7
SEPTUM
Calla
He came.
I think I’m in shock as I linger near the house, trying to seem like I’m casually sitting at the little table on the side porch, like I’m not waiting with bated breath for them to re-emerge.
I can’t believe he’s here.
It’s been days since he took dad’s phone number, and I waited every day, but he didn’t call. I thought he wasn’t going to, that I’d imagined the chemistry, the connection. Maybe even that I’d imagined him.
But he re-appeared in my dreams, again and again. Smiling at me, staring at me, being with me. My subconscious is definitely trying to urge me toward him, maybe even toward living again. I don’t know.
All I know is that he’s here, out of the blue today, with his dark eyes and British accent and on a motorcycle, no less.
Kismet prevails.
My lungs feel fluttery, along with my heart, my stomach and my ovaries. All of it feels quivery, like a shaking ridiculous mess. It feels like it’s meant to happen, that I keep bumping into him, and dreaming about him, and now he’s here in my life.
It almost takes my breath away.
This feeling only grows more pronounced when the Carriage House door finally opens and my father and Dare step back out. They shake hands and my father immediately heads back toward the house, a small smile on his lips. Halfway across the lawns, he diverts his course and heads for me.
Stopping in front of me, he stares down.
“The last few weeks have been hard. Too hard. I’m not going to pretend to know what you’re going through, because our paths are different and we feel our loss in different ways. All I’m going to say is this. Be careful. You’re na?ve and innocent and your mother would know what to say right now, but I don’t. This the first time you’ve seemed interested in something in weeks. So all I’m going to say is be careful. Ok?”
I’m utterly speechless because my father’s expression is so knowing. It’s like he looked inside my head and saw the connection I feel toward Dare, the interest, the intrigue. He’s nervous for me, but yet he’s still willing to rent the Carriage House to Dare because he needs the money. And because he thinks Dare will distract me from my grief.
I nod. “Ok.”
He nods back, then walks into the house without another word. From behind me, I swear I can feel Finn staring at me, his gaze beating between my shoulder blades from the windows, but I shake it off. I’m not doing anything wrong.
Or am I?
Because as Dare looks up and meets my gaze, he smiles a mischievous smile that makes me think I am.
Dare me.
To do what? That question makes me tingly.
Dare slowly walks across the yard, and motions to the chair across from me. “Is that seat taken?”
I roll my eyes. This game again?
“No.”
He doesn’t ask, he just sits in it, stretching his long legs out and crossing them at the ankles and stares at me, like he belongs in that chair. I raise an eyebrow, but he’s still silent.
“So, you have a British accent, but your last name is DuBray. How does that work?” I finally ask, desperate to make him stop staring at me. His mouth twitches.
“Is that your third question?”
Frustration bubbles up in me, regardless of how cute things sound coming out of his mouth.
“Do I have to count every single question I ask? I’m only making polite conversation.”
He shakes his head, and smiles just a bit. “Fine. I’ll give you this one in the name of polite conversation. My father died when I was a baby and he was French. My mother was British, so we moved there. I’ve lived there my whole life, hence the accent.”
His beautiful, beautiful accent. I nod. “I’m sorry about your father.”
He shrugs. “He was a good man, but it was a long time ago.”
I itch to ask him how old he is, but I resist the urge. I can’t use another question already. Besides, I’d bet money that he’s twenty-one. Or so.
“Can you speak French?” I ask hopefully, because Lord have mercy that would be hot.
“Oui, mademoiselle,” he answers smoothly. “Un peu. A little bit.”
Be still my freaking heart. I stare at him, enthralled.
“So,” he finally says, changing the subject so very casually, as though he’s not the coolest, sexiest man alive. “How do you survive living in a funeral home? Have you ever seen a ghost?”
I ignore my pounding heart and raise an eyebrow. “I’ll take this question to mean that you did, in fact, have the balls to rent the carriage house?”
He chuckles, a raspy, husky sound that vibrates right into my belly.
“The fact that I have balls of steel is now unarguable,” he announces with a grin. “And I’m never nervous. Not even about ghosts. Also, since I gave you one answer, turnabout is fair play, right? So… have you ever seen a ghost?”
I’ve not seen one, but the ghost of my mother is here… present in every picture, pile of clothing and memory of this house. But of course I don’t say that.
