Ghost in His Eyes

by Carrie Aarons

  “It’s so good to meet you!” Melissa extends a hand, and Blake, who hasn’t looked across the table yet, glances over at me.

  And freezes. She’s halfway into the chair next to Melissa, her hands gripping the arms of the wicker seat, her pale blue eyes locked onto my face. Whispers of memories float between us, invisible like spiderwebs, trapping us slowly in the haze of words we can’t say.

  “Uh-huh.” Melissa coughs and the trance is broken, my eyes flitting to my employee as she gives me a what-the-fuck expression.

  “Hi.” I can’t help but turn back to Blake, who has collapsed into the chair as if holding herself up and being in the same airspace as me just uses too much energy.

  “Hi.” Her eyes look somewhere over my shoulder, the contact too painful to make.

  But I’ve heard her voice, and my skin tingles with recognition. It’s been so long since that tone hit my ears, playing music only made for me.

  “Do you two … know each other?” Melissa’s voice is awkward, and no one budges.

  “Did you tell her to get me here?” Stone, hard as a boulder. That’s the tenor her voice takes, and it makes me flinch. Blake’s face is impassive, so much more jaded than the carefree girl I once knew.

  “Absolutely not, I swear. I would never … I would have never come if I knew.” She looks like I’ve slapped her with my answer, and I realize it sounds terrible. “I mean, not that I don’t want to see you. God, that’s all I want to do.”

  Agony radiates through my body at being so close yet so far from her. It’s like she’s oceans, eons, away. The connection we once had was so violently severed that I can’t read her the way I used to, can’t intuit her entire thought-process with just the raise of a perky blond eyebrow.

  “Should I … do you need a minute?” Melissa chimes in again, having no idea that the world has just crumbled down on Blake’s and my head.

  “No need, this was a mistake. Sorry for wasting your time.” Blake says this to Melissa, grabs the bag that was hanging on the back of her chair, and bolts out of the restaurant.

  “Fuck.” It only takes me a second before my chair is scraping the linoleum, and I’m running after her.

  9

  Blake

  I was born a beach child. I spent my younger years on the sand, learning lessons on the coarse granules. My emotions came and went with the tide as a teenager. As a woman, I look to the vast expanse for wisdom.

  And even though the water can wash away the imperfections in the sand, they are still there. The surface has been glazed over, nicks and flaws erased. But the underlying issues still remain, eroding at the core until it collapses.

  Kind of the like the inside of my heart. I’ve managed to staunch the bleeding, to tape it up and plug the gashes. But it’s still defunct, still slowly folding in on itself until the day it decides to give out.

  And Carson Cole may have just cut my heart off at the knees.

  I shouldn’t have even taken this meeting in the first place; I rarely go for an introductory meeting. But part of me had wanted to get out, and Melissa had sounded nice in her initial emails. It was stupid of me not to push her about what company she worked for, but I still liked a challenge. I thought it would be spontaneous, and plus I loved the Crab House.

  “Blake! Blake, wait!”

  I hear him calling my name, and the urge to escape has never been more primal. I can’t hear that voice ringing in my ears, I just know it will haunt me for years to come. My feet won’t take me fast enough, my hands fumbling in my purse for my keys.

  “Stop!” A hand lands on my lower forearm, and the connection of skin-to-skin almost knocks me over.

  My knees buckle as every molecule in his fingers reacts to every molecule of my arm. It’s indescribable, this meeting of our flesh. Like we were made for each other, two quilts stitched the same exact way. His touch is both heaven and hell, it’s repairing my bruised and broken heart and also slicing it ventricle from ventricle.

  “Don’t.” One word, it’s all I can utter.

  He pulls his hand away like I’ve branded him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know; I had no idea that this meeting was going to be with you. I had no idea … you’re a graphic designer?”

  To his credit, Carson does look surprised. “I’m going.”

  I turn on my heel, having no intention of explaining to him what I do now. Or what I’ve done, how I’ve survived, the last ten years.

  “Please, Blake. Please listen to me.”

  Something in his voice stops me, and I realize that in my bones, somewhere deep in the marrow, he still has the same power over me. I don’t turn, but I do stop.

  “I had no idea that Melissa set that meeting up with you. She’s only three years in, has no idea about my past or us. I would never intentionally trap you like that. But I do want to talk. Ever since I saw you in the supermarket, ever since the first day I saw you when I was seven. You have to know, there are so many things I need you to know.”

  I stay silent, unable to bring myself to walk away or just face him. My body won’t commit to any path.

  “At least know that I’m back. I’m taking over the company; I’m going to be around. I should have called, should have gotten a message to you somehow. I’m sorry for that.”

  “I wouldn’t have answered.” The first sentence I’ve spoken to the man in ten years, and that’s the one that pops into my head.

  But I’m right, I wouldn’t have. And he knows it, which is why he didn’t. He also knows that his element of surprise was the only way he was ever going to see me.

  I finally turn, the gorgeous man standing in front of me all too much and all too familiar. “So you’re back. Fine. Just stay away from me.”

  Carson takes my facing him as an invitation. “Can’t do that. Especially after I’ve seen your work. Melissa is going to hire you, no matter how horribly that meeting went.”

