by Dee Palmer
“You did,” I quip, scooping a handful of mud from her neck and slopping it to the ground to highlight her observation.
“And my chest, it feels like I’ve been hit with an anvil.” Her tiny fist clutches at her t-shirt, and she pulls at the material that’s now see-through and slick that is stuck to her body.
“Or my fists trying to get your heart to beat.” My jaw clenches, forcing the painful words through my teeth. It wasn’t just her heart that stopped beating.
“Shit!”
“Yeah.” I keep stroking her face, smoothing her soaked, matted hair out of the way. She’s covered in mud and couldn’t look more beautiful. “I’m so sorry, Tia.”
“Yeah, all that food.” She tries to joke, but I just can’t.
“Not what I meant Tia. Fuck the food, you…you—” I suck in a deep slow breath, trying to fight off the rising anger, fear, and unbearable sense of being so close to the end. I physically shake myself and swallow the bile in my mouth. “I couldn’t get your foot free.”
“But you did, and you saved me.” Her eyes bore into mine. They spring wet with tears, and she offers me the sweetest smile. She’s so grateful, and I can’t even look at her.
This is all my fault.
I close my eyes and drop my head. Her fingertips touch my cheek, and I squeeze my lids tighter. I can’t get the thought of what might’ve happened out of my head. What I was so close to losing: this right here, this touch, her light, Tia, my soulmate, gone, and the pain is ripping me apart.
“Don’t, Cass, I’m fine. You saved me.” She has both her hands on my face, holding me until I meet her perfect emerald green eyes.
“I nearly—” I choke on my words, but she shakes her head and interrupts before I break.
“You saved me, Cass. I think that means I owe you.” She tilts her head and quirks her lips into a teasing smile. I sniff and drop my head back, letting out a laugh filled with relief and more.
“What do you think you could possibly owe me?” I ask.
“My soul.” Her fingers entwine with mine, and she pulls both our hands to her chest. “You have my heart, Cass. You saved my life. It seems only right I give you my soul, too.” Her chest rises when she holds her breath, having laid herself bare before me. It’s a staggeringly beautiful gesture that brings a sad smile to my lips.
“Not sure you should offer me that, Tia.”
“Why not?” She exhales, her breath escaping in a sorrow-filled sound, her expression on the edge of breaking.
“Because I’m not the type of guy to decline such a gift.”
“I don’t want you to decline. I love you, Cass. Why would—” Her voice catches, high pitched and broken, but I stop her before she falls. I might be the devil my mother believes me to be, but I’m not a complete monster.
“Hey, hey, it’s all right, princess. I love you, too.” My words are an instant balm, and she physically softens against me, drawing into my lap and wrapping herself as tightly as she can around my body. Her little heart is hammering like caught prey.
Perfect, perhaps I am a monster after all.
We sit huddled together for endless minutes, but when she starts to shiver, I make to break the hold. Standing, I pull her to her feet. She rubs her arms, and her whole body is shaking.
“Come on, we better get home.”
“Before I freeze to death, you mean?” Her teeth are chattering, but I’m not sure if it’s residual adrenaline or the light breeze hitting her still-wet body.
“Don’t even joke about that, Tia, it’s too soon. That was fucking scary.”
“I’m not joking, I can’t stop shivering, and look, my t-shirt’s still completely soaked through.” She lifts the transparent material from her body, but she really didn’t need to point it out. It’s not like I hadn’t noticed.
“Yeah, I did get that.” I suppress my shit-eating grin and opt to look away from her cute bra. Tiny cartoon unicorns dance over the soft swell of her breasts and fail to hide her very perfect pointed nipples. Shit, when did that happen?
“Oh, my God, kill me now.” She quickly crosses her arms. The chill she was feeling is replaced by obvious burning embarrassment that creeps across her skin like an adorable crimson shadow. I take pity and swiftly change the conversation.
“Can you stop with the death references? I think I’ve aged ten years.” I nudge her but pull her back to my side, my arms hanging over her shoulders, as we start to walk back toward the house along the riverbank.
