Текст книги "Paper Thin"

Автор книги: Jennifer Snyder

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

MY FEET HAD NEVER moved so fast before. I slung my bedroom door open and darted down the hall toward Emma’s cracked door, pausing once I reached the threshold. I blinked, trying to force the fog of my hangover away and calm my sour stomach, so I could process what I was seeing. Dawson was on his knees at the side of Emma’s bed. She was still in the position I remembered her being in last night. The same tiny smile of relief and peace twisted her lips. She was sleeping still, why was Dawson screaming? Why had his yells for me seemed deafening, but yet they hadn’t woke her? What was I seeing?

I looked closer, and the scene sank in. Emma wasn’t sleeping.

The realization powered through me, causing my body to sway from the force. My sour stomach churned as I continued to stare at her.

“No.” My voice was barely above a whisper, but I felt it ring through me with an incredible amount of force. “No!”

The sounds of Dawson’s sobs bounced off the walls and echoed through my head. I couldn’t breathe. This had to be a nightmare. It couldn’t be reality. My legs jerked forward, as an urge to reach out and touch her built inside me. If I touched her she would wake up. The thought centered in my mind with certainty, and there was nothing anyone could say or do to make me not believe it. I rounded the bed, and then paused on her other side. That was when I saw the envelopes.

Sitting on the nightstand were two white envelopes. One had my name written in Emma’s beautiful and clean handwriting, the other had Dawson’s name on it. Why would she leave letters like that for us to find? This didn’t make any sense. None whatsoever. Part of me realized what this scene was before me, but a larger part of me chose to not believe it. Refused to. My sister would never do something so drastic. She was happy, I reminded myself. When I left the party to head to the lake, she had been laughing with her friends. It was the first normal night I’d seen her have in months. She was too happy to do something like what this scene implied.

I noticed Dawson move away from her in my peripheral vision. I could see him reach up to run his hands through his hair, but I couldn’t bring my eyes to leave the envelopes. There was something mesmerizing about them. Something that reached inside of me and forced my heart to hammer out one word—NO!

“Why?” Dawson’s voice cracked with emotion. It was one simple three-lettered word, but it forced tears to stream from my eyes. It was exactly what I was asking myself now that I’d heard it. Why? Why would Emma do this? Why wouldn’t she tell me things were this bad for her? Why would she pretend last night she was finally okay?

Why?

The sound of pills shaking in a bottle shattered what was left of my already fragile heart. I jerked my gaze from the envelopes to the pill bottle held in Dawson’s hand. My chest constricted. The room tilted. Everything about me hurt. Suddenly, I couldn’t see through my tears; they were coming so fast.

“Sleeping pills.” His words confirmed my fear. The bottle, her sleeping face, the envelopes. Everything shifted, solidifying what my sister had done. There was no erasing the finished puzzle in my mind, there was no going back, and absolutely no denying what had happed here.

“She committed suicide.” The words burned like acid as they poured from my mouth. I hated everything about the sentence. Hated each word with a vengeance I didn’t know I harbored.

“She wouldn’t.” Dawson sounded so confident. I wanted to trade places with him. I wanted to believe that Emma wouldn’t do this, but I couldn’t.

Last night was my sister’s goodbye to me.

The thought hit me like a boulder to the gut. Then came the guilt. I had been at the lake with Dawson. We had shared a meal and drank together. We had laughed and swam together. We had completely forgotten about her for a stretch of time.

There was no one else on this Earth who was a worse person than I was.

“I know Emma, and she would never do this. Not to me. Not to you. She would never do this. Never,” Dawson argued. Everything was sitting there in front of him, but he couldn’t accept it.

I had. For some reason, it was clear. There was nothing I could argue about. All I could do was be angry with her for doing it. All I could do was wonder why.

“She left us both a note.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. It was too soft, too weak, and too broken. I didn’t even know why the words had pushed their way up my throat.

Dawson lifted himself into a standing position. He started around to my side of the bed, and leaned past me to reach for his letter. I glanced at him, taking in the pissed off expression on his face. He was determined to find out why she had done this. He needed a reason. It was written all over his face.

I didn’t need one. I didn’t care to read her words, her excuses, her goodbye. Emma was gone, and nothing she could say in any letter would make me understand why she had done it.

I left the room. I couldn’t stand being so close to her but yet feeling so far away. I couldn’t console Dawson this time death touched him. I couldn’t even console myself.

