“Sorry,” I said. “That was just scary.”
He smiled, almost smirked. “We all have different reactions to adrenaline, I suppose.” He kissed me again, his hand making slow and tempting circles on my belly. I smiled, but I moved his hand gently back to his own leg, and resettled my head in the crook of his shoulder.
“Another time,” I said, making my voice low and breathy, even though I felt anything but. “I promise.”
I felt his smile in the stroke of his hand down my arm. My eyes drifted closed, and from far away, I heard him chuckle. “We should get you to bed.”
“Why? Here’s nice.” I snuggled closer to him, but he stood, leaving me to fall gracelessly against the back of the couch. I pushed my eyes open again.
“I should head out,” he said, meeting my eyes without flinching. “We’ll pass out on the couch, and that’ll make things awkward with your mom in the morning.”
“I’m an adult,” I said, “and she adores you.”
He sighed, scraping his fingers through his hair. “I don’t really do family stuff, Caitie. Some other time.”
I stared at him for a moment, hoping my annoyance would show on my face. If it did, he didn’t seem to notice. “You go, then,” I said. “I’m going to eat something before I sleep.”
His eyes narrowed for just a moment, as if he was wondering what he’d done wrong, but he was quickly full of his bright smile again as he leaned over and kissed me gently on the cheek. “Sleep well,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, I hope.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll have to check my schedule. I’m very busy, you know.” I gave him my primmest, pursed lip look.
He laughed and waved as he left. Before I went into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich, I checked the door. Twice. Locked it, and shot the bolt. Just to make sure.
As tired as I was, I ate my sandwich, and then crashed in bed for a long time, not quite able to sleep. My mind kept turning over Wes like a river rolled a rock along its bed. How I didn’t do relationships, but this guy seemed like he might be worth making an exception. How he could be so gallant and sweet, and then such a total dick. How he’d lit me on fire in a way that I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt. How he was keeping secrets, he had to be, he had to know more about what was happening to me than he was letting on.
At some point, I must have dropped off. My vision blurred, and instead of my bedroom, I was staring at trees. Trees, and the moon. I stood, and I ran. I ran like it was what I was made to do. Fast and hard and forever. Running to catch the moon.
My eyes opened, and I was confused and muzzy, my limbs shaky, my stomach nauseated. For a minute, it felt like I was seeing double, and then I blinked, and things came back into focus, and the nausea faded—but the shaking didn’t. The clank of my cell phone falling off my bureau onto the floor made me wake up a little more. Everything was shaking. Earthquake? Not normal for us, but it happened now and then. What were you supposed to do during earthquakes? Doorways and bathtubs? Not lie in bed, anyway. I shoved myself up and stumbled into the doorway of my bedroom. And then I heard Mom scream.
It wasn’t full throated—it sounded muffled, or strangled—but still, I ran down the stairs, letting the forward momentum carry me faster. If I stopped, I’d fall, but I wasn’t going to stop, and it was only ten steps, how bad could it possibly be? Why was everything still shaking? Earthquakes were over almost before you noticed them, weren’t they?
I pushed her door open, and she was in bed where I’d left her, but she was laying on the bed, only her head and her heels making contact with the mattress, her back bowed up like a yoga pose gone horribly, horribly wrong. There was an empty space around the bed, as perfect a circle as if someone had used a compass to draw it. It looked like a shockwave, a line drawn where the influence of whatever was happening ended. The shaking was more violent here; I clutched the doorjamb to steady myself, then launched myself at the bed, catching her shoulders in my hands. “Mom,” I said, shaking her, as much as you could shake someone who was cold and hard as iron, “Mom, wake up.”
There was a long moment when I thought this horror movie would be the rest of my life, and then her eyes opened, she gasped in a huge, echoing breath, and fell back to the mattress in a heap. The shaking faded out. Her eyes fluttered for a moment, then settled on open. “Caitie?” she said, her voice distant and soft. Her pupils were huge.
