by Tara Brown
“I was worried about you.” He gives me a smile like he might say something else, but he doesn’t. I swoon almost but then common sense comes rushing in. I cock an eyebrow and pull back.
He tilts his head, "What was that? That face you just made?" He is mocking me, I think.
I cross my arms over my red and white striped fleece pajamas, "What face?"
He points, "The one where you were looking all sweet and then you changed and pulled back, like you were shutting me off. What happened? What were you thinking?"
"That you think because I'm poor white trash that I'm easy. You think I'll let you in the window and make your trip to visit your new cousin exciting."
Amusement crosses his face in a wave starting at his eyes, "What?" He grins.
"You city boys are all the same." I wave a finger at him.
He crosses his arms too and balances on the roof perfectly, "So that makes you country girls all the same?” He grabs the window again and shakes his head, "I'm not like that. I would at least get to know you a little before making my expectations known."
I gasp and smack his hand, "Ass." We are flirting and it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
He chuckles but it’s dry and detached. His words make the butterflies in my stomach dance. “Why do you live with her if she’s mean to you? Why don’t you leave?”
I shake my head, “I have to. She's old, she needs the help. Plus, I have to save up money. My father's will says I have to stay with her until the year I am turning nineteen too, or I get nothing. My father was worried about her because his father died so young. He wanted to be sure that we would help her out. She doesn’t charge me rent, I live here for free. "
He grimaces, “Doesn’t sound free to me.”
I want to tell him it’s the only place I can feel Rosie, but I don’t. I just shrug, “I’ll be gone soon enough.” And I will never be back.
“When I met you, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. You sang and it felt like going home. You know what I mean?”
I shake my head.
He stares at my mouth when he speaks, “This is weird. Don’t you think it’s weird? To meet someone and they feel like home instantly?” He watches me, speaking after a minute, "You aren’t how I imagined you would be.”
I grin teasingly, "I don’t know why you would have been imagining me.”
He looks shocked, “I mean, when I met you at the party, tonight. I imagined you were different than this—fleece pajamas and swollen lips.”
I shrug, “I’m not what everyone in this town thinks. The only people who see me are my friends, and Sam.”
He watches me, waiting for something. "The big dumb jock?"
I smile, "Yup and nope. He isn’t dumb. He had a very high GPA. He goes to Harvard."
He looks down and sighs, "Look at you gushing. All you small-town girls go for that big jock type, don’t you?”
I look at his hand, gripping the sill of the window and nod. "I guess we do." It's weird he says that, ‘cause he's big himself, just more lean.
He looks up like he’s trying to attack me with his grey eyes. I frown, "Why are you here, for real?"
He shakes his head, "I don’t know." He says it like he truly doesn’t know. He stands up as if coming out of a daze, "See you tomorrow, Erralynn." He climbs off the roof and jumps onto the grass.
I watch him until I can't see him, and even then, I don’t want to leave the windowsill, terrified I might miss a glimpse of him. I forget about Rosie and just watch the road where he walked away.
I feel like I've been wafted over by fairy dust, like it's all fake. I can’t be this lucky, not now. Not after so many years of unlucky. First Sam and now Bastion . . . it’s weird like he says, but I do feel like he’s home in some ways.
The next day as I get ready for work and school, I forget about the many things that usually plague me. I pull out my cutest brown mini skirt, knee-high, dark-brown riding boots, a pale-yellow, three-quarter sleeve shirt, and a teal scarf. Clothes I bought with the singing tips I hide from Mary.
I step back and look at myself. More dressed up than normal, and less small town, hopefully. I look hipster and cute. My red hair is smoothed but still wavy. My blue eyes are bluer against the scarf and my skin looks peaches-and-cream pink, instead of pale. My few freckles that are spattered across my nose don’t look so obvious. They’re always faded in the spring. My summer glow is long gone by winter and I stay pale until summer. I look like her, and I know that is what Mary hates the most about me. I vaguely recall my mother, but I know I am identical to her.