I shrug instead. “I’ve never seen one. As far as I’m concerned, there is no such thing.”
“Really?” he answers, sounding doubtful. “That’s disappointing.”
“You’re going to be in the Carriage House anyway,” I tell him. “There aren’t any dead people out there. I mean, I assume you’re renting it, right?
Please be right.
He nods. “Yeah. Thanks for letting me know about it. It’s just what I’ve been looking for. A nice little space with gorgeous scenery.”
As he says the words gorgeous scenery, he stares straight at me, with purpose.
I’m his gorgeous scenery. I suddenly can’t breathe enough to even try to ask him why he wants to be in Astoria in the first place.
“Kismet,” I manage to eke out.
He nods. “Kismet.”
Dare stares at me, long and hard and dark, and I manage to take one deep breath, then another.
“So I’ll be seeing you,” he says, abruptly ending our conversation by standing up.
“When are you moving in?” I ask, suddenly panicky at the thought of him leaving. He brings with him an air of comfort, of excitement, of something charged and dangerous and new. I don’t want to let that go just yet.
He grins.
“Now. I brought my bag.”
His bag? I follow his gesture to see a duffel bag strapped to the back of his bike. One bag.
“That’s it?”
“I travel light,” he answers, heading back to the Carriage House. To his home, which is now only a hundred feet from my own.
“I guess you do,” I murmur. I watch the way his wide shoulders sway, and the way the breeze flutters his dark hair. He grabs his bag and ducks into his new home and I realize that I forgot to ask him something.
How long he’s staying.
***
Dinner feels different tonight, mainly because I know Dare is a hundred yards away.
I serve up spaghetti, which is the easiest meal on the planet to prepare, and garlic bread and corn. My father eats with gusto, while Finn, as usual, pushes things around on his plate. His meds make him lose his appetite.
We’re eating late, because my father worked late.
At the thought of his ‘work’, I can’t help but glance at his hands. I know he washed them several times when he came upstairs, but just the thought of what he’d been doing with them, what he’d been handling, grosses me out. I know that a scant hour or so ago, he was jamming a needle into a dead person’s neck and replacing all of their blood with chemical fluid.
And now he’s eating with those same hands.
It’s gross and it’s hard to swallow my blood-colored spaghetti sauce.
“So, how was your day?” I ask Finn, trying desperately to think of something else. I hadn’t seen him all afternoon. He shrugs.
“Good, I guess. I finished going through my closet. I’ve got a few boxes for Goodwill, dad.”
My dad nods, but I see something on Finn’s face, something flicker, and I widen my eyes. Don’t do it, I try and tell him telepathically. Don’t mention mom’s stuff. Don’t.
And he doesn’t. Instead, he looks at me.
“Actually, I have something I want to tell you guys.”
We both look at him, waiting. My breath catches because he looks so serious.
What the hell?
I see him swallow hard. Not a good sign.
“I’ve decided to go to MIT after all.”
My stomach plunges into my shoes and the silence in the room is heavy. I look at my dad and he looks at me, then we both stare at Finn while I try and remember how to speak so that I can argue.
“No,” I manage to say. “You can’t go alone. Finn.”
He feels the pleading in my eyes and looks away, at the walls, out the windows.
“Please don’t try and talk me out of it,” he tells us, but he’s mostly telling me. “Cal, I want to go with you. I do. But this is for the best. It’s something I have to do. I have to be alone, and figure out how to be alone. How to stay sane alone. Do you understand?”
No. A thousand times No. A millions times NO.
I’m shaking my head, but my father leans over and puts a hand on my shoulder. A warning to be silent. I stare at him helplessly.
“I think that’s good,” my father says. “Your mother and I…” his voice trails off like he’s in pain and he pauses for a second. “Your mother and I both thought that was for the best. Some separation so that you can grow independently. This is good.”
My dad sounds so proud. Like Finn is doing something heroic, like he’s saving a kid from a fire or moving a tortoise off a free-way. But it’s not heroic because he’s being self-destructive. I can see it in his eyes, and the way he holds his shoulders and won’t look at me.
Put me out of my misery.
The words in his journal are all I can see when I look at him.
But when he looks back into my eyes, his are filled with something else. Pleading.
Let me do this. Let me go.