“I’m right here, Mom,” I said. “What happened? Everything was shaking.” I took a breath as deep as hers, then said “Did you—”
She cut me off with a razor blade laugh. “You had a bad dream,” she said, turning on her side. But not fast enough for me to miss the way her eyes went wide and her nostrils flared. She smelled of fear, and I could hear it. I could hear her panicking, even though I couldn’t quite make out the words. “It was all in your head,” she said. “Go back to sleep.”
I stared at her cold back for a little while longer. What if I shook her? Shook her hard, shook her until we had an actual conversation. Instead, I bit back my own scream, and backed slowly away from her. One more time, I shut the door with more quiet and care than she deserved. Outside, the sky was doing that pitch-black-before-dawn thing. Going back to bed was pointless, I was far too wired to sleep. I turned on the lights in the living room. The shaking had destroyed Mom’s “neat” piles. There was junk everywhere, in every direction. I’d barely touched it, that first night, and thank God I’d gotten those piles off the stairs, or I would have broken my neck in my panicked run tonight.
Could I have healed that, too? Maybe. Testing it sounded painful, though.
I started gathering up the mail, but this time, I wasn’t just sorting envelopes. I brought out my laptop, opened a spreadsheet, and started opening envelopes and taking notes.
When Mom finally came out of her room an hour later, I had my head in my hands. “You should have told me,” I said. “I didn’t need the money you sent. I could have cut back on—something, I don’t know.”
She snorted. She looked so perfect, as always, in her slacks and blouse, but her eyes looked brittle. “And lose the only connection I had with you? Absolutely, Caitlyn, what an excellent plan.” She went to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of the fresh pot of coffee I’d made. She didn’t even try to hide the shot of whiskey she added to the mug.
“Mom, you’re going to lose the house. What happened to the money from Grandma and Grandpa?”
“What do you think paid for your degree?” She sat down across from me and sipped her early morning cocktail. “This is none of your business. You put everything back where it was. I have everything under control. I am still your mother, after all.”
My turn to laugh. “If this is control, I’d hate to see what a disaster looks like.”
“Own a mirror?” She didn’t miss a beat, did she? She winced right away, but she didn’t take the words back.
I sucked up my last few remnants of pride and looked her in the eye. “What exactly does that mean?”
She met my eyes for a long, long moment, then rubbed at her temples. “I’m sure you can figure it out, Cait. I have a great deal of…faith in you.”
“It wasn’t a dream last night,” I said, keeping my voice quiet and firm.
She froze. “What did you say?” she said, without moving a single unnecessary muscle.
“I’m sure you can figure it out, Mom.” I took a sip of coffee. “I have a great deal of faith in you.” I stood up, picked up my laptop, and walked, carefully and deliberately, up to my room.
I stared at the walls for a little while. The band posters and the motivational nonsense, and the pictures of friends that I hadn’t spoken to in five years tucked into my mirror. One by one, I pulled them all down and threw them into the trash. Except for the pictures of Shan and I. Those I put inside a notebook in my purse. I’d want to take them with me, eventually.
It’s not like my life ever made buckets of sense, but still. What was this? How long had Mom done—what
ever she’d done? And how had she torn through her trust fund? She was making plenty of money to buy booze, but she wasn’t paying the damn mortgage. And yeah, I’d gone to a fancy liberal arts school, but she’d said the money was there, and I’d earned scholarships and grant packages that had paid for quite a lot of it. So unless she hadn’t actually been working, she should have been fine. But then, how would I have known the difference? It wasn’t like money—other than the fact that I tended to need it—was a routine topic of conversation for us.
There was a sharp knock on the door. “Mom, I’m sorry, but not now, okay?”
The door opened anyway, and I turned, ready to be angry all over again, but I got barreled over by a brunette ball of awesome before I got the chance. “Hey, Shan. How’re you doing?”
