Save Me

by Natasha Preston

  "You okay with this?" he asked as we lugged our bags through the bright white house to our room. "I can sleep on the sofa if you want."

  Alright, that was sweet of him. "No, it's fine. I don't mind sharing," I said, throwing a pillow at him. He laughed and threw it back on my bed. Our beds were against opposite walls - white walls, of course - so we weren't even that close.

  "Okay. Hey, what do you want to do first?"

  "Um... Walk on the beach and get fresh doughnuts."

  He smiled. "Sounds like a plan. Then we're cracking open a couple of the many bottles of booze James brought."

  "I like this weekend already." His smile faltered slightly so I added, "I won't get shitfaced but I'm so having a few and relaxing. I'll even let you cut me off if you think I've had too much."

  "Deal," he said. He'd bloody enjoy that. "Now, lead the way to the doughnuts, I'm fuckin' starving."

  Chapter Forty—Six

  Kai

  I watched Tegan out of the corner of my eye as she got into bed wearing some very short shorts and a tiny little top that clung to her figure. This was going to be torture. My balls were going to fucking explode.

  "Night, Kai," she whispered.

  "Night," I said and sighed. I wanted to hop over to her bed and peel those pyjamas off her body. I missed the soft touch of her smooth, milky skin. I missed her taste and how her nails cut into my skin when she really lost control.

  Sighing yet again as Tegan's breathing turned heavier, I looked up to the ceiling in the darkness. I was as hard as I'd ever been in my life and I wanted nothing more than to reach below the cover and take care of business but I didn't want her to wake up and I didn't want to leave the room with a raging fucking hard-on and have anyone see.

  It took me almost an hour to fall asleep but when I did it was a pissing restless sleep that had me waking up every hour. I was horny as fuck and wound so tight I felt like snapping at everything.

  At five in the morning I couldn't lay awake anymore so I got up, made a coffee and took it outside. The shower was loud and I didn't want to wake anyone so the freezing morning air would have to be my substitute cold shower.

  I sat at the metal table to the side of the front door, freezing my arse off. My eyes stung like a bitch. Liking her was getting harder to handle, that was for sure, and there wasn't a thing I could do.

  I groaned and slammed my head down on the table.

  "You okay?" I jumped and looked up. Tegan stood by the door with a blanket wrapped around her body.

  "Hey, yeah, I'm okay."

  "Why are you outside in the cold at half five in the morning?" she asked, rubbing her hands up and down her arms under the blanket to try to keep warm. She sat down on the chair beside me.

  "I, err, couldn't sleep. Why are you outside in the cold at half five in the morning?"

  She cringed."Sophie woke me up and I realised you were gone so I came to make sure you hadn't been kidnapped," she said, taking the mug from my hand and taking a long sip.

  I laughed and rolled my eyes. "How did Sophie wake you up?" She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, right." Someone should be getting off. Lucky them. "Well, I'll stay out here for a bit then." No way do I wanna hear that right now.

  She smiled and her forest green eyes lit up. "Me, too." Handing me my coffee back she asked, "Are you alright?"

  "Fine, why?"

  "You've been... I don't know... Different, I guess."

  "Different how?"

  She shrugged. "I'm not sure. Maybe I'm imagining it. You're okay, though?"

  "I'm fine, princess."

  "Is it Isaac? You can talk about him to me, you know?"

  My hand instinctively curled around the dog tags. "I know I can. It's not him. Honestly, I'm fine. What about you?"

  "I'm okay."

  "You don't sound so sure."

  Giving me a sideways glance, she replied, "I hate that you can read what I don't say."

  I'd practically been her, although my story was far less pretty. I made Tegan look the picture of together.

  "Bacon sandwiches?"

  She nodded. "Sounds good."

  After breakfast we all went to the beach for the day. The girls were wearing bikinis, determined to make the most of the temperamental English summer. I stayed in the boy camp, which was about two feet from the girls. They'd been laying out on towels, drinking in the sunshine before venturing into the sea. We sat on the sand drinking beers and not talking about hot male celebrities.

