I smile back at him as he opens the door to an ice-cream parlor for me, and I step into the artificially bright space. He’s talking. His lips are moving as he stares straight at me.
And then I realize I haven’t heard a word of what he’s said to me in the last ten minutes.
And then I realize he hasn’t noticed.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Erik and I walk back to his place, taking the beach route as we stroll hand in hand. I feel weird about it, and want to pull my hand from his, but he seems to have forgotten about our awkward moment this morning and I don’t want him to think of it now.
My shoes dangle from my fingertips. My bare toes sink into the sand, the grains sticking in between them. The sand suddenly seems deeper, thicker, like it’s trying to suck me right into the beach.
Erik is the only way I can have everything I’ve ever wanted. The only way to guarantee I never turn into my mom. Without him, I’ll never be able to keep Cole and all the others safe.
It’s only with Erik I can be normal. But I wish he cared more about who I was. Wish he asked me about things that mattered. Favorite ice cream? That’s easy. What about my biggest fear? Greatest hope? Doesn’t he care about those things?
This only works if I can love him . . . and what if I can’t?
Because with Erik, it’s so easy to keep him at arm’s length. So easy to keep everything skin deep, never looking beyond that.
Never falling. With him, everything is about the curse, and nothing is about . . .
Me.
We get back to the beach house and thunk down on the couch, and I feel more tired than ever. Erik rubs my shoulders as we sit in the quiet, the sounds of the ocean rushing in through the open windows. I’ve never felt so totally worn down, exhausted. I want to curl up in a ball and let the world pass me by.
“You okay?” He leans forward, traces his lips along my neck, his breath hot on my skin. You okay? just reminds me of Cole. Of all his questions. Of the way he met my eyes and seemed to look deep into my soul, wanting a real answer. Why do I feel like Erik is asking that just because he thinks he should? Why do I feel as though he doesn’t want an answer at all?
I have no reason to think that. He’s never done anything wrong. Not specifically anyway.
I nod, but I don’t speak.
“You’ve seemed a little . . . off since this morning,” he says. He doesn’t add “since I said I love you,” but I know he’s thinking it. I look down at my hands, wring them together. My mouth is so dry it’s like someone jammed an entire package of cotton balls down my throat.
“Erik . . .” My voice trails off, weak and quiet.
“Yeah?” He gives me a squeeze, then leans back again, relaxes against the couch.
I relish that I finally have a little room to breathe. “Do you ever feel like . . . like maybe there should be something more?”
The air turns heavy, the silence deafening. I imagine him staring at the back of my head, blinking over and over.
“More than what?”
I twist the blue bracelet in circles around my wrist. “I don’t know. Like . . . like this should be . . . deeper or something.” I twist around to look him in the eye. “Like . . . chemistry. Some deeper pull, or desire, or . . . something.”
Jeez, I’m butchering this.
I shift around, trying to get comfortable, but there’s no position that makes this any easier. And it doesn’t matter anyway. Wherever I go, I can feel his eyes boring into my skin.
“Is this about seeing Cole with Nikki at the dance?”
“What? No. I mean ... not really. I don’t know.” I slide away from him and sit on the other side of the couch. I need to see him, to face him directly so that I don’t have to guess as at his expression. “Doesn’t it kind of feel like we’re trying too hard here? Would you even care about me at all if I weren’t a siren?”
His lips part, his eyes flaring a bit. “What? Of course I would. I told you . . . I love you. It’s not about you being a siren.” He sits back and looks away for a second, out at the beach through the big picture window. Then he looks back at me just as quickly. “Is that what you’re worried about? That I don’t care about you? Or that I only do because of what you are?”
“Well . . . yeah. I just don’t know if this is real, you know? Or if we’re just forcing it.”
Erik slides over on the couch, making up the distance between us. He takes my hands in his. “I promise you, this is all very real to me. You’re . . . amazing. Sweet and beautiful and smart. It’s not about being a siren, I swear. I mean, sure, that’s what brought me to you. But I never would have stayed if I didn’t think this could be something real.”
