The Elements Series Complete Box Set

by Brittainy Cherry

  He took a moment, appearing to consider saying something, but then he chose silence.

  “You don’t express your feelings very often, do you?” I asked.

  “And you express yours too often,” he replied.

  “Did you write one at all?”

  “A eulogy? No. Did you post one outside? Was it yours I read?”

  I laughed. “No, but I did write one during the service.” I went digging into my purse and pulled out my small piece of paper. “It’s not as beautiful as yours was—yours being a stretch of a word—but it’s words.”

  He held his hand out toward me, and I placed the paper in his hold, our fingers lightly brushing against one another.

  Fangirl freak-out in three, two…

  “Air above me, earth below me, fire within me, water surround me…” He read my words out loud and then whistled low. “Oh,” he said, nodding slowly. “You’re a hippie weirdo.”

  “Yes, I’m a hippie weirdo.” The corner of his mouth twitched, as if he was forcing himself not to smile. “My mother used to say it to my sisters and me all the time.”

  “So your mom’s a weirdo hippie too.”

  A slight pain hit my heart, but I kept smiling. I found a spot on the ground and sat once again. “Yeah, she was.”

  “Was,” he murmured, his brows knitting together. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Someone once told me people die, that it’s a pretty common aspect of life.”

  “Yes, but…” he started, but his words faded away. Our eyes locked and for a moment, the coldness they held was gone, and the look he gave me was filled with sorrow and pain. It was a look he’d spent his whole day hiding from the world, a look he’d probably spent his whole life hiding from himself.

  “I did write a eulogy,” he whispered, sitting down on the ground beside me. He bent his knees and his hands pushed up the sleeves of his shirt.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to share it?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  “Yes,” he muttered softly.

  “Okay.”

  “It’s not much at all…” he warned, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a small folded piece of paper.

  I nudged him in the leg. “Graham, you’re sitting outside of an arena trapped with a hippie weirdo you’ll probably never see again. You shouldn’t be nervous about sharing it.”

  “Okay.” He cleared his throat, his nerves more intense than they should’ve been. “I hated my father, and a few nights ago, he passed away. He was my biggest demon, my greatest monster, and my living nightmare. Still, with him gone, everything around me has somehow slowed, and I miss the memories that never existed.”

  Wow.

  His words were few, yet they weighed so much. “That’s it?” I asked, goose bumps forming on my arms.

  He nodded. “That’s it.”

  “Graham Cracker?” I said softly, turning my body toward him, moving a few inches closer.

  “Yes, Lucille?” he replied, turning more toward me.

  “Every word you’ve ever written becomes my new favorite story.”

  As his lips parted to speak again, the door swung open, breaking us from our stare. I turned to see a security guard holler behind him.

  “Found him! This door locks once closed. I’m guessing he got stuck.”

  “Oh my God, it’s about freaking time!” a woman’s voice said. The moment she stepped outside to meet us, my eyes narrowed with confusion.

  “Jane.”

  “Lyric?”

  Graham and I spoke in unison, staring at my older sister, who I hadn’t seen in years—my older sister who was pregnant and wide-eyed as she stared my way.

  “Who’s Jane?” I asked.

  “Who’s Lyric?” Graham countered.

  Her eyes filled with emotion and she placed her hands over her chest. “What the hell are you doing here, Lucy?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  “I brought flowers for the service,” I told her.

  “You ordered from Monet’s Gardens?” Lyric asked Graham.

  I was somewhat surprised she knew the name of my shop.

  “I ordered from several shops. What does it matter? Wait, how do you two know each other?” Graham asked, still confused.

  “Well,” I said, my body shaking as I stared at Lyric’s stomach, and then into her eyes, which matched Mama’s. Her eyes filled with tears as if she’d been caught in the biggest lie, and my lips parted to speak the biggest truth. “She’s my sister.”

  3

  Graham

  “Your sister?” I asked, repeating Lucy’s words as I stared blankly at my wife, who wasn’t speaking up at all. “Since when do you have a sister?”

  “And since when are you married and pregnant?” Lucy questioned.

  “It’s a long story,” she said softly, placing her hand against her stomach and cringing a bit.

  “Graham, it’s time to go. My ankles are swollen and I’m exhausted.”

  Jane’s eyes—Lyric’s eyes—darted to Lucy, whose eyes were still wide with confusion. Their eyes matched in color, but that was the only resemblance they shared. One pair of chocolate eyes was ice cold as always, while the other was soft and filled with warmth.

  I couldn’t take my stare off Lucy as I searched my mind, trying to understand how someone like her could’ve been related to someone like my wife.

  If Jane had an opposite, it would be Lucy.

  “Graham,” Jane barked, breaking my stare from the woman with warm eyes. I turned her way and arched an eyebrow. She crossed her arms over her stomach and huffed loudly. “It has been a long day, and it’s time to go.”

  She turned away and started to walk off when Lucy spoke, staring at her sister.

  “You kept the biggest parts of you secret from your family. Do you really hate us that much?” Lucy asked, her voice shaking.

  Jane’s body froze for a moment and she stood up straight, yet didn’t turn around. “You are not my family.”

