Текст книги "Paper Thin"
Автор книги: Jennifer Snyder
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 16 страниц)
MY SISTER FILLED THE house. Pieces of her were reflected in every single area I looked today. I had envisioned how hard this moment would be last night, replaying the looks of sympathy directed toward me from everyone who had loved Emma. The truth was, it wasn’t hard. Either I had gone numb to the pain of losing her, or I had somehow switched to my autopilot mode.
I wondered if I had been helping to prepare for her Wake if things would have hit me harder. Dawson and Sadie had arranged everything for me, following Emma’s instructions to a T. I glanced around the living room from where I sat in the center of the couch. Purple and black crape paper had been draped across every surface imaginable, the music flowing from my iPod were all Emma’s favorite songs, and the food and drinks were things I knew she loved right down to her absolute favorite dessert—peach ice cream. This house was as filled with Emma as it would ever be.
Abruptly, it all became too much.
The people here, smiling and laughing as they shared stories of my sister. The song playing. The scent of sweetness in the air from my sister’s favorite foods lining the tables along the far wall. I hated everything and everyone within these damn walls. Never again would any of these things bring a smile to my face, because they were parts of Emma, and she was now gone.
A piece of purple crape paper fluttered from the ceiling to the floor, the tape giving out without warning. My stomach churned. The sight of the crape paper made the room seem too festive even though the purple was intertwined with black. This couldn’t be what Emma wanted. She couldn’t have wanted us to throw a party celebrating the fact that she was gone, which was what it felt like we were doing. A traditional funeral would have been better; I realized that now. At least then there would have been the right amount of sadness on everyone’s faces. Not these wide smiles. A robust laugh sounded from somewhere in the throng of people congregating in my living room. It was out of place, wrong. The guy’s happy was too loud, didn’t he notice this about himself? Smiling faces swam around me. Everyone was happy. Why weren’t these people sad my sister was gone? Why was I the only one missing her so deeply my insides felt shattered?
I lunged from my spot on the couch, and darted past Melissa and Casey standing near the speakers, giggling over some memory of my sister they must have shared along with this song, and headed straight for the hall. Melissa said something to me, but I ignored her. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to smile and be happy. This wasn’t a happy day for me. This day was hell.
How could Emma have envisioned a Wake that was this happy? This full of life?
My feet continued past my room in a blur. When I blinked, I found myself standing beside her bed. I hadn’t expected to come in here. It seemed like an eerie invasion of privacy. I thought the room had been sealed shut since Emma was removed by the coroner, but as I stared down at her bed, I realized someone had been in here because the sheets and blankets were missing. The dingy mattress was bare and vulnerable, which was exactly what I felt. Tears pooled in my eyes, and when my legs could no longer hold me up, I moved to sit at the edge of the bed. I smoothed the tip of my index finger along the ugly flower print across the fabric of the mattress. My mind drifted far from here as the melody to In the Arms of the Angel floated through the walls. Curling into a ball, I lost it. Every tear I had ever tried to keep in poured from my eyes, wrapped around fractured bits of my soul.
After a while, the door opened to the room, letting the noise of everyone sting me with its cruelty. It closed quickly. I remained where I was with my eyes squeezed shut tight.
“You okay?” Dawson’s voice filled the room, shattering the silence I’d wanted to remain in.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. It would only intensify the pain I felt radiating through my body from the loss of my sister.
The mattress depressed as he sat beside me, his weight causing me to slip toward him. It wasn’t long before Dawson had his arms wrapped around me, pressing his body to mine.
“I know you miss her,” he whispered the words. “I do too.”
I untangled my arms, and gripped onto his hand wrapped around my middle. A sob clawed its way up my throat, and I broke all over again.
“You should read her letter,” he muttered against my hair after my tears finally ran dry.
Nothing in her letter could cure this horrific pain barreling through me from her absence on this Earth. Didn’t he understand that? They were just words, and words didn’t hold the power to help me.
Dawson placed a kiss to the top of my head, and then slipped out of the room. I wished I had the strength to follow him, to free myself from this room and its darkness that would always haunt me, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I couldn’t face those people. I couldn’t see the things Emma had loved so much all in one place. I shifted on the bed, trying to curl back up into the hardened ball Dawson had found me in, but something crinkled beneath me. The second my fingers brushed it, I knew what it was—Emma’s letter.
