Текст книги "Facade"

Автор книги: Nyrae Dawn

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Chapter Ten

~Delaney~

“Mom?” I walk into the house after school. Fear clings to my spine at the mess inside. The pictures that have been ripped off the walls. The faces torn out. Photo albums strewn around the room.

Bump, bump, bump, bump.

The drum of my heart almost rivals the music, Simon & Garfunkel, that’s blasting through the room. She and Dad used to sing them all the time. Loved the song “The Boxer,” but I don’t get the same feeling as I used to when I hear it. Now when I do, I know she’s thinking about him.

“Mom?” I say again, hoping she’ll come out. Hoping that even if her face is tear-stained or she’s still wearing the same clothes she had on yesterday that she’ll come out. It’s only when she doesn’t want to leave the room that I know the depression has its claws in her again. That it’s pulling her so far under that Maddox will stop leaving her alone with me again, taking up as my savior and bodyguard.

He’s not here.

She’s not coming out.

I let my backpack drop to the floor and leave the door open as I take slow steps toward the hallway.

This house is so much smaller than our old one, so it’s only about twenty steps later that I’m at her bedroom door. “Mom?” My voice shakes. Even if she is here, she probably can’t hear me over the roar of the music.

I peek inside. It’s empty.

Two more doors stand closed in the narrow hallway, mine and the bathroom. Maddox sleeps on the couch. Knowing she’s not in there, I still check my room first before turning to the bathroom.

It’s okay. She’ll be okay. I don’t have to be scared to go in.

Only I know it’s not okay and there’s no way to stop being scared, but still I push the cracked door open.

“Oh my God! Mom!” My foot slips in the blood running down her arms and making a pool on the tiny bathroom floor.

“Mom!” She’s on the ground, her head to the side, lying on the tub. One arm over it and the other limp to her side and her eyes are closed.

There’s no focusing on my heart or my breathing or the fact that she did this right before I came home. Knowing Maddy would be at work and I’d be the one to find her. Not that I’d want my brother to find her either, but I know she did this for me.

I grab towels from the rack, fighting my hands to stay steady enough to try and wrap her wrists. “I’ll be right back, Mom. It’ll be okay.”

Running from the room, I rush to my neighbor’s house and bang on the door. When she doesn’t answer right away, I push it open to see her walking my way. “Call nine-one-one. My mom is dying!”

And then I’m gone. Running back to her. I’m holding her head on my lap and sitting in blood. Petting her hair and trying to hold the towels around her wrists. Even though she tried to leave us. Even though it didn’t matter that I’d walk in and find her this way. I won’t let her be alone. Won’t let her die alone…

Later she rolls over in the hospital bed and looks at me for the first time. It’s hard as a diamond and cuts me deeply. “Why did you save me? You want me to suffer, don’t you? First you tried to take your father away from me and now my peace. I’ll never forgive you for saving me, Delaney.” And still I don’t leave her.

“Laney, wake up. Wake the fuck up!”

My brother’s voice and the hand shaking me breaks my sleep, makes me jerk into a sitting position. I don’t need him to tell me I was crying in my sleep. Even if I didn’t feel the wetness on my face, I would know. I sit up and lean against the wall, pulling my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them.

“Shit,” Maddox says, before he climbs into my bed and sits beside me. “Why do you let it get to you, Laney? Why can’t you let it go? They obviously didn’t care about us.”

I put my head on his shoulder. “Why do you think she let me find her? I mean, why not do it in the early morning after we left? Do you think she wanted to punish me for the close relationship I had with Daddy?”

“Don’t do that. Don’t try and make sense of it or blame yourself. She had nothing to blame you for.”

“You blame yourself.”

He doesn’t answer that.

His voice is soft when he says, “It was about the time in the bathroom?” I nod and he continues. “You shouldn’t have been alone. I can’t believe she did that knowing you’d find her.”

“Would it have been better if you did? It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

He’s quiet for what feels like an eternity. “It would have changed you seeing it. Would have kept you from still seeing it all these years later.”

I grab his arm and hold it tight. “You have enough demons inside you. Seeing her would have given you more. I don’t want that for you.”

Maddox curses again and I know he’s about to shut down on me. “I gotta get ready for work,” he says, standing up. “Do me a favor and let me know if you’re going to be out all night again on a day off.”

“The way you’d tell me?” I taunt.

He runs a hand through his dark hair. “Did you tell him yet? Things don’t seem magically better.” There’s a sharp edge to his voice.