  I felt relaxed lying around on the beach, eating junk and occasionally perving on the girl I was, let's face it, fucking in love with. Tegan left her mobile phone with me to go paddle in the sea and I'd already taken two calls from Alison in under an hour.

  Lucas had texted a few times but, of course, I hadn't read them. Not only were they private but I knew it'd just turn my stomach. He was the soft, whipped type so I knew they'd be sappy messages. Not that I could judge much, I'd tell her I loved her as often as I could if I was in his position. Bastard.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Tegan

  "Okay, guys, so we're playing truth or dare and if you don't answer honestly or complete the dare then you have to run down the road naked. Those are the rules, now, who's going first?" James said, winking at Holly. I'd like to see him try and make her run around naked, she'd rip his head off.

  "Don't look so worried, you have an awesome body," Kai said, smirking at me. I rolled my eyes and nudged him in the side with my elbow. My body - minus my face - was about the only thing I was happy with, but I wasn't happy with what I'd done to it.

  The game started pretty slow, mainly because everyone was wisely picking truth. But with each empty glass more and more dares started to creep in. Sophie had eaten a red chilli, James had to put a lot of make-up on, and Kai currently had hot pink fingernails.

  I bit my lip as I took another peek at them. He glared. "I am man enough for this not to bother me, you've been under and over me, you know."

  Oh, good, we were getting into the history of our shared sexual past.

  "I never said anything. I think you look very pretty and, hey, the pink is a nice contrast to all that black and grey on your arms."

  "Just wait until it's your turn."

  "Like I'd ever be dumb enough to choose a dare from you."

  He glared one last time and turned back to the game. I was having a really good time and not just because of all the funny shit happening tonight. I was with people that didn't know about what I'd done and the one that did know never treated me any differently. Those were definitely things to smile about.

  "Tegan," Adam said, "I dare you to dye your hair brown."

  "No. No, no, no."

  "Excellent, a naked Tegan," he replied, giving Kai a high five. Pricks.

  "Adam, come on, anything else."

  "You know the rules. Clothes off, princess," Kai said, grinning from ear to ear.

  I groaned and put my head in my hands. "Not a permanent dye. I'm serious, I want it to wash out quickly." Why, why, why was I doing this?

  "I'll run to the supermarket and get it."

  "Get a black one," Kai shouted to Adam. "Hey, a drastic change isn't always a bad thing."

  That had a heavier meaning to it. "Yeah, what was yours?" He tapped the Isaac half-sleeve on his arm.

  "It's not the same."

  "Kind of is. Doesn't matter what change it is, sometimes you just need to be broken from the cage you're trapped in. It can happen in so many different ways, not always what you'd expect."

  "What broke you?"

  He smiled sadly. "That's a story for another day."

  I was determined not to be a pushy person but man, I wanted to know what he'd been through. He didn't share that much about what he was like before he'd sorted himself out. Not that I could blame him, I didn't particularly like visiting that part of my life either and I hadn't come through it yet.

  I had no idea what would break me.

  Kai's semi-admission had my m
ind spinning and I only remembered that I was about to dye my hair, for the first time ever. I was also dying it brown. You don't want to run naked, you don't want to run naked, you don't want to run naked. Perhaps if I chanted it enough times I would believe it.

  Right now I'd rather strip off. I'd always been blonde, from the moment my hair lightened at the age of seven weeks I'd been a blondie. Going brown, and for a fucking dare, was drastic. But then perhaps Kai was right, maybe I needed drastic.

  Grabbing the box out of Adam's hand, I checked that it wasn't permanent. Twenty-four washes it lasted for. I could easily do that in a day. "I can't do this to myself so someone is going to have to," I said.

  Sophie jumped up. "I volunteer."

  Glaring, I replied, "I have no best friend."

  "You'd so be first in line if this was the other way around. That," she said, pointing at me, "is friendship. Now sit down and stay still. I am going to really enjoy this."

