Chapter 10 – Dakota
WILL YOU BE MY LIGHT IN THE DARK?
DAKOTA
Reese was frowning down at his paper, and I wished we weren’t in class right now so I could actually talk to him.
He was way more upset about the other day than I’d originally thought he’d be, but I didn’t blame him at all. I’d been an absolute bastard to him.
I’d wanted to run after him, had regretted my words instantly, but…they’d just burst out of me.
Everett was right there. I had to get Reese away from us.
I was being eaten alive by guilt.
I didn’t like it. It was like worms festering in my rotten core; a squirming, filthy, awful sensation that wriggled in the pit of my stomach.
I wanted to down a bottle of acid and dissolve it.
I shouldn’t have spoken to him that way. Even as the words were ripped from my chest, I knew better than to let them fly so easily. But I couldn’t stop them.
After he’d left, I tried to convince myself that it was better this way. If Everett thought for even a second that I had any soft feelings toward Reese, he’d exploit that like the weakness it was.
He’d hurt Reese just to hurt me.
When Val was seven, he’d gotten really into sewing and made me a quilt. I loved that thing, dragged it around the manor with me everywhere.
Everett took it one day when I was with my violin instructor.
He cut it to pieces.
I’d cried for two days straight, tried to tell Evelyn what he’d done, and she told me I wasn’t thinking right. That her sweet Everett would never do something like that. She said the dog must have torn it up.
We didn’t have a dog.
I remember that being one of the first times I’d noticed her delusions. She often thought things that weren’t true and saw things that weren’t there.
Albert blamed it on the death of Everett’s twin, that it had broken something in her mind, and told me to be patient with her.
I’d confronted Everett about destroying that quilt, and he’d laughed in my face while denying it.
But his eyes never lied.
He destroyed everything I liked; stuffed animals, books, my violins. I learned not to show any kind of attachment to anything when I was around him.
I’d learned to stop caring about things. First, to stop showing I cared. And then I actually did stop caring.
Val was untouchable as our brother. Albert would have Everett’s head if he did anything to him. I was allowed to care about Val.
I was cursing myself for not having seen Reese the other day. He’d come barreling toward us out of nowhere like the ferocious little tiger cub he was. And why? To help me?
No one had ever come to my defense before. But I didn’t want him to do that. It was too dangerous—for the both of us.
I would always be the first to admit that I wasn’t very good with people, but I’d crossed a line, I’d been too harsh, and I needed to make this better.
I didn’t want him to be upset with me. I didn’t want him to be upset, period.
And how embarrassing that he had to find out about me not being able to read sheet music. I mean, there was no way he wouldn’t, but I’d hoped to explain it to him later.
I wasn’t sure why I cared so much about what he thought of me, but…I did.
I’d never cared before if people knew or not. I didn’t consider it a weakness or a flaw and it didn’t affect my ability to play. But for some reason, I’d been anxious about how he’d react. If he’d think less of me.
Who was I kidding, he already hated me, so what did it matter?
I had to straighten things out with him. I was gonna do that when class ended, but as soon as Professor Hawkins dismissed us, he picked up his stuff and raced from the room.
I followed him into the hall, keeping my eyes trained on the back of his head.
His hair looked fluffy and soft. I knew exactly how soft it was and I wanted to touch it, to slide those silky strands through my fingers, to rub my face against them.
I caught up to him halfway down the hall and bumped my arm lightly into his shoulder. “Wanna work on our project? Are you done for the day?”
“Sorry, I’m really busy today.” He picked up his pace.
“That’s alright, we can just do it another day. Hey, can I talk to you for a second?” I set my hand on his arm, and he stopped walking.
He looked up at me with wariness in his gorgeous eyes. “What’s up? I really have to go, Dakota, so if you could…” Reese’s eyes shifted to something behind me, then widened.
He looked around in a panic, his gaze landing on a door that was slightly ajar behind him. He grabbed my arm and opened it, dragging me inside and slamming it shut.
“What are you doing?” I asked, simultaneously confused and amused. He was still clutching my arm, his fingers digging into my skin like little points of pain. Someone spoke just outside the door, and I tilted my head.
I knew that voice.
“Reese, what—”
A clammy palm was pressed over my mouth.
“Shut up,” he whispered. His chest brushed against mine, and when I went to take a step back, my foot hit something that rattled against the wall behind me. Reese let go of my arm and grabbed my waist, squeezing as he pulled me toward him. “Don’t move!”
