Very Twisted Things (Briarcrest Academy #3) (11 page)

—from the journal of Violet St. Lyons

THE PLANE TWISTS in the sky, spinning like a ballerina.

We fall and crash into the ocean.

I scream as my neck snaps forward.

Water fills up the gaping hole on the side of the craft.

My mother looks at me with sightless eyes. My father is gone from his seat.

Fear claws at me as I unclick and fight my way out of the hole.

I turn and watch the plane sink until it’s nothing but a white speck being swallowed by the sea.

My heart slams against my chest. Air. Lungs screaming.

Daddy. I kick harder.

Water and silence surround me.

I’ll never make it to the surface.

I inhale, sucking down water that sets my throat on fire.

Someone touches me, pushes me, begs me.

Again and again I swallow until I am nothing.

I am dead.

Gasping, I woke up from my afternoon nap and kicked out, legs fighting the sheets. My body shook violently, adrenaline pounding through my veins. Clutching my rolling stomach, I sucked air in through my mouth. My hands pressed against my eyes as I called out to a deaf God to make the nightmares disappear.

I raced for the bathroom, falling on top of the toilet and retching as my fist pounded the tile floor. I vomited until there was nothing left in me but memories, little pricks of pain that festered inside, refusing to let go. I collapsed on the cold floor, tucking my knees up to my chest as I rocked myself.

When would this end?

An hour later, I sat in Dr. Cooke’s office for our weekly appointment. In her forties and stylishly dressed in a pale blue pantsuit, Wilson highly recommended her as a therapist. I’d been coming here for over a year.

“How are you feeling?” she asked me as I sat in a comfy chair next to her desk and crossed my legs.

“Old as dirt. I see people my own age and want to remind them that the grim reaper can pluck them up whenever he feels like it and yank it all away. On top of that, I’m sick of being afraid to stand up for myself.” I laughed at a distant memory. “When I was a kid, I punched Dougie Lombardi in the nose for trying to look up my skirt on the playground. I got an after school suspension for that one, and now look at me—I can’t even tell a girl at the coffee shop to fuck off after she insults me. I’m just—pathetic. I hate it.”

She nodded and tapped her pencil on her pad. “Conflict is a trigger for you. If a situation makes you uncomfortable, you want to withdraw and disengage. But you can’t cocoon yourself forever—not if you want your old life back. You have to be willing to take chances again.”

She was right, but admitting I needed to change was easy. Living it was the hard part.

I stood to pace around her office. Feeling fidgety. I came to a stop at the window and peered down below. Everyone looked busy. Happy. I watched a young couple hold hands as they crossed the street and found a table at an outdoor patio. Loneliness settled in my gut.

What was Sebastian doing? Was he with Blair?
What was going on with them? When he’d pulled away from our kiss,
she
hadn’t been the reason why. What was he not telling me?

“Any more suicidal thoughts?” She always asked that one.

I sighed. “Not in a while, no.”

“Have you tried the new breathing exercises we talked about?”

Like a million times. “Yes. One long breath in and a longer one out.” I tapped my leg. “Speaking of heavy breathing, remember the guy who moved in a few weeks ago? I—I’ve played for him.” I left out the whole part about catching him spying, stripping for him, and the tequila. I didn’t think she’d approve of my methods.

Her eyes widened. “That’s wonderful progress, V. How did this happen?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. He’s probably the next big thing in Hollywood, but that isn’t the reason. It’s like something in me just
clicks
when it comes to him. He gets me and he loves music, and it makes me feel the music again.” I twisted my hands together. “There’s more. We kissed, and I—I wanted to go further. What do you think that means?”

She blinked and adjusted her glasses. “That you’re ready to move on. You’ve been an island unto yourself for two years, V. You need people.” She smiled. “Are you falling for him?”

Was I?

“It doesn’t matter. He’s unavailable,” I muttered.

Moving on, I described the details of my new nightmare. “Anyway, it was different this time. Someone in my dream
pushed
me toward the surface. He—a man—helped me in the water. It’s odd that I’ve never remembered that before.” Emotion welled up, and I plopped back down in the leather chair. “I can’t recall how I got on that cushion and most days I wish I hadn’t. But—what if—what if my dad put me on that cushion? I was swimming toward him when I blacked out. What if he was there the whole time, and I never knew it? If that’s how it happened, then why did he let go? Why didn’t he hang on?” My voice cracked.

She nodded. “It’s possible your subconscious is telling you more of what happened—perhaps because you played for your friend. This is good.” She continued. “About your dream, you might need to consider that the cushion was too small for two people or he was exhausted after getting you there. Your father was in his sixties, V. It must have been difficult for him to swim in the freezing water.”

I sucked in a shuddering breath. Her words were like knives to my heart. My parents had been elderly—I’d actually been an IVF baby after years of them trying.

