Love Is In the Air Volume 1

by Susan Stoker

  She leaves her sentence hanging and I can’t help but ask, “And what?”

  Sarah doesn’t reply right away. She adjusts herself in the chair first, sighs and swallows, appearing even more nervous and vulnerable than before.

  I paste on what I think is a reassuring smile and say, “What is it, Sarah?”

  “I… I need to ask you something,” she says.

  “Anything.”

  Finally, she stops her squirming and looks me in the eye. “I need a second chance, Salem.”

  “Of course, you have it. You –”

  “With him.”

  “What?”

  Up until now, it was me who was holding onto her hand, but now she wraps her fingers around mine and holds on really tight. As if afraid that I might disappear.

  “I need a second chance with A,” she tells me, her eyes both pleading and determined somehow. “I… he was the only good thing in my life, Salem. He made me happy. He made me into a better person and I didn’t realize that until he left. At first, I was angry at him. I wasn’t ready to admit my mistake, my betrayal. God, I was so selfish, Salem. I was so mean and petty. And then he left and he got together with you and… I don’t know, I just… it felt like such a betrayal, your love. It wasn’t. I know that now. But I was so angry and I treated you horribly over it, only to realize that I was acting out because I was… I was lonely. I was blaming you for this emptiness and loneliness in my life and I wish I could take it all back. I really do. But the thing is, my loneliness isn’t going away, Salem. I still feel so isolated and alone and I thought moving to a different city would help. I thought if I threw myself into work, I would forget about it all. But I can’t forget it. I can’t forget him. He was my first love. He was the first guy, the only guy, I’ve pictured my future with and without him I feel like I have no future anymore.

  “I… I would never ask you this, Salem, if this wasn’t my last resort.” Her grip becomes even tighter as she leans forward. “I’m a bad sister but I’m not cruel. I’m not, and maybe this makes you think otherwise but I have no choice. I need this. I need him. I need another chance. I need to make this right with him. I need him back. Please, I’m begging you.”

  “Begging me to do what?”

  “Don’t go through with it. With the wedding.”

  “What?”

  Her grip is so strong now, her nails digging into my flesh.

  But for some reason, I can’t get out of her clutches. I can’t extricate my fingers and so I sit here frozen as my older sister, my idol, my only blood relation left in this world, pleads with me.

  “Please, Salem. You’re strong. Much stronger than me. You always have been. You’ll survive. I know you will. Nothing has ever fazed you. But this will kill me. It is killing me. I just need… I just need another chance with him. To be with him.”

  “But he… he loves me and –”

  “He loved me too. Before everything, and he can learn to love me again. I’ll make sure that he falls in love with me again. I –”

  “I can’t. I have to go.”

  I say that but I don’t go anywhere.

  I can’t go anywhere, it looks like. I’m somehow trapped here, watching my sister cry and beg for the guy I’m going to marry in four days.

  She’s asking me to save her. She’s saying that I’m the only one who can.

  And all I have to do in order to do that is to… give her Arrow.

  My sun.

  The guy I’ve loved since I was ten.

  I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.

  “This is all I have, Salem. Please,” she whispers, tears streaming down her face.

  But how can I not?

  She’s my sister. She needs my help.

  So I should give it to her, shouldn’t I?

  3

  Arrow

  She’s gone.

  I can’t find her.

  No one can, apparently. Because no one knows where she went. She didn’t tell anyone.

  Well, she did tell me she was going to see her study group.

  But there was no study group; I called her friends and asked. I even called her teammates, but they haven’t talked to her since yesterday.

  She hasn’t talked to the old lady who lives upstairs and is somehow Salem’s best friend in the building.

  When I’ve exhausted all the avenues in our building, I take to outside. I go see the guy at the ice cream shop on the next block, the one who’s always eyeing her and who knows her order before she even opens her mouth.

  I don’t like him but I have no other choice.

  Her phone keeps going to voicemail and there are only so many ways I can threaten her and scare her into coming back home.

  Which I did, countless times ever since I came back from practice to find our apartment empty.

  “She usually comes in during the afternoon. But not today, dude,” the guy at the shop says in his annoyingly hippie voice. “Been wondering about that.”

  “Have you been?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. “Dude.”

  He looks taken aback at my belligerent tone.

  Yeah, don’t fucking fuck with me right now.

  I could kill him with a single punch and I’ve come close. Extremely close in the past couple of months since he started working here.

  And I wonder if today can be the day when I get to do that.

  Kill him, I mean.

  I’m already fucked up over her. People have seen me fucked up over her. Surely, no one would blame me if I killed someone.

  No one would blame me if I killed this doofus who’s always salivating over my girl.

  My fiancée.

  I fist my hands as a heavy, thick wave of possessiveness, anger, fear washes over me.

  Where the fuck is she?

  Where the fuck did she go? Why did she lie to me?

  Because she did, didn’t she?

  She lied.

  And I don’t know where she is and she’s probably alone right now and she’s got the worst sense of direction.

  She’s got the worst sense about everything.

