Beautiful Illusions

  “He won’t.” Gavin scoops up another pile of her ever-expanding wardrobe. “You’ll be frozen remember?”

  “I can see this makes you happy. Glad to know my impending death is a joke to you.”

  Boy, she’s an expert at turning up the guilt. The boathouse is across the way for Pete’s sake. She could yawn in the middle of the night, and we would still hear her—not to mention the fact it has a working potbelly stove. She won’t freeze if she’s smart enough to fuel it. And, as for the madman, well, him I might consider assisting.

  “I’m one text away,” Gavin assures. “Besides, I don’t see what the big deal is if you’re heading back to school in a few days.” He’s chiding her. I haven’t told him that she’s been booted yet, but he’s this close to getting it from her himself.

  “It might take a little longer than expected.” Zoey shoots me her wrath by way of a scowl.

  “Like next week?” he asks with a slight uptick of frustration in his voice. “Next month? Look, Zoey, I know something got effed up this semester just tell me what it is. I might be able to help you with it. Do you need a tutor? I’ll get you the best.”

  My heart warms at the sacrifices he’s willing to make for those he loves.

  Zoey stops abruptly and seethes at me. “You told him.”

  Gavin’s eyes widen at the thought of me keeping this from him.

  “I didn’t tell him a thing.” I turn to Gavin, fully ready to rat her out. “Warren said something about her being out, and she didn’t deny it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” There’s a slight twinge of hurt in his voice, and I suddenly feel like a major disappointment.

  “I figured it wasn’t my place.”

  He concedes, turning to his sister. “Tell me what happened, Zoey.”

  Her nostrils flair. Her tiny fists embed themselves in her nonexistent hips. “It’s none of your damn business what happened.” Zoey storms off into the cabin.

  “I’m the one paying for your books and apartment!” he shouts after her. “It is my damn business. You’re my damn business.” His voice reverberates off the mountainside, and I hold him back from charging in there.

  “Whoa, big boy.” My hip grinds into his crotch, and I lower my lashes while flirting with a smile. “Save some of that aggression for tonight.” I lean up and give his lip a playful bite. “I’m sort of liking you all riled up with nowhere to go.”

  “I’ve got somewhere delicious to go.” He runs his tongue over my lips. “But you’re right. I’d better cool off. Why don’t we run to the store and grab a few things to stock up her fridge? That way she can cool off, too.”

  “Mmm...” I trace his lips with my finger before dipping it into his mouth. It’s like falling into a deep, hot pool. My entire body longs to lunge inside—and tonight, I will. “The things I plan to do to you are making me insane.”

  “Come here.” He motions me over to a bench he constructed himself ensconced with two wooden bears he carved with his own hands. Their razor cut fur, their perfect almond eyes—it makes me smile to know that his hands were privy to each and every detail.

  “Do you know what I was just thinking?” I hum in his ear.

  “That you changed your mind about tonight?” He pulls me onto his lap, and I sit sideways onto the bench with my feet on the head of one of the wooden furry creatures.

  “Very funny. No. I was just thinking that you’re an artist, and the entire forest is your canvas.”

  Gavin lowers his lids looking like deep fried sex on a stick. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

  “As will it you. What’s up?” Not that I mind taking a reprieve from hurricane Zoey, but it does seem suspect for Gavin to trot off in the middle of one of her classic meltdowns.

  “I made something for you. It’s nothing big. It’s sort of silly.” He fishes around in his pocket.

  “A locket with a picture of Zoey inside?” It could work like a dream catcher only it’ll attract nightmares. Zoey is a magnet for trouble in all shapes and sizes—Warren being the most disturbing of them all.

  “You’re half right.” He holds out his hand. “It’s a necklace.” Lying over his palm is a copper heart no bigger than a quarter, leashed to a thin matching chain.

  “Gavin! This isn’t silly.” I carefully extract it from him as if it were a newborn.

  “Sometimes I make a personalized inscription to go with the carvings. Sometimes people want that. And I wanted to do that for you. The necklace is rose gold.” He turns the thick copper heart around, and I forget to breathe.

