by Vivian Lux
She returned with them stacked high in her arms. Those old relics in out-of-fashion colors.
A document of a life cut way too short.
"What do you want to see?" my mother asked.
I took a deep breath. I didn't know where to start, but I had to start somewhere. "How about when she was in high school?"
My mother opened the sea green album, turning without hesitation right to the picture I'd always thought of as quintessentially Violet. My sister was leaning up against the front porch of this very house with one leg resting on the porch rail. Her legs were long and tanned, and it was clearly the end of summer because her hair was bleached out by the sun. She smiled out from underneath her heavy bangs, and even the faded film couldn't mask the crystal blue of her eyes.
I've seen this picture probably a hundred times, but I never did more than glance at it and imagine myself in her place.
This time, I looked at my mom. "What's the occasion?" I asked.
My mother ran her finger down the side of the album. "First day of school, actually," she said. "It was such a hot day that day. I was all up in arms about how short her shorts were, but looking back on it, they're not even that short at all, are they?"
I looked again. "Pretty tame by today's standards."
Mom nodded. “She’d argued with me so hard that morning. She's smiling in this picture, but she is so pissed at me. You can tell by the way she's wrinkling her nose, see that?"
I leaned forward. It was true, her nose was wrinkled upward in a little tiny snarl. I laughed. "I guess I can’t imagine you guys ever fighting."
"Oh, we fought all the time. She was quite headstrong."
I grinned. “As bad as me?"
My mother smiled. "Well, I do like to say that I raised two girls who knew exactly what they wanted with their lives.“
I turned the page. "What about here, what's going on?”
It was an off-center shot, with the clear outline of someone's thumb in the corner of the film. My sister was smiling in front of what I recognized as the old beach at Reckless Creek.
"This one is from when your Uncle Tyler came to visit."
"The one from California?"
"Yes.” My mom leaned forward, looking. "I think he's supposed to be in this picture but I'm such a terrible photographer that he's probably under my thumb."
"You guys don't talk anymore, do you?”
My mother shook her head sadly. "He found himself a new girlfriend,” she sighed sadly. "And he's all wrapped up in her life now. It's not like we're actually angry at each other, but you know, Christmas and holidays and birthdays, those are the only times I hear from him."
I reached over and closed my hand over my mother’s and squeezed. She dabbed at her eyes. I leaned forward again, peering at the picture of my sister. "What was she doing here?"
"I think she was laughing at me actually," my mother said.
"No, she was laughing at me," my father's voice said from over my shoulder.
We both turned around. "How long have you been standing there?” I asked.
"The whole time," my father said. He leaned over me and touched the picture. "In this picture, she's laughing because I had just fallen into the creek. I was trying to save her, but apparently she didn't need to be saved. She was just playing a prank on me. So here I go jumping into the creek fully clothed, and she just ran right back out again. Little brat didn't even need my help." My dad shook his head.
I widened my eyes to hear my father calling my sainted sister a name. I grinned. "That sounds like something I would've done," I observed.
"No. You would've just pushed me in yourself. You wouldn't even bother trying to trick me," my dad said.
I laughed out loud. These stories of my sister, they weren't the ones I was used to hearing. I was used to hearing the litany of her accomplishments, her perfect angel child status. As I leaned over again and paged through the album, listening to my mother's stories and my father's gruff interjections, I felt a sudden wistfulness for the sister I'd always hated, but never knew. If she was still alive now, she and I would probably be pretty good friends, laughing together at my parents’ foibles, and banding together to rile up my dad.
I’d spent my whole life trying to be nothing like her, but it turned out I was like her all along.
I squeezed my mother's hand, and felt a sudden pressure on my shoulder. I looked up to see my father pressing his hand there. He looked down at me and smiled.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Derek
I’d lived in Reckless Falls my entire life. Never left, if truth be told. I've been up and down Main Street so many times that I have it memorized.
But I've never once set foot into Mrs. Feathergill’s antique store.
There was a first time for everything, apparently.
"Come on," Aria urged, laughing as she took my hand and led me down the sidewalk. The sun was shining strongly today, a bright November morning melting the last remnants of that freak October storm. A storm I’d remember the rest of my life because it brought me and Aria together.
Since that storm, she and I had set about slowly reacquainting ourselves with our hometown. She delighted in remembering things I’d forgotten thanks to booze, and I took even more pleasure in teasing her about things I just made up out of the blue. “That’s where the giant stone fish used to stand,” I lied.
“Bullshit, I don’t remember a stone fish.”
“That’s because you were away so long.”
“Are you fucking with me?”
I’d ducked my head. “Yup,” I grinned.
So maybe this little excursion was revenge for all that. “It'll be fun!” Aria laughed as she dragged me under the faded red awning.
"I don't call shopping ‘fun’,” I growled. But she must've been able to tell I was happy. Because she laughed that laugh of hers, her wide smile like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. Goddamn, I was so fucking smitten with her that I’d do anything to see that smile. Right up to and including standing on my head and singing the national anthem. Just to see her smile.