Let him do what?
Learn to live alone? Shoulder things alone? I take a shaky breath and Finn still stares at me. And stares. And stares. And finally I break under the pale blue weight of it.
“Ok.”
The word comes out like an exhale.
Finn raises an eyebrow. “Ok? No kicking or screaming?”
I shake my head. “No. Not if you’re sure. I fought mom and dad over it, but I’m not going to fight you.”
I feel resigned and sad and panicky, and I already feel alone. But what can I do? It’s Finn’s choice. His gaze softens now.
“You’re not fighting me,” he points out. “You’re doing what I know needs to be done. And you know it too, Calla.”
No, I don’t. I know just the opposite, actually.
But again, what can I do? His mind is made up.
I don’t say anything, because I can’t. So I nod wordlessly instead.
I push my food around on my plate because when I try to swallow it now, it sticks in my throat like some sort of gelatinous sludge. Dad and Finn keep watching me, waiting for me to protest or argue or throw a fit. But I don’t. In spite of myself, I somehow remain calm, cool and very collected until the minute that I can excuse myself and make a break for it.
I rush outdoors, ignoring the fact that Finn calls out from behind me. I flee the yard, sucking in air as I run down the path leading to the beach. The trail looks like a silvery ribbon in the dusky moonlight, twisting and turning through the green wet underbrush and gleaming dark rocks.
The trees form a canopy over the path, and it’s unsettling here alone in the dark. The shadows give me goose-bumps, because I don’t know what they’re hiding. But even still, even with the moon slivering in through the tree tops and with the wind calling incoherent words through the pine needles, I’m still grateful to be here, rather than in my dining room.
I push myself forward, away from the destructive path that Finn seems to be insistent on, and towards the path to the ocean.
When I reach the beach, my heels sink into the damp sand, and I’m thankful that it’s low tide. My legs won’t get wet. I make it to the rocks within minutes, and just as I approach them, a shadow steps away from the boulders.
It’s tall and unexpected, because no one ever comes here.
It pauses, and I suck in a breath.
Then it steps into the moonlight and I realize who it is.
Dare.
Because he lives here now.
“Hey,” he greets me, his voice husky and soft and British. There is welcome in his eyes, and a sincere appreciation for how I look, a hungry expression, as his gaze flits over me. It makes the blood flush through my cheeks and my chest. He likes what he sees.
I swallow hard.
“Are you all right?” he asks, his head cocked and his eyes glinting in the moonlight. “I couldn’t help but notice that you ran down the mountain.”
God. I want to sink into the sand. I must look like a crazy person.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “I just… my brother upset me and I needed a minute to breathe.”
“And when you’re upset you run down to the beach in the dark? Alone?” Dare cocks his head again and I’m not sure if he’s judging me. I look away.
“No. I just… my favorite place is down here. I come here a lot. Not just when I’m upset.”
“Show me.” Dare’s voice is husky and soft, and it isn’t a request. “Your favorite place, I mean.”
I don’t hesitate. I don’t know why. Maybe because he’s been in my dreams so often, it’s like I know him already.
“Ok.”
I lead him along the beach another hundred feet or so, through the rocks and into a secluded inlet. Hidden by the night, a horse-shoe shaped cove waits for us in the dark.
“Watch where you step,” I tell him, although I know it’s hard to see. “This cove is covered in tidal pools. Actually, wait here for a minute.”
I reluctantly let go of his arm and venture away to find a few pieces of smallish driftwood. I lug it back to the cove and hunt for a canvas bag that I keep here for just these occasions. It’s not under the rock I usually keep it under, so I nose around for a while longer, until Dare calls out.
“Looking for this?” he holds it up. I nod, taking it from him.
“Yeah. Thanks.” Pulling the lighter from the bag, I set the wood ablaze.
It instantly fills the inlet with an ethereal violet light.
Dare stares at it, mesmerized. “It’s purple.”
“It’s the salt from the ocean,” I explain. “It makes the flames purple and blue. But don’t breathe in the smoke. It’s gorgeous, but toxic.”
“So look, don’t breathe?” Dare looks amused.
I nod. “Exactly. Instead of breathing the smoke, why don’t you turn around and look at the cove?”
