I stare at him, and there’s something big between us, something unsaid, but big all the same.
“I’ve read that one,” I tell him. Because I live in a funeral home, I’ve read all the poems about death. “That’s a good one. That’s probably better than the dragonfly story that Finn told me.”
Dare smiles a small smile and he doesn’t ask to hear the story, but on the way back up to his bike, he grabs my hand and holds it. I don’t pull away, I just savor the feel of his long fingers woven between my own.
We drive forty minutes back to Astoria with the taste of the sea on our lips and the feel of Dare’s chest beneath my fingertips. It’s a good ride, and I hate to see it drawing to an end as we idle through the streets of Astoria.
I especially hate when we idle toward Ocean’s View Cemetery.
I look away from its wrought iron gates and brick columns, from the trees that weep along the shadowy lanes inside. Because I know, that at the back of the neatly lined plots, there’s a large white angel standing over a white marble stone. LAURA PRICE lies there beneath the surface, eternally sleeping, forever gone from me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and I must squeeze Dare, too, because he turns slightly.
“Are you ok?”
I nod against his back. “Yeah.”
Lie.
Dare notices the cemetery, and I feel him tense a bit.
“You’re surrounded by it here,” he tells me, his voice as soft and quiet as it can be on the back of this bike. “In order to move forward, you have to move away.”
I nod, because I know.
As I move my head, I open my eyes, and as I do, I notice something.
Finn.
Standing in the gates of the cemetery, watching us ride away.
He doesn’t call out, he doesn’t chase me, he doesn’t even seem angry. But the expression is still there on his face… the expression that tells me I let him down. I told him I’d go with him to visit our mother, and I didn’t. And because I didn’t, he went alone.
I close my eyes.
28
VIGINTI OCTO
Finn
It’sTime.
The voices are insistent, more so than usual, more so than ever.
It’sTimeIt’sTimeIt’sTime.
Time for what?
I buzz along the road from the cemetery, up the mountain to my home, where I linger in the trees and watch my sister as she says goodbye to Dare and waits for me. I know she’s waiting for me, because she always does.
And unless I do something, that’s what she’ll always do.
DoItDoItDoIt.
I suddenly know what to do, and I head along the path for the pier. It doesn’t matter that she wouldn’t go to the cemetery with me, because I know she would’ve tried if I’d forced the issue. She would’ve tried and she would’ve been miserable because she’s not ready. I can’t force her to be ready. It has to happen in order.
It has to happen in order.
There’s an order.
It
Has
To
Happen
In
Order.
Sail away and don’t come back, a voice hisses. MakeHerSeeTheOrder.
Don’t, another one argues. ThisIsHerFaultHerFaultHerFault.
The voices argue and I let them, as I continue walking in the sea breeze toward the boat. I climb inside and lift the anchor.
29
VIGINTI NOVEM
Calla
When we get back home, I walk Dare to his house.
“Thank you for today,” I tell him softly. “I needed to get away.”
“You did,” he agrees with me. “And you still do.”
I swallow hard, because he’s right. I do need to get away, far from death and Astoria and here. But more and more, I feel that I can’t. I’ll never be able to truly get away, because I can’t leave Finn. Even if I follow him to MIT, I’ll still be surrounded by this forever.
But I don’t say that of course, because it’s depressing and he’d simply argue.
So instead, I simply lean up and kiss Dare’s perfectly chiseled cheek, wishing with all of my might that I could fold into his arms and he could comfort me and kiss me and hold me forever.
But I can’t because we’re waiting.
Waiting for me to work through something that can’t be worked through.
Dare disappears inside and I wait on my porch for my brother.
My butt is stiff from the hard boards and I’ve slapped at a hundred mosquitoes when my father finally comes out and hands me a glass of lemonade.
“Whatcha doing out here?” he asks as I sip the tart liquid.
“Waiting for Finn,” I tell him. “I saw him at the cemetery. He went alone. He’s going to need to talk about it.”
My dad looks pained and I know it’s because he hasn’t been there yet, either.
“Don’t feel bad, dad,” I say quickly. “I haven’t actually been there yet, either. I just drove past. I couldn’t make myself go in.”
He nods slowly. “One of these days,” he starts to say, then trails off. And I know that’s gone in the One Of These Days file in his head.
I smile and pretend that he’ll actually do it.
He leaves me alone and I wish for a second that he hadn’t, because I’m lonely and I could use some company while I wait. From time to time, I think I see Dare’s curtains move, like he’s keeping an eye on me, but I’m probably imagining it.
The lemonade finally runs through me, and I duck inside to use the restroom. As I’m washing my hands, a glint of silver catches my attention on the counter.
Finn’s St. Michael’s medallion.
It’s a small silver disk honoring St. Michael that my mother bought Finn for Christmas last year. We’re not Catholic, but she loved the idea that it’s supposed to give courage and keep the wearer out of harm’s way. She knew that Finn needed that protection, for sure. He never takes it off. He even sleeps in it.
But here it is, lying on the bathroom counter.
I pick it up with shaking fingers.
Where is he?
I rush back out of the house, intent on asking Dare to drive me back into town to look for him when I glance down at the beach and I see that our boat is gone from the slip.