“That would make you like seventy then.” She grins impishly, either pleased with the change of topic or her cute attempt to sass me. I frown and wait for her to elaborate.
“You’re an old soul, Atticus Kruse. Some people have something about them that makes you think they’ve maybe been here before, you know, or at least their soul has, and I think you have an old soul. There’s no way you could know what you know in your fifteen years, not even with the amount of studying you do at that fancy American school. It’s not normal. So, yeah, I think you have an old soul, and if you’ve aged ten years today that would make you ancient.” She sniffs and shrugs off her explanation.
“An old soul, I like that, old and wicked,” I mutter.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing. Come on, let’s get you home.” I slip my hand into hers and pull her to keep up, but she stumbles. Her face loses all its colour, and a sheen of sweat covers her skin. I grab her arms to stop her from falling.
“Are you okay?”
“Just a little dizzy.”
“Maybe you stay here, and I’ll go and get the quad bike.”
“No, don’t leave me. I’ll be fine. Let’s walk slowly and maybe give me an arm to cling to?” She smiles shyly.
“I’ll do better than that.” I bend and lift her in my arms. Her legs dangle, and she rests her head against my chest. After a little way, I have to switch positions and carry her the rest of the way on my back. I’m uncharacteristically quiet, and after a little time, Tia decides to answer the question that nearly cost her life.
“I don’t fit in at school. I don’t have any friends. I thought secondary school would be more fun, but I’m not allowed anyone back here, and hanging out is kind of a reciprocal thing, and besides, I’m a bit odd.” She rushes her words, but much of what she says, I already knew. It’s very much a repeat of her primary school experience, just on a larger scale. I hate that that’s her life, but there’s nothing I can do and wound-licking isn’t my style.
“You’re very odd,” I retort, and she snorts out a throaty laugh.
“Cheers, asshat. If this is you making me smile, please don’t try and make me cry,” she quips, flicking my earlobe with her fingertip.
“Ow, I’ll never make you cry.” I flinch away in case she tries to do the same with the other ear.
“You make me cry all the time.” She says this softly and so quietly I know I wouldn’t have heard it if her mouth wasn’t so close to my ear. I shift her around to my front, and she slides down my body. The feel of her makes me forget what the hell she just said. However, the sadness in her eyes brings me back from my much more wayward thoughts.
“What? Tia, what are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry.” She drops her head to her chest and lets out a heavy sigh. I tip her chin and wait for her to speak. She holds my gaze and starts to shift from one foot to the next under the intensity of my stare. I haven’t said another word, and I won’t until she speaks. She sighs, and her shoulders drop in defeat. “I didn’t mean anything by that. I just miss you, and when you leave, I cry. I can’t help it, but be under no illusion, you do make me cry.” Her back straightens, and I can see she is trying to hold herself together. She’s exposed so much today, I can only imagine how raw she must be feeling. I need to ease her pain and not just because she eases mine, but because I know I can.
“I can’t help leaving, Tia. I have family obligations, but I promise I will never make you cry by my own hand.” My thumb brushes her bottom
lip, and her tongue darts out in its wake. “I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
I don’t know when this thing between us changed exactly, but it has, and I have no intention of letting it change back. I dip enough so my mouth is a whisper from hers. Her body is trembling, and I hold my position to savour this moment. Her green eyes swirl with light and depths I can’t wait to explore. Her hands rest on my hips, her fingers pressing and kneading my flesh, pulling my body to hers. She closes her eyes, and my lips press to hers, sweet softness and so much more, I feel it in every nerve. My hand lies against her neck, my fingertips holding her jaw lightly at an angle, the other hand holding her waist. She opens her mouth, tentative and welcoming. I know she hasn’t done this before, and I wish I hadn’t, because this is so fucking perfect. I know now with single-minded clarity that I want her. I want all my firsts to be with her. If they feel a fraction of how this feels, I know in my soul this is my own personal heaven, and I’m never letting her go.
