A Breath of Eyre (33 page)
Authors: Eve Marie Mont
Emma’s adventures continue in
A Touch of Scarlet,
by Eve Marie Mont.
A Touch of Scarlet,
by Eve Marie Mont.
Emma Townsend thought she had put the terrifying events of her sophomore year behind her—the lightning strike, the coma, the time she lost to a fantasy world in which she imagined she was Jane Eyre. But now she’s living in the real world again—dating a gorgeous Coast Guard recruit, excelling in her classes, and making new friends at school. But when Emma makes a serious error in judgment, her relationships with both her boyfriend and her roommate begin to unravel, leaving her scorned and alone. As her isolation mounts, Emma lapses into her dreams once again, this time entering the world of Hester Prynne and
The Scarlet Letter
. And with her dreams come destructive impulses that threaten to alienate her from the people she loves most. Because each time Emma returns from Hester’s world, she is increasingly torn between remaining the good girl she’s always been and becoming the rebellious woman she longs to be.
The Scarlet Letter
. And with her dreams come destructive impulses that threaten to alienate her from the people she loves most. Because each time Emma returns from Hester’s world, she is increasingly torn between remaining the good girl she’s always been and becoming the rebellious woman she longs to be.
Read on for a special excerpt and, like Emma, get lost in a good book ... literally!
W
e drove to the lighthouse and parked along the beach road, tumbling out of the Jeep into a dusky violet night. The lighthouse sat on a crest of the beach a few hundred yards away, so we held hands as we walked the dune path to the lighthouse’s base. A bronze placard showed the image of a Labrador retriever named Rex who had guarded the lighthouse for fourteen years, greeting visitors, providing companionship for the lighthouse keeper, and chasing off ghosts. This part of the Massachusetts Bay was known for being treacherous; there were dozens of tales of sailors and keepers who had lost their lives along this coast and still haunted the dunes where we stood. And nine years ago, my mother had killed herself on her birthday by walking into the ocean.
e drove to the lighthouse and parked along the beach road, tumbling out of the Jeep into a dusky violet night. The lighthouse sat on a crest of the beach a few hundred yards away, so we held hands as we walked the dune path to the lighthouse’s base. A bronze placard showed the image of a Labrador retriever named Rex who had guarded the lighthouse for fourteen years, greeting visitors, providing companionship for the lighthouse keeper, and chasing off ghosts. This part of the Massachusetts Bay was known for being treacherous; there were dozens of tales of sailors and keepers who had lost their lives along this coast and still haunted the dunes where we stood. And nine years ago, my mother had killed herself on her birthday by walking into the ocean.
I shivered, pushing away the memory of my mother as we walked out onto the beach. The surf was pounding violently on the sand, moaning and hissing like a living creature. Coming to the lighthouse had sounded romantic when Gray suggested it, but now that we were here, I felt unsettled. Trying to quell my unease, I turned to face Gray, who was pulling something from his pocket.
He gazed at me sweetly. “Here,” he said, handing me a small box. I glanced up at him eagerly and opened the clamshell lid. “I know you always wear your mother’s dragonfly,” he said nervously, “but I wanted you to wear a part of me, too.”
I lifted up the necklace, a dog tag hanging from a silver chain. Gray always wore his uncle’s dog tags, but I knew him well enough to know he’d never give those up, not even to give them to me. I brought the necklace closer and inspected the tag, which was etched with the small image of a scorpion.
“It’s your zodiac sign,” I said.
“Look at the other side.”
I turned it over and read the inscription out loud: “‘To Emma, the only antidote for my sting.’” Tears welled in my eyes before I could stop them.
“I’m wearing yours, too,” he said, pulling his collar away to reveal a dog tag he’d added to his chain, this one showing the profile of a woman with wings.
“The Virgo angel,” I said.
“I was hoping you’d be my guardian angel while I’m away.”
This made me lose it completely, and then I was sobbing and sniffling into his shirt in a completely undignified manner. Gray pulled me into a hug, and I melted into him, inhaling the comforting scent of his skin mixed with cologne and laundry detergent. Gray’s particular smell had always reminded me of the ocean, which was somehow fitting now that he had decided to spend the rest of his life on it.