Irritation burned through me from Dawson’s persistence. The desire to crumble the damn thing up and throw it in his face singed my insides. I froze the moment I saw my name written in Emma’s handwriting. With trembling fingers, I surprised myself by tearing open the envelope.
Char,
I’m sorry. Not for what I’ve done, but for the pain my actions will cause you. If I could take it away for you, I would. I need you to know hurting you was not my intention. Please try to understand my pain. The accident didn’t just break and mangle my body, Charlotte, it did the same to my soul, and any future I dreamed for myself.
I gave Dawson instructions for my Wake, because I didn’t want you to have to be burdened by it all. I’m sure you twisted my reason for this in your head into something it wasn’t. Don’t think I didn’t trust you with this because I feared you wouldn’t host one that fit my standards. I knew you would. I had faith in you. I just felt it was unfair to have you do this twice in your lifetime. Mom’s will be coming over the next year, maybe even less. That one is all yours.
Smile, Char. For me. You know you want to. Don’t let this stop you from living. Grieve me, because I know you will, but don’t let my loss suck the life out of you. Live, Char. You’re so flighty and free. Mom’s wild child. Never change. Don’t let what I did change that about you. Please.
There was nothing you could have done differently. Things would have ended the same no matter what. This life wasn’t the one I was supposed to live. It couldn’t be, because it wasn’t the one I had planned for myself.
I’m not as strong as you thought. The daily pain and constant reminder of what I could no longer do, who I no longer was, became too much. I realized quickly I could handle the weight from others pain and issues without much dispute, but not when they were my own.
I love you. Know that with every part of your being.
When the time is right, please let me go. Don’t hold onto me forever. Spread my ashes in the ocean waters so I can be free in every sense of the word.
Loving you always,
Emma
Clutching the letter to my chest, I let my sister’s written words drift through my mind. Dawson and Sadie had been right, reading her letter had helped to ease some of my pain. In a strange way, it made me feel closer to her. These were words meant only for me. No one else. They were her final goodbye. Her final I love you, and I would treasure them forever.
THE PEACE THAT CAME over me after reading Emma’s letter didn’t last as long as I had hoped. In fact, in only lasted a few hours. By the time those who attended the Wake cleared out, my peaceful high from her words had dimmed to nothing.
As I put the last Tupperware container in the fridge, I stood in the kitchen with my arms wrapped around my middle, wondering what I was supposed to do now. Music still played from in the living room. It was the same song I’d heard ten times tonight. I listened to the words, letting them float through me. It was a sweet song, not as upbeat as the others. The lyrics lured more of my emotions to the surface, causing me to wonder if these strings of seconds interlocked together would be what I remembered most about this night. Was this memory what I would keep out of the blur that was my sister’s Wake?
“Do you need any help in here?” Dawson stepped into the kitchen. His hands were crammed into the front pockets of his jeans as though he wasn’t sure what to do next either.
“No. Everything is put up.” I didn’t look at him, I couldn’t. The sight of his grief would shatter me.
“Are you going to be okay?” He took a few steps closer. “Should I stay for a little while longer, or do you want me to leave?” There was hesitation in his voice. The situation was awkward for him as well. Neither of us knew what was supposed to happen now.
“I’ll be fine. Sadie’s here.” I brought my eyes to his then, and flashed a tiny smile I hoped seemed convincing. “Thanks though.”
He couldn’t stay. Dawson comforting me right now didn’t seem right. He had to go.
“All right.” He smoothed a hand through his hair. “If you need me, or anything, call. You’ve got my number still¸ right?”
Of course I did. I didn’t think I would ever have the heart to erase it. “Yeah.”
“Okay.” He remained where he was standing, his eyes glued to me for a few more heartbeats before finally deciding it was okay to leave. The second he did, I opened the fridge, and reached for one of the bottles of wine leftover from the Wake. One of Emma’s friends had brought it with her. It was a sweet red, which had been Emma’s favorite. Half of it was already gone, but I didn’t need much. A glass would do. I crossed the kitchen, and picked up one of the purple plastic wineglasses that came with the wine, before heading out the back door. Sadie would find me whenever she finished taking the decorations down in the living room.
