“I still love you, child. No matter what.” She kissed me on the forehead, gave me a comforting squeeze and then let go, turning away quickly. Phoebe was next on her list and it was a brief exchange and a lot less strained than I’d ever seen between them. Chloe hovered near the kitchen entrance, but Nanna dragged her into the room, giving her the final embrace. Chloe whispered something to Nanna and, by the way she was watching me, it had to do with what she’d seen in the kitchen.
“I’m heading out,” I said and avoided looking at Phoebe.
“Where are you going, dear?” Nanna asked. I avoided her probing look. Now that she knew what had happened between Micah and me, it would be hard to face her without my face flaming.
“To Micah’s place. I told him I’d help watch Hannah. We’re gonna watch a few movies.”
“Are you driving?”
“No, I was going to walk. I think I need some fresh air.”
“I don’t like the idea of you walking home alone once it gets dark.” Dad looked at me from his seat in the living room.
“I’ll call for a ride when I’m ready.”
“All right. Well, don’t be late then. I have to go in to the office tomorrow morning and need to have an early night.”
I mumbled some kind of agreement, grabbed my purse, and slipped out the door before Phoebe could call me out for the liar I was.
Micah had wanted to keep Hannah a secret when he first moved here, thinking it might make it easier to fit in and make friends, especially considering the reaction of his former friends up in Seattle. Over the summer though, it had been hard to hide her, especially since she was a lot more active. It finally just came out and I knew he felt better about it. He didn’t want Hannah to grow up thinking he was ashamed of her.
I hadn’t asked about her mother again. That one conversation had been enough to know that he still cared for Jaime and that she was a sensitive subject, but I wanted to know about her. The picture of Jaime in Hannah’s room showed how beautiful she was. She looked like some kind of Rock and Roll princess. She was tall, with long blonde hair, and one of those perfectly symmetrical faces. I bet she didn’t have a single freckle on her entire body. I tried not to think about her as I walked to Micah’s. It was pointless. She was out of his and Hannah’s lives and I’d never even met her. Instead, I tried to think about what would happen tonight. What would Micah say? I wasn’t even sure I knew what I wanted him to say. Maybe that he wanted more than just benefits and that he wanted to be with me.
The walk wasn’t long enough, because when I walked up the path to the house, I had no answers for myself. Not ready to face him yet, I sat on the front step, looking into the yard. It was still warm out and I was glad I hadn’t worn my jacket, but the breeze tickled my skin through my eyelet lace shirt and I knew it would be much cooler out by the time I left. One of Hannah’s pink elephant toys was hiding off the side of the steps, dropped without notice. I leaned over and picked it up, brushing off the dirt that clung to it.
The door opened behind me and Hannah came toddling out. She’d been walking for a few weeks, and was still wobbly, but when she saw the toy I held, she came forward at full speed.
“What are you doing sitting out here?” Micah asked.
“Oh, I was just...” I waved the toy much to Hannah’s delight. “I was just grabbing this.”
He picked up Hannah and I followed him inside. After placing her on her play mat on the floor in the living room, he focused on starting the movie and then getting some popcorn. The strain between us pulled at me. His guilt was still there, the burn of it mixing with my own feelings that seemed so much clearer now. Mostly I hurt from the truth of his words, but there was anger underneath it. Anger that I had trusted him as a friend, more than a friend, and he had revealed me to everyone.
I took my shoes off and curled up on the corner of the couch, watching Hannah gnaw on her elephant. It was easier than watching Micah and wondering what he was thinking.
Hannah was content to chew on her toys, so I stared at the screen until Micah came back with the popcorn. He sat beside me and pulled my legs overtop his, resting his arms across my knees. Everything about it felt so natural, yet it wasn’t. Even after his apology, after I said it was okay, I still felt wrong. There was something there, more than the things he’d said, that twisted me inside. I wanted that comfortableness between us back. I could relax into the couch, resting my legs over his, and he could draw little patterns on my jeans. Even before we’d started having sex, I’d been able to be with him and feel like being me was enough. Now I felt like he expected me to do or say things that I didn’t know I should. Did he want me to be that weak and spineless person he’d assumed I was, or did he want to see me as I really was? Who was I? I didn’t think I was fragile and weak.
