“How did you know I was here?”
“I was passing and saw your car.”
“Your house is that way,” I said, pointing south. “Were you on your way back from my house? Did he let you stay over and sneak you out after I left?”
She overlooked my sarcasm, dropped her shoes on the ground and replied without skipping a beat. “No, he snuck me out the window before dawn.”
I had to hand it to her; she was playing the game to perfection.
“What do you want, Gabrielle?”
She pointed to the grass. “Can I sit?”
“Sure. Pull up a blade.”
Her usually flawless demeanour faltered as she flopped on the grass beside me, tugging at her tight black skirt. Turning my attention back to the viewfinder on my camera, I studied the black clouds rolling in.
“It’s kind of fitting, don’t you think?” she asked.
“What is?”
“The weather. The calm before the storm.”
“Are you expecting a storm, Mademoiselle Décarie?” I asked, feigning disinterest.
“I am expecting nothing less,” she revealed smugly.
“Is that because I am malevolent and full of animosity?” I asked, reciting one of her previous descriptions of me.
“No, it’s because you’re hurt. And when you’re wounded, you do what you need to in order to protect your heart.”
“You don’t know me,” I scoffed, annoyed that she was right.
“I know you adore Alex.”
“So do you, apparently.”
“I’m glad that you know that, Charli. I truly do love him.” There was no mistaking the sincerity in her voice. “I wanted to tell you months ago but Alex was nervous. He knows what you went through last year. He was worried about the gossip flaring up again.”
“Why would it? It’s nothing to do with me. Imagine every girl in town finding out that he was off the market because you’d stolen him.”
The bright smile she gave reminded me of Adam. “Alex loves this town but he doesn’t trust it. He tells me that the small-minded gossip has been viral for years. I was always under the impression that that loathsome Jasmine Tate was at the root of it.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“I knew everything, Charli. I teach at that school. I tried to protect you.”
“What do you mean you tried to protect me?”
“Don’t you remember spending every afternoon for two weeks in detention?”
Of course I remembered. That was the fortnight I’d decided that she was a witch. I couldn’t understand why she’d been so hard on me.
“I just wanted to give you a break from them, Charli. But I ran out of excuses to keep you there after a while so – ”
“So you started keeping Jasmine back after school.”
Gabrielle pulled a disgusted face. “For three weeks. I was so glad when that wretch finally graduated.”
Looking back, spending afternoons hiding out in detention had been my salvation. At the time, dealing with the wrath of Mademoiselle Décarie was so much easier than dealing with the rest of the world.
“She very nearly broke me.” It was an admission I never intended to make to her.
“I know,” she said gently. “Alex knew that too. We started seeing each other around that time. He was terrified of making things worse for you. By the time it all blew over, too much time had passed. It had turned from a secret to a lie.”
“It’s not an excuse.”
“No, it’s an explanation.”
“Don’t you think I have I right to be mad at him?” I asked. “He lied to me, for a really long time.”
“You lie to him all the time,” she accused.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that Adam confided in Gabrielle. He saw no reason to keep anything from her.
“Do you report back to Alex?” I quizzed suspiciously.
“Absolutely not.” She answered with complete certainty.
“Why?”
“We’re not that different, you and I. I think that’s why you despise me so much.”
I frowned. “I don’t despise you. And we’re very different.”
“You’re not as bad as you think you are. You should never believe your own press,” she said, grinning wryly.
“Do you believe my press?”
“How tragic it would be if I did.” Gabrielle spoke more formally than Adam at times.
“Very nasty things were said about me. They thought I was trash.”
“You’re not the first girl to make an error in judgement, Charli. Don’t let it be for nothing. And I find it bizarre that certain girls in this town could consider you to be trash. I assumed that wearing sequins in the afternoon would make one trashy.”
She made a valid point. Jasmine, Lisa and Lily’s fondness for short, sparkly clothing was questionable to say the least.
“It sounds like you find this place just as suffocating as I do.”
“Yes. That is true.”
“So why don’t you leave?”
Gabrielle absently picked at blades of grass. Her face seemed strained.
“I can’t just yet. I have been fortunate enough to find the man who loves me.”
I frowned uneasily. It was strange to hear her speak of Alex that way. The longest relationship I could remember him having was over and done with after just a few weeks. Thinking hard, I couldn’t even remember her name, and then wondered if he could.
“Despite what you might think, I want him to be happy. You make him happy.”
Gabrielle gave a tiny smile. “Thank you.”
I started packing away my equipment. “The rain is coming,” I said.
We looked to the sky. The black clouds had taken on an angry purple tinge. Faint rumbles of thunder could be heard in the distance and I could see she was starting to feel anxious.
“Your pretty shoes are going to get wet.”
“I don’t care. I fear that if we don’t have this conversation now, it might never happen.”
Gabrielle was definitely a girly girl. Imagining her voluntarily sitting in a field in the middle of a storm was a stretch. I, on the other hand, lived for days like this.
“When you leave Pipers Cove, where will you go?” I asked.
