Scarlet Awakening (Sweet Secrets #2) (7 page)

My mom stood in front of us, frozen like a statue with the journal raised, her eyes in slits. After an extremely awkward moment of silence, where Ella and I shared worried looks, and my mom continued to play solo freeze tag, she finally spoke.

“It’s disrespectful to go through other’s things. I must not have done my motherly duties properly if you two didn’t already know that at your ages.” Her expression slowly changed from angry to distraught. I saw the tears forming in her eyes just before she started to tremble slightly. “You know everything, don’t you?” Her words were shaky, and were said as a statement rather than as a question. We didn’t even have to answer before she shook her head and started to push her door shut. “I can’t even bear to look at you two right now. I am
so
disappointed.” With that, she shut the door fully.

Ella and I shared a sad look, and I felt awful for snooping. We stood at the door for a moment, and it wasn’t long before the sounds of sobbing reached us on the other side.

Chapter 12

The wet sand molded around my feet as I walked along the water on the beach, deep in thought about what had happened earlier. I came to the beach to escape the house, and to have some alone time to get lost in my thoughts. I felt terrible about invading my mom’s privacy, but even more horrible was the fact that I didn’t regret my actions. If I could go back in time and change what Ella and I had done, I wouldn’t. I really wanted to meet and get to know my little siblings, and the information that we had gotten was a leap forward in our search.

We had made our mom feel so betrayed that she was put to tears. Having her past dug up, and her innermost thoughts read by her children had to feel terrible. She didn’t know exactly what it was that we had read, but she probably had an inkling. I just hoped that she didn’t think we hated her for the new information that we had. Of course I felt bad for Dad, but who was I to pick a side? She may be my mother, but she was also a human and humans make mistakes. I couldn’t hold that against her, especially with the way I had found out and since my dad seemed to have moved on from it.

I sighed and glanced out over the ocean. The waves were calm, and the sun was starting to set, making the sky a beautiful mix of pink and blue. The clouds were so fluffy that they looked like tufts of cotton candy. This was another thing I had missed—walking the beach while the sun was moments from setting.

Thankfully the beach wasn’t crowded like I remembered. There were only a few people littered amongst the sand and bobbing in the water. Some were surfing and boogie boarding, while others were throwing Frisbees around, or walking like I was. I stopped for a moment to write my name in the sand. Leaving the beach marked with my signature was a favorite pastime of mine. I always wrote something before I left. Sometimes I put a quote down, or drew a picture, others I just wrote my name. Today I simply wrote:

Lena is here; California.

When I stood back up to full height, someone behind me called out my name. It was said with a higher pitch at the end, sounding more like a question than anything else.

“Lena?”

There it was again. I squinted and turned around to see a guy running toward me, and away from the group of people who had been playing Frisbee. It didn’t take me long to realize who he was: Carter. He was a lot taller since the last time we’d been face to face, and even more muscular. He had always been very athletic, so I wasn’t surprised by his exceptional physique.

When he finally came to a stop in front of me, he smiled brightly, flashing his straight, white teeth. His dark hair was dripping with sweat, and his naturally tan skin was glistening with a fine sheen of it as well.

“Lena? Is that really you?” he questioned, peering at me with his hazel eyes. His voice came out breathless, either from running to catch up to me, or from playing Frisbee; maybe both.

I forced a smile despite the awkward way I felt. I hadn’t expected to see him here, or anywhere else for that matter. I was planning on avoiding all of the places I knew he hung out at for the duration of this trip. I couldn’t face him, but now I was being forced to. Was this a cruel joke or something? “Yeah, it’s me,” I said, waving my arms out at my sides and doing a little spin in an attempt to lighten the mood.

He shook his head, causing little droplets to flick from his hair. “Why couldn’t you have gotten ugly since you left?”

I raised an eyebrow and let out a light laugh. “Yeah, I could say the same thing about you. Still have girls falling at your feet?” I shifted my eyes over his shoulder to the group of friends he had been playing Frisbee with. All of the girls were bikini-clad Barbie dolls.

In response to my question he actually blushed. His cheeks tinted red, and he laughed. “I wouldn’t say
falling
at my feet. Shane is the one they’re all interested in.”

Shane Quinn, notorious ladies’ man, was Carter’s best friend. He was a funny guy, and he was good looking, but I had never been into the type of guy who’s been with every girl at least once.

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

Carter tilted his head down for a moment. When he finally looked up at me again, all smiles were gone from his face. He was completely serious as he stared into my eyes and said, “Yeah, well, there’s only one girl I’m interested in.”

Shit, was he referring to me? Maybe he’s talking about a new girlfriend.
I bit my lip, thinking of something to say that would remove the awkward tension that had just settled around us from the conversation. “Oh, well I hope that works out for you.” I mentally slapped myself for that. Seriously, what the hell did that mean?

He smiled again. “Yeah, I hope so too. So are you back for good, or just visiting your grandparents?”

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “Visiting my grandparents and my mom.”

A perplexed expression settled onto his handsome face. “Your mom?”

“Yeah,” I answered with an added nod. “My parents are going through a divorce. She moved back a few months ago.”

His eyes searched my face momentarily. Then, he placed a hand on my shoulder and said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s fine. It’s actually better this way, you know?” And he did know. His parents had gone through a horrible divorce when he was younger. He barely saw his father afterwards, but he’d always said that his life was probably better without him.

Carter nodded in response.