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“Why? You need me to wake you the hell up. You think you’re going to go to this guy and tell him your drunk dad, who was a lying bastard with a shitload of gambling debts, drove up a curb with his car and killed his nephew and he’s going to tell you it’s okay? And it’ll make Mom somehow wake the fuck up and everything look like it’s perfect? I have news for you, Laney. It never was perfect and it never will be.” The venom in his voice isn’t really directed at me. I know that, but it still pisses me off.

“What?” I stand up too. “It would be better to walk around pissed at the world? To try and pretend I ‘let it go’ when I haven’t? I have news for you, Maddy—you haven’t let anything go. You’re drowning in it even worse than I am. Almost as bad as she is!”

That last line is like a slap to his face. I see the hurt, the sting. See him bite back his anger because no matter how upset Maddox is, he would never really let himself take it out on me. But still… when he and Dad stopped being close, he got closer to Mom. He took care of her and I know his anger at her has clouded that. I know that what I said hurt him.

“Fuck. You.” I reach for him, but he jerks his arm away. “It must be nice living in a fantasy world, little sister. Not all of us have that liberty.”

Maddox slams my bedroom door behind him. I hear the front door do the same a few seconds later.

I hate that he’s probably right. That I’m just deluding myself and that I had the perfect opportunity to tell Adrian last night, but I let it slip through my fingers. Or maybe let isn’t the right word. I think I wanted it to, which makes me a shitty person. I let him kiss me and talk to me and the whole time this secret is rotting away inside me. Something he deserves to know. Something that if he did know would have probably kept him from touching me.

A touch I enjoyed way too much.

* * *

I used to run. It wasn’t something I started until after everything went down with my dad, but it somehow helped me through it. I think I imagined I could somehow find a way to run away from it all. Or maybe not even away. Maybe I could run so fast, so far, and so long that I could make it to the past and stop everything from exploding before it did.

I could ask Dad what was wrong when he had long days at work or not want the best clothes or cell phones when I was too young because all those things were just one more thing to pay for. One more thing to stress him.

Eventually I stopped running. I don’t know why. It could have been because I knew I’d never get anywhere or maybe it was because I thought it would help to finally stop running. Whatever the reason, I don’t do it anymore.

After hours of hanging around the house, I’m still so upset about my argument with Maddox that I need to run.

There’s no doubt I’ll regret it the second I step into the cold weather, but still I push running shoes onto my feet and gloves on my hands. I grab my brother’s beanie and a pair of earmuffs and I’m outside where the frigid wind bites my face.

My leg muscles start to ache in about two seconds, but it doesn’t stop me from keeping pace. I try to run from my truth with Adrian. The fact that there’s something about him that tugs at me, but I know I need to sever that pull. I need to stand up and confess our past and see if there’s some way we can work through this. Find a way to heal.

You see stuff like that all the time—where people from the same tragedy heal through each other. It could happen. We deserve that.

My mind runs to Maddox next. How much pain he’s in and how mad he makes me and how I wish I understood the extra shadows living inside him. Why he handles our past so much differently than I do.

By the time I make it back around to the front of the apartment complex, my chest aches and plumes of steam puff out of my mouth with each breath.

“You should dance. It’s a good way to exercise and you can do it inside, where it’s warm.”

I jump at the sound of Cheyenne’s voice. “Shit. You scared the hell out of me.”

Cheyenne laughs. “Sorry. You must have been out there. I figured you heard me walk up.”

It’s something I probably should have heard but wasn’t really paying attention. Since darkness is making its descent across the sky, it wasn’t very smart of me either.

“It’s been a long day. There’s a lot going on.”

“I hear ya. Colt had a doctor’s appointment today and those always freak me out. He’s out right now. I was planning on having a drink. Wanna come up?” she asks me.

I want to, even though I shouldn’t do it. Shouldn’t push my way into Adrian’s life any more than I already have, but I like her. She’s cool and God, what I wouldn’t give to have a friend around here. I miss having friends. Back home everyone knew who I was and what had happened, which made it difficult.

I guess it wouldn’t hurt to hang out if I don’t talk about Adrian.

“Sure,” I tell her. “Which apartment are you in? I want to run home and clean up real quick.” I hate admitting the giddiness inside me. I’m eighteen years old. This is what my life is supposed to be. Hanging out with friends instead of dealing with a suicidal mom and a brother who might be losing himself too.

