Authors: Olivia Lynde
Seth returns with an antiseptic bottle
and cotton balls.
"Do you live here alone?" I
ask him.
"Yes, for the last two years."
"For the last two years?" I'm
confused. "But two years ago you were only sixteen."
He pushes me gently in a reclining
position, and I lay back, supporting my head on the armrest. Then before I
realize what's happening, he lifts my bent legs with one arm, sits down as well,
and then resettles my legs on his lap. After which he leans down toward me in a
fluid motion and proceeds to scrutinize my grazed lip.
I keep completely still, staggered at
our intimate pose. Inside me though, it's the furthest thing from "still"
that there could possibly be; instead, flickers of fire are surging and
sizzling in a carnival of sparks. All of a sudden I feel woozy.
"Breathe, Sunny!" he orders softly,
and I let a rush of air fill my lungs.
"I've been earning my own money
since I was thirteen," he tells me in an abstracted tone while leaning
closer and examining the small cut at the corner of my lower lip. "With
Grams gone, it was either that
or
steal
or
starve to death. I could
hardly expect Mom to feed me." A thread of bitterness has surfaced in his
voice.
"I didn't want to steal or starve,
so I found a way to earn money. Then Mom got into stealing and begging money
from me, to feed her drug addiction. By the time I was sixteen, I was beyond sick
of dealing with all her shit, so I filed for emancipation, cut all ties with her,
and moved to my own place. Best decision I ever made."
He's started cleaning my lip with the
antiseptic and I flinch a little.
"Sorry," he murmurs and blows gently
above the corner of my mouth, where my skin is stinging. His lips are so close
now that I would only have to lean forward a little and I could feel them on my
own.
The moment this thought pops into my
head, I press the frozen bag harder against my bruised cheek, embracing the
resulting throb of pain; and for good measure, I dig my nails into the palm of
my other hand to stop myself from being stupid.
Still, my internal fight leaves me
shaken.
Fortunately, he finally retreats a
little, removing the temptation of his lips from my immediate reach. He's
staring at me with very intent blue eyes, his gaze focused on my mouth. And I
know that he's only doing this to examine the small wound there—yet still I'm beset
by new waves of
desire
flowing through me. Once again I have trouble
breathing.
He touches his finger to the bow of my
lower lip and moves it slowly in a sensual slide. Sweet mercy, I wish he would
stop! He's driving me crazy, fraying the fetters of my control! My heart is slamming
against my ribs like a sledgehammer, and my skin feels too hot.
My lips part and his blue eyes flash
with enigmatic purpose, lids dropping to half-mast. Suddenly his head is
lowering towards me, and the feverish excitement inside me spreads and surges
out of bonds. Overcome, I look up into Seth's eyes, and then his lips are
close, so close to mine, and for a moment the world stops breathing.
"Have you finished cleaning my lip?"
I rasp out, fighting free from the heated trance.
Seth raises his head with a slight frown
and—
oh God, thank you!—
he stops touching my mouth, and just in time: I
was about to spontaneously combust.
He checks my cheek below the frozen bag
before answering me. "Yes. The cut's not very deep, so it'll heal in a
couple of days. And the swelling in your cheek has already gone down." Then,
putting the bag aside: "I want to look at your middle to make sure you're not
hurt badly. Raise your hands?"
I obediently lift my hands, and in the
next moment my gigantic hoodie is drawn over my head and summarily thrown aside.
I'm left in a black, tattered T-shirt. Abruptly panicked, I glance down to
check that my heart necklace isn't visible—and it's not; thank goodness I
always wear it directly on my skin! And the neckline is high enough that it
hides the chain. I don't want Seth to know that I've never taken his necklace
off even after all these years; it'd make me look pathetic.
I surface from my panic to the
realization that Seth has been quiet for too long. Curious, I gaze up at him and
see his eyes flaring oddly, focused on my upper body.