As I neared my room, I thought about crawling back into bed and burying myself beneath my blankets and pillows, but my feet never turned in that direction. Instead, they continued forward, drawn to the outside by my lungs incredible need for air. They were starved for it. Tightness had centered there. A swollen feeling had grown in my throat. The hall spun as I continued down it.

My hand gripped the handle to the back door and twisted. The moment it swung open was the moment I felt air pour back into me. My frantic breaths puffed out of me and swirled through the air. I knew it had to be freezing outside, but I couldn’t feel it. My body had gone numb.

I heaved all the way toward the bench. Once I reached it, I curled into a ball. I wrapped my arms around my knees, and pulled them as far into my chest as they would go. It was the only way to hold the broken pieces of myself together.

Nothing I had ever experienced before in my life had hurt as much as this.

I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, crying out the broken pieces of my soul, but after a while, Dawson came to find me. He sat on the bench near my head, and dragged me until I was curled in his lap. Warmth seeped into my body from his touch, but it couldn’t reach my heart. It was frozen solid from the realization of what my sister had done.

Together, Dawson and I mourned my sister—a beautiful person we had both loved, but one who had decided neither of us were worth staying for.

“DO YOU NEED ME to get you anything?” Sadie touched my shoulder. I was glad she was here, but I’d told her there was no need to be. We weren’t giving Emma a funeral. My family didn’t do the morbid funeral thing. We were cremated, and then someone held a Wake in our honor.

“No.” I shook my head, and sighed. “I don’t want anything.”

“Are you sure? I don’t think I’ve seen you eat since I got here yesterday.” Concern for me rang through her words.

“I picked at a muffin this morning.” The neighbors had rallied and brought me every bread item ever created by man it seemed. I assumed this was because when Emma finally returned home from her accident they all made every casserole known, and they needed to come up with something different this time around.

“Sweetheart, that was hours ago.” Sadie smoothed her hand along my shoulder. “You need something more substantial than a few muffin crumbs.”

“I don’t have an appetite.” I didn’t. Nothing sounded good, nothing tasted good. Food had lost its appeal.

“I’m going to make something for you anyway. Maybe when you smell it, your appetite will come back.” She started rummaging through the fridge for something besides baked goods, and I returned my stare to the notebook in front of me.

I’d been making a list of people to call and tell the news about Emma to. I wasn’t sure how soon after something like this occurred you were supposed to notify everyone, but I figured they would all be able to understand my need to have a day or two to mourn my sister without mentioning anything to them. Today was day two without her, and I was finally ready to get this part over with. So far my list consisted of eleven people. Six were family, and the rest were her closest friends or family friends I knew would want to hear the news from me.

The scent of butter and garlic hit my nose, and my stomach rolled with hunger. While my mind might not understand the need for food, my stomach did. I propped my head up with my hand and focused on the notebook in front of me again. Unable to think of anyone else to add, I turned the page and added plastic cups to my list of stuff needed for the Wake. The sound of the front door opening startled me. I glanced toward the living room, knowing exactly who it would be. I hadn’t seen him since we both broke down on the bench the other morning, but I expected him to come back at some point.

Dawson walked into the kitchen, his arms weighed down by grocery bags. He didn’t look at me or Sadie as he crossed the room and set the bags down on the counter. I watched him, took notice to the heavy inhale he took before he turned around to face me. The scruff along his chin and cheeks was something I had never seen before. It made him appear rugged and handsome, until you looked closer. Mixed with the dark circles beneath his eyes and his ruffled hair, Dawson looked like a mad man. Someone on the verge of breaking.

“There’s still more in my truck. I’ll be right back.” His voice was low and hollow. It was unfamiliar, and caused worry to stab through me. It also forced me to realize I wasn’t the only one who had lost someone they loved.

“What is all this?” Sadie stepped to the bags after Dawson left the room, and rummaged through them. “Napkins, cups, decorations.”

I set the pen I had been holding down, and pushed myself away from the little corner table in our kitchen. “It’s stuff for the Wake.” Suspicion crept through me. How he had known what all I would need?

“I hope this is the right size. She didn’t specify.” Dawson walked into the kitchen with a large board clasp in his hands. When he flipped it around for me to see, my knees nearly buckled.

It was a picture of Emma. One I had taken two years ago. It was my favorite of her. Seeing it brought back the memories from when it was taken. Emma, Mom and I had all gone zip lining together. It was about six months before Alzheimer’s gripped Mom in a vice.

My eyes focused on the burnt orange and red leaves behind Emma. It had been chilly that day, sometime in the middle of fall. I was home for the weekend because Emma had asked me to come more than once. In retrospect, I realized now that it was probably because she and Mom both knew it wouldn’t be long before the disease took over. More than likely, the trip there had been a way for us to create good memories together before the disease tarnished any we had of her.

