What Lies Beneath (Count on Me Series #7) (5 page)

“Huh?”

“That sick feeling in your stomach watching me laugh and play. It’s because you were jealous.”

“Still don’t follow.”

Placing her finger down on the page, calling my attention to one particular line in what I’ve already read, it clicks.

I
was
jealous.

Of leaves.

Holy shit.

“Kay,” she sighs. “That’s so sweet.”

“Since when is being a jealous idiot sweet?”

“It usually isn’t, but you wanted to be the reason I laughed. It’s the exception.”

Can’t exactly argue with that. She’s right. Just like I wanted her smiles and laughter to only be for me when we first got together, I did then.

Some things never change.

Bringing her in close and pressing a kiss to the top of her head, I clear my throat and instead of answering her back, start reading again. Surprised by the amount of words on the page considering how long I spent avoiding writing.

All I remember after that is the chill from the wet leaves as she dumped them on me after pushing me into the pile. Giggling before ripping some of the grass out of the ground and dumping it on top like a cherry on a cake.

She never stopped laughing either. Not even when I told her to stop.

Pretty sure her doing that means my mom doesn’t know Belle as well as she thinks she does.

She doesn’t know her as well as I do, and now that I know what makes her happiest, I’m gonna make sure we do it again.

Because when Belle is happy, I’m happy too.

“It’s true.” She quietly says when I finish the entry. Looking up at me before lowering her eyes down to the open book and running her hands over the perforated and bent pages.

The way she looks as she runs her fingers over it, is like she’s attempting to commit it all to memory. Like every word I’ve spoken isn’t enough and that if she just delicately runs those soft fingers of hers across the page, she’ll absorb it all in. Keep it with her forever.

Like she’s already done with me.

“What’s true?”

“You loved me. Even then.”

“Always, Belle. I’ve loved you always.”

Our story, even at seven years old, was energy in motion.

Slipping my hand over and into hers, waiting the beat that it takes for her eyes to find mine again, I smile when she does and leaning my head against hers, repeat the only words left to say after that entry and what became of it.

“I energy you, Isabelle Walker.”

Chapter Five

“What do you remember about Sam?”

There’s a name I haven’t spoken aloud in years.

Shit.
I haven’t even thought about him since he moved away when we were eleven.

Yeah, I know that I’ve got your mind working with that age I mentioned.

My asshole phase.

You know how psychopaths usually start out torturing animals before moving onto unsuspecting people? Well, think of me in those terms and you’ll get the idea of exactly who Sam was to me back then.

Thing is, he didn’t start out that way.

Sammy, before my mom took off and Dean took over where my old man left off, was one of my favorite people. Second to Belle.

What she couldn’t give me, he did.

Playing with Hot Wheels. We had that shit locked down. Kicking the soccer ball around, or heading over to the high school and using their net to play basketball? He was all in there too.

Sam was a small statured kid, but his heart more than made up for it. Quiet like Belle, but without the diagnosis and other random things she did at the time that I didn’t quite get, he was the perfect balance to the relationship her and I had at the time.

“Not too much. Just a couple of things that happened when he came over. Why?” Belle asks, placing the plates she’d just pulled down from the cupboard on the bar and meeting my eyes before turning her attention back to the stovetop, where our dinner is waiting in the slow cooker.

“What things specifically?”

“I remember you bringing him over and when he plugged his nose and complained about some smell, you hitting him.”

Not exactly the memory I want her to have from back then, but considering how protective I was of her even then, I can’t exactly hate that she has it.

Sam, while being quiet, was like a lot of kids in the neighborhood. Especially with things they didn’t understand. He also wasn’t exactly shy about reacting.

Funny thing is, it wasn’t Belle he was smelling that day and I figured that out after I sucker punched him right in the gut.

Whoops.

“What else do you remember?”

“His mom dropping him at your place once and all of us going to the school. I remember you two playing basketball and again, you shoving him to the ground when he beat you.”

Tensing at the memory, I take my plate once Belle’s finished placing the food out and make my way over to the table.

“Why are you asking me about Sammy, Kay?”

Motioning behind us to the bar where we left the journal when after reading a few of her diary entries, we’d made our way out to put dinner together, she nods.

“You wrote about him.” She states and it’s my turn to nod before digging into the plate. Thankful to be cramming my now dry mouth with something that doesn’t leave a bad taste the way talking about this does.

It’s your fault you’ve got the bad taste. You’re the one that brought it up.

Swallowing hard, I wait until her attention is back on me before explaining.

“There was a few months where I didn’t write anything. I forgot about the journal entirely. I was so busy with school, then hanging out with you, and the shit happening at home that it just didn’t seem important anymore.”

“Which has what to do with Sam exactly?”

“That day at the school. I wrote about it.”

“Okay…”

“I didn’t realize it until I was looking over the journal before we came out here, but the abuse, how I started treating people. It started long before my mom took off. I’ve spent years blaming her, telling anyone that would listen that I was so horrible because of her leaving, but it wasn’t her at all. I was just always bad.”

“Kay…” she sighs softly. “You weren’t bad. You just had issues and didn’t know how to handle them.”

“What did I say about making excuses?”

“It’s not an excuse. You’ve spent years owning the things you did. The ways you hurt people. If you were truly bad, you wouldn’t have done that. You would still be making excuses or putting the blame on other people. On me.”

The way the last two words come out, quieter than the rest, and the way her face is angled back down toward the table, speaks volumes. Unfortunately there’s really nothing I can say here because I did blame her.

