A Stone in the Sea

by A. L. Jackson

  Apparently I didn’t have the heart for them, either.

  My head tipped to the side, telling, reminding, pleading. I told you.

  Yet he was the one who’d pursued it, the one who couldn’t let it go.

  Now I’d be the one who paid for it.

  “Hey.” The word was forced, his attention darting away before he chanced looking back at me. Something regretful flashed in his stormy eyes. “I…uh…” He rubbed his hand over his face, his smile tight when he took two steps back. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

  Wow.

  Okay.

  I didn’t honor him with an answer.

  He probably wouldn’t have waited around for one anyway. He ran across the street to a black car parked at the curb that looked just as mean as the bike he’d taken me out on two nights ago.

  Dangerous.

  I should have heeded all those warning bells that had gone off in every single one of my senses the second I’d seen him.

  But I couldn’t look away then. And I couldn’t look away now. I stood staring while he jerked open the driver’s side door. He peered back at me for one fleeting moment before he slipped inside and slammed the door shut, closing himself off behind blackened glass and metal.

  Emotion burned at my eyes.

  “Mommy?”

  My tiny girl looked up at me. My world. The reason I lived.

  My butterfly.

  Swallowing down the glimmers of pain, I smiled at her, squeezing her hand in mine. “Let’s go, sweetheart.”

  Kallie swung her legs from where she sat at the edge of the kitchen counter. A big mixing bowl was at her side, and I stood guard over her while she dumped a measuring cup filled with sugar into the bowl. With wide, brown eyes, she watched as the grains sifted down into the growing mixture of dough.

  She giggled when it emptied, little shoulders coming up to touch her chubby cheeks as she shook all over. “There we go, Momma! I did it!”

  I kissed her button nose, lightly poked her in the belly. “You did it.”

  She had to be the cutest thing that had ever graced God’s Earth, my sweet girl who sat right in the same spot where my most cherished childhood memories had taken place, the same spot where I’d stood next to my grandmother on the tall step chair, working at her side.

  I knew at only four, there was little chance she’d remember these moments, but I hoped they were the foundation of memories, the basis of something beautiful that would forever fill her heart with love and joy.

  That’s what I wanted for her. For this amazing child to grow up every single day knowing I loved her with every piece of me, that I wanted nothing from her other than to see her become a loving, kind, strong woman. That she chase her dreams, whatever they were. That she learn to respect and demand it in return.

  To learn all the things my parents never instilled in me.

  My grandmother had left me this place with a letter telling me to find love and to bring it here.

  Kallie grinned up at me, a row of tiny, perfect white teeth exposed. With her whole hand, she pushed back the heavy locks of tight curls that had fallen in her face, smearing chunks of dough into her hair.

  And there she was.

  The love of my life.

  So much hair that sometimes I worried she might topple over. So much spunk that she had me laughing every day. So much belief that she made me view the world in a different light.

  So much love that she somehow sustained me, and I turned around and poured it right back into her.

  But today?

  Today had reminded me that my grandmother had meant more of that request. She’d wanted me to find someone to cherish me as much as my grandfather had cherished her.

  The crazy thing was, I’d never felt anything was missing from my life.

  Not until the day I met Sebastian Stone.

  “Okay, we’d better get this mixed up so we can get these cookies in the oven before Auntie April gets home from class. You know she’s gonna want one.”

  “Yay, Auntie April!”

  April wasn’t really her aunt, but she was my best friend. She had been for years, since she’d stood across the street from my grandmother’s house when I was seven years old, looking scared and unsure of her new home that her parents had dragged her to from across the country.

  My grandma had nudged me in the back. Go on, girl. I know you want to talk to her and I can see by the scared look on her face that she needs you to talk to her.

  Fleeing back here when I found out I was pregnant with Kallie, April had moved in and she’d never left. Instead of paying rent, she watched my daughter for me while I worked nights—considering she was the only one I trusted with Kallie—while she finished her master’s. It worked perfectly and I thanked God for her every single day.