It was late, around ten. The sun had long since left the sky, giving way to the brightness of the moon. There was a slight chill to the air, but it didn’t bother me. I walked through the grass toward the bench by the fire pit. Someone had mowed. I was sure it was Dawson. He seemed to look for things to do, projects to busy himself with. It probably helped with the pain of all he had lost in such a short time. I wondered what I would busy myself with now that Emma was gone.
Once I situated myself on the bench, I set my cup down, and popped the cork out of the wine bottle to pour myself a glass. After a few sips of the sugary sweetness, I stared at the house backlit by the moon. Even with the kitchen and living room lights on, it still looked gloomy and vacant. It had felt off when Mom went to Sunny Brook, but now there was a darker level of hollowness added to it.
I couldn’t stay here.
The realization slammed me in the gut as the desire to be anywhere besides here burst through me. Tears pricked my eyes, and I wondered if when I left if I would ever be able to return. My lungs constricted as tears pushed themselves free. I wanted to be able to come back; this was my home, but now it held too much heartache.
“What am I supposed to do now, Em?” I sobbed into the night. “How am I supposed to bounce back from this?”
She didn’t answer.
I knew she wouldn’t, but there was still hope burning inside of me that somehow she would. There were stories of people’s loved ones giving them a sign, or reaching out to them from the beyond. Why couldn’t Emma do something like that for me?
“Say something, Em,” I whispered, pleading with her.
Nothing.
I wouldn’t get an answer. She was gone. Maybe one day I would be able to accept that, but not today. Today I would only continue to mourn her. Tears tracked down my cheeks as though I were grieving her for the first time.
“Can I sit with you?” Sadie was standing a few feet away. There was a blanket in one hand and another one of the cheap purple wineglasses in the other. She wiggled the wineglass in the air when she noticed I was looking at it. “And have a drink?”
I wiped my nose on the back of my hand. “Sure.”
“I’m so sorry, Char.” She sat beside me, draped the blanket over us, and pulled me into her arms. She was warm. The scent of her fruity perfume suffocated me, but having someone hold me that wouldn’t cause spasms of guilt to ricochet through my body was exactly what I needed. I was so glad Sadie was here. “We’ll get through this, I promise.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.” A sob punctuated my sentence with my pain.
Lost. If I could describe myself in one word, it wouldn’t be devastated or shattered—it would be lost. Without Emma here to tell me what to do, to hold me accountable when I screwed up, and give me random bits of encouragement when I needed them most, I was lost.
“You’re supposed to continue on. One foot in front of the other.” Sadie sniffled. “Emma would have wanted you to, sweetie.”
“How long will it take before I can?” New guilt washed over me as I worried the question seemed selfish and insensitive, something Emma always made me feel about myself. It was funny how even after she was gone those feelings could still be there.
Sadie released me and shifted until she was looking into my eyes. “I can’t answer that for you, sugar, only you can.” She reached for the wine, and poured herself a glass before topping mine off.
A heavy silence built around us. Sadie slipped her hand in mine, and gave it a gentle squeeze as she sipped her wine.
After a few moments, I wiped my tears away, and pulled in a deep breath. “I’m glad you came.”
“I told you I would.” Sadie grinned. “Even though you probably told me a million times not to. You had to know I wouldn’t listen to you though.”
A chuckle slipped free. “You never do.”
“Damn right.” She lifted her glass in the air as though she were giving a toast.
I lifted mine as well, and then took a sip. A heavy sigh burst past my lips as I shifted my stare to the house. The same silence seemed to find us again.
“What are you gonna do with it?” Sadie broke it after a few minutes. Her gaze was locked on the house.
“I don’t know. I can’t stay here though. Not now.” It was like a museum of hurt and pain with suffocating memories around every corner.
“You could always come back to the dorms with me.” Hope hung in her words.
“I don’t know if school is the best place for me right now.”
“A distraction might do you some good.” Sadie folded one of her legs beneath her, and shifted to sit straighter, pulling a corner of the blanket up over her shoulder. “Something to focus on.”