I look at the chair against the door and gulp. My makeup is heavier to cover the bruises from the night before. I just hope the one on my cheek isn’t too noticeable.
I try to feel brave, but I’m anxious. I want so badly to see him; I have a feeling I would let her do anything to me, just to get to school and see him. Not like the other days when I’ve hid in my room and wished I'd died that night too.
I look at my calendar and nod. Four months, ten days, and twenty-three hours. It isn’t so long. I've lived through years. I can do months. Especially with Bastion in town and Sam home from school. They are both excellent distractions. I glance back at the window where he had sat and take a deep breath as I pull the chair away. I turn the knob and brace for it. She isn’t there. My nerves are on edge.
I peek ahead out into the dark hall. I don’t smell her smoke. I tremble as I turn the lock on my door before I close it and take my first steps down the hall.
I wait for it.
The suspense is enough to kill me. I gulp as I reach the stairs. Sometimes she likes to surprise me, keep me on my toes. I look behind me. She isn’t there. I slip down the stairs and bolt for the door.
My fingers grip the lock.
I almost scream as I rip the door open and fly down the front stairs to the path.
"Have a good day at work, honey,” she speaks sweetly. I look over at her watering the weeds in her nightgown. I freeze and wait for a knife to be thrown or for her to turn the hose on me, or instead of water, she douses me in gas and lights a match.
She smiles and waters and I don’t know what to do.
"Bye, Mary," I speak softly. I turn and sprint up the road. My feet ache. My boots aren’t really running shoes, but I am terrified. I get a block before I can comprehend that she was pretending to be nice to add a little twist for the morning. I nod and add that to the list of things that she is capable of. I assumed she was too old for guile, but I guess not.
It scares me more.
She has shown me who the boss is and who is in control, and it will never be me.
"You look like you've seen a ghost."
I smile, looking up. His voice makes me smile.
Bastion is dressed in a light-blue, long-sleeve polo and a thick, navy down vest. I can't help but enjoy the cut of his dark-navy jeans. He’s yummy, and for no reason at all, we’re grinning at each other like fools.
"How do you know where I live?" I ask. "I forgot to ask last night."
He leans against the fence he’s in front of, "You have no secrets in a town this size, Erralynn." He bites his lip and I imagine it between my teeth. It’s an odd image for someone who has never been kissed, but I read a lot. Black Dagger Brotherhood is my favorite by far. There is a decent amount of biting in those books.
I realize what he has said and clench my jaw as I walk up to him. He wipes the peeling white flakes of paint from his hand and holds it out, making me frown.
He pulls his hand back when I don’t take it. He frowns back, "We just never really got properly introduced."
"I'm cool with it. You know, since you saw me in fleece and all."
He chuckles. "So what's the news on you and jock?"
I shake my head, "No news yet, I haven’t seen him since last night."
"He didn’t message you?"
I shake my head—I don’t want to tell him I have no cell phone. It always makes the people of my generation uncomfor
table. Like I am some kind of freak.
"I have a pretty bad feeling about his intentions."
I flash him a grin, "Me too." Excitement is everywhere. I pretend it’s all for Sam but it’s not.
He watches me like he’s searching for something in my face. "Have you ever met someone and wondered everything about them all at once?"
I laugh and am about to lie but I don’t. I nod and look down. I can't be forward and look at him.
He turns me around to face him, "You are bewitching me. I am starting to think the rumors are true about you."
I freeze in my steps and literally wait for the sound of my heart smashing on the cold cement. That had been the thing I liked the most about him. Until the moment we are frozen in, he had seen me and only me. No rumors or stupid curses.
I like being the girl with the guitar, the voice, and the red hair. I hate being the Lake girl who is from the Lake family and suffers from the Lake curse.
He cocks his head, "I was joking." His eyes seem like they are searching my face for something.
