Paper Dolls (14 page)

“It’s because of
him,
isn’t it? You’d rather stay here with some guy than to be with your sister.”

“No, that’s not−”

“Don’t lie to me. It’s the truth. You’re willing to throw me away for him.” She paced my bedroom, her arms lashing out as she spoke.

I didn’t answer. How could I honestly deny it? Out of everything that was keeping me here, it was Clay’s face that shone the brightest.

“You barely know him, Aria. You don’t even realise all the things he’s hiding−” She pulled up short.

My scalp began to prickle. “What things? What are you talking about?”

“Things. Men are always hiding things.”

“Clay’s not hiding anything.” But even as I said it, I felt like I knew I was lying.

Salem gripped my hands in hers, her eyes shining with fear. “Please Aria, he’s here,” she lowered her voice. “He’s found us…me.”

I glanced around us as if we were being watched. My stomach knotted. “Who’s found you?”

Salem’s eyes darted about her. “He’s back. He’s back. Bad bad bad. Back.”

My father’s face rose up from the inky darkness of the recesses of my mind, from the place I had shoved him and all the memories of him. His deep-set eyes like wells, smudged with purple shadows, his gruff unshaven jaw, the smell of whiskey and of body odour. I shuddered as a thunder of fear rocked through my body. I thought I had managed to…not forget, I’d never forget, but I thought that I’d managed to keep him away from my mind.

He won’t leave us alone, Rosey. Not ever.

“But he’s…dead. He can’t hurt…” I trailed off, realising how much that was a lie. Can’t hurt us anymore? Can’t hurt her? Lies. He was still hurting her. His memories still affected her, permeating through her like smoke.

She shook her head. “He’s not. He’s alive and he’s found us.”

I tried to calm myself. Salem was being paranoid. She was over-reacting. He was dead. I saw him die. No one had found us. “Salem, please calm down. You’re scaring me.”

“He could be watching right now.”

I glanced over to the window. The curtains were open. Anyone could see us from the street. The hairs rose on the back of my neck.

Don’t be stupid. No one was watching us. He was dead. But I’d feel better if I closed the curtains. I moved towards the window.

“No,” Salem grabbed my arm, yanking me back. “You can’t go near there. He’s watching, outside.”

“Oh, Salem…” I put my arms around my sister. Her cold, thin fingers curled around my back, chilling me to my core, but I didn’t remove them. I would share my warmth with her. It was the least I could do.

I squeezed my eyes shut as I held onto the pieces of my other half as if I could hold her together. I had to find a way to help her, to save her. If I could have spared her…
You could have. But instead you were a coward and allowed
her
to do all the protecting.

Her body was tense, tight like a coil wound up all the way. She shook with so much tension, but she didn’t cry. She never cried. Not even when…

Salem, I sob-whispered. What do I do?

Don’t watch.

I watched her lashes flutter as she squeezed her eyes tightly as if she were dreaming something horrible. What might she be remembering? I shuddered to imagine.

“You have to come with me,” I heard in my ear, her voice hard as stone. “You
owe
me.”

You owe me.

Three words that would haunt me for the rest of my life. Guilt stabbed me rapidly across my chest like a series of shotgun blasts, tearing holes in my soul.

She was right.

How could I put my life over Salem’s? Not when she had put her life over mine. I owed her. She gave up
so
much for me. And now it was time for me to do the same.

But the thought of leaving Clay, of never seeing him again ripped through my heart, tearing it into shreds.

You owe me.

I had to say yes to Salem. I had to leave with her, even if it hurt me. I had to put her needs first for once, and if she needed to leave Mirage Falls, then I had to leave too. No matter the cost.

I felt my life crack apart; into the life I could have had and this new life I would soon depart from. My heart wailed silently for the loss of what would have been.

But I owed her. I had to leave with her.

I hung my head and accepted it with a nod. “Okay. We’ll go.”

Her face radiated with a wide smile. “You won’t regret this. It’ll be like it used to be. Just you and me.” She hugged me again, so hard I almost couldn’t breathe. Or perhaps I couldn’t breathe because I was already mourning Clay. I knew that when I left with Salem, it would be Clay’s ghost that would haunt me from then on. “I have to tell Clay.”

