Ghost in His Eyes

by Carrie Aarons

  Blake

  Now that senior year was here, life was nothing but parties. It was like my classmates were chasing the sun with how much they were burning out on cheap vodka and low-grade weed.

  Me? I'd rather trek out into the darkness and explore the water along the other side of the island in the bay. There was no mystery or braveness in drinking myself silly and flirting with boys who passed these girls around like Jack Daniels shots. I had Carson, I didn't need the attention of anyone else.

  So here we were again, at another beach party that Joel insisted on throwing on a Friday night. I was bored to tears already, watching my brother flit around the girls like a liquored up fly.

  "Doesn't he realize that these girls are like a walking STD?” I lean into Carson, loving the warm feel of being tucked into his body.

  He presses a kiss to the side of my head and takes a sip of beer. “Babe, he doesn’t care even if they do.”

  My boyfriend chuckles and I can do nothing but scowl. The music, the bonfire, the girls in their crop tops and done up hair, giggling and making eyes at the boys. The boys who show off, running down the beach in their ATVs or open top trucks.

  “You want to go somewhere?” I glance over at him, trying to flash my eyes so he knows what I mean.

  We gave each other our virginities back in the fall, and since then, we can’t seem to keep our hands off each other. I don’t know why I made us wait so long, not that Carson was anything but patient and gentlemanly. But sex … it just brought us so much closer together. Something that felt that euphoric? I wanted to do it all of the time.

  “Come on, babe, we have to stay for a little. Joel wants us here, and I have been blowing him off all week. It’s one of the last parties before we graduate. I know you don’t like it, but you’re a trooper for doing it for us.”

  His midnight eyes matched the sky, mesmerizing me and rooting me to where we sat on top of the hood of his pickup.

  “Fine. But only if you promise to sneak in tonight.”

  More and more, Carson had been sneaking into my room at night to snuggle. And do other things. We’d be off to college in just three short months; me to North Carolina State and him to Tufts in Boston. It would be very long distance, and while I was worried, this was us we were talking about. I loved this boy more than the moon loved the stars. More than the wild horses that dotted our backyard loved their isolation. There was nothing that could break us apart.

  “I love you more than the sand loves the shore.” He bends down, his lips tingling as they parted mine.

  There was nothing that was any better than this feeling. I’d remember this during the lonely nights at college.

  When he pulls away, he can see that I’m still antsy. He sighs, flicking my nose and laughing.

  “Why don’t you just go to the Horse Shack? I’ll meet you there in five after I tell Joel we’ll be back later.”

  Breathing a sigh of relief, I hopped off the car. “My shackles are off. Finally!”

  Carson laughs at me. “You’re beautiful.”

  I blush under his long stare. “So come get me. Soon.”

  I peck him on the cheek and skip off in the direction of the dunes, which go up and over and lead to the Horse Shack. By the time I get there, I’m ready for Carson to lay me down and kiss me until the sun comes up.

  When I get to the second floor and look out on our view, the place we’ve caught so many milestones in, it still gives me the chills. The music from the beach party wafts softly over the landscape as I sit down on the cracked wood floor and watch for the motion of the horses down below.

  Only, when I look at my phone, ten minutes has passed and Carson still isn’t here. I shoot him a text, telling him to hurry his tight ass up.

  Another minute or two goes by, and the air is oddly quiet. “Hmm, someone turned the music off.” I say it aloud to myself without realizing that it’s much too early for the party to be over.

  And then a shriek pierces the black night, and my body moves without thinking. I’m racing down the creaking stairs and out the unhinged front door before my brain can compute.

  Because that shriek sounded like bloody murder, and the two people I love most are down on that beach. As I get closer, I hear more screams, the sound punctuating the silent night, only outdone by the waves crashing on the sand.

  “HELP! HELP!” Someone is screaming, a girl’s voice.

