by Nikki Wild
Oh well, I thought to myself. So, we’re off to a bad start. Whatever.
Leaving my stepsister to her devices, I wandered back towards my room. With my hand on the door, it occurred to me to continue bringing her stuff – the rest of her suitcases were going to be a fight for her to carry up the stairs and across the wing alone – but indignity rose within me.
Nah, fuck it.
Hensley popped back into view. “Well, it looks like everything’s in order here…do you need a hand with anything else?”
I was about to decline, but immediately realized that as long as he was around, she’d have the work done for her.
“Well, there is one last thing, actually. Would you follow me for a moment?”
“Sure!” Hensley smiled. “Anything you need, son.”
We strolled downstairs while he remarked on the state of things, praising the cleaning crew for a job well done. “They’ll be in from time to time to ensure the house stays up to snuff,” he mentioned offhandedly. “Once a week, on Fridays. Around…1PM? 2PM? Somewhere around in that time frame. I’ll have to consult my notes…if I can remember where I put the blasted things...”
“Oh, no need to worry about that,” I assured him. “We’ll figure it out. Do they have their own key?”
“No, you’ll have to let them in,” Hensley explained. “Your parents thought that it was fine to have strangers here, cleaning everything while the house was unoccupied, but considered having them turn up unannounced while the two of you were here a bit much. That, and that little thing about the possible attack…”
I nodded. Made sense.
“Still, there’s an extra set of keys in the right-most kitchen cabinet, close to the refrigerator. If you feel you can’t be bothered, just hand them over when you see them next week. I’ve heard how you can be with your privacy, but thought I’d offer the option regardless.”
Hensley paused, and I gave him a quick look.
“…Of course, I’m sure you can, that is…”
“It’s fine,” I told him, stepping onto the first floor. “It’s true. I do care about my privacy. Very much so. I appreciate you keeping that in consideration.”
“Right. Of course. Silly me,” he started to mumble as his voice trailed off. “That is…what did you need my help with, again?”
I indicated outside, towards the car. “Saffron’s not feeling too well. She asked me to bring her things in. After that, we’ll be happy to get out of your hair.”
“I see,” he replied, glancing back up the stairs. “Shouldn’t I check on her before she goes?”
“Oh, there’s no need for that,” I answered coolly as we walked outside. “I’m here – and I’ll be just a few rooms away, too. It’ll be nothing for me to keep an eye on her. She insisted on laying down on not being disturbed.”
“And we’re going to bring her things up to her room?” We moved around to the backseat, grasping suitcases and containers.
“No, just there in the foyer will work.”
“Why not save her the trouble? These seem much too heavy for her…”
“You worry too much, Hensley!” I cracked a smile. “You know what she’s like – wants to do everything herself. Besides, if she has trouble with them, I’ll be right there to help.”
“Well…alright then. So long as you say so!” We both set down the heavy cases on the foyer floor rug. “Your father was explicit that he wanted me to stick around until you’re both comfortable, though.”
“Bah!” I remarked, leading him back to the car. “I think ‘Saffron feeling under the weather’ exempts you from that clause. You have a life. Really, we’ll be fine. You’ve already done more than enough for us.”
“I’m sure she’ll be in good hands,” he agreed, taking a large case from my hands. “Very well then. If you’re confident, I’ll just help you get these last few things in, and I’ll be on my way.”
We finished unloading the car and said our goodbyes at the front doorway. Hensley dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief. I offered him a glass of water, but he declined.
“No, that’s quite alright. Listen, if either of you need anything – anything at all – you have my number in your phone. My house is only about a mile away from here, and I can be right over in an emergency.”
I shook his hand. For a slightly overweight fellow, his grip was surprisingly tight. “I can’t thank you enough. Don’t be a stranger.”
“Pensacola’s a big place, but you might see me around from time to time,” he smiled warmly. “The Beach House is yours. Enjoy it! It seems like a long time now, but in a couple of months it’ll have flown by so quickly…”
“Ain’t it the truth.”
He tipped his hat and strolled down the landing before turning again. “Send my best to your stepsister. I hope she’s feeling much better soon.”
“Of course.” I flashed a small, endearing half-grin, and he appeared satisfied. Closing the doors around the car, he climbed into the driver’s seat and was on his way back into the city within a minute.
I barely had time to dwell on my little victory before my sister’s voice cut through the silence.
“What? Why are all my things down here?”
“Hensley had to run,” I lied, my eyes glued to his car as it disappeared in the distance. “I helped him get your things out, but he was in such a hurry that we just put it all down there.” I turned to glance up at her as she glared down from the second floor. “That’s not a problem, is it?”
“That doesn’t sound like him…are you at least going to give me a hand with this stuff?”
I savored the moment, recognizing how counterproductive it was to alienate her. Still, I couldn’t help but put her in her place. “I already was, before you were so rude to me a few minutes ago. Why don’t you figure it out?”
“Seriously?” She groaned in disgust.
