Take Me Away, page 5
He ran his tongue along his bottom teeth. “Paparazzi’s a real bitch to live with, I’d imagine.” He said it softly. Like he was playing along.
I sighed in gratitude. “Yeah. Makes it nearly impossible to leave the house.”
He nodded again. “You’re afraid of who you might run into?”
I blinked, then blinked again, struggling to find a way to casually brush it off, all while he watched me with those dark, dark eyes. He knew. “I’d feel much safer,” I finally managed. “Staying here.”
“Yeah.”
“But I’m not a charity case, Derek.”
“Never said you were.”
“Don’t do this ‘cause you feel like you have to.”
He grinned wickedly. “I don’t do anything I don’t want to, Princess.”
“And I can pay you…” I paused, “I mean, give you gas money and whatever. A delivery fee.”
He opened the refrigerator and pulled out the carton of eggs. “I’m not a charity case either,” he said quietly. He cracked three eggs into the bowl, then paused before holding one up for me to see. “Now. What do you want in your omelet?”
Chapter Nine
Derek
The headlights of my Jeep flashed across the dark woods and onto the great house. I pulled the e-brake and waited.
And waited.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I yelled at the house.
There was no answer.
“Okay, that’s it.” I yanked my keys from the ignition and stepped out into the night. Guilt be damned, I was going to use my key to the great house to walk in and upend her grocery bags right on her head, then walk away and consider my debt repaid. I wasn’t her servant. And if she couldn’t even bother to come out and meet me when I returned from doing her a favor, then I owed her nothing more.
I hefted the bags into my hands and stomped up the deck stairs to the upper level. The house was dark again, save for a single light blazing from the atrium.
I tried the handle and found it locked up tight. “Aria!” I bellowed before sliding my key into the lock. “I’m coming in! Don’t worry about putting clothes on, you’ve already showed me everything.”
I swallowed hard after saying that. Me seeing everything was why I’d agreed to be her errand boy in the first place.
The naked, transparent fear she was trying so desperately to hide, coupled with the marks on her body, told me everything I needed to know about why she didn’t want to leave this house.
And if there was anyone in the world who understand the need to hide, it was me.
But that didn’t mean I’d let her use me as a doormat. “Aria!” I shouted. “I got your shit! Come take it before I dump it in the trash.”
There was still no sound. Except…
The faintest little mew. Like the sound a kitten makes in its sleep.
I followed that sound through the living room and into the atrium, then stopped.
The light over the piano was on, but no one was here. “Aria?” I whispered, starting to get a little worried.
There was another sound. I walked around the piano and then stopped.
Aria was asleep. She’d curled up on her side with her arm splayed out, like she’d fallen asleep mid-throw. I followed the line of her arm and spotted a cell phone about ten feet away from her hand, its screen shattered into a spiderweb of cracks. Like she’d flung it against the wall, then crumpled to the floor, asleep.
She let out a shuddery breath, but didn’t wake up.
I stood there, frozen. It was strangely intimate, watching her sleep. I felt like I was intruding on something I shouldn’t be allowed to see.
She muttered, then groaned. Her eyelids fluttered.
“Hey,” I whispered.
She didn’t move.
“Aria?” I said, a little louder.
She was dead to the world.
I set down the groceries and knelt beside her. She couldn’t sleep here. Well, clearly she could, but it felt wrong leaving her on the floor when there was a bed only a few rooms away. Gently, I rested my hand on her shoulder. “Hey. Wake up.”
She didn’t move.
“Aria?” I said again, shaking her. She rocked from side to side and I had to reach my hand out to catch her lolling head before it slipped from the rug and hit the hard tile.
Should I prod her awake and help her walk to her room? Or should I carry her there like an over-tired child?
The latter was the more tempting option. The idea of holding her body in my arms was more alluring than anything I'd felt in a while. How would she react? Would she be grateful?
Or would she slap me across the face?
I looked her over. The way her body curved made the risk of getting slapped worth it.
But those bruises… I couldn’t carry her without the risk of hurting her. “Aria?” I said, shaking her a little more firmly.
She awoke with a start. Her whole body stiffened and her arms shot up to protect her head.
And everything I’d suspected about her ex was confirmed.
“Hey,” I said cautiously. The way she awakened made my stomach turn. “I brought you food.”
“Oh,” she said, stretching. Some of the stiffness went out of her limbs. She gave a huge yawn that she tried to hide behind her hand and failed. “I fell asleep?”
“You did,” I nodded.
“Sorry about that,” she said, rising up to her knees. “I was waiting up for you, but…” She glanced towards her shattered phone and winced.
I stepped back. My heart hammered my chest. My hand shook with an old, forgotten tremor. “It’s fine,” I grunted, turning away. “They’re right there. I’ll be at my place if you need me again.
I turned on my heel and hurried out the door.
I needed to be more careful. The more I learned about Aria, the harder it got to send her packing.
If I was going to have a prayer of winning back my solitude, I needed to be better about staying away.
