What Lies Beneath (Count on Me Series #7)

by Melyssa Winchester

  I have everything to apologize for.

  “She didn’t come home for two days and by the time she did, I’d forgotten about it.”

  “You don’t have to explain.”

  “But I do. I swore it and I didn’t follow through.”

  Swallowing down the guilt I feel for never once telling her I understood what she was going through because I’d lived through it too, I turn my attention to the book and what I know comes next.

  More darkness. More torture.

  Pain.

  “You were seven, Kayden. As much as you wanted to be everything to everyone back then, and I know you did; you couldn’t be. It wasn’t our time yet.”

  Pulling my eyes from the book and finding hers as I let her words sink in, I lean in and press my lips to her forehead and think not about the harder parts of what come next, but the easy ones.

  The ones that include her.

  Us.

  The light. The happy. The excitement I put on paper when I made roads with her when we were kids.

  I think about Belle.

  “I’m still scared.”

  Jesus. That’s not what I wanted to say.

  “Of your dad?”

  “No.” I shake my head vehemently. “I’m over that. I think I am anyway.”

  “Then what are you scared of?”

  “Not being enough. That no matter how hard I try to be different and make things better for you—for us; that I’m still going to fail. Screw it up.”

  “Well, I guess there’s no time like the present to say that I’m scared too.”

  If I was surprised by what I said, I’m even more taken off guard by what Belle did.

  She’s afraid of me screwing up too?

  “W—what are you scared of?” I manage to choke out, closing my eyes and readying myself for the bomb I just know is coming.

  “The future.” She admits. “Mine. Yours. Ours. I’m scared of all of it.”

  “Why?” I ask, even though I’m sure I’m not going to like the answer.

  “Open your eyes, Kay. Don’t hide from me.”

  When I make no move to do what she’s asked, her hand runs lightly across my face, pausing when she reaches the corner of my eyes and feeling the weight of her own gaze waiting for me to respond, I give in.

  I look.

  But where I expected to see fear, sadness, or pity, I see nothing but the same things she’s been giving me for years now.

  Love. Acceptance. Understanding.

  Her.

  “The future is scary. I think it’s that way for everyone. No one knows how the story of their lives is going to play out. We can guess based on the choices we make, but we can never be one hundred percent sure. What I am a hundred percent sure of though, is that as long as my story has you in it, no matter how scary things may get or seem, it’s all going to be okay.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Placing her hand delicately on top of mine, she lifts it over until its resting on top of the last line of the journal entry I’ve written. Her eyes meeting mine before lowering straight down to it, intending for mine to follow.

  “Because you just swore to me that it would.”

  Chapter Three

  When she said that there was something she wanted to show me and raced off into my old room to find it, I gotta admit, I was curious.

  After reading that last entry, despite the talk we had after it, I figured she was going to need a break.

  Not that she’d want to keep going.

  Add something more to it.

  Pulling myself off the sofa at the sound of yet another crash emanating from the room, I make my way across the living room to the hall, calling out as I go.

  “What’s taking so long?”

  When no response comes, I move to the door and twisting the knob, push it open and take in the sight before me.

  Belle, on a chair digging through the boxes she’d labelled and stored there, contents flying rapidly from her hands down onto the bed below. Some of it bouncing off before hitting the floor.

  The reasons for all the banging I heard crystal clear now.

  “Yes!” she exclaims, jumping down off the chair. “Found it!”

  Surveying the mess of the room, reminded of how alike we are considering the look of the garage after I was done with it, I smile, which when her eyes meet mine again, she doesn’t waste any time returning.

  “What exactly is it?”

  Making her way over, bridging the two or three feet gap between us, she holds a book of her own out in front of her. A book that even though I haven’t seen it in years, I know well.

  The very book I wrote about when I was seven.

  “You weren’t kidding about still having it.”

  “Every single diary, especially the ones with the locks, I still have.”

  “How many of them are there, exactly?”

  “About fifty.” She grins. “But most of them are still at my mom’s place. I only brought the really important ones with me.”

  Really important ones.

  That must mean that whatever she was writing about at the time when I first started, has to do with me just as much as mine did with her. It’s the only thing I can figure given what we were just doing a few minutes ago.

  “So what’s so important in this diary that you had to tear apart your old room to find it?”

  Taking it back from me, she pulls a miniature key on a string from the pocket of her pants and unlocks it, tossing the lock to the bed before handing it back to me, smile still firmly in place.

  “Open it and find out.”

  Moving across the room to the bed, I sit and do as she asks. Keeping my eyes trained on hers until just like before in the living room, she’s sitting beside me, her arm coming around my midsection as she leans her head on my shoulder.

  “Go on.” She says with a squeeze. “Meet seven year old Belle.”

  “Don’t you mean, meet her again?”

  “No. I mean, meet her. This is the Belle you didn’t know, Kay. The girl filled with the words that at the time, I couldn’t say. Words that even though I wished for it, you couldn’t hear.”

