NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) (14 page)

“I’m ready to ask my fourth question,” I
tell him, my voice wobbling slightly.
 
His nearness makes me dizzy.
 

“Go on then,” he answers, his voice ever
calm.
 

“Do you have a girlfriend back home?”

My words sound childish, almost.
 
Because
girlfriend
seems so juvenile.
 
Because my feelings
seem huge and adult.

 
Dare sucks in his breath, and reaches up
to enclose my fingers within his own, holding them in place as he stops me from
exploring the rest of his face.
 
He
stares into my eyes and I can’t read him now.
 

“No.”

He’s holding my hand against his chest
and I feel his heart beat against my palm.

Thump.
Thump. Thump.

It’s loud in the silence.
 

The chemistry between us is palpable
enough to touch, weaving around us, pulling us together, the air snapping with
its electricity.
 

But he doesn’t move.

And I don’t either.
 

I want him to kiss me.
 
I imagine the way his full lips would
feel, firm, yet soft.
 
I imagine the
way his hands would feel on my back, pulling me closer, closer, closer.
 

But he doesn’t move and neither do
I.
 

And then suddenly, he releases my hand
and steps back.

“So is this all you’ve got, then?” he
asks, his voice teasing me now. The sexual tension is sadly broken.

I can’t help but smile though.
 
For the simple reason that it was there
in the first place.
 

“Yeah.
 
I guess your balls of steel saved you
today,” I tell him.
 
He grins again,
and then we make our way toward the foyer.
 
As we cross the parlor though, I see something interesting, and pause
next to the door-jam.
 

DD and CP are inscribed inside a
heart.
 
Corny and
sweet.
 
I trace the letters
with my finger.
 

“What a coincidence,” I murmur, for some
reason aching on the inside, aching to be
that
CP and for
Dare
to be
that
DD.
 
 
Because Corny or not, it’s so intimate,
so heart-breakingly personal.
 
It
smacks of first love, of high-school sweethearts, of things that are
normal.
 

My hand falls away and I keep walking…
because we’re not those initials, and my life is not
normal.
 

When we step outside, I take a deep
breath of fresh air, breathing in the moon and stars and pine trees.

 
“There was more to see in there,” I tell
him softly, on the edge of the darkened driveway.
 
The corner of his mouth tilts.
 

“Let’s leave that for another day,” he
suggests as we walk.
 

I nod because our moment back in Nocte
wasn’t imagined.
 
Maybe it scared him,
like it sort of scared me, and that’s why we’re running from it now.

Because it was sudden and hot and
blinding… like a shooting star.
 

After we’re back in my car and driving
toward home, I glance at him.
 

“Maybe you could give me a ride on your
motorcycle sometime?
 
I’ve never
been on one.”

He nods.
 
“Maybe.”

He stares out the window, careful to stay
on his side of the car.
 
I muse
about that for a second, but refuse to dwell on it.
 
But I’m so busy dwelling on it five
minutes later that what Dare says next seems to come from left field.

“I’m ready to ask you a question,” he
tells me softly, his voice husky and seeped with the night.
 

I raise an eyebrow.
 
“Okay. Shoot.”

I’m expecting him to ask about a
boyfriend, or my dating history, or even how old I am.
 
He doesn’t.
 
His question actually slams into me with
the force of a freight train, returning me to my reality.
 

“Can you tell me about your mom?”

There’s a solid beat before I can make
myself speak.

“Why?” I manage to croak, still stunned.
 

Dare shrugs, but his expression is soft,
his dark eyes liquid.
 

“I don’t know.
 
It just feels like a way to know you
better.”

That answer, of course, melts my ovaries
and I relax, the small of my back slumping against the seat.
 

I take a deep breath and grip the
steering wheel hard enough to turn my knuckles white.
 

“What do you want to know?”

He stares at me for a second, before
reaching over and loosening my grip on the wheel.
 
His fingers are dry and warm, where mine
are cool and clammy.
 

“Whatever you’d like to tell me.
 
For instance…are you like her?
 
Do you look like her?”

I smile.
 
“I wish I was like her.
 
She was artistic and amazing.
 
I’m…not. But I do look like her.
  
I look exactly like her, actually,
which is probably hard on my dad right now.
 
Finn looks like him.”

“So she was born in England?
 
Why did she move to America?”

It’s my turn to shrug.
 
“She was.
 
But I don’t know why she left.
 
She said she didn’t get along with her
parents very well.
 