  With that, she left.

  I stood there for a few seconds, uncertain if my feet would allow me to move. As for Lucy, I witnessed her heart break right in front of me. Completely and unapologetically, she began to fall apart. A wave of emotion filled those gentle eyes, and she didn’t even try to keep the tears from falling down her cheeks. She allowed her feelings to overtake her fully, not resisting the tears and body shakes. I could almost see it—how she placed the entire world on her shoulders, and how the world was slowly weighing her down. Her body physically bent, making her appear much smaller than she was as the hurt coursed through her. I’d never seen someone feel so freely when it came to emotions, not since…

  Stop.

  My mind was traveling back to my past, to memories I buried deep within me. I broke my stare away from her, rolled down my sleeves, and tried to block out the noise of the pain she was feeling.

  As I moved toward the door—which the security guard was still holding open—I glanced back at the woman who was falling apart and cleared my throat.

  “Lucille,” I called, straightening my tie. “A bit of advice.”

  “Yes?” She wrapped her arms around her body and when she looked at me, her smile was gone, replaced by a heavy frown.

  “Feel less.” I breathed out. “Don’t allow others to drive your emotions in such a way. Shut it off.”

  “Shut off my feelings?”

  I nodded.

  “I can’t,” she argued, still crying. Her hands fell over her heart, and she shook her head back and forth. “This is who I am. I am the girl who feels everything.”

  I could tell that was true.

  She was the girl who felt everything, and I was the man who felt nothing at all.

  “Then the world will do its best to make you nothing,” I told her. “The more feelings you give, the more they’ll take from you. Trust me. Pull yourself together.”

  “But…she’s my sist
er, and—”

  “She’s not your sister.”

  “What?”

  I brushed my hand against the back of my neck before placing my hands into my pockets. “She just said you’re not her family, which means she doesn’t give a damn about you.”

  “No.” She shook her head, holding the heart-shaped necklace in her hand. “You don’t understand. My relationship with my sister is—”

  “Nonexistent. If you loved someone, wouldn’t you speak their name? I’ve never once heard of you.”

  She remained silent, but her emotions slowed down a tad as she wiped away her tears. She shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and began to softly speak to herself. “Air above me, earth below me, fire within me, water surround me, spirit becomes me.”

  She kept repeating the words, and I narrowed my eyes, confused about who Lucy truly was as a person. She was all over the place: flighty, random, passionate, and emotionally overcharged. It was as if she was fully aware of her faults, and she allowed them to exist regardless. Somehow those faults made her whole.

  “Doesn’t it tire you?” I asked. “To feel so much?”

  “Doesn’t it tire you to not feel at all?”

  In that moment, I realized I’d come face to face with my polar opposite, and I didn’t have a clue what else to say to a stranger as strange as her.

  “Goodbye, Lucille,” I said.

  “Goodbye, Graham Cracker,” she replied.

  “I didn’t lie,” Jane swore as we drove back to our home. I hadn’t called her a liar, hadn’t asked her any questions whatsoever about Lucy or the fact that I hadn’t known she existed up until that evening. I hadn’t even shown Jane any kind of anger regarding the issue, and still, she kept telling me how she hadn’t lied.

  Jane.

  Lyric?

  I didn’t have a clue who the woman sitting beside me was, but in reality, had I really known who she was before the sister revelation that evening?

  “Your name is Jane,” I said, my hands gripped the steering wheel. She nodded. “And your name is Lyric?”

  “Yes…” She shook her head. “No, well, it was, but I changed it years ago, before I even met you. When I started applying to colleges, I knew no place would take me seriously with a name like Lyric. What kind of law firm would hire someone named Lyric Daisy Palmer?”

  “Daisy,” I huffed out. “You’ve never told me your middle name before.”

  “You never asked.”

  “Oh.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not mad?”

  “No.”

  “Wow.” She took a deep breath. “Okay then. If it were the other way around, I would be so—”

  “It’s not the other way around,” I cut in, not feeling like speaking after the longest day of my life.

  She shifted around in her seat, but remained quiet.

  The rest of the way home, we sat in silence, my head swirling with questions, a big part of me not wanting to know the answers. Jane had a past she didn’t speak about, and I had a past of the same kind. There were parts of all lives that were better left in the shadows, and I figured Jane’s family was a prime example. There was no reason to go over the details. Yesterday she hadn’t had a sister, and today she did.

  Though I doubted Lucy would be coming over for Thanksgiving any time soon.

  I headed straight into our bedroom and started unbuttoning my shirt. It only took her a couple seconds to follow me into the room with a look of nerves plastered on her face, but she didn’t speak a word. We both started undressing, and she moved over to me, quiet, and turned her back to me, silently asking for me to unzip her black gown.

  I did as she requested, and she slid the dress off her body before tossing on one of my T-shirts, which she always used as her nightgowns. Her growing stomach stretched them out, but I didn’t mind.

  Minutes later, we stood in the bathroom, both brushing our teeth, no words exchanged. We brushed, we spat, we rinsed. It was our normal routine; silence was always our friend, and that night hadn’t changed anything.