We sat motionless on the couch, maybe because neither of us really wanted to make the first move again. I couldn’t even remember who had made the first move before, but it felt like it mattered even more now. I coughed and my legs twitched. His fingers pressed into my jeans in response. Hannah started to fuss and I tucked my legs close to my body so Micah could pull her up onto his lap. The loss of contact did nothing to calm the questions still racing through my mind.
An hour into the movie, Micah got up to put Hannah to bed. When he came back, he sat closer than before and tugged my legs over his as if nothing was different. It felt like nothing was. We were moving like normal again. He brushed my hair away from my face and I let my fingers drift across his arm, loving the contrast between my pale fingers and his tanned forearm.
“We’re okay, right?” he asked. His hazel eyes looked almost pleading. “I mean, all that crap I...I just want you to know that your my friend. My best friend. And the other stuff is just...”
“Benefits.”
He cracked a sideways smile, making it hard to stay mad at him. “Yeah. I mean, who else is gonna wanna spend their weekends watching movies or going to the park with me and Hannah?”
“You might be under estimating Hannah’s cuteness factor.” And his own hotness factor.
He ran his fingers along my cheek before leaning in to kiss me. And as quick as that, I was consumed. Not by any negative emotions, but with relief that I had my friend again, that maybe I still had a chance to show him that we should be more, because that really was what I wanted. And maybe it wasn’t fair to let him think I didn’t want more, but I was okay with not being fair. We stretched out on the couch and I curled around him, trying to press away that nagging sense of something forgotten, but the bitter churning of if finally pulled me back.
“What plans?” I asked, not even realizing I’d remembered until the words burst out.
“What?” He nuzzled my neck. His breath was so warm, goose bumps broke out along my arms, and I struggled to focus.
“Last week you mentioned you had plans for Friday night. What plans?”
“Oh, uh, I went out.” He slowly sat back up. The distance between us filled with the radiating heat of his guilt.
“With who?” I sat up as well and watched him stare at the television unseeing until his eyes closed on a sigh.
“Lils...” He rolled his head back and stared at the ceiling.
“With who?”
“I thought you were okay with this just being benefits. That we weren’t dating, or anything.”
“With who?”
He plowed his fingers through his short hair and rested his elbows on his knees. This must have been what Chloe saw earlier. Chloe had looked as sick as he did. Chloe.
“Chloe.”
I’d never considered myself stupid until that moment. With one confession, one word, one name, he had managed to make me feel so completely blinded by my lack of awareness to reality. Everything had been there. His random questions about where she was, if she was dating Andrew, the flirting.
“We went out for coffee.”
He didn’t drink coffee, but Chloe did. I stood up and grabbed my shoes from the shoe rack.<
br />
“It wasn’t a date or anything. We just hung out. We’re friends.”
“With benefits?”
He didn’t answer.
I put my shoes on and then finally looked back at him. “I can’t do this with you anymore. No benefits. No friends. I thought that maybe I could...but just the idea of you and my sister-”
“I told you it wasn’t like that.” He rose and walked toward me, his arms crossed defensively over his chest.
“So it was just like hanging out with Nathan? Or Phoebe? Or maybe just like with Owen? Do you hang out with him secretly, too?”
“This isn’t fair, Lily. You told me you were okay with us just being...”
“Being what? Friends?” I asked. He stared back at me and I realized what an absolute fool I had been, even after everything that had proven this exact point. “Because friends don’t humiliate each other in public. Friends don’t ridicule you for things beyond your fault. I was never your friend, Micah. I was just some fuck-buddy.”
He didn’t say anything, maybe from shock, because apparently this was not the meek little me he was expecting, which was perfectly fine by me. I snatched up my purse and stormed out the door.
