“Hey, that’s my middle name, too.” The new presence startled me slightly, probably because I didn’t have time to analyze it. In class it was always different. I was the first one there, I’d watch people coming in and out of the room; study them without them knowing it. But when people snuck up on me from behind I never liked it. Maybe it had something to do with not socializing in school, but I had noticed I was more prone to it after being attacked on the Diyu. I shook slightly; it seemed there were some things that even Charlie couldn’t protect me from.
“Damn, I’m sorry.” She laughed, but not really. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I counted to thirty and then I was calm again. “No problem,” I lied.
She laughed and drank from a water bottle, though water was obviously not in the bottle. “I’m Cora, by the way. You’re coming out with us tonight, right?”
I nodded.
“Cool.” She shrugged. “The more the merrier.”
Melinda, Violet, Kenzie, and Cora mostly talked amongst themselves while we walked to some fraternity house a few blocks away. Every now and then I’d nod or try to include something I thought was clever, but mostly I remained quiet and kept to myself. And though I wondered exactly where we were going, it became obvious when we came to the cobblestone house with the booming music and bubble machine sitting on the patio. Honestly, I was just glad that the party didn’t look as crowded as I imagined. There was the sultry smell of smoke in the air and a couple of bottles laying on the dead grass. I thought I saw a used contraceptive in the bushes, but other than that, the outside of the house didn’t even look like it belonged to students. Melinda mentioned something about the fraternity itself, but I faded in and out, my mind a potential million miles away with Charlie.
While Melinda, Cora, Kenzie, and Violet easily disappeared, I constantly kept reminding myself to uncross my arms so my anxiety wouldn’t be so obvious. The music bouncing from the speakers was crude and I couldn’t tell if it was supposed to match the video game on one of the larger televisions or if it was just music. I stared at the TV for a few seconds before the graphics hurt my eyes, so I walked away.
Cora offered me her water bottle and though I was reluctant, I eventually took a swig, not feeling pressured but desperate to encompass the spontaneity I felt going on around me. She smiled in approval, even when I gagged at the taste, and I laughed along with her. Though I imagined I looked ridiculous, it didn’t bother me.
We stood in line at the keg where she patiently tried to explain to me the rules of beer pong. And though I listened with interest, I’ll admit the party was taking a new turn for me. I watched while some came and went, led each other upstairs, and drank from bottles, all without the slightest regard for themselves or each other and with the same casualness as checking-out a library book. As if they messed up they could pay a fine and take it all back, wipe the slate clean, and start all over.
The more I watched, the more it occurred to me that I had a less and less likely chance of ever having any moments like these. And this epiphany made me inexplicably sad. But logically I knew it was idiotic. After all, these people all had their problems. Though they seemed happy and carefree, they had their worries and cares…the thing of it was however, that mine and theirs would not, and could not, ever be compared on the same scale. Mine were by no means more important or dramatic, only unique. And though everyone there was about my age, and I even recognized a face or two from my classes, I felt far from them, like there was this foggy distance between us. Did any of them feel it too? They may not have known who I was or what I had been through (just like I didn’t know anything about them) but I was transparent among them and terrified of giving anything away. As usual, I wished for Charlie, but he was nowhere around.
That by itself scared me. Though consciously I knew I didn’t need him, I very much wanted him with me. Would it always be like this? I didn’t care about parties or any of those other social niceties, but I couldn’t help but wonder if this was a prediction of the future. Would I always have to watch over my shoulder and expect the worst? I thought I could handle it now, but what about the future? How could I ever be a complete and independent person if he was always something I lusted for?
I studied them for awhile longer before I could hardly stand it. Though I knew there were no more buses to Healdsburg tonight, maybe I could take a taxi. I had attempted to socialize for long enough, hadn’t I? Would Elise still be awake with Tyler or would calling her only disrupt the little sleep she already got? Maybe I would be treated with a text from Charlie, something simple like an X or an O letting me know he was still okay. I wandered away from Cora just enough to put some space between us, though she was preoccupied with other friends so as not to notice. I wanted to lean against the wall, but a dark, sticky substance there made me change my mind. I stumbled back, tripping over a couple making out in the center of the room. I apologized and moved forward.