  When we climbed into bed, we both shut off the lamps sitting on our nightstands, and we didn’t mutter a word, not even to say good night.

  As my eyes closed, I tried my best to shut my brain off, but something from that day split my memories open. So, instead of asking Jane about her past, I crawled out of bed and went to my office to lose myself in my novel. I still needed about ninety-five thousand words, so I decided to fall into fiction in order to forget about reality for a while. When my fingers were working, my brain wasn’t focused on anything but the words. Words freed me from the confusion my wife had dumped in my lap. Words freed me from remembering my father. Words freed me from falling too deep into my mind where I stored all the pain from my past.

  Without writing, my world would be filled with loss.

  Without words, I’d be shattered.

  “Come to bed, Graham,” Jane said, standing in my doorway. It was the second time in one day that she’d interrupted me while I was writing. I hoped it wasn’t becoming a common thing.

  “I have to finish up my chapter.”

  “You’ll be up for hours, just like the last few days.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I have two,” she said, crossing her arms. “I have two sisters.”

  I grimaced and went back to typing. “Let’s not do this, Jane.”

  “Did you kiss her?”

  My fingers froze, and my brows lowered as I turned to face her. “What?”

  She ran her fingers through her hair, and tears were streaming down her face. She was crying—again. Too many tears from my wife in one day. “I said, did you kiss her?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My question is pretty simple. Just answer it.”

  “We’re not doing this.”

  “You did, didn’t you?” she cried, any kind of rational mindset she’d previously had now long gone. Somewhere between us shutting off our lights and me heading to my office, my wife had turned into an emotional wreck, and now her mind was making up stories crafted completely of fiction. “You kissed her. You kissed my sister!”

  My eyes narrowed. “Not now, Jane.”

  “Not now?”

  “Please don’t have a hormonal breakdown right now. It’s been a long day.”

  “Just tell me if you kissed my sister,” she repeated, sounding like a broken record. “Say it, tell me.”

  “I didn’t even know you had a sister.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that you kissed her.”

  “Go lie down, Jane. You’re going to raise your blood pressure.”

  “You cheated on me. I always knew this would happen. I always knew you’d cheat on me.”

  “You’re paranoid.”

  “Just tell me, Graham.”

  I threaded my fingers through my hair, uncertain of what to do other than telling the truth. “Jesus! I didn’t kiss her.”

  “You did,” she cried, wiping away the tears from her eyes. “I know you did, because I know her. I know my sister. She probably knew you were my husband and did it to get back at me. She destroys everything she touches.”

  “I didn’t kiss her.”

  “She’s this—this plague of sickness that no one sees. I see it, though. She’s so much like my mother, she ruins everything. Why can’t anyone else see what she’s doing? I can’t believe you’d do that to me—to us. I’m pregnant, Graham!”

  “I didn’t kiss her!” I shouted, my throat burning as the words somersaulted from my tongue. I didn’t want to know anything more about Jane’s past. I hadn’t asked her to tell me about her sisters, I hadn’t dug, I hadn’t badgered her, but still, we somehow ended up in an argument about a woman I hardly knew. “I have no clue who your sister is, and I don’t care to know anything more about her. I don’t know what the hell is eating you up in your head, but stop taking it out on me. I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t cheat on you. I didn’t do anything wr
ong tonight, so stop attacking me on today of all days.”

  “Stop acting like you care about today,” she whispered, her back turned to me. “You didn’t even care about your father.”

  My mind flashed.

  Still, with him gone, everything around me has somehow slowed, and I miss the memories that never existed.

  “Now’s a good time to stop talking,” I warned.

  She wouldn’t.

  “It’s true, you know. He meant nothing to you. He was a good man, and he meant nothing to you.”

  I remained quiet.

  “Why won’t you ask me about my sisters?” she asked. “Why don’t you care?”

  “We all have a past we don’t speak about.”

  “I didn’t lie,” she said once again, but I had never called her a liar. It was as if she was trying to convince herself she hadn’t lied, when in fact, that was exactly what she’d done. The thing was, I didn’t care, because if I’d learned anything from humans, it was that they all lied. I didn’t trust a soul.

  Once a person broke trust, once a lie was brought to the surface, everything they ever said, true or false, felt as if it was at least partially covered in betrayal.

  “Fine. Okay, let’s do this. Let’s just put it all out there on the table. Everything. I have two sisters, Mari and Lucy.”

  I cringed. “Stop, please.”

  “We don’t talk. I’m the oldest, and Lucy is the youngest. She’s an emotional wreck.” It was an ironic statement, seeing as how Jane was currently in the middle of her own breakdown. “And she’s the spitting image of my mother, who passed away years ago. My father walked out on us when I was nine, and I couldn’t even blame him—my mother was a nutcase.”

  I slammed my hands down on my desk and flipped around to face her. “What do you want from me, Jane? You want me to say I’m pissed at you for not telling me? Fine, I’m pissed. You want me to be understanding? Fine, I understand. You want me to say you’re right for ditching those people? Great, you’re right for ditching them. Now can I please get back to work?”

  “Tell me about yourself, Graham. Tell me about your past—you know, the one you never talk about.”