“I want to go home to Marseille. I left when I was eighteen and it’s been a long journey, nearly nine years.” Her voice was thoughtful, as if she was digging deep for the right words. “I’m ready to go home…conditionally.”
Instantly, I knew what the condition was. “You want Alex you go with you?”
It wasn’t a question that needed answering. “Isn’t love a dreadful thing?” she asked, as if she was enjoying a private joke. “It makes you do all sorts of unreasonable things.”
“Alex will go with you. He won’t have reason to stay much longer. He knows I have plans to travel,” I told her.
It had always irked me that I’d kept him tied down for so long. Knowing I was partly to blame for Gabrielle staying much longer than she had planned made me feel even worse.
“Are you planning to follow Adam back to New York?” she asked, shocking me to the core.
The look I flashed her was so fierce that she should have burst into flames. “What? No! We’ve never even talked about that! Why would you ask?”
My distress seemed to amuse her. “As I said, love makes you do all sorts of unreasonable things.”
I allowed myself to dream for a second. I had honestly never considered going to New York. Perhaps I should have congratulated myself for being sensible for the first time ever.
Gabrielle had asked me the question so casually that it sounded like a realistic prospect, except we both knew it wasn’t. Alex would lose the plot completely, probably locking me in the house for years, which in turn would put a huge dampener on Gabrielle’s romantic trysts with him. I lay back in the grass, staring at the sky, laughing at the absurdity of the idea.
Gabrielle laughed too but in a
much more demure way. “Don’t you think Alex would approve?” she asked between giggles. “New York is the perfect place to start an adventure. That’s where I started mine.”
“Alex would hit the roof.”
“He would, but I’m trying to get him to keep an open mind...just in case.” She looked at me from the corner of her eye. “I have an advantage because I can vouch for Adam. He’s the most decent person I know, and I’ve been telling Alex that every chance I get.”
That explained a lot. Alex had been very lenient when it came to Adam – too lenient. Of course he wasn’t mellowing. It was all down to the Parisienne witch, who was shaping up to be more of an unlikely ally than my archenemy. It was becoming impossible to hate her.
Finally, the sky gave out and we were pelted with rain. Surprisingly, she seemed unaffected by it. I shielded my camera bag as best I could but Gabrielle didn’t move an inch. Her ivory shirt clung to her skin as if was painted on. The clip holding her hair failed under the weight of the rain and hung loosely at the base of her neck. Wiping streaks of black mascara off her previously perfect face was the only hint of vanity she showed. I couldn’t help smiling at her.
“You’re enjoying this aren’t you?” she asked. She stood up, brushing as much mud off her clothes as she could manage. “I’ve got to go. I have to go home and change before I go to school. Are you going to school today?”
Her tone suggested I had a choice. I decided to push my luck right to the limit. “I should, but I’m probably not going to make it. I have third period French. My teacher is a witch.”
She chuckled. “I have heard that. Maybe she’s just misunderstood.” She scooped her ruined shoes up. “Will you promise me something, Charli?”
“Maybe.”
“Resist the urge to follow Adam too soon. At least see out the last few months of school. Alex needs you around a little longer.”
I nodded but didn’t reply. Skipping town and chasing Adam back to New York was a stretch by any imagination, even one as wild as mine.
I watched as she made her way down the hill, stumbling on the uneven ground. I knew an unlikely truce had been forged between us. A desire to make one last iniquitous stand took over.
I scraped together a handful of mud and flung it as hard as I could. To my delight, it hit her square in the back. The rain washed it all the way down her back. She slowly turned around to face me, holding her arms away from her body in a way that made me think she was about to sprint back to me and pounce. I considered running but wasn’t sure I could outrun her now that she’d ditched the heels.
“What was that for?” she shouted.
“For making Alex fall in love with you,” I shouted back.
Gabrielle scooped a lump of earth into her hands, probably too angry to consider the damage it was doing to her perfect manicure. I flinched as she pegged the mud at me with the precision of an Olympic athlete. I felt the black muck ooze down the sleeve of my coat but didn’t look down to survey the damage.
“What was that for?” I asked, failing miserably in my attempt to appear angry.
“For ruining my shoes.”
When the storm began to wane and the rain slowed to drizzle, I found it had taken my dark mood with it. I made my tentative way to my car, slipping on the muddy incline. I was relieved that Gabrielle wasn’t still there to see.
I didn’t consciously make the decision to go to Adam but that was where I ended up.
I expected things to be different between us. I sat in my car on the driveway, forcing the ridiculous memory of the night before to the back of my mind. Thinking about it only added to my vexation.
Eventually, I summoned the courage to knock on the door.
“Charli?” His voice was unexpected, making me jump. The only thing separating us was the screen door, but it might as well have been iron bars.
I couldn’t place the emotion in his voice. For all I knew, I was about to be unceremoniously cut loose. I took comfort in the fact that he’d be painfully polite about it. Polite to the extreme. I stood silent, staring at him through the mesh.
“Are you okay?” he asked finally.
“I just wasn’t sure if you’d want to see me.”