I let out a long breath of air through my lips, then look up at him, into the dark blue eyes that remind me so much of what’s in the mirror. “I just feel like I need to know you. As a person not as . . . a nix.”
He nods. “Of course.”
“Do you think . . . do you think maybe we could slow this all down?”
His eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, this all happened so fast, and I can’t keep up because we are together so much and everything is constantly changing. I just need time to process it. I just want a few nights to go back to my swimming and hanging with my Grandma and let everything just ... settle in, you know? I just feel really out of sorts, and I need time to adjust.” My voice has a hint of a quiver in it. I don’t even know why I’m doing this, what I want. Guilt pools in my stomach when I see his stricken expression.
He reaches out and grasps my hand. “Are you sure? My eighteenth is coming up, and how will you fall for me in time if we’re not together? I can’t kill someone, Lexi. I can’t.”
He’s squeezing my hand too hard. I pull it away, and then I stand. “Please. Just a couple days, okay? Let me adjust to this. I’m not leaving you, I swear.”
He stands, but I put out a hand, and he reluctantly sits back down. “Two days?”
I nod, the lump growing in my throat.
“Okay,” he says. “I can handle two days. But my birthday is barely a week away. I can’t give you much longer.”
“Thank you,” I say. I lean forward, brush my lips against his. He grabs my cheek with one hand, his fingers curving behind my head, and pulls me closer, until our kiss lingers so long I’m out of breath.
I pull away from him, the taste of him lingering on my lips. “I’ll be back in a couple of days,” I say.
“Until then,” he says. I nod, and then leave him sitting there on the couch, surrounded by the ocean’s scent.
Chapter Thirty
That night, I park my car in the usual spot, noticing the Jeep parked next to a tree.
It’s Erik’s. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat of his darkened car, watching me. Shadows hang over his eyes, making them impossible to see.
He matches my stare, and I sit, teeth gritted, hands gripping the wheel so hard it’s painful. Long moments tick past as we look at each other, neither of us moving. What is he doing here? He was supposed to give me space. I know he was scared, but it’s just two days. I wasn’t leaving him. I just wanted a little time to think.
I watch him through the shadows as he unbuckles his seat belt. I don’t get out of the car as he slides out of his bucket seat and walks to my door. I unroll the window.
“Hi,” he says, looking sheepish.
“Why are you here?” My voice comes out a little angry. I lower it. “I thought you were going to give me a couple of days.”
He looks down at the key ring dangling from a finger. “I know, but I just got a little worried you were pulling away.”
“Erik. Seriously. I need some space.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” It’s hard not to shout it.
“Okay, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come up here, but before I knew it I was driving up the gravel road.”
I set a hand on his. “Please. Just give me a couple of days. I sw
ear it will all work out. Okay?”
“Sure.” He leans in and gives me a long, lingering kiss, and I feel my body react to it. As he walks away, I can’t help but wonder if that’s what he intended. If maybe he thought the kiss would make me change my mind, want him to stay with me. I sit in my car and watch him back up. I don’t move until his headlights have disappeared down the gravel road.
In fact, I don’t move for a long time, my eyes fixated on the spot where I last saw his red taillights glow.
Erik is taking this all really hard. I get it, I do, but I don’t like it.
I finally unsnap my seat belt and get out of the car. It’s colder than I realized. I reach back into my Toyota and grab a black quilted jacket with a fur-lined hood. Then I put it on and zip it up to my chin. I shove my hands in the pockets and walk to the tree line, entering the shadowed darkness under the canopy. My sneakers sink in the thick pine-needle walkway, and the ferns I brush up against dampen my jeans. I take in several deep breaths through my nose, relishing the sweet smell of the damp forest.
