focusing on the present.
Sometimes the only way I could do that, the only way that I could snap myself out of the past, from being pulled down, sucked inside and drowned by the intensity, was to jolt myself out of it by feeling pain in the present.
I had been deluding myself to think that I could stop doing this. I was who I was. There was no changing that. Anyway, I'd made progress, no longer the teenage girl who'd tried to overdose when she was sixteen. At least I wasn't suicidal, even if I wasn't sure quite what I was living for.
But just as quickly as I had felt overwhelmed, the feeling dissipated, and a sense of calmness washed over me, this wave of stillness and peace.
15
Elias
I sat in the car outside The Thirsty Frog for at least fifteen minutes before I finally decided to get out, just watching things. It was a new bar, but I knew that if Silas was in a bad place like my mother had said, it wasn't any kind of reputable establishment.
Silas was at the front door; I could see him standing there, arms crossed, beside the front door occasionally checking an ID, but mostly leaving it up to the other bouncer doing the ID checks while he scanned the crowd.
He'd gotten big, bigger than when I last saw him, and I wondered if my mother meant that he was juicing. Knowing Silas, if he was on the same trajectory he had been on when I left, it was more than just juicing he was doing. I thought he'd changed, but maybe not.
I got out of the car, and walked toward the bar. Silas didn't see me, but I heard his voice, loud even above the din of the people in line. One of the other bouncers was silhouetted in the doorway of the bar, pushing a guy out the front door, where Silas caught him by the back of the neck and dragged him out toward the street. Silas' face was contorted in anger, his cheeks ruddy and red.
Shit. Three years later, and nothing had changed.
He saw me standing there, and stopped, pushing the kid forward, without breaking eye contact with me. "Today's your fucking lucky day, shitbag," he said. The kid whimpered, stumbling forward into the parking lot and running away.
"You come down from on high to join the rest of us mere mortals?" Silas asked. "Or are you just coming back to West Bend to give me another lecture?"
"Screw you, Silas." I spat the words, already pissed off at his shitty attitude before we'd even had the chance to say more than two sentences to each other. He hadn't always been like this. I could remember a time when he was my best friend in the world. I could recall a time when I'd take a bullet for him, and he would have done the same for me.
His expression softened for a moment, clouded by something else. Regret? I wondered. It was probably too much to expect from Silas, but I felt my fists begin to unclench anyway. "They already cremated the asshole, you know," he said.
"I saw," I said. "She has him up on the mantle."
Silas spit on the ground. "Real fucking awesome," he said. "On display, like he was some kind of goddamned saint."
I shrugged. "Did you expect anything different?"
"Not from her," he said, his voice bitter. Silas and I had always had different expectations when it came to our mother. I think I always understood that she was incapable of being who we'd want her to be. Silas was perpetually disappointed in her, angry at her for not living up to who he thought she should be. Angry at the world for the same reasons.
"She said you were in Vegas," I said, leaving off the rest of it, the unspoken part. Vegas was a couple of hours from San Diego, not exactly on the other side of the fucking world. My fucking twin, and he hadn't come to see me after my leg had gotten blown the fuck off - not in the hospital, and not afterwards.
Silas shuffled, kicked at the pavement with his boot. "Yeah," he said. "Got on the fight circuit out there for a while."
"Legit?" I asked. Silas had always been a fighter- wrestling, boxing, MMA, you name it. Even when he was a kid, scrapping after school, taking on bullies, kids who used to talk shit about our family. It was like he had no fear, no sense of self-preservation.
"Mostly," he said. "Until I tore my ACL."
"I didn't know."
He shrugged. "I heard about what happened, the explosion. I was going to come see you, but - " His voice trailed off.
"Yeah, well, shit happens."
His expression looked pained, and he opened his mouth, then shut it again.
"You heard from Luke or Killian?" I asked. I wasn't on the outs with them, not like I'd been with Silas, but my older brothers were incommunicado a lot of the time, on the road.
Silas shook his head. "Not in a long time," he said, the implication obvious. Silas had established himself as the black sheep when it came to the four of us. "You sticking around here?"
I wasn't sure if it was hope or fear in his voice. "Not sure," I said.
