She shrugs, blinking her eyes rapidly. I’m thinking my willpower isn’t the only one faltering; this is killing her. I know she’s curious.
“I just figured I could gauge the temperature better coming out of the shower, but the boys seem perfectly at ease.” I nod my head once as her eyes dart down so quickly I barely catch it. “It’s ok…I know it’s been killing you since you rounded that corner.”
She looks me in the eyes, rolling her own and releasing an exaggerated sigh which only furthers my amusement. Honestly, I really want to thrust my hips or wobble them side-to-side, but I hold back a bit. I don’t want her to be completely dumbfounded. It may be too much for her eyes to take in all at once anyways.
“Here, I’d say you need this more than I do.” She holds my sweatshirt out, stretching her arm all the way out as if she’s afraid to step into the changing space or get too close.
I glance down, making sure nothing unexpectedly pops up during my playfulness. Looking back up, I tilt my head and reach for my shirt. “Thaaanks,” I say slowly and pull it to my chest, not bothering to take her hint.
“You can dry off with it, since you forgot your towel.” She spins around, then stops. Looking back, her face lights up with a mischievous smile and my body definitely tingles with a subtle reaction. “…and if you ask me…” she glances down and back up. Ok now I feel exposed. “…maybe you need to turn the heat up a few degrees.”
My eyes widen as she turns back and starts to walk off.
“Oh no, no…get back here and take another look.”
“I’ve seen it before, Evan. It wasn’t that impressive back then,” her voice is laced in friskiness, but I still bite.
“Oh no way. Come take a better look. That was years ago. I’m older and trust me, all of me has grown up and gotten better with age,” I holler, my voice echoing in the room. “Get back here.” I race around the corner, slipping my sweatshirt over my head with not a scrap of fabric to cover me below the waist.
As soon as I round the corner, I feel a cold draft and see Piper swing around and take another eyeful with a teasing smile. “Bye Evan…don’t forget to crank up that heater.”
“Hey, Piper.”
I have no time to take cover before Jake is in the door and Piper has fled with a sneaky little grin on her face.
“Oh damn, man, put some clothes on.”
I laugh and dart back into the stall.
“Where is your towel?” Jake questions from the other side of the wall.
Slipping one leg into my jeans, followed by the next, I shake my head and relish in the whirling effect that ‘the old Piper’ had on me. A smirk lies firmly across my face along with a refreshed mood that had nothing to do with the shower as I join him.
“What’s up with you?” He looks around and I laugh. “Do I want to know what just happened in here?”
“No,” I crack up at his suspicions.
“Because, I actually came here first instead of Judd’s cabin. I figured I’d be walking into the middle of something there.”
I grit my teeth, knowing exactly what he means. “Yeah…no, good call. Nothing like that has went on here, I assure you, but I can’t tell you what has been shaking up at their cabin. I’d stay away for about an hour longer, then it should be safe.”
Jake snickers. “So you always install heaters without pants?”
I shake my head, knowing I may never hear the end of this, but still smile. Even though I didn’t get the same enjoyment out of the afternoon as Judd is more than likely getting now, it definitely without a doubt, got more than hot in here. No need to turn that heater up.
GLANCING OVER, I LOOK DOWN to the shower house, a stir of excitement and exhilaration still revving from my encounter with Evan. I look down at the gravel covered ground as I kick a few small stones and curve my lips into a smile. I have been seriously distracted since Dad got here earlier; I can’t get Evan off my mind.
“Ok sweetie…enjoy your Christmas. I’ll see you in a couple days, ok?”
Snapping back to reality, I throw my arms around Dad’s neck, feeling as I always have, safe and secure, knowing he is the only man I can ever fully trust.
“Thanks, Daddy. I love them.” I put on my cheesiest grin ever, turning my head side-to-side to model the new earrings that he gave me for Christmas.