She shoved my shoulders, hard. “What the ever-loving hell is your problem? I came over here because your phone was going straight to voicemail, and I was afraid you were dead in a ditch somewhere, and your mother’s downstairs staring at the wall like a zombie, and you—what? What’s your big excuse this time?”
Humiliatingly, it took a minute for me to figure out what she was shouting about. And then I remembered, with perfect clarity, that moment last night where I lost my mind to Wes’s taunting, shut the sound off on my phone. I’d told her that I was going out, but then I’d never told her where I was going, or that I was back. And my phone had probably killed its battery between now and then, so straight to voicemail it would be. I’d tossed my phone in my purse, vaguely planning to update her when I got home, but then the house had been creepy and Wes had been a jerk, and then Mom had tried to break the house with her brain and…yeah, my phone was still silent and in my purse.
I tried to let all my horror show on my face. “Shit, Shan, I am so sorry—”
She held her hand up, and I shut my mouth. “I can’t keep doing this, Cait. I want to help, I would do anything to help you, but I can’t fix you, and I won’t try.” She sighed, and deflated, sinking down onto my bed, running her fingers over the patterns in the comforter. “I thought you’d know that by now.”
I sat down next to her and reached out. She let me take her hand, and she returned my soft squeeze. So maybe she didn’t entirely hate me yet. “I’m not used to anyone giving a shit. I forgot that someone was waiting to make sure I was safe. I’m sorry I screwed up.”
She leaned her head against my shoulder. “I’m not fucking around, hon. I’m sorry isn’t going to cut it next time. I love you, but I will walk to make a point if you make me.”
“I know,” I said. “I won’t do that to you.”
She patted my hand and smiled, but her eyes were still worried and wary. “See that you don’t.” She pressed a quick kiss to my forehead and smiled. “Was he worth it, at least?”
The sigh seemed to come from somewhere around my toes. “I thought so. And then I wasn’t sure. I’m still not sure.” I gave her my biggest, saddest eyes. “Relationships are, like, hard? And stuff?”
That made her laugh and hug me again. “Emergency chocolate time?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yeah, that would be really good.”
She looked me up and down, my pajamas and my bedhead. “You smell, and you’re not dressed. You have half an hour to be presentable for decent company. I will be waiting. And timing you.”
I smiled. “Okay.”
“Good. Oh, and Cait?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t fuck a stranger between now and then.”
From anyone else, it would have been a slap in the face. From her, with her eyes sparkling and laughing, it was an air kiss and a huge hug. “What if he’s super-hot?”
“Get his number and call him later.”
“Not just regular hot. Super-hot. And enlisting, maybe. Into the secret death squad branch of the armed forces. Heading off to certain death.”
“Later.” She pointed one ‘I’m watching you’ finger at me, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I love you.”
“I’m glad you’re not dead.” She shut my door and walked out of the room.
Shannon was the most unshakeable person I’d ever known. She said it had to do with her mom getting called out for crisis after crisis, and having other peoples’ breakdowns being normal dinner table conversation. At some point, she said, you either fell apart or you just settled in for the ride.
Maybe…maybe it was time to see just how unshakeable she could be.
“Huh,” Shannon said, when I was done explaining.
I’d met her half hour deadline with three minutes to spare. We’d taken her car and driven to the coffee shop where I had been employed until so very recently. Two mochas and a chocolate bomb truffle cake later, I’d spilled my entire story while she sat still and listened. She studied the artwork on the walls, a strange mix of wannabe Picasso-meets-Pollock, and some decent black and white photography. The tables were small, square, and intimate. There were friends sharing good times, there were students caught up in the throes of summer sessions, and there was us. Me, telling a story that must have seemed impossible, and her, listening quietly, asking only for occasional clarification.
I waited a minute, sipped my mocha. She stared at the wall, chewing on her lips silently. Finally, I said, “That’s all I’m gonna get? Huh? I just told you that things are going to get really hairy when the moon gets full, and the best you can do is ‘huh’?”
