Illusions (The Missing #1) (4 page)

Something so unimportant.

We were locked in an inconsequential battle that I could never hope to win.

Bradley gave my bag a tug, and I felt my fingers loosen and let go, relinquishing it to him. He held it tightly in his grasp, not giving an inch. He never would. That wasn’t who Bradley Somers was. He wasn’t a man who gave in or lost control.

Ever.

He protected me.

He was my savior when I hadn’t asked for one.

I shivered.

“Are you in pain?” he asked roughly, sounding so, so angry. It was an anger I could understand.

It was for me.

It was for him.

It was for so many things.

Bradley was my friend.

He forced on me his harsh, uncompromising friendship. I took it greedily as any starving woman would.

Bradley loved me.

The ugly, horrible, disgusting parts of me that disturbed everyone else.

Bradley was indiscriminate in his love.

Foolish in his affection.

Overpowering in his regard.

And I was grateful for his idiocy.

Sometimes I wondered whether he wanted to possess me.

Perhaps he wanted to own my soul.

I gingerly touched the still healing scar above my lip, fingers retreating as soon as they made contact. I felt nauseated. Dizzy. Overwhelmed. Hating what I knew was there. Hating what had been erased.

I nodded.

“A little. I took some pain relievers before I left the house.”

Bradley gripped my bag, and I wondered for a moment whether he was going to throw it. “Why did you let her do this to you? Why, Nora?” he seethed. Softly. So quietly.

“You know why,” I answered him. I felt tired. And it didn’t have anything to do with the pain meds. I was exhausted with the truth.

Bradley grabbed my upper arm and tugged me towards a copse of dead trees just on the edge of campus. I shivered and shook. Cold and frigid from the inside out.

I was scared to look up into his face. Scared of the fury I knew would be there. Unsure if it were directed at me.

Or elsewhere.

“I can’t take it, Nora. I can’t stand by and let her do this to you anymore. Not now.”

Bradley dropped my bag onto the frozen ground and took a hold of both my arms, holding me firm and unmoving in his grasp. He pulled me closer. I didn’t have a choice.

With Bradley, choice was always taken from me.

I felt entirely too helpless.

I hated him for that.

I loved him for it just as much.

“Why does this have anything to do with you, Brad?” I asked softly, staring at our sneakers, toe to toe, almost touching. Bradley’s feet were so much larger than mine. He could stomp on my toes and break bones if he wanted to. Just as his huge hands could snap my arms in half if he had a mind to.

“Don’t call me that, Nora! Never call me that!” he hissed, leaning down so that I could feel his hot, harsh breath on my cheek. I glanced up at him through my lashes. I could see the Skoal he had tucked into his bottom lip. A small dribble of saliva beaded at the corner of his mouth, eating away.

He leaned away briefly and spit on the ground. I tried not to make a face, but my revulsion was obvious.

“I thought you quit,” I said, sounding critical.

Bradley let go of me long enough to wipe his mouth with a tissue he kept tucked in his pocket. “I’m trying, Nora. I told you I would. Don’t you believe me? Isn’t my word ever enough for you?”

I was used to Bradley and his constantly fluctuating moods. Up and down. Like a roller coaster. He could make you smile and laugh, and in the next breath, make you cry and scream.

He could be amazing.

He could be the most terrifying thing in the world.

There was no predicting which way his wind would blow. I had learned to batten down the hatches and wait for the storm to pass.

“You’re hurting me, Bradley,” I murmured, calling him the only name that he ever wanted to hear.

Brad was the name his father called him. It was a name he detested. I only used it at certain times. When I demanded the control he took from me so naturally.

He relaxed and looked contrite. Ashamed. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry,” he pleaded, his green eyes sad.

I backed up a step and he dropped his hands. My skin throbbed from his fingers, and I knew there would be bruises later.

“I know you are.” I gave him the smile he had always wanted. The one I had never been able to give him. But now I tried.

For Bradley, it meant everything.

My cracked, broken heart thumped wildly and just like that my friend,
my Bradley
, erased the pain.

There was a twisted beauty in what we were to each other.

He lifted his hand and almost, not quite, touched my lip. “I just hate how she’s trying to change you. I wish you wouldn’t let her.”

“She knows what’s best, she always does,” I argued. It was a lie. But it was easy to tell.

He adored my disfigured, ruined face. But he adored it more
before.

When I had told him that my mother had scheduled an appointment for me to see a plastic surgeon in order to discuss reconstructive surgery to correct my cleft palate, he had demanded that I fight her. He had wanted me to tell her that I wouldn’t go.

“You don’t need to fix anything, Nora!” Bradley had stated emphatically. As though it were obvious.