  Kallie picked up the big wooden spoon, and I wrapped my hands around hers, dropping a kiss to her forehead when she peeked up at me, the two of us blending the thick mixture together. We balled them up, set them on the sheet, and I put them in the oven.

  “There, all done,” I said when I shut the oven door and dialed the timer.

  Kallie threw her arms out and wiggled on the counter. “All done!”

  “Be careful, Butterfly,” I said as I swooped her up into my arms, holding her over the sink while I washed off her hands.

  I set her on her feet, and she took off, bouncing around the huge country kitchen.

  A soft, satisfied sigh left me as I looked around my favorite room in the house. The appliances had been updated. The chunky granite that was white with silver flecks that made up the countertops was something to die for, accentuating the whitewashed cupboards perfectly. Still, it remained a cohesive mesh of new and old after the restoration. I’d insisted it keep in line with the sanctity of this old home, making it as beautiful today as the day it’d been built.

  The side door rattled and April pushed it open.

  “Auntie April!” Kallie squeaked, flapping her arms out to her sides. “Look, Imma butterfly.”

  I covered my mouth, trying not to laugh out loud at the cuteness that continued to come out of my daughter’s mouth. April shot me a knowing grin, fighting her own amusement as she pulled Kallie up for a hug. “Yes. There’s my Butterfly,” April said, giving her a squeeze and nuzzling her nose into Kallie’s cheek. “I missed you today.”

  Butterfly had been Kallie’s first word. Charlie had immediately begun calling her that, and it’d stuck. Of course there was no way she was going to shuck the nickname considering that’s what she normally demanded people call her.

  April set Kallie back on her feet, and dropped her backpack to the floor near the door. She smiled at me. “Smells delicious in here.”

  April was short and muscular. Strong. And the girl could run faster than anyone on our high school track team. She’d played softball throughout school, and now was studying to be a physical trainer, hoping to get picked up by one of the local teams.

  “We get cookies!” Kallie peeped, running circles around us as she continued to dip and soar, her imagination far and fast ahead of her. She suddenly stopped and shoved five fingers toward April’s face. “I’m gonna be five…I’m gonna be five!”

  Kallie was all knobby knees, chubby belly, and even chubbier cheeks. Even though she only stood to April’s knees, she still stole all of her attention. “Oh, you’re getting ahead of yourself there, Butterfly. You have to wait a little while until next spring to be five.”

  “But that’s so, so close,” Kallie said.

  The buzzer dinged, sending Kallie into a flurry of commotion, arms flapping as she hopped around chanting, “Cookies…cookies…cookies.”

  “I’ll grab the ice cream,” April offered, digging into the freezer and pulling out the vanilla, while I removed the cookies from the oven. April set out bowls, scooped in ice cream while I placed the hot, oozing chocolate chip cookies on top. And we ate together, grinning, joking around the entire time, while I tried to convince myself that wh
at happened this morning with Sebastian hadn’t cut me deep. All the way down in a secret place I didn’t even know existed.

  I pulled the covers up to Kallie’s chin. She wiggled and snuggled into the comfort of her bed. I lightly brushed my nose over hers, and she reached out from the covers and grabbed my head, whispering her eyelashes against mine. “Blutterfly kisses.”

  “They’re my favorite kind,” I told her, my heart pressing full.

  “Me too!”

  I played with one of her ringlets, tugging it straight and letting it bounce back, praying that when I looked at her tonight my smile wasn’t sad. Because never had one day passed when I’d regretted my daughter. Nothing would change that. But there was some kind of unknown sadness that had wound itself into my heart.

  I set a kiss on her forehead. “Goodnight, my butterfly.”

  Warm brown eyes smiled up at me. “G’night, my mommy.”