“Was that when you came down and zip lined with your mom and her?” Sadie asked. To this day, she still couldn’t believe that was something I’d done for fun. She was deathly afraid of heights.

“Yeah.” My lips twisted into a small smile as I continued to stare at the picture. That had been such a good day. “Right before we placed our keys and cell phones into a box the instructor was passing around, so we wouldn’t lose anything on the course, I told Emma to look at me, and then snapped a few pictures of her. This ended up being one of my favorites.” I stared at her. The picture was the epitome of my sister. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun on top of her head, her hands were on her hips, and her lips had turned upward into the ghost of a smile. I’d even caught her mid-eye roll.

“The original was in my envelope.” Dawson moved to lean the picture against the cabinets. “She wanted me to blow it up for the Wake. She said it was the one picture of her she knew would be guaranteed to make you smile. Guess she was right.”

My smile wavered. I swallowed hard, unable to rip my eyes from the picture. God, Emma always did know me so well. My throat grew tight as tears pricked my eyes. Irritation surged through me, because I didn’t want to cry anymore. I couldn’t.

If Emma had known me so damn well, then she would have known how hard I would take this. She would have thought twice before taking all those sleeping pills. She would still be here. Anger swelled within me.

“In your envelope?” Sadie asked. “What envelope?” I could feel her eyes as they bored into me.

“She left us each an envelope. Right beside her bed,” I answered.

“Have you opened yours?” I could hear the wonder in her voice. She was curious to know what mine had said. Which meant she wouldn’t understand my reasoning for not opening it.

“No.” The word was flat and hollow as it rolled out of my mouth.

“Why?” It wasn’t Sadie who asked the question, it was Dawson. “How could you not care to read her final words?” His tone wasn’t harsh, but there were tendrils of something similar lacing through his words.

“Because they weren’t her final words,” I snapped. “They were her excuse for why she left me. Us. For why she took the easy way out.” My heart was beating far too fast. I was getting worked up.

“It wasn’t the easy way out for her; it was the only way she knew how to end the pain she was in!” Dawson’s voice boomed through my kitchen. There was no denying the harshness etched in his words now. My gaze jumped to him. The sight of him so angry with me was jarring. I stared at him, watching as his nostrils flared and his jaw clenched and unclenched. It was clear he was feeling a magnitude of things. And then, in an instant, everything evaporated from his face, and his muscles grew slack. “It was the only way she knew how to end it peacefully.” His words were too soft. They reflected something in them I didn’t share—forgiveness. He seemed to be so damn accepting of the entire thing. It was almost as though he thought she had done something admirable, like she was the stronger one for having the courage to end it all the way she did.

“You really should read it, Charlotte,” Sadie chimed in, forcing the thoughts clouding my mind to clear. “She wrote it for a reason. Obviously, she had something to say to you.”

I closed my eyes and exhaled a deep breath. When I stood, I stalked past them both and straight out the back door.

What was so hard to grasp about me not wanting to read the letter? I might eventually. I mean, I hadn’t thrown it away. I just couldn’t bear to read it. Not right now. Everything was too fresh.

My bare feet moved through the grass in the backyard. It had grown taller over the last few weeks, to the point of brushing my ankles. I toyed with the idea of letting it continue to grow until it swallowed the house. Every good memory I ever had there had been tarnished by what my sister had done.

When I reached the bench near the fire pit, I paused, debating on having a seat and catching my breath, but I didn’t want Sadie or Dawson staring at me through the kitchen window, so I continued past it and into the woods. Sharp bits of sticks and brush stabbed into the bottoms of my feet as I left the soft grass behind. The thought to go back for a pair of shoes never crossed my mind though. I was in a haze, one that pressed me against my breaking point. Once I made it to the fallen tree where Dawson and I had found Mom that one time, I sat.

I pulled the sleeves to my sweater over my hands and wrapped my arms around my middle. My eyes closed. The sounds of the woods floated to my ears, and I took in a deep breath. As I exhaled it, I heard footsteps of someone tromping through the woods close by. It had to be Dawson. He was the only person I had ever met who couldn’t walk quietly if his life depended on it.

“There you are.” His voice was softer, sweeter than it had been back in my kitchen.