  She thinks everyone she meets is a friend. That they have good intentions.

  She thought this douchebag ice cream guy that I’m still glaring at and who’s sputtering nonsense was so sweet and helpful when she met him.

  When I pointed out to her that he was sweet and helpful for other reasons, she rolled her eyes at me. She said, “You’re crazy, Arrow. He has a girlfriend. He just told us. You were there.” Then she shook her head and sent her big curls flying around her face. “Not every guy is after me, okay? You can relax.”

  Then she had the audacity to reach up and kiss my jaw.

  She had the audacity to smile at me and move away. Well, almost move away. Because I grabbed hold of those curls she’d been taunting me with and growled over her lips, “I’ll relax the day you’re mine. Forever.”

  Her smile widened. “I’ve always been yours. Since I was ten.”

  And then I had to wipe that smile off her face because when she says things like that I don’t know what else to do.

  I don’t know how else to survive from one moment to the next without kissing her. Without sucking on her sweet-tasting tongue and biting her darkly-painted lips when she tells me that she’s been mine since she was ten.

  I didn’t know. I had no idea, no clue.

  That’s the biggest regret of my life.

  I didn’t know that she had always been mine. Since she was ten and I was fifteen. I was too fucked up, too emotionally stunted to know that.

  So I’m not going to fucking relax now.

  Not until she’s truly and completely mine. By law and in the eyes of God. Not until I have a right to her, to her heart, to her body.

  Does it sound archaic? Brutal, uber possessive?

  Maybe.

  But I don’t care.

  She’s mine and she’s fucking missing and I’m losing my mind right now.

  The sudden ringing of my phone jars
me and the fuckboy in front of me. He looks relieved that I’m frantically patting my jeans pockets to search for it.

  Because it could be her.

  It could be my Salem.

  But it’s not. It’s her friend, Callie. Even so, I almost crush the phone as I go to hit accept because she might have some news.

  Glaring one last time at the ice cream boy, I turn around and say, “Hello, Callie.”

  “Hey,” she says. “I was –”

  “You know where she is?” I ask because I don’t have the time to hear what she has to say.

  “Salem? She isn’t back?”

  My stomach churns. “Back from where? You know where she went?”

  “Uh, I was trying to call her but her phone kept going to voicemail.”

  I smack my palm on the glass door and push it open as I growl into the phone, “Where the fuck did she go?”

  “I’m not –”

  “Where the fuck did she go, Callie?”

  She sighs. “Okay, so I’m only telling you this because I haven’t been able to reach her and I’m worried and –”

  “Just fucking talk.”

  “Right. Uh, she went to see her sister.”

  Sounds dull down around me. “What?”

  “Ugh, I told her it was a bad idea. I tried to stop her but she wouldn’t listen. She said that this was like the first time ever Sarah has personally reached out to her and she just… she just wanted to see her sister.”

  “Where…” I swallow down the rage that’s bubbling up inside of me at the mention of Sarah. “Where did she go? To see her?”

  Callie rattles off the name of a Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood before saying, “I’m so sorry, Arrow. I promise I tried to stop her. And… Will you please let me know when you find her? She should’ve been back by now.”

  I know I should say something to reassure her. Callie has been a good friend to Salem all these years. Almost like a sister, because her own fucking sister is a nightmare.

  But all I say, all I’m capable of saying is, “I have to go.”

  I hang up to the sound of her pleading with me but I’ve got zero patience as I dial the number that I never ever thought I would, not after I broke up with her three years ago.

  She answers my call at the first ring. “A?”

  “Where is she?” There’s a couple of seconds of silence and even that is too much for me. So I bark, “Where is Salem?”

  “I-I don’t know. Isn’t… Isn’t she back? With you?”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “What?”

  “What did you say to Salem? When you met with her today,” I growl, my whole body vibrating. “You met with her today, didn’t you?”

  “I did, yeah. I didn’t… A, I didn’t mean to start any trouble. I –”

  “Was she upset?” I ask.

  “A –”

  “Did you upset her in any way, Sarah? Because that’s what you do. You know that, don’t you? You upset her. You’re a shitty fucking sister. You always were and you always will be. So I’m going to ask you one last time: did you in any way upset my Salem?”

  Her breaths hitch. “I-I don’t know what you think I said to her, A. I just… I wanted to see her and I wanted… I had some things to say and –”

  I interrupt her because I’ve heard enough. “Listen to me very carefully, okay? You’re going to lose her number. You’re going to lose our address and you’re going to forget that you ever had a sister, understand? You already do such a good job of it, so this shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “But A, listen –”

  “And my name is Arrow.”

  With that I hang up the phone.

  I hang up because I’m freaking out. My whole body is shaking with fury and fear.

  So much fucking fear that I don’t know what to do. What to think.

  If not knowing that Salem loved me since she was ten is my biggest regret, then getting together with her older sister, Sarah, is my biggest mistake.

  Once upon a time, I remembered the reasons I gave myself. I remembered why I picked Sarah. But I don’t remember them anymore.

  I have no memory of why.

