9
NOVEM
Calla
The ocean breeze blows back his hair, and Dare smiles in the sun. His teeth gleam and I giggle at something he said.
I reach for him and he grabs me, holding me close.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he says against my neck, his lips brushing my skin.
“Why?” I manage to breathe, my hands splayed against his chest. He smells like the woods.
“Because you’re so much better than I deserve.”
I wake up in wonderment, because hello. I’m so not better than he deserves. My subconscious mind must be on drugs, but regardless of that, my dreams are heaven.
I shower and make my way downstairs for a late breakfast/ early lunch. The pickings are slim in the pantry.
“We’re out of lemons for lemonade,” I tell my dad as we munch on cereal. “We’re also out of sandwich meat, spaghetti sauce, bread, milk… basically anything we can use to make dinner.” He nods, unconcerned and I sigh.
I feel like he’s been slipping. Like he cares less and less about real life issues every day, and more on his grief about mom. He cares about his job, of course. But that’s nothing new. He’s always been a workaholic. In fact, that’s where he was the night mom died. In town, picking up a body.
I force my attention from that, onto anything but that.
“I’ll go to the store today,” I tell him, getting up and stretching. “Do you know where Finn is?”
My father keeps his face buried in his newspaper, but still pulls out his wallet and hands it to me. “No.”
I sigh again. “Ok. Well, if you see him, tell him I’ll be back later.”
I take his wallet and slip out the door, grateful for a chance to be away from his blank expression. I know we all cope in different ways, but Jesus.
The mid-day sun gleams on the wet road as I steer my car down the mountain. The birds are chirping in the trees, and I roll my windows down to let the brisk air in. I take a deep breath, then dance in my seat as a happy song comes on the radio.
Thank you, God, I whisper in my head. Happiness, in any form, is hard to come by these days and I’ll take it where I can get it. Reaching down, I roll the volume dial up, pumping up the music, filling my car so that happiness is all I hear and all I feel.
I only look away from the road for a second.
For one brief moment.
When I look back up, a tiny animal is sitting in the middle of the road. It happens so fast that I only see two green eyes looking at me, and gray fur, and I yank the wheel hard to avoid hitting it.
My car rumbles off the road and I slam on the brakes, my wheels skidding in the dirty gravel on the shoulder.
I skid to a stop, at least a foot from the edge, but still, I’m horrified and frozen. I can’t breathe as I sit still, as I eye the edge and suddenly, it seems very close to me. Like I could’ve plunged over the side, just like my mom.
My breath comes in heavy gasps, my heart flutters in my chest as I hear her screaming, as I see the rain from that night, the steam rising from the road, the sound of her shrieking tires in my ear. It all swirls around me like stuttered pictures from a movie, re-living itself in ways I can’t stop. I put my hands over my ears to block out the screaming, and my chest contracts and contracts.
I’m having a heart attack.
But I’m not.
It has to be a panic attack.
I’m panicking.
I can’t breathe.
I throw open the car door and the roar of it is loud. I scramble out, and bend over, trying like hell to breathe, and failing miserably, my hands on my knees, my mouth open, gasping impotently.
“Stand up,” a calm voice says quickly. “If you can’t breathe, stand up.”
I do, arching my back with my hands on my hips, my face turned up to the sun.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
By five, I can breathe a small breath.
By six, I take a large one.
By seven, I’m able to move my head, to look and see who is with me.
Dare stands in front of me, concern swimming in his dark eyes, his lithe form hovering by my car. It’s like he’s afraid to approach me, afraid that I’m a wild animal poised to attack.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, my lungs still feeling fluttery. “I don’t know what happened.”
He takes a step, his eyes wary and concerned. “Are you okay?”
Am I?
I look around, at my car, at my open car door, at the way I just melted down in the street. But I nod, because I can’t do anything else.
“Yeah. I just… there was something in the road. I almost hit it. I think it might’ve been a kitten. I might’ve even hit it. It happened so fast, I don’t know.”
I bend over again, and Dare pulls me up.
“Stand up,” he reminds me. “It opens your diaphragm up.”
Right. Because I’m melting down and can’t breathe. For a minute, I decide this must be how Finn feels all the time. So crazy, so helpless.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, my hand reaching back for my car fender to lean on. Dare cocks his head, so calm in the face of my panic.
“For what?”
“For falling apart,” I whisper. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
He’s unfazed. “Tell me what happened,” he suggests softly, and his hand is on my back now, rubbing lightly between my shoulder blades, reminding me to breathe.
“I told you... I was driving down the mountain and swerved because of a cat. I… don’t know why I panicked.”
