He looks over his shoulder at the ledge, then takes in the small yellow warning sign to our right. It’s a sign that should be larger and red, bright red, bright enough for someone to notice.
He looks at me, then shakes his head. “I should’ve known better.”
I nod. “There’s no way you could’ve known. The ledge is really thin. It won’t hold weight. I should’ve told you when you first came, but I didn’t think about it.”
Because I’m not used to having anyone but my family staying up here.
Because he flustered me with his Live Free tattoo and his contradictions.
He smiles, a slow smile, but not a genuine one. This one is forced, fake. It’s his go-to smile, which means that we all have fake go-to smiles. All the world is a stage and we all smile falsely upon it.
“Well, I’d say you made up for it by saving my life.”
Honestly, though, he doesn’t sound happy about that. His eyes are so sad, so closed now, so glittery.
Aren’t you happy to be alive?
I want to ask it. I’m so tempted, too tempted. He’s got everything that most people want. Good looks, wit, charm. And he doesn’t seem happy with it. Is it because he’s an orphan now?
“Why do you seem so sad?” I blurt out, unable to stop myself.
Dare stares at me, studying me, considering my words. He raises an eyebrow.
“Official question?”
I nod, silently. Yes. Official question.
He sighs, and it sounds lost up here as it floats away over the edge, and he looks out over the ocean.
“Because I lost everything.”
I’m the silent one now, because it’s hard to stomach the rawness in his voice, the emotion that he can’t quite hide. Dare surprises me by adding something, something so startlingly personal that it takes my breath away.
“I’m not sure if I can be found.”
He looks at me with eyes so black, blacker than black, blacker than night.
“That would insinuate that you’re lost. Not just that you’ve lost everything,” I point out, careful not to ask it as a question. He nods curtly.
“Maybe I am.” His voice has a scalpel’s edge.
He’s lost.
“And if I’m lost,” he continues. “How can I possibly find someone else?”
He confuses me with his vague words. “Are you looking for someone else?”
“Aren’t we all?” His gaze impales me and my heart twinges because the look on his face is vulnerable and broken.
But then it’s gone, as fast as it appeared. He looks at me again, his eyes clear now, closed, bright. He once again appears cocky and arrogant and he flashes his go-to smile.
“Sorry. That seemed dramatic. Chalk it up to my near-death experience.”
I smile back, grim and quiet. “I had a near death experience too, once. Actually, I had a death experience when I ate some nuts in the fourth grade. I died for a minute and a half.”
Dare stares at me. “How was it?”
What a strange question.
“Uneventful,” I admit.
“Well, how very anti-climactic of it,” he acknowledges. And the fact that he’s so blasé about mortality makes me laugh, and then we’re both standing on the edge of a cliff laughing in the face of death.
It seems right.
When we’re silent again, he eyes me.
“Why are you sitting out here on the edge of nowhere?” he asks.
I raise an eyebrow. “Official question?”
He laughs and rolls his eyes. “God no. I just thought you might offer it as a bonus.”
I roll my eyes too. “Don’t hold your breath. Talking about myself is my least favorite thing.”
He smiles for a minute because I’m throwing his own words back in his face, but then sobers, staring deep into my eyes, examining my soul.
“I’d think you’d enjoy it,” he tells me quietly. “It’s such an interesting subject.”
Just like that, my heart thunders and pounds, my stomach rolling over and over and over. There’s something so stimulating in his voice, something so attractive and real.
Live, Calla, the Universe whispers.
“I’m glad you think so,” I finally answer, sounding perfectly casual, as I try to live.
He nods slowly. “I do. Not that it means anything.”
It means everything.
But I don’t say that, of course. Instead, I begin to walk and Dare walks with me, instead of continuing his run. At one point, he grasps my elbow and helps me step over a rotting log. When he removes his hand, I feel its absence immediately. His touch had been branding-iron hot.
Or so I imagined.
Our walk back is silent, but the air is charged.
We pause outside of the carriage house.
“Thanks again,” he says, his voice husky and quiet.
I nod. “Anytime.”
He smiles, a real one this time, and I collect it, putting it in my jacket so I can hold it for later.
Then he walks inside, his shoulders swaying and the sunshine fading into the backdrop because something about him shines so bright.
I fall into a chair on the side porch, thinking about Dare, about his complexity, his mystery, his endless contradictions. I pull his smile out of my pocket and examine it, because it’s beautiful and real and I want to hold it forever.
I don’t see Dare again all day, but when I retire to my room for the night, there is a bouquet of calla lilies on my bed.
The note is written in dark scrawling handwriting, that simply says, Thanks again.
The mere idea that Dare had somehow managed to get inside of my room and stand this close to my bed, sets the butterflies free in my belly. They whirl and twirl and fly against my ribcage as I collapse into bed.
I fall asleep with the flowers in my hand, and thoughts of Dare in my head.
His smile is the last thing I think of before I drift away into oblivion, and it reappears, over and over, in my dreams.
18
DECEM ET OCTO
Finn
I wake with a start, from the nightmares of broken glass and burning metal.
