NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) (20 page)

“And I will?” my voice is sharp.

Dare doesn’t flinch.
 
“You’ll change
someone’s
world.
 
I am
positive of that.”

My nether regions flood with warmth
because I think he means himself.
 
But then my blood turns ice cold with a realization.
 
If I change anyone’s world, it will be
Finn’s, so I doubt I’ll have time to change Dare’s too.
 
I’m not talented enough to do both.
 

I’m feeling dejected about that as I turn
around and gaze at the faded red bricks of my school, at the doors that I
dreaded walking through every morning for four years.
 

I’m startled when the principal walks
through them now.
 

He’s startled to see me, too.
 

“Ms. Price,” he says quickly, and crosses
the walk toward me.
 
I’m not used to
seeing him in casual clothes, so his shorts and polo shirt throw me off.
 

“Hi Mr. Payne.”
 
The irony of his name is not lost on me.

“How are you doing?” he asks, his tone
both warm and nervous. I get it.
 
No
one knows what to say to someone who has lost a loved one. It’s a hard
situation.
 
“You’ve been in my
thoughts a lot lately, Calla.
 
My wife
has asked me several times if I know how you’re doing.”

“I’m fine,” I lie. “We’re hanging in
there.”

“And your father?” he asks.
 

“He’s doing as well as can be expected,”
I tell him. “I’ll tell him you asked about him.”

“Well, this is a small community,
Calla.
 
Everyone hated to hear of
your loss.
 
If you need anything,
for college or for anything else, you just let me know.”

I nod and he hurries away to his car as
though he can’t get away from me fast enough.
 

“Ugh,” I shake my head.
 
“He’s all about helping now, but he
never raised one finger when Finn kept getting shoved into lockers our freshman
year by the football team. Or when they de-pants him our junior year.
Or all of the times in between.
 
And he can’t even bring himself to
directly ask about him now.
 
They
think he’s crazy and not worth their time.
 
It disgusts me.
 
This whole
town disgusts me.”

I turn away for the bike and Dare grabs
my arm, forcing me to pause.
 

“I understand your anger, Calla. But do
me a favor, ok?
 
One of the most
beautiful things about you is your spirit.
 
It’s refreshing… to me, and to anyone
else who sees it.
 
So don’t let
anything make you ugly, ok?”

His words are so honest that they freeze
me in my tracks, making me realize something.
 
I can’t let them make me as ugly as they
are.
 
I nod slowly.

“You’re right, I guess.
 
I can’t fix their small minds.
 
So I can’t let it affect me.”

Dare nods. “Exactly.
 
Wanna get out of here?”

“Yes.”
 
My answer is immediate.
 

We get back on his bike and tear off down
the road, and I try very hard to leave my bitterness back at the school where
it belongs.

We drive all the way to Cannon Beach on a
seaside road. We hike down to Haystack Rock and stare at the ocean as we lean
against the rocks.
 
We marvel at how
big it is, while we’re so small.
 

On the horizon, a sailboat glides across
the water, it’s white sails billowing into the sky like clouds.

We both stare at it for a while, until it
disappears from sight. Finally, Dare turns to me.
 

“After my mom died, someone gave me a
poem to read, and it actually helped.”

I stare at him, unconvinced. “A poem?”

He smirks.
 
“I know.
 
But yeah, it did.
 
It was about a ship and how the ship
doesn’t lose it’s value or it’s usefulness or its
being
simply because it sails away out of sight.
 
It’s still as large and valuable, and it
still exists, even though we can’t see it.
 
So, in a way, dying is like a ship that sails away for another
destination.”

I stare at him, and there’s something big
between us, something unsaid, but big all the same.

“I’ve read that one,” I tell him.
 
Because I live in a funeral home, I’ve
read all the poems about death.
 
“That’s a good one. That’s probably better than the dragonfly story that
Finn told me.”

Dare smiles a small smile and he doesn’t
ask to hear the story, but on the way back up to his bike, he grabs my hand and
holds it.
 
I don’t pull
away,
I just savor the feel of his long fingers woven
between my own.
 

 
We drive forty minutes back to Astoria
with the taste of the sea on our lips and the feel of Dare’s chest beneath my
fingertips.
 