  My feet won’t carry me fast enough, my sandals flopping in the sand. I run out of them, leaving them wherever they fall on the hill behind me. I crest the dune, and the scene in front of me stops my heart so hard that I fall to my knees.

  Because there, in the black rolling water, is a Jeep flipped over and half-submerged in the ocean.

  A Jeep that I know all too well. A Jeep that I’ve sat in hundreds of times as my twin brother steered our course.

  “Joel?” I whisper his name, a question as to what the hell is going on.

  No one sees me up here, on my knees, my nails digging into my palms. There is so much screaming and chaos, people running and some of the boys from our grade trying to flip the car.

  “Get under it more! We have to get him out!” one of the boys yells, pushing all of his might into the vehicle, which just won’t move.

  And then a figure surfaces from under the water, it’s head and shoulders coming up for air.

  “Jesus Christ!” Carson slaps the water, his face illuminated by the cars now turned toward the ocean, all headlights on to try and provide light.

  He looks angry, his expression screwed up tight as he drags in breaths before going back under. As soon as his hair sinks below the surface, my eyes dart around the beach. I hope against hope to see Joel, to just spot the person who was as close to me as my own heart.

  I think I’m in shock, because I can’t move to help. I just let my eyes scan back and forth, but Joel is nowhere among the throngs of people.

  “JOEL!” Carson’s battle cry as he comes up for air once more confirms my worst fear, and brings the night sky crashing down heavily over my skull.

  Suddenly, the world shifts sideways and I’m so overcome with nausea that I actually dry heave into the sand. As if the scene in front of me is too much for my weak body to take. Lungful after lungful of sour poison leaves me, but the feeling that one half of me has been hacked off doesn’t go away.

  After retching, I can finally stand on wobbly knees and make my way down to the beach.

  “What’s … what is happening?” I ask no one in particular.

  But then people are all around me, slinging arms around my shoulders and trying to tell me it will be all right. No one directly tells me that Joel is trapped in our Jeep, submerged in three feet of ocean water, but they don’t have to. I have no idea how long he’s been under there.

  It seems like years go by as I stand there, helpless, watching other people try to save the person I’ve known since we were in the womb together. People try to hug me, comfort me. But I can’t hear a word they’re saying. It’s like all of my senses have failed.

  A pained growl accompanied by the sound of splashing water pierces the air, and Carson emerges with something thrown over his shoulder. His face is grotesque, a picture of exhaustion and pain.

  My feet move but it’s as if my body isn’t my own, like I’m watching from above as the scene plays out.

  Carson collapses onto his knees, Joel’s lifeless body thudding onto the sand.

  My brother. My twin. His clothes are soaked and torn, blood is gushing from a cut in his head and his face is a shade of blue that I never wished to see in my life. I want to throw myself over him, will him to breathe, but someone pushes me out of the way to start compressions on his chest.

  My heart is in my throat; I don’t know what I’ll do without Joel. He’s a part of me, the only person who actually experienced my life being created.

  “Fuck, fuck …”

  My eyes divert from Joel over to Carson, who has now fallen to his back on the ground
, clutching at his arm.

  “Baby?” My voice wavers and I feel like I might be sick again.

  Because as I get closer, I see a huge gash from my boyfriend’s armpit to his elbow on the inside of his arm. He’s gripping it, trying to make the bleeding stop, but it only comes faster. I swear I can feel both of their heartbeats humming inside my head, getting fainter by the minute.

  “Joel, stay with me!” Someone is yelling at my brother as they pound on his chest and blow into his mouth.

  Another person whips their shirt off, holding Carson down as he grunts and cries out when they press it firmly to his arm.

  My world is falling to shambles before my eyes. And I want nothing more than to shut them and wake up from this horrible nightmare.

  17

  Blake

  By the time the ambulances got to the beach, Joel was already gone.