So, I followed her into an antique store, maybe shuffling my feet just a little bit, but I quickened my step the second she interlaced her fingers with mine.
The inside of the store was overwarm for this bright, sunny day. Dust motes danced in the beams of sun that made it through the dirtied windows. Aria made a beeline for the back, where a row of dusty brown clothes was hanging. I don't know shit about fashion, but whatever Aria saw seemed to make her really happy. She plunged her hand into the rack, and pulled out something shiny and fitted.
"Holy hell," she said as she ran her fingers over it, eyes gleaming. "Where were you when I was performing?"
I shuffled closer, my curiosity overtaking my aversion to fashion. She was holding a black-laced corset, the kind that Victorian women used to wear in those fussy old cameo photos. It looked like it was ready to fall apart if you sneezed on it, but Aria was treating it so reverently that I held my tongue and didn't say so. "You like it?" I asked instead.
I could practically see the gears turning in her head. "Back when I was in high school, I got really into the whole history of fashion and stuff. I created a whole look," she said putting her hand over the fabric. "Some kind of broken down doll punk. An alien's interpretation of what a girl would be.”
"I don't think I'm smart enough to follow the rest of this conversation,” I grinned.
She laughed out loud and shook her head. "Sorry, sorry, this is kind of conversation I used to have with Xavier. We used to talk all the time about things like image and artistic integrity. I wanted to be somebody completely unlike the rest of the world. I wanted to do something never before tried." She laughed with a grimace on her face. "But what I ended up doing was following my boyfriend around, letting him write the songs and control everything… And apparently I let him sleep around on me too." She held the corset up to her torso. "If I could do it all over again….”
“I’d still do it all over again," I said firmly.
She looked up at me. I shook my head at her. "There's always time for a second chance. There's always room to do things over. One of the things I learned when I was in AA. Nothing that you do so irrevocable that you can't come back from it. You can’t live without hope. Otherwise you get stuck in the same destructive pattern."
She looked up at me, biting her lower lip so hard she's practically chewing on it. "Do you really believe that?" she whispered.
I got the feeling she was asking something a lot more important than whether I believed she could wear the clothes she wanted. "I do believe it," I said, moving closer to her. I tipped her chin up to me. "I believe in doing it over and over again, until you get it completely right."
The brush of her lips against mine sent sparks down my spine. I was telling her I believed the power of doing things over, but it wasn't a lie, and it wasn't just for her benefit, it was for me too. I was getting a second chance, here, with her, and fucked if I didn't wake up every morning so god damn grateful that it had come. And I fucking loved her for giving me that chance.
I loved her.
Shit.
The bells above the door jingled, and Aria moved away from me reluctantly.
“I’m going to try it on," she said.
"You'd better let me see you in it," I warned her.
She licked her lips. "You sure you don't want to save it for back at your place?"
"Oh of course, there too.”
She laughed and headed back behind the hanging piece of fabric that marked off the dressing rooms. I walked away, shuffling, idly picking up things and putting them down, not really seeing them.
"Derek?"
I turned to hear the familiar voice. "Brynn,” I said, surprised. "What are you doing here?"
“I could say the same to you.”
“I know. I’m…”
“Back?”
“Sort of.”
“Jesse told me what you did,” she said softly. “Shoveling him out like that.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad you guys are talking again.”
“Me too,” I said, looking down at my hands. Brynn was fairly vibrating with happiness. “Derek…I’m so happy to see you here.”
“What, at an antiques store?”
She wrinkled her nose at me. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m only here because Aria made me. What are you doing here? Isn’t it a school day?”
”I took the day off, asshole,” she smiled. “I’m trying to find a Christmas present.” She sighed heavily.
"Isn't it a little early for that?"
She gave me a smirk. "I have everything done except for this one gift," she sighed, pulling a piece paper out of her pocket and checking it. “It's for my aunt. The woman is richer than God and has everything already. I was hoping to find some sort of antique knickknacks thing, something pretty that won't embarrass me when she opens in front of the entire extended family."
I turned and grabbed the first thing I could find off the shelf. "How's this?" I asked.
She looked down. "That is creepy as hell," she pointed out.
I looked more closely. It was an old porcelain doll, very fancily dressed with dull flat dead eyes staring out of its pale, shiny head. I shuddered. "Yes, you're absolutely right."
Brynn got a wicked look on her face. "But then again, it is kind of perfect.”
“What’s perfect?“ Aria called. She came out of the dressing room, and I was disappointed to see that she had a T-shirt on, though the shape of her underneath it suggested she was wearing the corset. My dick sprang to life just at the thought of that lace pushing her breasts upward, the way they’d spill over the top. I turned to the side and coughed.
“Aria Jane, is that you?" Brynn said, with a slow dawning realization. "Holy shit, welcome back? What brings you back to this backwater."
Before she could stop herself, Aria darted her eyes in my direction. Brynn, always as sharp as a tack, picked right up on it and a grin spread across her face. "Damn, this is a long time coming."
"You think so?" I said.
"Anyone with eyes could see how you two looked at each other back in high school."
