Bittersweet Hope (14 page)

Instead of feeling suffocated by the silence, like I had so many times before, this time it calmed me. It felt natural. Scrub, rinse, dry, repeat. Over and over in an easy cycle. There was a window in front of the sink, facing into the backyard, and Anna had turned the floodlights on. The catfish pond was so still it looked as if you could walk on it. I rubbed my neck as memories of Caleb holding me scorched my brain. I couldn’t even look at the swing set. When I realized I had just covered my throat with suds, I started to wipe them off. Before I could, Caleb was behind me with the dish towel, running it delicately over my skin.

“What would you think about meeting at the pond tonight?” His quiet breath tickled. “After Mom goes to sleep.”

Electricity jolted through my body, lightning bolts scorching my face and blinding me. “Sounds like something I might be interested in.”

“Might be?”

“Mmmhmm.” He was still behind me, his body only centimeters from mine. So close, yet so far away.

“Okay. Well, say around midnight? Maybe I’ll see you out there if you’re still interested.” His voice was low, seductive. Every inch of me throbbed with excitement and nerves.

I put the last dish in his side of the sink. Turning, I smiled at him, praying my skin was still its original color and not blood red.

“Maybe.” I left him standing in front of the sink, his eyes following me as I moved up the stairs.  When I finally got to my room and closed the door, I leaned against it, my chest heaving. There was three hours until m
idnight. How would I ever wait?

Chapter Seventeen

I tried to watch the stars, hoping to calm my jumpiness. As I looked at them, my mind wandered to the jeans and t-shirt I was wearing. Not exactly sexy, but putting on pajamas had felt too…slutty. Since when did pajamas feel slutty? All I knew was that the other night I had felt half naked. I was kind of worried that Caleb would be expecting me to be dressed like that again. Actually, ever since I’d come upstairs I couldn’t stop thinking about what exactly he
was
expecting. We hadn’t even known each other that long. As if that was going to happen. I didn’t care if it was prudish. When you had a mother like mine, you saw that sex wasn’t a game. As a result, my virginity was still firmly intact. It wasn’t even like I had time for a sex life anyway. Only now…I wanted Caleb. There was no denying that. But I wasn’t ready to want him, much less act on it.

Finally the clock read midnight. Smoothing the t-shirt, I opened my bedroom door. Caleb’s was wide open, and when I crossed by he was nowhere to be found. He must have been outside already. Waiting for me. Anna’s door was closed. Dang it. I wanted to look inside and see if she was asleep in her bed. What in the world would she think if she caught us outside together sneaking around? We shouldn’t even be sneaking around. We weren’t doing anything wrong. Anna would probably be over the moon at the thought of me and Caleb dating.

But we weren’t dating. Well, not officially. I hushed the critic inside of me. Maybe not officially, not yet. Every sense felt on edge and magnified as Caleb’s face flashed through my mind. His touch—my body almost quit working as I remembered it.

I crept downstairs and out the door. He was seated next to the pond. He must have turned the floodlights off, because the only illumination came from the crescent moon high in the dark Alabama sky. As I started across the stone walkway I noticed he was still wearing his day clothes, too. Relief flooded through me. For some reason I thought he would greet me in boxer shorts and nothing else. My face burned as I imagined it, making me incredibly grateful for the cloak of night.

I sat down beside him, crossing my legs and facing the pond. “Hey.” I said softly.

“Hey.” He looked
over at me and smiled. It paralyzed my heart. It just stopped beating. No, of course it didn’t. Then I’d be dead. But it sure felt like it did.

“So. What do you want to do?” He asked. No sense beating around the bush, I guess. Even in the most deliciously terrifying moments, like now, there wasn’t a point. It was only more validation that we fit together just right.

Caleb put an arm around my waist and pulled me closer to him, so I lay down and rested my head on his outstretched thigh. “Just this.” I said. “This right here is just perfect.”

It
was
perfect. A huge chunk of me wanted to stay right there forever and forget every one of my worries. When I was with Caleb, the rest of the world seemed to fade to black.

We sat in the dark for the longest time, listening to the still water ripple every so often. Crickets sang their sweet lullabies in the dewy grass surrounding us, and a breeze flitted through the trees. The sounds of the country night filled my heart as the simple touch of the boy capturing it steadied its beat.