Was I dependent, wanting to be with Charlie constantly, or was I just lucky to love him that much? Shouldn’t I be enjoying something like this? Partying? Wasn’t that normal? I’d be eighteen in a matter of weeks, and it seemed like if I hadn’t even begun to grow out of this awkward phase of my life, then perhaps, I never would.
But I wasn’t always so ill at ease. I was comfortable on the sea; in dirty clothes playing poker and picking locks, I had been happy there. And I was happy shooting guns in the woods and looking through art books late at night, watching Charlie sketch when I should have been studying. Not exactly typical, but then again at least I knew what made me happy, who made me happy. So I counted to ten before giving in, reaching into my pocket for my phone, but feeling emptiness instead.
“Damn.”
“What’s up?”
I wasn’t sure how long Melinda had been standing next to me, but when I became aware of her, my arms flailed out, almost causing her to drop her red plastic cup.
“Sorry!”
She laughed. “It’s okay. What are you swearing about?”
“Oh, I forgot my phone.”
She nodded “I hate when that happens.”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
Cora bounced up to us, dancing, with her hair slight skewed. “Hey, ladies.”
I waved back, but other than tapping my feet, I didn’t know how to dance.
Melinda and Cora whispered something to each other before Cora tried talking to me. “You’re from New Jersey?”
“Yep.”
They looked at one another and I realized the question was an opening to a conversation.
“You’re a long way from home.”
And that was the point, wasn’t it? Not to be away from my family, but to be as close to Charlie as possible. Why did I get the sudden feeling that if people knew that, it would sound pathetic? Desperate even?
“Hey.” Again, Melinda placed her hand on my shoulder, and I appreciated the friendly gesture more than I could say. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Uh, yeah, but um, I think I’m just going to go. I don’t feel so great all of a sudden.”
Melinda laughed. “Phone withdrawals?”
“Something like that.”
“You probably shouldn’t walk home by yourself,” Cora added
I laughed, thinking of all the dangers I had faced in the last year. I was hardly afraid of the short distance between there and my dorm room. “Thanks,” I said. “But I’ll be okay.”
She glanced over her shoulder and bit the rim of her cup. “Well, uh, just hold on. I’ll get my friend Greg to walk with you.”
“Really,” I insisted, then suddenly thinking of Ben Walden, laughed at myself. “I doubt the bogey man is here, but even if he was, campus police couldn’t stop him on their best day, anyway.”
Her face contorted, but then she laughed, snorted really. “Oh man, Mel was right, you are weird.”
I smiled as relief ran through me. Why would I say something so stupid?
“I’ll walk out with you at least,” M
el declared. “This place is crowded.”
“Oh, I’ll go, too,” Cora said. “That way you can come back and I can get some air.”
The three of us walked out together, laughing at some kid getting sick in the bushes and his friends recording it on their phones. We walked straight to the end of the sidewalk when a question came to me.
“Cora, that uh, window security system?”
She giggled. “Yeah?”
“How did you guys come up with that?”
“Well, actually, it was Bryan’s idea.” She hiccupped. “My boyfriend. He didn’t like us girls living together without security. And I’m like, what am I supposed to do, get a doorman?”
I smiled. Charlie had similar concerns about the dorm. “At least he cares.”
She scoffed. “I guess. He wanted Kenzie and me to adopt a dog, but then I would have to take care of it! I’m all like, ‘I can take care of myself.’ And he’s all like; ‘you always forget to lock the door.’”
Melinda nudged me but we both laughed.
“He wanted me to get a gun, but I ended that conversation real quick.” She groaned into her cup.
