Nocte

  I don’t deserve it.

  “You don’t understand,” I start to say, then decide I’d sound crazy if I tried to explain.

  “You can’t say that, because you don’t know me,” I say instead, my voice harsh and stilted.

  Dare runs a hand through his hair and his eyes glint like obsidian. “I guess not.”

  And then he abruptly turns and walks out, his shoulders wide as he strides across my lawn, away from me.

  Something bothers me as I wipe off the counters, and it isn’t until I flip off the lights and walk into the Great Room that I realize what it is.

  He acts like I disappointed him.

  I don’t know why.

  12

  DUODECIM

  Calla

  I haven’t seen Dare in days, which is strange since he lives here now. But not so strange, considering that I’ve somehow disappointed him.

  I’ve heard his motorcycle roar to life in the mornings, then I hear him come back home late at night, but I haven’t personally seen him for seventy-two long hours.

  “I wonder where he goes every day?” Finn muses at breakfast, as we hear his bike roar down the mountain. My father shrugs.

  “Don’t know. It doesn’t matter to me. He paid for three months of rent in advance, so as far as I’m concerned, he’s not my business until September.”

  Three months in advance? That’s interesting. I chew my biscuit as I consider that. Is that how long he’s staying?

  I feel Finn watching me, waiting for a reaction, but I don’t give him one. For some reason, I don’t want to let him know how much time I spend musing about Dare DuBray, how I’ve laid in bed for three nights, obsessing about his voice and what it might be like if it was whispering into my ear in the dark.

  “Want to do something today?” Finn asks, after taking a swig of orange juice. I shrug.

  “Sure. Like what?”

  He eyes me over his glass. “Maybe we could go to the cemetery?”

  And just like that, it feels like he stomped on my solar plexus, squeezing out every last vestige of oxygen from it.

  “Why would we do that today?” I manage to ask around the constricted muscle. Our father is unusually silent as he watches our interaction.

  Finn levels his gaze at me. “Because we haven’t been there yet. I don’t want mom to think we’ve forgotten.”

  Dad makes a choking sound and picks up his plate (which incidentally is one of a set of 16 perfectly matched china plates from their wedding) before rushing away to the kitchen, and I glare at my brother.

  “Mom’s dead. She’s doesn’t think anything.”

  Finn’s gaze doesn’t falter. “You don’t know that. You have no idea what she sees or doesn’t see. Now, do you want to go visit her today?”

  There’s a stern tone to his voice, something firm and judgmental. I swallow hard because I’m so not ready for that.

  “I can’t…yet,” I finally tell him quietly. His blue eyes soften although he doesn’t look away.

  “I don’t think it’ll get easier with time,” he answers. I shake my head.

  “That’s not what I’m hoping for. It’s just that… I’m not ready. Not yet.”

  “Ok,” Finn gives in. “What else would you like to do today?”

  I look out the window, my gaze instantly drawn to the water.

  “I’m hungry for crab legs.”

  Finn smiles, the slow one that I love. “Crab fishing, it is.”

  So I dump my dishes in the kitchen and job upstairs to change into old scrubby clothes and a floppy hat to protect my white skin from the sun. I meet Finn in the foyer.

  “Do you have sunscreen in that thing?” Finn eyes my giant beach bag. I nod.

  “Of course.”

  We head out to the trail that leads to the beach, then climb over the rocks and strewn seaweed to get to the rickety pier. Our little boat bobs gently in the slip, it’s graying sides faded by the sun.

  As we step aboard, I lick the briny air from my lips, while the breeze rustles the hair away from my face. There’s already crab traps loaded in the cargo hold, and Finn releases the anchor so we drift out in the bay.

  The sun beats down through the thin material of my sleeves, and I imagine that even now more freckles are forming, but I don’t care. All I care about is moving through the water, over the swells and further into the ocean.

  Finn leans down and grabs a crap pot, dropping it over the side. The orange buoy bobs in the waves to mark the spot as we move to a different location, and then we drop another. We drop five total before we drift further out to sea and lay limply in the sun on the hull of the boat.