“I always want to see you but I’m not sure I should let you in.” He held the door open with his foot. I shied away. “Only because you look remarkably like a creature from the black lagoon,” he clarified, smiling the one-dimpled smile I loved so much.
I looked down and realised what he meant.
“Is that the only reason?” I asked cautiously.
“What other reason would I have?”
“I just thought...after last night –”
“Last night was nothing to do with us,” he chided.
“I thought you’d be running for the hills by now,” I said, making him smile.
“Why would I leave? I just got here.” I shrugged but didn’t reply. “Maybe we should hose you down,” he teased.
“Is that what you did to Gabrielle?”
He smirked. “No, she had a plan. She called ahead and asked me to put her robe near the door. I think she stripped off in the garage.”
“Did she tell you what happened?”
“Not exactly but she warned me not to let you in the house if you looked like her.”
“She said that? Wow. And all I really wanted to do was roll around on her white couches for a minute.”
He laughed loudly. “I’m definitely not letting you in then.”
“I’ll be good,” I promised.
“I can’t be sure about that. I actually like it when you’re not good so that would make me an unwilling accomplice. I definitely think I should hose you down.”
“No need,” I replied, kicking off my sodden shoes. I dragged off my heavy coat and dropped it to the ground. “Better?”
“Marginally,” he replied, waving his hand to usher me inside.
“You don’t sound too convinced,” I said.
“I make it a habit never to trust a girl caked in mud.”
“Oh, fine,” I huffed in mock annoyance. I started unbuttoning my shirt. Adam grabbed my hands.
“I’d trust you even less if you were naked.” He grinned wickedly at me. “I’ll get you a robe.”
He disappeared inside, returning with an oversized whiter-than-white robe. He winked as he handed it to me before turning his back. I stripped off my shirt and jeans, swapping them for the plush robe.
“Okay. You can turn around now,” I said, waving the sleeves that hung well below the end of my hands.
His lips pressed into a hard line as he fought against smiling. “I did.”
I took an unnecessary step closer to him as he started rolling up my sleeves. “Does it take a lot of work to be so good all of the time?”
“I wasn’t being good, Charlotte.” His voice was velvet. “Far from it, actually. I got a perfect view of you through the mirror over there.”
He pointed to a huge bevel edged mirror hanging on the far wall. I should have been mortified. But I wasn’t.
Grabbing the cord on the robe, he pulled me through the door and into the confines of a strong hug. I buried my head into his shoulder, breathing in his scent.
“Do I have you for the whole day?” he asked, stroking my wet hair.
“When one is truanting, it is usually customary for one to take the whole day,” I said, trying to mimic his formal diction.
“So what are we going to do with this day?” he asked, smirking at me in a way that made me think he had a few ideas.
“Wash my clothes?”
***
A long time passed before I even thought about moving from the couch. I was too comfortable – until the subject of the night before came up. I’d done a complete about-face where Gabrielle was concerned, which confused Adam.
“You were so angry last night. I thought they’d have to work a little harder to get you on side.”
“Everything seems to make so much sense now. The whole t
ime I thought he had a mad crush on her, he was torturing himself by lying about it.”
“He chose to lie about it, Charli. They both did.”
“I’m not sure they meant to, not for so long anyway. Sometimes Alex gets weird, like he wants to tell me something but then chickens out. Now I know why.”
He frowned. “Gabi could have told me.”
“No, she couldn’t. She didn’t want to put you in the position of having to lie to me.”
His hold on me tightened as he pulled me in closer. “I wouldn’t have lied to you. I would have told you everything I know.”
I laughed. “That’s why lying is sometimes the best option.”
“So your mud fight with Gabrielle was a bonding experience?” he asked, lacing my fingers through his.
The oversized robe slipped off my shoulder and he ran his finger along the strap of my bra.
“Yeah, in part,” I mumbled, pulling the robe back.
“Anything you want to share?” he asked, murmuring the words against my neck. He wasn’t playing fair. His touch acted as a truth machine and I’m sure he knew it.
Gabrielle’s words still rang in my ear. I wanted to tell him that thoughts of following him to New York were trickling into my head. I just couldn’t explain it to him in a way that didn’t make me sound crazy.
“Another time,” I whispered, pressing my lips to his.
I heard the clothes dryer beeping, signalling the end of our imprisonment. And prised myself free of his arms.
“Where are you going?”
“To get dressed. Then we can get out of here.” My jeans were scorching hot on my skin as I dragged them on. The metal button burnt my stomach, making me wince.
Adam appeared in the doorway. Looking far from sympathetic, he watched me jump around, trying to keep the button clear of my skin. “What’s the hurry? You’re not even prepared to wait for your pants to cool?”
“The day’s nearly gone. The rain’s stopped. We need to find something to do,” I replied, rushing through my sentences.
“You’re so pretty when you’re trying to avoid third degree burns,” he said.
“Thank you. Now let’s go,” I replied, reaching for his hand and dragging him out of the room.
The mad rush seemed pointless ten minutes later when we were still sitting in Adam’s car, trying to decide where to go.