“What was your mom like, Audrey?” Caleb asked after a while. The sound of his voice startled me. I opened my mouth, then closed it again, not sure how to describe the woman I so loved and hated at the same time. Would that even make sense to him? He had Anna for a mother, he probably wouldn’t be able to imagine life with someone like my mama. But Caleb understood me. It felt like I could share anything with him and not have to be afraid of judgment, so I decided to tell the truth.

“She was a beautiful mess.” I finally said. “She was the kind of person who could get just about anything she wanted handed to her, but instead of using her charisma and charm to her advantage to take care of me and my sisters, she let it go to waste and got consumed with drugs.”

I stopped. I didn’t know if I could keep going. Thinking about mama brought everything back, every heartache, every feeling of despair and loneliness. It washed over me like a tidal wave, sinking me into the bottom of an ocean of emotions I never wanted to feel again.

“What else?” Caleb’s voice was gentle. His fingers glided along my arm and sent tingles up and down my body. Sitting to look at him, the sincerity I saw in his eyes helped me go on. My eyes closed and everything just popped out.

“She slept with men for money.” I’d never said it out loud. It felt like it made it real when I did. I’d always known it, but that was the first time I had ever admitted it to anyone. Then again, it was also the first time anyone had cared enough to ask.

“Ouch.” He physically winced beside me.

“Yeah, tell me about it.” I looked up at the moon and wished it were all some story I was making up. But it wasn’t. It was my life. And it had sucked until I moved in with Anna and Caleb. Until then I hadn’t even realized how much I’d been fighting off depression. Now I knew with every fiber of my being that I’d been about to snap. Mrs. Golden evicting us probably would have been the straw that broke me. The thought that losing my mother, her being murdered, had turned my life from horrible to wonderful, tortured me. But it was the truth.

Caleb’s hand found mine in the darkness, and I forced myself to continue, even though it was really the last thing I wanted to do. I needed to let it all out, to cleanse myself of all of the demons I’d been hiding for mama. They weren’t mine, but they haunted me, too. Not anymore.

“She started coming home later and later as we got older. Sometimes…she would bring the men with her. There was only one bedroom in our apartment, so Sierra and Sadie and I, we’d be in the living room trying to sleep on the pull out couch while the sounds…” I stopped, swallowing hard.

The vivid pictures rolled in my mind as tears rolled down my cheeks. The scenes played out in my head; me, huddling over my sisters, hoping against hope, praying to a God I wasn’t even sure existed that there wouldn’t be a time when one of these men saw three teenaged girls and thought it would be fun to have a party. Now I knew there was a God, because that had never happened. Maybe God knew that if any of those skeevy men had ever tried to lay a hand on Sierra or Sadie I would have grabbed the nearest sharp object and sliced and diced his manhood. God probably hadn’t wanted me to spend the rest of my life in jail.

“You don’t have to tell me anymore.” Caleb had pulled me into his lap. I shook my head and took a few deep breaths.

“There really isn’t much left to tell. That was our life. Day in, day out, for years. Then, she didn’t come home one day. Instead, Mrs. Anderson came, and the cops. And they’d told us she’d been killed. And here I am. With you.”

“They don’t have any idea who did it?”

“No.” I didn’t tell him about my call to the police station. There was no point, really. Nothing had come of it.

“They don’t know and they probably never will. There are so many men it could be, her customers, drug dealers she probably owed money to. People who were just passing through town driving to Birmingham or Montgomery. It’s like a needle in a haystack.”

“But you survived coming here, right? You’re happy?” Caleb shook his head. “I feel bad even saying that, but I don’t want you to be sad. It’s just such hard situation. I know how I felt when my dad died, and I was a mess. I can’t imagine what you must be feeling.”

I turned my head and met Caleb’s eyes. “Yes, I’m happy. It sucks that I lost my mom. She’ll always be the only mother I ever had, and I’ll always love her.” My throat felt swollen but I somehow got the words out. “I thought it was the absolute worst day of my life when Mrs. Anderson came to take me to foster care. But she brought me here. She brought me to you, and to safety.”

Deep pools of sympathy washed over me as I stared at him, my pulse quickening. Funny how one gaze could change my entire emotional spectrum, turning the kaleidoscope of blues and grays to warm yellow happiness and red hot desire in the span of seconds.

Then I felt his warm mouth overtake my own, and the pain seeped further out of me. I twisted in his lap, interlocking my hands behind his neck. Soft strands of hair brushed through my fingers as the crickets chirped around us. His strong arms lifted me so that I was facing him, and his muscled hands ran up my arms and into my hair, his fingers tangling themselves into it. I felt weightless, like a soft cloud was carrying me into oblivion.