"We barely said two words to each other,” Aria protested.
"Yeah, but your looks said it all,” Brynn teased. "Are you sticking around, Aria?”
The tips of her ears turned as bright red as the flame of her hair. “Seems that way,“ she said quietly.
My heart did triple backflip. I wanted so badly to pump my fist in the air but I just instead allowed myself a quiet, happy smile.
She sighed too, and smiled a smile of her own. Brynn must have felt something pass between us. "Well, at least you got this guy out and about," she said, tapping her fingers on the counter. “It's been so freaking long, Derek. I’m surprised you didn’t go completely feral up in the mountains there. Did you grow big bushy beard or something?"
I grinned. “It wasn't too bushy, no,” I said. "I have straight hair you know."
Brynn laughed. "I'm so glad to see you again, A.J.” She said moving in for a spontaneous hug. Aria squeezed her tightly, and then Brynn pulled back. "Come here, old man of the mountains." She wrapped her arms around me, pulling me in tight. "It's good to see you again like this," she said softly. “Really good.”
Then she picked up the creepy Victorian doll. “And I'm taking this with me."
She went to the counter and started to pay. I waved then looked over to see Aria watching me closely. "What?" I growled
"I'm enjoying the sight of you acting like a human being,” she said, moving to push against my shoulder.
But as she did, her ankle turned and she stumbled to the side. Without even thinking, I shot my arm out, steadying her. Then I sighed. "Don't you have anything else to wear besides those ridiculous boots?” I asked her.
Aria frowned. "You didn't think they were too ridiculous last night," she teased.
I smiled at the memory. "No, they're not ridiculous in the bedroom. Good handholds,” I growled, loving the way the thought made her blush too. "But for walking around the slushy streets of Reckless Falls, you need something a bit more practical."
"You sound like my father," she grumped.
"Well, I’m a practical man," I said closing my fingers in hers. “Come on, we can go to the outfitters right up the road."
"Fine," she said. “But first,” she took me by the other hand, “I want you to see this.”
All thoughts of boots flood my brain as she pulls me towards the dressing room, and slipped her T-shirt over her head. Her breasts spilled into my hand, and I hissed to feel the shape of her in that corset. “Quick, baby,” she whispered. “Before anyone finds out.”
But I didn’t give a fuck about being caught. Nothing mattered but the sounds she was making, those singing cries. She yanked down her jeans and I pressed myself into her from behind, watching her face in the mirror as her eyes went wide. Her back was to me, but I could see everything - everything- in the mirrors and it was a wonder that I didn’t lose it over how beautiful she was. Her rolling hips moved in a sinuous ripple as she ground herself into me, head thrown back. Her eyes were slitted and a rosy flush spread across her corseted breasts. I ached to squeeze them, pinch those perfect nipples between my thumb and forefinger to make her gasp, but I was pinned back by the intense pleasure coursing through me. “Fucking hell baby, that’s right, you get yourself there. I’m waiting right there for you. We’re going together.”
I watched the mirror, entranced, as her fingers snuck down and began to rub between her legs.
“So close,” she gasped in a desperate whisper, and then her eyes flew wide open and I felt her tense around me, pulling me deeper than I felt possible. I flew up, grasping her around the waist and pinning her close as the white hot pleasure burst open inside of me. Blindly I grasped for her face and was shocked when my fingers came away wet.
I opened m
y eyes and saw Aria in the mirror. “Baby, what? What is it.?”
“Derek…dammit…”
“Hey now, that was good. We are good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I kissed her shoulder. “It’s going to be perfect. Because I love you.”
“Fuck,” she breathed. “I love you too.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Aria Jane
It was the first of December and the snow was falling gently when a stranger walked up to my door. A stranger with carefully combed hair, and a crisp blue flannel shirt tucked in to completely unfaded blue jeans. The stranger was clean shaven, and walking with his shoulders thrown back, and when he got my door he shot me a wide crooked smile, amusement dancing in his dark, beautiful eyes.
I opened the door. "Damn," I said looking Derek up and down blatantly. "You clean up nice."
He stepped towards me, sliding his hand into the back pocket of my jeans. “Date night is a special occasion," he said, leaning down to brush a kiss passed my lips.
I stood up on my tiptoes, reaching for him eagerly. "Is this the shirt from the outfitters?” I asked, thinking back to our day in town. The corset had been fun, but hadn’t lasted very long at all. I felt slightly bad about destroying an antique that way, but wow had it been worth it.
“Yes, it is," Derek sighed, plucking at the lapel of his new shirt.
I looked up at him and grabbed his hand. "You let me dress you," I said, licking my lips. “I kind of love you for that.”
What I loved more was the way his eyelids grew heavy when he looked me in the eye. "Yeah,” he said. “I figured it was worth the hassle of being uncomfortable just so you'd check me out like this.”
"You mean look you up and down like you're some kind of piece of man meat?"
He grinned. "Yes. Please do."
I grinned. “Do a little twirl for me."
He obliged me, turning in a sharp circle. "Your ass looks fantastic," I teased.