She hasn’t
spoken to them in years, and I’ve never personally met them.”

“Huh. Interesting,” Dare murmurs.
 
“I think it’s good you can talk about
her.
 
When my mom died, I couldn’t
talk about her for almost a year.”

I do a
double-take
.
“Your mom’s gone, too?
 
You only
mentioned your dad before.
 
I’m so
sorry!
 
What happened?”

Dare stares out the windshield, into the
night.
 
I can tell he’s not really
seeing it.

“She died in an accident with my
step-father.”

My stomach tightens into a knot for him,
because God, I know that grief, that sudden, shocking, annihilating grief.
 
I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
 

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him limply. He
nods.
 

“Yeah, it sucks.
 
But I know how you’re feeling right now,
at least.
 
I realized after my mom
died that it always helps when someone knows what it’s like.”

He’s right.
 
It’s hugely comforting.
 

“It’s hard,” I admit to him.
 
“It’s especially hard because it was my
fault.
 
I called her at night when
it was raining.
 
If I hadn’t done
that, she would still be here.”

Dare looks at me sharply. “You can’t
believe that.
 
That it’s your fault,
I mean.”

I look away.
 
“Of course I can.
 
It’s true.”

“It’s not,” he argues.
 
“I personally believe that when your
number is up, it’s up.
 
Surely,
living in a funeral home your whole life, you believe that, too.
 
Sometimes, there isn’t an explanation
for something.”

“And sometimes, there is.
 
In this case, the explanation is a
telephone call.”

Dare shakes his head.
 
“It’s going to take some doing to
convince you that you’re wrong. I can tell.”

“You can try,” I tell him
resolutely.
 
“But if Finn and my
father can’t do it, I doubt you can.”

“Challenge accepted,” he says seriously,
and the look in his eyes takes my breath away.
 

“Why do you care?” I ask him suddenly.
“You barely know me.”

He’s silent for a second, fiddling with
the silver band on his middle finger.
 
When he looks back up, his eyes are filled with a hundred things I can’t
name.

“Because I feel like I do.
Because we’re the same in so many ways.
 
Because I know how horrible it was to
lose my mother.
 
I can only imagine
how hard it is when you think it’s your fault.”

Yeah,
I think to myself.
 
It’s
almost too much to bear.
 

“It
is
hard,” I admit.
 
“But sometimes,
when you least expect it, someone tosses you a lifeline.”

His eyes meet mine and I see that he
knows exactly what I’m saying.
That he
might be my lifeline.
There’s no reaction, though, only a silent acceptance
and maybe a spark of satisfaction.
  

We fall quiet now, comrades in this
special club of having lost our mothers.
 
It’s not a club that anyone enjoys belonging to, but I know that I, for
one, feel even closer to him now.
 

After a few minutes, I can’t stand the
silence anymore.

“You’d better be careful with those
questions,” I tell him, feigning a smile.
 
“You’ve only got eighteen left.”

SEDECIM

Finn

My secret is eating me alive, clawing at my skin, trying to
get out.
 
But I can’t, I can’t, I
can’t.
 

You’reCrazyCrazyCrazyAndEveryoneKnowsIt.

I stare at my journal, at the
brown leather cover, and I grab it, hurling it across the room.
 
It slams into the wall, then flutters
unharmed to the floor.
 
I rush to grab
it, to clutch it to my chest as I rock with it on the floor.
 

After a minute, something occurs
to me.
 

Of
course.
 

I can’t tell Calla, but I can
tell my journal, the way I’ve spilled every other thing in my life onto its
pages.

I grab a pen and then I press
hard enough that it almost pushes through the page, as if my secret is bursting
to get out as the words rush out through the ink.
 

Once it’s there, I feel better,
calmer, as though I’ve confided in an old friend.
 
I close the cover and leave it on the
windowsill.
 
As I flip off the light
and walk through the door, I almost miss the hissing whisper in my mind…
.the
sharp female voice that I just can’t get away
from.
 

Coward.
 

SEPTEMDECIM

Calla

I
take a cleansing breath and reach for the sky as I do my morning yoga on the
edge of the cliffs.
 
From here, I
can see to the edge of the horizon, all the way out to where the water meets
the sky.
 

“Why do you do this here?” Finn’s voice
comes from the trail, soft in the morning air.
 
“You know it’s dangerous.”

I hold back a smile.
 
“You know I’m not close enough to the
edge to worry.”
  
I palm the
ground,
then
hoist myself up into a Forward Fold.
 
