Cursed (23 page)

“How is she feeling lately?” I ask casually. I
felt so nervous around him.

He shrugged, “Not much better but we heard
yesterday they may have found a donor. So I guess she will hear
tomorrow. How are you feeling?” He asked giving me a weird
look.

I nodded, “Better thanks. Is her room this way?”
I asked pointing up the stairs to the left.

He nodded, “First door on the right. Everything
is the same as it was before she got sick. I haven’t been able to
go in there.”

I turned to smile at him I saw the way he was
looking at me and I felt dirty suddenly. Like the jeans and t-shirt
I was wearing was a bikini.

I turned and walked up the stairs very quickly,
I didn’t have the energy to run away from him but I did my best. My
heart was pounding and I thought about Aleks suddenly. I needed
Aleks. I got to the top of the stairs and entered her room. Her dad
never followed me but I closed her door anyway.

Her room was just like Alise’s, a mess. There
were clothes and shoes on the floor with makeup all over a dressing
table and her bedding was all over her bed.

I walked to her closet and found the dress, it
was in a dress bag. I didn’t even worry about what it looked like.
I saw papers on her floor in her closet. It was stationary with
handwriting.

I crouched down trying not to get dizzy and see
stars as I looked closely at the letters. They were all written to
Giselle but not signed. I stuffed them in the dress bag and headed
out of the room. Her dad was at the bottom of the stairs, “Wanna
stay for a drink?” He asked trying to smile. I nearly threw up in
my mouth.

“No thanks sir my sister is waiting for me.
Thanks though.” I turned and ran out of the door.

I got back to the car and got in quickly,
exhausted from the energy I had just put out and winded from
exerting myself so much.

My sister looked at me worried, “Did he touch
you?”

I shook my head and breathed heavily, “No he is
just so creepy though.”

My sister put the car in reverse and sped from
the driveway, “Yeah tell me about it.” Her eyes said a lot more
than she was willing to share.

Suddenly she snapped out of her thoughts, “So
you got the dress?”

I nodded, “And something else. Look at these.” I
unzipped the bag and pulled the letters out.

“Have your seen these before?” I held out the
papers.

My sister looked at the stationary, “Yeah
Giselle was getting letters for a while last fall, they were from a
secret admirer. No biggie.”

I pulled out the one that had caught my eye in
the pile at Giselle’s and held it up, “Did you ever read them?”

She shook her head, “We glanced at them but they
were so stupid, all romantic and quotes from Shakespeare and
crap.”

I read out loud, “Giselle my summer rose, your
lips will shine for me, glisten with my name upon them, I will
bring you to ecstasy with a drop of my aphrodisiacs, you'll moan my
name and ride my-” I stopped and looked at my sister frowning,
“This is disgusting. Giselle didn’t have a clue who it was?”

She shrugged driving us back home to get the
dress fittings started.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked at
the million texts Giselle had sent me. It was pages of new texts,
she went from excited to completely desperate. Guilt flooded me
seeing the anxiety in my friends’ words.

I pressed talk and waited for the cell to
ring.

“Hello.” Her voice was so weak it sickened
me.

I closed my eyes fighting back tears, “Hey.”

“Dude where have you been?” Her weakened words
cut me deeply.

“I’m so sorry. I slept through the last five
days. I just couldn’t seem to shake it. How’s it going there? Your
dad said something about a donor.”

I could hear her shallow breath in the phone as
she tried to talk, “Yeah I hear the final verdict tomorrow I think.
Right now they’re just trying to get me through the days. My dad
was the only match in my family but his liver is damaged from all
the drinking. I think he feels pretty bad.” I cringed, how could he
not feel bad. His daughter was dying and it was all his fault.

“I am coming to see you this weekend, liver or
no liver I will be there this weekend but right now I need to ask
you a question and its going to sound awful but just look past my
snooping.”

“Okay, I’m not too worried about you and
snooping though to be honest.”

I sighed, “I went to your place to get the dress
and when I was there I looked in the closet and found the secret
admirer letters you got last summer. I have been looking them over
and I think the person who sent them poisoned us. But I need to
know who you think it was.” I waited in silence for her to tell me
to eff off and hang up.