  Not after being with Salem.

  I don’t even remember what it felt like, Sarah’s betrayal. The fact that she cheated on me with my best friend. I don’t remember the anger, the shock, the twisted sense of revenge I had back then.

  All I remember is I found Salem afterward.

  How she took my anger and melted it down. With the smiles of her pouty lips and her freckles – thirteen on her nose and seven under her eyes – and her golden eyes that light up when she sees me.

  All I remember is her.

  I know Salem’s wanted a relationship with Sarah ever since she was a kid, and Sarah has always rejected her. Salem wanted to invite her to the wedding, and even though I fucking hate the idea, I went along with it.

  Not anymore.

  Fuck Sarah. Fuck Salem’s desire to have a relationship with her sister.

  I’m putting my foot down. I just have to find her.

  Jesus Christ.

  Where did she go? She’s upset and she’s –

  Wait a second.

  She’s upset.

  My breaths start to come faster and faster as I realize that she’s upset. And when Salem’s upset, there’s only one place that she’ll go to.

  It takes me about an hour to reach that place.

  A lonely made-of-rocks alcove on our favorite beach. People tend to avoid that area because it’s a long walk from the main part and somehow darkness falls here first.

  But Salem loves it.

  She loves the misery, the desolation, the silence, the emptiness.

  We’ve spent hours and days in that spot. She says it gives her peace, reminds her of our town, St. Mary’s. Her favorite bridge that she loved hanging out at.

  And that’s where I find her.

  Sitting on the sand, watching the silver water, her curls flying in the salty air.

  The sight of her tiny figure slams into my chest like a hurtling train.

  It’s relief. It’s euphoria.

  It’s what I feel when at the end of the day I come home to find her waiting for me.

  But the anger, the sheer trauma of the past couple of hours poisons the sweet relief. And it’s as if she can sense it, she can sense my turmoil even from a distance, she snaps her gaze over to me.

  Her mouth falls open and she springs up to her feet.

  Her dress flutters around her legs as she takes off toward me. I stop though. I stop walking. I stop breathing.

  If I could stop the rush of blood, the roar of it, inside my body, I would do that too.

  Because I need to control myself.

  I need to control the shaking, the shivering. The way my bones and muscles are shifting under the surface.

  As though in preparation for an earthquake, just because she’s okay.

  Just because I’ve found her and she’s running toward me.

  Panting, she reaches me. “Hey. What… How did you know I was here?”

  I watch her face in the dying light of the evening. Count her freckles like I always do. A useless habit of mine, one I can’t break.

  One that makes me want to pull her down now and fuck her in the sand as I lick them. As I make her scream and pay for putting me through this.

  “I came home and you were gone,” I say somehow through the vicious arousal that’s choking me.

  Her eyes widen. “Yes. I’m –”

  “I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

  She comes closer. “I know. I know. It’s my fault.”

  “I called.”

  “Oh, my phone.” She frowns. “I think the battery died.”

  Such a simple explanation that only fans my aggression. “Your battery died.”

  She swallows, her delicate throat shifting as she eyes me with caution. “Yes. And that’s why you always remind me to charge my phone.”
<
br />   “But you don’t listen.”

  She nods. “I know and I’m sorry. I should. I will. Listen to you. I promise.”

  “You lied to me.”

  At this, her pretty eyes widen a little more as she realizes that I know. Her brows draw together and she swallows again.

  She steps closer and grabs hold of my t-shirt.

  “I did,” she whispers guiltily.

  She’s not helping the case by touching me with her small, soft fingers. It’s doing nothing to calm me down. In fact, my gut tightens even more and it comes out in my clenched, strangled words. “You said you were meeting your study group.”

  Her fingers tighten, become urgent, and so does her tone. “I know. But Arrow –”

  “But it wasn’t a study group, was it?”

  “No.”

  “Where did you go?”

  She digs her toes in the sand, fidgets with my t-shirt as she watches me with bright, wide eyes. I know I’m scaring her.

  And I know I should stop.

  That’s why I needed to establish some control over my emotions before she got to me.

  As it is, this is one of those rare moments when I don’t want to stop. When I want to give her a real reason to be afraid, like tearing that dress off her tiny frame.

  And falling on her like a desperate, barely-alive man.

  The man who doesn’t know how to fucking function without her even for a second. And she put me through her absence for two whole hours.

  “I went to see Sarah,” she says at last.

  At the mention of the biggest mistake of my life, my aggressive arousal dims down a bit. But only for a second.

  Then the arousal, the fury, all come charging back.

  The fear.

  The goddamn fear that had subsided for a little bit at the sight of her.

  It comes back and paralyzes me for a few moments.

  Like it did back when I’d come home to find her gone. Then for the next two hours, that fear kept poking my chest, telling me that this was it.

  That I was living my worst nightmare.

  The one that plagues me at the oddest times. The one that says that she could leave me.

  That one day there will come a time when Salem will wake up and realize that I don’t deserve her. That I’d already fucked up before I even got to know her, and she would leave then.

  She would leave me.