Sparkling Fear, page 17
Are you awake yet?
I need to talk to you.
SUNSHINE
Yes, where are you?
But before I could unlock the front door, Leni yanked the door open. "Hi," she grinned broadly at me, and at that moment I thought I couldn't fall any further in love, but the way she was standing there in her far too big sweater and striped wool socks, made me fall even more in love.
"Good morning." I had no choice but to smile the moment I saw her standing there. My inner urge to kiss her was strong. It almost hurt, I longed so much to taste the pure luxury of her lips. But I didn't want her to taste the remaining alcohol that was still on my tongue. It was kind of uncomfortable because I wanted to try to prove to her that I was trying to be better. I'm going to stop living up to this fake side and get better for her.
"Can we talk for a minute?"
Leni looked at me, confused. "Is everything okay?"
The truth was that it was all but okay, but having her by my side would somehow make it easier.
"Give me two minutes, and then we'll talk."
I ran through my bedroom to the bathroom and brushed my teeth as fast as I could. I rinsed my mouth about ten times with a mouthwash that tasted like peppermint. My mouth was burning like hell. It felt almost as painful as when you get hit in the face with a puck or a hockey stick during a game and the paramedics clean the small cut with disinfectant.
Leni sat on the kitchen counter, her legs dangling back and forth, as she put two slices of lemon in her glass of water.
"Do you have plans tonight?"
"Are you asking me out right now?" It was obvious from her face that she was trying to stifle a smile.
"If you want to call visiting Ethan's grave a date, then yes."
The grin quickly turned into a serious face. "You want to visit his grave?"
Want would be a bit of an exaggeration. "It would have been his birthday today, and Ruby invited me to dinner with her, Luna, and Weston."
She jumped down from the kitchen counter and stood in front of me. "Of course I'm coming with you," she smiled slightly. There was something about the way she looked at me with her blue eyes, about that sentence, and maybe also about her bright, warm radiance, that made me so fucking addicted to her. So much that it almost hurt my chest.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Leni
"Should I ring the doorbell?"
"No, Ruby gave me a key after…uh…Ethan left." Charles took a front door key out of his jacket pocket, but before he could unlock the door, I stopped him.
"I'm kind of nervous," I said.
He hesitated. "Me too. I don't even know how to approach Ruby."
"I'm sure the three of them are just as overwhelmed as you and me." To be honest, I was also a bit scared about today because I was sure the atmosphere would be a disaster.
When a dance colleague of my mother passed away, all the ballet dancers got together on the day of his death and watched the same ballet performance every year that he usually danced in. Of course, my mother dragged me along. In all these years, I have never felt so wrong in one place as I did in this one. I hoped that it would get better from year to year. But you could almost say that it was actually getting worse and more uncomfortable.
"It will be fine," I said. Although it almost sounded more like a question, because I was trying to reassure myself, which worked for a moment, until Charles opened the front door and Ruby came out of the kitchen with a baking tray. We all greeted each other and decided to visit the cemetery first and then come back for something to eat.
Luna and Weston walked in front of us holding hands, while Charles and I walked a few meters behind them with Ruby.
"How are you, Charles?" His grip on my hand tightened. It felt kind of strange that we were acting almost like a couple, but had never talked about what had happened between us. Now wouldn't have been the right time either. All that mattered was that he knew I was by his side and won't leave him.
"I've had better days," he replied bluntly.
It was a pretty tense mood from the moment we entered the house and left it again to visit Ethan's grave, but could you blame them? I couldn't really feel what they were feeling because I didn't know Ethan personally, but it made me sad to see my friends like this. Luna was usually so energized, but today it was like she had forgotten to recharge overnight. Weston didn't seem much better, but I got the impression that he was trying to seem calmer and more relaxed for Luna.
"I'm trying to get through it right now. It's hard not having him here anymore." His words from yesterday kept me from sleeping. I lay in bed, wide awake. I turned from side to side and checked my phone at least every two minutes to see what time it was. I wanted to go into his room to see if he was okay.
Charles had a talent for suppressing his feelings. I noticed that immediately in New York. I don't mean that he would sit in front of me with a neutral face and say nothing, but when it came to these very specific thoughts and feelings, he hid them. But last night was different. It was serious. He told me face-to-face that he didn't know if he would still be here if I hadn't stumbled into his life again.
"I'll be right back," I said when it got quiet between them for a moment. I squeezed his hand before running to Luna and Weston.
"Am I interrupting?"
"No! You're more like my rescue. Weston wants to make me put on his ice hockey gear and compete against him on the ice."
"Well, I don't think it's such a bad idea," Weston intervened, laying his arm around her.
"Can I ask you something?"
Weston looked at me. "It's about Charles, isn't it?"
"Do you always have to be so direct?" Luna cursed.
I hesitated. "He and I had a pretty intense conversation yesterday." I didn't want to tell them the exact content of the conversation because it would be unfair to Charles, and he should decide how much he wanted to tell his friends about his thoughts.