I walk slowly today, in no hurry to get to the lake. The urge to sing is building, bubbling up to the surface as I make the trek through the woods.
The hunger for the water is just as strong as it’s ever been.
The darkness seems thicker than usual somehow. Like the misting rain and the velvet sky have melded together into a big blanket. By the time I step into the clearing beside the lake, the urge to sing has grown enough that I shiver in anticipation.
I shed my clothing and step into the familiar waters, quickly diving under the surface. I stay underwater even longer than normal, until my lungs scream for oxygen. The icy water wraps around my skin, but I don’t feel cold. I feel as though I’m sitting in a warm bath, every muscle relaxing in the water.
I finally come up for air, and my face barely breaks the surface when the song bursts free, my voice loud and clear as I let loose with a melody more haunting than the one that I’ve sung every night these last few weeks.
I’m only a half lap in when the song dies, and something doesn’t feel right.
I jerk upright, glance across the lake at my tree. My clothes still dangle there, but Erik’s not standing next to them. I blink, then spin around and scan the shore and the tree line.
No Erik.
And then something clicks into place. It feels like when I killed Steven. Like the desire to sing hasn’t just disappeared, but like some deep need has been met. It’s the same strange high that drove me to laugh and splash, feeling weirdly euphoric, while Steven floated facedown, just a few dozen yards from me.
Sudden, rushing panic courses through me. The silence buzzes in my ears as my stomach begins to flip over and over and over.
I twist around, then around again, desperate to figure out where he is. Whoever he is.
And that’s when I see the body.
“No!” I scream, the sound more like a wildcat’s scream than my voice. I throw everything into swimming toward the body floating hardly twenty feet from me, facedown, innocent as driftwood. I don’t even stop to see who it is. I just flip the body over and yank on the collar of the shirt, dragging him behind me as I kick, gaining momentum until the water streams by faster than ever. My feet find the ground, and I struggle to get him up onto the shore. For the first time, I look down at the pale face and am met with my worst nightmare.
Cole.
Nooo. An animal scream wrenches from my throat. Not Cole. Anyone but Cole.
Oh God, no. How did it come to this? I did everything in my power to keep him away from the lake, away from me. I can’t have killed him. I can’t go through the pain of killing someone again.
Cole’s once beautiful hazel eyes are glassy and lifeless, staring upward. His dark curls are plastered to his forehead and temples. His skin is ashy, clammy. He’s not breathing.
I pound on his chest without even thinking. Pinching his nose, I force air into his lungs. It’s exactly like those desperate moments with Steven, when I tried to bring him back, before I realized that the life had already left his once strong body.
This can’t happen. Not again. I won’t let it. I can’t do this, not to Cole, not to the only person who’s tried to get to know me, the real me, in the last two years.
Though I’m breathless myself, I don’t stop. I push against his chest several more times. Just as I lean over to force more air into his lungs, water slides between his lips. And suddenly, he’s coughing.
I jump up and step back, watching as he rolls onto his side, hacking hard, coughing up water. He’s curled over in a fetal position, gasping for breath.
Before I understand what I’m doing, I’m backing up, sliding my clothes off the branch behind me and retreating into the shadows. He pulls his knees underneath him and kneels, still coughing, one hand gripping his stomach, the other sinking into the rocky, muddy shore.
Once the coughing slows, and I know he’s going to be okay, I slip further into the shadows. I disappear, my bare feet picking up a sprint. I dodge tree limbs and roots and rocks, bursting into a frantic run, wishing I could leave the truth behind as easily as I leave Cole hacking up lake water.
The gravel bites into my bare feet, punishing me for my mistakes.
I almost killed.
Sickening dread swirls in my stomach, nearly making me vomit as I reach my car.
I almost killed.
I yank the door open and fall into the seat. Then I curl up into a ball and close my eyes, rocking back and forth.
I almost killed.
Chapter Thirty-One
I stay home sick from school the next day. And in a way, it’s true: I am sick. Sick of the curse. Sick of my life.
