by Seven Steps
Someone pressed their lips to mine, breathing air in to me. Hands pumped on my chest, pushing air out of me. Into me. Out of me again. I sputtered, coughed then vomited up the water that was in my lungs.
I’m alive. How am I alive?
I raised my head. Though my vision was blurry, I could see that the party had stopped and everyone was staring at me.
For a second, I wished that I had drowned.
Cole’s face hung over me, his eyes wide with worry.
“Bella. Bella, are you all right? Can you talk?”
My cheeks heated with embarrassment. I slid to the left, moving away from the vomit that I’d just ejected.
I was freezing, barefoot and soaking wet.
I was a fraud. A disgrace. An embarrassment.
There was no room for anger in my still shocked mind. No room for fury. Just sadness. Sadness that I thought I could belong with these people. I didn’t belong here.
I picked up my shoes and silently walked to the door, fat, hot tears running down my cheeks.
“Bella,” Cole chased after me. “Bella, wait. Let me take you home.”
“Leave me alone,” I said, my voice cracking, my feet moving faster.
“What do you plan on doing? Walking home?”
“Leave me alone!” I screamed. “I don’t want your help. Ever!”
He stopped. Stunned. “You don’t mean that.”
“You Winsted boys are all the same. You only think about what you can get from people. What you can get from me.”
He took my hand in his.
“Bella, you know that’s not true.”
“It is. It is, and I’m done. I wish I’d never met your family. I wish I had never met you!”
I shoved him off me and took off down the stairs.
With no idea where I was, no ride home and too much pride, I asked the valet to call me a cab and a water taxi to get me back to the mainland. He did and informed me that it would be a thirty-minute wait.
Great. I had just made a scene in front of god knew how many people and followed it with the most epic, dramatic exit. Now, I was standing on the front lawn, waiting for a cab.
I was such a fool.
Stuck in the darkness, alone, wet, freezing and nearly drowned, I searched for a place to hide until I could escape. Some place where my dramatic exit would stay intact.
There wasn’t much. Bree’s house was the only building on this island of darkness, grass, water and expensive cars. A few sheds dotted the property. I tried two of them but when the locks didn’t give, I abandoned searching the rest. I considered sitting in someone’s car but I was sure that the valets would have locked up the keys somewhere and going back to the party was not an option.
I sighed. There was only one choice left.
Shoes still dangling from my hand, I walked down to the beach and let the cold waves lap at my even colder toes.
Tears filled my eyes.
What would Mom think of me now? Lying to people that I don’t know or care about to make them accept me? And for what? So Jake would look good enough to get back with his ex-girlfriend? So Ariel could have her happily ever after? So I could sample what it was like to be rich and popular? So I could save a school that didn’t even bother to learn my name?
If Mom were here, she’d tell me all my reasons were utter crap. She’d tell me I should be true to myself and that I shouldn’t try to change so others would accept me. She’d tell me it was shameful to lie about my father’s job to get in good with these people—the same people who tried to drown me ten minutes ago. But most of all, more than anything, she’d tell me I shouldn’t have lied in the first place.
‘Lies are easy to get into, but they sure are hard getting out of’, she’d say.
My mother had never been more right.
Cold droplets of water sprayed me, wetting my already soaked face, arms and legs. I could smell the long island sound, a gross mix of fish and dirty water. The waves roared with each assault and retreat on the shore. Moonlight lit the beach, making the sand glow an odd bluish gold.
I wrapped my shivering arms around my middle and closed my eyes.
Just breathe, Bella. Just breathe.
“Did I ever tell you that I hated the beach?”
Cole’s deep voice sent gooseflesh across my cold back.
“I told you to leave me alone,” I said, my voice strong.
He didn’t reply. Just then, my back was warm. My arms and shoulders and chest were warm, and I was surrounded by Cole’s spicy vanilla scent.
“I figured that you could use my jacket.”
I frowned.
“I don’t want your jacket,” I said, though I pulled it closer, the warmth of his body sinking into mine.
“God, French. You are the most stubborn girl I’ve ever met.”
“I’m sorry that I’m not one of those girls who silently bend to your magnanimous will.”
“Well, I am magnanimous.” There was no mistaking the grin in his voice.
Two hands briskly ran up and down my arms, warming me even further. My eyes closed. I had never felt so warm. So safe.
Something strange tightened in my chest. A strong desire to sink in to Cole’s touch. To forget the world and grab a boat and sail away to our own private adventure, letting the wind take us where it pleased.
I shook my head.
Get your head out of the clouds. It can never happen. He said it himself. You are with his brother. He can never be with you.
And my head was right. I couldn’t be with Cole. I shouldn’t be with Cole. But, why did his touch make me feel so centered? Like my feet were steady on the ground and I was certain about who I was. Why did Cole feel so very right, even though he was so very wrong?
“Let me take you home, French. You don’t belong here.”
I whipped around, glaring at him.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You are telling me that you like hanging out with these self-serving, hollow, drug-fueled people? These are your friends and comrades?”