Throwing her head to the side, she looked absolutely beautiful. I loved to see her bothered. She was so undeniably attractive when she was scornful.
“If you apologize for slamming the door in my face, I’ll consider it.”
“Sawyer, you’re the worst.”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” I smirked as I wandered past the pile of suitcases and towards the kitchen. “Good luck with all of that. At least you’ll build up some muscle on that scrawny figure of yours.”
“You’re a total asshole. You know that, right?”
I chuckled to myself. “Hard to forget with you around.”
I hated to admit it, but it was way too fun to push her buttons. She never played along with it, and that only made it that much more entertaining to me. We could have the kind of relationship where we constantly tug-of-warred against each other, just getting our kicks out of subtly pissing each other off. Instead, she just took it and cursed at me from afar. It had been the case before I left, and it was apparently going to be the case now that I was back.
While I heard her scuffle down the stairs to assess the level of difficulty she’d face with the luggage, I rummaged in the refrigerator. Fully stocked, as I’d expected. Digging around in the crisper, I withdrew a fresh, green apple, washed it under the sink, and took a crispy first bite out of the flesh.
My thoughts wandered back to our relationship – and how I loved to push her for my own amusement and satisfaction. There was more to it than that, and I knew it.
With every slight barb, every last irritation I inflicted upon her, I distanced myself from the thing that could tear us both apart.
I loved Saffron.
My teenage feelings hadn’t disappeared with age, and it was time that I confronted that fact. I’d been crazy about her while we lived together – enough that I realized how much of a problem it was. I couldn’t have her. I could never have her.
But I was weak, and I needed her, because she was just so fucking beautiful. Not just on the outside, though. With all the time we spent together, I was constantly shown the way that she looked at the wor
ld, and my cynical worldview was challenged by her insurmountable compassion and adoration.
But compassion and adoration aren’t happiness, and I knew that she was still unhappy. Sure, her mom had let the past go, and had adapted well to the new lifestyle offered by marrying my father. But Saffron carried around a deep anxiety that our parents didn’t see.
Apparently, only I could.
It was subtle. Something in her eyes, sometimes. When she was feeling particularly down, her fingers would drum in a certain pattern. It was easy to hide it, because she was always drumming her fingers, but I had figured out that she always did it in reverse when she was sincerely upset.
You’d never tell by just looking at her. She wasn’t as unstoppably cheerful as her mother, and she usually kept herself in pretty high spirits on the outside. But my little sister had figured out how to hide in plain sight – a coping mechanism, maybe. I knew that she had some bad blood with her father, and that she had to grow up quickly to try and help her mother. I figured that she just learned how to put on a happy smile and radiate warmth…even when she was empty to the core.
I admired the skill. Sometimes, you have to be brave for others. Other times, you have to be relentlessly happy for them. There is a certain kind of bravery in keeping up the charade, even when everything within you wants to wilt you down to nothingness.
There had been a carousel of girls that I dragged home and ravaged in my bed, but the only way I could ever get it up was to flick the lights off and pretend that it was her.
It was always her, at least to me.
But I knew I could never have her, and it pained me to think on how badly I wanted to hold her face in my hands and wipe away her depression. I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms and stave away her anxiety, her fear, all of it.
Saffron didn’t deserve to feel so empty all the time.
And she didn’t deserve me making things difficult.
But I was weak, and it was all I had. The only way that I could maintain my willpower and keep my hands off of her, to prevent putting myself in a position where hearts were devastated and relationships shattered. Of course, that all presumed that she’d even entertain the thought for a second…and I strongly suspected that she wouldn’t, and I’d fuck everything up by trying.
While I bit into my apple and watched her struggle with the luggage, I wanted to cast it away and flock to her side. I fought the urge to apologize, laugh at my own stupidity, and help her pull everything upstairs.
But I needed her to resent me.
If she didn’t – if we grew close – I wouldn’t be able to hold myself back. It would come bubbling to the surface, out from the depths where it was chained up and buried – a forgotten chest, lost within the darkest depths of me. Within that chest was one irrefutable fact.
I loved Saffron Samuels with all my heart.
And the knife twisted inside that heart every fucking day.
Seven
Saffron
Pensacola, Present Day
Moving everything up the stairs to my bedroom was a complete pain in the ass, and it didn’t help that my jackass roommate wasn’t willing to lift a finger. It took me over an hour to get everything up into my room while he comfortably lounged in the den, relaxing in front of the big screen television.
Any time that we made eye contact, I gave him the filthiest glare I could muster. Sawyer would flash his smile and turn back to the television, sometimes fluffing a pillow or folding his fingers behind the back of his head.
What an asshole.
While he preoccupied himself with whatever the hell he was doing down there, I set about unpacking.
The Beach House was built to favor large rooms over many rooms, and I had a lot of room to work with. This included the beautiful, robust cherrywood furniture that helped tie the entire villa together. In my bedroom alone, I enjoyed the company of a queen-sized four-poster bed, an end table on either side, two dressers, two bookcases, shelves, and a vanity desk. There was also a spacious walk-in closet – half the size of my old apartment bedroom.
