Текст книги "Paper Thin"

Автор книги: Jennifer Snyder

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

EMMA WAS SMILING. A party with her friends was exactly what she needed to gain her old spark of life back. Once the ice had been broken by Emma making a crazy joke about being wheelchair bound, the tension had released. After a few drinks, and the sweet potato chips appetizer—which I didn’t burn—there wasn’t any more sympathy in their eyes. They saw Emma as she was before, and their good time could be felt throughout the house.

“Wow, you made this?” Emma asked as I set a plate with one foiled fish packet and green beans with mushrooms in front of her. Skepticism flared through her words.

Instead of feeling insulted by her words, pride built in my chest. I had never created such an amazing meal before. Then again, I hadn’t ever harbored the desire to try so hard either.

“Yeah.” I waited with eager eyes for her to taste it. “Try it. Tell me what you think.” I thought it was awesome. I’d picked at one between bringing out the appetizers and refilling drinks.

“This is incredible, Char. Seriously.” Her eyes widened as she continued to chew. “How did you make this?”

“It was actually really easy.” I beamed, basking in Emma’s praise. As a kid I had always craved this from her. “You spray the foil with a little oil, set the fish down, and then sprinkle the spices and garlic on after you layer tomato on top. It baked for around thirty minutes, I think. Nothing to it really.”

“This is really good, Charlotte,” Casey muttered around a mouthful of fish. She had been my sister’s friend the longest. I had always liked Casey. She was sweet and sort of shy. Not one for loads of drama.

“I could eat this every day,” Melissa boasted. While Emma and Melissa hadn’t been friends as long as she and Casey had, you couldn’t tell. The three of them were thick as thieves.

“Thank you.” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Anyone need anything else?” My eyes darted around the table to their drinks, making sure they were full. While I had been a bit leery of offering alcoholic beverages, because I feared Emma might fall down the hole of depression even more after a few sips, I was now relieved I had. They seemed to be the ice breaker and helped to keep the conversation flowing between the three of them without any awkward moments.

“I think we’re all okay,” Emma answered. She picked up her glass, and took a sip of her drink. “Aren’t you eating?”

“I did. Earlier.”

“Then why don’t you grab a drink, and sit down with us?” Melissa suggested.

It was tempting, but I wanted this to be their night. Emma needed her friends, and while the conversation hadn’t floated to anything about the accident or her wheelchair-bound future, I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t come up. I didn’t want to be here for it if it did. Unlike her friends, I didn’t want to know the gory details about how it all happened, and what she felt when it came to never being able to have kids. She needed her friends right now, not her sister.

“I think I’m going to make a big pitcher of the blueberry drink for you ladies, since that seems to be the favorite, and mosey on out of here for a little while.”

“Suit yourself,” Melissa muttered around another bite of fish. “This is fantastic, by the way.”

“Thank you.” I laughed as I made my way back to the kitchen.

I grabbed a large glass pitcher from in a cabinet, and squished blueberries and rosemary sprigs together in the bottom. My mind replayed the bits of praise from Emma and her friends for the meal. I was ecstatic and so proud of myself, until I remembered how Dawson had helped. My thoughts drifted back to our near kiss, and a wave of nausea engulfed me. I needed to make sure nothing like that ever happened again. No matter how much I wanted it to.

After I finished making another pitcher of drinks, I searched the cabinets for something I could pour a little of it in for myself. A blue water bottle caught my eye. It would work. I filled it to the rim with the drink, and then screwed the cap on. I rummaged through the Tupperware cabinet next, until I found something that could store a little dip and some sweet potato chips. Next I made up a container of the salad and placed a clean fork on top. A picnic by myself at the dock sounded amazing. If I hurried, I’d be able to swim for a little while before eating while watching the sunset. The weather was growing cooler now that October was nearing, but today had been fairly warm for this time of the year.

I hustled to my room and changed into my bathing suit. Laughter streamed from the dining room; it was Emma. My feet paused in the hall to listen. It had been too long since I’d heard her laugh. Warmth filled my stomach and spread outward. Tonight had been exactly what I wanted for her. It had also been what I wanted from her—to come to life again. I crept toward that kitchen, and gathered my picnic supplies into a grocery sack before exiting the house through the back door.

I savored the stillness of the woods as I made my way through them. It calmed my mind and soul. There was something peaceful about being surrounded by tall trees. It had always made me feel as though I were hiding from the world, taking a time out from life. This walk, topped with time at the lake, would be the perfect way to end this day.