Her words hit me wrong. I knew she wasn’t trying to seem insensitive, but I couldn’t help feeling as though she was, even though I had thought something similar earlier. “That’s not what I want. I don’t want to distract myself from what I feel.” Suddenly, I knew that wouldn’t be the way to go. I didn’t want to act as though nothing had happened, as though Emma hadn’t decided to end her life.
“You’re right. That might not be the healthiest way to go about everything.” She took a sip of her wine. “I just miss you is all.”
“I miss you too.” I did. I missed my entire life from before. This after scared me.
My cell rang. The sound of it startled us both. I pulled it from my pocket and stared at the screen. It was a number I hadn’t seen in months.
“Who is it?” Sadie asked.
“Will.” My thumb hovered over the answer symbol. I hadn’t heard from him since the night I ran into him at the bar and met Candace. “I don’t know what he could want.”
“Maybe someone mentioned to him about your loss.” There was a strange tone in her words. It made me question whether she had called him. I glanced at her, but she wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Answer it,” she insisted.
I did. “Hello?”
“Char, hey.” A sigh of relief mingled within my name when he spoke. “I didn’t think I would be able to get a hold of you.” The sound of his voice was oddly comforting. I hadn’t realized how much I missed him until that moment.
“Hi.” My teeth sank into my bottom lip as I waited for him to reveal the point of his call.
“I heard about Emma.” His tone changed. It wasn’t breathy, or filled with sympathy. It was steady and strong. I needed steady and strong. I didn’t want to cry on the phone with Will. “I wanted to call and see how you were doing. Offer my condolences.”
“I’m okay.” Was I? No, definitely not. I was as far from okay as could be, but he didn’t need to know the details.
“Really?” he called me out. It was one of the things I had liked best about him; the way he could always see through me.
“I’m trying to be,” I admitted.
Sadie placed a hand on my knee. “I’m gonna head inside and wash the dishes.”
“Okay, thanks.” I nodded to her.
“Was that Sadie?” Will asked.
“Yeah.”
“She’s a really good friend. I’m glad she’s there with you.” He paused for a second. “Actually, she was the one who called to tell me what happened.”
I knew it. I figured Sadie was behind his call. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’m glad she did, but I can’t help but wonder why you didn’t call me yourself?”
Why didn’t I call? Of course he would wonder that. “I didn’t think you would care,” I admitted.
He had Candace. He was happy. He wasn’t mine, and I didn’t want to burden him with my issues.
“Of course I care, Char. I can’t believe you would think that.” There was real pain laced in his words. I’d hurt him with what I’d said. “I will always care about you. You’re my friend.”
I closed my eyes, letting his words wash over me. Friend. I was Will’s friend. Not his girlfriend, but his friend. Suddenly, I could handle that. I wanted that. “Thank you.”
Someone saying something in the background caught my attention. It had to be Candace.
“Candace wants to know what your address is there. We’d like to send you something before we head to Africa for three months.”
Africa. I wondered if they were going on another mission trip together. I wanted that, to be able to leave the country and be free. To help people while I found myself again.
Why didn’t I? What was holding me back?
Nothing.
I had nothing holding me back anymore.
A wave of emotion pounded me from all sides. How could I think like that? The moment Emma heard me venting to Sadie about feeling overwhelmed and like her and Mom were holding me back plummeted me.
“Char? You there?” Will asked when I didn’t answer right away. “Hello?”
“Yeah, I’m here.” I pulled in a deep breath. “I’m not planning on staying here much longer, so I don’t think sending something would be smart.”
“Oh, okay. Where are you going to be then?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I took another sip of my wine. “That’s something I haven’t figured out yet.”
“Are you staying in Parish Cove somewhere, or are you planning to come back here to Bradley?” His tone wasn’t pushy. He wasn’t trying to make me commit to something right away, I could tell. He was merely curious.
“I don’t think I’ll stay in Parish Cove, no.” I knew I would come back at least once a month to visit Mom, but I wouldn’t settle here. I couldn’t. There was nothing for me here.
“So, you’ll come back to school, then?”
