by J. M. Miller
“Shit,” LJ breathed out beside me. “Ben, I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head. “There’s no reason for pity. It’s just something that happened.”
She tugged my hand into her lap. “I’m not saying you need it. I just hope you never thought it was your fault. Any of it. Harper. Your parents. I know how it feels to think that way. For a while I thought my mom did what she did because she couldn’t stand me. I felt the same about my dad. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but the doubt was there. So, in case no one has ever told you before,” she said, sliding her fingers under my chin and pulling my eyes to hers. “It wasn’t you.”
“Yeah,” I replied with a cough. Her words hit me hard because she could relate. That was the only reason I told her; I knew she’d get it. I tightened my grip in her hands. “Thank you.”
“Anytime,” she said, rubbing her thumbs in reassuring circles on my hand.
“Hey. We’ve been gone a while. We should probably get back before Gavin discovers us missing.”
“Okay,” she agreed.
When we crossed through her basement door, LJ stopped in front of me. “I need to thank you, Ben.”
“Why?”
She placed her hands on either side of my waist, pulling my shirt nervously. “For everything. I know we really haven’t discussed what this is between us, but I want you to know that I owe you quite a bit. You’ve been completely honest with me. What you just told me is a testament to that. And I want to be honest with you too. You aren’t the person I thought you were when I first saw you either.”
“Oh, really?” I asked, cocking my eyebrow curiously.
“Really. I’m not sure if I ever would have met you before this.”
“Oh, we’ve met before, offhandedly,” I said, cutting her off.
“What? When?”
“I’m not sure you remember your last visit to Janine,” I said, watching her eyes search for my thought’s direction.
She took in a deep breath. “You were hiding by the gazebo that day, weren’t you?”
“So you do remember?”
“Yes, now I do. One of the things I remember Aunt Janine saying to me that same day was, ‘Us Stocktons have been cursed with a good memory,’ which is so sad since she ended up losing all of hers. I hadn’t thought about that in a long time.”
I nearly choked at her memory. “That is sad,” I admitted, chewing the inside of my cheek as I thought about Janine’s ironic statement.
“Anyway, sorry to get sidetracked, that just popped in my head with an image of a cute boy peeking out from behind the gazebo.” She snaked her arms up my chest.
I smiled, shoving the grenade she’d unknowingly thrown aside for now. Her fingers spread wide over my chest as she stared up at me. “That was me, quite the stalker back then.” I rested my hands on her hips.
“Apparently so,” she replied as her big green eyes fixed on mine. “I want whatever happens with us,” she said suddenly, sliding her hands past my neck then pushing her fingers through my hair.
With her arms up, her shirt lifted enough to expose the skin at her waist. My hands clenched the area greedily, its tenderness pushing me close to the mental edge. “So do I,” I admitted. And it was true. She understood me like no one had before. She was funny, gorgeous, and sweet, and I wanted everything she was willing to give.
Her body trembled against mine when I ran a hand up her back. Her lips opened with a soft sigh and I sucked the pouty bottom one into my mouth. I pulled her closer still and felt her hands tighten around my head.
That was when Harper jumped back into my mind. I thought of the picture of us as kids and remembered the night I let her go. I wish I had the strength to let Harper go forever. I didn’t want to mess this up with LJ. It was so new, but it felt so right.
LJ flinched and backed away.
“Are you okay?” I asked, reaching out for her.
“A new headache,” she replied, raising a hand to the side of her head.
I moved a few loose strands of hair away from her face and stared into her pained eyes.
She stared back at me and her eyebrows pinched together. Before I had a chance to contemplate her confused look, she reached up and seized my mouth forcefully with a craving equal to my own.
Then something rushed through me like nothing my body had experienced before. It was a physical and emotional current entwined, claiming my thoughts and movements. My body and mind tensed from the shock of it, but it disappeared within a short breath. It stripped my mind of all concern, leaving only a euphoric reassurance.
LJ’s hands roamed my neck and face while mine roamed her body, pulling her hips closer. Her mouth tasted unbelievable, and her body felt just as good. I slid my hands under the bottom edge of her tank top, touching her hot, bare skin. She sighed into my mouth and I nearly lost my mind. The moment was sexy as hell, but it wasn’t void of all other emotions, like my most recent experiences. This was packed with so much more, on a level I hadn’t felt since I’d been with Harper.
There was no pain at the thought of Harper this time. The wrecking ball I felt every time I thought about her was gone. No anger, sadness, betrayal, or guilt. I had all of the memories, but all the bad emotions tied to her death were gone.
I pulled my lips from LJ’s and pushed her hips away, staring at her blankly as I wondered why I’d moved her body from mine. I was confused. I still wanted to kiss her; I wanted so much with her now it scared me. But, when I thought of Harper, there was nothing.
“Ben?” LJ said. “You have blood under your nose.”
I finally focused on her, noticing the blood under her nose as I wiped under my own. “It’s from you. You have another nosebleed,” I said.
She ran to the dryer to grab a clean towel, wet it with the washer then held it to her face. “I’m sorry for getting you,” she laughed in her squished voice.
