I used my time in the bathroom to center myself. I didn’t like that Nick had seen my closet. It was my inner sanctum, the epicenter of my weirdness. My hands shook, but I knew I could handle this. I needed to get back in control. He couldn’t exactly tell anyone about it, but it still made me uncomfortable.
I went through my nightly ritual, which always soothed me. I took a long soaking bubble bath and washed and dried my hair. I applied lotion, starting with facial cream (it’s never too early to prevent wrinkles), and body cream. I slid into my soft pajamas and pulled my hair back with a wide, white satin ribbon. I kept ribbons arranged in order of color in a drawer of the vanity in my bathroom, and I rearranged them for fun.
“There’s nothing wrong with color-coding,” I muttered to myself.
“Are you almost done?” Nick called from the other side of the door.
“Don’t you dare rush me,” I shouted. I guess I sounded a little harsher than intended. Lily Madison. A girl on the edge.
I flossed my teeth several times, rinsed with a whitening mouthwash, and brushed. Finally, I sat down on the edge of the bathtub and waited, tapping my foot. I had on my favorite white terry cloth bath slippers. They were soft, with a gel insert that made me feel like I walked on air.
“I’m sorry.” Nick’s voice sounded softer this time. Gentler. Like he meant it.
I put lotion on my hands and admired my manicure. Melancholy Baby looked terrific on me, and it gave me the courage I needed to slowly open the door. Nick leaned against the wall right outside the bathroom, waiting for me.
“I shouldn’t have teased you, Lil.”
“It’s okay.” Embarrassed, I couldn’t meet his eyes. Thanks to his peek into my closet, he saw more than I wanted him to see, and now he knew I was a total nut job.
He cleared his throat. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to keep things in order.”
I laughed, but there was nothing funny about it. “My parents would disagree. And so would my therapist, but I’m a lot better than I used to be.”
“Where are your parents?” Nick wasn’t looking around my neat freak room anymore. He stared right at me. I averted my eyes.
“Out of town.”
“They leave you alone like this?”
“I don’t mind. I like it.”
Nick tilted his head to one side. “Isn’t that kind of weird?”
“That my parents travel?” I frowned at him. “No. The only weird thing is that I’m talking to a dead guy.”
His dark brows furrowed, and he looked oddly hurt. “Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Whenever I say something or do something that makes you uncomfortable, you toss the dead guy card in my face. It isn’t nice, Lily. I told you I’m not dead, and Zoe agrees with me.”
He was right, but I was right too. I called a spade a spade.
“If you aren’t dead, what are you?”
“I don’t know, but we were talking about your parents and their negligence, and you deflected. What’s the story, Lil?”
I loved it when he called me that—not Lily White the Vestal Virgin or dimwit. When he said Lil, it seemed like an endearment, a caress.
The blob happily flitted around, oblivious to the fact that Nick had thrown me off balance once again. I looked around my room, at my four-poster bed, the shelves full of books, and the closet bursting with clothes.
“Negligence? Please. I’m spoiled. Cossetted. I have everything I could possibly need or want, and I always have.”
“Except for them,” he said. “Time is the only gift that matters. Nothing else means anything.”
His words stopped me in my tracks. I’d known Nick had brains. He’d proved that in calculus. But I didn’t know he was also nice. He couldn’t remember his own name, and he was dead and might be trapped for eternity in some kind of limbo, but he acted concerned for me. Sincere proved to be a new look for Nick. It suited him.
“They’re…busy people. I don’t begrudge them their own lives.”
“Maybe you should,” he said, getting angry on my account. One of the many new sides of Nick. I’d met sarcastic Nick and tough guy Nick and annoying Nick, but sweet, charming, and thoughtful Nick? I hadn’t seen this side of him before and wasn’t prepared to deal with it.
“I like being independent.” Even as I uttered those words, I knew I lied and so did he. I could tell from the expression on his face. His dark eyes filled with pity.
