by Jaime Loren
Scott sighed. “No. Just CT scans and a physical.”
Nutmeg came over and sniffed at my hands. I opened my palms to prove I didn’t have anything to eat, but she nudged at my hips in search of my pockets, just to make sure.
“She has some grazes on her palms and knees, but other than that and the initial shock, she’s fine.”
I gave Nutmeg a final pat and crouched down to squeeze back through the rails. It was simply Henry calling to see how we were. But why would Scott call him by his name, when he usually called him “Grandpa”?
“No. There was no one there who would’ve recognized me.”
I stopped. What?
“Tell me about it. This whole trip was a mistake. Kissing April was a huge mistake. God, Henry, it was horrible. I just wish I could take it all back. I should never have befriended her. What was I thinking?”
My heart stuttered. The heavy weight of disappointment loosened every fiber of my being. Everything in sight whirled around me. Nutmeg nudged me again, but I had no energy to resist her. I stumbled forward and skimmed my hand along the wall, trying to keep my balance.
If I hadn’t gotten the message in the way he’d held Stella tonight, it was loud and clear in his conversation with Henry. Stupid, stupid April. Of course he didn’t want me in that way. But to say he regretted becoming friends with me in the first place?
My legs trembled. Tears betrayed me, falling hot against my cheeks. I fell through the rails and clambered for the exit, cringing when Nutmeg whinnied after me.
“Is someone there?”
I found my feet and used them before Scott exited the stall.
*****
By the time Scott returned to the cabin and showered, I’d already uncorked a bottle of red wine from the collection mounted on the dining room wall. Ever since I’d turned seventeen, my parents had allowed me one glass during our Saturday night dinners with Scott and Henry. I guess they’d figured my introduction to alcohol should take place under direct supervision before casting me out into the world of frat parties. I’d never been a party animal, but Dad had seen enough at college to know that freedom can change a person, so I’d had my weekly glass of red in the safety of my own home, and it was usually enough to warm me through.
But tonight, after two glasses, I still felt awful. Rowan was still angry with me, so asking him to take me home at this time of night was out of the question. It would be well after midnight by the time we’d arrive home, anyway.
Once we were seated for dinner, Scott picked up my bread roll, poked his thumb through the center, filled it with butter, and placed it back on my side dish. I reached across to collect the cheese Stella had topped his pasta with—he didn’t like cheese on pasta for some strange reason I could never understand—but then the words he’d used on the phone to Henry echoed in my head, and I decided against it. I picked my own off instead, then added it to Scott’s.
He slumped as he watched, letting out a long-winded sigh.
Feeling quietly satisfied, I looked up, only to discover Rowan watching me with one eyebrow raised. I pressed my lips together and picked up my fork. If I was trying to prove Scott and I weren’t as in tune as Rowan feared, I wasn’t doing a very good job.
I sat up straight. “Scott, were you able to get hold of Henry? He must be worried.”
“No. I couldn’t get any service, but I’ll try again tomorrow,” he said, removing Cheese Mountain from his plate.
Every muscle in my body tensed. My mouth went dry. I poured another glass of wine.
“You’re drinking?” he asked.
“Aren’t you Captain Observant tonight?”
Rowan and Stella exchanged glances. Scott reached for my hand, but I let it slip from the table.
I stabbed my pasta with my fork and twisted it. “Do you know Daphne Porter?” My cheeks were already warm from the wine, but I was sure it was obvious I was flushing, too. I hated the way my fair skin advertised my emotions: anger, embarrassment, excitement—all there for the world to see.
Scott, on the other hand, remained cool and collected under any circumstance. The only time I’d seen him lose control was last night, when he’d made a huge mistake by kissing me.
He sat perfectly still. Unreadable. “I used to know Daphne a long time ago,” he said. “She’s known as ‘the Town Nut.’”
I swirled my wineglass and took another mouthful. “How so?”
He relaxed into his chair. “She’d have these … stories. Fairly creative ones, too, about murders and missing persons. I think it started when she was younger—trying to collect rewards for information on police cases.”
Rowan snickered. “What, like making shit up and hoping she was right?”
Scott ran his hand through his hair. “Exactly.”
“There was a woman in Jericho like that,” Stella said. “Remember Mrs. Fairbank? I think she ended up being imprisoned for obstruction of justice or something.”
Rowan’s eyes widened. “No shit?”
“No shit.” Stella collected some pasta on her fork.
Scott nudged my leg under the table. “Which one did she tell you? Was it about the guy who disappeared in the mountains? Or was it about the couple who kidnapped babies and sold them to the USSR, who then turned them into spies and sent them back?” He laughed. “Or my personal favorite, the guy who used to keep a cucumber up his—”
“It was the hit-and-run.”
Scott froze. Silence ensued. He seemed to have momentarily lost his sense of humor as we stared each other down, which did nothing for the knot in my stomach.
“Wait, wait—go back to the cucumber story,” Rowan begged.
My hands ached. “She said she used to work with a girl who was killed in a—”
“I know the story.” Scott threw his napkin on the table.