I stared at her, suddenly hit with the truth. The curse is real. The headaches, the nosebleeds, it was all connected. She granted my wish.
I let Harper go.
“Ben?” she asked worried.
“Did you feel something happen?” I asked, wondering if she had felt it too. She didn’t respond, but her eyes opened wider. She knew something happened. And this wasn’t the first time.
I turned to the passageway. “I’ve got to go.”
“Wait, Ben. I─” she started, but I didn’t wait to hear her fumbled words. I ran into the darkness, ignoring her strained voice a little more with every new footfall.
He knew. He felt something and it freaked him out. I was too afraid to follow him into the tunnel’s darkness. The fear was more than the dark’s crushing grip, it was also the fear of my own ignorance. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to explain this mystery that’s seized my mind, but I couldn’t because I didn’t understand it myself. Forming words for something like this was impossible. Even if I could, who would actually believe me? Once I uttered the word “voices,” I’d be shuttled to a shrink then dosed with a slew of sedatives. And that would only be the beginning.
At first, I’d thought it was all coincidental─the headaches, the nosebleeds, the voices. But after Ben had taken off down the tunnel, I retreated to my room and the pieces began to connect. The headaches were a precursor. After a sporadic start, the frequency of the headaches seemed directly related to the number of people around me. They were almost constant at school and nearly nonexistent at home. I was able to dull them with music, but they were still there.
High pitches normally mixed with the headaches, and then the voices followed. Sometimes, it would take a while to hear them. The words were often disjointed, like thoughts being organized before lining up the final request. They were always clear, however, as if the person were whispering into my ear. Whispered wishes. And they weren’t simple material wishes made for an invitation to the dance or for school to close in order to avoid a chemistry test. These wishes were self-directed, involving some form of internal struggle. When I’d hear
d Gavin’s voice, both times the requests were directed at his own shortcomings. The first time, he’d wanted more confidence to talk to girls, and he later asked a girl from school out. Then he’d wanted courage to defend himself in a fight, and the next day he defended himself without fear. Those wishes had come true.
The other occurrences that possibly linked to the wishes were the nosebleeds; though, they didn’t follow every voice. Voices without nosebleeds happened at school with people whom I had no additional contact with so I couldn’t know if their wishes had come true. What I did know for certain was that Gavin’s voices were directly followed with a nosebleed. And after what happened in the basement with Ben, I was sure that meant they were linked.
Maybe I shouldn’t have kissed him again. Maybe that’s what was missing. The connection. Touch. I’d touched Gavin after hearing his voice, and then my nose bled. It was the same with Ben. A dull headache started during our kiss. I stifled it, not wanting to break away from his touch. But then I heard his voice in my mind and a larger headache instantly erupted. I was in pain, and confused. His wish was for the strength to let Harper go. It hurt that his thoughts were of her during our kiss, but as I stared at him I realized that he wanted to let her go for me. It made me want him so much more. I kissed him again to show him I felt the same, not knowing the kiss might grant his wish. And I believed that’s what it did.
He’d felt something change.
The only time everything didn’t add up was the first time my nose bled. It was after my weed whacker injury. I’d had a headache too, but I don’t remember any voices that day.
Knock. Knock. I pushed my notebook over my trig textbook and pulled my earbuds out. Knock. Knock. “LJ?” Dad’s voice came from the hallway.
“Come in,” I said, sitting up in bed.
The door creaked open and he walked inside, looking around the room he hadn’t seen since we’d moved here. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I replied hesitantly, crossing my legs and settling myself into a comfortable position. We hadn’t had a true conversation since he’d scolded me in front of Ben. After a week of diplomatic hellos and goodbyes, I was pretty sure this was going to be a more in-depth talk.
“I didn’t realize you’d called it quits in the basement until Ben knocked at the door a few minutes ago.”
“Ben came back over?” I asked and my stomach flipped.
“Yeah, he came back to tell Gavin that he wouldn’t be able to ride later.”
“Really? Did he say why?”
Dad stepped over to the cherry wood dresser, staring at the pictures of Gavin and me from a couple Vegas Cirque du Soleil shows. “He said he wasn’t feeling well. I’m glad he’s thinking about safety. Accidents happen when people aren’t feeling their best.” He picked up one of the pictures and an easy smile spread across his face.
I knew that was another dig at my motorcycle ride last Monday, but I let it pass. I had other things on my mind. “Right,” I replied, more worried about how Ben felt about me now. I’m a freak. There was no other way to describe it and no way to explain it. He’d never look at me the same again.
Dad looked up at the dresser’s matching oval mirror. He grasped one of the photos of Mom and Aunt Janine I’d slid into the mirror’s edge then looked back at me with a furrowed brow. “Where did you find this?”
I nodded to the picnic basket in the corner of the room. “There’s a bunch in the basket, which I found out in the barn’s loft. I was going to ask you if you were behind the camera.”
He moved over to the basket and dug through the pictures. “Yes, I took quite of few of these. Your mom was pregnant with you, actually.”
“What happened between them? They looked happy there.”
