Paper Dolls

by Hanna Peach

  I slapped him lightly on his chest, hard like granite.

  He laughed, the sound rolling into my body, and he pulled me flush against him. “You can play the What If game all you like, but you’ll still be the most beautiful thing to me, whether you were wearing a sack, a grey cow onesie, or…nothing at all under all those feathers.”

  His breath against my ear made me shiver.

  When he covered my lips with his, my whole world silenced, fading like a ballet chorus behind a velvet curtain as the spotlight fell upon just Clay and me. We became my whole world and everything in it, my nose filling with his scent of cedar and a hint of warm spice. His lips parted as he tilted his mouth and he brushed the seam of my lips with his tongue. I opened my mouth to let him in and offered him a sigh in return. His strong hands slid around my back, holding me firmly to him. I seemed to melt further and further into his unyielding body, melding to him like I was made to. My fingers fluttered over his chest and his neck, too scared to land anywhere, almost disbelieving that he was real at all.

  Clay Jagger was real and he was kissing me.

  Finally and yet all too soon, he pulled away. “Let’s go,” he whispered. “Before we do something on your street that your neighbours wouldn’t appreciate.”

  My skin tingled as my thoughts rolled over exactly what he had meant by something.

  He let go of me and his eyes flicked to something over my shoulder. “You know, it looks like you left the TV on.”

  I spun. The space between the living room window curtains was flashing with lights from inside. I forced a smile. “It’s to discourage burglars.” I wasn’t ready to explain about Salem yet. Tonight was just supposed to be about us.

  He nodded, seeming to accept my answer. I glanced back to my apartment. Did the curtain just move? Was that Salem at the window again? My heart stabbed a little with guilt. It wasn’t fair that I was leaving her tonight to be with Clay. I shouldn’t have left her there alone.

  “Look, twins.”

  I turned sharply towards him. “What?” Had he seen Salem?

  “Twins.” He pointed down to the two of us. “We’re practically wearing his and her outfits.”

  We were both in dark denim and white tops. I laughed, partly in relief. “Aren’t couples supposed to start doing that after they’ve been together too long?”

  He grinned at me.

  “What?”

  “You just acknowledged that we’re a couple.”

  “Did I?”

  He pulled me in for another slow and lingering kiss. “About damn time, Aria Adams,” he murmured against my mouth.

  * * *

  I stepped out of the car after Clay had parked it on the side of a thin road surrounded by trees. He had driven us out of town along one of the hinterland roads that looped up the mountain range that Mirage Falls was nestled in.

  A few street lights dotted sickly pools of light over the nearby bridge, the sound of water drumming off rocks and the air moist with misty drops. There were no other cars parked here and for the last fifteen minutes until we stopped, none had passed us. We were definitely alone here for miles. Why would he bring me out here?

  Wouldn’t want my Rosey-girl getting involved with the wrong guy. A trickle of fear dripped down my spine.

  Clay’s door slammed shut, making me jump. I shoved my apprehension aside. “Clay, where are we?”

  He stared towards the bridge. “The Mirage Gorge. This is where Mirage Falls gets its name.”

  “Why are we here?”

  He didn’t answer. He walked around to my side of the car and slammed my door shut. The noise was like a gunshot in my ears, sending another jolt through me. The sky was turning a brilliant fiery colour, sunset was almost upon us.

  “Clay, why are we here?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  This was ridiculous. I trusted Clay. He would never hurt me. So why did my body shiver as we made the short walk to the bridge? The sound of gravel crushed under our feet like a death march.

  The bridge crossed over a deep narrow gorge, a waterfall dropping from behind it. Wooden slats lined an iron structure that was wide enough for one brave car; thin poles and strung wire to the height of my hipbone were the only things to stop someone from falling into the abyss. I kept to the middle of the bridge, my feet clattering over the wooden slats, and Clay walked closest to the railing. I wondered how old this bridge was and hoped to God it would hold us.

  I was being ridiculous. Of course it would hold us. It was designed for cars to pass over.

  He paused at the centre of the bridge, leaned against the railing and looked out, his back to the waterfall. We were high enough that we could see the burning sun just about to dip under the sea of forest across the mountains. I stood next to him and tried to enjoy the view, trying to ignore all these jumbled feelings churning inside me. For a time all that I could hear was the drumming of the waterfall crashing down upon all those jagged rocks below.

  Finally he turned to look at me, an odd look in his eyes. “Beautiful, isn’t it.”

  I nodded.

  “Have you been here before?” he asked.

  “No.”

  His face became serious, almost pained, and his eyes took on a faraway look, as if he was looking straight through me. As if I wasn’t there at all. I shivered. “What is it?”

  He shook his head. “Just remembering something.”

  “Remembering what?”

  He looked out again, his eyes becoming unfocused. “Remembering…the last time I was here.”

  A fear ricocheted through me. This was why I had strange feelings about this place. It was like I could feel the ghost of someone’s past hovering about my shoulder. It was the ghost of Clay’s past.

  “What happened here?”

  He didn’t answer for a long time. Then his next words were almost a whisper, “I almost died here.”

  6

  I almost died here.

  “What?”

