Into The Clear Water

by Celeste, B.

  “Thank you, Ren. For what it’s worth, I know you and my brother will make great parents. You’re the kind of people who are meant to have kids.”

  She pulls me into a hug, her arms gentle around me. Quietly, she whispers, “Even though you didn’t plan for it, you are too. I wouldn’t have been able to do what you did. Part of me has always been jealous of how you handled it.”

  I snort as she pulls away. “There’s nothing to be jealous over. I’m a mess. If it weren’t for my family and friends, I wouldn’t have managed.”

  “Your family is amazing.”

  “They are.”

  We smile and step back from each other, Ainsley and Easton walking over before Carter can say anything. Ainsley wraps her arms around my legs and stares up at me as Easton hooks an arm around my back and tugs me into him. His lips caress my ear. “Your father informed me he owns an old paintball gun of your brother’s and that it hurts more than a real bullet.”

  I laugh and look at Dad, who’s grinning at me from beside Mom like he knows what I’m being told. They both watch us knowingly as I reach up and wrap my arms around his neck. “He already likes you. You’re safe.”

  He kisses my cheek and pulls back, shooting me a wink before wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Good. Can’t say I want to know what it’s like to be shot by a paintball gun.”

  Jesse pipes up, eyes sparkling. “Want to know what it’d be like to get shot by a real one?”

  Ren rolls her eyes and leans into my brother, letting him tug her against his side before draping an arm over her shoulder. “Good thing you’re both awful shots then, huh?”

  “Hey!” the men say simultaneously.

  There’s a tug on my dress, causing me to glance down at Ainsley. She moves her hands, wanting me to kneel closer to her.

  “What’s up, Nugget?”

  Her bottom lip gets drawn into her mouth. When it pops out, her lips open like she’s going to say something but doesn’t. She tries again, then furrows her brows in frustration.

  I swipe hair out of her face. “It’s okay. I don’t expect you to say anything. You being here with me is all I need.”

  Her hand goes to my cheek for a moment before she signs, I think Daddy is here.

  I blink. “What?”

  She looks up to the sky.

  I do the same, seeing the sun and the cloudless sky. They were outside any chance the weather was nice. I always envied how tan they got from being out for even an hour playing. When I meet her eyes again, I nod. I sign, I think he’s here too.

  She smiles at me.

  I stand and take her hand and follow my family toward the parking lot. Easton keeps his steps in line with mine, his eyes going back to Carter where he walks by my father. They talk in low murmurs about who knows what, but I focus on how guarded East’s eyes are.

  “He’s a good guy,” I tell him, watching his nose flare slightly. “I know you’re probably not the biggest fan of him, but he is.”

  He hefts out a sigh before nodding. “I know he is, Piper. Doesn’t mean I can’t glare at the guy knowing where his hands have been.”

  I glare in caution, knowing my family has yet to discover what he’s referring to. I know Carter will keep his word about staying quiet. Neither of us benefits from them knowing anything happened.

  He presses a kiss against my temple as my brother walks over, one of his hands shoved into his black jeans. He’s dressed up compared to his normal grease-stained denim and Dickies shirt. “I was wondering if we could talk for a second?” His eyes go between Easton and me, his brows going up in wait. “It won’t take long.”

  I nod and watch Easton take Ainsley’s hand while I walk off to the side with Jesse by my side. For a moment, we’re quiet. Not knowing what to say, I cross my arms on my chest and rock back on my heels. My eyes trail back to where Ainsley and Easton communicate, their hands moving fast.

  Easton knows sign language. He learned. It thickens my throat and squeezes my chest and makes everything feel lighter. The man I love is speaking with the little girl I love in a way she doesn’t feel pressured or ashamed.

  It makes me love him that much more.

  “I do love you,” he says. I meet his eyes, which are full of sorrow and hesitancy. “I know I’m shitty at showing it, but I’m not lying. Things have been tough with Ren and I took sides even though I shouldn’t have. I hate seeing her upset and I knew watching you and Ainsley was hard for her. That doesn’t excuse the way I treated you, the way either of us did.”

