"Do you want me to bring you something?"
I heard movement, and I was fairly certain she was shaking her head, expecting me to see her response. "I look like something a cat puked up, and I feel even worse. Thanks though, you're a good friend."
"A friend? Have I been demoted to good friend?"
A sob splashed through the phone.
"Rebecca? Are you crying? Don't worry about the apartment. You can stay with me until you get your feet back under you."
A loud sniffled followed. "No, I can't. I can't go back to Camden Beach." She sniffled again. "What are we doing, Joshua? I shouldn't—We shouldn't—"
"Hey, listen to me, baby, you're drunk. You're upset about the job. Just get some sleep, and I'll find some time to come see you tomorrow."
"No," she said the word with a weak wavering voice, but she might as well have sent it through the phone with a knife. "Joshua, I think I need some time to sort stuff out. Don't be mad. I love you." She hung up.
I paced the stockroom floor for a few minutes, not wanting to go out and face the customers or Dylan or life in general. Why the hell did this have to be so damn twisted? I loved her. She loved me. But it was as if there was a big fucking canyon between us that just couldn't be crossed. I grabbed a whiskey bottle from the stock shelf for home. I needed to get sloshed enough that I couldn't feel a fucking thing. Maybe my old man had it right.
Chapter 30
Rebecca
I was doing one hell of a spectacular job feeling sorry for myself. And completely ignoring the warning on the cookie dough wrapper that said 'do not to eat raw dough', I'd downed enough raw cookie dough to kill a horse.
I walked over to my bed. It hadn't been a couch for so long, I doubted it would even fold up again. I sat down and leaned against the cushion headboard and stared at the blank television screen. I hadn't opened the blinds all day. If it weren't for the time on the alarm clock, I wouldn't have had a clue what time of day it was. The hours were just slipping and sliding into one long pity party. Most days, I worked hard not to feel sorry for myself, but this time was different. This time I deserved to feel miserable and sad and pathetic.
For a brief stretch of time, things seemed wonderful. I was with Joshua, the one person on earth I could never get enough of. But in between the moments of sheer bliss were those sharp jabs of guilt. Emily had been gone for four years, but I couldn't tamp down the feeling that I was betraying her. Occasionally, I'd try and convince myself that she wasn't that nuts about him. She was constantly trying to change him to the person she wanted. It would always make me grind my teeth together in anger. Because as far as I was concerned, you never messed with perfection. To me, Joshua was that—perfect. But it seemed I was going to have to let perfect go and settle some day for something less than perfect. In my eyes, no other man had come close to Joshua.
After calling Joshua with a long, blubbering half nonsense good-bye, I'd turned my phone off. I decided to turn it back on, sure that Dustin and possibly even my dad were trying to call or text me. God, my social world was small. And I was great at making it smaller.
The phone started up, and I glanced through the recent call list. Dustin and Joshua. I didn't have the courage or energy to talk to anyone at the moment. I thumbed through my Dad's texts about the vineyard. I could just run away from everything and go live with my dad. In fact, in a few months when my bank account was drained of my last few dollars, I might not have any choice. The thought of being thousands of miles and an ocean away from Joshua was agonizing. The thought of not seeing him again or feeling his arms around me made me feel as if I'd once again reached that horrid, low point in my life where everything just seemed too hard to bear.
I moved my thumb across the screen and pulled up the picture of Emily and me. I wondered briefly what things would be like if she hadn't died. She had always been there for me, the slightly bossy but always caring older sister. Then my mind slipped back to that one night when Emily had let me down. It was a night that might have changed everything if she had stayed to listen to something I desperately needed to tell her. For the longest time I'd told myself it was because she was older and couldn't be bothered with stuff her little sister deemed important. But now and then, I let myself consider that she didn't stay that night because she didn't want to hear what I had to say. Because she knew.