  His hair is longer than I remember it, dark tufts curling back on top of his head.

  “The good thing about running your own company is that you can choose which clients you work with. I won’t see you, Carson.” Speaking his name is like taking a bullet.

  Those deep brown eyes flash; he was always one to rise to a challenge. “We have to talk, Blake. We’ve both taken our wounded pride and went to opposite corners for ten years; this discussion is way overdue and a long time coming. Don’t you want to stop hurting?”

  God, the idea that I could nurse this pain away was one that sprinkled hope over the gaping hole in my chest. But it wasn’t possible. There were no words that could soothe, no explanations that could act as a balm to my aching. And even if we did clear up whatever was unresolved between us, there was still an entire portion of the picture that would still be missing.

  “That is all my life is now. Or did you not hear I’d had to bury another family member?” It’s a cheap shot, because I would have gone postal if he’d come to the funeral.

  But in the back of my mind, on that day, I’d hoped he would come through that door. And he never had.

  “You didn’t want me there anyway, so don’t throw daggers at a target that isn’t even there to begin with.” His expression goes fiery, the anger burning in his eyes.

  I promised myself that I’d avoid him at all costs, that there was no use in seeking him out because it would only end tragically. But now that he was in front of me, this person who I’d shared all of life’s most intimate moments with, I couldn’t help but want to vomit all of the pent up emotions and feelings I’d locked away inside.

  “Why would you even come back here?” In my voice, I can hear the unshed tears.

  Carson combs a hand through his hair, the long silvery scar that scaled from just under his armpit all the way down to his elbow catching in the sun. That scar brought nightmares back from the dead.

  “Because it’s my home, too. And eventually, you have to come home.”

  I wish he’d never said that. I wish this was never his home. I
wish I’d never met him.

  “Because I respect your parents and what they’ve done for this community and the horses, I won’t stand in your way. But let me make myself clear … I don’t want to see you. Ever. I don’t want to know you, and I don’t want you anywhere near me. This, us? It died ten years ago with him.”

  He clutches a hand to his chest, right over his heart, as if my words have caused it to fail. “Don’t think I don’t know that. Everyday I see his face, Blake. Everyday.”

  Grabbing my keys, I unlock my car door and try to hold in the tears threatening to fall like hurricane rain.

  “Don’t pretend that your pain is greater than mine. You took my other half.”

  And with that, I slam the door, my hands shaking on the wheel as I drive back to my seclusion.

  10

  Carson

  She might have been my best friend’s sister, but I couldn’t stay away from her. That much was clear since I’d been seven years old on that beach at a birthday party.

  Blake Sayer was … hell, I didn’t really have words for what she was. I’d been half in love with the girl since I was nine, and she’d gone out into the surf in the middle of a thunderstorm to rescue a mangy dog. She’d brought that animal home, shaking and shivering with half its fur missing, and forced her family to keep it.

  Daring, headstrong, smart, funny, beautiful … so damn beautiful. Blake wasn’t cute or pretty like some of the other girls at school. She wasn’t hot like the girls who offered themselves up with their low-cut shirts and Friday night party habits. She was beautiful, with an otherworldliness about her that no one could ever put their finger on.

  When I’d started sniffing around her during the middle school years, Joel had launched a right hook into my chin. As I laid on the ground, writhing in pain, he’d told me that if I ever hurt her, he’d pull my balls off and shove them in a blender.

  Needless to say, I’d gotten the picture.

  But I’d been twelve, nearly invincible, and I’d known what I wanted. So I’d gone and got it.

  Blake has been my girlfriend for three years, and while a lot of our peers think we’re nuts, and our parents say it’s not real … we know better. I love her, and she loves me. Since the moment I laid eyes on her, I knew she would be with me for the rest of my life.

  “Just because you have a free period doesn’t mean I can skip class.” Blake giggles as I nuzzle into her neck, oblivious to the other students around us eating lunch.

  Especially her twin brother. “Fuck, can you not. I’m trying to eat.”

  While Blake is my girlfriend, the person who knows me best, her brother is right there with her. We’re a unit, the three of us; my best friend, my girlfriend, his twin sister. He may joke around, talk about us like it makes him nauseous, but in reality, he loves us together. I love his sister, and he knows it. And when I’m not spending time with her, I’m hanging out with him, shooting the shit like high school best friends do.

  Blake taunts him more, laying her lips on mine and kissing me softly. What starts as a tease turns into more, her body so close to mine and her tongue in my mouth driving me wild.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I whisper as catcalls rise up around us.

  I’m serious. She still has a couple more periods to go of the day, but I just want to get her home and under me. Thus far, we haven’t had sex. We’ve come close a couple of times, and I’d never push her into something she wasn’t ready to do, but I’m having trouble holding back. I love her, and the more she climbs on top of me in private, sweetly taking off her clothes and giving me the one thing no other man has had … the more I can’t resist.

  “I have to go to class.” She laughs again. The tinkling melody hits my ears, and I can’t help but stare at her serene blue eyes, the way her blond hair falls over her shoulders and back.

  “You don’t have to do anything. You’re smart, babe. Missing a class or two is the least of your worries. Live a little.”