As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Nick happened to be right. I hated sitting down to dinner all by myself at the large, ornate table. I missed having someone to talk to after school. I wanted to see more of my parents, but they chose golf, the spa and their friends over me. I didn’t complain. I never complained. But sometimes it hurt.
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. Hey, I can’t even remember my parents.” His voice, filled with such raw pain, made me hurt too.
I studied his face, the square chin, the dark eyes, and the stubborn set to his mouth. He belonged to someone, dead or alive, and I needed to help him figure it out. Maybe that was holding him to this world. Maybe he needed to remember, so that he could move on—and maybe it was my job to help him. I decided to start with a very simple question, one we hadn’t bothered asking before.
“Why can’t you remember anything?”
Nick looked at me like I’d won the award for stupidest girl in town. I guess it did seem like a pointless question, but I wanted to hear his theory. I also wanted to keep the conversation on him. It was more comfortable that way.
He spread out his hands, palms up. “I have no idea. I remember bits and pieces. I know my name is Nick, but I don’t know my last name. I know I used to hang out at The Zone, but I can’t remember the names of any of my friends or what they looked like. It’s all…gone. And more seems to disappear with each passing day.”
He sank down onto my bed, despair settling around him like a heavy cloak. I sat next to him. I didn’t know what to do, and that feeling of helplessness, combined with his raw emotion, brought me back to one of the darkest moments of my life.
“I understand how you’re feeling right now.”
“I doubt that very much. How could you?” he asked, turning snarky again. I chose to ignore it.
I took a deep breath and spoke the words I hadn’t intended to tell him. “I once had a little sister.”
He looked at me in surprise. “I thought you were an only child.”
“Not always,” I said. “Rose was born just after I turned seven, and she was the sweetest little thing ever. She had red hair, like me.”
“Rose and Lily,” said Nick with a small, crooked smile. “Two flowers.”
“My mom is Iris.”
This was harder to talk about than I imagined, but I needed to share it because I understood despair. I knew it intimately in fact. I gave him a sad little smile. “Rosie was gorgeous. Perfect.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was three months old and asleep in her crib. Mom asked me to check on her.” I pleated the hem of my pajama shirt with my fingers. Melancholy Baby shimmered in the dim light from my bedroom lamp. “She’d stopped breathing. They call it crib death. It hit us very hard. My mother went through six miscarriages to have her, you see. We all wished for her so badly, with our whole hearts, and yet Rosie was ours for only three stinking months.” I let go of my shirt and turned to him. “It almost destroyed my family. My parents argued all the time. The only reason they stayed together was because of me.”
“You can’t blame yourself, Lily. None of this is your fault.”
“I know. But it’s my job to hold our lives together. You and Zoe act like I’m boring and spoiled and a little too…orderly, but I’m doing the best I can. It has to be like this, or everything will fall apart.”
My eyes welled with tears, and my reaction took me by surprise. I hadn’t cried about this in a long time.
Nick reached for me, like he wanted to take
me in his arms and comfort me, but he stopped himself. He looked at his insubstantial hands in frustration. When he spoke, his voice sounded tight and controlled, and he chose his words carefully.
“You aren’t responsible for holding your family together. Don’t put that on yourself.”
I wanted to stamp my foot. “You don’t understand. I have no other choice. That’s why I don’t complain if they have to get away, especially around this time of year. Next week is the anniversary of Rosie’s death. It’s hard for them to face it.”
Nick tilted his head to one side. “It’s hard for you, too, but you never make waves, do you? You never cause problems. You never stand up for yourself. I’m so sorry for you.”
I looked at him in shock. “You’re sorry for me?”
“I am. I might not remember much, but at least I know I had a life, and it was a good one. You, sweet Lily girl, are a hothouse flower. Your environment is regulated, safe, and stifling. You’re stuck here, trapped in this beautiful place, this gilded cage, and you’re too scared even to try to experience anything outside your own little world.”
“Scared?” My face got hotter and hotter as my temper rose. I went over to the window, trying to cool off. No amount of yoga breathing would calm me down now. I was pissed off.