  Sophie applied the, thankfully, light ash brown hair dye and I closed my eyes through the whole thing. I pictured myself and thought about the fact that I didn't really know who that person was anymore. How much difference could hair dye make? I wanted to believe that it would be the answer but how could it be? Hair colour didn't have that much power and certainly not magical ones.

  After twenty minutes me and Sophie went upstairs to wash the dye out. "I'm going to look stupid," I said.

  "You'll rock brunette."

  She rocked brunette, I was going to look stupid.

  "It's not me."

  "What is you, Tegan?" My stomach turned to ice. That was the first reference to the fuck-up I'd become she'd ever made.

  "I don't know."

  "Then keep an open mind and bend right over the bath, I don't want to get this everywhere."

  I did what she said. What was me? That was a very good question. I had the opportunity to reinvent myself, but the only person I wanted to be was the one I was before Dad died, and since I didn't know how to go back there I was pretty much screwed.

  Sophie washed my hair and went back downstairs so she could wait with the others to see it. I stayed in my room and kept it wrapped up in a towel. Jesus, I was an idiot. It was just hair. Plenty of people changed the colour of their hair every day and I was stressing about it so much I felt sick.

  "Tegan, come on!" Kai said, coming into the room and laughing at me. "Are you gonna take the towel off anytime soon?"

  I shrugged. "Not sure if I want to see."

  "Well, I'm sure and I want to see. Let me look." I scowled at him and pulled the towel off my head. It fell in a half dried tangled mess around my back

  He just stood there staring at me. "It's hideous, isn't it?"

  "No," he said, shaking his head.

  "Really?"

  "Really. Fuck, you look so different but so you at the same time."

  Helpful.

  "In a good way?"

  "Yeah, in a good way. Look, I'll leave you to dry it but if you're still hiding out here in fifteen minutes I'm dragging you back downstairs." He handed me my phone. "And Lucas called." He turned around and walked back out.

  I dialled his number. "Hey, shorty, how's it going?"

  "You're tall and Sophie dyed my hair brown." That about summed it up.

  "Whoa. Why? I didn't know you wanted to dye your hair."

  "I didn't but I want to run around naked even less."

  "Okay," he said slowly. "So, you've just done this?"

  "Yeah, I've not even looked at it yet."

  "Right..."

  I frowned. "What? Don't like brunettes?"

  "That's not it."

  "Then what is it?"

  "I don't know, sometimes I feel like I'm the last to know everything about you."

  If he was here I would've hit him. "What? Lucas, I didn't plan it, dying my hair was my dare." Wow, I was definitely not telling him I was sharing a room with Kai!

  "That's not all I'm talking about."

  "Well, then would you care to enlighten me?"

  He sighed. "I don't want to fight."

  "Me neither but we'll see how this goes. What do you mean?"

  "I mean with your dad, with everything else in your life. I'm trying to help you but I don't know how to do that when you won't talk to me."

  "All this came from me dying my hair?"

  "No, of course not, but you're away and... God, and I don't know. I just miss you and, shit, I feel like I should've helped by now."

  "You're being a dick and I'm not talking to you like this."

  "Tegan."

  "No, don't. Jesus, you have no idea what I was like before you-"

  "Because you barely tell me anything."

  "How are we having this conversation right now?" Did I step into another dimension? "I have to go, Luke, I'll speak to you later."

  "Yeah," he said, sighing. "I'm sorry, okay. Enjoy the rest of your time away and we'll speak when you get back. And send me a picture of your hair."

  "Okay. Bye."

  "I love you," he said and hung up.

  I had no idea what had just happened. Lucas, although asked questions, had never been that full on or crazy before. He was right that I didn't volunteer that much information about my past but it wasn't something I wanted to talk about and he'd never said that was a deal breaker.

  With anger towards Lucas outweighing my nerves over my hair, I brushed it through, dried it and then looked in the mirror. I didn't feel any different - just pissed off - but I sure as hell looked different. Brunette matured me, physically anyway. I didn't particularly like it, possibly because it was such a big change, but I didn't exactly dislike it either.

