Wicked Games (23 page)

Like she needed to.

Like she didn’t already know.

She tried to squeeze out of the way of the crowd, but someone bumped her and sent her stumbling, almost
losing her balance altogether. When she looked up, she saw that same girl marching on ahead of her. Maybe it was Lilah, and maybe it wasn’t. She was wearing a baseball cap and it was hard for Jules to tell from behind.

The walls of the buildings seemed to be bending in toward Jules. She was surrounded by people and she could hardly breathe. But she pushed through, moving against the flow. She squeezed between parents and their children, broke through couples holding each other’s hands. She willed herself not to look over her shoulder, not to check and see if Lilah was following her.

She turned another corner and pressed through another crowd.

How far did she have to go before she lost the girl?

But the dizziness. The throbbing in her temple. Jules could only go so fast.

She stopped to steady herself. She leaned her arm against a wall and took as much oxygen as she could into her lungs.

And that’s when someone placed her hand on Jules’s shoulder and she knew, she just knew, that if she acted fast, she might catch Lilah and put an end to this, finally.

Jules shook the
hand off her shoulder. She spun around to face the girl. She swung, fighting Lilah off, clawing and batting at her.

But it wasn’t Lilah. It was someone else. A girl with the same bland hair, with the same dowdy fashion sense, but not Lilah.

“Jesus, calm down,” she said, slightly irritated. Then she held her hand out and there in her palm was Jules’s cell phone. “You dropped this.”

As the reality of the moment sunk in and Jules realized how wrong she was—how crazy she was being—Jules felt trapped. The shock and shame of this was too much for her to take. She felt like she was having a heart
attack. Or a stroke. Or . . . anyway, she couldn’t breathe. She was hyperventilating. She could gulp the air down, but she couldn’t get it to come back out. She got weak at the knees. She slid down the wall she’d wedged herself against, and squatted there, staring with tunnel vision, straight ahead, seeing nothing, just her own humiliation.

“I just wanted to make sure you got it back. Here.” The girl pressed the phone into Jules’s hand. “It’s not like I was trying to scare you or whatever,” she said. “I just figured you’d want it.”

Jules had managed to get her breathing back under control, but she was too ashamed to look at the girl. “You didn’t scare me,” she mumbled. “I . . . It’s been a rough day.”

The girl knelt next to Jules, concerned. “Do you need—”

“Jules!” It was Carter. He’d found her. Thank God. “I went to the address you texted me but—whoa. Are you okay?”

She just shook her head. Seeing him here now, his face filled with worry, made her even angrier at herself. This was not the kind of person she wanted to be.

Turning to the girl, Carter said, “Thanks. You’re a lifesaver. She’s a little out of sorts today.”

“It was nothing,” the girl said, pursing her face in sympathy.

She ducked back into the crowd and Carter crouched next to Jules.

“What happened?” he asked.

She didn’t answer at first. She was still seized with shame.

“Nothing,” she said finally. “It’s stupid.”

He took her hand in his. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and guided her head toward his shoulder, holding her tight. They sat like that for a while, huddled under the potted plant against the brick wall as the mob of tourists streamed past, an unending march of legs stepping around them.

“I stopped to look at the awning of this building back there,” said Jules. “And then . . .” She told him her story. How she lost him in the crowd. The panic she felt. The walking in circles as she searched for him. “Where did you go?” she said. “It was like all of a sudden you were gone.”

“I was searching for you,” he said. “I must have not noticed you’d stopped at first, and then I couldn’t find you. We must have been walking in circles around each other.”

“And . . .” She shuddered. “I keep seeing Lilah everywhere. I can’t stop. It’s stupid. I’m sure it’s just the concussion, but—”

“It’s not stupid,” Carter said. “She put you through
hell. But listen to me, Jules. She can’t hurt you. I won’t let her.”

She nuzzled her head against his shoulder. It was nice to know he cared, to see his conviction and hear his valiant pledges.

“Come on, let’s go home,” he said.

“What about the Riverwalk?”

“Not tonight. Let’s take it easy. Don’t you think? Until you shake off that concussion, anyway?”