Nick followed me, a mistake. I shot him a look that could have killed him if he weren’t already dead. The blob darted into a corner. Even Nick looked a little nervous. “I didn’t mean it like that…”
I turned to him, hands by my sides and clenched into little fists. If he had been solid matter, I might have punched him, manicure or not. It would have been worth chipping a nail to smack him right now. I got right in his face, nose to nose, glaring at him, and he had the poor sense to laugh at me.
“You aren’t terribly intimidating with that ribbon in your hair.”
I pulled it off my head and threw it to the floor, never breaking eye contact with him. “Would a coward be able to sit by her mother’s side at the hospital as she nearly bled to death from a miscarriage? Would a coward be able to call 911 and hold her dead baby sister until the ambulance arrived because her mother couldn’t do it? Would a coward be able to die, come back to life, get stalked by a herd of ghosts, and not miss a single day of school? Would a coward be able to deal with you on a daily basis without going insane? I don’t think so, Nick-who-doesn’t-even-know-his-last-name. I’m not a fragile flower. I’m not Lily White, or Lily Fair, or Lily the Vestal Virgin. I’m Tiger Lily. I have claws and teeth and I’m stronger than I look.”
For a moment there was absolute silence and stillness. Even the blob froze in mid-air. Nick broke the silence, clapping slowly, a smile spreading across his handsome face.
“Bravo. I knew you had it in you.”
I rolled my eyes. “You did not.”
He looked at my hair, falling into my eyes since I was now ribbon less. “With hair like that, there had to be fire somewhere inside you. I wondered when it would come out.”
He lifted his hand, like he wanted to brush it out of my face, but his fingers moved through my hair without disturbing a tendril. He cursed softly before folding his arms across his chest.
I gave both Nick and the blob an apologetic look. “You pushed me too far, and I have a bit of a temper. I apologize.”
Nick grinned. “You have spunk, Tiger Lily. Don’t be sorry. You may just save us yet.” And in spite of how angry he made me, when he said ‘us’ it made me all warm and fuzzy inside. I was a lost cause.
Chapter 8
Better a diamond with a flaw then a pebble without. ~ Confucius, 551-479 BC
The next morning, I got a wake-up call from my mother. She was not pleased.
“I heard you had friends over last night.” Her voice echoed oddly, and I heard a splashing sound in the distance. She was already in the therapeutic mineral bath. That did not bode well.
“My friend, Zoe, came over after dinner. We needed to work on a school project together.”
I rubbed my eyes. I hadn’t slept well. Nick had disappeared before I went to bed, but I’d awoken several times, looking for him.
Unfortunately, the blob never left. It played in my room all night long. Each time I opened my eyes, it assumed it was party time and bounced on my bed. Not conducive to good sleep.
“Mrs. Jenson from across the street said there was a motorcycle and a juvenile delinquent involved.”
“Zoe has a motorcycle, but she isn’t a delinquent.” Well, I didn’t think Zoe was a delinquent, but I couldn’t be entirely sure. She did kind of dress for the role.
“Were you on that bike, Lily Anne Madison?”
“Of course not. Zoe came over after…. play practice. They had a dress rehearsal last night and she still wore her costume. It was hilarious.” I made a feeble attempt at laughter, but my mom was not fooled.
“What about the white powder Clarice found all over the dining room?”
I blew out a breath. “Is this about what happened at school yesterday? For the last and final time, I am not on drugs.”
After a long pause, during which I understood my mother knew nothing about what had happened in school yesterday, I realized I couldn’t tell her the truth about anything anymore. I saw ghosts, hung out with a Goth medium, had plans to go to prom with a clairvoyant, and felt seriously attracted to a very hot corpse. I’d bet Nick even had a leather jacket somewhere in the land of the living. My mom would have loved hearing that.
It took a lot of explaining on my part, but I finally convinced her that I was not experimenting with drugs. I reminded her I hated needles, couldn’t swallow a pill, and had never been able to handle anything stronger than children’s liquid cough syrup. All those facts proved pivotal in my defense.
