We play poker by candlelight, then Sophie says she’s tired and gives me a kiss on the cheek as she leaves the room. I hold her close to me for a moment, then let her go.
Marcus and I have another glass of wine by the fireplace. Finally we stumble to our room and he holds me in his arms while the wind blusters outside. His breath deepens, his warm chest rising and falling under my cheek. I match my breathing with his and fight sleep for a little longer, luxuriating in the delicious feeling of being drowsy. I let my eyelashes flutter closed, and slide my hand down the side of Marcus’s body until I reach his hand. I entwine his fingers with mine. He nuzzles my neck and pulls me tight against the length of his body.
Let the storm rage all it wants, my fight is over.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
SOPHIE
I can hear them speaking in low voices downstairs, but I can’t make out any words, just the muted sound of Marcus’s deep voice and Mom’s soft laughter. I know they must talk about me sometimes. It’s weird thinking about Marcus analyzing me, so I don’t tell Mom much about my feelings anymore. Especially not about the nightmares where I keep finding Andrew’s body and how sometimes he opens his eyes and smiles, or how I feel all relieved until I wake up and remember that he’s actually dead. I don’t need a shrink to tell me what that’s about.
It’s easier to just let Mom think I’m okay.
My room is dark and the lantern casts strange shadows on the wall. I told Mom I was going to bed because I wanted to listen to music on my phone and draw, but when I flip through my sketchbook, I see one of my sketches of the beach and remember sitting on the picnic table with Jared—he brushed off the top with his hand, fir needles flying through the air. We sat for a while, my hands tucked into his warm pocket. Then he photographed seagulls spiraling in the wind, white frothy waves, and dogs chasing sticks, his camera constantly in motion while I worked on my drawing, but I never finished it. It was more interesting to watch him.
I pick up my phone and check to see if he texted, even though I don’t have cell service. Even though he said he wasn’t going to message me. Even though I tell myself I don’t care.
I still don’t know how the fight started. Well, I guess I started it, but I don’t know why. It was just two days ago that Jared was messing around on his computer—trying to find a song to play for me while I lay on his bed. We’d been at his house for an hour and he hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t talking much. Maybe it was always like that. Maybe it was always him telling me stuff about his friends or photography while I listened. I don’t know anymore. The months are blurred, the days running into each other. After Andrew died I couldn’t sleep, so Jared gave me his dad’s leftover sleeping pills from when he had knee surgery. He told me not to take them every night, so I cut them in half and tried to make them last longer. They helped but gave me a constant hungover feeling. This week I stopped taking them and now I can’t sleep again.
Jared and I spent almost every weekend together since my birthday and it was great at first. When I was with him, I didn’t have to think about my dad or how he died, and having sex was kind of like getting high, but in the last couple of weeks it hasn’t worked the same anymore.
It had been raining heavy all day and I felt restless and bored. All we ever did was hang out in Jared’s bedroom and watch movies or have sex. We’d skip school early and go to his house before his parents got home. Sex had gotten better now. I felt different. More grown up.
“Delaney doesn’t call me anymore,” I blurted out.
“It’s because you have a boyfriend and she’s still single.”
Maybe he was right. She’d been hanging out with some other girls at school and I was glad she made new friends, but I missed going to movies and coffee, or coloring our hair and hanging out. Then I wondered if it was my fault. Maybe I was the one who stopped calling her.
The other day I saw her in the parking lot at school and tried to talk to her, but she was in a rush to meet with her friends. They were going swimming at the pool. We used to love to go swimming. We’d stay in the sauna so long it would feel like our skin was melting off.
It wasn’t just Delaney who was drifting away. I never had time to draw anymore. Last weekend I was going to hang out at home, but Jared needed my help editing the pictures we’d taken down at the harbor. That was fun at first too, helping him on his photo shoots, but then I got tired of spending hours outside in crappy weather just so he could get the perfect shot.
He turned away from the computer. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired.”
He climbed into bed with me. “I’ve been looking at apartments online for when we go to UBC. If we find something great now, we can sign a lease before anyone else takes it.”
I looked at him, confused. “You mean for you?”