Just Me (38 page)

“
You don't have to accept it, Lark.”

“
No! I want it. I really want it. It's so beautiful but it's the sentiment behind the dress, the fact that you're offering to me something so precious to you. Of course I want it. I'd be honored to wear it.”

Tears filled her eyes but a smile spread over her face. “Let's try it on.”

“
Could I?”

“
Absolutely.”

Now it was my face breaking out into an ear-to-ear grin. “Okay.”

***

The days that followed went surprisingly quickly and before I knew it, it was Thursday night. I spent most of the day getting ready for the Wrights, Caden and Sophia. Poppy, Sophia and Caden were staying with Bastian and me and Mr. and Dr. Wright were staying at the lighthouse. I made sure to stock the refrigerator with all of Bastian and Caden's favorite foods. I had the chocolate and ice cream that Poppy and Sophia adored and I even purchased a few movies for us to watch late at night. I was so excited about seeing them, because though it had only been a month, it had been a month too long. I wished I hadn't told Bastian to wait until the morning to come back, because I really, really wanted to see him too.

It was just after eight in the evening when Reaper started to growl seconds before there was a knock at the door. Checking the peephole, I couldn't say what emotion I felt more, surprise or dread, seeing Aunt Kim standing there. Why was she in Maine and more, how did she know where I was staying? The call from my uncle popped into my head and though I wanted to phone him and share that she was here, because apprehension filled me at the sight of her, it was the sadness in her expression that had me opening the door.

“
Aunt Kim. Is everything okay? Why are you in Maine?”

“
I don't even know. I got in the car and started to drive. I messed up, I really messed up.”

She sounded so devastated. How could I turn her away? I pulled the door open wider. “Come in.”

Reaper was just behind me, still growling low in his throat. I couldn't blame him since I wasn't a fan of hers either.

She stepped into the foyer, her eyes moving around the house almost nervously. I sensed the sadness, it practically wrapped around her like a blanket, but there was another emotion coming off her that had the hair on my arms standing on end. Devastated or not, suddenly I wished my phone wasn't across the room because my instinct was to not be alone with her. If only Bastian had ignored me and had come home tonight.

“
What happened?” I asked.

“
Your uncle is divorcing me.”

I knew this was coming, but I could still empathize. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

She turned and speared me with a look that had chills shooting down my arms. “Are you? Isn't it a fitting end for me, the wicked woman who was so cruel to you: the poor, little orphan. It's like a fucking fairytale.”

I was apprehensive, absolutely, but she pricked my temper; the next words sort of just tumbled out. “My mother died and left me an orphan, but how you chose to treat me falls squarely on your shoulders. Our relationship could have been so much more, I'd have liked it to have been so much more because you were my only link to my mom.”

“
And it always comes back to her.”

“
Sorry?”

She dismissed my confusion with a wave of her hand but what she said next left me even more confused. “You stole them away from me, the twins and Eddie, just like I knew you would. I tried to appeal to your compassion, but you're just as selfish as your bitch mother.
”

A warning lit down my spine. My aunt had always been hostile toward me but I was sensing something more, like she was dangerously close to losing her shit. As hard as it was for me to keep my mouth shut, I did because I didn't want to engage her and risk provoking her. If there was ever a woman on the edge, I was looking at her.

“
My sister was a selfish bitch. I hated her. Beautiful girls suck. You get whatever you want and have men fawning all over you. I wasn't going to let her have him. He was mine. I love Eddie, loved him from the moment I first saw him, but all it took was one look and he was under her spell. She had half of the guys in town following after her, and she took my man. I had always hated her, but in that moment I felt more than hatred.”

She started to pace the room and I used the opportunity to move toward my cell. If I could just dial my dad, he'd get that something was wrong.

Aunt Kim continued on, as if she wasn't really speaking to me, just remembering out loud. “I remember the day when that all changed. She had caught Bradley Franklin’s
eye, but of course she paid him as much attention as Eddie paid to me. Unlike me, when Bradley wanted something, he took it. His son, Brad, didn't fall too far from that tree.”

Dread twisted painfully in my gut as she callously continued.

“
She came to me after Bradley had his way with her. I told her it wasn't rape because she'd been asking for it, walking around looking the way she did. He was the first but he wouldn't be the last. And then I simply pointed out that she was probably carrying his bastard and how could she expect a man like Eddie to want her when she was used goods.”

I wanted to press my hands to my ears as bile surged up my throat. I couldn't really believe what I was hearing. I had feared that my mom might have been raped but for her sister to use that rape against her…no wonder she became a shell of a person. I understood how my mom felt: the self-doubt and shame and how destructive those negative feelings could be if left to fester. My mom actually sought out help. For Aunt Kim to use my mom's nightmare against her, made my aunt a monster.

And Brad—was that what he had been alluding to when he said we were fated? How had the father spun that story to his son? Based on how Brad turned out, I didn't think I really wanted to know the answer to that.

“
Dylan tried to stay after the incident but her self-loathing got the better of her. Eventually she just left town. Her leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Her laugh was not pleasant. “But my bitch of a sister got the last laugh, because eight years later I get you. A daily reminder for Eddie of the woman he loved and lost.
”

Tears of fury were rolling down my cheeks. No wonder my aunt hated me so much, even though it wasn't me specifically she hated. I was a daily reminder for her too: a reminder of what she had done to her sister. She had stolen her sister's life.

I was so livid that I said exactly what I was thinking. “She came to you for help and you used her pain to destroy her. You're responsible for her death.”

