridge.
Out of habit, she patted the Knuckle for luck, on her way to the second floor of the red-bricked, barn-like House that had been broken up into sixteen apartments. The black rock felt hot enough to cause blisters if she held her hand there for more than a second.
She saw the blue plastic bucket, like the kind a kid would use at the beach to collect shells, as soon as she made it to the top of the steps. A bottle stuck out of the top, and half of the ice in the bucket had already melted, leaving drops of water on the ground in the stifling hallway.
A bottle of Prosecco. Chilled.
"LaVonne," Kait whispered.
A weight lifted from her shoulders, then, as she grabbed the bucket and brought it sloshing down the hall to LaVonne's apartment.
Her friend's door was open, and happy Cuban music—all trumpets and guitars and whooping and hollering—spilled down the narrow apartment hallway. The music competed against the clanking hum of the room's AC window unit.
"La," Kait called out, brandishing the bottle of bubbly wine, "you shouldn't have."
"Oh yeah I should've," LaVonne said from the bright blue interior of her narrow apartment. She had just blown out the match she'd used to light a trio of red candles, and a trail of smoke drifted from the match up to her dark brown face. La was tall and thin, a dancer, and Kait felt short and pudgy in her presence, though she'd never dare admit that to her friend of over five years.
"I just had my talk with—"
"Don't say his name in my place," LaVonne said. "We're not talking about him today. This is all about you. I skipped my dance class for you, so don't cross me, girl."
So Kait spent the rest of her afternoon ignoring her deadlines for work and talking to LaVonne. I haven't spent near enough time with La since I met Jeremy, she thought. And here she is, letting my blab on about my maps and hiking and my life.
"So," LaVonne said after turning down her music and settling back onto her creaking papasan. "Where you gonna go now?"
Kait sat up straight, surprised by the question. She'd been half-dozing, thinking about the look of shock on the face of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Here back at Hardees. The two tall windows of LaVonne's combination living room and kitchen had darkened as they chatted.
"Go?" Kait said in wavering voice. She really wished she'd eaten something since breakfast hours ago. "What're you talkin' 'bout? I'm not going anywhere."
She'd lived here, in the comfortably familiar surroundings of the House, ever since her senior year of college at UNC. Buts something about the events of today, even touching the burning hot surface of Behemoth's Knuckle, felt like a chapter ending. In the books she drew maps for and illustrated for her job, the hero would be ready to head off on the big adventure in the following chapter.
"Leases come due next month on the fifteenth. You gonna stay here another year, and deal with having to drive fifteen minutes just to get to Chapel Hill and civilization?"
"I was just gonna renew for another year," Kait said. "Why not?"
Waste another year, Kait thought. Why not?
"Well, I've got something in the works," LaVonne said. "A touring company wants to take me on, as a backup dancer. Go figure, huh? I have to do this, before I'm an old lady of thirty. Only four years to go, y' know?"
"Yeah, ya Grandma," Kait said, laughing, though her vision was doubling on her.
Leaving me? LaVonne? Just like...
"Hey, you're the one who turned twenty-seven this year."
"Grandma..." Kait said, then her stomach lurched. No. Don't want to think about him again. Not Grandma—never knew her—but... Grandpa. God. After all these years, why did he have to pop into my head today, of all days? And for the second time, too.