Chapter 31
Rebecca
Seven years earlier
I knelt down, reached under the bed and pulled the heavy cinderblock out from under it. Thankfully the plush carpeting in my bedroom made it easy to pull the block out without making too much noise. Of course, there was an odd, unexplained track of thinning carpet to give away my secret, but so far no one had noticed it. It helped that I left my school backpack over the mark whenever I was home. And when I wasn't home, my bedroom door was closed. Michelle was strict about me keeping my room clean, but she was also cool about respecting my privacy. At least that was what she told me.
I didn't always have to pull the block out. But tonight the house was full, and the deep voice, a sound that felt like an icy hand on my chest, thrummed through the hallway. It was my signal to pull out the cinderblock and slide it into place in front of the door. The idea had come to me when Dad was building a garden wall for Michelle. She badly wanted a place to plant flowers, and my dad, who would shoot up and lasso the moon for her if she asked, had immediately set off to the home supply store to buy cinderblocks. They were so heavy a large truck had to deliver them to the house. I'd spent several days in the hot sun helping lug the thirty pound blocks from the pallets on the front driveway to the far corner of the garden, the corner Michelle had deemed to be the sunniest and best location for her flower garden. My fingers were nearly numb from carrying the awkward shaped blocks, and on one journey across the yard, I'd had to stop and rest. I put the block down right next to the back door. In an attempt to look too busy in the house to help with the wall, Emily and Michelle had not walked out to the backyard all morning. But Murphy's Law had required at least one of them to open the back door at the precise second I lowered the block down. The door cracked against it, breaking off the thin strip of metal and rubber that acted as weather stripping for the back door. And as sharply as Michelle had opened the door, the block didn't budge. The door broke but the block stood its ground. Later that night, when Michelle and Dad had gone out for dinner, I carried one of the spare blocks into my room and hid it under my bed. It was a simple plan for a monstrous problem. But it worked.
I could still hear the television set on in the front room. Dad and Dylan were still up watching a movie, but Michelle had gone to bed. I climbed onto the bed with my book and my phone. Lilly, my current best friend, had been beside herself because she caught Rudy, the boy she thought she was going steady with, kissing another girl at the park. I'd been consoling her all evening with texts and smiley emojis, and it seemed she'd finally either cried herself to sleep or kissed and made up with Rudy. I placed the phone on the nightstand and was deep in a chapter of my book when the door smacked against the cinderblock.
My heart slammed against my ribs. I sat up so suddenly the book popped out of my hands and onto the floor. My throat went dry as I stared at the small crack between the door and the block.
Thin fingers reached around the edge of the door. "Becca, what the heck? Why won't the door open?"
"Oops, sorry, just a second, Em." I hopped off the bed and reached the cinderblock. There was no way to hide that I had a cinderblock sitting on my floor. Emily would push open the door long before I could get the heavy block back under my bed.
Fortunately, she was excited about her night out and didn't mention the block as she slipped inside. She took a quick glance at it and jumped right into her conversation. "Well, the band's first party gig was a hit." She walked in, turned around and plopped onto my bed. "Josh and the guys were so nervous at first. It was funny and cute to watch. Then there was a little technical problem with the sound system, and they w
ere getting all mad at each other, which was less cute but still kind of funny."
"So everyone liked the band?"
"Uh huh, right up until the time when the police came and said they had to turn off the speakers because they were too loud." She plucked up my favorite stuffed animal, Piggie, from the foot of my bed and absently stroked his ears while she talked. "Oh my gosh, the girls were all standing around watching the band with starry eyes like they were groupies. Ugh, that awful twit, Nadine, kept standing right below where Joshua was standing on the makeshift stage. I swear she kept stretching her tank top down so he could see her boobs. I think I was getting the evil eye from a few of the other girls because they knew I was with Josh. It was all so annoying." She tossed Piggie aside.
"Annoying but you loved it."