He sat on the corner of the bed, flipping through a few of the photos. The afternoon sun cut through the window panes behind him. Its bright rays shined into his hair, highlighting the gray that had overrun the brown. From behind, it aged him unfairly; though, with one look at his youthful face, all the added years melted away.
“They were happy there because we didn’t visit often. So when we did, things usually went smoothly. She was closer to Janine after her parents died, but things changed when your mom decided to move out west to finish her bachelor’s at UNLV. Since Janine didn’t have her own kids, she’d wanted your mom to stay close.”
“That sounds pretty normal to me.”
“And it was understandable, but Janine became more persistent after your mom and I were married, and even more so after your mom became pregnant with you. Truthfully, I think the more she wanted to hold onto your mom, the more your mom pulled away. I’m not sure what to think about their disagreements anymore. I don’t think Janine was as crazy as your mom painted her. She usually dodged any topic involving Janine so I can’t say that I know all the ins and outs. I do believe that the later fights had more to do with money than what your mom told me. I loved your mother, you know, but she wasn’t exactly truthful.”
I fidgeted with the frays on the bottom of my jeans. “I guess she was pretty happy Aunt Janine willed her the bank account and security box then, huh? She didn’t get stuck coming back here after all.”
He scooted closer to me on the bed and placed a soft hand on my shoulder. “I know you and Gavin have seen more than your fair share of heartache, and I know it’s easy to hold all the resentment in, but I’m telling you that you have to try and let it go. It will eat at you until you are left bitter in a hole that only gets harder to escape. We have to move on from this and build our lives again. You probably don’t want to hear any of this from me and I understand that, but I do hope that you will think about it. And I hope that one day you can trust me again.”
I stared into his green eyes when he dropped his hand, looking at the man I barely knew. I saw the concern. It was something I’d wanted for years, and had been foolishly avoiding lately. I needed to clear the air and the best way was to start at the beginning. “Is that why you weren’t there? Were you mourning her before she even left?”
“You have always been intelligent.” He let out a breathy chuckle and dropped his head for a second, contemplating. “There’s no excuse for what I did. I’ve wanted to apologize to you and Gavin for a long time now and could never find the right words. Deep down, though, I knew words would never fix the mistakes I made. I buried myself deep in work for the extra money to maintain our lifestyle, but also so I could ignore the obvious signs. The less I was home, the less I needed to admit the severity of your mom’s addictions. You and Gavin shouldn’t have had to go through that alone. It was selfish of me to put you in that position. I won’t ever be able to change what I did, but I hope you’ll let me back in now, so I can be a part of your future.”
I took a shuttered breath to stop the tears that pricked my eyes and the sobs prepared to tumble from my lips. “I can understand why you’d feel that way. I never wanted to see her nose redden after a trip to the bathroom, or try to wake her up on one of her crash days.”
“I’m so sorry, LJ,” he said again, grabbing my arms and searching my eyes. He pulled me into a hug and squeezed like I was five again, like he’d protect me from nightmares, spiders, and everything bad in the world. “I will never let that happen again.”
And I finally believed him.
He was here to stay.
Ben wasn’t at school all week. Each afternoon I’d expected to see him working on the property, but he never showed, and most of the grounds work had been taken care of during the day. I kept to myself like usual, plugging my ears whenever I could at school to keep the headaches and voices muted. I’d gone virtually unnoticed until Friday.
The cafeteria was as busy as always. I’d learned to get in before the huge rush, but today I had to take a trip back to my locker to retrieve some chemistry notes I’d forgotten, making me a target, or prey.
“Damn, girl! Where’ve you been hiding?” a guy’s voice said from behind me while I snatched the last bottle of tea from the drink rac
k. His loud mouth had no problems cutting though the music pumping in my earbuds. Shit. So much for my time-unnoticed streak. I kept my eyes focused on the cashier as I moved forward, hoping the statement wasn’t really directed toward me.
“I don’t think she heard you, Adam. Maybe it’s because she can’t understand asshole,” another voice followed. This voice wasn’t as harsh as the first. His intent was smooth. With those few, simple words, I knew he was a manipulator. I’d been around enough guys like him to spot them without looking. I’d dated a couple of them. They were the kind of guys that could convince your panties to dive off any chaste ledge, from simple morality to extreme virginity.
I handed my cash to the half-asleep mid-forties guy sitting behind the register. He punched the keys as if he had all the time in the world. And he probably did. He didn’t care how long it took to ring me up as long as he got paid. While I waited, I played with my earbud cord as a hint, just in case Adam and Panty Raider were watching.
I felt a whoosh of air as someone rushed up behind me then another burst of air near my hair. Is he touching me?
“Oh, man, and she smells so sweet,” Adam said, attracting stares from all directions.
I spun around with my earbuds still in place and glared as fiercely as I could. “Back off,” I growled, noticing both guys were residents of the popular lunch tables.
Adam was taken aback by my response. His stout frame backed up a smidge to dodge my level of crazy. Panty Raider didn’t move an inch. His hazel eyes locked with mine from his taller stature and his brow quirked up in sync with his thin lips.