I gripped the grocery bag in my hand tighter as the dock came into view. A tiny hope that Dawson would be in the water bloomed through my chest. He wasn’t. It was for the best. He was the last person I needed to see right now.

Once I reached the wooden planks of the dock, I slipped off my sandals, and set the plastic grocery bag down. I started toward the edge of the dock, ready to feel the water against my skin, and slipped the cardigan I’d worn and my sundress off. The lingering warmth from the sun caressed my skin. It would be gone soon, replaced by the crisp chilliness that came with fall. This was most likely the final surge of warmth for Parish Cove before winter set in.

I closed my eyes, soaking in the moment. The scent of the water and my sunblock mixed in the air around me, reminding me of summer. I was glad to be back here. It was the first time the thought had crossed my mind, but I had actually missed Parish Cove. Just a little.

Without hesitating, I jumped off the dock and dove into the lake headfirst. The water was cooler than I thought it would be, but my body adjusted quickly. I had missed swimming. I had missed being in this lake. God, there were so many things I once enjoyed that I didn’t think twice about after I moved into the dorms at Bradley. This was one of them.

I twisted until I was lying on my back, floating in the water. Weightless. My gaze shifted to the sky above me. Color now streaked through it where there had been nothing besides blue seconds ago. While I had always been amazed by the colors of the sunrise, I enjoyed sunsets the most. The colors seemed deeper, darker, and more vivid. I loved the way the orange and yellows seemed to explode across the horizon as though the day had carried too much for the sun, and he couldn’t hold it all in anymore. His feelings and thoughts, his memories of the day leaked from him, and trickled across the sky in an endless stream of color. He melted. Broke down until the morning where he would again become something new, something full, and whole, ready to take on the new day.

The significance of this thought triggered something in me.

I wasn’t sure where the epiphany of the sun and sunset had come from, but I knew without a doubt I could relate to it wholeheartedly. My life had been insane since Emma’s accident. Each day was filled to the brim with sadness, pain, heartache, and exhaustion. Each night, like the sun, I finally busted, unable to contain it all any longer. The darkness of my thoughts spread through my body, tugging me down toward the bottom of the lake. I gave up on trying to stay afloat, and gave in to the pull of the darkness.

Emma would never walk again. She would never be able to have children. She would always need someone’s help, even if she wouldn’t admit it, and she had become a shell of her former self.

Mom was in a nursing home. She hardly remembered her name, and she had tried to escape from Sunny Brook once already. They had found her wandering in the parking lot, searching for her car. Now she wore a bracelet that triggered an alarm anytime she slipped through their doors. Basically, we had sent our mother to a pretty jail dressed up in the disguise of a nursing home to die. She wouldn’t be coming back. People didn’t come back from Alzheimer’s. The disease picked away at them until there was nothing left, and when it was finished, the person passed on. I understood this now, even though I couldn’t fully accept it.

I sank farther into the water, letting the distance between the top of my head and the surface grow as I wondered how far I could sink before my lungs craved more air. My long hair snaked around my arms as I let them lift above my head during my decent. Tightness constricted my chest seconds later. Apparently, I couldn’t go far. Stubbornly, I waited a few heartbeats, urging my lungs to give me more time. I needed more time in this weightless state where I was free to think and feel whatever darkness crossed my mind.

Until it burned. That was how long I stayed submerged under the water. When I finally broke the surface of the lake, my lungs pulled in greedy breaths of air while my eyes focused on a pair of hairy man legs hanging from the dock.

“Finally. I was about to jump in and drag you out.” Dawson’s voice was clipped and heavy with worry. “What were you doing? Trying to drown yourself?”

“No.” I swiped my wet hair away from my face, not offering him anything else. He wouldn’t understand. Or maybe he would. He had lost his father, and almost lost his fiancée a few months apart from each other. Emma wasn’t the same. While tonight did give me hope things with her might finally be hitting a turning point, I wasn’t willing to bet on it. Not yet.

“Looked like it,” he grumbled.

I glanced at him as I hoisted myself up onto the dock beside him. “I wasn’t trying to drown myself. I was floating.”

“Submerged underwater for forever.” He handed me my towel beside him.