Jules knew he was right, but it stung to admit her limitations. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I ruined everything.”

“No,” Carter said, standing and pulling her up. “You didn’t ruin anything. I’m just thinking—hot tub?” A mischievous half smile floated across his face. “Whatta ya think?”

Carter spotted Jules
as she climbed the ladder up to the roof, and he adjusted the temperature and bubbles in the hot tub so that the water was just warm enough, just massaging enough, for her to feel like she was at a spa designed to fulfill her every wish. He set his iPod on the surround-sound speaker system, and conscious of the headache a bass-heavy rap beat might cause her in her current state, cued up the calming new-agey music that her mother played in the crystal shop. He slid in behind her and gave her a back rub, and they gazed out at the rooftops and the wide lanes and treetops of Oglethorpe Square below them.

It didn’t take long for Carter’s hands to slide from
Jules’s shoulders, down her long back and around to her stomach, her breasts, a full-body massage that made her tremble with pleasure. Giving to her. Asking nothing in return.

That night he held her while he slept. He didn’t let go once. He nuzzled his face into the base of her neck, spooned her, and wrapped his body over hers like a shield. She really was safe here with him. She could feel it. And to her surprise, she slept like a baby.

By morning, her headache had receded a bit. She unlaced herself from his arms and turned on the bed, propped herself on an elbow, and gazed at his sleeping face. She could see the small child he used to be, and also, the old man he would one day become in the twist of his mouth and the crease of his eye. She told herself to remember this quiet, peaceful comfort. Despite the complications, this being alone with him here in Savannah was a precious experience. She had to hold on to it.

When Carter was awake, he told her that the plan had changed. They’d take it easy today. Create an optimum condition for her to recover. Then they could go out on the boat tomorrow, if they wanted. The important thing was that she felt better.

So, they lounged around the house in their pajamas, playing Scrabble and doing puzzles and gorging on streamed episodes of
Glee
(a show she knew Carter didn’t find all that exciting, but that she loved, and that
she knew he was pretending to enjoy just to please her, just to make sure she understood that he was here to provide whatever her heart desired).

Throughout the day, Carter did everything he could to keep Jules from having to exert herself. He experimented with cooking—something he knew nothing about—serving up burnt grilled cheese for lunch, gummy pasta with sauce from the can for dinner. He hovered over her so lovingly that she felt both pampered and embarrassed. It was like she was one of the priceless sculptures his father collected, mounted under glass, there to be seen and cooed over but never touched, never played with, for fear that she might break.

By evening, when she was feeling fine—totally recovered, by her own ad-hoc diagnosis—she finally had to say to him, “Carter, it’s okay. It’s just a concussion. I’m going to survive.”

“I know,” he said, but the look on his face said that maybe he didn’t. He was sitting on an ottoman, giving her the whole kidney-shaped couch, and they had a
Twilight
movie going on the big-screen TV.

“You’ll see. By tomorrow, I’ll be fine.”

This got a smile from Carter, but he still seemed concerned.

“Really, Carter,” she said.
“Hakuna matata.”
She wobbled her hand in front of her like a surfer, her thumb and pinky outstretched. “It means
no worries
.”

“Yeah. I’m just not used to that,” he said. “With Lilah there was always something to worry about.”

Jules sat up. Now she feared she’d created a problem where one hadn’t existed.

“Hey, come here.” She tugged softly at his shirt, and he leaned toward her and she cradled his head in her hands and kissed him slowly, sensually. “I know you love me. I’m not going to forget it. Just treat me normal, you know what I mean?”

“M-mm. Okay. I can try to do that.” He kissed her more deeply. “How’s this?” He pressed his body forward until they both fell back on the couch, and he pressed himself against her and slid his hand under her shirt.

“Better,” she said. She kissed him again. “Much, much better.”

“Oh good,” he whispered. He slid her shirt up and ran his hands up and down her body, kissing her stomach, her rib cage, her breasts.

“I’ve been so worried, Lilah. You don’t even know.”