I stretch to my feet, feeling every
tendon, muscle and ligament elongate as I roll to my toes.

“Why are you up so early?” I ask without
opening my eyes.
 
I count as I
stretch.
 

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Finn sighs.
 
“I don’t know.
 
I can’t sleep.”

Eight.
 

Nine.

Ten.

I finally turn around, and notice that my
brother’s face is weary and pale. This alarms me.
 
“You’re not feeling better yet?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

A surge of panic shoots through me and I
fight to tamp it down.
 
It’s
just insomnia, for God’s sake.
 
Not an instant red flag.
 

“You’re taking your meds, right?”

He seems to hesitate before he
answers.
 
“Yeah.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

He nods.
 

“Do I need to take you to Group today?”

He hesitates again.
 
“Maybe.
 
I’m going to lie down for a while
though.
 
I might go to the afternoon
session.”

“Ok.” I desperately try to hide my
concern, because I know he doesn’t want me to hover.
 
He wants to find his autonomy, not
become even more tethered to me.
 
It
hurts.
 
A lot.
But he doesn’t need to know that.
 
“Just yell at me when you’re ready.”

He nods and heads toward the house,
pausing when he hits the edge of the trail. I worry because he’s starting to
stay secluded in his room. A
lot.
  

His shoulders are so skinny as he calls
back to me.

“Calla?”

“Yeah?”

He smiles a watery smile.
 
“Did you know that Queen Victoria loved
Albert so much that she insisted on being buried in his dressing robe, holding
a plaster cast of his hand?”

I shake my head, rolling my eyes.
 
“You’re so weird and random, bro.”

He grins like everything is fine, like
he’s back to normal. “I know.”

Then he disappears down the trail.

I sit back down in the reddish dirt,
trailing my finger through it.
 
Before I know it, I’ve written Dare’s name, with a flourish at the end
of the
e.
 
A flourish shaped like a heart.

“A penny for your thoughts?”

Dare’s wry voice comes from behind me and
I cringe because apparently the trail leading to these cliffs is Grand Central
Station today.
 
And I’m humiliated
because
obviously
I’m thinking of him.
 
I flush, the heat spreading from my
chest to my face, and I don’t want to turn around.
 

But I do.
 

Dare’s handsome face is amused and a
teench arrogant.
 
He’s dressed in
jogging clothes, although he’s not sweaty, so he hasn’t run far yet.

“My thoughts are more expensive than
that,” I announce.
 
He grins even
wider.

“I’m sure.
 
We still have that little matter of
secrets to discuss, by the way.”

This confuses me.
 
“Secrets?”

His eyes meet mine, gleaming ebony.
 
“Yeah. Everyone’s got ‘em, remember?”

Oh, yeah.
 
That’s exactly what he
said when we first met.
 
“Maybe.
 
But not me.”

Dare rolls his eyes.
 
“Somehow I doubt that. You had Nocte hidden up your sleeve, remember?”

I smile at that.
 
“Yeah. And we didn’t stay long enough to
see it all.”

“Another time,” Dare answers
quickly.
 
I nod.
 

“Definitely.”
 
He doesn’t seem excited though, and that
bothers me.
 
He seemed excited last
night.
 
He’s an enigma, a
contradiction.
 
His emotions change
by the day. Today, he’s cool and detached. He’s almost reserved or
hesitant.
 
It’s so strange.

“I’ll catch you later, Calla,” he says
quietly, before bolting off in a long-strided jog.

That’s when my heart almost stops,
because his strides are so long, he’s in perilous territory within two
steps.
 

“Stop!” I scream out, my voice splitting
the sky like a knife. Dare freezes, turning to look at me in confusion, his
eyes wide.
 

I’m on my feet now, my heart pounding in
my throat.
 

“Carefully step back this way,” I tell
him.
 
“Now.”

Realization washes over his face as tiny
balls of gravel and dirt begin to give way around his feet.
 
He quickly lunges toward me, diving at
the ground right before a huge hunk of earth breaks free, falling over a
hundred feet to land in the ocean below.
 

Dare is in a heap at my feet, and my
heart pounds as I stare down at him.
 

“You can’t stand that close to the edge,”
I utter needlessly, my throat still hot and tight.
 

He looks over his shoulder at the ledge,
then
takes in the small yellow warning sign to our right.
 
It’s a sign that should be larger and
red, bright red, bright enough for someone to notice.

He looks at me,
then
shakes his head.
 
“I should’ve known
better.”
 