  I stare up at the sky, at the blueness of it, and watch the way the white clouds frolic with each other, bouncing and stretching and existing in the air. It makes me wonder if it’s where Heaven is. Or if there’s even a Heaven at all. I ponder this, of course, because of mom. Because she’s always in the back of my mind. And because Finn ripped the Band-Aid off that wound this morning.

  “Maybe Heaven is another dimension,” I muse out loud. “Maybe the people there exist right now, moving and talking alongside us, we just can’t see them. And maybe they can’t see us, either.”

  Finn lays back, his arms behind his head, his eyes closed.

  “I think they can see us.”

  “So you definitely think there’s a Heaven?” I ask doubtfully. “How can you be sure?”

  “I can’t,” he answers. “But it’s what I believe. Mom did too.”

  That catches my attention and I stare at him. “How do you know that?”

  He’s unconcerned with my anxious tone. “Because she told me once. She used to love those Chicken Soup for the Soul books, remember?”

  Of course I remember. “She got me Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul last year. She put in my Christmas stocking.” I’d wanted an iTunes card.

  Finn grins without opening his eyes. “Well, she put Chicken Soup for the Grieving Soul in the foyer waiting room. I read it one day when I was bored, and she caught me.”

  I giggle because I can only imagine how happy she probably was… to think that she was finally influencing Finn’s literary taste. She loved those freaking books.

  “One of the stories was about the afterlife. Sort of. It was her favorite.”

  Finn falls silent and I wait.

  And wait.

  “And?” I prompt him. He opens an eye.

  “And? Oh, you want to hear the story?”

  I roll my eyes. “Obviously.”

  “Fine.” Finn is clearly bored with this, but he humors me. “Once upon a time, there was a colony of water bugs. They were a close colony, a family. Where one went, the others went. But every so often, one would straggle away on their own, crawl onto a lily pad, and never return. This was a great mystery to the family of water bugs. They couldn’t figure out what was happening to their family members, or why they disappeared. They talked about it often, and worried about it, but they could never figure it out.”

  Finn opens his eyes now, and stares out at the water, past me, past the waves, and out to the horizon. He fixes his gaze on the red lighthouse in the distance, on the pelicans that dive for their dinner around it, and the waves that break apart against the rocks.

  “Well, one day, another water bug climbed onto the lily pad, drawn there by invisible forces from within itself, forces it didn’t understand and couldn’t control. As it sat there in the sun, it transformed into a beautiful dragonfly. It shed its water bug skin, and sprouted iridescent wings that gleamed in the sunlight. Wings so large and strong, it was able to fly into the air, doing loops in the sky.

  “The new dragonfly was ecstatic with it’s new body and thought to itself, ‘I need to go back and tell the others. They need to know that this is what happens so they won’t be scared.’ So he dipped and dove through the air, directly at the water. But unfortunately, he couldn’t dive below the surface to where the water-bugs were swimming. In his new form, the drago
nfly was no longer able to communicate with his family. He felt at peace, though, because he knew that someday, his family would all transform too, and they’d all be together again.”

  Finn pauses and looks at me. “And such it is with Heaven. People die, they go on to another place, a better place, but they can’t communicate with us anymore because they’re in a different form. But it doesn’t mean that it’s not just as real. Or that we won’t find out for ourselves one day.”

  My throat feels gunky and tight, so I clear it. “Mom believed this?”

  Finn nods. “Yeah. She told me.”

  The story is beautiful and it makes me want to cry, and it also makes me resent Finn just a little bit because he shared that moment with mom and I didn’t. But I push that irrational thought away. It’s enough that I know now.

  We float for a while in silence, and I drag my fingers through the water.

  At least an hour passes before Finn finally speaks again. “We need to go to the cemetery, you know.”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Okay?”

  I nod again. “Yeah. Soon.”