  Clay stared at his hands, the tips of his fingers running along the grooves of the top of the railing. “When I was eighteen, my world fell apart. My mother was my whole world and she just…she died. My father couldn’t handle it so he just left. I was left all alone. I couldn’t cope. I came here to…” he trailed off.

  He came here to end his life.

  My voice was barely a whisper. “You were going to jump?”

  He nodded.

  Dear God. I stared at the abyss over the edge of the railing. I saw Clay almost three years ago as his fingers curled over the railing and he pulled his legs up and over. I shook this image away. “Why didn’t you?”

  “An angel came to me, right here on this bridge. She wore a white dress and her halo shone brighter than anything I’d ever seen.”

  I froze. An angel? Was he serious?

  Then I realised. He saw things too. Just like me. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after his mother died. How brave he was to share his hallucination with me. I wouldn’t make light of this gift. I wouldn’t judge him. “And she saved you?”

  He nodded. “If I lived she promised me…” He looked up and his eyes burned into mine. “She promised me you.”

  I swallowed, hard. “What?”

  He smiled softly. “Don’t misunderstand me; she didn’t actually promise me you. I didn’t know you then. She promised me that I wouldn’t always be alone. She promised me that if I could make my way through this darkness, I’d find my light again.”

  My head spun as I tried to process everything he was saying.

  His eyes bored into me. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  I shook my head. No crazier than me.

  He looked out over the gorge, leaning his hands on the railing. “Sometimes we need to crumble to nothing before we can rebuild ourselves into someone better. Sometimes we need to start again at nothing.”

  “You are nothing.” I thought I heard his voice behind me and jumped. I stared back at the road I had just walked up but t
here was no one else here. This place. There was something about this place. It felt like the past was a ghost here and he was reaching for me with his hands. A wind shook the trees that lined the road and there it was, that voice hissing through the leaves and over the sound of thundering water. “Why couldn’t it have been you?”

  Oh God, not here. I clamped my hands over my ears. Keep it inside.

  “Why didn’t you die and not her?” His large hand wrapped around my wrist. I tried to pull my hand from his. “Go away,” I hissed. But he wouldn’t let go. He began to drag me forward, stumbling, farther and farther forward to the edge of the bridge. Below me the gorge gaped down and the dying light caught off the splashing water. “It should have been you.” I felt myself tipping.

  An arm went around me and I smelt cedar and musk. Clay. Suddenly I was tethered between the past and the present, a paper doll being pulled from both sides.

  “Let go of me!”

  But neither of them would. Two pairs of hands, one from the past, one from the present, just gripped me tighter and pulled.

  “Come back to me.” Clay’s voice was like the morning light, breaking through the mist clouding my reality. He shushed into my hair, his gentle whispers drowning out the other voice. “I’m real. I’m here. Focus on me.”

  I slipped out of the grip of the hand from the past and it faded into the dark shadows. For now.

  Clay held me securely in his arms, and rocked me gently. It was like he knew instinctively what to do. Why wasn’t he running? After seeing me in the midst of a post-traumatic stress hallucination, acting as if it were real? “Why are you still here?” I spat out.

  He turned me to face him, grabbing my shoulders. “Aria,” he said fiercely, “do you believe in signs?”

  “Signs? Like what?”

  “Signs. Messages from God−”

  “I don’t believe in God. No God would allow such horrible things to exist…” I trailed off.

  “I do. You shine to me, Aria. Brighter than anything in my whole wretched life. I knew after I saw you that you were my Northern Star.”

  I choked on a laugh that had no humour in it. “Can you get a refund for faulty goods?”

  “There is nothing faulty about you.”

  Flashes of black memory flapped across my eyes like angry crows and I felt sick to my stomach. “You don’t know everything about me,” I whispered.

  “I know enough.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Clay held my chin gently and lifted. “There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me love you less.”

  My mind stuttered over his words. Did he say what I thought he said? He couldn’t possibly…

  “You love me?”

  “I love you. All of you, every piece of you. Even the pieces that are torn or smudged. Especially them.”

  My heart clenched so hard that it physically hurt. I swear it just cracked open. A warmth soaked out and into my bones.

  In that very moment, how could I not fall in love back with Clay Jagger?

  I fell against his chest, my legs still not working properly. I opened my mouth to speak. To say…something.

  You’re saving me.

  Thank you.

  I love y…

  But all words failed me. So I spoke the only way I could. I leaned up and pressed my mouth to his and clutched him to me as if he were my only lifeline in this storming grey world. Perhaps he was.

  Our mouths moved. He clung to me as well, as if we were both lost in a storm. Every part of me felt like it was spinning, falling, sinking into love with him.

  And yet, as I dropped, I was submersed in a growing terror. Only in the face of love can you comprehend just how destructive its loss could be. Love dug roots into you and the deeper they went, the more would be ripped away when they left.

  His hands gripped me tightly to him, hands that I knew like my own, strong fingers, warm palms and smooth nails, the masculine dusting of hair on each knuckle.

  As we kissed our bodies pressed into each other like we couldn’t get close enough. Could it be possible that two bodies could become the same person? I pushed my hips up and against his growing hardness. He groaned into my mouth. I wanted this. He wanted this.