“What did you do?”
“Compromised.” She shrugged. “Took a self-defense course.”
Cora’s version of compromise made me think Charlie’s decision not to include me in certain factors of his business life. Though he knew it might anger me, he still decided to exclude me from information he deemed could be hazardous. And while logically, I knew he did it for my protection, other parts of me felt angry for impractical reasons. Why did he get to make all of the decisions about my safety? Weren’t we supposed to be partners in this relationship?
“W-what would you do if he wasn’t willing to compromise?”
“Hmm?”
“If things had to be a certain way, and you couldn’t avoid it?”
She paused and seemed to consider what I had asked, her face serious, but then she shrugged again. “I’m not sure. We’ve been together for almost a year, but if someone, anyone tried to control my life, especially with an issue I care about, I’d probably ditch them.”
We were quiet for the rest of the walk, but it was an awkward sort of quiet that I hated. I disliked how simple it all seemed, how easy. My parents had met when they were in college. And this was supposed to be the time of my life, the time for dating and exploring and doing stupid things that I could laugh about later. But I couldn’t picture myself doing any of that, at least not without Charlie. I shook my head to make the thoughts go away.
I thought about that condemnation as I half-dragged myself up the stairwell. Loving Charlie was the greatest thing I had felt in my life, but I was even more aware than usual, looking at potential hazards that could endanger him, me. Us. And if I could prevent them, I knew I would do everything in my power to do so. At the same time, I hated the fear; it was controlling and damning, and I wanted it gone.
I wanted to be in the middle of the ocean where no one could ever touch us.
Chapter 7
I have never been afraid of the dark.
Robbie had night lights, cried during thunderstorms and after scary movies, or tried to hide under the bed, but I told him with my inalienable 8 year old wisdom that if you were good enough at pretending, you could make it feel like the daytime.
After all, the only reason people are afraid of the dark is because they can’t see what’s there.
But just when I needed it the most, my imagination was failing me, and I couldn’t find a scrap of light if my life depended on it. And though I had no proof, instinct told me my life did depend on it.
I roamed on pits of rocky ground with bare feet, hot, unbearable to touch with my soft hands as I stumbled and tried to get back up again. I could have been anywhere, but there was only a deep dark surrounding me, and it seemed the more time I tried to let my senses adjust, the darker it became. I called out but there was only an echo. I walked further on, stumbled still again, the pain becoming a sort of black along with the rest of the dark. And as the terror of this oblivious world came settling in, I realized I was a part of it, the dark, not anything, the nonentity, nobody.
I screamed, and the dark absorbed it all.
The yelling was what woke me up.
“Get the hell out of here!” It was Melinda’s voice, though drunk and slurred, I knew it from our time together. I was a little startled by the hardness in it, but maybe that was a good thing. It woke me up from a dream I couldn’t piece together. Heart pounding, my ears ringing, I tumbled from my bed at the same time she slammed the door shut behind her.
“Holy crap!”
“What? Melinda? Are you okay?”
I was still reeling from my nightmare, limbs shaking, and plenty grateful that Melinda was a bigger mess than I was, tripping over something in the dark and cursing. From our windows, the early signs of day were beginning to rise. I heard her hand grope for the switch on the wall, fumbling through the wreckage of our room.
“Addie.”
She found the light and I blinked it away. “Melinda? What’s—”
“There is some jerk out there looking for you.”
My heart stopped. Could it be Charlie? Or maybe not. Maybe it was something bad, something much worse.
“Who?”
Melinda fumbled for something in the mini-fridge, throwing her bracelets off in frustration when she couldn’t get it. But I didn’t wait for her to respond. I ran from the bed and practically leaped into the hall, half-dressed and everything. There was only one jerk I wanted looking for me.
But the one that was there wasn’t the one I wanted.
“Where in the hell have you been?”
Reid’s voice came at me from out of nowhere, but my brain acknowledged it the instant I heard it; and knew that with him, there would be an infinite amount of trouble.