  He smiles, a real smile, and we float randomly for another hour before he finally points the rudder toward the first crab pot. As we approach, I reach over the side and drag it in, pulling the wet chain into the boat. The crab pot is empty. But the next one isn’t, nor the next. We end up with five crabs, a good haul for the day.

  My stomach rumbles at the mere thought of drowning their legs in butter and putting them into my belly.

  We float inland, and Finn steers the boat into the slip, while I stuff my hat into a bench and then transfer the crabs into a bucket. Their legs make scratching sounds as they slide around against the plastic, and for just one brief moment, I allow myself to feel guilty because I’m going to drop them into boiling water later.

  “What the hell?” Finn mutters, staring ahead of us, past the trail, past the treescape, and into the clearing behind the Carriage House. I follow his gaze and almost audibly gasp when I see Dare.

  He’s back from town now, and dressed in workout clothes, shorts and a cut off ratty t-shirt. He’s repeatedly punching the side of the woodshed.

  Over and over and over.

  Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

  Like a machete or a thresher or a piston.

  Sweat drips down his face, and blood drops from his hand, as he pummels the wood, punching at it like a machine.

  “What the hell,” I echo Finn’s sentiment, before I shove the crab bucket into his hands and take off up the trail to get to Dare. Finn protests from behind me, but I don’t stop and I don’t slow down.

  I skid to a stop next to Dare, pulling at his elbow. He smells like sweat, so I can’t imagine how long he’s been out here, hurting himself.

  “Dare, stop,” I tell him. “You’re bleeding.”

  He shakes my hand off, not looking at me, and punches again.

  Blood splatters the ground and onto my bare foot.

  “Dare.”

  Thud.

  “Dare.” My voice is stiffer now, like ice, and finally he stops, his arm dangling at his side. He doesn’t look at me, but his breaths are coming in pants. I wait, and eventually the pants slow down to shallow, even breaths.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask him. “Why are you…. what’s wrong?”

  I wait.

  He’s silent. Finally, he rocks back on his heels, and sinks to the ground, to his knees.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he finally tells me, his voice like wood.

  “Nothing?” I find that hard to believe. “Then why are you breaking your hands?”

  I kneel down in front of him, lifting his hands to examine them. The knuckles are beyond scraped, beyond cut. They’re mashed. A bloody pulp, actually. “I think you might’ve actually broken them.”

  He yanks them away. “I didn’t.”

  “Ok.”

  I eye him warily. If there’s one thing I’ve gotten good at, it’s sorting through crazy situations. “Can I help you clean them up?”

  I hold my breath until he climbs to his feet.

  “I’ve got it.” His voice is curt and dismissive, and he turns to walk away. What the hell? Where is the guy who has been so engaging? So charming? He’s apparently been replaced by this cold stranger who has an affinity for hurting himself.

  I grab his elbow. Out of my periphery, I notice Finn standing in the distance, watching. Waiting.

  “It’s ok,” I call to my brother. “You don’t have to wait.”

  Finn shakes his head, but so do I. “Go on,” I call out. “I’ll be up shortly.”

  Reluctantly, he walks away with the crabs and Dare looks at me.

  “You don’t need to stay. I don’t need help.”

  “Yes, you do,” I argue. “You just don’t realize it.”

  “And you do?”

  “Yes.”

  Dare stares down at me, his eyes chilly. “No, you don’t. Because as you so clearly pointed out, you don’t know me. You can let go of my elbow now.”

  My fingers slip away, confused by his iciness, by his words, but he still follows me into the Carriage House and into his little kitchen.

  As we go, I can’t help but notice how neat he keeps the little home. The bed is made, the counters are wiped off, there are no dirty clothes piled on the floor. Impressive for a young single guy.

  I turn the water on and let it run, waiting until it gets warm before I hold his hands beneath it. He sucks in his breath but doesn’t say anything. I grab a clean dish-towel and wrap his hands in it, and he leans against the counter. As he does, the shirt at his waistband lifts a bit, exposing a flat ribbon of his belly.