It’s a good ride, and I
hate to see it drawing to an end as we idle through the streets of
Astoria.
 

I especially hate when we idle toward Ocean’s
View Cemetery.
 

I look away from its wrought iron gates
and brick columns, from the trees that weep along the shadowy lanes
inside.
 
Because I know, that at the
back of the neatly lined plots, there’s a large white angel standing over a
white marble stone.
 
LAURA PRICE lies
there beneath the surface, eternally sleeping,
forever
gone from me.
 

I squeeze my eyes shut, and I must
squeeze Dare, too, because he turns slightly.
 

“Are you ok?”

I nod against his back.
 
“Yeah.”

Lie.
 

Dare notices the cemetery, and I feel him
tense a bit.

“You’re surrounded by it here,” he tells
me, his voice as soft and quiet
as it can be on the back of
this bike.
 
“In order to move
forward, you have to move away.”

I nod, because I know.

As I move my head, I open my eyes, and as
I do, I notice something.
 

Finn.
 

Standing in the gates of the cemetery,
watching us
ride
away.
 

He doesn’t call out, he doesn’t chase me,
he doesn’t even seem angry. But the expression is still there on his face… the
expression that tells me I let him down.
 
I told him I’d go with him to visit our mother, and I didn’t.
 
And because I didn’t, he went alone.
 

I close my eyes.
 

VIGINTI
OCTO

Finn

It’sTime.

The voices are insistent, more
so than usual, more so than ever.
 

It’sTimeIt’sTimeIt’sTime.
 

Time for what?

I buzz along the road from the
cemetery, up the mountain to my home, where I linger in the trees and watch my
sister as she says goodbye to
Dare
and waits for
me.
 
I know she’s waiting for me,
because she always does.

And unless I do something,
that’s what she’ll
always
do.
 

DoItDoItDoIt.
 

I suddenly know what to do, and
I head along the path for the pier.
 
It doesn’t matter that she wouldn’t go to the cemetery with me, because
I know she would’ve tried if I’d forced the issue.
 
She would’ve tried and she would’ve been
miserable because she’s not ready.
 
I can’t force her to be ready.
 
It has to happen in order.

It has to happen in order.
 

There’s an order.

It

Has

To

Happen

In

Order.
 

Sail
away and don’t come back
,
a voice hisses.
 
MakeHerSeeTheOrder.
  

Don’t
, another one argues.
ThisIsHerFaultHerFaultHerFault.
 

The voices argue and I let them,
as I continue walking in the sea breeze toward the boat. I climb inside and lift
the anchor.
 

VIGINTI
NOVEM

Calla

When
we get back home, I walk Dare to his house.
 

“Thank you for today,” I tell him
softly.
 
“I needed to get away.”

“You did,” he agrees with me.
 
“And you still do.”

I swallow hard, because he’s right.
 
I do need to get away, far from death
and Astoria and here.
 
But more and
more, I feel that I can’t.
 
I’ll
never be able to truly get away, because I can’t leave Finn. Even if I follow
him to MIT, I’ll still be surrounded by this forever.
 

But I don’t say that of course, because
it’s depressing and he’d simply argue.

So instead, I simply lean up and kiss
Dare’s perfectly chiseled cheek, wishing with all of my might that I could fold
into his arms and he could comfort me and kiss me and hold me forever.
 

But I can’t because we’re
waiting.
 

Waiting for me to work through something
that can’t be worked through.

Dare disappears inside and I wait on my
porch for my brother.
 

My butt is stiff from the hard boards and
I’ve slapped at a hundred mosquitoes when my father finally comes out and hands
me a glass of lemonade.

“Whatcha doing out here?” he asks as I
sip the tart liquid.

“Waiting for Finn,” I tell him.
 
“I saw him at the cemetery.
 
He went alone.
 
He’s going to need to talk about it.”

My dad looks pained and I know it’s
because he hasn’t been there yet, either.
 

“Don’t feel bad, dad,” I say
quickly.
 
“I haven’t actually been
there yet, either.
 
I just drove
past.
 
I couldn’t make myself go
in.”

He nods slowly.
 
“One of these days,” he starts to say,
then trails off.
 
And I know that’s
gone in the One Of These Days file in his head.
 