I didn’t tell him that I would do anything if it meant a chance to feel normal. I would sell my soul so that I could look in the mirror and see something beautiful. I had thought that maybe, with the surgery, I’d have my chance.

I should have known that hope was a fickle thing. It bloomed so easily only to shatter into pieces once reality had its way.

Bradley would never understand the desperate desire to love your reflection. He was lovely in all the right ways. Perfect on the outside. Even as he festered and reeked
inside
.

We were symmetrical. I wore my horrors on my skin. Bradley’s were in unfathomable places that were harder to find.

I couldn’t remember how our friendship started.

But I remembered the moment it became absolutely essential.

The night my unwavering, unreasonable affection for the boy down the street began.

Beautiful face pressed against glass. Green eyes blazing in the dark. My constant. My companion. Anger and sadness creating a bridge between us.

He had lived three houses down from me for over a year. His parents were honest, upstanding members of the community. They were paragons. Well liked. His mother was a teacher, and his father owned a landscaping business. He had three older sisters who loved and adored him.

They were a family that appeared to have everything, but in truth, had absolutely
nothing.

Bradley had layers. Complicated, conflicting layers that no one suspected. Definitely not his oblivious parents. Certainly not his self-involved sisters.

They were layers that only I had ever been blessed to see. Layers that he hid from everyone but the girl who would never share his secrets.

A girl who rarely talked, even when spoken to.

Me.

Ugly,
ghastly
Nora Gilbert.

He had been in my life for so long that there was no questioning it.

Some questions didn’t require answers.

I didn’t want them anyway. I didn’t want to guess at the reasons behind our unreasonable friendship.

Ugly Nora and beautiful Bradley.

Beautiful,
angry
Bradley.

His thumb brushed the scar and he pulled away. Shaken and disturbed. His repugnance upset me. I was unused to it.

“Your mother is a nasty, hateful bitch,” he spat out, eyes flashing.

I pursed my mouth, hating the twinge I felt in the skin and muscle. “Don’t say that,” I scolded, even though I agreed in the not so deep heart of me.

Bradley’s mouth turned down. I knew he hated it when I rebuked him. It bothered him.

Bradley sighed. “I don’t know why you defend her. After everything—”

“I don’t
defend
her. I
understand
her,” I explained, cutting him off.

Bradley’s cheeks were flushed and he was breathing heavily. He felt things so profoundly. So intensely.

He crushed me.

“I have to get to class,” I said softly. I kept my head down, face angled away from my oldest, and only, friend.

Bradley didn’t say another word as he stooped to pick up my bag. And he didn’t grab me or touch me again.

He wouldn’t look at me.

He wouldn’t talk to me.

For a moment I was safe from his impenetrable eyes.

It was the only time I was thankful to be invisible.

Day 2

The Present

The curse has come upon me

I
started counting. All the time.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Ticking off time in my head. Steady. Constant. It kept me sane.

Or did it?

I questioned my sanity. I questioned my lucidity. I had begun to question absolutely
everything.

The questions began to stack up, mounting a wall inside me. I couldn’t climb over them. I couldn’t break through them. I was stuck in this dark, hot room waiting for someone to tell me why I was there. Waiting for my captor to come for me.

I was in a constant state of anxious wariness. My muscles taut, my heart beating in triple time.

Sometimes I fell asleep. It was safer there. Behind closed lids, within unconscious dreams. It was easier to live with illusions.

Alone in the dark. Dirt beneath me. Hot, putrid air filled my nostrils. Blurred shadows danced before mostly sightless eyes.

Sleep.

And count.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

I teetered somewhere between hysteria and agonizing calm. And in those peaceful moments, I tried to think about what exactly was going on.

In my fractured mind I knew that I was being held in this room and there was no way out. Someone had put me here. They were keeping me locked up for reasons I didn’t understand. Did I really
want
to understand?

Were some secrets better kept?

I thought of green eyes and smirking mouths. Angry words and spiteful smiles. I also thought of comforting touches that had only just been discovered. A face I had come to trust . . .

Who would bring me here?

Too many names.

Too many options.

Was I that despised? Ugly, deformed Nora Gilbert.

Perhaps I had never been invisible. Maybe I had always been noticed.

Hated and reviled.

Ugly, horrible Nora Gilbert.

So, so ugly.

With a cry, I dragged broken nails down my bloodied face. Digging deep. Puncturing flesh.

I was a prisoner.

I couldn’t escape.

Yet I was still alive.

That was possibly the most confusing thing of all.

I was breathing. My heart still beat.

I was
alive
.

But for how long?

More questions piling up. Brick by brick they walled me in.

Yesterday had been the worst. The first day.

The beginning.

Crawling over dirt and debris, looking for a way out. Searching for hope in the dusty corners.

Hope was a fickle thing.

I knew that the room was mostly empty.