  And she is, so smart. Same with Joel. They’re two of the smartest kids in the entire junior class, and it’s only October. My girlfriend is in all advanced placement classes; hell, she’ll have an entire year’s worth of college credits before we graduate.

  Me? I’m smart, sure. But my focus isn’t on school. I’d rather be outside, doing something or going somewhere. The walls of this high school are like a jail cell, containing me. And today, I really want to take her over my shoulder and bust out of here.

  “Dude, are we doing the bonfire on the beach this weekend?” Joel has been trying to become the go-to party guy around here ever since we turned sixteen, and he’s finally getting some traction.

  The three of us are popular, but then again it’s a small community. We’ve all known each other since birth basically, and with less than a thousand kids in the whole high school, there aren’t many others to outrank.

  As we’ve gotten older though, Joel has become more obsessed with perfecting his party hosting. He wants to throw a rager every weekend, either in the woods behind their house or on the secluded beach down in Carova. I don’t mind; it’s a time to unwind and get my girlfriend in the bed of my pickup under the stars.

  “Sure, man. You plan it and we’ll be there.”

  Blake sighs. I know she doesn’t exactly agree with the idea of Joel drinking and partying so much. “Can’t we just like, watch a movie?”

  Joel pops the last bite of his Italian sub in his mouth. “And watch you two grope each other the whole time? No thanks! This way, you can still grope each other but I’ll be able to get laid.”

  My best friend wasn’t shy about the fact that he’d slept with half the girls in our school. Of course I couldn’t talk to him about my sex life, but I was itching to start one. Not just because my balls were bluer than the ocean floor, but because it was the last shred of something left between Blake and I. I was ready to have nothing between us, to be at the most intimate place a man and woman could be.

  I didn’t think of us as young. We shared too deep of a connection, had watched each other stumble and fall, but also fly. There was nothing that could happen in this world that could tear me from this girl, from the woman she would become.

  “We can spend the whole party in my truck,” I whisper in her ear, but loud enough for those eating around us to hear.

  Blake’s body melts into my own. “That sounds like a plan.”

  11

  Blake

  Two clients’ books and files sit open on my computer screen as I organize their third quarter filings and get ready for fourth quarter. I like to keep everything neat; my psyche feels better if everything in my life, including my business, is in succinct order.

  Looking over all of the forms, write-offs, expenses and tax deductible sheets each company has sent over, I double check that I calculated everything right, and then I file it all electronically, storing it in certain folders that I’ve categorized and alphabetized.

  I hum along to Coldplay’s “Yellow,” the tune mellowing me out on this rainy day.

  The sound of tires spinning in the sand growl loudly from somewhere down below. Maybe one of the neighbors is stuck in the mud, as the roads become nothing but washed out puddles in a storm like this. It’s foolish to try and get out.

  The sound comes again, and I can’t help but think of the first week Joel and I got our licenses. God, it hurts my lips to even think his name, let alone say it out loud.

  They say that losing a twin is like losing a body part. As if their death is a loss of one of your limbs, an essential part of you that functions and breathes and hurts. Ever since I was seventeen, I’ve known that to be true. Each time I take a breath, it’s as if one of my lungs is missing. Every time I walk, a foot and set of toes has disappeared.

  Joel and I had passed our driver’s test on October twenty-third, our sixteenth birthdays. He’d been stoked, since Dad had bought us a used Jeep Wrangler to share. The thing had been a piece of shit, gray and scratched up. But Joel hadn’t care
d. A car meant freedom, and freedom had always been the first thing on Joel’s mind.

  The minute we’d gotten the shiny new cards into our wallets, my twin brother had insisted on taking a joy ride around the beach. “Live a little, sis.” He’d flashed that Joel Sayer smile at me, and I couldn’t say no. Half an hour later, we’d been stuck in the sand because he’d had no idea he had to deflate the tires. It wasn’t the first time we’d had to pool our money to get a tow truck to pull us out.

  “Goddamnit.” Someone shouted from down below, and my focus was officially out the window and on whoever was stuck in the rain.

  Picking up my mug of earl grey, I went to the window and peered down.

  A sharp inhale stung my lungs as I backed away, as if he’d seen me staring at him from up here. In reality, Carson had no idea I was looking down on him and his pickup. His pickup that was lodged so deeply in the mud, he’d need a team of tractor trailers to haul him out.

  The sound of his horn made me jump, he must have hit it out of anger. Jesus, and right in front of my house too. Fate was a teasing bitch.

  I could just leave him there. Or make an anonymous call to Larry, the tow guy I knew just outside of town. But he’d broken down here; he knew what house this was. Maybe he’d even been out here trying to get my attention.

  And I did feel kind of bad for how I’d treated him at lunch the other day. Sort of. I don’t know. Ever since he’d crossed back over the North Carolina state border, my head and my heart couldn’t get on the same page. I was so out of whack that Rhett laid his head on me multiple times a day, as if to comfort me. My own dog, trying to cheer me up.

  And now, he was looking at me like I should do the right thing.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that. You know why I can’t go down there.”

  He tilts his head, questions in his brown eyes.