The Splendour Falls (38 page)

‘Why should I trust you?' I repeated the question in a whisper, not to him, but to myself.

He combed his hand through my hair, letting it drift through his fingers. It was full of dirt and pine needles, but he didn't seem to care. ‘Because I couldn't stand it if I let anything happen this time.'

‘This time?' I almost knew what he meant. I felt it often, that the rapport between us was as old as it was new. But here in the woods, the bewildering sensation didn't seem nearly as important as his proximity and the way the trees pushed away the rest of the world.

But my question shook him out of the moment. He blinked, seeming genuinely puzzled. ‘Did I say “this time”?'

‘Yes.' I focused on curiosity, to hide my disappointment. ‘What did you mean?'

Rhys shook his head. ‘I'm not sure.'

I had not so much a spark of insight as a wet fizzle. ‘Does it have to do with your friend who was injured in the mine?'

His spine straightened, and he drew back from me in unhappy surprise. ‘How did you know about that?'

I grimaced. It seemed I wasn't keeping anyone's secrets tonight. ‘I told your dad I wouldn't let you know he told me.'

‘It's not about Pembrokeshire.' He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Or maybe it is, I don't know.' He climbed to his feet and looked towards the house, confusion and frustration clear in the set of his shoulders.

‘Maybe if you told me what happened,' I ventured, not even – for once – demanding or sarcastic.

He gave me a dry look. ‘Like you've told me what you're doing here?'

After so many weeks of angst over it, the ease of my answer surprised me. ‘I chased a Vicodin with too many glasses of champagne at my mother's wedding and passed out in Central Park.'

Clearly, he hadn't expected me to answer. I hadn't either, but I wanted to hear his secret more than I wanted to keep mine. At least, that particular one. ‘So?' I prompted.

He sighed, rubbing the furrow between his brows. ‘I nearly got my best friend killed in a landslide.'

The depth of his guilt baffled me. ‘How could that have been your fault?'

My heart softened with sympathy at his sad shrug. ‘If I'd seen what was happening, maybe I could have done something.'

‘Because you're a geologist?' I asked, confused. ‘But you were just an intern, right?'

‘Right.' It was somehow confirmation and denial at the same time. He turned to face me, his mood changing. ‘Your turn. What is it you're seeing in the house and the woods?'

Gigi growled low. I thought she was reacting to my tension at the question. Then I heard distant voices calling my name, and saw the gleam of flashlights through the trees.

‘Crap.' I tried to get up while holding Gigi, but when I put my right hand on the ground, pain raced from my skinned palm to my wrenched shoulder. I hissed out a curse, and Rhys jumped forward, taking Gigi and helping me to my feet.

‘Does this at least convince you,' he said urgently, his eyes flicking towards the approaching lights, ‘that you should stay out of things? You can't go blundering around—'

‘Blundering!' Forget the undertones of chauvinism – mildly amusing while he was holding my fluffy designer-purse dog – ‘blundering' was not a verb a ballerina took lightly.

But Paula was calling my name, and the fear of discovery flooded back. ‘You're not going to tell them about the river, are you?'

He handed me Gigi and said in a bargaining tone that I didn't trust at all, ‘Promise you'll stay out of the Teen Town Council's way?'

I intended to lie. I looked right at him and formed ‘OK' in my mouth, but what came out was ‘Not
unless you tell me what's going on. I'm done doing whatever people tell me to without asking questions.'

With a growl of exasperation that would have been funny if I weren't so frustrated and angry and scared, Rhys caught my hand – the uninjured one – and turned towards the house and the searchers. ‘You picked a fine time to rediscover your backbone, Sylvie Davis.'

After we'd emerged, dirty and bedraggled, from the woods, Paula exclaimed over the state I was in, and I quickly found myself bustled off to the kitchen. Under the cheery lights, Clara made tea, and Rhys and his father sat at the table while Paula scrubbed the bark and dirt out of my palm and sprayed it with Bactine.