“Not anytime soon. I don’t know what I’m going to do, honestly.” My words cracked. “I’m lost.” A tear slipped down my cheek, and I brushed it away.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Charlotte. I really am.” He meant it. Not in the roundabout way others seemed to offer during the Wake—saying the words because they knew they were supposed to. Will actually meant them. He cared. He truly was sorry for how I was feeling, for the deep gash were my heart used to be. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
His last words were so random they confused me. “What?”
“Psalms 34:18,” he said with a hint of embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to preach to you; it just felt right to say. It’s from something I picked up during the last trip I went on. There was this woman whose husband had passed while we were there. Our leader said those words to her once or twice, and it stuck with me. I don’t know if it was because of what the words mean, or the look of comfort she seemed to get from them.”
I replayed them in my head, waiting for a sense of peace to fill me. A tiny flicker of it ignited in my chest.
“There was one more too, he said to her. ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’”
The sensation I felt after reading Emma’s letter melted over me again. I closed my eyes and basked in the warmth of it. “I like that one.”
“Me too. There’s hope in it,” he whispered. Candace said something in the background, but I couldn’t make out what. “Candace said you should come with us to Africa.”
The moment I was having paused. “I don’t know about that.”
While the idea of traveling and helping people as I found myself seemed amazing, I wasn’t so sure about the religious aspect. I went to church growing up, but once I left for college, I stopped attending. Emma had still gone. She and Mom could be found at Parish Cove Baptist every Sunday dressed in their best clothes. I had left that behind, like everything else.
“It’s not a religious organization we’re going with this time, if that’s what’s holding you back,” Will insisted, as though he knew exactly where my mind had dipped.
“I thought that’s what a mission trip was, a religious thing.”
“Most are, but this is with a new organization that provides trips for anyone without a religious affiliation. It’s a nice break, and you still get to do amazing things for people.”
“What are you planning to do in Africa?” He’d piqued my interest with the non-religious affiliation part. I didn’t want to be surrounded by people spreading God’s word, but I did want to get away. Far away. As far away as possible.
“We’re actually going as chaperones this time.” He chuckled. The sound of it was soothing and warm, contagious even. “There’s a tiny town that needs help building a new school for the kids. We’re going with a large group. Each of us has our own number of teens to lookout for. I think they’re still looking for three more chaperones though.”
Help build a school in Africa with some teenagers for three months. I could do that. I should do that. My mind bogged down with everything here though. The house. Mom. School. Dawson. Could I really leave everything behind for three months? What would people say about me, then? That I’d finally lost it? That they’d thought I would do something crazy like runaway somewhere, but never to Africa? God, I would be the talk of the town for years to come.
I listened as Will continued to talk about the finer details of the trip. There wasn’t any persuasion in his tone, only pure excitement. He was passionate about these trips. I’d known that from the beginning. It was something I had always envied about him. His ability to have something that made him feel so wonderful must be incredible.
As I reached for the wine bottle from where Sadie had set it on the stones that made up the fire pit, the letter from Emma crammed in my pocket dug into my hip. I pulled it out, and reread my sister’s final words to me. The paragraph about continuing to live was what I focused on.
Don’t let this stop you from living. Grieve me, because I knew you will, but don’t let my loss suck the life out of you. Live, Char. You’re so flighty and free. Mom’s wild child. Never change. Don’t let what I did change that about you. Please.
“So, do you think it’s something you would be interested in? I can overnight the paperwork to you,” Will asked, pulling me from my thoughts. “There’s still about a week until the group leaves.”
Emma wanted me to live, but I felt as though I couldn’t, because I was lost without her. Maybe this trip would be what saved me. Maybe this was my sign from Emma. I liked to think that it was.
“Okay,” I surprised myself by saying.
“You still have your passport, right?”
“Yeah.” I would have to find it, but it was somewhere. I’d gotten it last year, because I was dead set on traveling somewhere outside of the U.S. I never did though, for one reason or another. It looked as though I would finally be putting it to use.
Peace settled over me. I was doing what Emma wanted while also what I needed. Africa seemed like the farthest I could possibly get from Parish Cove. It also seemed like a good place to find myself again.