I smile and pretend that he’ll actually
do it.

He leaves me alone and I wish for a
second that he hadn’t, because I’m lonely and I could use some company while I
wait.
 
From time to time, I think I
see Dare’s curtains move, like he’s keeping an eye on me, but I’m probably
imagining it.
 

The lemonade finally runs through me, and
I duck inside to use the restroom.
 
As I’m washing my hands, a glint of silver catches my attention on the
counter.

Finn’s St. Michael’s medallion.
 

It’s a small silver disk honoring St.
Michael that my mother bought Finn for Christmas last year.
 
We’re not Catholic, but she loved the
idea that it’s supposed to give courage and keep the wearer out of harm’s
way.
 
She knew that Finn needed that
protection, for sure.
 
He never
takes it off.
 
He even sleeps in
it.
 

But here it is, lying on the bathroom
counter.
 

I pick it up with shaking fingers.

Where
is he?

I rush back out of the house, intent on
asking Dare to drive me back into town to look for him when I glance down at
the beach and I see that our boat is gone from the slip.

Since dad’s in the house and Dare is in
the cottage, there’s only one person that could’ve taken it.

Finn.

I jog down the trail to the beach, and
sit with my legs dangling on the pier.
Because there’s only
one thing to do.
 

Wait.
 

I wait until my body is stiff, until the
sun sinks low in the sky, and still Finn hasn’t come back in.
 
I start to get pissed actually, because
he had to know I’d be worried.

He’s
doing this on purpose
, I
decide.
 
To teach
me a lesson.
 

Anger boils my blood and I stomp back up
to the house where I slam a few things together in the kitchen to make my dad a
sandwich.
 

He looks up at me in surprise. “What’s
wrong with you?”

“Finn took the boat out alone,” I
snap.
 
“He’s obviously mad at me.”

My dad pats my shoulder. “He’s been
sailing for as long as you have.
 
He’s fine,” is all he says.
 
I want to grab his hand and snap it off because he’s so involved in his
own sadness that he can’t see anyone else’s.
 

“You don’t know that,” I snap at him
again.
 

“I do,” he says confidently.
 
“He’ll be fine.”

I can’t even stand to stay and eat with
him, so I slam back out the door, but on my way an idea occurs to me, something
I’ve never considered doing before.

I pause at my dad’s bar.

And then I grab a bottle of gin, my
father’s drink of choice.

He’s certainly been drinking it a lot
these past weeks, trying to forget his pain and his issues.
 
I can do it too.
 
If it works for him, it’ll work for
me.
 
I clutch the cool bottle in my
fingertips as I jog down the porch steps.

I think I see the curtains of the
Carriage House moving, and I think I feel Dare staring at me through the glass,
but I don’t stop. And I don’t put the bottle down.
 
They can all judge me. I don’t care.
 

I deserve a respite from reality.
 

I slide down the trail, pad through the
damp sand and sit on the pier with my bottle of gin.
 
After a few minutes, I open it, and take
a swig.
 

I almost immediately spit the vile liquid
out, coughing as the fiery stuff blazes a trail down my throat and into my belly.
 
I can feel the heat of it, peeling off
the tissue of my esophagus and I want to hurl the rest of the bottle out to
sea.
 

It’s disgusting.
 
How can anyone willingly drink it?

But as I wait for minutes, then an hour,
then two, I pick the bottle back up.
 

I stare at the empty horizon, and take a
swig, forcing it down.
 
I stare at
the stars, at freaking Andromeda and her stupid love story, and take a
swig.
 
And before long, after
fifteen swigs, my belly feels warm and my memory feels fuzzy.

A blissful sense of foggy detachment
envelops me, and I no longer feel my raw throat or taste the disgusting
liquid.
 
I drink more and more,
until I fall back on the pier and stare at the sky, enjoying the way the stars swirl
and twirl around me, like I’m on a carousel and they’re in mirrors.
 

I close my eyes for a minute, and my
eyelids spin too, round and round, until I actually start to feel dizzy.

I open my eyes, and Dare is standing over
me, leaning over the edge of my horizontal periphery.

I smile.
 
I think.

He smiles back.
 

“How much have you had?” he asks
ruefully, picking up the bottle and examining it.
 