“Reid?”
He came from around the corner, two rooms away from my own. I saw how dark his eyes were and saw the rage, a monster barreling down at me as he slammed me into the wall.
I kneed him as hard as I could in the gut, surprised that I was even flexible enough to get my knee that high, let alone make him wince. Later on, I told myself it was instinct, but I think I enjoyed it way more than I should have.
“Addie?”
Reid doubled over in pain around the same second Melinda made her attempt to rescue me. She leaned in the doorway, staring Reid down with a glare that I had only seen equal in his own deadly stare. “You want me to call the cops?”
“No!” I took her phone from her ear and tossed it on her bed. “It’s fine, he’s a friend. Everything is fine. Just go back inside.”
She looked skeptical.
“Really,” I insisted. “its fine.”
She closed the door behind her slowly, but the second she did Reid was back on me, accusations flying.
“Where were you?”
“I—was out. Just a party.”
“A party? Your boy is laying up with hurt for you and you’re at a party?” The anger there was sharp, and for an instant, Charlie’s face flashed in my mind’s eye.
“W-wait, what happened?” The hall was closing in like hands around my neck. Images from my nightmare came back, but I couldn’t remember them so well all of a sudden. I struggled to keep control, my breath ragged and wheezing at the possibility of seeing something unreal.
“Like you care.”
It must have been the way I reacted, but I took him by surprise, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt with everything I had, willing my worry into him. I envisioned handcuffs and orange jumpsuits, concrete walls and isolation. In my head I saw blood and decay, tears and fire. And above it all, Charlie in pain, the least tolerable of the tolerable.
“Enough of your crap, Reid. Tell me!” I demanded. “Is he okay? What happened?”
He shook me off, though it was probably the lack of sleep; I thought I saw something soften in his eyes. “Come on.”
I grabbed
the first jacket by the doorway and slipped on a pair of shoes, eager to follow Reid, who was already making flighty steps down the hall. I whispered at him to slow down but it fell on deaf ears, so I gave up and just tried my best to keep up.
It was almost an entire block before the bus stop that I saw the car parked beneath a street lamp in a sector specifically marked for instructor parking. There was an instant I just really, really hoped a professor had splurged on themselves. I would have loved to continue to hope that, except that I saw the familiar figure of a man appearing from behind one of the science labs towards the convertible. He was making long, eager strides toward the vehicle, his phone fastened to his ear.
My eyes began to scan for any obvious trouble. I originally lifted my hand to wave to him, but immediately stopped myself, fearing it would cause unnecessary attention. Why was Charlie here? Could something have happened to him or one of the guys? I cursed myself for not having my phone on me earlier in the night—what if it was Dad or Robbie? Were Elise and Tyler all right? I pictured the police swarming the house, helicopters landing in the orchards while Charlie’s bike and the SUVs were towed away as evidence…
At last, Charlie’s voice reached my ears. By then I could feel the clobber of my pulse as my heart tried to escape. I was only three yards away from the car when he began yelling,
“Are you sure?” He cursed on the phone. “You think I’d be talking to ya if I had?”
I could see by the way his shoulders shook that he was positively furious. And while it was slightly dangerous to approach him from behind, I was afraid of the rising tone of his voice and the violent repercussions if I left him unattended. Still, there he was, two legs, two arms, and other than a swollen cheekbone, he was the same as he ever was: perfect nose, kaleidoscope eyes and all.
I put my hands to my mouth and called out. “Charlie?”
He turned so fast that he almost dropped his phone. And though Charlie paled at the sight of me, his face broke out in his patent Charlie grin. He hung up his phone without another word, running from the car and down the sidewalk, gathering me in his arms. He squeezed me so tight I could feel the ache in my ribcage and a mysterious grief of his own sprouting from his shaky hands.
Conviction (Wated Series Book 2) Page 9