Oh, lordy! The T-shirt I'm wearing was
bought when I was fourteen, before my body went through its big change, and
even then it was pretty snug. Now, it molds all my curves like a second skin
and looks as if it's about to burst in the chest area. If I had thought there
was even the slightest chance that I'd be removing my hoodie in company, I
would never have made such a poor choice in my T-shirt.
Not that I have a lot of options regarding
what to wear. All my clothes are old and scruffy. Greg told Louise to take me
shopping, but of course she didn't. I could maybe buy some clothes myself since
I have a little nest egg from my previous part-time jobs, but I hate spending
my hard-earned money on ill-fitting clothes. So I make do with what I already
own.
Seth has surfaced from his peculiar
fixation, though his eyes are still glowing a bit too brightly, and he's
leaning over me. "I'll raise your T-shirt a bit, okay?"
I nod, and his hands go to my waist and
draw my T-shirt up slightly, then his hands touch the bare skin of my stomach.
I draw in a sharp breath.
"Tell me if it hurts."
I nod again, and now his hands are
gently pressing over my waist, then higher, over my ribs. His skin tone is
darker than mine and the contrast of his bronze skin against my paleness
fascinates me. His hands are so big they span my entire ribcage.
"Ouch!" I complain at one
point when he presses over a tender spot.
Seth carefully draws my T-shirt back
down. "We're lucky; you have no cracked ribs, just bruised abdominal
muscles." He looks straight at me, his gaze a burning blue. "You'll
be perfect again in a couple of days."
I can't stop a blush. Heavens, I have it
bad!
To distract myself, I tease, "Since
when did you become such an expert in cracked ribs and—" I break off,
horrified at my thoughtlessness. I bite my inner cheek, hard. "I'm so
sorry, Seth."
He gives me a wry look. "It's all right."
Our eyes stay locked for a minute
longer. Then he cups my unhurt cheek in his palm and leans close again as he softly
asks, "Tell me why you look so wan and tired all the time."
At the quietly spoken words, I close my
eyes in defeat and the crushing weight of my exhaustion, somehow kept at bay
until now by my distraction with Seth, overwhelms me all at once. Our bodies
are touching everywhere—my legs on his lap, one of his hands at my waist, the
other on my cheek, his upper body almost on top of mine—and I steal one last
moment when I allow myself to simply relish the feeling of being surrounded by his
comforting warmth.
Then the moment ends, and meeting his
gaze again, I admit, "I haven't been sleeping very well."
I don't know why he reacts like this—but
he draws back almost on a jolt, and his face reveals an odd mix of worry and
confusion.
"But your trouble sleeping isn't because
of the old nightmares," he says confidently. "You stopped having
those long ago."
I did?
Why would he believe that? And
moreover, sound so utterly certain of it? He of all people should know better.
My mind flashes back to when it all
began.
I started having the night terrors
immediately after I lost my parents—every single night without fail. And so it
was for more than six months. Then I was fostered to Mrs. Lewis and started to
sleep in Seth's bed, in his arms. And the terrors disappeared. For a while,
both Seth and I thought that they were gone forever.
But then before I started first grade,
Seth and I enrolled in a week-long summer camp on the coast. The day before we
were due to leave, I was diagnosed with chicken pox and ordered by the doctor
to stay in. Seth didn't want to leave for the camp without me, but both Grandma
and I insisted that he go. Obviously, I loathed the very idea of our
separation, but he had been very excited about the camp (unlike me, who only
agreed to go because of him), so I couldn't bear for Seth to make the
sacrifice.
I convinced him to go by himself.
After he left, the very first night I
slept alone again, my night terrors returned with a vengeance. And then they
came back the next night, and the next. By the end of the week I was wan with
exhaustion, my eyes puffy and rimmed with dark circles, and Grandma was sick
with worry.