Cheyenne gives me her apartment number and I tell her I’ll be there soon. After jumping into a quick shower, I change into a pair of jeans and a sweater. I run a brush through my hair and leave it hanging free before picking up my cell phone. There’s a text from Maddox telling me he won’t be home tonight. That he’s “out,” whatever that means. I hate it when he gets pissed and disappears.

Pushing those thoughts aside, I put my shoes on before heading over to Cheyenne’s. A girls’ night is exactly what I need.

* * *

I’m holding my third drink, watching the grains of salt drift from the top of my glass and into my margarita.

“Hehehe. I think my salt is having a race,” I say, and then Cheyenne laughs.

“Oh my God. That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. I wonder whose salt would win in a race, mine or yours?”

At that we both start laughing. She’s sitting on the bed in the small studio apartment she shares with Colt. I’m at the table, which hardly has enough room for the two chairs sitting at it.

But I love it. Their apartment is perfect because you can tell how happy they are in it. There’s pictures on the walls and Colt’s clothes mixed with hers in a basket and it’s so perfect I want to cry. I know for a fact how things can look perfect but not really be that way. Somehow I know that’s not the case here. Or maybe I only want to believe it.

“How long have you and Colt been together?” I ask her.

She gets that dreamy look in her eyes and my heart flutters for them.

“Honestly we haven’t been together very long. Just since the beginning of the school year, but it doesn’t feel like it.” She sets her cup down and pulls her legs up under her. “I’m still working on this talking thing…”

It takes her a few minutes, and I give them to her. Understand what she’s going through because though I’ve never been one who has a hard time saying how I feel, I have experience with people who do.

“I wasn’t really in a good place when I met him. Colt wasn’t either. We didn’t plan to fall in love, but—”

“I think that’s maybe the best kind of love. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

She gives me a kind smile. “What do you mean?”

I don’t let myself think before I speak. “I think falling in love by accident is special. I remember my mom telling me when she met my dad that she knew he would be hers. I used to think that was kind of romantic, but… that turned out horribly. I think when love sneaks up on you, when it grabs on to you when you least expect it, maybe that’s more of a sign it’s real. That it’s meant to be and nothing could stop the two of you from falling for each other.”

I’m drifting away, looking at a picture of Cheyenne and Colt sitting on their bedside table. He’s not looking at her. He’s staring off into the distance and Cheyenne’s behind him. Her head against his shoulder blade and I swear I feel it between them. Feel the connection welding them together.

“I think maybe you’re right.” I hear the smile in her voice. “He’s helped me through a lot. I don’t know if I would have made it without him. The cool thing is, and this might make me sound a little conceited, but I don’t care because it’s true. I know I do the same for him. Things aren’t always easy, but I know in here”—she touches her chest—“that we belong together.”

I take a drink, trying to give myself a little bit of space from the mood that’s turned slightly somber, but also full of hope. I want that hope. Want it to spread from Cheyenne’s life and into my own.

“What about you? Have you ever been in love?” she asks.

Automatically, I shake my head. That’s an easy one. “No.” My mind then turns to what Cheyenne said. About not being able to talk and I want to do that. I want to open my mouth and tell her everything. I’ve never really done that—just spilled my secrets for someone to dissect. But I know I can’t. I can’t tell her before I tell Adrian. I don’t even know if she knows his past. That his nephew was killed and that he ran from his family afterward.

“Okay, seriously, we’re getting all mopey. I hate girls who get drunk and depressed. We’re supposed to be having fun,” she says.

At that I smile. I really like this girl. “You’re right. I have a question for you…” I swore to myself I wouldn’t ask her about Adrian, but after the drinks, I can’t help it. I want to hear something, anything to get to know him, but then the door pushes open and Colt comes in. Man, he’s incredibly sexy with messy blond hair and this cocky edge about him.

“Hey you!” Cheyenne leaps off the bed and jumps into his arms. He catches her and her legs wrap around his waist.

“Hey, Tiny Dancer.” And then he laughs. “You’re drunk as fuck, aren’t you?”

She giggles a yes and then my breath backs up into my lungs when Adrian steps into the doorway behind them. His eyes are tinged red, and I take in his strong jaw and his dark hair. Holy crap is he sexy too. My heart starts to race and I silently beg it to take a breather.

When his eyes find me, he grins. There’s a storm in his gaze that I feel rain down on me. Adrian puts his arm on the opposite side of the doorway. “Well, what do we have here?”

