Authors: K. Ryan
All of the Lights
Copyright © 2016 K. Ryan
All rights reserved.
Cover Design by Paper and Sage
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, including Internet usage, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Any trademarks, copyrighted material, product names, or named features are only used in reference and are assumed to be property of their respective owners.
This one's for Michael.
"Who is it that can tell me who I am?"
~King Lear, I.IV
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."
~Oscar Wilde
PROLOGUE
March 19th
27 Years Ago
She waits at the beach just like he told her to. Her eyes flick down to the postcard in her hand, his messy handwriting detailing this long-awaited meeting, and her stomach flutters in anticipation.
The crisp, spring air rushes around her and she pulls her sweater close around her shoulders, tucking some stray auburn hair behind her ear. Her eyes fall on the peaceful water in front of her and for the first time in too long, her lips lift into a smile. She's happy again. She's hopeful again.
Things will be different, she tells herself. Nothing will get in their way because they have so much more to fight for this time. So much more at stake.
She has to believe he'll come. She has to believe he'll tell her what she's wanted to hear for years. She has to believe that all of their suffering, all of their pain, and all of their heartbreak wasn't for nothing.
The familiarity of this scene at Castle Island spikes painful shards of hope in her chest that she just can't shake. He's always shown up. Always kept his promises.
So she waits. And she waits. And she waits. Even when the sun's rays color the water crimson and rust, she still waits.
Finally, the postcard drifts to the ground and the wind catches it, twirling it away from the broken, defeated woman sobbing on the bench.
Rae
I never saw him coming.
I couldn't turn around fast enough. Didn't have enough time to run. Didn't have enough time to even scream for help. Not like it would've mattered.
Even now, the shards of white-hot pain vibrate in my shattered knee, a nightmare of a memory I just can't shake. All I can remember are two pairs of eyes. One dark. One light. One right after the other before I crumble to the ground in a pool of my own blood.
"Do you have any more of these?"
I shake my head, blinking through my hazy daydream, and glance up from behind the cash register. She holds up the jeans I just brought her and I press a sympathetic smile on my face.
It's 8:45 on a Friday night and she's here, all by herself, trying on every single pair of size eight skinny jeans in my sister's store, but I'll indulge her crazy.
"Sure, Claire," I smile tightly as I slink toward the stockroom. "Let me just check in the back."
To her credit, Claire doesn't acknowledge the fact that she's been in here so many times I know not only her name, but this whole routine, too. Instead, she nods gratefully and heads back to her fitting room.
What I should really tell her is that mustard color just isn't doing anything for her thighs, but if she thinks she looks great in them, then who am I to tell her any different? Besides, Chic to Chic needs all the help it can get.
Naming the store Chic to Chic doesn't even scratch the surface on the iceberg of issues plaguing it. Even the casual observer could see all the mistakes she's made, but Lucy, whether it's blissful ignorance or stupid carelessness, just doesn't seem to care that her store is bleeding money every single day. Then again, calling it
her
store is a stretch. Especially since it implies she actually put her own money into it.
She
really isn't losing anything.
I scoot around racks of back-stock and immediately grab the only other two size eights in that mustard color. Claire and I have played this game before and it always ends with her wanting to try on every pair of any given style in her size before she finally decides which one to buy.
It's exhausting. It's compulsively neurotic. It's annoying. But I get it.
Seeing as how I have nothing but a library book, a warm bath, and a crazy-eyed black cat waiting for me at my apartment, I'm not exactly in a position to judge.
After I pass Claire the jeans, the front door chimes and I close my eyes for strength. I might not have any pressing plans for the rest of the night, but the store is only supposed to be open for another 15 minutes and I'd still like to leave at a decent hour.
Just as I round the corner to greet this new customer, my left knee locks up and my teeth grit in annoyance. Seven years, three surgeries, and countless hours of physical therapy just doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. And then, I hear an all-too-familiar voice.
"Where you at, Clamato?"
I blow out a deep breath and mentally prepare myself for what's coming next. Part of me really believed he'd just leave me alone tonight. The other part of me fully expected the upcoming onslaught.
By the time I'm back out on the sales floor, my best friend is already waiting for me, leaning up against the counter. Everything about Bennett screams male perfection—from the cool, pressed linen shirt rolled up at the elbows, the tall, lean body, the coffee-colored hair that's been expertly styled with gel and at least an hour in front of the mirror, and a face that's smoother and clearer than I could ever dream of having.