I wanted numbness, to have that sense of nothingness back, but it was gone, and in its place was a vast sense of betrayal and humiliation. Even the evening breeze couldn’t cool the heat of those feelings. They burned inside me and I wished I were able to simply touch my own chest and push those feelings out, to heal myself. My pace picked up until I was full out running down the street. I wanted to put everything to do with Micah behind me, yet it was as though every step I took brought me closer to the realization that I couldn’t out run what I’d done.
When I finally stopped running, I froze in place, looking up at the house in front of me. It was the same as it had always been. The white siding with forest green trim, neatly painted, with gold plated numbers and doorbell were all unchanged. Dylan’s house. Would it be the same inside? How could it be? Dylan was gone and I was still here.
One glaring difference shocked me to the core. A ‘for sale’ sign hung in the yard, underneath it a smaller sign swung slowly in the breeze proclaiming it sold.
The Bishops were moving. How could his parents leave the one place Dylan would always be? How could they not? Hadn’t I done everything I could to push away the memory of him?
My feet carried me forward along the driveway, across the round step stones, and up the front steps. I didn’t push the bell. Instead, I paused there, remembering the last time I’d stood at this door. I’d felt so relieved with my decision to break up with him, so glad that it was finally going to be over. Then he’d answered the door and he’d been Dylan again. He’d smiled and I’d remembered why I was with him. Yet, it hadn’t stopped me from deserting him. When he’d needed me and my gift the most, I left him to deal with all of his pain on his own and he’d killed himself rather than suffer through it.
I collapsed to the steps crying, my entire body shaking with the force. I was a horrible person. I’d abandoned Dylan, who had loved me unconditionally, who had dealt with all of my weirdness and loved me for it. I’d had sex with Micah, let him use me, embarrass me, and now I had nothing. What good was I as a healer if I couldn’t heal the people I loved or even myself?
A touch on my shoulder startled me and I twisted around. Mrs. Bishop stood behind me, her face a stark white against her short black bob and red-rimmed eyes. She’d always been one of those overly smiley people, incessantly happy about everything in her life. The frown lines around her mouth made me think she hadn’t smiled since the night of Dylan’s death.
We didn’t say anything as she helped me up and led me inside. I waited for a transfer, but it never came even though she was obviously hurting. We stood in the foyer, unmoving, our hands gripping each other. In that moment, she was my lifeline, keeping me aware that this was reality and forcing me to accept what was.
When she finally let go of my hand, I went upstairs to Dylan’s room alone. All of the doors along the hall were open, except the one to the bathroom next to Dylan’s room. The bathroom where he had shot himself. My hand grazed the doorknob as I passed by. It was cold and unmoved, a place of deep sadness that pushed through my gift and made me ache. I knew no one had been in there in months. The entire house had an unlived in emptiness to it.
Dylan’s door was partly open. He never left it open. It drove him nuts knowing his mom or dad could peek in at any time. I pushed it open the rest of the way and stepped in. Nothing had changed. It was as if he might walk in at any moment and pick up his life right where he’d left off. His laptop was propped open on his bed, and a few dirty shirts lay carelessly on the floor. I reached down and picked them up, turning them right side out. One was his favorite shirt, a blue v-neck with a quote and picture of Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. He used to watch that show obsessively. I smoothed it out and then placed it in his half-full hamper. The room still smelled of him, comforting and spicy, though there was a dusty odor that clung to the air as well.
I ran my hand along the top of his bookshelf, leaving a clean trail through the dust that had begun to settle. His science fair trophies were dusty too and I picked them up, rubbing them clean with my shirt, knowing they represented some of his proudest moments. As I put the last one back, I knocked over a photo that had been resting against the wall. It slid between the wall and the shelf, so I knelt down and managed to grasp the photo between my fingertips. When I looked at it, I recognized it instantly. It was a copy of the Sea World photo when we’d looked happy and in love. I’d stared at this same picture months ago, wondering why I was still with Dylan. I knew now that I was in love with him, but that didn’t matter. Dylan was gone and I needed to move on. I put the photo back. I didn’t need another reminder of everything I’d lost.