I can’t face Cole right now. Not when I know what nearly happened. What I nearly did.
I stay in bed all day as my grandmother’s television blares in the living room. The bowl of soup she gave me sits, cold, on the nightstand next to my bed.
I grip the toy Chevelle in my hand, my thumb sliding over the wheels. Cole nearly joined Steven, six feet under. Because I was too afraid to tell him what I was.
I am supposed to be empty of all feelings, empty of all life. That’s what sirens are in the myths. Killing machines, bent on revenge. But if that’s true, why does the pain in my chest overwhelm me? And why is it that what I want most can’t be met by the siren’s call?
Even Erik wasn’t enough. He was drawn to me just because I was a siren. And that makes him like all the others, even if he knew what he was doing. He wanted me to fix him, and he wanted the life I could give him, but he never really wanted me.
But Cole is different.
And that’s why I’m afraid to see him right now. As long as I don’t face him, as long as I don’t do what I have to do, I can still have the possibility of him. The daydream that he doesn’t sneer and walk away.
But now I know I can’t keep living like this.
I have to tell him.
Tears brim, and I let them slide down my temple, unbidden.
Nothing. That’s what the women in my family get in the end. The guys always leave us far behind when they find out the truth. I don’t know that I can survive that.
I let the tears swallow me whole as I mourn everything I know I’m going to lose once Cole knows.
But then it hits me: Maybe he already does. Maybe he saw me before he drowned, before he mindlessly walked into the lake.
The dreams and hopes that had swelled and grown in the last few weeks shrivel up and die, drowning in my tears.
I turn on my side and hug a pillow against me and let the sobs rack my body, crying so hard it becomes difficult to breathe. I squeeze my eyes shut and wish I could rewind the last month, find the strength to tell him what I should have to begin with.
The next morning, I stand outside the school’s main doors. I didn’t swim last night, which is enough to put me in a foul mood. I nearly went to my lake, but I wasn’t sure what I’d do if Erik were there. If I’d let him hug me,
try to take away the pain.
I’m weak. Too weak. And so I stayed away. And now I have a day of classes to get through, and it’s only eight o’clock. I don’t know how I’m going to manage. All I know is that tonight, after all of this is over, I have to go see Cole.
I take in a slow breath and push the heavy entry door open, step into the bustling hallway. Students stream past me, jostling to get to class. They don’t even notice the change in my eyes as they pass me, don’t see that I’m struggling to stay on my feet. I grit my teeth against the pain. It feels as if the carpeted halls are really a gauntlet of broken glass and sharp tin cans splitting the soles of my feet open.
Out of nowhere, a hand clamps onto my wrist. Cold, hard, unwelcome.
I spin around, steeling myself.
But it’s not Cole. It’s Erik. He gives me the strangest look. His eyes are sort of glossed over, a flash of resentment in them. “You were supposed to come over this morning.”
I reach over with my free hand and wrench loose his grip on my arm. “I know, I’m sorry. I’ve had some things to deal with.” I take in his strangely haughty look. I almost don’t recognize him right now. “Look, I’ll talk to you about this later. Soon, okay? Just not right now. I have too much going on.”
That same look flares again, and something inside me shrinks back. I feel a little guilty, but I need to just get through today, make sure Cole is alive and breathing.
I’m still standing close to Erik, so close it wouldn’t take a single step for me to kiss him, when Cole’s hazel eyes come into focus. The second they meet mine, he tears his gaze away and stalks down the hall. Everything inside me hollows out.
A shrill bell rings, and my headache becomes splitting.
That evening, as the sun leaves orange streaks across the skyline, I stand on the beach outside Cole’s house, my bones and limbs still aching. I watch the shadows in his room move behind the curtains. Thirty minutes more, and I’ll have to go. The glow of the sunset seems extreme, illuminating the massive storm clouds building behind me.
Ripple Page 17
