30
TRIGENTA
I chase Finn up to my room where he’s waiting for me, sitting calmly on my bed, his shoes muddy from the beach.
“It’s not what it looked like,” I tell him quickly, although I still have Dare’s sheet wrapped around my waist because my shorts are in his bedroom.
Finn shakes his head and looks out the window. “I don’t care what you were doing with him, Cal. It’s not my business. I’m your brother, not your keeper.”
“But I’m your keeper,” I snap back. “And you went out alone yesterday. What the hell were you dong?”
“I needed some alone time,” he says quietly, still looking out the window. “After the cemetery, I mean.”
That causes me to pause, which was his intention. “I’m sorry,” I say simply, my hands still clutching the sheet. “I should’ve been there with you. I let you go alone. I’m so sorry, Finn.”
He shrugs with his skinny shoulders, his arms pale in the morning light. “It’s fine, Calla. You aren’t ready yet. I get it.”
“But I should still have gone for you,” I argue. “I’m sorry. Do you want to go back today? Because I will. If you need to go again, I will.”
Finn looks at me sadly. “You need to go for you, Cal. But you’re not ready. It’ll happen in layers… in order. I promise.”
He’s talking nonsense, which worries me. “You’re taking your meds, right?” I ask him worriedly. He nods.
“Please stop worrying about me, Cal. I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” I can’t help but take in his wrinkled clothes, pale skin, dark circles around his eyes. “You’re not sleeping again. Your hands are shaking. We’ve got to get you some help. I’m going to talk to dad.”
Finn’s arm snakes out faster than I can blink and grabs mine. “Don’t,” he says quickly. “Please. We’ll handle this on our own, Calla. You and me, just like always.”
And I want to tell him that it’s not fair to me, that this weight is too heavy, that it’s too much responsibility, but of course I don’t. Because we’re Calla-and-Finn and that’s how it’s always been, and that’s how it will always be.
I finally just nod. “Ok. I won’t tell him.”
I glance at him again and remember that he’s not wearing his St. Michael’s medallion.
“You took your necklace off,” I tell him, trying not to sound accusatory. He looks away and shrugs.
“I decided I don’t need it anymore. You can have it, if you want.”
I stare at him, my mouth open. “You haven’t taken that thing off since you got it, because mom liked the idea that you’re protected when you wear it.”
His icy blue gaze impales me. “Mom’s not here anymore, Calla.”
I swallow and it hurts. “I know that,” I answer, the words raspy. He nods.
“Good. So you can have it if you want it.” He gets to his feet wearily and my heart explodes into a puff of dust.
“I’ve gotta shower,” he says quietly and leaves without another word.
I’m quiet as I stare out the window, staring at the ocean. Boats glide on the horizon and I can’t help but wish I was on one, floating far, far away from here.
But if that were the case, I’d be sailing away from Dare. And I can’t do that. Not now.
I shower and brush my teeth, then lock my bedroom door before pulling out Finn’s journal. Curled up in my window, I force myself to read the words because I’ve been putting it off and now is the time. Flipping the mysterious tarot card absently over and over in my fingers, I stare at another of Finn’s strange symbols and read his words.
Death is the beginning.
Mors solum initium est.
The beginning beginning beginning beginning
I need to start
I startle as I read the scratched words, the ink ground into the paper like Finn had used all of his strength. He needs to start what?
A new beginning?
Or death?
My heart pounds hard against my ribcage as I mark my page with the tarot card, then cram the journal back between the mattresses before I clatter down the steps.
“Have you seen Finn?” I ask my father when I meet him on the stairs.
“No,” he answers. “Are you ok?”
“Yes,” I sigh because I’m so sick of him asking. “I just need to find Finn.”
I find him where I always find him lately, down by the woodshed, chopping wood. More wood, although we have fifteen piles already.
“Why do you keep doing this?” I ask him hesitantly. I approach him slowly so I don’t startle him because he’s holding an ax, after all.
He looks up at me, the light shining in his pale blue eyes.
“The exercise burns stress.”
“Ok,” I answer. “Finn, you’d tell me if you were feeling really bad, right? Like, you wouldn’t do anything stupid?”
His forehead wrinkles and he leans against the ax handle. “Stupid like what, Cal? What are you talking about?”
I sigh because he knows what I’m saying, he’s just trying to make me say the words.
“You wouldn’t try to hurt yourself, would you?”
The words taste hateful and awful, but I ask them anyway.
Finn stares at me seriously.
“Calla, if I wanted to hurt myself, I wouldn’t try. I’d just do.” But when I start to cry out, he hurriedly continues. “But no. I don’t want to hurt myself.”
I stare at him, desperately wanting to believe him, but so sure he’s lying.
“I think you should go to Group today,” I tell him slowly, gauging his reaction.
He shrugs. “Ok. I was planning on it anyway.”