The panic in his voice was jarring, and I wanted to put him at ease but an intense need for some light took over and I reached out in the dark, trying to find a light switch.
My arm bumped against something to my right, and it clattered noisily.
The space was so cramped that I wondered if we were in some kind of supply closet.
A heavy pressure started to build in my chest, and there was an anxious buzzing under my skin. A sliver of light spilled from the crack under the door, illuminating Reese’s dirty sneakers that were toe-to-toe with my boots.
“Reese, why are we—”
He pressed his hand even harder against my mouth.
He was trembling. Or was I trembling? Was it hot in here?
The voice on the other side of the door grew louder, and I finally recognized it.
Fucking Albert.
Was that why Reese had flipped out? But why? Was he afraid of Albert?
A burning sensation flared in my stomach and spread through me like fire at the same time a ringing started in my ears.
The air in here felt too thin all of a sudden, so I focused on Reese’s hand over my mouth to try and stop the flood of anger and fear and whatever else it was that was making me feel like I was being crushed.
His hand smelled like paper and soap, and the urge to lick it like I had the other night drowned everything else out for a moment.
I slid my tongue past my lips and touched it to his skin. He made a weird sound, like he was choking, then pulled his hand away and shoved me in the chest.
“Stop doing that!” he whisper-yelled. I lost my balance and grabbed onto his arms as I crashed into a shelving unit behind me. Reese fell into me as I slid down to my ass.
The small sliver of light under the door was bringing up memories from a long time ago. Things I’d buried deep and tried to forget, things I never wanted to experience again.
“Reese,” I whispered, gripping his arms. I was shaking, my body humming with a panic I didn’t understand. My breaths came in shallow, ragged pants, my lungs were on fire, and I felt dizzy, like I might pass out.
Albert’s voice sounded right outside the door, and Reese froze on top of me when Albert said, “I’ll need to ask him. No, it won’t be an issue. Fine.”
His footsteps were loud—he was wearing those stupid fucking wingtips I hated—then gradually faded as he walked away.
“You’re hurting me,” Reese said softly. He tried to push off my chest and stand, but I was holding onto him so tightly he couldn’t move. “Dakota?”
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to push away the panic.
“Whoa, hey…why are you breathing like that? What’s wrong with you? Do you have asthma?”
“Open the door,” I gritted out. “I can’t breathe, open the fucking door—”
“Okay! Alright, I’ll open the door, but you have to let go of me.” He tugged his arms out of my grasp, and I reluctantly let go of him. As soon as he wasn’t touching me, the fear surged and wrapped itself around me, constricting my chest and pricking like sharp needles along every nerve ending.
“Fuck,” he muttered. Something banged on the floor as he shifted around, and then there was the sound of the doorknob rattling.
But the door didn’t open.
“No,” Reese whispered. He started making frustrated little noises as he jiggled the handle again and again.
I laughed, because of course. Were we seriously locked in here? With no oxygen?
“Why are you laughing?” he asked, his voice quivering with fear. “I can’t—it won’t—”
Was I laughing? My face was wet, and I licked the tears from my lips when they started coming faster.
I never cried. What the fuck was happening to me?
I gasped for breath, every inhale a desperate wheeze. My muscles were taut with tension, locking up when I tried to move.
Was I dying? Was this what it felt like to—
“Dakota,” Reese said. He sounded faraway, like a distant echo. “Dakota!” Two hands framed my face, and I immediately reached up and clung to his wrists as his touch stifled some of the rising panic. “Shit, are you crying?” His thumbs moved across my cheeks, sliding through the tears.
I tried to find his eyes in the dark, to ground myself with green, gold, and brown. I couldn’t, I couldn’t see his face at all, could only feel his hands—
“Can you touch me,” I panted. My heart was about to explode. “Please. Please, Reese, I don’t know what’s—”
“I am touching you. Are you having an asthma attack?”
“Touch me more.”
Reese actually growled. “If you’re fucking with me, Dakota—”
“I’m not fucking with you! I don’t know what’s happening but I’m fucking scared. Please, Reese.”
“Alright! Okay,” he said quietly. “Just—hold on, let me get this crap off my back.” There was the sound of cloth sliding together as he took off his backpack and violin, and then he moved closer to me and started awkwardly brushing my hair back. I let out a shaky, relieved exhale.
Better.