"I told you it was about him."
"Can you be quiet for a moment and let Leni talk?" The two of them began to argue, and it was almost like an old married couple arguing over who gets to drink the last sip of cocoa from the pot.
"Do you have the feeling that Charles is closed off? That he's fooling you and trying to hide this other side?"
"During practice, he seems to suddenly lose himself in his thoughts out of nowhere. And when you pull him out of it, he's totally off track," Weston began to explain. "He skates away and acts like everything is okay."
That might explain his panic attacks. Sometimes he managed to get himself out of his thoughts in time, or, as Weston said, someone would call him on it. But if no one got him out of his thoughts, like yesterday, it ended in a panic attack.
"Charles has always been rather secretive. I only know one person he told everything to."
Ethan.
"And now you seem to be that person for him. Charles only really trusts a few people, but when he does, he trusts in a very different way. I mean, you met in an entirely different life situation. You're the only one who knows the New York-Charles," Luna explained calmly, and I looked over my shoulder at Charles and Ruby before I started talking.
"I'm afraid of losing him, Luna. I already lost him last year and I can't do it a second time. Not again," I whispered in a shaky voice.
Not afraid that we would lose sight of each other, but that I would really lose him. I was so afraid of leaving him alone. Before he confided all this to me yesterday, he seemed somehow normal?
He had his good days and his bad days when he wasn't himself or had these panic attacks. But how did I never notice that he had so many demons to fight against?
"You won't. The way he looks at you and treats you, he could never do that to you or to himself." Luna knew exactly what I meant by saying that I feared losing him. "We all know him. But you’re the only person he lets get close to him. Like I said, you know each other in an entirely different way."
"After all, you have seen each other naked."
I rolled my eyes, and Luna let out a loud sigh. "You're banned from talking, Weston Sinclair," Luna instructed, and he stopped laughing immediately and went quiet.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Charles
"I hope you get better quickly, and I also hope you know that my door is always open for you. But I can see that you have someone very charming by your side."
My eyes were fixed on Leni's back when Ruby said that. "I have. And I couldn't be more grateful." That was true. Leni was the most important person in my life, and I would love to spend every spare second with her because I couldn't get enough of her.
Leni was so holy and angelic. It would be a sin not to fall in love with this flawless, perfect girl.
"He would have liked her."
"Ethan?"
Ruby nodded and hooked her arm into mine. "He made me swear I wouldn't know anything if you ever talked about it, but he told me about Leni when you came back from New York with your dad."
I couldn't help but smile. I knew he'd told someone.
"He asked me if I had any tips on how he could convince you to get in touch with her," she puffed out a laugh. "And I was the one who had just gone through a divorce and was definitely the wrong person to talk to."
"And what did you tell him?"
"I said that he had to be patient with you. I've known you since you were this little." She held her hand against her hip. "You've always been a very patient and calm person, and all you've done was wait."
Maybe she was right. I kind of did wait for love. I know I should have reached out sooner, and I regret not doing so.
"Have you talked to Jude? She's back in town," she changed the subject. To be honest, I didn't want to say anything because I didn't like my own answer. "No. Not since the funeral," I admitted. "I'm kind of scared to see her."
"Charles," she paused. "You don't have to be afraid of it. I'm sure she'd be happy to get a call from you. She's grieving, just like you and me."
I know I should have reached out to her long ago, or at least tried to call her, but I couldn't. It was as if I had an internal blockage. A lot needs to change in my life, and after tonight, it will start.
"Can I tell you something?"
"Of course."
It was important for me to let her know, because I was sure that she and Luna cared about this apartment. "Leni and I are thinking about moving out." I didn't get any sleep last night because I was thinking about what Leni said. At first, I thought she was crazy because it would be wrong to move out. It was always Ethan's and my dream, but somehow that dream died with him.
"Wasn't the apartment always your dream?"
"Yes, our dream," I emphasized. "Now that he's gone, that dream no longer exists. It's hard to live there. Getting up every morning and thinking of that apartment as my home. It's not my home anymore. Leni is the one who makes me feel at home. So anywhere can be home when she's there. Just not this apartment anymore."
For the first time, I spoke these thoughts out loud, and I hated to admit it, but it felt so fucking good. I wanted to start all over again with her in a new apartment.
"Do it. You should focus on Leni and yourself. Because of the way you talk about Leni, you're very serious about her." She smiled.
I grinned. "She's breathtaking."
We arrived at the grave. A few tears were shed, but the skin under my eyes remained dry. I was frozen, just staring at the headstone and watching Ruby how she placed fresh flowers on the grave, cleaned the headstone, and lit a candle.
I hated this so much.
"Is everything all right?" Leni whispered, and I felt her slide her thumb back and forth over the surface of my hand.
I took a deep breath. "I don't know."
We all stood in front of Ethan's grave for a moment, and I tried to block out the sniffles and sighs of Luna and her mother by focusing on the candle's flame.