  She still doesn’t get it.

  Belle doesn’t get that even though I couldn’t hear the words and for a long ass time, I acted like I didn’t want to hear them, I did. I heard every word. I’ve been hearing her every word from the day we met.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “To quote Isaac, or maybe Hannibal Lector considering where he stole it from, quid pro quo, Kay. You showed me yours, so it’s only fair I show you mine.”

  There’s been a lot of instances over the last couple of years where I’ve needed to thank Isaac Crawford, and in the end have thanked him. Looks like I’ve got another to add to the list.

  I think I like her quoting movies.

  Who am I kidding?

  She’s Belle. I like everything about her.

  “You know…there are much better uses for that quote than us showing each other old journals.” I wiggle my eye suggestively.

  “Down boy. We can get to that later. For now, we read.”

  Leveling her with a pout as I sigh heavily, and being rewarded when she slaps my arm, I do as she asks and open the book. My eyes falling to the cursive on the page, neat and steady, but her words from the second I start reading aloud, anything but.

  April 10, 2004

  Today is the best day ever!!!

  My mom got me a new diary and it’s even better than the last one because it locks and only I have the key. So whatever I write is for my eyes only.

  Then there’s the other thing she bought.

  I got the art set I wanted!!

  Pencil crayons, pastels, crayons and paint. All put together in this super cool pack that snaps closed so little sticky fingers like Tristan’s can’t use it when I’m not around.

  That isn’t even the best part.

  Wait for it…

  Auntie Daphne ca
me over with Kayden, and we painted together!

  Oh my gosh! I’m not even done. There is sooooo much more.

  Our paintings are on the fridge side by side!

  Just like we were when we painted them.

  Like we’re always gonna be.

  Kayden is the bestest friend ever!

  He doesn’t look at me like I’m weird. Mom does sometimes when she doesn’t think I’m paying attention. So do her friends when they come over. It’s because I don’t talk. I stare a lot and like playing alone mostly.

  Unless it’s Kayden.

  I like playing with him because when things are too much, he’s okay just sitting with me. I like it when we just sit together. No words.

  It’s the best part of my day.

  Hang on. He’s trying to peek.

  Ugh. Boys.

  He’s gone now.

  But seriously, today is the best day ever!

  “Wait.” I stop reading. “This is…”

  I can’t even come up with the words. The day I saw her writing in her new diary and was annoyed by it because she wasn’t paying attention to me, this is what she was doing.

  Writing about me.

  I remember that day.

  I did everything I could to put days like that out of my head a few years later, but I remember it so clearly it’s as though we just lived it. From the moment my mom brought me over and I sat beside her on the sofa bored out of my mind and desperately in need of something to do, right up until the moment she’d run upstairs and come back down with that art set of hers. Two large off-white sheets of paper with her.

  The way she dipped her head to the side and motioned to them silently, and me, being clueless and not getting the idea until she’d stuttered out the word paint and pointed to the paper.

  God. I can even remember the painting.

  Hers of the sky, lines on the page she labelled birds and mine, the opposite.

  The water, an ocean, with the ugliest looking fish in it.

  Unbelievable.

  Maybe wanting to show her my journal wasn’t such a bad thing after all. I already had a lot of memories of her from when we were kids, ones I’d tried to bury after my mom took off and I eventually broke away in favor of making new friends.

  But now, sharing our thoughts from back then the way we are, we’re creating new ones from them.

  No matter how bad things got or what she’s bound to see the more she reads, this is probably one of the smartest things I’ve ever done.

  “I’m the bestest, huh?”

  “The very bestest.” She says with a grin.

  “Why did you want to show me this so bad?”

  Slipping the book from my hands and bringing it over into her lap, she flips a couple of pages, smiling nostalgically over whatever it is she’s written before turning back to face me and explain.

  “You assumed when we were kids that because my attention seemed to be anywhere but on you that I didn’t notice you. That you were being ignored the same way you said you were the first time you tried to get my attention at four. I guess after what you just read to me about your dad, I wanted to show you differently. Show you that you did matter. Sometimes, more than anyone else.”

  I’m torn in two directions with everything I read and she’s said.

  On the one hand, her excitement, how happy she seemed to be in the entry is infectious and in the moment, I’m right there with her. But on the other hand, this entry and her words serve as a sobering reminder of the hell that I put her through only a few years after this entry was written.

  The way I bailed on her and treated her like she didn’t matter. Hurt her.

  The eight long years I spent that despite the last three, I don’t think I’ll ever entirely be able to make up for, no matter what she believes about our future.

  That’s not all, though. I realized something else while going back in time with her through these journals.

  I miss the old me. The boy I was.

  The one that my mom said would be good for someone like Belle. Well, when she wasn’t saying that Walker boys were the devils work anyway.

  “How many of these do you have here?”