  Inscribed on the back in very delicate handwriting is You Plus Me Equals Forever.

  “Oh, Gavin.” I clutch it to my chest and press a hard kiss to his lips. I’ve never received anything like this before—given with love, created from the heart. This is far more than some silly token, this is the whole world he’s giving me on a string.

  “I made the heart—inscribed the words myself.”

  I gape at him. For the first time ever, I’m speechless.

  “Here.” He helps me put it on and kisses the pendant before it falls to my chest.

  “I love it.” My eyes have a hard time peeling away from it because I’ve never said those very words to Gavin. But in a few short hours I plan to rectify that.

  He lifts my chin with his finger. “I get it.” The words come out pained. “I love you, Emmy. I promise I love you enough for the both of us.”

  A door slams in the cabin followed by a crash and a bang.

  I bounce another quick kiss off his lips. “Why don’t you get some food? I’ll go in there and make sure she doesn’t burn the place down. I’ll talk to her, you know, girl to girl.” I’m feeling especially generous now that I know tonight is going to be so explosive. My body is already willing to detonate over his. Gavin and I are brimming with gunpowder, and these stolen kisses, these building emotions are the match we need to blow the roof off that cabin tonight.

  “I don’t know.” He looks past my shoulder as a muffled scream comes from inside. “On second thought, she sounds like she needs someone to talk to. Go ahead. Be careful. Duck and jive if you have to.”

  “Oh, Jackson.” A dark laugh rumbles from me. “I’m saving all my best moves for you.”

  We stand, and he spins me as the evergreens meld together in a dizzying circle. This is how it feels being in love with Gavin, deliciously freeing and joyously unstable.

  “I love you, Em.” He holds my fingers as he walks backward, and they collapse to my side as we part ways.

  He turns and walks in the direction of the Corner Store, and I say it back in less than a whisper.

  “I love you, too, Gavin Jackson.”

  I warm the token of his affection in my hand. The simple heart he etched with our love.

  “I love you.” And that’s exactly how it’s going to sound coming from my lips tonight.

  Inside, I find Zoey smashing and thrashing her way through a bookshelf, destroying innocent paperbacks and Gavin’s old copies of National Geographic. I go over before she starts in on an encyclopedia apocalypse. Their parents were ardent hoarders of ancient information. Gavin mentioned once that the set belonged to his father as a child, so I wouldn’t want her to lay a finger on a single brown leather spine. Sometimes the material things left behind by those we love become just as precious as they were and are.

  “Zoey, stop!” My voice reverberates through the tiny cabin.

  Her hair whips around like jags of lightning. She reaches to the top shelf, and an entire row of hardbacks rain down over her.

  She’s going to knock herself unconscious if she keeps this up, so I do the only thing I can think of and wrap my arms around her, putting her in a virtual vice, and, if she happens to mistake it for a hug, well, that’s okay, too.

  “Let go!” She shrills it in my ear, and I hear her voice echo through me long after she stops. Tears pour down her face, and, for the life of me, I can’t figure out why she’s losing her shit, espec
ially without Gavin in the vicinity to impress with her little tirade.

  “Not until you promise to relax. You’re making your brother insane.”

  She knocks me back, and I trip over a pile of her laundry sitting dead center of the room. I land my hand over my new pendant to protect it from the fall and hit my head on the coffee table on the way down.

  “Shit.” I sit up dazed for a moment. A flash of white light expands around me. I feel like I’m in a cartoon.

  “It’s all your fault this is happening,” she hisses. Zoey falls in a heap on the floor, hugging an oversized photo album like it was a body. “You’re trying to take him away, and he’s all I have left!” She cries with her mouth open wide, saliva stringing its way down her lips.

  “I’m not taking him anywhere. You’re only going to be fifteen feet away, much closer than you would be at school.” Didn’t Gavin mention something about them not getting along? “This isn’t about your brother, is it?”