  I waited for the big revelation, the thing that would click into place so I knew exactly what I had to do to get the old me back but it never came, of course.

  Showing my new colour off didn't seem like a big deal compared to my fight with Lucas and disappointment that I hadn't changed at all so I walked downstairs and stopped in front of my idiot friends, who were drinking from the same whisky bottle with really long neon green straws.

  Things didn't seem so bad again, I could forget who I was, forget what happened with Lucas and enjoy the time I had with the people that never bitched at me for not being more open or more adaptable or not more like Ava.

  Sophie and Holly were the first to see me. "Tegan, it looks amazing," Sophie gushed.

  "Brunette suits you!" Holly added.

  Maybe it did.

  "Thanks," I said. "Now, gimme a straw, I need to get fucked."

  Kai raised his arm. "I can help with that."

  "Of course you can," I replied sarcastically and took the spare straw. Screw everything, I was getting drunk.

  ***

  I woke up in the morning, went to go to the bathroom and on my way out jumped at my own reflection. Fucking brown hair.

  Kai laughed from his bed, throwing his head back and clutching his stomach. Perfect.

  "I hate you."

  He laughed harder. "You should've seen your face."

  "You're an arsehole and I want to be blonde again."

  I left the room but not before I'd heard him say, "Well, you should have gotten naked then."

  We spent the day at the beach again, built a massive sand castle, buried each other, and ate fish and chips. I didn't want to go home to reality ever again. I could quite happily live here forever.

  In the evening we went to a local club and Holly found a table so she could rest her tiny baby bump. "Okay, shots everyone?" Adam asked, getting up to go to the bar. He left before we had a chance to reply but he knew everyone's answer.

  Two shots later and we'd scattered all over the club, occasionally crossing paths at the bar or dance floor.

  "So which girl're you looking at then?" I asked Kai, trying to follow where he was looking.

  "What?"

  "You're staring at who?"

  "Oh, I was looking at that guy."

  Huh? "Wow, was I so bad I turned you?"
>
  He rolled his eyes. "He looks like what I'd imagine Isaac would now. Do you ever get that?"

  "See people that remind me of my dad?" He nodded. "Sometimes. I'll hear someone laugh that sounds like him or smell his aftershave."

  He looked back at me. "You have changed."

  I had? "What?"

  "A few weeks ago you would've changed the subject."

  I felt cold. Was I letting it in without knowing? How could that even work?

  "So, now I'm fixed?" I said, forcing myself to laugh.

  "No, things rarely get fixed before they break that little bit more." He took my hand. "You'll be okay."

  I wasn't so sure. Rubbing my head with my free hand I tried to make sense of everything flying through my head. How could other people know what was going on with me when I didn't? Kai was the only one I trusted to know or even have the closest guess. He'd been me, a worse version apparently.

  He let go of my hand and tapped the table. "Stop stressing so much. It's like you trying to make sense of a foreign language you've never seen before."

  "Oh, good."

  "It's not hopeless, Tegan, but until you're ready and willing to let it all in there's no point in letting it get to you."

  "Right. This is hurting my head; can we talk about something else? Better still, can we just go?" It was only ten thirty but I was beyond done with being around people for one night.

  He stood up. "Yeah, come on."

  Holly and James had left a while ago. Adam, Megan, Sophie and Mark were all drunk and dancing somewhere.

  "It's Isaac's birthday in two weeks," Kai said as we walked back. "We all go camping for the weekend every year. It was his favourite thing to do. Around this time I see more of him in everyone and everything I come across."

  Hence the older Isaac-looking guy in the club.

  His pain was spread all over his face and it made my heart ache. I hated it.

  "It's okay, you don't have to say anything, Tegan."

  "When you camp do you have to pee in a bush?"

  He laughed. "That's probably the best thing you could've said. No, there are proper toilets and showers. So, how are you doing?"

  "I'm good, apart from the hair," I replied, swirling a lock around my finger.

  "Really?"

  "Yep, because I'm not thinking about any of the other stuff right now."