  He’d been in that water too long, trapped under the car he’d flipped into the ocean. If it wasn’t the head wound, it was the lack of oxygen to his lungs and brain that did it. When the doctors had explained that to my father and I, I was so numb. It’s the only way I can remember the cold, matter-of-fact description that they’d given us.

  My twin had died while drunk driving our shared Jeep around the beach for a joy ride. He thought it would be funny to show off for everyone. Except he was so wasted that he couldn’t differentiate from the brake pedal and the gas, and ended up flipping end over end before crashing down into the ocean.

  The way I heard the story after, Carson had scolded him about being reckless, but let him go. He’d wanted to get to me at the Horse Shack. So he told Joel not to do it, but in the end had stood by while my brother made the worst decision of his short life.

  He’d signed my brother’s death warrant, and I’d never forgive him for letting Joel get in the car that night.

  But that voice, that little nagging voice that had been in the back of my head for ten years, since Joel died and I’d driven Carson from this island, said otherwise. I’d been the one that night who’d wanted to go to the Shack. Who didn’t want to spend time at the party, who didn’t want to watch after Joel. I was the one who’d refused to get in between him and the partying, stood by as he turned into a reckless young man. I didn’t want to bother looking after my brother, only cared about spending time with my boyfriend.

  His death was partially my fault. And for that, I’d never forgive myself.

  Carson had the physical scars to prove his guilt; it had taken forty-two stitches to close the gaping wound on his arm, inflicted by the bent piece of metal he’d scraped it on while dragging Joel from the water.

  But I had the mental scars. I’ve gone over that day in my head a million times, wishing I did something differently. That I’d talked to Joel before then, intervened in the wild behavior he was exhibiting.

  For the first few years, I’d ripped at myself, splitting what was left of my soul into pieces over losing not one, but two men. The day after the accident, I said the most heart-wrecking things to Carson, and he’d fled to Boston that day. They’d shipped him his high school diploma; he never heard the in memoriam speech for Joel at our graduation.

  When Daddy insisted I stay the course and follow my plan to attend college, I’d obliged simply because it meant I got to get out of my own personal hell. But I’d fallen victim to the kind of people who preyed on the weak, and I wasn’t strong enough to get out from under them until my father came and saved me.

  He was the only one I’d had left. And now he was gone too.

  For the past couple of years, I had been simply going through the motions. Okay, it was a little bit more than that; I had the business and enjoyed my dog and occasionally read a book that made me feel something. But after that night ten years ago, I was never the same.

  I couldn’t keep punishing myself like this, couldn’t keep holding onto this pain that felt like an anvil dragging me down by the neck. My brother, my other half, would have wanted me to live my life as fully as he did until the day he couldn’t anymore. The pain and sadness were a weight on my shoulders that now seemed to be cracking with every passing day that Carson stayed on this island.

  I had never been forced to confront my demons. To hash things out or say out loud my part of the blame in the situation. But now that he was back, I felt compelled to. Like the universe was finally calling me to speak about the awful events that happened ten years ago just yards from my home.

  So here I was, going to seek out the one person I’d told I never wanted to see them again. Not sure what it was, but my gut had an instinct that he’d be in the office on Saturday morning. I’d fed Rhett early and locked up my house, getting into my Jeep and driving slowly on the deserted beach highway.

  When the car rolled past the spot I’d fallen to my knees on so many years ago, I had to suck in a breath and hold it. I passed the spot where Joel died so frequently that nausea washed over me if I even stepped onto the plot of sand that his car had been lodged in. But today, nothing came. A sense of rightness, like the hand of fate stroking a calming hand over my shoulders, settles over my bones.

  As I pull into Corolla, the town is ghost-like. On a Saturday in the middle of October, there aren’t a lot of people around. This is the season that the island basically shuts down. With tourism as its foremost industry, summer was the big bucks season for a lot of businesses in this town.

  I knew that with the North Carolina Wild Horse Association focused primarily on fundraising and tracking the horses during the winter. They had a few tours going on for people coming down here in the off-season, but that wasn’t their primary focus right now. They would be conducting research, tracking the harems, developing new ideas, and much more.