Jules froze. Had she heard that right? She was sure she had. Her lips tightened and her mouth clamped shut and her body went rigid.

“Get off me,” she said.

“What happened? What’s wrong?”

“I said get off me.”

Carter straightened up and retreated to the ottoman.
“Okay, okay. What’s wrong, Jules?” he said.

She made him work for her forgiveness. She stared at the screen, watched as the werewolves there pranced through the woods toward their showdown with the vampires.

Finally, she said, “You really don’t know?”

He was mystified, clearly, but that just made it worse.

“You really want Lilah? Give her another shout. She’s probably here in the house somewhere.”

She watched as he put the pieces together, his face slowly dropping with each new tick of mortification.

“Did I—”

“Oh, so, now you’re going to pretend that you didn’t realize it.”

“Fuck. Really?”

Now he was up, nervously running his hand through his hair, staring at her, repelled by what he saw in her expression and how it reflected on him.

“I can’t believe I did that. I’m sorry. I’m . . . my God, Jules, I’m sorry.”

He came for her and tried to take her hand but she refused to give it to him.

“I can explain,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s the thing about guys. They can always explain.”

“No, really, I can. We were just talking about her,”
he said. “She was in my mind because I was thinking about all the ways that you’re not like her.” Jules waited for the complicating
but
she knew was coming. “And then, okay. She used to come up here sometimes with me. Okay, once. Just one time. But—”

“Just one time, huh?”

“You have to believe me, Jules. I wish I’d met you freshman year instead of her. You don’t know how badly I wish that.”

She did believe him. Of course he was telling the truth. But still. “I wish that, too. My life would be a whole lot easier if you’d never met her. I swear to God, Carter.”

As soon as these words came out of her mouth, Jules regretted them.

She retreated into the movie again, gazing at the screen, not really seeing or hearing what was happening there, just using it as a way to avoid Carter.

“It won’t happen again, I swear to God, Jules.”

She stared at him. The whole thing made her feel insecure and rejected, and she absolutely hated that. The dreamy perfection of the day had been bitterly destroyed with just one word.

“I’m sure you didn’t mean it,” she said. “I understand. It’s just . . . after everything that’s happened in the past couple days . . . I need some space.”

His face flushed red.

Jules let him take her hand and kiss it.

“I’m still going to sleep in the other room tonight. I just . . . I need to get my head together.”

She sadly gazed at him one more time and walked slowly out of the room.

Carterless, shut up
by herself in the bedroom with the Degas hanging on the wall, Jules turned in the bed and turned again.

The
ticktock, ticktock
of the grandfather clock hammered at her brain.

She kicked at the sheet. She pulled it up to her chin and then threw it off again. She punched at the pillow and buried her head in it.

It was pointless. She gave up even trying to sleep.

The seconds seemed to last forever. The room seemed huge, full of nooks and crannies where Lilah could be hiding. The open French window let out creaks and moans when the wind hit it—the glass rattled in the
panes. A cat mewled somewhere outside.

Every time Jules closed her eyes, the creeping, trickling sensation, like something running its sharpened fingernails down her spine, returned. Her senses were alert, speeding, delirious, letting too much in. The short huff of someone breathing in the corner. That smell—that horrendous smell—that Lilah had placed in her locker. The person in the room would take a step toward the bed, stop, listen, step again.

Then she’d pop her eyes back open and check the time and see that half an hour or so had passed. The feeling that Lilah was in the room watching her would be gone. Just a dream, a dream that wouldn’t leave her alone.

She stared at the billowing canopy over the bed, watched it ripple like the ocean as the wind blew across it. She could track the ripples from one end to the other. It should have relaxed her, but it just made her more anxious.

The sensation of being watched returned.

She was sure of it this time. She could see the contours of a human shape by the window. She could see the shadow, long and ghostly, moving slowly across the canopy above her.

Closer.

Closer.

The shadow stretched across the entire canopy, a
hulking specter peering down on her.

The sounds that had been keeping her awake before had vanished. The smell. The wind had stopped blowing. She was in a void—there was nothing there but her and Lilah, creeping closer.