“You okay?” he said after I’d finished my cry, wiping the last tears from my cheeks with his sleeve. Dizzy with how much I wanted him, I studied his downturned eyes and stubbled jaw.
He didn’t even pause, he just cupped my face in his hands and brought his lips down on mine in that way that never failed to render me senseless. How could two pairs of lips fit together so perfectly, feel so sublime locked together that it made you forget where you were? His hands followed the contours of my summer dress, pausing at my hips, then gripping my waist.
I practically threw him onto the ground, not caring at all about the hard sand jabbing into my knees or the cold breeze creeping up my bare legs. Before I knew it, we’d switched places, and my dress was hitched up around my waist, Gray’s body shifting on top of mine—all rock-hard 170 pounds of him. I tore at his shirt, trying to undo the buttons while he waited impatiently. If either of us had said a word, the moment might have dissolved, so I kept quiet and focused on his last button, pulling his shirt apart to reveal toned abs above faded jeans. A solar flare shot up from my core, radiating heat over every part of my body.
I traced the lines and curves of his chest and stomach as he arched above me. My body hummed with electricity. The button of his jeans was right beneath my fingertips. Just one more thing to unfasten, and there would be no holding back.
Part of me wanted to go for it—to lose myself in this moment and not think about tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. But the smallest reminder that a new day was coming—a day without Gray—paralyzed me.
And then he was moving off me and I was turning away from him, overcome with emotion, adrenaline, and a shrieking sense of doom. My breath was thick in my throat, my face and hair soaked with sweat and sea air. Gray collapsed onto the sand behind me, wrapping his arms around me and hugging me so tightly it hurt. His body was hard against my back.
“We don’t have to do anything just because it’s the last night,” he said.
“I know.”
“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to. Not ever.”
I turned around to face him now, coming apart at the sight of his eyes, filled with concern. “Believe me, Gray, I want to. I just—”
“You don’t have to explain. This has been a crazy day. I want the moment to be right.”
I burrowed into his embrace, and we lay like that for a small eternity. With my ear pressed to his chest, I waited until our heartbeats synchronized, then pulled away, not wanting to feel mine rush past his. Finally, I propped myself up on an elbow, and he did the same, smiling a sexy grin. “It was fun, though, right?” he said.
“God, yeah.”
His grin faded slowly, his eyebrows knitting together. “I want it to be me,” he said.
“What?”
His eyes were closed, and when he opened them, they were glistening. “When the time is right, I want it to be me.”
I laughed nervously. “What, you think I’m going to run off and have sex with the first guy who comes along?”
“No. It’s just, we’re going to be apart for a while, and the thought of some other guy being there for you when I can’t be ... it makes me sick.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“I’m just saying, don’t do something with someone else because you miss me, you know? I want to be the first. Your first.”
His face looked so vulnerable. “Gray, you will be my first.”
“Promise?” he said, gripping my hands.
“Promise.”
He collapsed onto his back and sighed in relief. I lay down next to him, one arm behind my head, the other resting on his chest as we stared at the stars.
“Hey, did you see that?” he asked a few minutes later, sitting up and pointing toward the sky. “The shooting star?”
I sat up and hugged my knees to my chest. “I missed it.”
He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “Well, I’m giving you my wish,” he said. “Go ahead, Emma. Wish for something.”
I looked into his sad, lovely eyes and made a wish I knew could never come true.
When I crept into the house minutes later, fully expecting to tiptoe quietly up to my room, I nearly knocked the lamp over when I saw my father sitting on the sofa in a dim pool of light. His hands were knotted tensely in front of him. I looked down at my body self-consciously. In my damp and wrinkled dress, I felt crumpled and unmade, like a cupcake whose frosting had melted.
“Do you know it’s two in the morning, Emma?”
Truthfully, I didn’t. I’d been thinking it was closer to midnight. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I lost track of time.”
“The one thing I asked of you was not to stay out too late,” he said, his voice cold.