  Slowly, I stood and crossed her room, paused at the door, and flipped her light switch. It cast shadows around her room. A slice of light from the hallway slanted in to light up her precious cherub face. Her little grin faded, and she scrunched up her nose. “Is dark,” she whispered, like it was a secret she could only share with me.

  My voice softened and I craned my head, never speaking truer words. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you, Kallie. Not ever. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” I cast her an encouraging smile. “I’ll leave the door open some and Mommy will be right across the hall if you need me, okay?”

  Clutching the top of her covers, she nodded emphatically. Trusting me.

  And I would. Nothing would hurt her. Not if I had any say about it. I would run. Hide. Fight. Give up my life if that’s what it took to keep her safe. I just prayed bringing her here would be enough.

  “Goodnight, Kallie-Bug,” I murmured again, leaving her door open a crack. Standing outside, I pressed my palm to the wall and blew out a weighted breath, fighting off the nagging sadness that had followed me around all day. I stepped back into the large, open area at the top of the stairs that looked out over the living area below. Downstairs, April was on the couch, her laptop braced on her knees as she typed away.

  Even though it was still early, I retreated to my room that was across the landing. I climbed onto my huge, plush bed that I’d never shared with a man, hugged my pillow, and pretended as if the psychological thriller I pulled from my nightstand and squinted at through the muted light from the small lamp could hold my wandering attention.

  Ten minutes later, there was a light tapping on the outside of my door. April pushed it partly open and peeked inside. I smiled across at her, a smile that my best friend could see right through.

  She pushed it open the rest of the way and propped her shoulder on the doorjamb, head cocked as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Care to tell me what’s been going on with you all day?”

  I tossed my book aside. “I don’t know,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes as I sat up against the headboard.

  “You don’t know or you don’t want to tell me?”

  “I’m not sure there’s really a whole lot to tell you. It’s just…” I looked toward the ceiling as if it held an answer before I turned back to her with a shrug. “Men are all the same, exactly the way I expected them to be.”

  “I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess this has something to do with the guy you snuck off with the other night? You know, the one you promised to fill me in on and then dodged my questions like they were the plague?”

  Her brows lifted so high that they disappeared under her blunted dark brown bangs.

  I groaned, a sound that was meant to sound bored and uninterested, but it only reflected my pain. April took that as her cue and came to sit at the foot of my bed, her legs criss-crossed.

  All in.

  The way she always was.

  “His name’s Sebastian, but everyone calls him Baz.”

  A dubious frown cut a path across her forehead. “Baz? You went out with a guy named Baz? That was your first mistake,” she teased, leering at me. “Just the name Baz has player written all over it.”

  I threw a pillow at her. “Shut up.”

  Catching it, she laughed and hugged it to her chest. “But seriously…you never go out and then you text me in the middle of the night that you’re going out with someone I don’t even know…which means you don’t really even know him. I was worried about you.”

  I shook my head. “I know. It was stupid. Careless.” Still, I knew if I had the choice to go back and erase that night, I wouldn’t. I’d willingly do it all over again. “He’s been coming into the bar for the last couple of weeks. He’s just…”

  How did I explain it? The way he made me feel? The desire that seemed impossible to escape. He was both the sun and the darkest night. A promise of heaven and the curse of hell.

  Funny how we always want what we shouldn’t have.

  “The first time he came in, I noticed him, and by the second time he came in, I didn’t want him to leave.”

  “So he’s good-looking?”

  I rolled my eyes at her.

  Good-looking.

  “He’s…he’s…” I struggled for a description sufficient for Sebastian Stone. I looked at her seriously. “He’s breathtaking. And I don’t mean that in a cliché way. I mean that when I look at him?” I gathered the fingers of my right hand into a tight point, jabbed at the spot at the center of my chest that had been aching for him for the last two weeks, although today it was aching in an entirely different way. “I feel it right here, April. And it hurts and feels amazing all at the same time.”

  “Oh God, Shea, you really like this guy?”