I had been borderline broke for most of my life; as a result, I delighted in the simple pleasure of owning things. My suitcases were filled with beautiful clothes that I was going to enjoy for the summer, regardless of Sawyer’s stupid habit of bothering me. Within an hour or two, they’d be empty and tucked away in the bottom of the closet, while everything would be on display in their proper places.
My shoes fit comfortably into a cubby bookcase, built into the left side. Next to them, I hung up my array of dresses, and then on the other side I hung shirts, shorts, and a few bathing suits. A few hats wound up on the bare pegs above, ready and waiting to be proudly worn under the hot Pensacola sun.
To one of my drawers went my undergarments. I had taken great care to bring a spectrum of matching attire. Out of the four drawers, I left the top one empty – just in case. To the second drawer went my bras; to the third, I placed my panties; the bottom received my socks. I structured everything with black on one side and white on the other, and lay out the spectrum of dominant color between the two. Each drawer corresponded vertically with the right color for each garment, no matter where it was.
Proud of the uniformity, I unpacked the books that I had brought. These went on the shelves across the room, close to the exquisite floor lamp. There were plenty of places in the Beach House where I could read to my heart’s content, should living alone with my brother turn out to be too much a bother.
Last but not least, I removed a few small, personal artifacts, mostly just for display. Removed from their padding, I placed them on the end tables, in my private bathroom, and a few on the top shelf above the rest of the books.
Pleased with myself, I changed into a comfortable, loose tee and a pair of baggy pajamas. Passing Sawyer’s room down the hall, I could hear that he had resumed unpacking his things behind the closed door. I briefly flirted with the idea of yanking the door open and trying to pay him back – something he probably would have done anyway.
Great, now I’m even THINKING like the jerk.
I instead retrieved one of my paperbacks and descended down the stairs. Sliding it onto an end table beside a nice reading chair in a side room, I strolled back towards the kitchen. It was only now that I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since the morning, and I was absolutely starving.
There was an ample selection in the fridge. Rows of sliced, premium deli meats, cheeses, fruits and fresh vegetables, gourmet yogurts, and much more immediately came into view. On the door there was a wide variety of beverages: milk, soy milk, almond milk, orange and pineapple juice, grape juice, apple juice, frigid coffee drinks, smoothie blends, carbonated sodas…
“There’s no way we’ll eat all of this,” I thought aloud. “Half of this is going to spoil…”
Pulling out the bottom freezer compartment, I perused the wide variety of frozen foods. It seemed like maybe twenty percent of the drawer was filled with desserts and treats – there were ice cream flavors in here that I had never even heard of, let alone seen. As for the rest, it was everything you could think of, with the blatant exception of TV dinners and preserved food. Seemed like our parents had ordered a smorgasbord of food and stipulated convenience above everything else – I hated to waste, and was aggravated that there just wasn’t any room to save anything from spoiling.
I settled on a borderline gourmet four-cheese pizza. Dreading the nutritional facts, I closed the drawer on its gliding rails with my extended toe, and then read the instructions on the back. A few seconds later, the oven was preheating appropriately, and I began to rip open the box.
A noise alerted me.
I looked up, spotting Sawyer in the distance. He was passing through the foyer and on his way towards the door.
“Hey!” I called out to him. “Sawyer, HEY!”
He paused, glancing around until he spotted me. It looked like he was grumbling for a moment, but he wandered towards the kitchen.
> Lazily and somewhat impatiently, Sawyer leaned against the doorway. “What? What is it?”
“Do you want some pizza?” I asked, indicating the box. “There’s no way I’m going to eat this whole thing.”
“There’s no way either of us is going to eat everything in that damned fridge…” my stepbrother nodded towards the luxury refrigerator. For the first time, I realized that it was taller than even him.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I agreed, looking over at it again. “Why did they have it filled so much? You and I could get by with maybe a quarter of that freaking thing.”
“Because our parents don’t seem to know how to live without excess.”
“Well, that’s not fair,” I reprimanded him with a grim smirk. “Until we met you two, Mom and I got by without the big, fancy house and the full fridge. I think our Dad just went a little…overboard with it. That’s probably all.”
Sawyer seemed only mildly convinced, crossing his arms.
“So, about this pizza…”
“No, I’ve got plans.”
“Oh? That quickly?” I bit the back of my knuckle.
“That’s right.” He seemed oddly tense.
“And what are these plans? How long are you staying out?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure what they are, or how long–”
“What’s with the third degree?” Sawyer demanded, leaning up against the wall and adjusting his crossed arms. “Back off.”
I was dumbfounded. “Look, I just…you’re all I have here. Don’t leave me alone all the time.”
For a brief moment, regret seemed to cloud Sawyer’s face, but it was gone before I could know for sure. “I’m going out. I don’t need any pizza. I’ll find something to do and something to eat.”