“I know, Dad, but I figured since this was the last night I was going to see Gray, and it was my birthday party—”
“Can you think of any reason why I might be worried sick about you particularly because it
is
your birthday?”
is
your birthday?”
Guilt washed over me like a toxic cloud. “God, Dad, I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“You forgot?” His face was incredulous. Because I hadn’t really forgotten. Some things, you never can.
“It seems like you’ve forgotten a lot this summer.”
“What do you mean?”
He wrung his hands together and sat up like he was bracing for a fight. “Your relationship with Gray has taken over everything. I hardly remember seeing you this summer.”
“Dad, we were here all the time.”
“But you weren’t really here. You were always taking off somewhere to be on your own. And even when you were here, it was like you were on your own planet. You were so wrapped up in each other, you couldn’t see anything else.”
“Well, what did you expect?” I said. “Last summer, you told me I should stop moping around the house and do normal teenage things, and now that I’m actually doing that, you can’t handle it.”
“It’s you I’m worried about not being able to handle things.”
“Dad, I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.” He ran both hands through his hair. “What’s going to happen when Gray leaves? How are you going to go back to school when you can’t go a day without seeing him? I don’t like you being so ... dependent on each other. I don’t want you making yourself so vulnerable.”
“But Dad, if you love someone, it makes you vulnerable. You, of all people, should know that.”
He closed his eyes and blew air out his cheeks. “I’m not going to tell you that you don’t love Gray, because I’m sure you think you do. But honey, you’re seventeen years old. Gray’s nineteen. Do you really think this is going to last? Gray’s leaving for the Coast Guard, and you’re going to be stuck here, pining for him. Without knowing it, you’re going to let yourself get in deeper and deeper until you don’t even know which way is up. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. And I can’t bear to see the same thing happen to you.”
“Dad, you’re wrong,” I said, tears springing to my eyes. “Gray isn’t Mom.”
“I see the way he looks at you. Like you’re the sun and moon. But you can’t be everything to him. It’s going to suck you dry.”
“Dad, I’m not going to let that happen.”
“I thought the same thing. I thought I was strong enough for your mother and me both. But I wasn’t. I just wasn’t... .” His voice trailed off, and he let his head fall into his hands. All these years later, and my mother’s suicide still haunted him. It still haunted me, too.
Ever since my father had told me the truth about her, I’d been having nightmares. Again and again in my dreams, I watched my mother disappear into the ocean, unable to say or do anything to stop her.
When I looked up, my father was crying a little. “Dad, I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to ruin your birthday.”
“You didn’t. I think we’re both just upset and tired.”
“Yeah,” he said, wiping his face. “Why don’t we get some sleep and talk about it in the morning?”
“All right.”
I headed upstairs, feeling sick to my stomach. Because the thing was, we wouldn’t talk about it tomorrow. We’d suppress it and then resent each other later. This had been our pattern all summer.
In my dreams that night, as expected, I found myself on the beach again. The ocean looked steely and wild, like an immense writhing creature that knows only greed, that takes and takes until all you love is gone. The moon was full and shining down on the waves, creating a path of shimmering light. Like always, my eyes followed the light until I saw her.
She was standing in the surf, wearing a white nightgown that billowed like a sail. Her black hair whipped around her head like feathers on a captive bird. For a moment, she cast a backward glance at me. I tried to run toward her, but my legs were stuck in the sand. She was already waist-deep, and I called out to her, but the roar of the waves drowned me out.
With every ounce of my strength, I willed my legs out of the sand and began running, crashing into the shallow surf behind her, the cold water hitting my legs like icy knives. I called her name again, but the word came out distorted, like an underwater voice. Panicked, I looked in every direction for a sign of her, but all I could see were whitecaps and inky blackness. She was gone already.
I shivered and gasped from the cold. Adrenaline pumped through my limbs, so they felt rubbery and slack. A wave toppled overhead, submerging me. Another wave battered me down. I plunged to the bottom, trying to dive under the tumult, but the waves kept careening over me, one after the other, flipping my body until I had no sense of where I was. Underwater, no sky, no idea which way was up.
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