  “Too much.” I slanted her a somber smile. “But it doesn’t matter anyway.” I plucked at a loose thread on my comforter, hoping if I focused on it hard enough it would keep the tears at bay. “I ran into him downtown this afternoon. I had Kallie with me. He took off faster than a dog that’d caught its tail on fire.”

  “Jerk,” she said as if it was going to make me feel any better. My smile just weakened, but hers was just as weak, filled with sympathy and compassion.

  I chewed at my bottom lip. Fighting. Fighting the emotion. I sniffled, wiped at a single tear that broke free. “It’s fine. I already knew. I already knew, April.” My voice turned pleading, somewhere inside berating myself for being so foolish. “I shouldn’t have let myself get caught up in the moment.”

  I shouldn’t have let those glimmers of a simple girl’s dreams invade my mind. Because they’d taken root—each second growing stronger. The impossible idea that someone could love me.

  That someone could love us.

  I should have known it was inevitable I’d end up alone.

  April crawled up beside me and pulled me into her arms. “He doesn’t deserve you, Shea. Doesn’t deserve either of you. Don’t let assholes like him bring you down. One of these days, the right guy is going to show up and sweep you right off those pretty feet.”

  I forced myself to smile at my best friend. She was only trying to help—voicing out loud what I knew was her own secret hope for my daughter and me.

  It wasn’t her fault I had already been swept.

  I knew it though, when Baz stood staring at me in shock, a look of terror crossing his perfect features. Hardening them more. Those grey eyes dimming the darkest dark.

  I’d already started the fall.

  And he wasn’t going to be there to catch me.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN HERE?” Lyrik stood on the third step from the bottom, squinting at me. I sat in the virtual dark down in the secluded basement. It was a lounging area outside the recording studio, basically a man cave with couches, TVs, and a pool table. I guess a place to unwind or get sloshed after a gruesome recording session, but I’d been using it as some kind of asylum.

  I shrugged at him as I resituated the guitar on my lap. “Nothin’.”

  He scowled. “Nothin’? What the fuck is up with you, man? Your
pissy ass has been even pissier the last few days, and that shit should be damned near impossible.”

  I grunted. “Love you, too, asshole.”

  Deep laughter rolled from him, and he drove a hand through the disarray of black hair on top of his head. He sauntered my direction and plopped down on the couch opposite me, a gush of air rushing from his lungs. “Seriously. What’s going on with you? You’ve got the rest of the guys worried. You’ve basically been down here by yourself for the last three days.” A sharp brow lifted in warning. “Zee is about to stage an intervention.”

  I grabbed the half-empty beer from the coffee table cluttered with papers, empties, and overflowing ashtrays, and gulped down the bitter liquid that had turned warm and tasted like piss. “Just been in the mood to write.”

  “Huh.” Eyes narrowed in speculation, Lyrik scratched his temple with the tip of his index finger. “All right then, let’s see what you have.”

  He reached across the coffee table and snatched up the open notebook with my handwriting scratched all over it, deep lines cutting into all the shit I kept crossing out. The nearby pencil was dulled and blunted with the indecipherable chaos that had bled out on the pages.

  That was the problem. I’d been sitting down here for days, searching for the right note. For the right words. For the right feeling.

  But all of it remained convoluted. Just contradictions and misapprehensions.

  All of it was her.

  Dark. Light. Heavy. Soft.

  Trouble.

  Trouble.

  Trouble.

  Sitting down here, I’d been fighting through the myriad of conflicting emotions that continued to tear at me, assaulting my insides, squeezing my chest like the girl had some kind of physical control over me.

  And God, she wouldn’t let me breathe.

  Worst part was, I had no clue why I was letting this torture me. Why I was allowing it to eat me alive. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t purge that gorgeous face from my mind.

  It just kept growing clearer, sinking deeper, coming nearer. Like that sweet, soft spirit was looking for a fracture. A weak spot in my hardened heart where it could slip inside. Where it could cloud and distort and pervert.