  She reluctantly shakes her head as she continues to hug the bloated cloth-covered book. It has a DIY appeal, and instinctively I know what it is. My mother left me albums just like that. She must have left a dozen. As soon as September rolls around, I’m going back to Winter Haven and claiming every single thing that Nora and Josh think they’ve swiped from me. My father’s company, my mother’s pearl necklace she wore the tragic night she had me, every red cent of my rightful inheritance, it’s all mine come my twenty-first birthday. Some people want alcohol on that wayward milestone of a year, but all I want is revenge. That is, if I can find a lawyer with enough balls to fight the missile shield I’m sure they’re cowering behind. With my father’s money, Nora can hire every shark in the western hemisphere to represent her.

  “It’s more than just my brother.” Zoey wipes the snot off her face with her sleeve. “It’s my parents, too.” The hurt resonates from her. She’s splitting like a glacier, ready to fall to pieces in the warm water below. “It hurts so much coming back here. For so long this cabin—it represented them—it was them. I could still feel them here—smell them. And the boathouse”—she looks out the window and makes a face—“that will never feel like my mom and dad. Please don’t make me go, Emmy. You’ve already taken my brother. Don’t take away my parents, too. I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready.”

  My fingers tremble over the copper heart. Zoey just struck me to the bone. Her heart is torn open, gaping into the room, waving like a red bloody flag. All I want to do is sew her up with thread fashioned from my own skin. Only another grieving soul could understand the excruciating pain she’s going through.

  “Zoey, I’m so sorry. Of course.” I press the pendant to my chest until I can feel it making an impression on my flesh. I know exactly how she feels. Here I am hating what Nora has done to me, and I’m essentially doing the same thing to Zoey. God, I’ve Noraed her. “I’ll talk to Gavin. It should be me in the boathouse, not you.”

  “Really? You would do that for me?” She gives a hard sniff with those sad puppy dog eyes, and I’m done.

  “Yeah, really. Of course, I’d do that for you. You’re practically my sister. Go get cleaned up, and I’ll help you move your stuff back.”

  Zoey springs to her feet and skips to the bathroom like a kindergartner headed to recess. A part of me wonders if that whole scene was just a ruse. But I feel bad for even thinking it and bat the wicked thought away.

  I scoop up the photo album and open to the first page.

  A happy couple smiles back at me with Lake Loveless as the backdrop. The sky is a pretty lavender, and there’s snow on the ground—but there’s something unnerving, something strangely familiar about the way they look.

  I’ve seen this picture before.

  My heart jumps to my throat. Ice runs through my veins, and I stop breathing altogether.

  This can’t be.

  I flip the stiff cardboard pages and find a newspaper clipping.

  The room starts in on a slow spin as I take it all in.

  Mountain community mourns John and Lena Jackson, killed in a head-on collision on I 98.

  My body goes numb as I glance back at the picture. My heart, my soul, my spirit shatter like glass in tandem. My heart was full a moment ago, and, now, there’s nothing left but an arid space.

  “Oh, God.” The album shakes right out of my grasp. This is a thing of horror—a nightmare within a nightmare. Here I am, baptized with my own blood.

  My fingers wrap themselves around the precious heart Gavin crafted. I’m a monster. My hand shakes so hard the necklace plucks right off.

  I fumble for my purse without thinking and jump into the Honda. It starts right up, and I speed the hell off this mountain.

  I’m never coming back.

  I do what I do best—run.

  Gavin

  The sun goes down on another perfect day as I quickly toss the things I bought for Zoey into the fridge—milk, eggs, bacon, and her favorite cherry flavored Pop Tarts. That should last her a day or two. I’ll take her to dinner in the next few nights to prove I still want her around, just not on the other side of my bedroom wall. I plan on making some noise. That’s not entirely true. I plan on eliciting some noise from Emmy. A volcanic heat rushes through my veins just thinking about it. I snatch the bouquet of flowers off the table and head home to Emmy. That’s who the flowers are for. That’s who every other flower I ever buy will be for.