She shrugged. "It's kind of fun, I admit." She clapped her hands once. "Which brings me to the real reason for barging in here tonight." Her eyes sparkled with some new idea. It was one of the things I loved best about Emily. She loved coming up with new plans and ideas. "We should have the Domino Dogs play at your sweet sixteen party. We could set up a little stage out back and rent some tables and . . ."
"Sweet sixteen? Em, I was thinking of it just being the family and Joshua, of course. And I wouldn't say no to him playing his guitar, but I don't want to invite all my friends. We're going to probably hang out during the day, like at the beach or something, but I just wanted it to be us for dinner." I hated to deflate one of her ideas, and she really looked disappointed. And a little stunned.
"But you have to have a sweet sixteen. Everyone does it. Remember mine?"
I cleared my throat. "Uh, barely because you thought a fourteen-year-old shouldn't hang around too long at a sweet sixteen."
Emily laughed. "I remember. What a spoiled princess I was," she said as if it was years ago. "I sure hope I can handle myself better when I'm a bride. Joshua would hate it if I turned into one of those Godzilla brides."
Her comment was meant to be humorous, but I had a hard time even forcing a smile. Hearing her talk about marrying Joshua made me sad. It shouldn't have. If Emily married Joshua, it meant he'd always be in my life. But the thought of it still made me depressed. If only because I knew I'd never find anyone as awesome as Joshua, and I'd be comparing my boyfriends to him for the rest of my life.
Emily reached forward and grabbed my hands. "I'll let you go to bed. I just wanted to tell you my idea. You still have a few months until your birthday. Maybe you'll change your mind. I'm sure, even with late notice, we can still get the Domino Dogs to perform. I've got a special in with the band." She laughed as she hopped off the bed.
She crossed the room and opened the door but then stopped to stare down at the cinderblock. I knew a question was coming.
A dozen silly excuses went through my head, but the one that kept popping to the top was the truthful one. The one that wasn't at all silly, but the one that was so difficult to say, it was almost impossible to think about.
"Why on earth to do you have one of the garden wall bricks in your room?"
Many times I had wanted to tell Emily what I'd kept so tightly bound in my chest, but I'd never had the courage. I didn't want to mess things up. I had a family, a sister, a stepmom. My dad had a wife he was nuts about, and I'd never seen him happier.
I got up from the bed, and the tingling sensations that sometimes made my limbs feel like heavy rubber started before I could take my first step. I wasn't sure what prompted me, but it might have been those same tingling sensations acting as a catalyst for me to talk.
"Actually, Emily, there is something I've kind of wanted to talk to you about." I couldn't keep the shakiness out of my voice. She didn't turn back to look at me, but she glanced down at the dent the brick had left on the edge of the door. Then she looked down the hallway at the other bedroom doors.
"Uh, I'm kind of tired, Becca." The earlier enthusiastic tone of her voice had deflated, and her voice was nearly as shaky as mine. She couldn't even turn to look at me when she spoke. "Maybe tomorrow, ok?" With that, she hurried out almost as fast as she had raced in.
The tingling grew stronger, and I had to consciously remember to breathe. I hurried to push the block in front of the door. With the door secure, I stumbled back to my bed, grabbed Piggie to me and dove under the covers.
Chapter 32
Joshua
I jammed the mop into the bucket.
"You missed a spot," Dylan joked as he walked into the barroom. "Just kidding. Fuck, are you ever going to stop looking like the boy who lost his puppy? I warned you that Becca was flighty and overdramatic. You should—"
"Dylan, stop. I can't listen to another one of your asshole 'told you so' lectures. I just can't fucking listen again."
He held up his hands. "Fine. I'm done with being an asshole." He walked back to the office.
"Yeah, I seriously doubt that," I quipped as I rolled the mop bucket to the back alley. It had been two long weeks since Rebecca had stopped answering my calls and texts. I'd finally decided to take the hint and stop trying to contact her. Asshole or not, it seemed this time Dylan was right. Everything had been going great. Or at least that was how I saw it, but Rebecca had obviously decided it wasn't working for her. It would have been nice to be able to talk to her face to face one more time, just to hash things out. More than once, I'd thought about driving to the city to see her. But I'd stopped myself. She'd already broken my heart clean in half. I didn't need her to stomp on it too.