Since dad’s in the house and Dare is in the cottage, there’s only one person that could’ve taken it.
Finn.
I jog down the trail to the beach, and sit with my legs dangling on the pier. Because there’s only one thing to do.
Wait.
I wait until my body is stiff, until the sun sinks low in the sky, and still Finn hasn’t come back in. I start to get pissed actually, because he had to know I’d be worried.
He’s doing this on purpose, I decide. To teach me a lesson.
Anger boils my blood and I stomp back up to the house where I slam a few things together in the kitchen to make my dad a sandwich.
He looks up at me in surprise. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Finn took the boat out alone,” I snap. “He’s obviously mad at me.”
My dad pats my shoulder. “He’s been sailing for as long as you have. He’s fine,” is all he says. I want to grab his hand and snap it off because he’s so involved in his own sadness that he can’t see anyone else’s.
“You don’t know that,” I snap at him again.
“I do,” he says confidently. “He’ll be fine.”
I can’t even stand to stay and eat with him, so I slam back out the door, but on my way an idea occurs to me, something I’ve never considered doing before.
I pause at my dad’s bar.
And then I grab a bottle of gin, my father’s drink of choice.
He’s certainly been drinking it a lot these past weeks, trying to forget his pain and his issues. I can do it too. If it works for him, it’ll work for me. I clutch the cool bottle in my fingertips as I jog down the porch steps.
I think I see the curtains of the C
arriage House moving, and I think I feel Dare staring at me through the glass, but I don’t stop. And I don’t put the bottle down. They can all judge me. I don’t care.
I deserve a respite from reality.
I slide down the trail, pad through the damp sand and sit on the pier with my bottle of gin. After a few minutes, I open it, and take a swig.
I almost immediately spit the vile liquid out, coughing as the fiery stuff blazes a trail down my throat and into my belly. I can feel the heat of it, peeling off the tissue of my esophagus and I want to hurl the rest of the bottle out to sea.
It’s disgusting. How can anyone willingly drink it?
But as I wait for minutes, then an hour, then two, I pick the bottle back up.
I stare at the empty horizon, and take a swig, forcing it down. I stare at the stars, at freaking Andromeda and her stupid love story, and take a swig. And before long, after fifteen swigs, my belly feels warm and my memory feels fuzzy.
A blissful sense of foggy detachment envelops me, and I no longer feel my raw throat or taste the disgusting liquid. I drink more and more, until I fall back on the pier and stare at the sky, enjoying the way the stars swirl and twirl around me, like I’m on a carousel and they’re in mirrors.
I close my eyes for a minute, and my eyelids spin too, round and round, until I actually start to feel dizzy.
I open my eyes, and Dare is standing over me, leaning over the edge of my horizontal periphery.
I smile. I think.
He smiles back.
“How much have you had?” he asks ruefully, picking up the bottle and examining it. There’s only a couple of slogs left and I graciously wave my hand.
“You can have the rest,” I tell him, as though I’m bestowing a gift.
My words are slurred through, my tongue thick and heavy, and even though that’s what I meant to say, it comes out at gibberish. I try again.
Still gibberish.
I stare at him helplessly and he chuckles.
“That much, then?”
He bends down and offers me his hand. I shake my head.
“I’ve gotta wait for Finn.”
Which sounds more like, “Lesh gofur a schim.”
Dare shakes his head. “I don’t want to swim, thanks. We need to get you to the house before you pass out.”
I know I should stay right here on this pier and wait for Finn. I know I should be more worried about my brother because it’s dark and he’s alone and he never stays out this late by himself, but the gin has accomplished one thing aside from rendering my tongue muscles useless.
It’s made me carefree.
I don’t have a care in the world right now, which is a blissful, amazing gift. No wonder my dad likes this stuff.
I let Dare hoist me up, and then I promptly collapse against him when my legs give out.
“Hi,” I say to his chest. His marvelously amazingly sexy chest.
“Hi,” it says back. “Let’s go, Cal.”
Dare’s hands pull me under my armpits, and then suddenly, I’m in his arms, cradled like a baby as he walks all the way up the trail.
“I’m too heavy,” I mumble into his shirt.
“You’re not,” his shirt answers.
He doesn’t stumble, he doesn’t falter, he simply grips me tight and makes the climb. He’s barely breathing heavily when we get to the top.
I open my eyes and see three blurry outlines of the funeral home above me, the jagged edges of the roof poking into the night. They blur together, then apart, then back together again. I close my eyes against the sight.
“I don’t want to go in there,” I manage to say clearly.
Dare stares down at me, and I swear I see sympathy in his eyes.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” I snap.
He doesn’t answer. He just carries me down the path to his Carriage House.
He deposits me carefully on his sofa and leaves me for a second, then returns with a big glass of water and some aspirin.
“Take those,” he instructs firmly. “And then drink all the water. Trust me, you’ll thank me in the morning.”
I do as he says and then wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, before pulling him down next to me.
“Where do you think Finn went?” I ask worriedly, even though the gin has mostly paralyzed my worry muscle. Dare stares down at me.