I shake my head and pull free of him, taking a step back and looking down at the broken sidewalk. "It's cool."
"I'm beginning to see that it was a bad joke. I was honestly kidding."
I shrug and try to laugh it off but my eyes are close to welling. I hate that he sees me the way they all do.
He grabs my hands and holds them. "I don’t know what happens in small towns, but I know the minute I watched you enter that house, I have thought of nothing but you. I don’t think it’s magic or curses. I don’t believe in them." He lifts a hand and tilts my face, "It was a bad joke. Brandon told me about the Lake curse. He was making jokes up about it. I didn’t know it was something you have actually suffered from. You seemed popular at the party. I assumed no one but the elderly believed it."
My eyes dart, avoiding his. The pity on his face stings in my heart. I pull my hands away and walk past him, "It's no big deal." My voice is soft.
"Please, don’t do whatever you're doing."
I shake my head and smile at him, "I'm not doing anything. Really, it's fine."
He frowns, "Your smile hasn’t reached your eyes, and I can almost feel you pushing me away."
His warmth against me gives me chills but everything feels different. He knows the truth. I should have assumed he would.
Four months and no one will know about it.
"So can we just talk about the whole curse thing for like a minute longer?"
I laugh bitterly and wrap my arms around myself. I have to hold myself together.
"I don’t get it."
I look straight ahead and try to let it all be nothing. I speak with a hollow voice and avoid his eyes completely. "What did Brandon tell you?" I ask flatly.
"That your great-grandmother angered her husband and he killed himself and offered his soul up to the devil so he could haunt your family. Every woman in your family who marries or loves a man is cursed and the men all die from some sort of accident."
I nod, "That’s about it. She was my great-great-great-grandmother though. She settled here with my great-great-great-grandfather. They were the Lachlan family then. They were given the hundreds of acres surrounding the lake and named it after the family, Lakeland. They built the mansion—he had self-esteem issues, clearly. The house is ostentatious now, so back then, when people were building cabins to live in, it was a castle. It made him like royalty around here. The story goes something like that."
He whistles, "Sounds spooky." I can hear him mocking me. "So that’s it? Every man who loved your grandma would die?"
I nod, “Sort of.”
"That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard."
I snort, "Okay. Well, the story has more details than that. When they settled here, my grandpa went away to do business. When he came home, my grandma was pregnant. He'd been gone too long for it to be his baby, or so he thought. He couldn’t bring himself to murder her or abandon her. Instead, he went to the South and found a woman who did hoodoo—a slave from Africa.”
“Surely you mean voodoo?”
I shake my head, “The story I was told was hoodoo. It’s an ancient evil kind of magic. Anyway, he bought her and brought her back to the farm. Grandma had had the baby. He couldn't prove it wasn’t his kid and Grandma swore it was his baby, so he had to raise it. But he knew it was his best friend's—the man who had stayed on the farm with her while he was away. Grandpa forced the slave to perform a ritual and curse my grandmother's loins, but she was pregnant again already with his child, and no one knew. The curse was so that any man who loved her or slept with her would die tragically. It was his way of guaranteeing that she would be his. She didn’t know he did it. The best friend was dead within the year, dropped dead in the field. Heart attack we think."
"Okay, I'll admit it sounds interesting. But coincidence, I would say. No other man died? How can you all be cursed?"
I nod, "Grandpa was dead two years later. My grandmother gave birth to the third child, just after my grandfather died. The slave had made the curse so powerful that when my grandmother’s second child, a daughter, got older and she fell in love, her husband was dead within the year. My grandmother and the slave lived out their years on the farm until the next generation took over. Every one of them lost the person they loved. With most of them it was after they gave birth to several children, but some were young, and sometimes the person they loved most in the world died after just one kiss."
He chuckles, "Okay, adding that to it makes it heavy. Has it happened to recent generations?"