“Not forever.” I dried myself, and then wrapped the towel around me. It didn’t feel right to be sitting beside Dawson in my tiny bikini. “Just for longer than you were obviously comfortable with.” I tried to put a teasing tone into my words, but it came out wrong, making my words sound weird. Snippy.

“Yeah. You got that last part right.” He placed a hand over his heart, and shifted until his eyes were locked with mine. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.” He was serious.

“Sorry.” I wrapped my arms around myself and hung my legs off the edge of the dock. Now that I was out of the water I could feel a chill in the air. It settled into my bones, causing me to shiver. “I didn’t know you were there. What are you doing out here?” He shouldn’t be here. He should be far away from me.

His jaw twitched, as though he didn’t want to tell me. I noticed his eyes drift out toward the sky, the colors of the sunset lighting his face in different shades of purple and pink. “I have a hard time being at my house alone. Since Dad passed away.”

My stomach flipped. “Oh.” I didn’t know what more to say. I understood his pain, but then again, I didn’t.

“I keep wondering if I should sell the house and move on.” He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “But, then I think about Emma and I can’t. I need to be here. For her.”

The breath was knocked out of me by his words. They hurt me. Even though I knew they shouldn’t. I should be telling him how true his words were, reinforcing them, but I couldn’t.

Then I realized what he was saying. He wasn’t telling me he wanted to sell his father’s house; he was telling me that he wanted to leave Parish Cove. A spasm of panic rippled through me, because what if he did?

What if things between him and Emma didn’t work out? I knew it was hard for him to continue pursuing my sister when all she wanted was for him to move on to someone else. What if he finally gave in to what she wanted and let go? What if he left Parish Cove without ever looking back? I wouldn’t blame him, but I wouldn’t be one hundred percent happy about his choice either. It would crush me, because he would be leaving me. Twice.

I smoothed my fingertip against my brow. No. I couldn’t think like that. Dawson wasn’t mine. He never had been, and he never would be. He was Emma’s, and if things between them didn’t work, things between us still couldn’t. You don’t date your sister’s ex-fiancé. It was an unwritten rule. Right?

It should be. Dear God, it should be.

“And you,” Dawson muttered, loud enough for me to wonder if he had said anything at all.

“What?” My voice cracked as the word pushed its way past my lips.

He turned to look me in the eyes. “I said ‘and you’. I couldn’t leave you behind either. You need me as much as Emma does, as much as I need you.”

All I heard was those three final words of his—‘I need you.’

For years, I had dreamed of him saying those words to me, among others in the three-word category, but I never thought it would happen.

The circumstances surrounding why he admitted to needing me slammed into me from all sides. It wasn’t that he was admitting his deep, long-rooted, undying love for me. It was that he knew we needed each other to make it through things with my sister, to help get her back on track. No one besides us knew what the other one was feeling when it came to her situation.

A sudden sense of nausea sloshed through my stomach. This was what had pulled Emma and Dawson together. They had bonded over taking care of an ailing parent. And now what were we doing? Bonding over my sister’s accident.

I couldn’t look at him. This was wrong. Everything about this moment was wrong. Realizing this didn’t change how I felt about him though. I was sick. How could I have these desires for him? I was betraying Emma. I was disrespecting her in the worst of ways, and she didn’t even know. Somewhere along the line, I had turned into a sneaky snake, and I hated myself for it. I needed to lock all of these feelings up inside and toss away the key.

Dawson and I could be friends and nothing more. Friends helped one another through tough times. That was what we had been doing. It was what we would keep doing, because I couldn’t bear to shut him out. Not now. Not while there was still so much happening with Emma. Not while I was still worried about how things for her would turn out.

“I know.” I didn’t deny what he’d said, because it was the truth.

His brows furrowed as he stared at me, and I wondered if he imagined I would have said otherwise. Had I surprised him? “Why are you looking at me like that? Did you think I would argue with you?”

“Actually, yeah, I did.” His lips twisted into the same boyish smile they always seemed to when he was embarrassed about something. It was cute.

Even as a friend, I was allowed to think something about him was cute, wasn’t I? The beginnings of a headache twitched behind my right brow as my confusing emotions continued to torment me.

“What have you got here?” He moved to grab the grocery bag I’d packed, breaking whatever had been building between us.

“A picnic for one.”

“Salad, sweet potato chips, dip, and—” He lifted out the water bottle. “I know this isn’t water.” His grin grew.

“It’s not.”