She pulled back suddenly, her face all hard lines and marble. “You can’t tell Clay.”

“Why?”

“He’ll try and stop you.”

“I can’t just leave without letting him know.”

“You can call him to tell him that you’ve gone once we’ve stopped somewhere.”

I couldn’t leave without letting Clay know. It would kill him if I just disappeared. It almost killed me when Salem just left − no goodbyes, no note, nothing. But I didn’t want to waste time arguing with Salem about this.

“Fine.” I pulled myself out of her grasp and turned to walk out of the bedroom.

She followed me. “Where are you going?”

I ignored the guilt as I picked up my key from the kitchen counter. “I just have to run to the Whip & Flick to pick up a few things I left there and my final pay.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No,” I said just a little too sharply. “Flick will think it’s weird if you show up. I haven’t told her that you’re back,” I lied. What was another lie between sisters, right? “I’ll be back in thirty minutes, tops,” I said and slipped out the front door before she could protest any further. As I closed the door, Salem was watching me from the living room, suspicion clouding her eyes.

* * *

I was waiting on a street several blocks from my apartment, my heart heavy as Clay pulled his familiar red Mustang up beside me. God, I would miss the sight of his showy red car. I would even miss the showy way the engine growled like a lion. Stiff as a wooden doll, I climbed into the passenger side. Tears pricked my eyes the second I smelled his familiar scent. When he pressed his soft, warm mouth to mine I couldn’t even bring myself to kiss him back. I would miss his lips so much.

He pulled back, his beautiful features etching with concern. “What’s wrong?”

Just say it. Get it over with.

“I…have to leave.” I could barely get the words out, my heart hung so pained and swollen in my chest that it felt like it was crushing aside my lungs.

“Okay,” Clay said. He was taking this well. Too well. “Where are you off to? Like a holiday? How long for?”

He didn’t understand.

“No, Clay. I mean, I have to leave for good.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

His jaw twitched. “When are you leaving?”

“Now.”

Anger began to seep into his face, pinching his mouth, crinkling his brows. “Why? What’s going on?”

“Salem needs me.”

“Salem,” he spat out like he hated the name. “How did
she
convince you to leave?”

“She told me that if I didn’t go with her, I’d lose her.”

“So you chose her.”

“I’m sorry, Clay. I’m so sorry. I want to choose you both. But you don’t understand. I can’t let her down.” Not again.

“What do you do when someone gives you an ultimatum? Sticks a gun to your head and makes you choose?”

“What?”

“You refuse to bend. You push back. You find another way. You take that gun off him and put it back in his face. But you do not give in to demands.”

“I’m sorry, Clay. I have to go.”

“What does she have over you that you
have
to leave? Huh? I deserve to know, don’t I?” He grabbed my shoulders. “Why are you leaving me?”

I cringed at the desperation in his voice. He did deserve to know. But it was her secret. I had to keep it inside.

It’s your secret too.
He deserves to know. He needs to know…

In my childhood bedroom the door handle turned. I froze. “Salem?” I hissed.

“Get back.” She shoved me with her hands farther towards the wall that our double bed abutted against. “He’s coming.”

I was a coward. So I did what she said.

The door creaked opened. In the dim night, in the streaky moonlight filtering through the blinds of the room, there stood a dark figure, swaying.

I started to panic, my breathing going wild, my lungs constricting, air wheezing through the tightening space in my throat.

I need air. I can’t breathe. Where’s the surface?

I was shaking so hard that my vision began to shudder. Salem remained on the edge of the bed, a stoic solemn soldier, my soldier, my shield, from the monster who sometimes came to take his sacrifice.

He stumbled in through the door, spinning awkwardly to close it behind him. He always closed it behind him, as if he was afraid that there was someone else in the house who might see what he was here to do.

Here’s the truth.

There was no one here.

Nobody was coming.

No one would save us.

Even from here I could smell the reek of alcohol, the stink of him as he fell into the bed against her.