His voice is sexy, which I know he’s doing on purpose, but the alcohol invites it in, lets it seep through me and into me, warm and inviting, before it drags my memory to his kisses.

Kisses I can’t let happen again.

Maybe this is a good thing, fate that he showed up here when I have liquor to give me a loose tongue.

Tonight, I tell myself. Tonight will be the perfect time to tell him.

Chapter Eleven

~Adrian~

“It’s cold! Close the door!” Cheyenne says, her head hanging over Colt’s shoulder as she looks at me. It’s the first time I’ve taken my eyes off Delaney. I definitely didn’t expect to see her when I walked in. Now I’m wishing I didn’t get high as hell before I came.

I look back at her and she’s still giving me the same sexy, flirty little look that I don’t think she realizes is on her face. She’s gorgeous as hell. I’m pretty sure she’s not one of those girls who’s hot and pretends not to know it, but she also doesn’t strike me as the real flirty type. There’s this air of innocence dancing around her that should make me turn away, but instead it intrigues me.

I don’t hang around many innocent girls.

“Adrian! Stop staring at Laney and close the door before I kick your ass,” Cheyenne shouts at me again. Colt’s laughing and walking over to the bed with her in his arms. I shut the door.

I don’t say anything about staring because we all know I was doing it, so instead I look at her. “Laney, huh?”

“Yes. Her name is awesome, but it’s long.” Like hers isn’t.

“It’s okay.” Casper shrugs. “Most people call me Laney.”

“I don’t call you Laney,” I say, because I know she won’t expect it and won’t have an answer.

“Why do you do that? You’re always trying to fluster me.”

Her ghosts are hidden right now, her eyes glassy portals to her soul. “You’re drunk too. Were you guys having a party without us?”

“When did you ever need anyone to wait for you?” Colt’s got Cheyenne on his lap now, his hand on her hip.

“You’re right. Where’s the booze?” I stand up and walk over to the kitchen, which is obviously in the same room we’re already in.

“You don’t need any alcohol. You’re always drinking or smoking something.” Cheyenne watches him.

“I forgot how that was your business,” I reply at the same time that Colt whispers to her, “Hey. Don’t.”

“Why? He’s my friend now, too, remember?”

She’s right on that fact. We are friends.

Colt keeps his eyes on her, though. “Okay, fine. Have a drink. And get me another one while you’re at it,” Cheyenne adds.

I look at her and wink. “Stop trying to get me all liquored up.”

Everyone laughs as if on cue and I want to make a comment about it but don’t. I’m still shocked to come in and find Delaney with Cheyenne. I know they came to my party, but this feels different. If she’s friends with Chey, that means I’ll see more of her…

“Did you get any sleep today?” Delaney asks me.

“A little. I do some work with a mechanic friend of mine and I had to help him out.” I’m sure everyone wonders where my money comes from. The mechanic thing they know about, but I don’t really talk about Lettie.

She gets that womanly look on her face. The one that says she’s concerned or worried when really it’s not that big a deal at all. She doesn’t know me well enough to be concerned anyway. I don’t deserve her concern and I definitely don’t want it.

“Be careful. You look at me like that and I’m liable to think you like me.”

“I thought we were friends? Doesn’t that automatically mean I like you?” she tosses back at me.

“No.” I lean closer. “I mean really like me. You do, don’t you? I see it in your eyes. You want me.” I watch as pink starts at her hairline and then makes the descent down her face. I want to make the same journey down her body, covering and tasting every part of her along the way.

“You’re such a player. Do you ever stop?”

At that, Cheyenne jumps in. I’d almost forgotten they were here. “He’s horrible! I’m always telling him that. Though usually—” When I give her a dirty look, she cuts off. “Not to say I think he’s just using you,” Chey tries to cover.

“Smooth move,” Colt tells her.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not as if it’s some big secret.” One of Casper’s eyebrows lifts as though she’s daring me. Like she wants me to make a liar out of her. Little does she know I’m the biggest liar of them all.

When I say nothing, the expression on Casper’s face changes. It’s the way I wonder if people think I’m looking at them… as if she’s trying to figure me out. Like I’m words on a paper she needs to decode. The need in her sets my desire aflame. I don’t remember ever wanting a girl as much as I want this girl sitting in front of me.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” She uses almost the same words on me as I used on her last night. Only she’s asking, like there’s any fucking chance I’m going to tell her no.