“But, I wanted to save
him
.”

“Don’t you think he’d sacrifice his life for yours?” she said softly. “As a parent myself, I’d do whatever it took to make sure my child lived—even put her on a cushion and let go.”

I sat there and wept as realization dawned. I’d been selfishly wishing I was dead along with them, when
he’d
saved me and then let me go
. I didn’t know why, but somehow I knew it was true. Excruciating pain sliced through me at the image of him sinking below the waves, yet at the same time, hope bloomed.

He’d given me another chance at life.

He’d wanted me to live.

When was I going to start?

LATER THAT DAY, the florist delivered an extravagant flower arrangement to my house.

My foolish heart soared
thinking they were from Sebastian
,
but
they weren’t.

They were from Geoff. First the phone call and now flowers—did this signal something new for us?

I stared at the pink tiger lilies and gardenias that took up most of the vase amid little spurts of greenery. Beautiful and exotic, the flowers permeated my entire house, smelling of New York and the memories of a lighter girl who’d had the world in her hands.

I set it out on the balcony and stared at it. I read and then re-read the cream-colored expensive card that arrived with it.
Missing You
was all it said on the front with a picture of two cuddly teddy bears holding hands. I grinned because it was so odd to see something as cheesy as this from him. Older than me by three years, Geoff was a law student at NYU. He was also the Mayor of New York’s son. Auburn-haired and a bit stuffy, we’d fallen in love the summer I was seventeen and he was twenty. I’d never gotten what he saw in a music geek like myself when he had plenty of college girls to choose from, but he claimed he’d been in love with me since we were kids and our parents had taken vacations together.

On the inside, he’d written,

All his love?

I laughed at that. I didn’t think so. I’d kept up with him in the papers and online. In the past two years, I’d seen the girls he’d dated, confident socialites with pretty dresses and even fancier college pedigrees. So what if that would have been me two years ago if my parents hadn’t died. But, I was different now. Changed. The Violet who’d emerged from the Atlantic Ocean was not the big-eyed girl he’d fallen in love with.

But I didn’t fault him for moving on. As he should have.

I flipped the card between my fingers, cement in my stomach at the thought of facing him again. The last time I’d seen him had been six months after the crash when I’d sat across from him at a fancy Manhattan restaurant and gone through the motions of being normal. That night, his hands had hovered constantly over me, almost as if by touch he could help me. Looking back now, I’d been too self-involved with my grief to see that he needed something I couldn’t give. He’d been too focused on saving me to see that I needed to be as far from my old life as I could get.

He’d picked up my hand, his fingers toying with my promise ring. A one-carat, princess cut diamond with emeralds on the side, it had cost more than most engagement rings. He’d smiled at me. “I know this is fast, but what do you think about a Christmas wedding? We could go to Hawaii for the honeymoon, or St. Tropez? I know how you love the sun.”

The room had spun. Walk down the aisle in front of the media and all our friends?
Get on a plane?
“What?”

“I’m ready for you to start living again, Violet.”

I stared at him. In horror.
Didn’t he get it?
My parents were at the bottom of the Atlantic. My music was gone. I considered killing myself each day.

“You need to move on, Violet.” Now, his voice was stern, and I saw him then. I saw how he was tired of my moping. Tired of my depression. He wanted his happy girl back.

I stood, my hands tapping. I was screwed up, and he had no clue because his life was still wrapped in fairy dust.

“I can’t,” came out of me. “I—I’m sorry.”

I twisted the ring off my finger. “This piece of jewelry is the only thing that survived the crash. I lost my parents, my violin, all my luggage, even the clothes they found me in were later thrown away … everything is gone except this one thing.” I placed it gently on the table and ended the final chapter. “And now it’s gone. Goodbye, Geoff.”

PHIL, MY NEW boss at Masquerade, was a real ass-hat.

I should have known it from the interview when his eyes never lifted above my neck, but the needy musician in me had ignored it. Of course, he had hired me without actually hearing me play or knowing my full name, so I guess my boobs had come in handy for that at least.

He smirked as he stood up from behind his desk and adjusted the waist of his slacks. Judging by his gut, he liked to eat, and even from here I could smell the garlic and cheesy bread on his breath. “You look pale,” he noted, “and lose the jacket and unbutton the top two buttons on your dress. This isn’t a nunnery; it’s a restaurant with a night club downstairs, so get with the program.”

Keeping my face placid, I did as he asked and undid some of the buttons. Silky and fitted with a lace overlay, I’d picked the dress up today after I’d left Dr. Cooke’s office. It was just the little confidence booster I needed to encourage me to get out there on that raised dais in the center of the restaurant and play. I sucked in a breath.
I could do this.

“You busy later?” Phil asked as we left his office and walked out into the restaurant.