My tongue traces the seam of her lips. She tastes of strawberry, and inside she’s even sweeter. The way her tongue dances with mine, it’s like we are the counterparts of a perfect puzzle piece; we just fit together. I am rock-hard in my shorts, and given that I’m three years older and we’re both legally still too young for anything more, I break the kiss. I’m the old soul apparently, so I should at least act the part, even though it kills me. The smile on her face somewhat lessens the ache in my pants. She blows out a slow breath, her face on fire with heat and a lust, like me, she’s failing to hide.
“Wow,” she gasps.
“Told you I’d make you smile.”
Aged Fourteen
After that first kiss, it just got harder and harder each time he came home. I mean, who has a first kiss like that? There was no awkward nose bump, saliva leakage, or clash of teeth. I could even breathe perfectly well if he hadn’t stolen the air straight from my lungs with his delicious blend of tender and torrid. I didn’t sleep that night thinking about his perfect lips on mine. The rest of the summer holiday was a tortuous mix of burgeoning sexual temptation and normalcy.
I think the normal bits were worse.
I don’t have a mobile phone since my mother is some sort of technological puritan. We have a landline, and that is for emergencies. I am allowed a computer for schoolwork. However, the internet connection is so slow a carrier pigeon would’ve been more effective at reaching Cass during the school term. But even if I was allowed to call him, the time difference is a killer. We write letters to each other, and it isn’t nearly enough. I miss him. It is as simple and as complicated as that. I feel I can’t breathe properly until he is home, like a part of me is missing, the best part. I only really feel alive when we are together. What makes it only just bearable is that I know he feels the same.
It’s the school holidays just before my fifteenth birthday, and I’m in a particularly foul mood. My mother needs extra help opening up some of the rooms at the Hall. They have guests due to visit, and she doesn’t know how long they are staying, and I just don’t care. Cass isn’t one of them. I never thought it was possible for me to be any more of a stroppy teenager, but I am testing that assumption to its limits today.
“Good Lord, girl, could you be any slower? A glacier moves faster than you do. What’s got into you?” My mother is standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips, and her lips are pursed tight with obvious irritation. She gave me instructions to clean the solarium over an hour ago, and all I’ve managed to do is remove the dustsheets from all the furniture and dump them in a huge pile in the centre of the room.
I draw in a slow breath and bite my tongue. I try not to swear at my mother like some of the girls at school do; she doesn’t deserve my attitude. Only I have particular trouble playing the amenable daughter on account of the fact that this is very much her life, not mine, and being the Kruse’s skivvy is not my dream job.
“I will get it done, just leave me alone,” I mumble and pull the last dustsheet from the daybed near the grand ornamental fireplace.
“I was hoping you’d get more than this room done, Miss-I’m-too-good-to-clean,” she fires at me, and it smarts, her tone filled with anger.
“I never said I was too good to clean. I’m helping, aren’t I?”
“Begrudgingly.” She sniffs derisively, and I scowl, roughly screwing the large sheet into a tight bundle in my arms, clouds of dust billowing with every jerky fold of the material.
“I’m sorry I’m not ecstatic with my to-do list today, but please, let’s not misinterpret this as some great favour bestowed on us that you seem to think it is,” I snap and watch her jaw drop. I don’t think I’ve ever answered my mother back.
“There you go, Miss high and mighty. ” She tuts and rolls her eyes as if we’ve had this conversation a million times. We haven’t, there’s no point. We’re never going to see eye to eye on this subject. “If you only knew the half of it…oh never mind, perhaps it’s for the best, you don’t deserve-” She rarely finishes her cryptic rant and today is no exception. As much as the unanswered questions use to plague me. The outbursts happen so infrequently and however vague and venomous I don’t think she realises half of what she says most of the time.
She’s never answered my questions and afterwards, she always seems a little dazed, resignation hanging heavy from her slight frame. Worn weary by it all, I find I just don’t care enough to pursue the obtuse comments she drops like an anvil. I close my eyes when she continues to preach, wishing I could lose my ears too. “I love this job, and the fact that you look down your nose doesn’t exactly help. The Kruses have been very good to us.”