“I don’t know. They just kept showing up in my
locker. I guess I always thought it was Tommy. I assumed he had a
crush on me and he always got such good grades in English even
though he comes off as a hamtard.”

I burst out laughing, “See how easy it is to use
that word. Okay so Tommy gets good grade in English? Did he hit on
you?”

My sister who was listening in rolled her eyes
at me as she pulled into our driveway, “Who hasn’t he hit on? He’s
a pig.”

I nodded imagining him being smart enough to
drug someone and plan it out. I had a hard time seeing this in my
head.

“Okay well you think about the letters for the
next little bit as much as you can and I will see if I can get some
dirt on Tommy. I’ll get Alise to help me, she is good with dirty
boys.” I smiled at my sister who flashed me a grin and turned off
the car.

“Okay well I will text you if I think of
anything but I’m telling you if I don’t get a response I’m coming
for you James, I am coming for you.”

The thought of that made me smile, “Deal but I
will answer anything you send.”

She hung up the phone no doubt from loss of
strength, I couldn’t believe how weak she had gotten. I looked at
my sister as we sat together in the driveway feeling not only bleak
about Giselle but also confused about the drugging pervert.

“It can’t be Tommy. I mean it could be but I
just can’t see him being smart enough.” I spoke breaking the
silence.

My sister nodded, “Yeah he’s a goof. He’s a
perve but more of a harmless perve. Trust me I went there once, he
was very sweet and almost grateful. It was creepy in a he’s not as
dirty as he seems sort of way.”

I frowned at her, “You had sex with him?”

She frowned back, “At least I know what sex is
you’re like a Mormon. No booze, no smoking, no drugs, no sex. Do
you even drink coffee?”

I laughed shaking my head, “Not really, every
now and then I have some espresso. I don’t like to put that much
strain on my adrenal glands.”

She rolled her eyes, “Oh well yes, I forgot
about that nasty little side effect. Lets go see if the dress fits
Cinderella.”

I got out of the car looking around, wondering
where Aleks was.

As Alise and I got into the house we heard a
mans' voice talking to our dad. I knew that voice immediately but
instead of smiling like I normally would I cringed. I was still so
confused and Shane deserved so much better than second place in my
heart.

“Shane what are you doing here?” My sister asked
smiling at him and my dad having what seemed to be an afternoon
tea. I walked into the house fully and raised an eyebrow at
them.

My dad started laughing, “They make the same
faces, do you see it son?”

Shane laughed nodding, “That is funny. Grey blue
eyes and silver eyes making the same expression. I was hoping you
were feeling better.” He spoke to me now smiling the biggest grin
I’d ever seen on anyone’s face. The excitement in his eyes melted
my heart, “Is that your dress? Are we actually going still?” His
eyes were so hopeful I couldn’t even imagine saying no. “Yes. I’m
feeling a lot better.” It was still a lie but I had been out of bed
for the whole day so it must have been true somehow. I could have
fallen asleep standing but my mind was reeling with all of the
things it had learned or at least attempted to learn in such a
small amount of time.

Shane smiled huge lunging at me and picking me
up. He hugged me tightly, “I’ll be back in a couple hours to get
you.”

With that he ran out the door excited. I closed
off my heart to Aleks and let Shane in, it was the right choice I
was excited and tired of the tennis match going on inside of
me.

I sat in my room staring at the letters, I knew
the writing from somewhere but I couldn’t place it. It reminded me
of Blake but when I thought about Blake and his chicken scratch and
shook my head. I knew it was a word search I needed to walk away
from it and eventually the word would come to me.

Chapter Ten - HAPPINESS IS
IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

The dress fit like a glove, Giselle and I were
apparently the exact same size, it was an aqua colored dress that
from the back looked floor length but it went from short in the
front to long in the back gradually as it wrapped around me. The
top was like a tight corset with the fabric folded vertically but
fastened tightly to the dress. It had an empire waist with a large
amount of the fabric pulled into a sweep making it look like a belt
and it went all the way around the dress making up the small amount
of back I had covered. It was strapless and the skirt of the dress
was layers of free slowing rippling fabric. There was a huge oval
broach under my right breast that was silver and sparkled from the
fake diamonds.