"Are you coming or do you want to stay a moment?" Ruby interrupted the silence.
I looked away from the grave. "I'll stay here for a moment."
Leni grinned slightly and stood on her tiptoes in front of me, giving me a kiss on the cheek. "You're doing the right thing. We'll wait for you."
I held her hand for a moment, somehow hoping she'd pull me along to put distance between Ethan's grave and me. My gaze lingered on the four of them before the darkness swallowed them up, and they were out of sight.
I filled my lungs with as much air as I could, because the truth was, this step was the hardest for me. I would let go of Ethan. He had been gone physically since November, but I would be lying if I said he wasn't still there mentally. Every day, I went through that moment when he and I saw each other for the last time. We said goodbye, and I disappeared with the girl.
All this without knowing that it would be our last goodbye. That was it. The minutes were counting down for him, and no one knew that.
Not him, not me. No one.
I hesitated at first. Am I really doing the right thing?
"I hate you, Ethan. I hate you for leaving. You just left without saying goodbye to me or anyone else. You said you're going to text me when you're home. You promised," I started. My body was shaking, even though I was feeling sweaty.
Was it wrong to say those words? Was it wrong to stand here in front of his grave and say something like that?
"And I hate myself so fucking much for leaving that shitty party at Sigma Devils," I hissed, running my hand through my hair. "I have to do this, and somehow I don't know if it's the right thing to do. Whether it'll be better if I talk to a fucking headstone, but the truth is, I can't take it anymore." Tears left my eyes and rolled down my burning cheeks. "I'm so tired of grieving. So incredibly tired, and I don't want to let this grief drag me down anymore. I'm so tired of being sad." I wipe the wet skin under my eyes dry. "I want to live. To really live. It hurts not to be able to do it with you anymore."
My chest hurt. It was the same feeling as before a panic attack. My eyes searched for Leni, even though I knew she wasn't here. "I want to show Leni the world, and I can only do that if I let go. If I let you go, Ethan." More tears rolled down my face, and my eyes filled with tears so fast I could barely see.
"I'm sorry, E."
Chapter Thirty-Six
Leni
"How are you feeling?" I asked when we arrived at home.
"I spoke to a gravestone, hoping I can make peace with Ethan's death. I have no idea how I'm supposed to feel."
I ran into the bathroom and combed my hair before washing my face. When I looked back up from the sink, I saw Charles in boxers leaning against the door frame. He looked a little more relaxed, which made me feel like leaving him alone at the grave had done some good.
"Are you sleeping here tonight?"
"Why do you think I'm getting ready for bed in your bathroom?" I asked and scurried past him to look in his closet for a t-shirt to wear tonight. I held one of his shirts up in front of me and looked at it.
"Can I wear it?" I turned to him and looked at him with a smirk.
"That's mean, and you know that," he whined as I took off my top and pants and stood with my back in just my underwear in front of him. "You didn't have to look," I provoked, turning around as I pulled on one of his shirts.
"How can I not watch you get undressed?"
I walked up to him and couldn't help but grin. Not just because of what he said, but because tonight was having an effect. I knew that there would be bad days ahead until he was really well again. Every beginning was small.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the bed. "Come on, I want to go to bed."
"That doesn't really help when I know you're wearing matching underwear under that shirt."
"I can tell you one thing, Captain. Girls who are wearing matching underwear shows that they have their life under control," I said, trying to stifle a laugh.
He looked at me, startled. "What—"
I looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Patience. Isn't that what a captain is supposed to have?" My hand slowly slid over his visible abs to the waistband of his boxers. I didn't even have to slide my hand inside to know he was hard.
His gaze deepened, and it felt like he was crushing my soul with his eyes. "You're ruining me, Sunshine."
"Am I? Ruining you? Then I should probably stop playing with the waistband of your boxers and go to bed."
Charles tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking the same thing as he was. But after today, I wanted to give him a feeling of safety, hold him in my arms and be there for him.
"We could just lie in your bed and talk."
"Talk?" He asked in amazement. "I can also be inside you and talk to you at the same time."
I nodded slowly and suppressed a grin. "Is that a hidden talent?"
"Exactly. It's like the Spider-Man tingle. Just the Charles tingle."
"The Charles tingle?" I couldn't stop myself from laughing. He took a step towards me and placed a hand on my hip to press his bulge against my pussy.
"What are the things you would talk about?"
He leaned towards me and brought his mouth to my ear. "I would tell you that my hand is sliding from your collarbone over your breast," he began, and my breathing shortened with each word until my breath was taken away when I felt his hand under the shirt.
He slowly stroked first the one, then the other breast. Then back to the waistband of my shirt. He carefully pulled it up and over my head. Now I was standing in front of him in my pink lacy bra with a little bow at the front between the cups and the matching underpants. Just as he was about to tug at my underpants, I slowly pushed him backwards towards the bed. When he sit on the edge of the bed in front of me, I slipped his oversized shirt over his head and immediately started to spread little kisses all over his body.