And now I knew I needed to stay away for her sake.
A bad man had hurt her.
And I was a bad man too.
Chapter Ten
Aria
I opened the brand new carton of milk and shot a grateful look across the lawn to Derek’s house before pouring it into my cereal bowl.
I’d been confused when he agreed to shop for me.
I’d been even more confused when I jerked awake to see his dark eyes searching my face.
Then he’d left abruptly, and I’d been completely and utterly flummoxed.
I had no idea what to make of Derek. He was this strange blend of asshole and knight in shining armor. A surly, caring, evil, nurturing enigma.
And maybe I was getting a little used to having him around.
I crunched my cereal thoughtfully. The image I’d tried to force on him - of con man predator exploiting my feeble grandfather - didn’t match what I was seeing at all.
And I knew better than any one else what a trap image could be.
I’d had an image when I performed on stage in front of thousands. But being Jane Doe wasn’t the first time I’d set my real self aside to play a role.
My very first role was that of ‘good daughter’ for an audience of two.
My parents. Gayle and Glenn Dolan.
When I was a kid, they were already old. Theirs were the only gray heads at the playground. And when they bothered to take me, they preferred to sit on the bench and watch, rather than engage in a raucous game of tag like the other parents in the square.
Most people, when they saw us together, assumed I was out with my grandparents. That the people I called ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ had already raised their family and moved on to the next generation.
I swallowed hard and pushed myself away from the table, consciously moving away from the memories that surrounded it. But they came flooding back anyway.
People who thought that my parents were done with raising kids were right.
In a way.
My sister Violet was fifteen years old when she sat in the back of her friend’s car. Fifteen years, nine months and two weeks old to be exact. Three months shy of sixteen, she was the youngest in her grade. Her friends were driving already, inexperienced sixteen-year-olds behind the wheel for the first time, flush with power.
They were on their way to a movie, heading through the back roads to one of the big chain multiplexes. It was tough being a young teenager in a tourist’s town like Reckless Falls. So my sister did what everything teenager does. She left. She piled into a car with far too many other passengers, and set out on the twenty-minute drive to the next biggest town.
But she never made it. A sudden summer’s storm blew up, and the brand new driver - hopped up on caffeine and freedom - was driving way too fast when they hit the curve.
Violet Marie Dolan was fifteen years, nine months and fourteen days old when she died.
One year and three months later, I was born.
I was my parents’ second chance. And they were never shy about letting me know that I was a do-over.
She was gone. I was here. We were two different people, but I never felt that way. I was raised in her shadow, in the space she used to occupy, and was never allowed to step out into my own.
Paging through old, dusty albums, I’d studied her face until it was more familiar than the one in the mirror. Violet was the original. I was a copy of a copy. A bad imitation of the real thing.
Violet was beautiful. And she was good, too. She was the standard I could never live up to, but also the yardstick I was measured against. Every one of my accomplishments was pitted against my dead sister's. Did I walk at fifteen months? Violet walked at twelve. Did I start speaking in full sentences at twenty months? I was showing off, since Violet didn't speak until two-and-a-half. Was I a good musician? It wasn't really important because Violet was better. Was I strong, tall, or beautiful? Violet was all these things and more.
Frozen in time at fifteen years, nine months and fourteen days, Violet became a saint. My parents put her up on pedestal that grew higher and higher the closer I got to her eternal age.
I lived my life alongside Violet’s for as long as I could. But the closer I got to fifteen years, nine months and fourteen days, the shorter the yardstick became. I couldn't see past that measurement. My life was laid out in front of me in terms of what Violet had accomplished, but what would it be like for me to surpass her? How could I be fifteen years, nine months and fifteen days?
I didn't mean to run away. It wasn't intentional. It was just that, my life followed Violet’s already beaten path. Suddenly, at sixteen, I had no path. I was left to wander the woods alone.
I left the day my license arrived. When I hit the road with my best friend Xavier to sneak into a forbidden out-of-town concert, I was convinced that a car would come out of nowhere and mow me down. Cut me off at the knees for daring to step out of my sister’s shadow.
But it didn’t. We made it clear of Reckless Falls, alive and suddenly free.
At a pit stop, I looked at myself in a grimy gas station mirror and saw myself for the first time. The wild, fierce girl I’d always wanted to be was looking back at me, her joy mirroring my own.
I’d laughed and cried at the same time, shouting, “That’s me! That’s me!” until the gas station attendant threatened to call the police. I grabbed Xavier and we ran back to the car in hysterics.
Buoyed by that triumph, we made it into the concert without a hitch. At that moment, I knew I was invincible. I was dancing and shouting and singing along with every word when I caught the eye of an older man watching me from behind the velvet ropes.
He waved me over. And flush with the headiness of escaping my sister’s fate, I obeyed. “Hey! What’s your name?” I’d asked him.
“What’s yours?” he shot back.
“Aria.”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t like it. What’s your middle name?”
“Jane.”