He does as I ask and I can see on his face that he’s impressed. Small pools are scattered around us, with sea life in each one, plants and shells, crabs and seaweed. Everything seems magical, as the night glows violet.
“During high tide, these are covered up. In fact, you can’t get to the back of the cove. But during low tide, the water is sucked out and you can walk right in and look at everything the water covers up.”
“This is incredible,” Dare decides, walking around and examining everything. “No wonder it’s your favorite place.” He moves lithely, casually. Easily.
In fact, being with him is easy. As each moment passes, I feel less panicked and terrified about Finn, and more comfortable with Dare.
Even though he’s clearly sophisticated, he’s still as comfortable as my favorite pair of jeans. It’s like…he doesn’t judge me. He doesn’t ridicule me. He simply accepts things as I offer them and doesn’t push me for more.
While he kneels to examine a pool, I examine him. He’s wearing dark clothes tonight, dark jeans and a black hoodie. The graceful way he moves makes even a hoodie seem elegant. He’s graceful and refined, nothing like the boys were in school.
It’s refreshing. And knee-weakening.
He turns to me, his gaze dark and curious.
“How did your brother upset you?”
The panic comes back to me in a rush, and for a minute, I stare past Dare, out to sea.
“We’re twins. He wants to go to a different college, but I don’t agree. He needs me.”
Dare stares at me, trying to figure me out. I see the wheels turning. He opens his mouth, but I interrupt before he can say anything.
“You don’t understand,” I tell him preemptively. “My brother has an issue. A mental issue. He’s medicated, but he needs me.”
If I meant to scare him, and I don’t know if I did or didn’t, it doesn’t work. Because Dare just nods, unfazed. “That’s commendable,” he tells me. “That you care so much.”
My head snaps back. “Of course I do,” I snap. “Why wouldn’t I? He’s my brother.”
Dare smiles and holds up his hands. “Calm down,” he says soothingly. “I was just making an observation. Not everyone cares that much, family or not.”
I stare at him. “That’s a sad thought. Why are you out here anyway? In the dark? Alone?” I throw his words from earlier back at him in an effort to change the subject. He smiles in appreciation of my effort.
“Because I was bored. And I thought I could see the stars better from here.”
He’s right. We definitely can. Up on the mountain, the trees block them.
And he likes the stars? Is it possible for him to get more perfect?
He points upward.
“That’s Orion’s belt. And that over there…. That’s Andromeda. I don’t think we can see Perseus tonight.” He pauses and stares down at me. “Do you know their myth?”
His voice is calm and soothing and as I listen to him, I let myself drift away from my current problems and toward him, toward his dark eyes and full lips and long hands.
I nod, remembering what I’d learned about Andromeda last year in Astrology. “Yes. Andromeda’s mother insulted Poseidon, and she was condemned to die by a sea monster, but Perseus saved her and then married her.”
He nods, pleased by my answer. “Yes. And now they linger in the skies to remind young lovers everywhere of the merits of undying love.”
I snort. “Yeah. And then they had a corny movie made for them that managed to butcher several different Greek myths at once.”
Dare’s lip twitches. “Perhaps. But maybe we can overlook that due to the underlying message of eternal love.” His expression is droll and I can’t decide if he’s being serious or just trying to be ironic or something, because the irony is lost on you.
“That’s bullshit, you know,” I tell him, rolling the metaphorical dice. “Undying love, I mean. Nothing is undying. People fall out of love or their chemistry dies or maybe they even die themselves. Any way you look at it, love always dies eventually.”
I should know. I’m Funeral Home Girl. I see it all the time.
Dare looks down at me incredulously. “If you truly believe that, then you believe that death controls us, or maybe even circumstance. That’s depressing, Calla. We control ourselves.”
He seems truly bothered and I stare at him, at once nervous that I’ve disappointed him and certain that I’m right.
I am the one surrounded by it all the time, after all…by death and bad circumstances. I am the one whose mother just died and I know that the world continues to turn like nothing ever happened.
“I don’t necessarily believe that death controls us,” I amend carefully. “But you can’t argue that it wins in the long run. Every time. Because we all die, Dare. So death wins, not love.”
He snorts. “Tell that to Perseus and Andromeda. They’re immortal in the sky.”
I snort right back. “They’re also not real.”