"Yeah, well, West Bend ain't the place it used to be," Silas said.
"What does that mean?"
He shrugged, kicked at the ground. "Have to watch yourself here," he said, not bothering to elaborate.
A yell from one of the other bouncers interrupted us. "Stop fucking socializing and get your ass back over here."
Silas turned toward the direction of the sound. "Fuck you," he yelled back. "I'm coming."
"Watch yourself how?" I asked.
Silas opened his mouth, then closed it again. "I didn't mean anything by it," Silas said. He kicked the ground with the toe of his boot. "I'll talk to you later. I'm real sorry I didn't come out there when you were in the hospital. Got a lot of regrets and shit, and that's probably the biggest."
I nodded, calm on the outside, but really he might as well have knocked me over with a baseball bat, apologizing like that. Silas wasn't ever one for apologies, not even back when we were tight. "It's all right."
"Nah," he said. "It's not, really. I've been a dick. Don't want to rack up any more regrets, you know? Bad karma."
"Fuck, Silas," the bouncer yelled. "Get your fucking ass back over here."
"Duty calls," he said, a wry smile on his face. "I've got to go."
I drove away from the bar, my mind racing. Silas apologizing had been the last thing on earth I expected when I came back here. It had thrown me for a loop.
The road stretched out in front of me, and the thought of going home, back to the house where I grew up, was a bleak one.
I didn't know what the hell I was doing, but I didn't want to go home.
So I turned the car around.
16
River
It was eleven, but I still wasn't asleep. After what happened earlier- after I'd cut myself- I should have passed out, gotten the crash after the adrenaline spike, the crash that usually settled things, gave me relief.
Except this time, I was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling in the darkness. There was no adrenaline spike, no crash. It was still just me and my thoughts.
When a white light flickered through the window, I paid no attention. Until it happened a minute later, and then a third time.
Heart racing, I slid out of bed and stood beside the window, trying to see out without putting my whole face in the window pane.
It has to be paparazzi, I thought, regretting my choice to stand there. I could hardly see anything.
Then the light hit me directly in the eyes. "Fuck." I jumped back to the side, anger flooding my veins. "Son of a bitch." I turned the latch and pulled up the window pane. "Whoever the fuck you are, you can get the hell out of here."
The camera flash I was expecting didn't come. Instead, I heard Elias' voice.
"Shit," he said. "I didn't mean to scare you."
"What the hell are you doing?" I yelled, then immediately lowered my voice, mindful of June's house just across the meadow. My heart was pounding in my chest. "Are you fucking high or something? Or are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
Elias dipped his flashlight to the ground. "Come down and let me in."
I exhaled and swore under my breath, heading down the stairs and out to the front porch. I
pulled the door wide open, and Elias stood in the doorway, grinning at me. "What the fuck are you doing here at eleven o' clock at night?"
"I wanted to see you," he said. "Couldn't stop thinking about you."
I squinted at him. "Are you drunk? You smell like stale beer and smoke."
"What?" he asked. "No. I mean, I might have stepped in some beer at the bar."
"You're showing up here after being at a bar all night?" I crossed my arms over my chest. "You think I'm that easy, or just stupid?"
Elias looked down at the ground, rubbing the toe of his boot into the porch. When he looked up, he had a sheepish expression on his face. "Fuck," he said. "It was a mistake coming here." He turned around and started to walk away.
Shit. I couldn't believe I was about to do this.
"Wait," I called, and he turned to look at me over his shoulder. "Come back."
When he returned, I squinted at him under the porch light. "You're really not drunk?" I asked.
"Do I look like it?" he asked. "Really. I'm not. My mother smokes. My brother works at a bar. I wasn't planning on coming here."
"You just took a wrong turn, or what?" I still didn't move from where I stood. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to let him in or tell him to go home. My heart raced, thinking about what might happen if I let him in, what I might want to happen with him. When I thought about it, I could still feel his lips on mine, his hands on the small of my back.
A shock of arousal ran through my body at the thought of his touch.
He shook his head. "I don't fucking know," he said. "I just couldn't face going home."