  A dull smile rides on my lips as I jog toward the cabin. The door is wide open. The place looks ransacked, no thanks to Zoey’s latest meltdown.

  “Em?” I call out as I make my way through the house. I find Zoey sprawled out on her bed hugging her pillow. “Hey, you okay?”

  She sits up with her tear-stained face, her bloated lips. Shit. She looks far from okay.

  “Did she talk to you?”

  “Who, Emmy?”

  “Yeah, she said she’d take the boathouse, no problem.”

  “What?” Obviously the conversation with my sister didn’t go as planned. It looks like Zoey’s crocodile tears worked their magic. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. She took off a while ago.”

  “Took off?”

  “I heard her speed out of here like a bat out of hell.” She springs to her feet and wipes her face down with her sleeve. “Boy, she really fell for that poor little ‘ole me act.” My sister gives a snide smile. “This is my house as much as it is yours. Think twice before you go giving away my place in this world.”

  Shit.

  “No one is giving away your place in this world.” I sigh as I stalk the rest of the cabin. “Emmy?” I head outside just as Ace comes up the walk.

  “Reese and I are about to head down the hill. Won’t be back for another few weeks.” He gives a quick fist bump, and that’s when I see the carport is empty. That’s where Emmy’s Honda has sat for the last few months. We drove it around the lake a few times just to keep it from locking up, but she’s never taken it on her own. “Earth to Jackson. Everything okay? I said if you need another hand, I can be up next weekend. Just let me know, kay?”

  Reese runs up and gives me a quick hug.

  “Where’s her car?” I stagger over to the empty space. “Did you see Emmy take off?”

  They look just as lost and confused as I do.

  Ace and Reese help me comb the entire back region of the mountain. We make six revolutions around the lake at least. Two hours later, we’re right back in my driveway just as empty handed as when we began.

  “It’s late, dude.” Ace pulls me to the side as we get back to the cabin. “I think if you’re really worried that something happened, you need to call the cops.”

  “The cops?” I’m so shaken—so exhausted and scared out of my fucking mind. A thousand different scenarios run through me, and not one of them is good. “No cops.”

  “What?” Ace smacks me in the arm. “If I thought something was off with Reese I’d have every damn boy in blue looking for her.”

  The wind
whips over my arms, lashing me with its icy bites. She has to be cold. She’ll freeze in that fucking car.

  My body swells with a horrible ache. I can’t breathe not knowing where she is.

  “Is there something about this girl you’re not telling me?”

  I swallow hard. Ace has always been like a brother to me.

  “I don’t know her name.”

  “Excuse me?” He takes a full step back. “What the hell are you talking about? Were you two in some kind of fight? Is that what this is about? Is that the reason you’ve conveniently forgotten her name?”

  “She’s—” I glance up at the cabin and spot Zoey on the couch watching TV. Reese is in the car patiently waiting for Ace. “She’s the love of my life, and I have to get out there and find her myself. Get yourself to school, college boy.” I give his arm a squeeze. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

  I jump in my truck and take the long way to the overlook. I took her there once. We shared a kiss that I still replay on a loop whenever we’re not together. Maybe she wanted to think? Maybe she just wanted to get the hell away from my psychotic sister and catch a fresh breath? I hit the end of the road and stop. If you don’t know the lay of the land, it’s easy to drive straight off the edge. I pull the flashlight from under my seat and hop out into the dismal, moonless night. The howl of a lone wolf goes off in the distance. I run to the edge and shine my light over the cliff for signs of a car that might have accidentally plunged off, thankfully there’s nothing.

  “Fuck.” I kick a tree stump trying to let some steam out, but I’ve got enough misery coursing through my veins to propel me to the moon and back. I’m so damn hopped up on fear I can’t see straight.

  “Emmy!” I roar it out into the night as the city lights wink in and out of turn, mocking me. “Emmy.” I drop to my knees and close my eyes. “Come back to me.”

  The next morning, Ace endures the two-hour drive back up the mountain and meets me at the Corner Store where I’m already waiting for Warren to show his smarmy ass.