“Care to share? I didn’t have much to eat tonight, and I could always go for a drink, even if it is a little fruity.”

Friends shared meals and drinks with one another.

“Um. Sure.” I reached for the sweet potato chips. “Here. There was this guy who gave me a really great tip when it came to making these.” I was trying to be normal. To ease the tension in the air around us.

“Oh yeah, and what was that?” A light twinkled in his eyes, one I was glad to see come back.

I nodded. “Yeah. He told me they needed to be cooked.”

Dawson’s warm laugh drifted from him. I loved his laugh. “Smart guy.”

“I think so.” I grinned as I popped open the dip. “He also saved my ass on this dip.”

“He saved your ass, huh?”

“Yeah, he tossed mine out and made a fresh one. This one tastes good and won’t give you food poisoning; the other one, I’m not so sure about.”

Another rumble of laughter bellowed out of him, vibrating the air around us with his happiness. “I doubt it would have poisoned anyone. You’re too sweet and cute to make poison, even the accidental kind.”

I swallowed hard. His words making something shift inside of me. Friends. We were two friends hanging out. Friends shared meals together. They shared drinks. They said nice things about the other when they were being hard on themselves.

Friends were all we were and all that we would ever be, I reminded myself.

THE HOUSE WAS DARK and eerily quiet when I slipped back through the kitchen door. My cheap sandals squeaked against the tile floor as I maneuvered to close it behind me. Goose bumps prickled across my skin at the coldness in the air. AC was a wonderful thing to have, as long as you weren’t coming in from outside, dripping wet.

I tiptoed to my room, wondering how late it was and why Emma hadn’t waited up for me like I thought she would. I was glad she hadn’t though. My guilt from having spent time with Dawson at the dock was already eating at my insides.

The emotion had become my friend throughout the night, and I knew Dawson felt the same, but neither of us was brave enough to admit it out loud. I tried to think of sharing my meal with him and drinking at the dock as something friends would do, but deep down I knew it was more than that. We both did. There was a chemistry between us, and each time we were alone together it grew.

For the millionth time that night, I felt sickness slosh around in my stomach. I swallowed hard and continued down the hall on my tiptoes, leaving a trail of water droplets behind me.

I noticed Emma’s light was on. For a moment, I debated whether I should check on her. Worry that she might not be able to get herself into bed safely pumped through me. I sank my teeth into my bottom lip and crept to her bedroom door. I knocked and then waited, listening for her to respond. When she didn’t, I turned the knob and opened the door as quietly as I could. She was lying on her bed, sleeping peacefully. There was a slight curve to her lips, one that made me think she was dreaming of happy things. Hope swelled in my chest that she would be happier after this night, that maybe there had been some sort of a release spurred from her that could only be found by spending time with good friends.

I closed her door and headed to my room. The need to be free from my wet bathing suit and damp towel had become a necessity. Once I grabbed some pajamas, I headed down the hall to the bathroom for a hot shower to warm me against the coldness that festered inside the house, and wash away the lake water drying across my skin.

I slipped out of my suit, and turned the water on. As I ran my fingers through it, waiting for it to warm, I remembered how weightless I’d felt submerged in the lake. Never in my life had I felt so free. The craving to have a tiny flicker of that sensation sweep through me again was what made me decide to take a bath instead of a long shower.

After plugging the tub, I sat on the edge and watched as the water lifted to meet the rim of the tub. Thoughts of Dawson crept into my mind. Nothing had happened between us tonight. The moment we continued to find ourselves in never seemed to find its way back again. Which was fine. Absolutely fine. But, I couldn’t deny how badly I wanted it to. I was a horrible sister. Dawson was a horrible fiancé as well, because it wasn’t just me. He had a part in this as well. Didn’t he?

I cut the water off when it reached the height I felt would swallow me enough and slipped in. The hot water wrapped around me like a blanket, and I felt the tension that had been building in my muscles dissipate. I let my limbs go slack and waited for the same feeling of weightlessness to encompass me, but it never did. Submerging yourself in a bathtub filled with water wasn’t the same as doing so in a lake. I needed another drink to relax me enough for the comparisons to end.

Sunlight streamed through my bedroom window, forcing me to wake before I wanted to. I wasn’t sure of the exact time I had gone to bed, but I knew it was somewhere between two and three. At least that was the last time I remembered creeping into the kitchen for my final glass of blueberry whatever it was I had made. Apparently, Emma and her friends hadn’t touched the stuff I made before heading to the lake. I had thought this was a great thing last night, but now, with the sunlight beams acting like a pickax to my temples, I wasn’t so sure.