For so damn long, I made Belle the bane of my existence.

Because you loved her and didn’t know how to deal, you big idiot.
My inner voice screams, and again, I sit and take it because I can’t argue. 

“You wanna know why I wanted to show you the journal so bad?” I change the subject and when she perks up, bringing her head level with mine across the table, I know I’ve got her.

“You mean, besides wanting to share your story?”

“Yeah, besides that.”

“Of course I wanna know.”

“It wasn’t about filling in missing pieces of our story or even showing you how often you were a part of my story, Belle. At least not entirely. It was so that I could rid myself of all the negative stuff that came before. I wanted to make sure that the yes you gave me that day in the park came from the right place.”

“Okay, wait.” She says, pulling her hand back from mine and just like every time she’s pulled away from me in the past, taking a piece of her with me when she does.

I thought I was over that empty ass feeling I get in the pit of my stomach. The one that emanates from my heart when she pulls back.

Guess not.

“You showed me the journal, to what exactly? Sabotage yourself? Make me rethink my answer?”

Is that it? Is that really what I’m trying to do here?

I know I’m still struggling with the person I was and the one that I’ve become, but in showing her the journal, am I really trying to make her see that side of me because I’m expecting it to change things?

Do I really want her to walk away?

No!
My mind screams even before the thought is completely out and where I should feel settled by the way my heart argues so strongly with my head, I’m anything but.

Belle might have a point.

“When are you going to get it, Kay?” she asks, sighing heavily. “You could detail every evil thing you ever did to me, or all the sick details of what you lived through for years with Dean in that journal, and the answer I gave you in the park wouldn’t change. The best friend you were to me when we were kids, the so-called monster you think you became and then the man you grew into…I love them all. I’m marrying all of them because they’re you. And just in case you’re not hearing me,
you
are what I want. Who I love.”

Wow.

Way to have your ass handed to you, Walker.

“I do.”

“You do what?”

“I do detail things. Sam. The reason I brought him up. It’s because it’s not just that day on the court that I wrote about. He’s there, like you are. Always fucking there.”

“There how, Kay?”

“Like a tick I can’t get rid of. You being there, the reason for it, I get that. But him? It just doesn’t make any sense. I’m not in love with Samuel Hendricks.”

“You sure about that? If there’s something you need to tell me, you can. I mean, those freckles.” She sighs dreamily. “Those were some pretty freckles.”

Spitting the forkful of food back down on the plate as the sound of laughter fills the room, I finally release the breath I’d been holding after what I admitted and let her joke do what it was meant to.

Erase the tension altogether.

“I’ve got an idea.” She says after collecting herself.

“Shoot.”

“That tick you’re talking about. The one that like me, won’t seem to let you go. I think I know what it is and what it will take to get rid of it.”

“You know what this is?”

“Come on, Kay. It’s me. I know everything.” She smirks and I resist the urge to get up, grab her and make her pay in the only way I can for her cockiness.

Tickling.

“What is it?” I ask instead and her grin seems to grow even bigger. “Why is Sam on my mind so much when he’s been gone for years?”

“Guilt.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me, Kay. Just like you feel guilty about everything you did to me for those years before we reconnected, you do with him too. All of this, really. It’s all about guilt. Where everyone else has seemed to move past it, for whatever reason, you can’t.”

“And you have a way to relieve me of that?”

Smiling brightly, she nods. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Which is?”

Pushing her chair back from the table and standing, without so much as a glance back to the full plate of food that she hasn’t even gotten the chance to start, she turns to the bar, grabs the journal and tosses it down on the table between us.

“Get it out.”

“You want me to read? Now?”

“Yes, but no. What I want is to be able to sit down with my fiancé and enjoy dinner. It just so happens we can’t do that until he gets a certain freckle faced, basketball beating boy out of his head.”

No way.
I gotta make her see that it’s not like that. I can put Sam out of my head long enough for us to eat. The reason I brought him up to begin with was because of what I’d figured out while perusing the book earlier and I just wanted to see what she remembered.

And because you’re guilty. Can’t forget that.

“We can read after.”

“No, Kay, we can’t. Because you’re not the only one that’s selfish when it comes to attention. I want yours to be on me, and as long as Sam is in your head, that’s not going to happen. I didn’t really know how to share when I was a kid, other than the times I did it with you, so consider this another one of those times. I don’t want to share you. Especially not with the past.”

Chapter Six

July 21, 2005

My head hurts real bad.

I think I popped something in my brain when I was at the court. It’s the only thing that makes sense with the harsh thumping it’s been doing since I got home.

It’s all his fault.

Sammy Hendricks.

What a butthead.

Thinks he’s so great just because he distracted me and won.

Too bad he doesn’t know that the reason I knocked him to the cement wasn’t because he beat me in a game of horse. I don’t even care about that stupid game. It’s just basketball.

He got shoved because of what he did before he even won and what happened after.

Belle’s my best friend. Not his!

She’s supposed to hug me like that. Not him!

He’s just a stupid smelly kid with splotches all over his face.

A stupid kid that wouldn’t stop smiling and waving at her when we were playing.

He’s lucky I didn’t punch him in his stupid nose.

It’s hurting more now. Like I’m being stabbed in the skull.

Maybe I should have punched him.

I like Sammy. I thought he was my friend, but friends don’t do that.

They don’t focus on girls all the time.

My throat burns. I think I’m gonna be sick.

Why did she hug him like that?

Doesn’t she know it was just a stupid game and it doesn’t matter who won?