It stung like fire, but the archaic first-aid torture paled next to my worry over what Rhys would say. I managed a convincing story about how I'd gotten into the woods – Gigi chased something, I'd chased her – and into my muddy, scraped-up state – I'd tripped in the dark and fallen on my face. But Rhys, with a quick, you-brought-this-on-yourself glance at me, said, ‘She was lucky. She
might
have gone over the embankment if she hadn't caught herself on that tree.'

‘Good Lord in His heaven,' said Paula, a hand on her heart as she looked at me. ‘You might have been—'

Then she stopped, as two and two added up to five in her head. Her eyes widened, and her fingers went to her lips. ‘Oh, Sylvie, honey.'

Crap. I shot Rhys a betrayed glare as I rushed to
assure my cousin. ‘It was an accident, Paula. It was so dark, I had
no idea
the river was so close.'

She reached across the table and clasped the hand she'd just tortured. ‘Sylvie, honey. If there's
anything
you want to tell me … I know you've been troubled, about The Accident, about not being able to dance any more. Things can seem very hopeless.'

I snatched my fingers out of hers, the sting bringing fresh tears to my eyes, which made me even more furious – at Rhys, yes, but mostly that there wasn't one person in my family who trusted my mental health. ‘Paula, I'm fine.' It didn't sound very convincing ground out through my teeth. ‘I'm
not
depressed, and I'm
not
going to jump in the river.'

Professor Griffith cleared his throat and moved to stand, nudging Rhys as he did. ‘We'll just get back to bed. This sounds like a family matter.'

‘Oh no,' I said, pointing to Rhys in an angry demand. ‘Tell them how dark it was, how easy it was to get lost.'

He met my gaze and, raising his uninjured eyebrow, reminded me silently of the bargain I'd rejected. A band of worry tightened around my chest, worry that he might still rat that it was me, not Gigi, who saw things. It was only a second or two, long enough to twist the knife of anxiety, then he turned to Paula and said earnestly, ‘I don't think Sylvie would try and hurt herself, Miss Davis.'

‘Thank you,' I said without a shred of gratitude, since he was only telling the truth.

He went on without looking at me. ‘You know she
wouldn't do anything rash without making arrangements for her dog.'

‘Dammit, Rhys!' The outburst popped free of the iron bands of stress. ‘Don't joke about that.'

Clara made a sound, almost a laugh, despite the gravity on everyone's faces. ‘He has a point, Paula. Don't write Sylvie off just yet.'

‘Thank you, Clara.' I meant the words, though they came out petulant, because
I
didn't think it needed to be said at all.

‘Still, it
was
dark,' said Rhys. ‘And she
is
a city girl.' He shook his head in a ridiculous and theatrical way. ‘Maybe you and Vicious should stay in after nightfall, Sylvie.'

I shot him another death glare, but Paula quickly reclaimed my attention, and my outrage, with her agreement. ‘That's not a bad idea, honey. You're not used to all the things out there in the woods. You don't need to be out in the dark.'

Rhys's satisfaction gave him away; this was exactly what he'd meant to achieve. I kept my gaze on Paula, but my fury was scattershot. ‘I'm not a child. Or an idiot.'

‘Even Addie has a curfew,' she said firmly.

‘Which she ignores!' I made a sweeping gesture towards the summerhouse, endangering the mug of tea Clara had poured me. Rhys caught it before it could fall over, but I was too angry to be impressed. ‘She was out with the teen council till all hours on a school night. Do you even
know
how late they stay out there?'

The words had exploded angrily, without my
considering if it was smart to tell the world I was keeping tabs on the TTC. But the lack of reaction was a surprise.

‘That's different.' Paula spoke briskly, in a way that implied she hadn't registered
any
of what I'd said. ‘And beside the point. We're not talking about going to an extracurricular activity—'

‘Extracurricular—' I broke off in disbelief. ‘Do you guys even hear yourselves when you talk about this group?' I looked at Rhys, who was studying his mug intently, no help at all.