His carefully shaped eyebrows lift up into his forehead when our eyes meet and he shakes his head with that trademark, stage-worthy disgust.
"I knew it," he tsks at me, his eyes narrowing when I roll mine up to the ceiling.
"How'd you know I was here?"
His dark eyes only narrow tighter. "You weren't responding to my texts. I figured you were either here or wallowing in your apartment. I just
knew
she'd con you into staying late for her."
"It's her birthday, Benn," I shrug. "What was I supposed to do?"
He shakes his head again and folds half of his long body on the counter. "Uh, say no. That's what you were supposed to do."
My best exasperated stare isn't quite good enough because he matches me tit for tat, the master of the bitch stare-down.
"Tough love time, Raena," he tells me. I know I'm in for it now because he's used my full name. "You can't keep letting Zero walk all over you. You're done being a doormat, remember? Isn't that the whole reason why you moved back here in the first place? I've seen little to no effort and I'm sick of sitting here, tapping my foot in ever-present frustration."
Now it was my turn to lean an elbow on the counter and level a glare his way. "That's a little bitchy, don't you think? And would you stop calling her Zero? She has a name, you know."
"Don't care," he waves a hand dismissively. "I'll never trust a woman who doesn't eat. And you're not changing the subject, missy."
I hold up my hands, already admitting defeat, and I glance back at the fitting room. "Just hold on, okay? I still have a customer in here."
He just taps his fingers on the counter, signaling he's willing to wait just a little bit longer. Just as I'm about to knock on Claire's fitting room door, my eye catches Bennett rummaging through my purse. Before I can call him out, she's already tossed a pair of jeans over the top of the door.
"Do you have any other size eights in that color?"
At this point, it's hard not to keep my eyes from drifting to the clock. It's now 8:53 and the little appearance of my best friend has made me agitated, to say the least, to get this night over with.
"No, I don't think so."
"Can you check?" Claire's voice calls out from behind the door.
Once again, I find myself biting back a sigh.
"Uh, sure."
As I pass the counter, Bennett holds up a note on my iPad that reads:
Backbone. Get one.
What can I say? He's right and he knows it. And he's dealt with my bullshit pretty much our entire lives, so he
would
know.
So I let the stock room's door close behind me, take a long drink from my water bottle, and count to 10 in my head. That should be long enough for Claire to think I'm actually checking for that other, non-existent size eight.
When I make my way back out onto the sales floor, Claire stands outside her fitting room in one of the five pairs of mustard-colored jeans in her fitting room. Bennett is just a few feet away with his arms crossed over his chest in disapproval.
"Oh, honey. No," he chides as he shakes his head. "Just...no. That is not your color. At. All. And it's making your thighs look like those squeeze tubes that frosting comes in. Just sayin'."
Claire glances down sheepishly at her legs, back up at Bennett again, and then down to her mustard-covered legs as if she's suddenly aware of what both Bennett and I knew a long time ago.
"I guess you're right," she sighs. "Oh well. It was worth a try."
She heads back to her fitting room and as soon as she leaves the store for good, at least for tonight, I snap a discarded pair of jeans at him.
"Hey!" he holds his hands up in the air, ready to defend himself again. "What the hell?"
"You jerk!" I fling another pair of jeans at him. "She was going to buy those, you know."
"And that would've been a travesty, Rae. A
travesty,
I tell you."
"You should've just kept your mouth shut. She liked them until you told her she had sausage legs."
His eyebrows lift into his forehead. "Oh? So you'd rather be nice than be honest, is that it?"
"Absolutely," I nod defiantly. "Besides, at least I would've had a sale before the end of the night."
He just lifts a shoulder as he leans down to lock the front doors of the store for me. "Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, Clamato. And while I'm on this honesty kick, here's another helping of tough love: you and I are going out tonight."
My mouth drops open. "No."
"Yes."
"I can't," I sputter, flailing helplessly into an oblivion of my own making. "I have to—"
"You have to do nothing, that's what. I already know what you have planned. You're going to go back to your apartment where you'll drink copious amounts of white wine—even though you know you shouldn't—you'll cry, hug that thing you call a cat, cry some more, and maybe,
maybe
read a smutty romance novel if you have time between, you know, all the drinking and crying."
"I was going to take a bath, too," I mumble.
"Oh, so you're going to drown yourself after all the drinking and crying? What else do you have planned, Ophelia? Hmm?"
"Oh, can it, drama queen."