I nod. “There’s no way you could’ve
known. The ledge is really thin.
 
It
won’t hold weight.
 
I should’ve told
you when you first came, but I didn’t think about it.”
 

Because I’m not used to having anyone but
my family staying up here.
 

Because he flustered me with his
Live Free
tattoo and his contradictions.
 

He smiles, a slow smile, but not a
genuine one.
 
This one is forced,
fake.
 
It’s his go-to smile, which
means that we all have fake go-to smiles.
All the
world is a stage and we all smile falsely upon it.
  

“Well, I’d say you made up for it by
saving my life.”

Honestly, though, he doesn’t sound happy
about that.
 
His eyes are so sad, so
closed now, so glittery.
 

Aren’t
you happy to be alive?

I want to ask it.
 
I’m so tempted, too tempted.
  
He’s got everything that most
people want.
 
Good looks, wit,
charm.
 
And he doesn’t seem happy
with it.
 
Is it because he’s an
orphan now?

“Why do you seem so sad?” I blurt out,
unable to stop myself.
 

Dare stares at me, studying me,
considering my words.
 
He raises an
eyebrow.
 

“Official question?”

I nod, silently.
  
Yes.
 
Official question.
 

He sighs, and it sounds lost up here as
it floats away over the edge, and he looks out over the ocean.

“Because I lost everything.”

I’m the silent one now, because it’s hard
to stomach the rawness in his voice, the emotion that he can’t quite hide.
 
Dare surprises me by adding something,
something so startlingly personal that it takes my breath away.
  

“I’m not sure if I can be found.”

He looks at me with eyes so black,
blacker than black, blacker than night.
 

“That would insinuate that
you’re
lost.
 
Not just that you’ve lost everything,” I
point out, careful not to ask it as a question.
  
He nods curtly.
 

“Maybe I am.”
 
His voice has a scalpel’s edge.
 

He’s
lost.
 

“And if I’m lost,” he continues.
 
“How can I possibly find someone else?”

He confuses me with his vague words.
 
“Are you looking for someone else?”

“Aren’t we all?”
 
His gaze impales me and my heart twinges
because the look on his face is vulnerable and broken.
 

But then it’s gone, as fast as it
appeared.
  
He looks at me
again,
his eyes clear now, closed, bright.
 
He once again appears cocky and arrogant
and he flashes his go-to smile.
 

“Sorry.
 
That seemed dramatic.
 
Chalk it up to my near-death
experience.”

I smile back, grim and quiet.
 
“I had a near death experience too,
once.
 
Actually, I had a
death
experience when I ate some nuts in
the fourth grade.
 
I died for a
minute and a half.”

Dare stares at me.
 
“How was it?”

What
a strange question.
 

“Uneventful,” I admit.
 

“Well, how very anti-climactic of it,” he
acknowledges.
 
And the fact that
he’s so blasé about mortality makes me laugh, and then we’re both standing on
the edge of a cliff laughing in the face of death.
 

It seems right.
 

When we’re silent again, he eyes me.
 

“Why are you sitting out here on the edge
of nowhere?” he asks.
 

I raise an eyebrow.
 
“Official question?”

He laughs and rolls his eyes. “God
no.
 
I just thought you might offer
it as a bonus.”

I roll my eyes too.
 
“Don’t hold your breath.
 
Talking about myself is my least
favorite thing.”

He smiles for a minute because I’m
throwing his own words back in his face, but then sobers, staring deep into my
eyes, examining my soul.
 

“I’d think you’d enjoy it,” he tells me
quietly.
 
“It’s such an interesting
subject.”

Just like that, my heart thunders and
pounds, my stomach rolling over and over and over.
  
There’s something so stimulating
in his voice, something so attractive and real.

Live,
Calla,
the Universe
whispers.
 
  

“I’m glad you think so,” I finally
answer, sounding perfectly casual, as I try to live.
 

He nods slowly.
 
“I do. Not that it means anything.”

It
means everything.
 

But I don’t say that, of course.
 
Instead, I begin to walk and Dare walks
with me, instead of continuing his run.
 
At one point, he grasps my elbow and helps me step over a rotting
log.
 
When he removes his hand, I
feel its absence immediately.
 
His
touch had been
branding-iron
hot.
 

Or so I imagined.

Our walk back is silent, but the air is
charged.
 

We pause outside of the carriage
house.
 

“Thanks again,” he says, his voice husky
and quiet.
 

I nod.
 
“Anytime.”