“
Doesn't matter now, nothing does. He hates me. He'll never take me back.”

“
What are you talking about?”

“
Eddie knows. Brad's father paid us a visit after his trial. Eddie ruined his life when he helped with Brad's conviction so he decided to ruin ours and told Eddie not only about his “interest” in Dylan all those years ago but that I knew of it.”

“
Uncle Eddie knows about my mom, about the rape?”

Her crazy gaze drilled into me. “It wasn't rape. Bradley claimed she came onto him.”

“
That's bullshit. It was rape and you damn well know it. You let her believe a lie. I know the doubts she was feeling: the worry over whether she was somehow responsible. You tried to do the same to me. The difference was I had people who loved me and assured me that it wasn't my fault, but you used her demons against her. You broke her. You killed her! And in the process you broke the heart of the man you claim to love. Even worse, you allowed him to believe the lie: to believe that the woman he loved didn't love him back.”

Her demeanor changed as a sadness came into her expression. She looked almost normal. “It doesn't matter now
.
” she whispered.

“
What are you going to do?”

“
I've nothing left
.
” She
said, defeated.

“
What about Deena and Carol?”

“
They're better off without me.
”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a gun. My heart moved into my throat and my feet seemed to root themselves right to the floor with my fear.

“
Aunt Kim, why do you have a gun?”

“
Why should you have it all, Dylan?”

“
I'm not my mother.”

But my words had fallen on deaf ears. I had never known fear like I felt in that moment. There I was looking at the instrument of my own death. In the next second, Reaper attacked my aunt. The sound of the gun echoed through the house, followed by Reaper's whimper before he dropped to his side.

“
No!”

I lunged toward my aunt, not really thinking only acting out of fear and fury. A second shot sounded before a pain ripped through my shoulder. I was knocked back into the wall, my shoulder on fire as warm blood rolled down my arm.

Sanity seemed to come over my aunt, seeing me bleeding from a wound she inflicted. “What have I done?” Her pleading eyes met mine. “What have I done?”

“
Put the gun down, please.”

Instead of my words making her see reason, her sanity slipped as madness returned. “I've got nothing left.”

Determination replaced confusion as she lifted the gun and leveled it at me even though I knew it was my mom she was seeing. So many images flashed before my eyes and every one of them was of Bastian. In the final moments of my life, he was all I could think about: how much I loved him and how devastated he was going to be when he came home expecting to find me and instead learning I was...

I begged at that moment, would have gotten on my knees if I could have. “Please, I don't want to die. Please, don't do this. I'm not my mother. I found the love you felt for Uncle Eddie. Please don't take me away from him, don't do to him what you believe my mother did to you.”

The hand that held the gun shook but a calmness settled over her. For just a moment, I thought it was over, that she had finally stepped back from the edge of madness. And then she turned the gun on herself.

“
No!” But my voice was drowned out by the shot. Her head jerked back before her body crumpled to the floor. Her face, what was left of it, landed facing my direction and her life-less eyes seemed to stare eerily into mine. I threw up, twisting my body, I vomited until my stomach cramped.

Shock had settled in, a welcomed numbness that sort of blurred the reality of what I had just witnessed. I crawled to Reaper, felt him breathing, and couldn't help the tears of relief that rolled down my cheeks to feel him breathing. I needed to call my dad but my limbs were growing heavy and I knew unconsciousness loomed. With the amount of blood I had lost, maybe it wasn't unconsciousness but something far worse.

The thought of leaving Bastian wrenched me more than even the gunshot wound—him having to pick up the pieces alone, having to watch as I was placed into the ground, his knowledge that a full lifetime would be stretched out before him where he would have to learn to live without me.

My head filled with visions of him, his face, his smile, his voice, his body over mine as he moved so deeply inside of me. And those eyes that had the power to see past all of my defenses. I wanted to see him one last time, wanted that more than I've ever wanted anything in my life.

And then I heard the familiar sound of my car moments before the front door opened and I heard him call, his voice sounded oddly worried.

“
Lark!”

He ran into the room and then I watched as his face paled. He reached me in two strides and dropped down right in front of me, looking both fierce and terrified, as he pulled off his shirt and tried to staunch the flow of blood.

“
I don't want to die.”

His expression turned harsh, “You are not going to die. Do you hear me, Lark? You are not going to die.” He grabbed his phone from his pocket and called 911. “I need a fucking ambulance.”

“
I wished for you, Bastian, I've wished for you my whole life.”

“
Goddamn it, Lark, stay with me.” He was holding me so tightly against him, I could feel his voice rumbling in his chest. “Don't leave me, don't you fucking leave me.”

“
I'll wait for you.”

“
Don't you dare leave me!
”
His command ripped from his throat in a broken sob.

I studied his face, took in every one of his beloved features, then I breathed my last breath
.

***

The day I died, I did so three times, but in the end my will to live seemed stronger than what the Fates had planned for me. The doctors claimed it had been medicine that brought me back, but I knew it had been Bastian who willed me back.

Two days after I died, I was no longer hooked up to the various tubes and was able to move around on my own.

My dad told me Bastian had not left my side from the moment he found me. Even during the surgery, he was able to observe, with precautions, of course. It was very unorthodox, but apparently Bastian would not be dissuaded. In a big city hospital, the cops would have been called, but not in the small clinic where everyone knew everyone by their first name. Bastian got his way. He even volunteered to donate his blood when he learned his blood type was a match for mine.