There was something in the way he said it, standing there with his hands in his pockets, that made him seem vulnerable. It was just a flash, a chink in his armor, and then it was gone. But it made me think there was more to him than what I'd seen.
"So you'd rather spend the night with a stranger than with people you know?" I asked, my voice soft. I stood close to him, looking up at him in the soft porch light.
He shrugged. "Sometimes the people you know are the biggest strangers of all."
"I'm not sure I want to let you in, Elias," I said, my voice soft. I just couldn't stop thinking about that damn kiss.
"You can tell me to leave," he said. "If you want me to go, say the word and I'll walk away."
I could barely hear his words, couldn't focus on anything except his lips as he talked. I wanted to feel his breath on my skin.
"Leave." I called his bluff.
"No."
"You said you would."
"Only if you don't want me," he said. "But you do."
"You don't know a damn thing about what I want." The words left my mouth, hanging in the space between us. They rang false even to my ears.
He didn't back away. Instead, he reached up and traced his finger down my chest, toward my cleavage. "That's why your pupils are as big as fucking saucers. And why your breath is short," he said. "Because you don't want me."
"My breath is short because I just came running downstairs," I said. "After some jackass with a flashlight shined it through the window in the middle of the night."
"Were you sleeping?" he asked, his voice gravelly. He reached out and pulled me tight against him, but I didn't protest.
"No." I wasn't going to tell him about my night. I could already feel shame closing in on me, threatening to overwhelm me again. I didn't want Elias to see that I'd cut myself, and he would. "Go home, Elias."
"Do you mean it?"
Of course not. I screamed the words, inside my head. Don't leave.
"Yes," I said.
Before I could say anything else, his mouth came down hard on mine, and I let out an involuntary moan as his tongue found mine. When he kissed me, I could feel it through my whole body.
He pulled away from me, and I gasped. "Still don't want me?" he asked.
I didn't answer, and when he stepped back a few feet, I was disappointed. "You're leaving?"
"Fuck, no, I'm not. I'm fucking staying. Don't move. I'll be right back." He returned with a bag in his hand.
"Is that your suitcase? That's not presumptuous at all," I said.
"It's been sitting in the car. I never unpacked. Thought you might want a change of clothes, too, since you didn't bring much of anything. I figured you didn't make a run out to town to the store."
"I could use some clothes," I admitted.
"Can get you some in town tomorrow," he said. "Although, as fair warning, they may not be exactly what someone like you is used to." He set his bag down and walked around the room. "This place is nice. You really got the whole thing to yourself?"
"Yeah," I said, my eyes lingering on his ass again as he turned to look at some pictures on the fireplace mantel. "What do you mean, someone like me?"
"West Bend doesn't have a Rodeo Drive or shit like that, you know."
"Do I look like I need designer clothes?" I asked, my voice indignant. "I think when you first kissed me, I was wearing pajama pants, if you remember correctly."
But I could see him grinning, even with his head half-turned away. He put his hands up. "I'm just saying, being a big star and all that, you might not be wanting the country shit West Bend sells."
"Pretty sure I'll be fine."
"You going to show me the bedroom or what?" he asked, turning to face me as he leaned against the brick of the fireplace.
I laughed. "That's direct."
He shrugged. "You want me to beat around the bush?"
I laughed at the phrase, and he grinned wickedly. "Uh-"
"Don't worry, darlin'," he said, "I'll get to that part." Elias gave me a long hard look, and then, without speaking, stepped forward into me and put me over his shoulder like I was a rag doll. I shrieked when he put me over his shoulder.
"Elias," I protested, more surprised than anything else, "You can't carry me upstairs. Your leg. Put me down."
But he carried me upstairs like it was nothing. "You don't know anything about what I can or can't do," he said, spinning around as he faced one of the rooms. "There are firefighters that carry people heavier than you with gimp legs like mine. Is this the room you're staying in?"
"Yes. Are you going to put me down?"
"I'm debating whether or not I want to," he said, caressing my ass with his hand. "I might just keep you here a little while longer."
"Put me down, asshole," I said, but my voice was less insistent the more he touched me. When he set me down, one hand around my waist and the other on my ass, he made sure I slid down his body on