Dare stares at me, willing me to see his point of view and I’m suddenly confused about how we started out talking about love and are now talking about death. Leave it to me to work that into conversation.
“I’m sorry,” I offer. “I guess it’s a hazard of living where I do. Death is always present.”
“Death is big,” Dare acknowledges. “But there are things bigger than that. If there’s not, then this is all for nothing. Life is worth nothing. Putting yourself out there, and taking chances and all that. All of that stuff is bollocks if it can just disappear in the end.”
I shrug and look away. “I’m sorry. I just believe in the right here and right now. That’s what we know and that’s what we can count on. And I don’t like to think about the end.”
Dare looks back at the sky, but he’s still pensive. “You seem rather pessimistic today, Calla-Lily.”
I swallow hard, because I do sound like a shrew. A jaded, ugly, bitter person.
“My mom died a few weeks ago,” I tell him and the words scrape my heart. “It’s still hard to talk about.”
He pauses and nods, as though everything makes sense now, as though he’s sorry because everyone always is. “Ah. I see. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to open a wound.”
I shake my head and look away because my eyes are watering and it’s embarrassing. Because God. Am I ever going to be able to think about it without crying?
“It’s ok. You didn’t know,” I answer. “And you’re right. I’m probably jaded. Being surrounded by death all the time… well, I guess it’s made me ugly.”
Dare studies me, hard, his eyes glittering in the light of the driftwood fire which reflects purple flames into his black bottomless depths.
“You’re not ugly,” he tells me, his voice oh-so-beautiful. “Not by a long, long shot.”
His words make me lose my train of thought. Because of the way he’s looking at me right now… like I’m beautiful, like he knows me, when I’m really just Calla and he doesn’t.
“I’m sorry I’m so emotional tonight,” I tell him. “I’m not usually like this. It’s just… there’s a lot going on.”
“I see that,” he answers quietly. “Is there anything I can do?”
You can call me Calla-Lily again. Because it seems intimate and familiar, and it makes me feel good. But I shake my head. “I wish. But no.”
He smiles. “Ok. Can I walk you back up to the house at least?”
My heart leaps for a second, but the idea of facing Finn right now isn’t one I enjoy. So I shake my head.
“I’m not really ready to go back yet,” I tell him regretfully. Because it’s the truth.
He shrugs. “Okay. I’ll wait.”
My heart thunders in my ears as I pretend that I’m not thrilled with that. We sit in the sand, so close that I can feel the warmth emanating from his body, so close that whenever he moves, his shoulder brushes mine. I shouldn’t get so much pleasure from that, from the accidental touches, from his warmth.
But I do.
We sit in such a way for an hour.
In silence.
Staring at the ocean and the sky and the stars.
No one has ever felt comfortable like this to me before, with silence that isn’t awkward. No one but Finn. Until now.
“Did you know that the Italian serial killer Leonarda Cianciulli was famous for turning her victims into tea cakes and serving them to guests?” I ask absently, still staring out at the water.
Dare doesn’t miss a beat. “No. Because that’s an odd thing to know.”
I feel the laughter bubbling up in me, threatening to erupt.
“I agree. It is.” It’s something my brother shared with me yesterday.
Dare smiles. “I’ll be sure to work that in at the next party I attend.”
I can’t help but smile now. “I’m sure it’ll go over well.”
He chuckles. “Well, it’s a conversation starter, for sure.”
I don’t move because I sort of want to stay here forever, even though the dampness of the sand has leached into my jeans and now my butt is wet.
But even though I don’t want this to end, the darkness is so black now that it swallows us up. It’s getting late.
I sigh.
“I’ve got to go back.”
“Okay,” Dare answers, his voice low in the night, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think I detected regret in it. Maybe he wants to stay here longer, too.
He helps me to my feet, and then keeps his hand on my elbow as we walk over the driftwood and through the tidal pools and up the trail. It’s that thing that real men do, the guiding a woman across the room thing. It’s gentlemanly and chivalrous and my ovaries might explode from it because it’s intimate and familiar and sexy.
When we get to the house, he removes his hand and I immediately feel the absence of his warmth.
He looks down at me, a thousand things in his eyes that I can’t define but want to.
“Good night, Calla. I hope you feel better now.”
“I do,” I murmur.
And as I pad up the stairs, I realize that I actually do.
For the first time in six weeks.