It’sRealRealRealReal. She’s deadddddddddd. The whispers hiss and laugh.
I gasp for air, gripping the bedclothes tight, as I fight the clouds of confusion and panic and fear.
Without a second thought, I pad down the hall to Calla’s room and climb into the empty side of her bed. Something stabs me in the back, and I pull out a bouquet of flowers. I stare at them for a second, puzzled. Then I realize… Dare must’ve given them to her. Suddenly and overwhelmingly annoyed, I get out of bed and crush them under my heel.
I want her to be happy, I do.
I do.
But… Not yet. I just can’t be without her yet.
Calla quiets the voices.
She’s the only thing that does.
I crawl back in beside her, curling up next to her and then I fight for sleep, ache for it, pray for it. And finally, finally, finally, the blackness comes, covering me up like a blanket, and hiding my crazy.
For now.
19
NOVEM
Calla
I wake with a start.
My dreams were strange tonight.
Dare was in them, of course, but instead of the sweet images I usually dream, this one was more of a nightmare. He was telling me something terrible, something that I couldn’t quite hear, but my heart could feel. It was something dark. I could see his lips move, but no sound came out. Until he told me that he’d go away, if I wanted him to.
And that was it.
I’m awake now in a cold sweat because dream or not, I don’t want him to go away.
I apparently have a very real fear of loss now.
I toss and turn, trying to get back to sleep, but since Finn is in my bed and my thoughts are troubled, I’m not successful.
So I pad downstairs, and out the door to the side porch. I curl up in a chair and stare
down the mountainside, at the rustling trees and the black skyline.
The air is fresh and clean, and borderline chilly. I shiver in the breeze, and as I do, I glance at the Carriage House.
A light shines in there, through the window, warm and soft.
Dare’s up. It’s the middle of the night, and he’s up.
Without even thinking about it, I get up and walk in that direction. I find myself standing next to his front windows, staring in, oblivious to the fact that I’m only dressed in a nightgown.
He’s sitting at the desk in the living room, staring in apt concentration at a paper in front of him. He bends over it, working diligently, and I’m left to wonder what he’s working so hard at.
The light inside is warm and beckoning, but of course, I can’t knock. It’s three a.m. So I watch from the shadows for a bit longer, and just when I’m ready to turn around and head home, Dare stands up and walks into the kitchen.
Curiosity is killing me, so I dart around the edge of the house to the windows on the other side of his living room. From this angle, I’ll have a good view of his desk. Peering in, I gasp.
When I first saw Dare, I’d been right. He is something artistic. He’s an artist.
And he’s working on an amazingly beautiful drawing of me.
My breath is suspended as I peer closer, and leaning my forehead against the glass, I study the picture.
His skill is amazing. And the way he’s drawing me is exhilarating.
In the picture, I’m walking away from him, and I’m completely naked except for a pair of high heels.
Breathless, I study the drawing… enchanted with the way he imagines me to be. I’m slender and pale, but pale in a beautiful way, an ethereal way. My hair is long and lush, my muscles curvy and perfect. Through his eyes, I’m feminine and delicate and perfect.
I scan the entire drawing as my cheeks grow hot with the sheer thought that he imagines me like this… that he imagines me naked.
And then my heart stutters and pauses in my chest as I see something.
A birthmark on my side.
The size of a quarter, it’s the color of coffee with cream.
Startled, my fingers subconsciously flutter to my side, to feel the place where the very real, very intimate birthmark lingers on my skin.
How did Dare know?
There’s no possible way he could’ve ever seen that birthmark, unless he’s somehow seen me shower or changing clothes.
He must be watching me.
What the hell?
I’m churning this through my mind with such intensity, that I forget to step away from the window, and Dare scares the shit out of me when he appears directly in front of me, his surprised face in front of my own.
I yank backward and so does he, then he narrows his eyes as he stares out into the dark.
At me.
I back away and then take off down the path toward my house, because of a hundred things. Because I’m embarrassed that he caught me spying on him, because I’m nervous and confused about his picture, and because in spite of everything, I’m flattered and excited that he was drawing me at all.
I haven’t gotten twenty yards, though, before Dare is tugging on my elbow.
“Calla, what are you doing out so late?”
His dark brow is furrowed as he stares into my face.
I stop and stare upward, into his dark eyes and without bidding, the image of the beautiful portrait he’d drawn with his own hands pops into my head. It was so lovingly rendered, so perfectly drawn.
“You were drawing me,” I say simply, my hands dropping to my sides. I don’t know how I feel, other than confused.
He actually seems flustered.
“Yeah. I…it’s a hobby.”
“You’re really good,” I tell him. “So good that you were able to draw a birthmark you’ve never seen before.”
Long pause.
Finally, Dare sighs. “What do you mean by that?”
I sigh back. “The birthmark on my side. You’ve never seen it, so how did you draw it? Have you been watching me? If so, why?”
Another long pause.
