Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Lake
Stupid.
This conversation, plunging headfirst into this pool of delusion.
And…yet, I’m standing at the end of the diving board, ready and willing to launch myself off.
I look over at Nova, at those pine needle green eyes, at the wariness in those emerald depths, at the casual smile that does nothing to belie the tension in her frame.
She’s expecting me to shut her down.
I expect it too.
So when the opposite comes out of my mouth, I almost don’t know what to do with myself.
“It’s the pins,” I say. “But it’s also you.”
Her head tilts to the side, brows drawing together.
“There’s something about you, something that’s hidden below the surface, and it’s like if I just wait long enough, it’ll emerge and”—God, I sound like an idiot—“I just know it will be beautiful.”
She inhales so sharply I’m surprised she doesn’t choke. “Lake,” she whispers, lips quivering before she turns her head away. “I-I—” A breath before she turns back, eyes glimmering with tears. “I don’t think anyone has ever said anything so nice to me.”
I hate that for her.
I hate that I’ve taken away the mischievous side, made her go serious.
I hate that she has fucking tears in her eyes.
“Don’t cry,” I say gruffly, because my heart is doing that thing again, and my throat is tight and I fucking hate that she has tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s not you,” she whispers. “It’s also”—she reaches into the front pocket of her hoodie, pulls out something blue and black—the same something blue and black she retrieved from Steve (literally from Steve) a few days ago—“this.”
She opens her palm and I get my first full glimpse of that quarter-sized item.
“I bought this for my grandmother.” A deep breath.
“She’s the one who found my sister and I in foster care, who brought us to California after our parents left us.
They’d cut contact and she didn’t know my parents abandoned us until—” A shake of her head.
“It doesn’t matter, really. She didn’t know at first and when she found out, she got us out.
We had nothing, fucking nothing during the years we lived with her.
Just love and food and a safe place to sleep.
I—” She closes her eyes, exhales. “She loved butterflies, and I worked one summer to be able to buy this for her. She—”
A tear slides down her cheek and I wipe it away.
“She,” Nova says again, “wore it every day until she passed away. That’s why I was so upset when Steve tried to eat it.
” She touches the center of the butterfly.
“It’s a little worse for wear and it’s missing one of the diamonds, but it’s my memory of the one person in my life who was always there for me. ”
I wrap my arms around her as she closes her fingers around the charm.
“It’s silly,” she says, “just a necklace a kid bought for her grandma. But when she left it for me, she wrote in her will that she wanted me to emerge from my cocoon like a butterfly, that she wanted the world to see me as the beautiful person I am.”
“And have you?”
Her eyes slide away. “When she died, I left. I followed the wind, traveled all over the world taking pictures. I did so many things I never dreamed were possible, met people, visited places I never could have imagined. I lived a big and exciting life doing what I love.”
That’s a lot.
And I want to know every detail of those exciting times. Later. Because I feel like there’s more to the story.
“But did you let the world see you?”
She looks away. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit.”
She looks back, eyes flashing. “It’s not,” she snaps.
I just lift my brows.
A long, tense silence before she exhales.
“Fine. You’re smart enough to get that I didn’t.
I lived big and did exciting things, but I spent most of the time thinking about what was next instead of enjoying where I was.
I want to do better. I want to be different.
Especially because I left, was gone for so long that my sister became… ” She trails off, eyes skating away.
I cup her jaw, force her to meet my gaze. “You are not responsible for the person your sister has become.”
Nova stills. “Why do you sound like you have personal experience with that?”
I inhale, know this is put up or shut up time.
Know that if I pull back now, I might as well keep doing it. Because this woman has cracked open a door into her heart and mind and if I don’t push through, she’ll shut it, lock it tight.
And she might never open it again.
“My mom is…difficult,” I say.
Nova shifts a little closer, rests her palm on my thigh. “How so?”
“She had a…mental break—or that’s how they described it to me when I got old enough to ask why she is the way she is,” I say.
“She was excited about being pregnant, but the reality of it, of labor and delivery and all the things that came after.” I shake my head, bite back a sigh.
“She didn’t take it well, was hospitalized for a while, and she’s always been…
fragile and prone to hysterics and she’s so focused on herself and her problems that she forgets she’s a mom sometimes. ”
Most of the time.
All of the time.
She’s a mess.
A complication that brings too much drama into my life.
And, worse, she’s an emotional vampire because unless I engage with her bullshit, talk her down from the edge, she spirals.
And then I’m left picking up the pieces.
“That must be really hard.”
“She does her best,” I hedge.
“I wasn’t insinuating she doesn’t, but”—Nova squeezes my thigh—“it still must be hard for you.”
I think of the yelling. The throwing things. The accusations of me never seeing her.
I think of the way she tore my room apart looking for the girl I was supposedly hiding there when I was in high school.
I think of the broken plates and my dad getting fed up, working longer hours, staying away as much as possible.
Because he couldn’t handle it.
Leaving it for me to deal with because I wasn’t going to leave it to my siblings—who, smartly, moved out at their first opportunity and cut contact to almost nil.
“Yeah,” I say. “It was difficult.”
“Was? Or is?”
I think of the calls I’ve been ignoring, the texts that have been sending my cell vibrating on the regular, the voicemails she’s left often enough that I know I’ll just have to clear the entire inbox without listening to any of them. “Is,” I mutter.
Her fingers tighten around my thigh again, and then she’s moving closer, crawling over me, wrapping me in a sort of spider monkey type hug. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs.
“Don’t apologize.”
She just squeezes me again, kisses my throat. “I’m still sorry.”
“Butterfly,” I rasp, winding my fingers into her hair.
“Shh,” she orders softly. “I’m being nice for once.”
She’s nice—more than nice—but I like her where she is, so I just shut up, wrap my arms around her, and inhale her spicy cinnamon scent.
“Was she—” Nova breaks off, shakes her head.
“What?” I ask, stroking a hand down her back.
“I was going to ask…” She hesitates, voice dropping. “If she was the one who threw the knives.”
My heart pulses and I bury my face in her hair. “No, butterfly. She wasn’t. I’m…good at picking women who act like her, unfortunately.”
She tenses.
I stroke my palm up and down her back. “Not you,” I reassure her. “You’re…peaceful, I guess. Easy. It’s relaxing being with you.”
She pushes up and I watch as her face does that thing again, goes soft and warm, which means that my heart does its thing again, convulsing in my chest—or maybe, it rolls over, exposes its vulnerable underbelly, especially when she deliberately lightens the conversation after we’ve shared all this heavy.
“I mean,” she says. “I may not be the type to throw a knife, but I did drive my car into a snowbank and stab myself with pushpins, so…”
I tug a strand of her hair. “So long as you’re not stabbing me.”
A gasp. “Rude.”
I grin, steal a kiss, sliding my hand down, dipping it beneath the waistband of her sweats, cupping that lush ass. “I think you like it when I’m rude.”
I stroke a finger lower.
Dip it inside.
A gasp, her head falling back. “This is you rude?” she teases, but it’s more than a little breathless.
“Yup,” I say, stroking slowly through her slick heat. “It sure is.”
“Okay.” She rolls to her back, dislodging my hand, but she also shoves her pants down and spreads her legs, allowing me full access. A wave of her hand as she orders, “Commence with the being rude.”
I chuckle.
But I follow that order.
To the letter.