  I knew this partially because Melissa had sent me some materials to get started on, and had given me a look into what the association was doing right now.

  I swing my car into a parking spot, and see a familiar pickup sitting three spots down. The only occupied spot in the parking lot.

  My pulse starts to thrum; I haven’t spoken to or seen Carson in a week. Not since the night that he tended to the injured horse. And kissed me like the sky was burning and the oceans were drying up. That kiss left me breathless for hours after he’d left. After I’d told him to leave. Again.

  Walking into the building is like walking into a memory. I spent a lot of time here as a child, learning about the horses and playing in the nooks and crannies.

  I spot Carson as soon as I walk into the main room, and my heart seizes. It’s incredible that this man can still make me feel like I’m a thirteen-year-old girl in front of the Horse Shack, waiting to be kissed.

  “Hi,” I call out, suddenly awkward and shy.

  His head turns, although I know he knows my voice. His mocha brown eyes look me up and down, and my neck flushes a hot red. Even with the mountain of tension between us, there are still sparks threatening to ignite.

  “Hi.” He looks like he wants to say more, and I wave a hand to let him know it’s okay. “What … I … I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  He’s stuttering, and it’s adorable. And for the first time since he’s been back, I consider that maybe he’s just as scared as I am.

  A silly thought comes over me. “Well, I am working for you now, so I guess I have to see you sometime.”

  Carson smiles, and the genuine nature of it almost bowls me over. If possible, he’s gotten more magnetic in the past ten years.

  I put a serious expression on. “I think we should talk.”

  He stands and walks toward me, pulling out a nearby desk chair and waving for me to sit. “That’s all I’ve wanted since I got back.”

  I take a seat, and he pulls out a chair opposite me. A beat passes, and I collect my thoughts. This is going to hurt. It’s opening a wound, flaying a cut that is already raw and bleeding.

  “I blame you.” I whisper it, because suddenly, I feel ashamed for all of the horrible feelings I’ve held onto for ten years.<
br />
  I can’t look at him, but hear Carson speak. “I blamed me too. You have no idea, Blake.”

  But I did. Because I also blamed myself. And I had to come clean, wash away the sins marring my soul.

  “I do, because I also blame myself. If I hadn’t … if I hadn’t insisted on leaving that party, maybe he would still be alive. If we’d done something before that, talked to Joel, tried to help, maybe …”

  I have to stop my speech, because it feels like I’m taking a knife to my heart and carving my brother’s name into it.

  I feel a hand on my own, and tingles run all the way up my spine. It forces me to look up, to face Carson’s stare. And when I find it, it’s not what I think at all. My pre-conceived notions fly out the window, because Carson isn’t angry. His face does not hold distaste or rage.

  No. He’s wearing a small smile, and his eyes are kind and warm.

  “I said blamed, past tense. It took me a long time to forgive myself to really look at the events of that night and go over them. But when I finally did, I realized that I wasn’t at fault. I wasn’t to blame for Joel’s death. If anything, I loved you both too much. I loved him like a brother, and because of it, let him get away with things that I shouldn’t have. We both did. He was going down a path that led towards destruction, and because we wanted him to keep on loving us in that way of his, we stayed silent. But that wasn’t on us, what happened wasn’t on us. I tried to save him, almost lost a limb because of it. I loved him and would never wish him harm, and it wasn’t my fault he died. And it wasn’t your fault either. It took me a long time to get here, but maybe I can help you see. You only loved him, Blake. You’re not the reason he’s gone, and need to stop convincing yourself you are.”

  By the time he’s done speaking, my cheeks are wet with tears. Something inside of me has broken, and the floodgates of hate and guilt are streaming through me, out of me.

  “I miss him so much. It’s like a part of me was hacked off.” I squeeze his hand that was only resting on mine until now.