“Well, it actually explains a lot. Why this guy—Wes—was asking me a million questions about you, and then the way he was groping you on the dance floor, the way he’s following you now all moony eyed—ha, moony eyed, I kill my—”
“Wait, no,” I said. “Wes isn’t a wolf. He said he’d help me.”
She snorted, and gave me her most skeptical side-eye. “Help you by making sure you have someone to spend your eternal damnation with, maybe. I’m telling you, Cait, that guy is a creeper.”
“You’re not being fair.” My hands hugged my elbows, and I sat back in my chair. My eyes felt hard, my skin flinty. The way we’d gotten together—sure, it was unconventional, sure it was weird, sure, last night had completely sucked, but—there was more to it than that. He’d been trying to protect me, since the beginning, he’d said it…
She reached over and tapped me between the eyes with one finger. “You’re not thinking with your brain.”
“Hey—”
“Look, it takes one to know one. Do with that what you will, but don’t lie to yourself.”
She sat back, all satisfied, and took a bite of cake. And the killer was that she did have really good instincts. It was kind of a requirement, with the kind of scene she mostly enjoyed. One of the last times we’d gone out together, she’d turned around to pick up her purse, and as her skirt flared, I saw huge, hand shaped bruises on the backs of her thighs. “Holy shit, Shan,” I’d said, before I thought.
“What?” she’d said, spinning in circles as she tried to see her own ass.
“You are covered in bruises,” I said, trying not to stare and point.
“Shit, I thought this skirt would be long enough to cover. Give me a second to change.” She disappeared down the hall, and after a minute, I followed her.
“Yes?” she said, as she skimmed her skirt down, her back to me. The worst of it seemed to be right on her ass, but the marks moved down her legs. She looked like someone had bent her over something and paddled her ass black and blue. Of course, knowing her, that was probably what had happened. She didn’t turn towards me as she pulled on a new skirt, this one longer, and tighter to make up for it. “Say what’s on your mind, Caitlyn.”
Her tone warned me off, and I chose my words very carefully. “I just want to make sure you’re safe. Because you’re my best friend.”
I watched the defensiveness melt out of her posture, and she turned back to me with a small smile. She was quiet for a moment, and I watched the dust motes dance in a last ray of sunshine. “Part of it is not feeling totally all the way safe. Know
ing that you’re doing something dangerous, outside of the normal ho-hum. At any moment, it could all spin out of control.” Then she grinned, all seriousness gone. “What makes it hot is that it doesn’t. So I didn’t feel safe, exactly, but I felt like I could trust him not to lose control. Can you grok that?”
I rolled my eyes at her geek speech, pretending for a moment that I didn’t do it just as often as she did. “Yeah, I get it.” I decided against trying to explain the longing that was tightening my throat. Trusting someone that much. That sounded like…something worth having. I mean, I didn’t have any interest in getting my ass kicked, or the consent games she played, or any of that. But the trust. Yeah, that part sounded nice.
“If you need to see it first hand, see what it’s like, so that you know I’m okay, I can speak to someone next time, see if you can be invited.”
“That’s okay,” I said, maybe a bit too fast. “Just—let me know if you need help, okay?”
“Ditto,” she said, and we’d moved on. So, yeah, I’d always trusted Shan’s judgment when she offered it. I’d never brought any of my toys home to play, because I knew they wouldn’t meet her standards. But still, somehow, it was a bitter pill to swallow today. I took a big bite of chocolate cake. “I want to like him anyway,” I said.
“There isn’t a rule against that,” she said. “But you need to keep your eyes open. Wide open. See him in public places, make sure people know where you are, and for pity’s sake, make sure to tell them when you get home, okay?”
“I always do,” I said, and I gave her all the credit in the world, because she didn’t actually roll her eyes at me. We both knew that I was lying. I was scrupulously trying to keep my random encounters in the realm of safer sex, but beyond that? At least she could have asked for references on the various people she played with. There wasn’t much time for a background check when you were fumbling with buttons against the bathroom wall in a skeezy bar.
Clearer in the Night Page 13