He reached out and touched my face. “That’s right. You’re definitely a Jane.”
That night I stepped out from my sister’s shadow only to end up under Killian’s thumb.
But that moment in the mirror stayed with me. That fleeting moment where I’d seen myself for the very first time.
I stood up from the table and walked into the bathroom. The morning sunshine streamed in through the window, almost too bright for me to handle. I blinked. And then blinked again as I stared at the woman in the mirror.
Was that really what I looked like?
Fake hair. Fake smile - teeth capped with bright white veneers. Fake lips - plumped out with fillers. Fake skin - courtesy of Botox.
I’d stepped out from Violet’s shadow into Killian’s darker one. Now I was alone in the light for the first time since the gas station bathroom. That girl in the mirror had been fierce, brave, and wildly happy.
I wanted to see her again.
But I had no idea who she was.
Chapter Eleven
Derek
The sun had barely risen above the eastern ridge when I pulled into the parking area at the bottom of the falls.
Sitting at a computer all day was a quick way to an early grave. I believed that with all of my heart. Most mornings I tried to counteract all the time I spent at my desk with trail runs at first light.
But ever since my new neighbor moved in, I hadn’t felt as at home in the woods as I used to. I kept worrying that I’d run into her and those boots that fit her calves like a second skin.
This morning, I decided to do my workout without worrying. I left while the sky was still pink - the better to avoid running into anyone - and headed for the falls.
Climbing was a new obsession. I liked the technical aspect, the mental workout that went along with the physical workout. Finding handholds in slippery rock, swinging your weight without falling over the edge, these were the only burdens you carried up the falls.
That was the hope, anyway.
I parked at the bottom lot and laced up my shoes. The first cascade had dried up to only a trickle, thanks to this summer's drought. But the rocks were still slippery, and difficult to get a hand hold on.
That was okay, though, because some hero, unknown and unnamed, had installed ropes in strategic spots. It was always a gamble over whether they would hold, but year after year they stayed, somehow un-frayed in spite of being completely submerged during spring thaw.
I grabbed a hold of the first rope, wrapping it around my hand twice for good measure and taking one last breath, I began to climb.
The roar of the water was almost as loud as my pulse in my ears as I climbed, hand over hand, foothold after tenuous foothold. The cliff wall was not actually sheer, but it sure felt like it. My heart always jumped when I had to move to the middle and swing freely over the gully floor before catching the next length of rope.
I hauled myself over the top, flopping onto my belly to get clear of the edge, then took a deep breath.
There was a pleasant burn in my arms, that kind of tingling that let me know that yes, I was alive. Adrenaline and dopamine flooded my system, giving that same sort of high I used to achieve with a bottle. They say this way is better, that hard exercise is preferable to hard liquor. I still wasn't sure that was true.
But I needed something.
I grasped the second rope and climbed the shorter middle cascade in a manner of minutes. This span was my favorite. The middle pool was just high enough above the valley floor to meet up with the tops of the trees, and you could see your first glimpse of the lake below. It wasn't as popular to come to this viewpoint as it was to go to the very top. For that reason, I thought of it as mine and mine alone.
I stood at the edge and rested my hands on top of my head as I caught my breath.
Every climb was different. In spring the falls thundered with the runoff of the winter snows. In summer I climbed directly in them, letting the icy water cool my skin. In the fall it was a toss-up. Some days it would be cold enough to climb in raingear. Other days, like today, the sun baked into my skin, still strong enough to make me regret forgetting sunscreen.
In winter, the ceaselessly roaring falls froze into silence, and the sun on the ice make them sparkle in white and blue.
Winter was my favorite season at the falls.
But I was here now, and I still had the last ascent to make. I took a deep breath and grabbed a hold of the third rope.
This climb was the most nerve-racking. That uppermost falls fell straight down almost thirty feet. And the rocks up here were slippery with the rising mist.
I hauled myself up - my breath coming in short bursts, my heart thudding in my chest like a jackhammer - making sure always to have my feet planted before I reached for the next grip. I shut off all the parts of my brain except the ones focused on where to put my toes and how to hold my fingers.
I was almost sad when I reached the top and hauled myself over the edge.
I crawled away from the edge, turned and sat back on my knees. The blood thudded in my ears as my breathing returned to normal.
The view below me never got old. No matter how many times I saw it, there was always something new to find. Up here, the sounds of the valley below echoed strangely, far-off noises sounding like they were right on top of me. I could hear the boats on the lake, dedicated boaters still out there in spite of the plunging temperatures. I could hear a car, wending its way along the country road down from Whaleback Mountain. I could hear the crows, their strange croaking cries sounding almost human as they wheeled overhead.
And all around me the sound of water tumbling down the two hundred vertical feet I’d just climbed.
I peeled off my T-shirt, laid it out in the sun to dry and let the sun warm my shoulders. I leaned back, ready and anxious for the meditative quiet to overtake my mind.
I’d come up here for solitude. I thought I needed it.
But instead of peaceful, I felt…