“God, why did I drink so many glasses of that crap last night?” I grumbled as I rolled onto my stomach and buried my head underneath my pillow.

I had been trying to fend off my guilt, while drowning in my sorrows. A pity party, that was what I had thrown for myself until the wee hours of the morning, and now I would pay the price. I lay there until my bladder wouldn’t allow me to anymore, before I finally got up and made the trek to the bathroom down the hall. The house was quiet still. I wasn’t sure what I expected to hear, but this stillness was not it. I made it back to my room and flopped onto my bed again.

“Hello? Anyone home?” Dawson’s voice sliced through my quietness. “Emma? Charlotte?” He shouted far too loud for my poor skull to handle.

My brain hurt.

“Hello?” Dawson called out again. The sound of the front door slamming shut blasted through the walls to me, and I winced. Where the hell was Em, and why wasn’t she answering him? “Emma? Charlotte? You two home?”

“Jesus,” I grumbled into my pillow.

“Emma?” Dawson was turning down the hall. His deep voice boomed through the thin wall of my room and vibrated my skull even harder now that he was closer. “Charlotte?”

“Oh my God! Shut up!” I shouted from my bed. If I thought his voice was causing my head to split in two, the sound of my own nearly blinded me with pain. My bedroom door opened, but I didn’t move. I knew it was Dawson.

“Hey to you too.” His tone seemed amused, which was something I wasn’t.

“Did you not see our cars in the driveway? That should have been your first clue we were home,” I snapped from beneath my pillow and blankets. “Keep your voice down. My head is killing me.”

“Okay. Can do,” he whispered, but I could still hear the laughter in his tone. “Did the blueberry stuff sink its nasty little claws in you last night?”

“No.” I flopped around, trying to find a comfortable position in my bed. “It poisoned me. I’m dying.”

His laughter bounced off my walls, piercing my brain with each loud rumble. God, I hated him right now. I wanted him to leave.

“Sounds like someone could use an aspirin and some water.” He continued to laugh. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Whatever,” I groaned. I was not a morning person, especially not when I had little elves using pickaxes inside my skull every time he spoke. I squeezed my eyes shut and rolled over in bed again, searching for a cool spot on my sheets to press my hot face into. The horrible sensation I might vomit was creeping up my throat, making my mouth water and causing a trembling feeling in my stomach.

“Here you go, sunshine,” Dawson teased when he came back into the room. I heard him set a glass down on my nightstand. “Have you seen Emma this morning? Is she still sleeping?”

I didn’t move for the water or the aspirin, afraid if I did my stomach would win in its rebellion of last night’s drink choice. “Do I look like I’ve seen Emma? She was asleep when I came home.”

“I’ll go see if the blueberry drink happened to poison her as well, then,” he joked. “Might be a good idea I came by when I did. Looks like you two needed me.”

“You go do that,” I grumbled into my mattress, glad he was leaving. I didn’t want him to see me running for the bathroom to pray to the porcelain gods.

“Take that aspirin,” he insisted. “It will make you feel better in an hour or so, but you have to drink the entire glass of water too.”

“What are you, a hangover master or something?”

“Not in the slightest, but I’ve suffered through my fair share of them in the past to know what to do.”

I slung my covers off and sat up in bed. The quick motion was not a smart move. The room spun, and the vomit I had been holding back nearly burst free. I reached for the pill and water. After placing it on my tongue, I took a sip of water and swallowed. “There, happy now?”

“Yes.” He smiled as he closed the door to my bedroom, sealing me away to wallow until my death-grip of a hangover subsided.

His elephant footfalls clomped down the hall to Emma’s room, and I flopped back onto my mattress, swearing he was being loud on purpose. What an ass. I buried my head in my pillow and closed my eyes, waiting for his cure-all aspirin to kick in.

“Charlotte!” My name filled the house in a deafening boom. The sound of it had me jolting into a sitting position in an instant. My heart pumped hard and fast inside my chest. The room spun around me as I listened, wondering if I had heard my name or if I had imagined it. “Charlotte!” Dawson shouted. His voice was strangled, panicked. Something was wrong, and I knew in an instant it was Emma.