He has never been too keen on the holidays, always using the excuse of his sister running away with some boy when he was a senior in high school and remarking how everything seemed dull after that, like the life was drained from his family. As a kid, Mom, Dad and I always enjoyed big holiday functions and happy celebrations around a decked out Christmas tree. However, after he found out about Trent, him and mom were battling an ugly divorce based on he says/she says arguments. It didn’t help that Mom held onto the constant belief that I exaggerated the event.
She was always so protective of Trent; she coddled him like she never had me. From the time he came to live with us the summer I turned twelve, she nurtured and loved him like he was her own. I never thought anything of it until the day we returned back to the cabin after our encounter with Mitch. When Dad sat down to discuss it between the three of us, Mom was livid. She shook her head and screamed for me to quit lying; she fell apart. That is when the journey of changing schools, moving to a different town and living a completely different life began. However, Dad never questioned me or gave it a second thought. He clung to me and protected me from everything. We held each other up, but life wasn’t quite the same.
“You’re welcome. I wish…”
Widening my eyes joyfully, I nudge my chin forward, a joking reaction to get him to stop his ramblings; ones that I have heard before.
“Don’t. I won’t hear of it. Quit wishing you would have done more. You do more than enough and I love them. They are perfect and exactly what I wanted.”
I pull back, standing in front of Dad outside of his small silver Camry. Warm, sweater covered arms engulf my neck, and I laugh.
“She was just telling me yesterday that she hoped she got a pair of new earrings for Christmas so you did good,” Abby pipes up from behind me.
Dad chuckles, shaking his head. “Good deal. I’m getting better at this mind reading since you never tell me what you want.” He rolls his eyes, turning to open the door to his car. “You girls got big plans for the New Year?”
I flip my head to look at Abby. “Do we?”
Abby laughs, moving away from me and slipping her hand over her mouth. “We didn’t plan a thing did we?” My hair tickles across my neck as I shake my head. She looks at my dad with her eyes narrowed and her mouth drawn down into an exaggerated frown. “We have been so busy planning our first Christmas dinner that we didn’t even think of the following holiday. Ummmm…hello…New Years. How could we forget?”
I wave my hand through the air to disregard her worry over a missed celebration. “Oh, we’ll do something. Either we can hang here for a couple more days and throw a party or I’m sure something is going on near campus.”
Abby crinkles up her nose and nods. “You’re right. Have a safe trip home Mr. Shields.” She waves and takes off back towards the cabin.
“Come by and visit sometime…” Dad calls out as she races off with her hand held up to acknowledge his comment.
I giggle at her carefree spunk and liveliness. I’ve always loved that about Abby; probably why we get along so well. We are like night and day, but her fiery, bold, and blunt persona always seems to make up for my withdrawn, somewhat quiet demeanor.
“Sure you won’t stay for Christmas? I’m making a turkey and all the sides.” I wiggle my brows to add to the appeal of my very first effort in throwing together a huge holiday meal. Sure I’ve dabbled in the kitchen and made sure to keep Dad fed with more than a turkey sandwich all through my high school existence, but cooking a large bird that takes two girls to hoist it into the oven is not exactly my forte.
Dad shows his teeth, pressing them together in an I’d-rather-pois
on-myself-slowly sort of expression. I laugh, slapping my hand across his arm.
“Oh, I almost forgot…I have some mail for you.” He twists at the waist and takes a seat sideways in the driver’s side of his car. Bending across the console, he flips the dashboard open and pulls out several envelopes. “Here…” he looks at me with a weird expression, nervous.
My curiosity piques with this. Flipping my fingertips quickly through the perfectly rectangle, sealed packages, I make no effort to avoid a papercut. I dash past one from the board of education, one I know that is my car payment, another my insurance, but then I stop. My hand trembles as I look at the carefully swooped handwriting that I always adored as a kid. I glance up at Dad.
“Mom?”
Tucking his lips into his mouth, he presses them together on an apologetic smile. “Yeah…I think so. I mean, it’s her hand writing and I believe that is her current address. I haven’t talked to her in a while.” He sighs and reaches for it. “You know I shouldn’t have given it to you. I really thought about not…”
I pull my entire body back, defensively claiming ownership of all the envelopes in my hand including the one from Mom, which has had very little association with me since I was sixteen years old.