I dumped the dirty water out in the alley and carried the mop and bucket back inside. The alley door didn't snap shut like usual. I swung around to see what had stopped it from closing. Rebecca was standing just inside the door. She looked pale and weary. Her fingers shook as she reached up to push her hair behind her ear.
"Rebecca?"
"Where's Dylan?" she asked sharply. "I need to see him."
Stunned speechless, I pointed toward the office.
She marched past me, almost as if we hadn't been in a wild love affair just weeks earlier. She walked past me almost as if she hadn't seen me standing there.
I followed behind her angry strides as she headed through the backroom door. She walked into the bar area. "Dylan, where the fuck are you?"
I walked out and stared at her. As mad and determined as she looked, she also looked one step away from falling apart into a million pieces.
Dylan came around the corner. His face turned to white stone when he saw her standing in the bar. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Rebecca turned to me. "Joshua, please go. I need to talk to Dylan."
I stared at her for long enough that it seemed to crack that confident facade she'd been working on. Reluctantly, I turned to go.
"No, wait," she called. "Stay."
I turned back around. Her eyes were glassy with tears. "I'm always a stronger person when you're near. And I need every ounce of my strength."
"I don't have time for your silly, fucking dramatics, Becca," Dylan said. "It seems you haven't grown up at all."
"That's what you wish," she said to his back. "You wish I were still that scared, confused little girl, the girl you took full fucking advantage of." She marched toward him. "You sent that picture. You were worried that Joshua and I were getting too close and that I might let him in on our dirty, little secret. Actually, it's not my secret at all. It's yours. And I kept it for you because I was embarrassed and scared and I didn't want to ruin my dad's happiness. I kept it in all these years." Her shoulders shook but the tears had slowed.
And each word was splitting me apart. As I sorted them out, I tried hard to find another meaning for them. One that wouldn't be impossible to swallow. I forced myself to look at Dylan. His mouth was tight. Nothing about him looked familiar, as if he was wearing someone else's face.
"But it wasn't a secret really," Rebecca continued. Her hands were in tight balls. "It's coming clear to me now. I was too young then and Emily was too. The truth was too much for her to acc
ept. So she ignored it. She ignored the harsh reality that her brother had a big problem. That's why Emily and I couldn't have friends spend the night. That's why Michelle kept urging you to find jobs away from Camden Beach." Rebecca took another step toward him. "I tried to stop the constant nightmares. I even tried to step in front of a bus just to knock out the memories, to wipe you away for good, but you were always there, in the back of my mind. Anytime I felt happy or as if things were going well, I thought about you, and it just wiped me right back to despair. Everything was going perfectly. I had a new sister, a stepmom . . . but you fucking ruined it!"
I stepped farther into the room and stopped ten feet from the guy who I'd known for years. Only it seemed I didn't know him at all. I stared at his worried face. "What. The. Fuck. Did you do?" My pulse was pounding in my ears and my fists were tight.
Dylan released an ugly laugh. "She's fucking nuts. She's always been nuts."
"I was thirteen. Most kids think there are monsters hiding under their beds, but my monster slept just down the hall."
"Boogeyman," I said, absently, not even realizing it fell from my mouth. I looked at Rebecca. I would have given anything to wipe away the agony in her expression. "You let one boogeyman go."
My words pushed the tears from her eyes, and they ran down her pale cheeks.
I turned back to Dylan. "I'm going to fucking kill you." I ran at him and threw my right hook before he even knew it was coming. Crooked fingers or not, my fist struck a satisfying blow. Bones cracked and blood sprayed across the floor I had just finished mopping.
"No," Rebecca screamed. "Don't, Joshua. I don't want this. I just wanted to let you know what kind of man your friend and partner is."