“Go away,” Salem cried as he grabbed one of her wrists. Her thin arms punched at him but they just bounced off his big hairy forearms.

In the silver moonlight I saw his wedding ring glint as he slipped his hand down between her skinny legs. “Catherine,” he growled low in his throat. Our mother’s name. “Sweetheart.”

“Get off her. She’s not Mama,” I yelled from my safety on the other side of the bed, the side that Salem always made me take. He ignored me, like I wasn’t even there.

He yanked her pyjama bottoms down, her bird-like hands powerless to stop him and she spat at him using sharp curse-words I had only ever heard adults use when they were mad. He ignored her, like he didn’t even hear her.

He climbed on top of her, made a shoving motion with his hips and I heard a small sob come from Salem. It would be the only cry she made as he did what he did.

A low moan came from him. “You’re so tight.”

The whole room, the walls, the mattress, shook, like the world was falling apart. For Salem, it was.

“Salem,” I sob-whispered over his grunting, tears squeezing out of my eyes. “What do I do?”

Her face was turned towards me as he crushed her from above. She reached out from under him, even as he moved and slobbered above her, and she found my hand on the mattress. I gripped onto it, as tightly as I could, the only thing I could do.

“Don’t watch.”

I shook my head and kept my eyes on her. “I won’t leave you alone. Just look at me, Salem. Look at me.” I wouldn’t look away. She couldn’t turn this ugliness off, she was under it, coated with it, being filled with it. I would not leave her alone with him. I was here. Even if the only thing I could do was watch, my witness being the only fragile support I could offer.

I squeezed her hand tighter and tighter, willing her to stay strong, but as they always did, her fingers became looser and looser until they were limp and dead in my palm.

“I’ll be okay,” she said. Even as the light began to fade in her eyes. Even as the ugliness skinned her raw and embedded her open wounds with dirt so that she would never be able to get it out. And when her skin would close over, it would become a part of her. “One day, it’ll stop. One day soon.”

That was a lie.

And we both knew it.

When I finished talking, the air in the car was thick with an invisible fog. I played with the fringe of my shirt until I could stand the silence no more. I looked up. “Say something.”

Clay just stared at me, a wild anger burning out from his eyes. The next few words were spoken with venom and ice. “I’ll kill him.”

I shook my head, the last shards of that memory dropping like stones. “He’s already dead.”

“I hope he suffered before he died.”

I swallowed, hard. “I don’t know,” I lied.

“Aria,” he spoke my name with anguish, anger slipping from his features as they twisted into pain, “I’m so sorry.” Over the console he pulled me into his arms. I didn’t care that the gearstick was digging into my side; I pressed my nose into his shirt and breathed him in, letting the familiar feeling of his warmth and his body soothe me. It had been the first time I had ever told anyone else about what had happened to Salem when we were kids.

“It was a long time ago,” I said woodenly.

Clay pulled back to look at me. “That is a horrible thing that happened to your sister. A fucking horrible, disgusting thing. But why does she have to leave? Why do you?”

“She needs me.”

“You haven’t answered my question. Why does
she
need to leave Mirage Falls?”

“Because…” The car filled with silence.

“Aria, you can’t let her uproot your life based on nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

“Please,” he grabbed my hands in his, his voice and eyes now pleading. “Don’t leave.”

“I have to go,” I said, limply. “I owe her.”

Clay’s lips pressed together, his face growing hard. “Is that what she told you?”

I said nothing. Somehow my silence felt like a betrayal to Salem.

“She’s trying to manipulate you.”

I felt as if he had slapped me, my mind whirring over my conversation earlier with Salem. “No…” Was Clay right? Had Salem manipulated me into saying yes to leaving? Had I just done what I had always done and followed her with whatever crazy plan she came up with?

You have to do this for me. You owe me.

I shook my head. I had to get out of this car before Clay convinced me to stay. God, how I wanted to stay.

But he grabbed onto me, his hold now desperate. I tried to push him away, but there was no fight in my hands. I was too busy fighting against my heart that was raging against me to stay, stay here in Clay’s arms, to stay here where I belonged. “Clay, please, let me go.”