“Mrs Kruse gets her pound of flesh from you, Mum,” I snap and instantly regret it. I let out my breath slowly, trying to calm myself with each passing second. My voice softens because I know this argument is both energy-sapping and futile. “I’m sorry, Mum, I just don’t see it as the two-way street you do, and I never look down my nose. That is definitely Mrs Kruse’s prerogative.” I shrug and try to lighten my comment with a joking tone. It’s ineffective. She stiffens, and her voice has a harsh edge to it.
“Well, don’t think for a moment that young Atticus thinks any different, despite what he may have told you. They keep themselves to themselves when it comes to the important things like family or marriage.” She strikes hard and accurate. I feel the pain like a blade slicing through my flesh and bone, a direct hit.
“Jesus, Mother!” My hand grips the bundled sheet and pulls it tighter to my chest for protection. It’s too late, and for a second, the agony feels so real, I wonder if I look down, will there be blood seeping through, colouring the white with my crimson? My voice catches when I try to reply. “Thanks. Like I don’t know that. Like that hasn’t been on my mind since the day he told me he loved me!”
“He told you that?” Her voice softens, and that’s worse. I fight the prickle of tears at my lids and swallow down the sob that is stuck in my throat. I’m so desperate to hold myself together, to not break and be the foolish girl reflected in my mother’s sad eyes.
This is different. We’re different.
“Yes, when I was twelve and every day since.”
“I’m so sorry, Tia.” She walks up to me and falters when she is just an arm’s length away. She places her hand awkwardly on my shoulder as if touching me causes her pain. I know it does. I look so much like my father. Every day I am just a reminder that the love of her life abandoned her with me. Today, though, I’m strangely grateful for her distance, because anything else would break me. “He’s a good boy, Tia. Maybe he will be different.”
“You believe that?” I curse myself the instant I let the hopeful words leave my lips. I should’ve known better. I do know better. Her reply is still a sucker punch all the same.
“No, I don’t.” She doesn’t hold my gaze even as her words cut me open. There’s nothing there, no motherly love or comfort, just a hard life of hurt and betrayal colouring her worldview so much, she can’t
bring herself to offer her only living relative some small amount of hope.
“What other room would you like me to do?” I turn away, cutting the conversation dead. It had pretty much died with her final nails, but just in case she wanted to add salt onto my gaping wound, I drop the sheet onto the mound and walk off to the adjoining room. She calls after me.
“Oh, the library needs a good clean. I understand whoever is coming likes to spend his days in the library.”
“Fine, if there’s nothing else, no other motherly words of comfort, I’ll get on.” I hear her quick steps on the polished hardwood floor scuttle to catch up to me. Her hand touches mine, but I pull it from her grasp, snatching it to my chest as though her touch scalds.
“No point lying to you, Tia. I could tell you all the things you think you want to hear, but what good does that do when it’s all lies?” She steps over to stand in front of me, and her tone is anything but harsh; it’s filled with kindness and heartfelt best intentions. “Despite what you think of me, I don’t want you broken, Tia. I want you strong. You need to be.” She tucks the long strands of hair falling across my face behind my ear and looks into my eyes. “This is my life, because it makes me happy, being in this house close to…” She hesitates and her voice catches, she physically shakes herself and her eyes soften for a moment as she takes in the grande room we are both standing in. It’s only for a moment but for that fraction of time she looks truly happy, whatever memory just flashed in her mind, that’s what I really I want to know.
“What? What was that mother? Why here? What’s so special about Tartarus Hall?”
“No, not the Hall, well yes the Hall but also…Oh Tia it just doesn’t matter now. This is my life, but I also had no choice. You do. All I’m saying is make sure it’s you who makes the decisions, and that you’re not waiting for someone to take that choice from you. Your time will come.” She turns away, leaving me a little speechless, confused, and a lot heartbroken, for her and maybe a little for me.