I closed his laptop and pushed it aside so I could lay down on his bed. Even with the lights on, I could pick out the patterns within the stars on his ceiling. They were the exact same as the ones he’d laid out on mine.
Time ceased to move. I could have laid there a hours or hours until finally I pulled myself up and stood on the bed. Wobbling slightly, I reached up to the stars and peeled one off. Sliding it into my pocket, I hopped off the bed and glanced around one last time. I wouldn’t come back.
“It’s so hard,” Mrs. Bishop said from the door. I turned to look at her. “I keep trying to face it, but...”
She was trying not to cry. The heat of her suffering wafted to me, twisting my insides with the fire it started. I stepped forward, wrapping my arms around her, and took in her pain, wanting for the first time in a long while to truly heal. I wanted to let her feel peace and not the overwhelming sense of loss she dealt with daily.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, the words choking me as I forced them out. I let go of her when the transfer stopped.
“We’re...we’re packing his things up tomorrow. It’s all that’s left to pack. We sold the house and...If there’s anything you’d like...”
“No, I have...I have everything I need.” I rubbed my hand across my pocket, feeling the outline of the star. She walked me to the door and watched as I headed down the steps.
“Lily,” she called softly and I turned back. “Thank you. Thank you for everything you did for him. I’ll never know why he did what he did, but I know that if he hadn’t had you, we would have had a lot less time with him.”
I just nodded, wishing I could truly believe her. Yet part of me knew he might have gotten the help he needed if I hadn’t spent so much time trying to just take away his hurt.
The walk home left me aching for the touch of someone, the heat of their anger, the warmth of their body, but no one was coming. The house was empty when I got home. A note stuck to the fridge said they’d decided to take Nanna to the grocery store before dropping her at home. I filled a glass of water then went down to my room, the creaks of the house echoing around me.
My room was cold, and I shivered
as I pulled a sweatshirt from my dresser. It was one of my dad’s old ones that he claimed my sisters and I had ‘dented it’ after wearing so much. I’d managed to keep it out of Phoebe and Chloe’s hands by hiding it under the ugly Christmas sweaters Nanna bought me every year. The sweatshirt was well worn, thinning from years of wear and washing, its once deep blue color faded to a muted grayish blue. It warmed my outsides, but did little to heat the chill in my soul.
I pulled out Dylan’s star I had taken and climbed up on my bed, struggling to place it in the exact spot. It kept falling off, the stickiness gone. Finally, I grabbed some superglue from my craft box and stuck the star up. I turned off the lights and lay down. My constellations were complete again, and for the first time in a long while I didn’t feel so hollow. Cold, but not hollow.
Chapter 13
Worry and guilt invaded my sleep., piercing the cold inside of me. As much as I hated the chill, I didn’t want to suffer from what she felt as well.
“Lils? Are you awake?”
I rolled over to stare at Chloe. She looked sick and all of the other emotions I felt from her. She thought I was angry at her, but I didn’t blame her for what happened. She hadn’t known Micah and I were more than friends. She didn’t intentionally, or even knowingly, hurt me. That didn’t mean I wanted to take those feelings away from her though. I wanted someone to feel the way I did.
“I’m so sorry, Lils. I had no idea that you and Micah...I didn’t know.” She took a step closer. I could feel within her a spark of hope flare that I would take away her guilt. “Nothing happened. I swear. We had coffee. That’s it. It wasn’t really a date.”
“I don’t need Phoebe’s gift to know you’re lying.” Their denials, their guilt, just didn’t match their words. I rolled back over so I didn’t have to see it. “It doesn’t matter anyways. It’s not like Micah and I were dating.”
She tried to say more, but I pulled the blanket over my head and covered my ears. She finally gave up and left. The absence of her emotions was a welcome void. I turned onto my back and gazed at Dylan’s stars. They were complete. Every piece was there, but they still weren’t right. The ones he had placed weren’t glowing as bright green as the one I’d taken from his room. It was smaller than the others, as well. I stared at it until my eyes couldn’t stay open any longer and I drifted off to sleep.
Heal Me (A Touched Trilogy Book 2) Page 17