“No,” I say softly, free of any animosity or regret that I’m holding it now; no fear of what it could say. “I’m glad you did. She didn’t tell you she was sending anything?”
“She didn’t,” he gulps and looks down. “Want to open it?”
Selfishness nips at my heart as I consider how to word this as gently as possible. Not only did what happened to me alter my life, but it turned Dad’s world upside down just as much if not more. I’ve carried around guilt over that and always will. I used to want to lash out at Evan each time I saw the hurt in Dad’s eyes. I wanted to scream at him for having a big mouth and not biting his tongue when he had promised to never tell a soul. But now, in the past 24 hours, the constant weight of that anger and bitterness is gently and gradually lifting off my shoulders.
“Would you mind if I opened it by myself?” I hate asking him that, because I know despite how cold she was, he still misses her.
His eyes don’t waver in their happiness to see me, though. He smiles and stands, grasping both my arms in his hands. “Of course.” Pulling me in for a hug, I grip the stack of envelopes and squeeze him back.
“Thanks, Dad.”
He pulls away and hops in his car without another word. I watch him head home, a heaviness settling in my heart as I throw my hand into the cool early night’s air for one more goodbye. The envelope lies absolutely still in my hand, yet feels more like a ton of bricks.
My mind speeds through the many months since I’ve seen her and that was just a random bump into each other at a store, where she maybe said five words to me at the most and then escaped quickly. Step by step, I amble along the bumpy gravel lot to Dad’s nearly worn out van that he graciously surrendered to me on my sixteenth birthday. My eyes never leave the letter, and I make no attempts at ripping open the tattered flap of the envelope.
I run my fingers along the dog-eared edge that looks as if it spent a good while nuzzled between the seat of the mail truck. Stopping at the door to my vehicle, I convince myself to take one hand, just one, off the letter long enough to open it and step inside. I cannot even comprehend my own emotional overload; it’s like a sacred treasure that I’ve waited years to stumble upon, yet bitter sweet because she walked away. She shouldn’t mean anything to me, or this certainly shouldn’t either. Honestly, the first thought in my mind should be to rip it up and just toss it in the trash, burn it? I can’t even pinpoint the exact affliction or happiness it holds over my heart or whether it’s just peace of mind that I’m not forgotten.
Perfectly settled in the large leather seat with only the dome light to help me out, my hands rest in my lap and I stare at the elaborate way she swoops the curves of the ‘P’ in my name. Without thinking, I guide my fingertip along the contours of the smudged ink and trace her handwriting. A sense of ease settling into my chest on the thought; that her hands touched this same paper. I sigh as I flip it over, frustrated that I’m even letting this touch me. Enough of that.
My fingers frantically pull and tear at the flap until it is a chewed up mess exposing its contents. I grip the folded-up notebook page between my thumb and index finger to pull it free, letting the envelope drop back to my lap. On an unfulfilling breath, I flip the tri-folded paper open and find a completely separate handwriting than what was on it. I grab the envelope back up to look at her writing again; no name above the address, but it’s her writing. Dropping it again, I look at the letter, staring at it and searching. The first thing I see completely baffles me and leaves me ready to dart straight to the end. Sort of like a good book that you want nothing more than to just read to the last page; find out whether it’s a happily ever after sort of read or if it’s going to leave you clasping the book to your chest in utter disbelief at how it truly ended. An eerie, gut-wrenching fear grips my heart; this is not from mom. I want to look at the bottom and see who had signed it, but I don’t…I read.