I sighed into him, and he held me tighter. Our lips parted at the same time, and I didn’t know what was a part of me and what was a part of him. All of the want and longing and loneliness melting out of me churned into our embrace and disappeared into the night. Our heartbeats, our breathing patterns, were the same as we lost ourselves in the kiss. I’d never imagined what passion could feel like, but this was a million times better than anything I could have ever dreamed up. There was only one emotion pulsing through me. Want.

I pulled back, my chest heaving up and down. “Caleb…”

Every part of me was on fire. Trying to calm myself down was a task I wasn’t sure I could complete. He licked his lips and then wiped them on his hand. His own torso was moving steadily.

“Too fast?”

“Yes.” The word came out in a gasp. I couldn’t meet his eyes. Part of me felt like a tease, but that was the last thing I’d meant to do. It had been so easy to get completely swept up in the touch, the taste, the need.

“Yep. I know.” He answered.

He did? Just when I thought I couldn’t get any better, he did it again. He somehow understood me more than I understood myself.

I slid off his lap and onto the cool grass, welcoming the feeling of his arm sliding around my waist. We calmed together, our breathing becoming more even with each passing minute.

“Sorry.” He said finally.

My head whipped around in his direction. “It wasn’t your fault at all. I…wanted you to kiss me. To more than kiss me.” I’d needed it, even. He made me feel like I was whole again, instead of there being little pieces of me floating around with nowhere to go.

I ran my fingers through my thick mane and tucked it behind my ears. I could feel him looking at me.

“Believe me, I wanted to do more than kiss you, too.” He paused when I sucked in my breath.

“But not yet.” He continued. “I don’t want to mess anything up by rushing it. I’ve seen that happen to my friends a lot.”

I looked up at him. “Yeah, right.” Okay, maybe he was too good to be true…

Caleb shook his head. “Guys talk a good game, Audrey. Yeah, yeah, we think about sex every six seconds or whatever it is, so what. Girls think about it too, don’t you dare try and say y’all don’t. But there are guys out there who want more than that too, you know.” He shrugged. “One night stands aren’t really my thing.”

“Me neither.” It was the epitome of an understatement.

Caleb laughed. “I didn’t really peg you for a one night stand of girl. Anybody who’s been through what you have…not a chance.”

I had never met a guy in my whole life who could make sense of things like Caleb did. Or at least none who would admit it.

Thinking about things for myself only made me feel guilty about Sierra and Sadie though. Not so much Sierra—I knew she was fine. But
the thing with Sadie was still gnawing a hole in my stomach.

“I’m worried about my little sister.” I blurted it out before thinking. Talk about turning the conversation around completely.

Caleb rubbed the back of my neck. “Audrey…”

“I can’t help it. You don’t have a sister, you don’t know.” I hoped I didn’t sound like a bitch. Words had a way of coming out of my mouth the wrong way. Like in a string of sarcastic word vomit. My bottom lip started hurting from my teeth clamping down on it.

Caleb didn’t miss a beat. “I sure do have a sister.”             

“You do?” I looked back at the house. Were they hiding somebody in the attic or something? I searched my brain, trying to remember if I’d heard any weird noises at night.

“Yeah. You.”

I stood up laughing and grabbed his hands, attempting to pull him to his feet. “Alright smartass. I think it’s bedtime for you.” It was a mystery how he did it, getting me to laugh when all I wanted to do was cry.

Caleb held onto me for support and pulled himself off the grass, groaning a little as his knees stretched out. “yeah yeah. Okay. You know, you sure are a bossy sister.” He winked at me.

The stillness of the night was interrupted suddenly, as the sound of a car roaring to life somewhere in the distance met our ears. Caleb looked at me and shrugged. “No telling.” He said. Sometimes the neighbors keep late hours.”

I nodded, but I still peered into the darkness. Somehow it now seemed like a hindrance instead of a romantic mood setter. I wished I could see better, but the only things I could make out were the outlines of the pine trees bordering Anna’s property.

Caleb and I made our way to the back door. Before he turned the knob, he stopped and looked down at me.

“Don’t worry, okay? Everything will be fine. Promise. Now, go and get your beauty sleep. Not like you need it or anything, though.” He planted a kiss on top of my head.

We went inside and moved as quietly as we could up the stairs. Standing in front of each of our bedroom doors, I looked over at him one more time.