I shrug, "I don’t know, I guess. My grandfather had a massive heart attack just after he lost the mansion, leaving Mary alone with her kids. Her son—my father, died in a car accident and my mother killed herself out of desperation."
He nudges me again, "Well, small towns are sad little places where people need to find something to gossip about. They'll find something else."
I glance at him and fight the smirk eating away at my face, "It's been hundreds of years and they haven’t, so I'm going to say no. No, they won't. My sad little family will always be the gossip of this crap hole. But it dies with me. I am the last of the Lakes and Lachlans of Lakeland, and I will never have a child."
His eyes twinkle and then he laughs and nods exaggeratedly, "I guess so, huh? I am sorry." He steps in front of me again and grabs my arms, "I swear from this moment on, I won't bring it up or talk about it. Your family just seems interesting, that’s all."
I look into his eyes and watch for his smile to reach them. Apparently, he is serious. I nod, "Okay."
He stares back at me with such intensity, I have to look away. He shakes his head like he’s coming out of a daydream. "Weird. I just find myself getting so lost when I'm with you," he mutters. He sounds shocked. I don’t get him.
I bite my lip and push past him again, "I can’t talk, I have to go to school. I work in the library and am taking summer math and English classes at the community college.”
He nods, “I know, Brandon told me you were. That’s why I'm here. I'm working there too this summer. I’ll be the math tutor at the college. The professor wants to meet with me. My uncle called her yesterday, and she pulled some strings to get me in right away.”
I sigh, “So you’re going there now?”
He nods.
“Fine, but I need to hurry. I don’t like being late. The prof is kinda bitchy and we lose all of our attendance points for the day if we’re late.”
He grabs my hand and makes my skin light on fire where he touches. He walks toward the school, almost dragging me.
He looks back and grins, "You don’t think it's weird we feel so close, so suddenly?"
I pull my hand away, leery of him. "I think it’s weird."
He reaches over and pulls my backpack off my shoulder, "Let me carry this for you."
I let him. It’s heavy and I like being with him, even if I’m sure I should be terrified of him.
Heads turn, li
ke they’re witnessing a car accident, as we cross the grounds to the school. Everyone knows who I am, from the eighth graders on the high school side of the building, to the teachers. But he’s oblivious to it all.
My hand rubs against the back of his, we are so close. I want him to touch me and hold me, and maybe even kiss me. I think he might be strong enough to live through kissing me and loving me.
Then again, maybe not kiss me, just in case.
I think I like him too much.
Chapter Three
"What is up with you and Brandon's cousin?" Sarah asks, watching him from across the class. He speaks to the professor, nodding his head and looking over some of the work.
I feel my face heating up, "Nothing."
She giggles, "So I can ask him out?"
My gaze lifts. She points and smiles, "Ha, I knew it."
I sigh, "He's just hot and amazing and sweet." I lean in and whisper, "He came to my window last night and we talked. It was weird."
She looks bothered, "Ewww, stalker much?"
I shove her and watch him again, "No, sweet. He's caring and kind. I think I kinda like him. It actually wasn’t weird at all." I look back at the face she’s making and roll my eyes, "You suck."
She laughs, "What? You know you're thinking it too. You can't help but wonder if he’ll be the one to pop that cherry."
I groan and shake my head, "No, I'm not. I have four months and I am free. I am not thinking about some boy messing with that." I know my stare is betraying every word I speak. I can't help but notice everything. The way he walks down the aisle of the class and slumps into a seat near mine, off to the side. The way his gaze slides smoothly in my direction, making my heart beat rapidly. The way he wets his lips and then they turn up into a slight grin and make my heart stop completely. I want every moment and detail on instant replay. I’m hot and bothered and uncomfortable for the first time in my life, and not by one of the members of The Black Dagger Brotherhood. Instead, it is because of a smart, sweet, and caring guy.
"Yeah. You really look like you aren’t interested."
I swat at her weakly, "I may look it but I swear, I am not."