“But she said the girl looked like me.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “And so does that actress from the Shopaholic movie. We all have someone who looks like us—I always get mistaken for that Australian guy who used to be on House.”
Rowan laughed. “Hey, you do look like him.”
Stella smirked and elbowed Rowan. “And you’re dating Isla Fisher.”
Rowan sat up straighter. “That is fine by me.”
I glared at Scott, who wasn’t looking very well.
“That’s the beauty of her stories, April—the main character always looks like the person she’s talking to, or the person she’s trying to get into trouble.”
Stella filled her glass with water. “I don’t understand people like that.”
I put my cutlery down and crossed my arms. “She also said the girl’s name was April.”
Scott shrugged and tapped his fork on his bowl. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have introduced yourself.”
No longer hungry, I stood and picked up my bowl. “I didn’t.”
Scott paused. The only sound came from the grandfather clock in the living room.
Stella shivered. “Well, that’s a bit creepy.”
“Maybe it was just a coincidence, babe.” Rowan settled his hand on my hip.
I didn’t know whether to be annoyed he’d suggested such a thing when he knew I didn’t believe in coincidences, or furious he’d apparently swept our altercation under the rug in order to side with Scott and make me look all Loony Tunes.
I took a step back, freeing myself. “A coincidence?”
Scott rose to his feet. “What else would you call it?”
I opened my mouth, but I had nothing. Nothing remotely sane, anyway.
Scott relaxed. “Exactly.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So you’re trying to tell me if I research this further, I won’t find a record about a girl named April—who looked like me—and was hit and killed in 1949?”
Scott slammed his fist down on the table, making everything rattle. I jumped. So did Stella. “If it had any truth to it, I would know! My family has lived in this area for generations! And, might I add that i
f you hadn’t been so preoccupied with this woman’s stupid story, you might have been paying attention when you crossed the road? Jesus, April, you could have been killed!”
I stood, trembling, every inch of me burning with shock, as if his words had taken physical form while ripping through me. Stella’s mouth was agape; Rowan sat speechless and wide-eyed. I loved him even less for letting someone yell at me, regardless of the fact the person yelling at me was supposed to be my dearest friend. My heart was pounding. My head was swimming in confusion as Scott’s eyes bored into mine.
Scott eventually flexed his jaw and pushed away from the table. “Then that woman would’ve had a story to tell, wouldn’t she?” His abrupt exit created a draft that tickled my cheek, and a few seconds later, the front door slammed, making us all jump again.
I put my bowl down, my hands numb and shaking.
Stella managed to close her mouth. Her eyes were now filled with sympathy. “I’m sure he’s just in shock after what happened today.”
Rowan’s expression had changed from disbelief to curiosity. It occurred to me he might’ve been enjoying the possibility Scott and I didn’t have as good a relationship as he’d thought.
“I, uh—” Tears blurred my vision, but I didn’t want to cry. Not in front of Rowan and Stella. “I’m going to lie down.”
Stella gave me a melancholy smile. “Okay.”
Rowan reached for my hand. “Do you want me to come?”
With the look I gave him, he knew better than to follow me. I scooped my handbag from the living room and headed upstairs. My knees hit the ground for the second time today when I stumbled on the final step, and suddenly I saw pavement.
I was blinded by rain. A man bent down to help me to my feet, but I picked myself up and kept running—onto the road …
I squeezed my eyes closed. Oh, shit, I’m losing my mind. I rushed to the bathroom, locking the door behind me as music started playing downstairs.
It was apparent my bag was full of crap when I couldn’t find the only thing I needed right now—regardless of the alcohol I’d consumed tonight. I tipped the contents onto the counter and ran my hand through them. No pills. My palm came down hard on the counter, and burning pain shot through my torn hand.
“Motherffffff! Ugggghhhh.” I clenched my jaw through the worst of it, then made my way into the bedroom. Considering the fire had only recently been lit, it wasn’t as warm in the room as it had been last night. I would’ve liked to have thought my feelings for Scott weren’t as warm as last night, either, after the way he had spoken to me, but that wasn’t true. I wished it were. I wished he didn’t have the ability to hurt me like this.
I pressed my hand against the cold window and skimmed my gaze over the lake. The moonlight reflected off the water’s surface, casting silhouettes from the tips of the surrounding pine trees. Movement on the shore drew my attention downward. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust. Scott paced back and forth, stopping every now and then to kick at the ground—most likely sending pebbles into the shallows.
What the hell was going on with him? One minute he was begging me not to leave him, the next he was telling Henry he regretted becoming friends with me. Kissing me, keeping secrets, risking his life for me, yelling at me—none of it made sense.
All I knew was that I wasn’t going to get any sleep until he looked me in the eye and told me the truth.
Chapter 9
(Scott)
Her breaths rasped as I knelt over her, blood smeared across her cheek. I cradled her broken body in my arms, my mouth open in a silent, painful cry, my vision blurred with tears.
The hurt in her eyes as she looked up at me pulled at the last shred of sanity I had. She didn’t speak. She couldn’t. It wasn’t necessary—the betrayal on her face said it all. Her last tears spilled over, cutting a clean path through the blood on her cheeks, and I pressed a trembling hand gently to her heart, wishing I could keep it beating.