“Uh, I’m not stalking around spying on you, if that’s what you’re implying,” Dare finally answers. “I sit outside sometimes, and you go outside a lot. When you came back from sailing the other day, you weren’t wearing a cover up. I noticed it then.”
Oh. Obviously.
“I’m an idiot,” I breathe. “I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head. “No worries. I can see where you might jump to that conclusion.”
Yeah, because I’m wacko.
He glances at me again. “I should be apologizing to you. For drawing you in such an… intimate way. I’m sorry. I hope I haven’t made you feel uncomfortable.”
If by uncomfortable, he means incredibly flattered, then yes. He has.
“It’s okay,” I tell him quickly. “You made me look beautiful. Who could be mad about that?”
“You are beautiful,” he says evenly, his eyes flickering with a million different things. The air is charged, thick with something exciting, and I long to reach up on my tiptoes and kiss him.
“You never said what you’re doing out so late,” Dare reminds me, interrupting my tempting thoughts.
I look around, hunting for a feasible answer, but the quiet forest doesn’t give me a thing. “I just couldn’t sleep. I saw your light….”
“I couldn’t sleep either,” Dare confides. “I draw when that happens.”
“You draw me,” I say slowly. “Why me?”
Of all people in the world, why me?
He grins, a slow, sultry grin that seriously curls my toes.
“I don’t only draw you, Calla-Lily. I draw everything that I find interesting.”
He finds me interesting. My heart hammers, and I forget that a few minutes ago, I thought he might be a stalker.
“You do?”
He nods. “I do.”
I’m shivering now from the night breeze and Dare notices.
“You should run up to bed, Calla,” he suggests. “It’s cold out here.”
I nod wordlessly. “Ok. Good night, Dare.”
“Good night.”
I scamper up the walk, and the entire way, Dare watches me go. I feel it. But when I turn around at the top of my porch steps, he’s gone.
I feel buoyed and amazing and wonderful, until I get back to my bed and remember that Finn’s in it. Next to the bed, my flowers have been smashed, by Finn, presumably.
All of my amazing feelings plummet as I realize that I can’t feel wonderful about Dare. I can’t feel wonderful about anything, as long as there is something so seriously wrong with my brother.
I fall asleep with dark clouds hanging around me, consuming my joy.
20
VIGINTI
The ocean crashes against the shore, the mist spraying against me as I lounge against one of the rocks in the inlet. It’s low tide, so I can linger here for hours before high tides comes back in to cover all of the exposed pools.
All I want to do is daydream about Dare. To fixate on the fact that he fantasizes about me naked.
But I can’t. Not right now. Because in my jacket pocket, my fingers rest on the tattered leather cover of Finn’s journal. After realizing last night that Finn is even more troubled than I realized, I know I’ve got to figure it out.
So when he and my dad went out to work on the fence, I took his journal. It’s something I had to do because he’s obviously not going to tell me himself. He’ll think it’s lost… and I’ll have to go along with that. It makes me feel dirty, and awful for lying to him, because I know how much his writing means to him.
But he’s just going to have to write in something else.
I’ve got to do whatever it takes to protect him from himself.
My breath hitches in my chest as I pull the book out. Because the last time I read it, it scared me for weeks.
His hidden thoughts terrified me the
n, and they’ll terrify me now.
Regardless, I open the cover with shaking fingers.
And then I’m still.
Absolutely, completely still.
A folded paper is inside the front cover, but I can already see what it is.
Dare’s drawing of me.
When did Finn get it? In the middle of the night?
Unable to breathe, unable to feel, I unfold the paper carefully and then my heart spasms.
MINE is scrawled across the beautiful sketch. Everywhere. Big letters, small letters, in-between letters. Scrawling bold writing.
MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
All I know is that my fingers are trembling and my heart is spasming and what the hell is going on?
Finn crept out of my bed, down to Dare’s house, and stole this picture in the middle of the night. Hell, he might’ve even been watching me the whole time and that’s how he knew it even existed.
Chills run down my back, causing me to shiver and shiver and shiver.
Why?
What is wrong with my brother?
Forcing myself to focus, I flip through the pages of his journal because this is where I’ll find answers. There’s a tarot card hidden in the pages, which is odd, but I tuck it back in and fly through the pages until I get to where I’d left off the last time I’d read it. The writing is bold and heavy, which is odd since Finn’s fingers and arms are light as a feather, scrawny and thin.
My chest constricts as I read his words. They’re written in all different sizes, in scratches and scrawls, the scribbles of the insane.
Nocte liber sum Nocte liber sum
By night I am free.
Alea iacta est The die has been cast. The die has been cast.
The die has been fucking cast.
Serva me, servabo te. Save me and I will save you.
Save me.
Save me.
Save me.
The entire page is more of the same, desperate Latin phrases and random words. And of course the weird symbol. I don’t even bother trying to interpret that. My brother loves cryptic symbols and scribbles them all over the place. I don’t even blink until I come to the bottom of the page, where there are stick figures with their faces scratched out. Two of them, a man and a woman. The woman has flaming red hair.