“I’ll be home in exactly one week. Until that time, I expect you to be on your best behavior, young lady.” The anniversary of Rosie’s death was in five days. She usually gave herself an additional two days to pull herself back together. I understood. I needed the time too.
“I always am,” I said, and hung up the phone.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.” Nick sprawled on the bed next to me, his head on my pillow. I screeched and pulled the covers to my chin.
“What are you doing?” I tried smoothing my hair, a complete mess, and felt relieved Nick couldn’t smell my morning breath. Or at least I hoped he couldn’t. I covered my mouth with my hand. “Why are you here?”
“I was bored, so I watched you sleep. You snore.”
I gasped. “I do not.”
He grinned at me. “And you drool. A lot.”
I wiped my chin self-consciously as he teased me. About to yell at him for invading my privacy, I heard a tap on the door.
“Lily, are you all right?” It was Clarice, my stool pigeon of a housekeeper. “I heard you scream.”
“Uh…hi, Clarice. I was talking to my mom on the phone and I got excited.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “You are the worst liar ever.” I shot him a dirty look but couldn’t exactly respond with the housekeeper hovering at my door.
Clarice didn’t seem convinced. “Breakfast is ready. You’re running late.”
I made Nick leave while I dressed. Usually I liked to take my time picking out the perfect outfit, but today I rushed through it, afraid Nick might pop back in before I was fully clothed. Having the blob fly around the room while I ran around in my panties was bad enough. I couldn’t handle it if Nick saw me too.
I dressed in a simple floral dress with a matching cardigan and flats. I pulled my hair back with a ribbon and tied the bow behind my ear. I put in the diamond studs Mother had gotten me for Christmas, slid a sparkly tennis bracelet Father had given me for Valentine’s Day on my wrist, and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked different from Zoe and Nick, but I liked myself just fine. I didn’t have to be edgy to be cool.
Nick followed me to the dining room table and watched as I sat down to eat. Clarice had prepared a lovely breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toas
t. Nick eyed my bacon with longing, so I waved a piece in front of him.
“Want some?”
He stared at me, shaking his head. “That’s just cruel.”
“Sorry,” I said, before shoving the bacon in my mouth.
Nick watched the bacon disappear with a mournful expression on his face.
“Yummy,” I said, with a grin.
He smiled back at me. “How do you manage to still look all ladylike and prissy while eating a slab of greasy bacon?”
I licked my lips and each of my fingers in turn, my eyes on his, and in an instant his gently teasing expression changed. He stared at my mouth the same way he’d stared at the bacon...like he wanted to taste it, and I knew if he’d been in solid form, he’d be kissing me right now.
I waited for him to say something, but he shook his head and ran a hand through his dark hair. His hands, although bigger than mine, weren’t beefy. They were elegant, with long, tapered fingers, and his movements were graceful. Mesmerizing. He looked like a pianist, but I doubted that very much. Nick didn’t seem like a piano player. He acted more like someone in a biker gang.
“Not a slab of bacon. A slice.” I delicately dabbed the corners of my mouth with napkin.
“Forgive me, your highness.” He gave me a little bow, and I had to purse my lips to keep from smiling. If he had been alive, I would have had trouble staying away from him, and he seemed like the kind of trouble little redheaded girls from the suburbs should stay away from. But I kidded myself. Nick never would have even noticed a girl like me.
“You’re forgiven.” I kept my voice low as Clarice banged around in the kitchen. The last thing I needed was a report to my parents that I started talking to myself. They would come home immediately, and I’d be hanging out with Dr. Carter and a team of psychiatrists instead of finding a way to get rid of my ghost problem.
Nick didn’t comment when I pulled out my bottle of sanitizer. Today I used Honeysuckle Berry. Sweet and refreshing. I shook a glob onto my hands, almost daring him to say something. He didn’t take the bait.
“So, what’s on the agenda today?” he asked.
Tiger Lily (Dark Blossoms Book 1) Page 6