When Seth set eyes on me on his return
from camp, he became nearly as ashen as I was. He knew instantly what had
happened and practically flew to me and clasped me in such a fierce embrace
that I could almost hear my bones cracking. He kept saying, "Forgive me,
Sunny" and
"I'll never leave you again".
And he never did leave me again of his
own free will.
Until five years ago.
Back in the present, I bite my lip and
glance away from Seth. "I do have nightmares." Then, in an effort to
sound less pitiful, I add, "Sometimes," and hope that he won't hear
the lie. There's no "sometimes" about my nightmares, only incessant
recurrence.
His deep blue eyes regard me with
greater sharpness while his expression wars between doubt and something almost
like...
dread
. Neither of which makes any sense to me.
I don't understand whatever internal
battle he's obviously waging, and I can't read him in his weirdly subdued mood.
My shoulders slump in defeat just as another debilitating wave of tiredness breaks
over me and makes me lightheaded for a moment.
Suddenly his strong hand molds around my
shoulder as if to lend support, and this time when I look up, his face is soft
with sympathy and tenderness. My old Seth again.
As if from far away, I hear: "You
want to stay and sleep with me tonight?"
My eyes widen comically, my mouth parts
on a gasp, and my already agitated heart goes into overdrive.
Yet as I look into his eyes, contentment
seeps inexorably into me.
I know he now has a terrible reputation
as a player, but he doesn't mean have sex with him—I see it clearly in his
troubled gaze. He's anxious on my behalf. He's offering to let me sleep with
him, like when we were children.
He's offering me the keys to the gates
of heaven.
I give him the only possible answer. "Yes."
And he
smiles
at me—a full,
honest-to-God smile, familiar to me from when we were children but the first
he's given me since I returned to Rockford—and I can't help myself: I smile back
at him so big that my cut lip and battered cheek hurt, but I don't care. I'm
drunk on the smile he's giving me.
I've watched him these past few weeks,
with his friends and the girls who keep chasing after him. He rarely laughs,
and when he does, it's restrained. When he smiles, it's always half-mocking,
half-cynical, and full-on superficial.
But his smile just now—his special smile
for me alone—holds nothing back.
"I'll call the Andersons at once,"
I murmur.
"All right. In the meantime, I'll
go make us some dinner." With apparent reluctance, he disentangles himself
from me and heads into the kitchen.
I raise myself into a sitting position on
the couch and extract my trusty cell phone from my pocket. I tuck my legs under
me and take a moment to consider. Whom to call, Greg or Louise? Who's more
likely to give me the least trouble?
I dial Louise's cell. She won't care if
I spend the night outside her house.
"Yes?" Her languid accent
sounds in my ear.
"Hello, Louise. It's Summer."
"Yes?" She sounds totally
indifferent. Perfect.
"I'm calling to tell you that I
won't be in for dinner. I'm with a friend, we're working on a school project,
and I'm staying overnight at her place. I hope that's all right with you?"
I cross my fingers.
"A school project. Indeed."
Her voice resonates with sarcasm. "Of course it's fine with me,
sweetie
.
Have a nice sleepover!" She laughs.
"Then—" I hear a ping
signaling that she hung up. Well, that was interesting.
Seth returns soon after with a giant
plate stacked with lots of sandwiches. He sits beside me with the plate on his
lap, not leaving a single millimeter of distance between us, and casually puts
his left arm around my shoulders, tugging me into him. My heart skips a beat.
Or two.
With his right hand, he helps himself to
a sandwich. "How was your phone call?"
I love the weight of his arm around me.
I subtly press myself closer to him and notice with satisfaction that I fit
perfectly in the space below his arm. I reach for a sandwich and start to munch
on it.
"It went fine. I called Louise and
told her I was working with a friend on a school project, then staying to sleep
at her house. She didn't believe a word I said; judging by her tone, she
thought I was staying out to have sex with a random stranger in the park."
Really, I'm so peeved at her narrow-mindedness! "Anyway, she didn't care.
She laughed and told me to have a nice sleepover.