  And I saw us stripping each layer of clothing off, and him sitting me onto the railing, the waterfall drumming in the background, and sliding in between my thighs.

  Instead he pulled away, his breath heavy and uneven, and he glanced around the darkened sky, beginning to fill out with stars. “Come on, it’s getting late. Let’s get you home.”

  We were driving through the edges of Mirage Falls when Clay suddenly pulled the car over, the tires screeching like a chorus of screams. My heart thundered in my chest. “What’s wrong?”

  He grabbed me and crushed his lips to mine. My head spun, half lost in the feel and the smell and the taste of him, half scrambling to understand what had scared him so much that he needed to pull over so suddenly.

  His kiss slowed, then he pulled his lips off mine, my bottom lip popping out from between his lips with a groan on my tongue. My eyelashes fluttered open, a question on my face. “Clay?”

  “Kiss buggie angel-hair red.”

  It took me only a moment to realise what he was talking about. A laugh escaped my mouth.

  He grinned as he settled back in his seat and pulled back onto the road. “P.S. My version is so much better.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  * * *

  The instant I stepped into my apartment the giddiness of the last few hours with Clay was slapped out of me. The TV was on, blaring away, but Salem wasn’t to be seen. Had she gone to bed without turning the TV off? I pushed down the grit of annoyance as I grabbed the remote and switched it off. The room darkened and the silence took over.

  I threw the remote on the side table before walking into our room, ready to snap at her.

  But she wasn’t in the bedroom.

  “Salem?” I peered in the bathroom before realising that she wasn’t home at all.

  Where the hell did she go?

  I reached into my bag for my mobile and paused. That’s right, Salem didn’t have a mobile. I had no way of reaching her. I searched the house but there was no note, to indication of where she had gone. No note, no goodbyes, nothing.

  Later that night, the other side of my bed, Salem’s side, felt emptier than it had been the last three years. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, listening for the key in the lock, a low-level tension clinging to my body. Where did she go? When would she come back? What if she was in trouble? What if she never came back?

  Relax. She’ll come back. Salem and I are part of each other, like paper dolls…

  A thirteen-year old-Salem lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, her knees up and scuffed boots on the bed, a seething fury etched in every feature.

  I sat on the edge of the mattress. “Do you…want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re hurting and−”

  “What do you care?”

  My heart cracked as my best friend and soulmate rolled away, turning her back on me. It was the first time she’d ever turned her back on me. But as last night showed…there was a first for everything. I could see her shoulders hunched up around her ears as she curled into a tight ball like she wanted to fold in on herself.

  What should I do? What should I say?

  I jumped off the bed and returned with a piece of paper and a pair of scissors from my desk. I began to fold the piece of paper in half in the middle of the longer side so that the two shorter edges were touching. Then I folded it again and again until it made a skinny rectangle. I grabbed the scissors in my lap and began to cut: one leg, one arm, half a head. When I was finished I slipped the scissors on the bedside table and unfolded the paper.

  “Look.” I held up the row of identical paper dolls to her.

  She glanced at it for a second and turned back away. “I don’t want to play any stupid games.�
��

  “This isn’t a game. This is you and me, Salem,” I said. “We’re from the same piece of paper. Our souls are made of the same stuff. When someone cuts holes from you, they cut holes from me. When you’re hurting, I’m hurting. When he…when he hurt you last night, he hurt me.”

  She turned suddenly, her eyes flashing like lightning in storm clouds. She launched at me, flinging her arms around my neck in a fierce hug, the paper dolls crushed between us. I put my arms around her skinny waist and hugged her back just as tightly, her body trembling with rage under my hands.

  “The bastard,” she hissed in my ear, and I flinched. She used the same bad word that Mama used to call him. At the time I hadn’t really been sure what it had meant. Now I knew. “He won’t ever hurt you. Never. I won’t let him.”

  “You can’t stop him,” I said quietly, tears already rolling down my cheeks. She couldn’t stop him from hurting her last night. How could she stop him from hurting me?

  “Yes,” she said quietly, her voice deadly like a snake’s hiss, “I can.”

  She pulled back from me, her face as cold as marble and she carefully wiped the moisture from my cheeks. The way Mama used to do whenever I was hurt. God, I missed her. None of this would be happening if only she were still here.

  There were no tears on Salem’s face, only two fierce glass orbs glistening in her skull and a firmly pressed snarl that showed her white canines. She had always been the strong one.

  “Did you hear me?” she said, her voice firm as I ever heard it. “I won’t let him hurt you. If he tries, I’ll kill him.”

  7

  When I woke up the next morning my own face was staring back at me. Salem was standing at the open door to my bedroom, staring at me. “Salem.” I sat up, clutching the sheets to my chest. “Thank God. I could barely sleep from worrying about you.”

  “You looked like you were sleeping fine.”

  I swallowed down my urge to retort back. “Where did you go last night?”

  “Does it matter? You were off having all the fun in the world with loverboy.” She threw herself onto the bed on her back, tucking her hands under her head and bending her knees up so her black Doc Marten’s were on the bed. “Go on, spill it. I know you’re dying to tell me.”