“Yeah?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Yeah,” he answers firmly. “Let me finish here and then take a shower.”
He splits another piece of wood and tosses it into a new pile. I shake my head as I walk to the house. Dad will have enough wood to last five winters.
I hesitate at the porch, playing with the idea of going to talk to Dare, but as I stand there trying to decide, I see him pacing back and forth behind the cottage, talking animatedly on his cell phone. He paces up, waves his hands, his face set in stone, then he paces back, doing the same thing.
He glances up and sees me, and his dark eyes hold mine for just a moment, black, black, black as night, then he turns his back and paces away.
Who is he talking to so intently?
Questions swirl around me as return to my room to fold up Dare’s sheet so that I can take it back to him later. Who is he talking to? For that matter, as long as I’m asking questions, who is Dare here to visit? He’d said he was visiting someone in the hospital. He never said who, and he never said why he wanted to rent an apartment here when he lives in England. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own stuff and in my own fascination with Dare himself, that I’ve never asked.
That’s going to end today.
I wait patiently for thirty minutes because that’s got to be enough time to wrap up a conversation.
I take the sheet and knock on Dare’s door.
He opens it immediately and looks devastatingly handsome in a snug dark shirt that complements his dark eyes.
“Hey,” he greets me. “You look like you feel better.”
“Thank you for taking care of me last night,” I tell him, flushing a bit. It’s embarrassing that he saw me puke my guts up. “I’m a bit humiliated.”
“Don’t be,” he says politely, oddly formal considering I slept all night in his arms. He doesn’t make any kind of move to invite me in, but instead stands planted in the middle of the doorway.
“Well, I am,” I answer back in confusion. “Is something wrong? I can’t help but notice that we’re still standing on the porch.”
He shakes his head. “Of course not. I’m just a bit busy at the moment.”
He’s so cool and detached, sort of aloof. I stare at him, not sure what to say.
“Did you need something?” he prompts me, his eyes glinting in the light.
“I…yeah,” I stammer. I thrust the sheet at him. “I just came to give this back to you. And to get my shorts.”
“Sure. Hang on.”
And I swear to God, he closes the door in my face. I’m still stunned when he re-emerges a few minutes later with my shorts.
“Here you go,” he hands them to me.
I stare at him, never more confused in my life.
“Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”
His face seems to soften for a minute, then it smooths back into an unreadable mask. “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m just busy. I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok,” I say slowly. “I’ll just catch up with you later.” I turn to leave, but pause, turning half-way on the sidewalk.
“Hey, you never said who you were here in Astoria to visit,” I tell him slowly, watching his face for a reaction. “You said you were visiting someone in the hospital, but you never said who.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. He simply nods. “I didn’t, did I?”
And he doesn’t offer it now.
I wait, but there’s nothing. He just steps back inside his house.
“I’ll talk to you later, Calla.”
And then he closes the door.
I’m absolutely stunned as I stare at the wood, frozen on the path.
Everyone has secrets, Calla. That’s what he told me and I guess it’s truer than I realized. The question is, are his secrets important? Should I care about them? Because I’ve got so much to worry about already.
But his contradictions confuse me. His want and his detachment confuse me. His hot blood and cold attitude confuse me. Over the past week, he’s anchored me amid all of this crazy. Is it possible that he just doesn’t want to be that anchor anymore?
My chest feels numb with the thought, because somehow, I’ve come to depend on him already. I depend on him to make me smile, to lift me out of this mire into a world where hope survives.
But he just closed a door in my face and I can’t help but wonder if it was a metaphor for something bigger.
I try and put it out of my mind as I wait for Finn, then drive him into Group. All I can do right now is keep going through the motions, keep my head above water.
Dare doesn’t define me.
That’s going to have to become my new mantra.
I fall sleep with that thought in my head, with the very best of intensions. But I’m awakened at three a.m.
Piano music plays softly, filtering through the house.
Startled, I sit up in bed and look at the clock again.
Yes, it’s the middle of the night.
No, the piano shouldn’t be playing.
I pad down the stairs toward the chapel and with each step, the soft music gets a little louder. When I hit the bottom step, the music stops. Silence seems to echo loudly in my ears as I rush down the hall and round the corner into the room.
The piano seat is empty.
Stunned, I walk numbly to the front, trailing my finger along the empty piano bench.
I know it was playing. I know it’s what woke me. The lid to the keys is open, which is unusual. It’s usually closed when it’s not in use.
And then I smell it.
The barest hint of Dare’s cologne.
My heart in my throat, I look out the window, to see a lamp turned on in his cottage.
He’s still up. He’d been here.
Somehow I know, without anyone having to tell me, that he still wants me as much as I want him, regardless of how cool he’d acted earlier. I don’t know his reasons, and I don’t know his secrets.
But I know one thing as I collapse onto the seat of the piano.
Even though he tried, he couldn’t stay away.