Clara sat on the other side of me, rubbing a soothing hand over my back. ‘I guess you must be feeling excluded. I've asked Addie to invite you to some of their get-togethers.'

‘If she's feeling excluded,' said Paula, ‘she could have gone to the graduation party. Shawn did ask her.'

I bent over and gently banged my forehead on the table. It might as well be the wall I kept running up against. With all of them. Paula and Clara. Rhys. Shawn. This entire town.

Not the professor, though. He slid my mug across the scarred and polished table until it touched my fingers. ‘Drink your tea, love.' When I raised my head, he met my eye with a sympathetic smile. ‘It'll make you feel better.'

The drink was warm and bracing, but the pause had given Paula time to marshal her arguments. ‘Sylvie, forget the woods. I'm worried that you don't seem to be sleeping. You're always up at night.' She paused, clueing me in to what was coming. ‘Don't answer now,
while you're so upset, but I want you to think about going to see your stepfather's friend in Birmingham.'

She meant the shrink, but didn't want to say it in front of the Griffiths. Like they couldn't figure it out. From the corner of my eye, I saw Rhys fidget, guiltily, I hoped.

Part of me must have suspected this would happen, no matter how I tried to cover things up. It was as if all my fears – falling, going nuts, psychiatrists – had checked their calendars and decided this was the night to gang up on me.

‘Cousin Paula,' I started, holding onto my mug with both hands, ‘the only thing wrong with me is that you won't let me sleep with my dog.'

Paula relented slowly. ‘Will you talk to Reverend Watkins, at least?'

‘If I can bring Gigi up with me tonight.' She'd been exiled to her crate, and I felt sick about it, since I'd let her take the blame for my being out in the woods.

‘Go ahead, Paula,' said Clara, gently cajoling. ‘There's not that much left of the night anyway.'

Sighing deeply in surrender, Paula sat back in her chair. ‘Fine. Finish your tea and go on up. I'm going to take some aspirin, then I'll come check on you.'

A bed check was, all told, not that bad. I turned my head to glare at Rhys, but didn't say anything with Clara and his dad still there. He met my eye, silently communicating the same thing. It could have been worse, if he'd told them everything.

‘We'd better go up too,' said Professor Griffith,
standing to put action to words. ‘Sleep tight, Sylvie, love.'

Somewhere, I found a small smile for him. ‘Thanks, Professor.'

‘Come along, Rhys. You look like five miles of bad road.'

‘Right, Dad. On my way.'

I almost missed his exhale of effort as he pushed himself up from the table. He did look bad. The bruises on his face had faded, but they were still there, mottled green and purple. In the light of the kitchen, I saw something else through the thin white T-shirt he wore with the same khakis from yesterday.

His father was on his way down the hall. Clara had gone with Paula when she left to get her aspirin. Still sitting, I grabbed the loose hem of Rhys's shirt and jerked it up.

He jumped a foot, which was gratifying. ‘Jesus, Sylvie!' He strangled the curse down to a whisper, glancing around for witnesses as he tugged the cotton down over impressive abs and a seat-belt bruise the colour of raw meat.

‘Oh my God.' I was frozen, still seeing in my head the livid mark that ran up and across his chest. A bruise like that, and I was surprised he was moving around at all.
And
he'd held me suspended over the river. Both of us, really, as he leaned out, tethered by his grasp on the tree.

I didn't even know what to say. On the scale from pissed to smitten, my emotions made a dramatic slide towards grateful wonder. Which is an awkward place to
be while you're holding onto a guy by his shirt like he's a Chippendales dancer or something. Not that I knew anything about that, except that one of my class partners had paid his tuition that way and—
Oh my God,
I needed to stop thinking about that.

‘I'd better get Gigi and go upstairs,' I blurted, and dropped his shirt like it was hot, retreating to the welcome cool air of the porch, and to my dog, who was spayed and therefore blissfully ignorant of how complicated emotions could get.