Pushing to my feet, I glance at Colt and Cheyenne. Before I can say anything, Colt looks at me all cocky like he has some shit on me he’s about to spill. “I thought you had people going to your house tonight. You can’t hang out long, ya fucking liar.”

I know exactly what he’s doing. Not long ago we sat around my kitchen table and I told him he was different with Cheyenne. I can see it in his face. This isn’t like that, though. I just want her, and that’s all… isn’t it? That’s all it’s supposed to be and she knows that. “Maybe I have something better to do now.”

“I hope you’re not talking about me?” Casper says with a smile on her face. I didn’t expect that one.

“Oh my God! I love this girl. That totally sounds like something I would say,” Cheyenne adds, and I think she’s right.

“Are we leaving or what?” I ask before they can break into girl time.

“We’re leaving. Thanks for inviting me over, Cheyenne.” Her eyes wander over to Chey, who gets off Colt’s lap to hug her.

“Have fun. Be good,” she tells Casper before turning to hug me too. It catches me slightly off guard. “Be happy,” she whispers in my ear.

Happy. I pull back and look at her, really look and know she sees more than I show. It’s not as if I’m perfect at hiding it, but most people don’t take the chance to look. Colt knows something’s up with me, but he’d never say anything. We’re just not like that, but she’s different.

“I can’t,” I say before pulling away. Delaney is putting her shoes on, so I know she didn’t hear, but I feel Colt’s eyes on me. I know he heard, so without looking back, I head for the door, open it, and wait for Delaney to walk out.

“Where are we going?” I ask her when we get outside.

She looks unsure when she asks, “Want to go back to my place? Just to hang out and talk or whatever? It’s not… I don’t…”

“We’re good. I’m not going to jump you as soon as we get inside. Well… unless you want me to.”

“Do most girls want you to?” she asks as we start walking.

Inside, I’m saying, Fuck because the last thing I want to do is talk about other girls when I’m with one, but then she speaks again. “I shouldn’t have asked that. I don’t know why I did.”

For some reason, that makes me want to answer. There’s something so real about her that opens me up. She’s done it before and it scares the hell out of me that if I keep hanging around her, she’ll do it again. “I’m not going to lie and pretend I’ve been an angel. There have been girls. There will be girls, but I also don’t fuck around. I don’t let anyone think there’s something going on that’s not there.”

“How very noble of you.” Her voice is bitter like a lemon, but also with a little sugar sprinkled on top. She doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t hate me for it either.

“You asked and I was being honest. Haven’t you ever just had a good time with someone?”

She stops in front of an apartment and unlocks the door. “Will I lose cool points if I say no?”

She’s looking down at the key in the doorknob and not at me. It’s then I realize she’s serious. She’s the girl who lost her virginity to someone she loved. I was fifteen years old, when I didn’t know how to be a man. Christ, what the hell am I doing with this girl? “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” So much like her words a few minutes ago; mine taste like lemon.

“I thought we were friends? Just because I don’t screw around with a lot of guys, we can’t be friends?”

“I didn’t say that, but you know I want you. That only makes things more… difficult.”

Delaney sighs and I feel like an asshole.

“I am so lucky I’ve been drinking right now or I’d never say these things. First, I do want to be your friend, Adrian. I want that a lot. Things are… complicated for me, but I think we’d be good… as friends.”

“But?” I step closer to her, thinking I know what she’s going to say.

“But… I think after last night it’s pretty obvious I’m attracted to you too. And while I’m not like the girls you pick up at parties, it doesn’t mean you have to pretend I’m going to break or I’m not up to your standards.”

With that she starts to open the door. I put my hand on hers, stopping her. She’s soft and warm even though it’s cold as hell out here. “Hey, I don’t think you’re not up to my standards.”

“Thanks,” she says, and I don’t add that she’s way better. That in a world full of people who are just as fake as me, there’s something about her that feels so fucking genuine.

Delaney steps inside and I’m right behind her. “Your brother’s not going to lose his shit, is he?” The door clicks closed behind me.

“He’s not here. He won’t be back all night. Plus, I’m an adult. He doesn’t have a right to lose his shit.”

“Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t.”

“Are you hungry?” she asks instead of answering.

“Yeah, but I don’t know if you can top the diner…”

She rolls her eyes. “You eat there because you don’t work there. My pancakes are way better.”

“Hmm.” I step up to her while she’s at the sink. “Care to make a little wager?” One hand is on each side of her, flat on the counter as I box her in.

“No thank you. I’ll just cook for myself if you don’t want anything.”