“Those people are nice to me.” They kind of weren’t but I didn’t want to give Cole any ground. Besides, I was upset at how my night had gone to crap and he was the only one here to take it out on.
“Those people don’t care about you.”
“Oh yeah? Well, if they are so terrible, then why are you here, Cole? Why would you hang out with a bunch of hollow losers?”
“I came here because I knew that you were coming with Jake and I wanted to make sure that you were okay.”
“Oh. I see. Poor little Bella French needs her tutor and English partner to babysit her because she is entirely too low-class to be trusted around such high-brows.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What is it then, Cole? You think that I’m not good enough for them?”
“No. I think that you’re better than them and I didn’t want you to come here and be made to feel like you’re not. You are above them, Bella. Those girls in there can’t hold a candle to you. They are not fit for you and I am here to make sure that you know that.” He touched my cheek. “Don’t make them think that you are not worthy when you are worth everything.”
One tear fell. One tear for Cole. The only boy in my life that deserved it.
I heard the grind of wheels behind me.
My cab.
“I don’t need your protection.” I hated my words. “I don’t need your sympathy or your pity.” I hated my lies. “And I most definitely don’t need you to babysit me.” I hated myself, but there was no stopping it. No other way to keep him away. To keep myself from hurting when I knew that I couldn’t have him.
I hurled his jacket at him, hoping that it hit him in the face.
Instead, he caught it and folded it over his arm.
He would.
His blue eyes looked at me, long-suffering and pleading. It was the look of a man who was talking to an unreasonable, stubborn girl. Well, I was both of those things
. But I was also vulnerable and raw and confused and frustrated. Those last few things had nothing to do with the party and everything to do with the beautiful boy standing in front of me.
“Bella-”
“Just leave me alone, Cole.”
Chilled without his jacket, I ran to the cab that would take me to the water taxi, which in turn, would take me to another cab. I slid into the car, asked the middle eastern driver to pump up the heat and looked down at my lap. I had my purse but somewhere along the way, I had dropped a shoe and here I was, in an orange cab, going back to reality.
Maybe I was Cinderella. But this was no fairy tale. There would be no happy ending. Deep down, I knew that my prince was somewhere standing on a beach, though he hated getting sand in his shoes.
I closed my eyes and silently fell apart.
49
I crept back in to the apartment somewhere between two and three a.m. Jasmine was lying in my bed, one hand behind her head, the other beneath the pillow.
I tip-toed around the room, taking off my dripping wet dress and removing my single heel. I didn’t bother to wash my face. I was too tired.
I slipped in to the bed next to Jasmine, a zombie about to rest in her grave, when Jasmine spoke up.
“You’re back,” she said. Her voice was steady and strong. She hadn’t been sleeping at all.
“Thank you for covering for me,” I said.
“It’s the last time.”
“What? Why?”
“You’ve changed, Bella. I can’t be a part of your lies anymore.”
Lies? What did she know?
“The clothes, the hair, the parties, they aren’t you. They’re Jake. Can’t you see what he’s trying to do? He’s making you into her. His own personal Dana. I can’t stand by and watch that happen to you.”
“What are you going to do about it?” I asked.
She sighed.
“I’m leaving. You know how to reach me when you remember who you are.”
She stood up, walked out of my room and out of my life.
When the door closed, I knew that she was not coming back.
50
The next morning, Daddy and I packed all our belongings in to the moving truck and moved across town to Ariel and Jasmine’s apartment building. 76 Central Park West. Ariel was there to help us unpack, as well as Ariel’s sisters, Adella and Alana, twins about to graduate 8th grade. They didn’t look like Ariel at all. They had dark hair and eyes, and were gangly. But what they were good at was putting together a home.
The apartment has been professionally cleaned before we moved in and the girls went right to work, hanging photos that hadn’t been unboxed since Mom died, adding fresh flowers in vases long forgotten, hanging drapes, putting down rugs. By the time six o’clock rolled around, we had every last box unpacked.
It’d been a long time since we’d been unpacked. Since pictures hung from the walls. I hadn’t looked at Mom’s picture since we left North Carolina. Now, her and Daddy’s wedding picture sat in a nice white frame on the side table. I picked it up and examined it. Mom was beautiful that day. Her caramel skin glowed, her dark eyes were full of happiness, her smile was bright.
I ran my fingers over the picture and sighed.
“Welcome back, Mom,” I whispered to it.
I put the picture down and picked up the one next to it. I didn’t know we owned a picture of my old horse Sweet Lips but Adella and Alana had fished it out from the boxes of our past. I stared at the girl I used to be. Curls flying. Eyes wide and full of life. Beneath me, the Overo Paint Horse was magnificent. The brown in its coat looked unfinished, like a child had begun to color the horse in but got distracted and walked away, leaving large areas of white behind. I closed my eyes, recalling the feel of her beneath me. The pump of her lungs, the smell of her sweat, the rhythm of her runs.