  “Ten or so. Why?”

  “Would it be alright if you pulled a few more of them out?”

  I don’t want to force her hand or make her feel obligated to read her private words from back then, but I’m thinking with as dark as I remember things being growing up, what I know is waiting for me in those journals even though it’s been years since I’ve read them, I’m gonna need a little bit of her to balance it out.

  Keep me above the tide.

  “Sure. It’s not like they’re state secrets or something, Kayden. A whole lot of random gibberish with some pretty cool thoughts in between, sure. But not anything I haven’t wanted to share with you.”

  Shifting my body, I move back on the bed, stopping when I feel my back hit the headboard. Leaning forward, I pull a couple of the pillows up, situating them behind my back and when I’m sure I’m comfortable, pat the spot beside me.

  “Since we’re already here, and here is where I was when I wrote a lot of things, maybe we can do it here?”

  Nodding her head, she slips off the bed and heads for the door, turning and lifting up a hand before heading out of the room, the pattering of her socked feet hitting the floor as she heads back into the living room to grab my journal, like music to my ears.

  The opposite of the harsher, lead footed sound that used to accompany my father, mother and then Dean as they stomped their way angrily around the house. Belle, with something as simple as the sound of her feet across a carpet taking years of horror and replacing them with happiness.

  Creating what should be instead of what was.

  After a few seconds of staring up at the ceiling and then taking in the rest of the room, she slips back through the door, but where I expect her to saunter to the bed slowly and slip in beside me, she dives onto the bed in a fit of laughter, crawling across the mattress until she’s curling herself around me.

  Placing the book of horrors in my lap before reaching up and pressing her lips to my cheek gently.

  “I hope this answers your question.” She whispers against my face and with a slow nod, I turn my attention to the book. Sucking in yet another breath in preparation of what I’m about to find next. Knowing that whatever the next memory is on the page, it will be as much news to me as it is to her.

  As I begin to speak, reciting the date, her next move halts me.

  Leaning forward, she places her hands on the paper, a small gasp escaping before she lifts her head, and even though I’ve seen it happen a million times over the last couple of years, she dazzles me with her smile.

  “I remember this!”

  Chapter Four

  July 10, 2004

  I didn’t know days could be like this.

  When I got up this morning and mom called down the hall telling me to get ready cause we were gonna head over to the Reagan’s place, I had no idea that what we’d end up doing would turn out to be so fun.

  Weekends always seem to go the same. At least they have for the last couple of weeks.

  When she’s sure he’s gone, she wakes me up and after sliding a bowl of cereal across the bar and letting me wash it down with some orange juice, we go over to see Belle and her mom. Locked up inside while they talk and Belle and I come up with things to do.

  Rain does that.

  Ruins things.

  I don’t care what anyone says. There is nothing good about water falling from the sky. At least there never was before.

  Today was different.

  We actually changed up the routine.

  Mom says that we can’t do that a lot because Belle doesn’t handle it well, but I think that’s just something she says so we don’t have to go out and do anything fun, because Belle was fine.

  She didn’t cry, hit her head or have any accidents.

  She loved the park!

 
; And even though it’s silly, I loved that she loved it.

  It’s always so hard to get her to smile. And laugh? No way. I should know. I spent months trying to get her to do it a couple of years ago.

  Should have just taken her to the park.

  Mom found this tree when we got there that was near some flowers, purple ones that Grace called weeds, but that looked nicer than some of the stuff my mom’s planted before, and after getting us to eat some lunch, we were allowed to run off and do whatever while they stayed there watching.

  I brought my soccer ball, so when Mom said I could go play, I picked it up and went to kick it around. After doing that for a bit, Belle finally got off the blanket, but instead of coming to play with me, ran halfway across the field and straight into a pile of leaves.

  Wet, sticky leaves.

  It was crazy, but when she came out and was shaking the ones that were stuck to her off, she was laughing.

  I tried everything to get her to laugh and nothing ever worked, but give her some leaves and all you hear for miles is her high pitched squeal.

  There was this sick feeling in my stomach watching her. I didn’t understand it and still don’t. She was happy, so I wanted to be happy too, but I wasn’t.

  I guess my sandwich was bad though, because when I finally made my way over to her, the sick feeling was gone.

  Like it never even happened at all.

  “You were jealous.” Belle interrupts, pulling my attention away from the book. “Kay…”

  Okay. I love the softness in her eyes as she’s looking at me right now, but I don’t have the first clue why she’s doing it. Don’t even get me started on the way she’s saying my name.

  She only does that when I do something sweet and unless she’s reading something different than what I am, I don’t see anything sweet here. Just a bunch of rambling about the day.

  “Huh?”

  “That sick feeling in your stomach watching me laugh and play. It’s because you were jealous.”

  “Still don’t follow.”

  Placing her finger down on the page, calling my attention to one particular line in what I’ve already read, it clicks.