There’s
only a
couple of slogs left and I graciously wave my hand.
 

“You can have the rest,” I tell him, as
though I’m bestowing a gift.
 

My words are slurred through, my tongue
thick and heavy, and even though that’s what I meant to say, it comes out at
gibberish.
 
I try again.

Still gibberish.
 

I stare at him helplessly and he
chuckles.

“That much, then?”

He bends down and offers me his
hand.
 
I shake my head.
 

“I’ve gotta wait for Finn.”

Which sounds more like, “Lesh gofur a
schim.”

Dare shakes his head.
 
“I don’t want to swim, thanks.
 
We need to get you to the house before
you pass out.”

I know I should stay right here on this
pier and wait for Finn. I know I should be more worried about my brother
because it’s dark and he’s alone and he never stays out this late by himself,
but the gin has accomplished one thing aside from rendering my tongue muscles
useless.
 

It’s made me carefree.
 

I don’t have a care in the world right
now, which is a blissful, amazing gift. No wonder my dad likes this stuff.

I let
Dare
hoist
me up, and then I promptly collapse against him when my legs give out.
 

“Hi,” I say to his chest.
 
His marvelously amazingly
sexy chest.
 

“Hi,” it says back.
 
“Let’s go, Cal.”

Dare’s hands pull me under my armpits,
and then suddenly, I’m in his arms, cradled like a baby as he walks all the way
up the trail.

“I’m too heavy,” I mumble into his shirt.

“You’re not,” his shirt answers.

He doesn’t stumble, he doesn’t falter,
he
simply grips me tight and makes the climb.
 
He’s barely breathing heavily when we
get to the top.

I open my eyes and see three blurry
outlines of the funeral home above me, the jagged edges of the roof poking into
the night.
 
They blur together,
then
apart, then back together again.
 
I close my eyes against the sight.
 

“I don’t want to go in there,” I manage
to say clearly.

Dare stares down at me, and I swear I see
sympathy in his eyes.

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” I snap.
 

He doesn’t answer.
 
He just carries me down the path to his
Carriage House.

He deposits me carefully on his sofa and
leaves me for a second, then returns with a big glass of water and some
aspirin.
 

“Take those,” he instructs firmly.
 
“And then drink all the water.
 
Trust me, you’ll thank me in the
morning.”

I do as he says and then wipe my mouth
with the back of my hand, before pulling him down next to me.
 

“Where do you think Finn went?” I ask
worriedly, even though the gin has mostly paralyzed my worry muscle.
 
Dare stares down at me.
 

“He’ll be fine.
 
You on the other hand, are going to have
a big hangover tomorrow.
 
Have you
ever
drank
anything before?”

I shake my head and he sighs.

“Well, you certainly chose to start with
a bang.
 
Gin will put hair on your
chest.”

“I like my chest the way it is,” I try to
say. I must succeed because Dare’s eyes gleam.

“I do too,” he admits softly.
 
I grab his hand and pull it to me,
sliding it along my side, where he clamps down his fingers.
 

“Will you kiss me?” I ask. “I liked it
when you kissed me.”

He sighs again.
 
“I did too.
 
But you’re drunk.”

“I’m drunk,” I snap.
 
“Not dead.”

It’s a sentiment that makes very little
sense, but I don’t hesitate. I just grab Dare’s face and pull him to my own, my
lips crushing his.
 
He tastes like
spearmint and I taste like gin.
 
It’s somehow an intoxicating combination, and with numbed fingers, I
stroke the side of his stubbly jaw.
 

He doesn’t pull away for a minute, but
then he finally does.
 

“You’re drunk,” he says again.
 

“Correct,” I slide into him, my face
against his shoulder.
 

I pick up his hand, and wrap it around my
back.
 
“I like being here, with
you,” I tell him.
 
“I like how you
smell.
 
I like how you kiss.
 
And I like how you’re beautiful.”

Dare stares down at me, amusement
shimmering in his eyes. “I’m beautiful, then?”

“Don’t fish for compliments,” I
mutter.
 
“You don’t need them.”

He grins. “Don’t I?”

“I’d like for you to kiss me again,” I
announce, sitting up straight.
 
I think.