I shook my head in amazement as my sister smiled
brightly, “You look hot.”

My sister pulled a pair of sparkling silver
pumps from her closet and put them in front of me. I stepped into
them and marveled at how I looked. I pulled my blond slightly wavy
hair out of its usual ponytail and shook my head to release the
thick locks.

Alise clapped, “Dad you have to see this.”

“You even look a little tanned, have you been
tanning?” She asked looking me up and down as I gave her my,
remember who you are talking to look.

Alise raised her hands defensively, “I was just
thinking you seem a bit tanned.”

I nodded contemplating it, I did look a bit
tanned, “You know its probably just a little of the jaundice left
over from the poison.”

My dad came into the room and his eyebrows
raised in stunned, shocked, awe.

“Oh my goodness Aimee, Alise did you do this?”
His voice was a whisper not accusingly at all.

Alise shook her head, “No this is all Aimee, and
there isn’t even any makeup yet.” She took a black and aqua colored
bracelet that dangled and hung it off my left wrist. She smiled at
me in the mirror and I looked to see my dads’ eyes mist over. My
sisters’ eyes were not long behind him, which made my eyes start to
water.

My dad wrapped his arms around us both and began
to sob. He held us and hugged tight with shaking arms.

I felt myself losing my control as I joined what
was left of our small family in a moment of sorrow. I felt the warm
wind suddenly. I looked up knowing it was my mom watching down on
this moment. My skin shivered slightly as I let my face burrow into
my dads shoulder.

He pulled away after a few moments and nodded,
“You look beautiful and if your mom were here she would make me
tell you so.” He walked from the room heartbroken.

Alise walked into her bathroom and started to
wash her face to get ready for the big night.

“Thanks Alise, I’m going to try my own makeup
this time. I think I’m getting the hang of this girlie
business.”

She laughed at me from the bathroom, “Yeah
right. Well if you mess it up I’m right here.”

I closed her bedroom door feeling more in love
with my family than I ever had. I knew in that moment we were going
to be okay, my dad had muttered the words, ‘if your mom were here’
for the first time and we had all lived. We’d cried together, we’d
grieved together and it seemed we’d finally reached the point we
could heal together.

I closed my door and sat at the chair looking at
myself. I was pretty, this had never happened to me before. Even
with the red dress I had still some how looked like me but in this
dress I was someone else and I liked it.

I started to repeat the same thing Giselle had
told me to do. I made my color choices to match the dress’s
accessories. I did my eyes with silver and grey. My eyes had flecks
of both green and blue in them so the silver made them sparkle. I
did my lips with a soft coral cause I figured aqua and corral were
both from the sea so it must match. I pulled the top of my hair
into a high half ponytail and teased my waves into soft curls with
mousse. I spritzed myself with a honey vanilla my mom had always
worn.

I stood up adding a little gloss and looked at
the final product.

Suddenly the warm wind blew in my window and
Aleks stood there smiling at me from the far side of my room. My
heart leapt seeing him smile at me but instantly I knew.

“You’re the warm wind.” It was a statement not a
question.

He never opened his mouth to argue but I could
see the truth in his eyes.

“I hate you.”

The words left my mouth before I could stop
myself. I wanted to cry but I knew with that much makeup on it
would be a disaster and I was fairly done with him impacting my
life.

He stepped toward me to explain but I put my
arms up, “No you let me pretend you were my mom. How could you do
it? I believed she was there with me. I believed all of my moms
love and intention was in that wind and instead it was you.”

He shook his head obviously ashamed of himself,
“It’s just what happens when I move. You assumed it was your mom.
You needed her still and she was gone so I let you believe she was
still here. I should have told you and I’m sorry but in my defense
you should never have known about me. When you were better and your
family was healed I would have vanished taking that wind with me
and you would have been at peace knowing she was in heaven.”