She shrugs and I bark out a laugh at that. I never know what to expect from her and I like it. “Fine. I’ll help. Scoot over and I’ll wash my hands.”

Casper moves and I take off my jacket and toss it on the table. The kitchen’s small, but that’s okay. It keeps me closer to her.

As I’m washing my hands, she gets ingredients from the fridge and a box of pancake mix, before starting to read the directions.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask her.

“Seeing how many eggs to use and how much water?” Her gray eyes crinkle at the corners. It’s sexy as hell for some reason.

“Tell me you’re shitting me. You have to be.” I grab the box from her hand. “Grab a bowl for me, would ya, Chef?” A smirk peeks through. She grabs a bowl but doesn’t let go when I reach for it.

“Do you want me to show you how it’s done, or what?”

“You’re being different,” she says.

And I am. I know it. I think I might want keep on pretending for the next little while, so I pull the bowl out of her hand without replying. “The secret to the perfect pancakes is not giving a shit what the box says. Stand back while the master shows you how it’s done.”

I show her my secret pancake recipe, flipping them perfectly, and then we pile our plates and fill two glasses of milk, before she starts walking down the hall. I’m a little shocked, but I’m definitely not going to tell her I think we should stay in the kitchen.

I follow her into a bedroom and leave the door open, not really sure if she wants to be boxed in with me or not, but after setting her glass on the bedside table, she closes it.

Another thing I’m not going to complain about.

Her room is somehow exactly what I’d expect—everything matches. It’s all purple and gray. “Can I sit on the bed?” I ask.

“Unless you want to sit on the floor.”

“Wow. Tequila turns you into a smart-ass.” My glass joins hers on the bedside table. Casper kicks out of her shoes and I do the same before we both sit on her bed. We’re quiet the whole time we eat. I keep looking over at her. Studying the way her mouth moves when she chews and how her neck moves when she swallows. I watch her tongue peek out of her mouth to lick some syrup from her lip. Fuck, this girl turns me on. It has to be the innocence and the fact that she feels so impossible to get, but that doesn’t make it easier to deal with.

“So?” I ask her when both our plates are clean.

“They were all right…”

“What the fuck ever.”

She laughs and I pretend to push her before grabbing the plate from her hand. “I’ll put the plate away from the pancakes you hated but ate all of.”

She doesn’t stop me while I walk into the kitchen and put our stuff away. It doesn’t take long before I’m heading back to her room and she’s sitting on the edge of her bed. Somehow the air in the room has completely changed in the thirty seconds it took me to walk to the kitchen and back.

I feel pulled to her. A little poem beneath my skin that’s called by her rhythm, but I hold it back. Don’t let my pencil try and etch the words because it feels too close.

“Can I ask you a question?” she asks.

I shrug. “Sure.”

She tries to smile, but there’s something fake about it, like she’s changed her mind about asking me what she originally planned.

“What do you like so much about pancakes?” she asks.

Her question shoots a bullet through my chest. BBs jetting out from the round and hitting every major organ inside me. She had me in her sights and didn’t even know it. It’s not the question she wanted to ask. It’s supposed to be light, funny, but it brings back images of big brown eyes, looking up at me from the table. “Cakes! Cakes! Cakes!”

I see Ash’s chubby hands clapping. His eyes so big and happy.

My vision blurs and I suddenly want a lungful of smoke to wipe it all away. “Do you mind?” I ask as I pull out my pipe.

“Kind of…”

I shove it back into my pocket. “They’re fucking good. What’s not to love about pancakes?” The words hurt to come out, like I’m screwing with Ash’s memory by not telling her about the little boy who loved my pancakes.

“I have another one for you. What would you do if… if you knew something that could hurt someone else. Not physically I mean, but emotionally. Would you tell them?”

This question takes me by surprise and I have to think about it. I wonder what’s going on in her life, but I won’t ask.

It hurts so fucking bad to think about Ash. To miss my sister so much that I would do anything not to think about it. To be able to forget. “If they’re doing fine without knowing, why screw with them?”

And now the time for talk is over. I want to forget about everything else, so I step toward her. I get so close that when I look down, I can see her pulse in the base of her throat. See it beat like crazy. I want to lick it. Hold my finger to it and count the beats just to feel connected to her. “What are we doing here, Casper? Are we gonna keep dancing around this?” Reaching out, I cup her cheek. Run my hand through her hair. “Are you going to let me stay, or do you want me to go?”