  “Honestly, Jesse, it’s okay.”

  He shakes his head adamantly. “It’s not though. You always do that. You make light of situations and see the best in people even when we don’t deserve it. It’s one of the things I love about you, but it worries me too. I don’t want to see you get hurt because you care.”

  I manage to shrug. “I won’t lie and say I haven’t been hurt by the way you’ve acted toward me over the years, but it isn’t like I don’t understand. If I were in Ren’s shoes, I’d feel the same way.”

  He rubs his jaw. “It doesn’t justify me brushing you off in the past. You said that I have a lot to thank your mother for, and you’re right. Dad and your mom gave me a home when I needed one, and I did everything not to be there because it didn’t feel like one. Not without my mom and sister. You remind me of Hanna. A lot like her. Sometimes I wonder what she’d be like if she hadn’t ended it. If she’d be like you. Hard working, determined. We didn’t have the best role model in our mother and Hanna was a lot like her. In some ways, I resented her for it.

  “I couldn’t control Hanna or help her. Even if I’d known what she was planning, I doubt it would have made a difference. That probably pisses me off the most, you know? It was easier to keep you at a distance because I didn’t want to think about Hanna or how badly I screwed up being her brother. Carter is right though. You don’t deserve the treatment you’ve been given, and I can see why you’ve wondered if I love you or not. But I do. You’re my sister and I love you.”

  My heart swells slightly in my chest. “I know it may seem unbelievable right now, but you’re not responsible for your sister’s death. Trust me, I know what it’s like to hold onto blame. It’s draining though. She was sick and she wanted an out. But I know Hanna loved you. I remember all the times you guys would visit Dad and she’d be protective of you even though she was younger. Maybe it’s cliché to hear, but she’d want you to move on and stop blaming yourself for what she did.”

  He looks away for a moment, staring off at the departing crowd coming from the field where commencement was held. “I know, Piper. It just doesn’t seem like it’ll get easier. Missing her. Wondering about her.”

  I reach for his hand. “You’ll always do that stuff. But it will get better. Maybe not the pain of knowing they’re gone, but the feeling that weighs us down like we could have stopped it. Nobody can stop what’s meant to be, even if we think it’s cruel.”

  “Like Danny?”

  I nod. “When you went to the funeral with me, it meant the world. I couldn’t have possibly told you then how much I needed you, it was just like you knew. It isn’t like I thought you hated me, Jesse. I just wasn’t sure what we were going to be when you pulled away after that.”

  “It was another person dying too soon.”

  I got that better than anyone. The look in his eyes that day was morbidly empty. Like he was there but not. He never cried, just stayed pale as the service went on. Still, he was there for me, patting my hand, asking if I was okay.

  That day, he was my brother.

  A man who was struggling.

  A man who was remembering.

  We both suffered loss.

  “Are we okay?” he asks quietly, looking like he sincerely doesn’t know what I’ll answer with.

  I think we’ve experienced too much loss to willingly lose any form of a relationship, even a strained one. “Of course we are. You’re my brother.”

  He nods and gestures for
us to head back to our waiting family. “You know,” he says as we walk side by side. “Carter is a good guy. If he were younger, I’d tell you to go for it. You two would have been good together.”

  Pressing my lips together, I clear my throat and glance at the man in question whose talking with my parents still. “Maybe in a different lifetime.”

  His chuckle is light. “Yeah, maybe.”

  Easton reaches out for me as soon as I near him, and when our fingers connect everything in me eases. My mind, my heart, my racing thoughts. With him, I rise from the depths I’ve been drowning in for all these years and feel like I can breathe again. No longer afraid of what lingers in the murkiness, I step into the clear water and let all the pain wash away.

  Epilogue

  Ainsley

  My legs swing back and forth from the plastic blue chair in the office as I listen to Piper, my mother, speak in hushed murmurs with the younger secretary. Her face is full of determination, the kind that’s fierce. Easton, my father for all intents and purposes, says that fierceness is why he loves her so much—why he married her.