“He’ll be fine. You on the other hand, are going to have a big hangover tomorrow. Have you ever drank anything before?”
I shake my head and he sighs.
“Well, you certainly chose to start with a bang. Gin will put hair on your chest.”
“I like my chest the way it is,” I try to say. I must succeed because Dare’s eyes gleam.
“I do too,” he admits softly. I grab his hand and pull it to me, sliding it along my side, where he clamps down his fingers.
“Will you kiss me?” I ask. “I liked it when you kissed me.”
He sighs again. “I did too. But you’re drunk.”
“I’m drunk,” I snap. “Not dead.”
It’s a sentiment that makes very little sense, but I don’t hesitate. I just grab Dare’s face and pull him to my own, my lips crushing his. He tastes like spearmint and I taste like gin. It’s somehow an intoxicating combination, and with numbed fingers, I stroke the side of his stubbly jaw.
He doesn’t pull away for a minute, but then he finally does.
“You’re drunk,” he says again.
“Correct,” I slide into him, my face against his shoulder.
I pick up his hand, and wrap it around my back. “I like being here, with you,” I tell him. “I like how you smell. I like how you kiss. And I like how you’re beautiful.”
Dare stares down at me, amusement shimmering in his eyes. “I’m beautiful, then?”
“Don’t fish for compliments,” I mutter. “You don’t need them.”
He grins. “Don’t I?”
“I’d like for you to kiss me again,” I announce, sitting up straight. I think.
“I can’t,” he says firmly. “You’re drunk.”
“I am,” I agree. “Didn’t we already establish that?”
The room spins a bit, but then rights itself, and I decide to take matters into my own hands. I collide against him, my chest smashed to his, as I kiss him.
I consume him, basically.
I kiss him hard, my need for him overwhelming everything else. His mouth is hot and at first he hesitates, then he kisses me back, his tongue plunging into my mouth. Clumsily, I run my hands down his chest, across his hips, and coming to a stop where his hardness bulges against me. My fingers brush against him and he sucks in his breath, absorbing my gasp. And then he yanks away.
“Jesus, Calla,” he bites out, his voice harsh, his breathing ragged. He holds me away as I try to wiggle closer. “Seriously. I’m going to pour ice water on you.”
I freeze, suddenly terrified of something.
“You don’t want me, do you?”
Dare looks at the ceiling, apparently trying very hard to be patient.
Lifting my hand, he places it squarely onto his lap, where he strains against the crotch of his jeans, throbbing and hard.
“Does that seem like I don’t want you?” he asks mildly, removing my hand, even though I desperately want to keep it there. “I’m looking out for you, even if you don’t want me to.”
“I don’t want you to,” I agree. “I just want you.”
Dare looks at the ceiling again, but I see the tiniest hint of a flush along the curve of his cheekbone. He’s struggling for self-control, I realize. The thought makes me smile, but then the room spins again, faster this time.
I slump into Dare, he pulls me up, and I immediately slump again.
“I like being drunk,” I tell him, mumbling into his shirt. “I can’t feel anything.”
“You’re gonna feel it in the morning,” he assures me.
I somehow know he’s right, because the room spins and spins, and my mou
th suddenly fills up with spit.
“I’m gonna throw up,” I realize. Dare grabs me up and rushes me to the bathroom. I kneel in front of the toilet and retch and retch and retch.
The gin, if possible, tastes worse coming up than going down.
That’s saying something.
Cool hands pull my hair away from my face as I vomit, holding it back and I wave my hand.
“Go away,” I mumble in between heaves.
“You’re fine,” Dare says comfortingly, patting my back with one hand as he holds my hair with the other. “You’re fine.”
I’m not fine. I’m dying. I’m vomiting up every last vestige of food that I’ve consumed in the past four years. Of that, I am sure. And still I heave. Until there’s nothing left and then I heave some more.
Finally, I curl up on the floor, my face pressed against the cool tiles.
Nothing has ever felt better than this, I decide, loving each and every one of the cool porcelain tiles with a blinding and personal passion.
I close my eyes and keep them closed, even though I feel myself being moved. My pants are tugged off, though my shirt is left on and I’m floundering around like a rag doll. And better yet, I don’t care.
Cool sheets are pulled up around me, and I don’t bother opening my eyes. The only thing I know is that the sheets smell like Dare…woodsy and male. In this moment, that’s all that matters.
When I open my eyes again, it takes a minute to focus, but then I see the moonlight shining against the wall. It’s the middle of the night.
My mouth is dry, like wood or sawdust, and I swallow hard.
I’m in Dare’s bed.
Dare. DuBray’s. Bed.
It’s a thought that takes a minute to register, and then I register too, that unfortunately, Dare DuBray isn’t in his bed.
I scan the room, and he’s not in here at all.
So I get up, wrapping the sheet around me, and pad into his living room. He’s sprawled out on his couch, completely clothed and dead asleep.
In sleep, his face is vulnerable and bathed in moonlight. I stare at him for a long time, because when he’s awake, I don’t get this luxury. I only turn away when I start to feel dizzy again, when my head begins to pound and pound and I finally grasp what he meant when he said that I’d feel it tomorrow.