I didn’t open my eyes, not even when I felt him move to sit beside me. His presence pressed against mine, and I felt my body sigh with relief as though it had been waiting for him to be this close. His nearness clamed me. It stilled my frantic mind and steadied my erratic heartbeat. Dawson had become the person I leaned on most throughout everything with Emma, except for this. I wasn’t sure why there was so much distance between us now. Maybe it was because he felt the same amount of guilt I did over the fact that we had been together that night, sipping on my blueberry drink, trying our best not to kiss one another, while watching the sunset. Emma had been a short walk away, debating on ending her existence with a handful of pills.

“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” Dawson started again. “I shouldn’t have.”

“It’s okay.” I told him what he wanted to hear. Arguing with him wasn’t what I wanted. I only wanted him to be quiet and sit with me. I needed the comfort he always seemed to bring with him. I knew now that it was like glue holding me together. Without it, I would only continue to break.

“No, it’s not. I just…” He trailed off. I opened my eyes and glanced at him, attempting to gauge what he was feeling based off his expression. “I just don’t understand why you haven’t opened her letter yet. It was her final words, Charlotte. Not excuses, but her final words to you. You should treasure them.”

I didn’t speak right away. Instead, I stared at him, wondering what his letter had said. “Did yours make you feel better? Were you able to accept what she had done?”

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “After a while, it did.”

I didn’t believe him. No words my sister could have written would make this pain I felt in her absence go away. “What did she say to you?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “A lot.”

Simple. Cryptic. I wanted to know more. Details. I needed them. “Like?” I pressed.

He shifted his gaze to the ground beneath his shoes. “She gave me directions for her Wake. The picture she wanted blown up, the food she wanted prepared, the music she wanted played, and a list of supplies. There was even a list of relatives and phone numbers for me to call and give the news to.”

My heart skipped a beat. I didn’t understand what he was saying. “Why would she give you everything that was supposed to be my responsibility? Was she worried I would screw it up?”

She had planned her own Wake, right down the damn plastic cups.

“She knew how hard it would be for you. She said she wanted to make this as easy for you as she could.” Dawson placed a hand on my knee. It was warm through the thin fabric of my yoga pants. “She loved you, Charlotte. This was her final way to do something for you, to take a portion of your burden away.”

“If she loved me so much and wanted to protect me from all this, then why did she do it in the first place?” I closed my eyes as I felt them swell with tears. I wasn’t sure how much a person could cry, but I felt as though I was nearing my limit for a lifetime.

“She didn’t do this to hurt either of us. She was in pain. More than you know. More than even I knew.”

“The doctors had given her medicine for that. If it was that bad, she should have said something to them. They could have upped her prescription strength or something. She didn’t have to do this, Dawson. She didn’t.” My tears flowed heavier as the words hung suspended in the air between us, crackling with my emotions.

“It was more than just physical pain,” he whispered. “It was deeper than that. Not only had the life she knew been taken from her, but so had the life she always dreamed of. She couldn’t bare it.” He sniffled, and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand.

“Most people would have felt sorry for themselves, and then moved on. I can’t understand why that didn’t happen to her. She was the strong one out of the two of us. She took care of Mom without an issue—”

“Because she had to,” Dawson cut in. “And it wasn’t without issue. There were many times when she would cry because she wasn’t sure if keeping your mom home was the right thing to do. I can’t even count how many times she called me with some crazy story from something your mom had done, or something your mom had said to her. She freaked out over directions when it was a new doctor she was taking your mom to. She would Google every new medication or treatment they wanted until she gave herself a headache. It was hard on her. She just never let you see it.”

I shook my head. “No. If it stressed her out that bad, she would have said something to me.” I refused to believe my sister had not been one hundred percent fine taking care of our mother on her own. Emma could handle everything that came her way. That was why I didn’t put up a fight or worry about anything when it came to Mom, because I knew Emma had it. She always had everything under control. It was who she was.

“She wanted you to stay where you were. She knew if she told you any of the bad stuff, it would worry you, and you’d come home to help. Emma wanted you to finish school and be young. She thought you deserved to.”

I hated his words, and the emotions they stirred within me. “She thought I was selfish. She told me herself.”

“She was mad.”

“No. She was right.”

“Stop putting her on a pedestal, damn it!” Dawson growled. “I loved your sister very much. It was why I asked her to marry me, but she was only human, Charlotte. She had her flaws and weaknesses like everyone else. Maybe if you’d read her letter, you’d understand her better.” He tossed the envelope from her into my lap. The sight if it was so jarring, I couldn’t find it in myself to be angry with him for digging through my room to find it, much less breathe. I stared at my sister’s beautiful handwriting. Clutching the envelope to my chest, I closed my eyes and cried.