Piper,
I know your first instinct is going to be to rip this up, destroy it, anything just not to read it, but I’m begging you to read this all when you feel you can. Believe it or not, this is the sixth time I have written a letter to you. I suspect I’ll write it a couple dozen more times, then toss them in the trash just like the rest, but I would like to think that one day I will have the courage to send it. That maybe I will get some sort of sign telling me that you are as ready as me to hear this…
I know first off, I should cut to the chase and just say sorry, but there is far more that I need to say to you. Sorry and I never meant to hurt you is not good enough; no words are good enough really. If I had it in my power to erase time, I suppose that may be the only thing that I could do to make it right, but I can’t. I’d give anything to do that though…for us both. Piper, for so long I was so messed up…confused, scared and even saying that makes me feel selfish and greedy. I have no right to tell you anything I felt when I tossed all those pains at you in a matter of seconds. I robbed you of your innocence and stole something I can never give back. I cheated you…
The words blur and my heart stops. My eyes fill with tears and my hands tremble as I dig my fingertips into the paper so hard that it bends little craters into the edges, perfectly sculpted to my fingertips. My breath catches, over and over. I don’t need to finish; I can’t. Why would she send this to me? The tender reflective sentiments that I felt from holding something that had once rested in my mother’s hands freezes in my veins and turns my blood ice cold.
Just when I think my bewilderment over him daring to send this cannot reach any higher, I come to a screaming halt on one thought. My heart clutches, racing back to the flawless script handwriting that I remember from when Mom would write letters to her sister in Nevada. I close my eyes, releasing a heart wrenching sigh on the address and writing that was displayed on the envelope: 120 East Elmwood in Rosemore.
“Mom sent this to me…” I whisper to myself, so quiet that the vibrations of my words nearly sound like a whiney hum.
Tears trail down my face and my vision fogs over as more come. It’s never ending, and the pull at my heart is excruciating. I always thought with time that she would look at it and come to realize how wrong she was; that maybe she would surprise me with an apology or a ‘How could I have ever doubted you’. Has she kept in contact with him this whole time? She gave me up for him; for someone that could do such a horrendous act to another person?
She doesn’t deserve my tears. She doesn’t deserve any of Dad’s or my grief over losing her; she never has.
I want to think cold, unfeeling thoughts about her.
I want to hate her like I have hated him all these years, but the heartache goes too deep.
I’ve carried so much hate with me through the years, that at times, it seemed as if it may eat me alive.
Closing my eyes, all strength in my arms fail me as they fall onto my legs with the letter hardly clutched in my hands. I release a breath and focus.
Breathe, breathe…
My head whirls and spins like a deadly cyclone sweeping through all the painful memories that clutter my mind and hold me back from fully living my life. At times the storm is so strong that it blows me down with it and I struggle to get back up.
Breathe…
For years, I relied on Evan to be my reminder of those words. It became a system that only he and I understood. At first it was gradual, the outbursts and scares. It started with him barely touching me, helping me onto the dock when I was thirteen, but when his touch grazed my hips to push me up, I couldn’t hold on; the storm swept me away and I woke up to his face chanting the same words over and over again.
“Breathe, Piper…Breathe…Come on…Breathe with me. Take a breath.”
“Breathe with me…I breathe; you breathe…that’s it.”
Just like it has for years, those words echo in my mind; not in my voice but in his. It’s always been his voice that I have heard when the memories begin to pull me under. I pushed him away and have done my best to hate him for the past several years, but when he said he has always been here, he has no idea how true that is. He has always been here. I have never let him go. I’ve worked diligently to shove him from my heart and at moments, even the fact that I still needed him in a way, in any way after his deceit, I hated it.
My eyes squeeze shut tighter, the lids fusing together, but still not stopping the unending flow of tears. They soak my face with moisture, droplets collecting at my chin and jawline until two or three drips become too much and they plummet to my chest.
Dropping my head back to the headrest, it bounces subtly with a hushed thump. The spinning slows and I can finally hear the sound of my own heartbeat slowing; my breathing coming in deep exhales and inhales rather than short gasping spurts. Planting my entire hand along the back of the page, I look down, refusing to read any more. I’m not strong enough yet; I don’t know if I’ll ever be.
Breathe With Me (The Breathe Series Book 3) Page 12