“Maybe because your mom just died in a car crash?” Dare prompts gently, more gently than I would’ve ever guessed he could. “Maybe it scared you?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I just kept hearing her scream. She… I was on the phone with her when she died.”
I whisper that like a confession, because I know I’m the reason she’s dead. Dare doesn’t lower his gaze and once again, he doesn’t judge.
“That’s terrible.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
I realize suddenly that the roar I’d heard a minute ago wasn’t my car door, of course. It was Dare’s motorcycle. “Were you going to town?” I ask him half politely, half truly curious, but mostly just to change the subject.
He shakes his head. “No. I was coming back. I returned a library book.”
I’m not sure what I’m more focused on, the fact that he reads, or the fact that he was coming up the hill and I was going down, just like the night mom died.
She was coming up, someone else was going down.
“We could’ve hit,” I realize, a chill running down my spine.
Dare looks confused, his full lips parted. “Pardon?”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I was just…I’m happy I steered over to the side, rather than to the middle. Or you might’ve hit me.”
It’s a morbid thought and what the hell is wrong with me?
Dare stares at me, probably worried that he’s with some sort of psychopath, but he hides it nicely. “But I didn’t,” he points out. “We’re both fine.”
Are we?
“You’re shaking,” he says simply now. And with that, he rubs my arms, and somehow, I don’t know how, I fold into him. It feels right, it feels normal, it feels so freaking good, it feels like I’ve stepped into one of my dreams.
He startles for a second, and then lets me stand there, my forehead pressed to his shirt as he rubs my back. His scent is so soothing… so woodsy and masculine and perfect. He smells just like I dreamed he would. I breathe it in, then sniffle and that’s when I realize that I’m crying.
I’m an utter mess today.
He must think I’m a lunatic.
“I’m so sorry,” I apologize finally, stepping away from him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’ve had a lot to deal with,” he says understandingly. “Anyone would be edgy.”
Would anyone be having a panic attack in the middle of the road, crying on a beautiful guy that she’s only just met?
I look at him. “You must think I’m crazy.”
He shakes his head solemnly. “Nope.”
“Because I’m not,” I insist.
His mouth twitches. “Never.”
I have to giggle now, at the ridiculousness of this situation.
I look at him and somehow, he seems so out of place out here among nature, with his slender, refined body and black eyes.
“Did you see the kitten?” I change the subject.
He shakes his head. “I just saw the dust from your tires on the shoulder.”
I’m worried now because I don’t want to be a cat killer on top of everything else. Dare takes one look at my expression and rushes to assure me, probably because he doesn’t want me to cry on him again.
“I’ll go look for it,” he tells me quickly. “Why don’t you go back up to the house so you’re not standing on the side of the road?”
I hesitate. “I should wait for you. I mean, you’re doing it for me, after all.”
He smiles, a wide bright smile. “You can repay me on a different day. For now, you should get out of the road.”
“But the groceries,” I murmur, already heading back to the car.
“We’ll get them later.”
We.
Dazed a bit, I start up my car, do a three-point turn and head back up to my home. I’m still dazed as I cross the yard and sink into a chair on the porch to wait.
Twenty minutes later, Dare’s bike idles back up the drive.
He’s empty-handed.
“I couldn’t find anything,” he calls out as he climbs off the bike and idles towards me. “I think maybe you saw a raccoon or something.”
I hesitate, trying to picture the animal I’d seen.
“It seemed too small to be a raccoon,” I offer.
“Maybe it was a baby,” he suggests.
Or maybe I’ve gone nuts and it wasn’t anything at all. But of course, I don’t say that.
“Thank you for looking,” I finally say, my gaze dropping to his feet. His boots are covered in dew and tiny bits of leaves. He really did trek out into the mountain to look.
“Want to go get your groceries now?”
I nod reluctantly, for some reason dreading the idea of driving down the mountain again.
Dare looks at me. “Want me to drive you?”
My head snaps up. “You want to come?”
He grins. “I need some shampoo. I’ll be happy to drive if you want.”
“Weren’t you wanting to read or something?”
He rolls his eyes. “I read at night when I’m trying to go to sleep. I’m perfectly free at the moment. In fact, I’ll be free tonight, too.”
The mere thought of Dare in his bed, sprawled out, naked, his muscles gleaming in the moonlight, it spreads heat to my cheeks and I yank my eyes back up to his, focusing on reality, not on Dare in his bed.
He grins. Dare me.
“Perhaps we should focus on the now,” he suggests lightly, as if he knows that he was just undressed in my mind. I internally combust, then nod.
“Yeah. I’d better get some groceries.”
I toss him my keys and we drive down the mountain.
We.
Dare and me.
It’s an exhilarating thought, and one that for the moment, distracts me from sadness.
That’s a miracle in itself.