It wasn’t until a few seconds after the light in her eyes faded that I realized I hadn’t said a word.
She’d died without knowing I loved her.
For a moment, I was overcome. I could remember it like it was yesterday.
Like it was today.
I closed my eyes. It was my selfishness that’d led April straight into the view—and earshot—of Daphne Porter. Daphne Porter! I didn’t even know she was still alive, let alone that she’d moved to Millinocket. She must have thought she was seeing a ghost, poor girl. Or, poor elderly woman. I dreaded to think what might’ve transpired if she’d seen me with April, too. But those things aside—who dives straight into a story like that with a girl they’d just met, simply because the girls looked the same? Talk about a depressing introduction.
I mean, sure, Daphne didn’t know the girls were one and the same, but with one story, she’d sparked April’s curiosity—a curiosity that’d proved itself to be deadly in the past.
She was getting too close to the truth, and that scared the hell out of me. Discovering she was taking Benzodiazepines did nothing to calm my nerves, either. If she had some type of anxiety disorder, the last thing she needed was to learn the truth about her past.
I questioned my own mental stability at the best of times.
Pebbles clanked underfoot behind me. “You got some ’splainin’ to do, Lucy.”
I took a deep breath and rubbed my face, pulling myself together.
“I want to be furious with you, but you saved my life today, so it makes me feel super guilty when my first instinct right now is to …”
“Slap me?”
“Punch you in the throat.”
A huff of laughter escaped me. There’s my girl.
“You think this is funny?”
I exhaled and lowered my head. “Not at all.”
She stepped in front of me. “You humiliated me back there.”
My heart sank. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“Was it your intention to keep lying to me? Or is it just habit now?”
“What?”
Disappointment spread across her face. “No service on your cell, Scott?”
“What are—?”
“Let’s talk about how horrible that kiss was,” she said, her voice drowning in hurt. “Or how bringing me here was a mistake.”
I stiffened, then squeezed my eyes closed. Damn it. She was the noise in the barn.
“Imagine my embarrassment after having defended my relationship with you to Rowan, only to hear you wish we’d never become friends at all.”
I held up my hands. “Okay, you’ve just taken all of that way out of context.”
“Were you hoping to lose me at Harvard?”
“Jesus, no.”
I was hoping to keep her alive long enough to get her to Harvard. After that … God, I felt sick to the stomach just thinking about how hard it was going to be trying to keep up with her.
“I know how it must’ve sounded, but please believe me when I say it couldn’t be further from the truth.”
She stepped back, shaking her head. “See, I would’ve believed you a week ago.”
“It’s just as true now.”
When I stepped forward, she held up her hand.
“No one talks to me the way you did tonight, okay? No one.”
“I can’t apologize enough for that.” I pressed my hands together. “I never, ever wanted to hurt you.”
“If that were true, you would never have lied to me to begin with.”
I groaned, my hopes dying fast. I couldn’t give her the truth, but I could give her something to prove she was wrong about me not wanting her in my life. I ran my hand through my hair as she turned for the cabin. “April.”
“Save it,” she said over her shoulder.
“I bought a house,” I blurted.
She stopped in her tracks.
I took a deep breath. “In Cambridge. I bought a house for us to live in.”
She spun around, eyes narrowed, her voice a whisper. �
��What?”
“The offer was accepted last week.” I inched toward her. “It’s a ten-minute walk to campus. Shops nearby. It’s a two-story, it has three bedrooms.”
She shook her head. “Scott—”
“You could take the whole upper floor. You’d have your own bathroom, your own study—”
“Scott.” She looked at me as though I’d grown another head. “Why would you do that?”
“I …” I shrugged. “I thought it’d be easier for you.”
“Easier for me?” she gasped. “Did you ever stop to actually ask me what I think might be easier for me?”
“I …” No.
“Fuck, Scott!”
My stomach tightened as she tried to rub her bandaged hands together.
“What if I wanted the true college experience—shared room and all? Did you ever consider that?”
I flexed my jaw.
She nodded, reeling. “And when were you going to tell me, exactly? On our way there?”
“I’d planned—”
“And what about Rowan?”
I exhaled. “I—”
“And my parents!”
I had to raise my voice above hers, above the music. “You don’t have to live with me, April. Nobody’s forcing you. I’m just saying the option is there, and … I want you there. I want to live with you.” I held my breath as she looked up at me.
She pressed a hand to her forehead, clearly confused.
“I was going to ask you this week,” I said. “But this week isn’t exactly turning out how I’d planned.”
I hoped for one of her wisecracks—perhaps something about planning to get hit by an SUV—but she gave me nothing. I hesitantly stepped closer. “You caught every other word from one side of a conversation. What I meant, was—I wish I didn’t care so much for you. Which is to say … the thought of losing you …”
She softened. “You wish you didn’t care enough to hurt if you lost me?”
“Exactly.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “But why did you lie to my face about talking to Henry tonight?”