  The skin looks soft as velvet, although the muscle looks hard as steel. I itch to run my finger along it, to touch it and find out.

  But of course, I don’t because it’s not exactly socially acceptable.

  “Why are you upset?” I ask instead, as I open his freezer. I pull out some ice, and dump it into two baggies, one for each hand.

  Dare doesn’t open his eyes.

  “I’m not.”

  “You lie.”

  It’s a statement, not a question.

  He sighs.

  “Maybe.”

  I push him into a kitchen chair, and hold the ice onto his hands.

  “Definitely.”

  He opens his eyes finally. “Do you know what it’s like to not be able to change something?”

  I ogle him. Seriously?

  “My brother is crazy and my mom died in a car crash,” I tell him. “Of course I know what it’s like.”

  He sighs and looks away like I’m trivial and just don’t understand.

  “Your brother doesn’t seem crazy,” he answers. “I mean, from the way you’ve talked about him.”

  “That’s true,” I answer carefully. “But just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

  Dare looks at me, his eyes dark as night. “True.”

  He gets up and pulls his shirt off, wincing slightly as he moves his hands. He tosses the blood-splattered tee in the sink, and I can hardly breathe on account of his abs. Rippled like a washboard, they hover in my face, and I want to trace those ripples with my fingers, to follow the thin, dark, ‘happy trail’ into the edge of his shorts to see where it leads.

  But I know where it leads.

  And that bursts my cheeks into flame.

  “How do you live here?” he asks quietly, and I lift my gaze to follow his. He’s staring out the window now, at the black smoke that billows from the crematorium stacks. I’m the one who almost cringes now, at the mere fact that he recognized the smoke for what it is. Burning bodies.

  I shrug. “I’m used to it. There are creepier places.”

  He looks at me, unconvinced. “Oh, yeah?”

  I nod. “Yeah. I know of one off-hand.”

  “I’d like to see that place sometime,” he tells me. “Or I won’t believe it.”

/>   I smile. “Deal. If you tell me what’s wrong with you. Why are you punishing your hands? What did they ever do to you?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about it right now,” Dare tells me, leaning once again against the counter, so casual that it’s painful. “Unless you’re using one of your questions and I’m obligated to answer.”

  I don’t miss a beat. “I am.”

  He sighs because he saw that one coming, and I almost fall into the blackness of his eyes because they’re bottomless wells. “I’m mad at myself,” he finally says, as though that’s an answer.

  “Obviously,” I say wryly. “But the question is…why?”

  He stares at me now, with a painful gaze, something so wretched and awful that it makes my stomach flip. “Because I can’t change something. And because I’m letting it get to me,” he finally replies. “Something that I can’t control. It’s stupid. So it pisses me off.”

  “Emotions piss you off?” I ask, my eyebrow raised.

  He smirks now, and the heaviness lifts.

  “They are when they’re stupid.”

  He turns to walk out of the kitchen, and I suck in my breath hard.

  A tattoo is inscribed across the top of his back, spanning his shoulder blades.

  LIVE FREE.

  I’ve never seen such a fitting tattoo, for a guy with such a fitting name. If anyone lives free, it’s Dare.

  “I love your tattoo,” I call out to him, as he walks from the kitchen to the bedroom, out of my sight.

  “Freedom is an illusion,” he calls back.

  I want to ask him why, but I don’t want to use a question, so I let it go. For now.

  He emerges a minute later in a clean shirt.

  “We’ve got some gauze and tape up at the house,” I tell him. “Will you come with me so that I can bandage you up? Finn and I caught some crabs today. Stay for dinner.”

  I’m not asking. It’s an instruction. And surprisingly, Dare nods.

  “Ok.”

  I lift an eyebrow. “Ok?”

  He smiles and the Dare I know is back, the charming and friendly one. “Yeah. I want to see if they really scream when you drop them into the pot.”

  I must recoil a bit, because he chuckles. “I’m kidding. That’s a myth, right?”