  I think about the man with pretty pictures inked all over his arm and smile to myself. Easton may not be my real father, but he’s taken me in like mine would have wanted. Just like Piper. We’ve been together for as long as I can remember because I don’t know my own mother. Sometimes, I can’t even remember what my father looks like or sounds like even though I had three years with him before he died. Nothing ever surfaces when Piper tells me stories of their friendship or of me and him when I was little.

  I wonder if that’s how it’s supposed to be, like maybe all I’m meant to remember is Piper’s and Easton’s love for me. I’ve never let myself feel sad from the lack of memories of my real parents, because Piper and Easton have never felt like anything but the real thing. I’m lucky to have them, to see their love, their happiness.

  When you’re a wallflower with no voice, people seem to think you can’t hear too. I know that Joel Iverson’s mom likes to drink a lot and that his father is gone because the teachers always gossip about how sad his home life is when they think nobody can hear them. Or how Maisy Hayes lives with her grandparents because her mom and dad are always traveling for some big important jobs they have.

  People have it worse than me. My parents are dead, but I have new ones who love me a lot. It’s why my mother is here, trying to get a meeting with the new principal since the last one was fired. Principal Harris was never fit for the job, but nobody knows anything about the new person taking over. She wants to fix that.

  The side door of the office opens, and a blonde woman and boy walk in. Her hand is on his shoulder, his head pointed toward the tile floor in avoidance. My head tilts as I take him in, seeing the nervousness radiate off him.

  New kid.

  There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s the woman’s biological son. They have the same shade hair and similar facial features. She’s protective as she speaks with the other graying secretary who mans the visitor sign-in sheet like a hawk, her hand rubbing the back of his shoulders in comfort.

  My eyes catch something over his ear, perched on his skull surrounded by his hair. Narrowing my eyes, I study the object in uncertainty. I break my gaze when I see the boy shift, his weight moving from one foot to another as our mothers talk.

  He catches my gaze, but I don’t look away. I keep swinging my legs and listening to my mother speak to his in familiarity. Maybe they’re not new because they know each other, and surprise floods my body when I hear my biological father’s name mentioned.

  The boy walks over to me without hesitation while our mothers reacquaint themselves. It’s hard to listen to them and pay attention to the boy who stops just a few inches away. Interest fills his eyes as he greets me with a quiet hello. My lips part and I tell myself to force out the two little letters it would take to show him I’m not being mean, but no words escape my lips. In defeat, I close them and look down at my lap for a moment.

  His shoes appear in my line of vision, my gaze lingering upward to see him standing closer as his hands raise. I gape as he signs to me, his hands moving skillfully.

  He signs, I’m Milo.

  I know in that same instant that he and I are going to be best friends. And based on the way our mothers look at us in awe, they can tell something shifted drastically.

  Because now I won’t be alone.

  And neither will Milo.

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  Acknowledgments

  This story began as my college thesis proposal, which turned into an outline, a few chapters, and eventually an entire book. I’ve now completed two novels because of my master’s program, so I suppose I have SNHU to thank for keeping me on track.

  I’ll always thank Micalea Smeltzer for being the best friend and Momager a girl could ask for, and Jessica Roessler for being an amazing friend and PA. You ladies have stuck with me while I closed myself away to immerse myself in these characters and helped me out whenever I needed you no matter the situation.

  Letitia Hasser has brought yet another book to life with this gorgeous cover. She’s been my designer for every B. Celeste book, and I plan to have her design the many more to come.

  Alisha Kines, we became close after Underneath the Sycamore Tree and have been through a lot together. Thank you for making time to beta this book when I know life is always crazy for you.

  Rebecca Shea. I just love you. You’ve been so supportive of me since The Truth about Heartbreak, and I am so thankful for it.

  To my readers, I will always love you and your support for me. You keep me entertained and doing what I love, so thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  About the Author

  B. Celeste’s obsession with all things forbidden and taboo enabled her to pave a path into a new world of raw, real, emotional romance.

  Her debut novel is The Truth about Heartbreak.