I let out a shaky breath. So many memories all at once. So many things forgotten.
I opened my eyes and examined our new apartment. A large window, complete with a window seat, let the filtered fall sunlight fill the living room. Our old brown couch was the same, but the girls had discovered a red and white Indian blanket—a gift from my grandfather—and draped it over the top of the couch, giving it new life. A giant rust colored rug sat beneath the coffee table. They’d found a red chair—or had they brought it down from their apartment? —and placed it next to the couch, forming a circle with the television, couch and chair.
One more couch beneath the window would make the room perfect, I thought.
Crown molding gave the living room and dining room a proper separation. Our small table for four seemed too small in the open area. The girls had tried to make it work, adding tall plants to the corners and lots of family pictures on the walls. My baby pictures, Mom standing in a sunflower field, Dad petting a horse, Grandma and Grandpa on their wedding day. The table was set with fancy dishes and plates the color of tangerine peels.
The kitchen had no windows but the large, super bright, overhead lights made up for it. There was plenty of counter space and a big refrigerator. The girls had decided on a country theme with this room, pulling out an old watering can for the small corner breakfast nook, adding decorative dishes to the walls, a mat with a rooster on it next to the sink. They promised that they would come back and paint the walls yellow.
“You two are life savers. Are you majoring in interior design?” I asked.
“How’d you guess?” they replied in unison.
I made a mental note to send over thank you cards and flowers as soon as I could.
After a full day of moving, unpacking and decorating, we finally sat down and dug in to our pizza. I got two bites in when there was a knock on the front door.
I picked a piece of pepperoni off my slice, popped it in to my mouth and jogged to open it. When I pulled the door open, Cole was looking at me with those big blue eyes. His dark hair was a mess of curls that hung in his eyes. No gel today. His tall, strong frame was wrapped in a dark jacket, white t-shirt, dark jeans and sneakers.
God. He was handsome.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
We stared at each other for a moment, taking each other in. He ran his hands through his dark hair and gave me a half smile that made my heart speed up. His shoulders were slightly hunched, his face paler than I remembered. Like he’d lost a little of his joy between yesterday and today.
“I just came by to see if you were okay.”
I stepped out in to the hallway and closed the door.
“I’m fine.”
When I woke up that morning, my mouth felt like cotton and my head verged on splitting open. After nearly a gallon of water and about ten ibuprofen, I was finally able to get out of bed.
“Last night didn’t go as I expected,” he said.
I crossed my arms, remembering his jacket so warm and delicious smelling around me. I wished that I had taken it with me. I wanted to wrap it around me whenever I thought of him, which by the way, was much too often.
“What did you expect?” I asked.
He laughed shortly. “Not World War III.”
“Did you think that I would just fall into your arms while my boyfriend danced in the other room?”
I wanted to hurt Cole. I wanted to hurt him because he hurt me by being with Stephanie.
“I’d hoped,” he said.
“What a thing to say to your brother’s girlfriend.”
I had to hurt Cole. It was the only way to keep him away. To keep my heart safe.
“You don’t want him.”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me.”
“Did it matter when you were making out with Stephanie?”
I had to keep my heart away from him. If he took it, I’d never get it back.
“I never made out with Stephanie.”
“That’s not what Jake said.”
“Jake is a liar and an idiot.”
I shrugged, though knowing that St
ephanie had never touched his lips made me feel a little bit better.
“Stephanie seemed to think that you two were pretty cozy.”
“I told Stephanie that we were friends. She knew that.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Why are you doing this? Why are you pushing me away?”
I put my hands on my hips and shifted my weight on my feet.
“Cole, we are English partners and you tutor me in French. I really think that you are taking our relationship to a place where it wasn’t meant to go.”
Where it couldn’t go.
He shook his head. “That’s not true.”
“It is true.”
Please go away. I don’t want to hurt you.
“I don’t believe you,” he said.
“You have to believe me.”
Just walk away. I don’t want to hurt you.
“Cole, I am Jake’s girlfriend.”
“For reasons still unknown. Reasons I’m beginning to care less and less about.”
“You have to care about them. He’s your brother.”
“Why are you with him, huh? Did he pay you? Do you need money?”
“So now you think that I’m a whore, too?”
Please don’t make me hurt you. Please don’t make me hurt you.
“No. I think that you’re a fake. A fraud. You’re with him but you don’t want to be. You want to be with me.”
My heart beat hard. My chest ached.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’m not an idiot, Bella. I open my eyes. I observe things. You laugh at my dumb jokes, you argue with me, whenever I touch you, you stop breathing. Just admit that you like me already.”
“Is that why you came here? To gloat? To add me to another notch in your belt.”
He scowled darkly at me. “You know that’s not true.”
“That’s pretty much what it sounds like.”
He growled.
“You are the most stubborn girl I have ever met in my life.”
“Great. Thank you for sharing. Maybe you should go, Cole.”
“No. No. I’m not going. Not until you admit that you want to be with me.”