We stood there like that for a few minutes, just staring into each other’s eyes in silence. I wanted to apologize for breaking up with him the way that I had, but I didn’t know how to begin. His hand remained on my shoulder. It was comforting. I hadn’t had a guy touch me since I left, and even then he was the last one to do so. We had a history. We had been friends for years even before we started dating, and it felt weird to stand here now having so many things left unsaid, and not knowing where to start. I never thought there would come a time when I didn’t have something to say to him.

Finally he dropped his arm and broke the silence by asking me how “Gabby” was.

I smiled at hearing Ella’s old nickname. “Actually, she’s great, except she goes by Ella now.”

“Ella?”

“Yup.”

He shook his head. “She’s more of a Gabby to me. She never stopped talking,” he recalled with a laugh.

I rolled my eyes and slapped his chest. It was a lot harder than I remembered. “That’s because she had a crush on you.”

Carter widened his eyes in shock. “Really? That’s so weird. I never knew. I’m kind of oblivious to most things.”

“Oh, I know. I had to actually tell you I liked you before you finally asked me out.”

His mouth curved upwards in a toothy grin. “We were friends! I thought you were just being friendly!”

I shook my head in disbelief at his response.

He just continued to smile. “I missed you,” he said suddenly, sighing.

I pursed my lips. “Did you?”

“Of course.”

“I missed you too. They don’t have guys like Carter Anderson in Virginia.”

He stood up taller and said, “You mean guys that are suave, and exceptionally good-looking.”

I shook my head, frowning. “Yeah, right.”

“Did you mean guys who give you creative nicknames like Snot Ball, Snotty, and Little Snot?”

I rolled my eyes. I had always hated those nicknames. He used them all the time, most often calling me Little Snot. I already hated my last name more than anything, but being called a nickname based off of it was horrible. When he first found out my last name, he had been the only one brave enough to refer to me by it, calling me Snotty. He was the reason why I had started calling my friends by their last names.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “You’re the worst. I don’t know why I missed you.”

“I know why I missed you.”

“Oh yeah?” I tossed my hair over one shoulder and struck a pose. “Was it because of how suave and exceptionally good looking I am?” I questioned jokingly, using his words from a few moments ago.

To my surprise, he actually nodded. “Of course. What other reason would there have been?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but someone from the distance called Carter’s name. I was actually annoyed at whoever it was for interrupting our little reunion. That was surprising considering how I had been adamant on avoiding him all summer.

Carter turned and his friend beckoned him to come back. Turning back to face me, he frowned. “I should be getting back.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of his friends.

I nodded.

“Can we meet up again before you leave?” His eyes were pleading. He must have assumed that I was going to say no, because he didn’t even give me a chance to answer. Instead he smiled, and then suddenly he pulled me in for a hug. His arms flexed as they wrapped around me. It took me a second for it to register that he was hugging me. I didn’t even react soon enough to hug him back, because he pulled away quickly. “Great, you still have the same number, right? I’ll call you!” With that, he turned and ran off, leaving me standing there, staring after him and replaying our conversation over again in my head.

Chapter 13

“You girls are unbelievable,” Grandpa scolded, shaking a thick index finger at us from his position standing near the counter.

Grandma was sitting in the chair across from us at the table, just stirring her tea and shaking her head every now and then as Grandpa spoke. Normally they would tag team us and discipline us together, but today was different. Grandpa was doing all of the disciplining, while Grandma just sat there looking disappointed. I wondered if this was some sort of bad cop, good cop act, or if she was seriously just too upset to talk to us. Either way, both of them were frustrated with us for snooping through our mother’s personal items. We had been scolded for the past half hour on how our behavior was intolerable, inappropriate, and disrespectful.

Grandpa cleared his throat. “Lena Anne Snotty, are you even listening to me?”

I looked up quickly from my hands that were knotted together in front of me, and nodded. “Yea—I mean, yes sir,” I spoke, correcting myself. He hated when we said yeah instead of yes, and I didn’t want to give him another reason to think I was being disrespectful.

He was quiet for a second, shaking his head slowly. Grandma’s spoon made a clattering noise as it hit against her mug when she stirred. I was pretty sure the sugar she had poured into her tea a half hour ago was dissolved by now, and that her once hot tea was now lukewarm, but I didn’t say anything. She was probably just busying herself by keeping her hands moving.

“Seriously, what were you girls thinking?” When we didn’t answer, thinking that his question had been rhetorical, he said, “Huh?”

I shrugged, simultaneously as Ella answered with, “I don’t know.”

Finally Grandma made a sound as she scoffed.

“You don’t
know
?” Grandpa repeated. “So you two just make a habit of going through other people’s things now? Is that something you picked up on the East side?” He crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow.

“No,” I began. “We’ve just been left in the dark for so long now about what happened to the twins, and what happened with our parents’ marriage, that it was time we took action and found the answers to our questions on our own.”

Ella sat up straighter in her chair next to me. “Yeah, we asked everyone and no one cared enough to even entertain the idea of answering us. Yes, we understand that we shouldn’t have gone through Mom’s journal, and we apologize for that, but I don’t regret looking through it. We found the answers we were looking for, and without snooping we would still be in the same place we were when we came to you guys asking questions.” When she finished, she huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, staring Grandpa down.

Finally, Grandma removed her spoon from her tea, tapped it on the side of the mug, and then placed it down on the table. Her hands gripped the glass so tightly that her knuckles were white. Then, she raised her eyes from her mug and looked between Ella and me. “I am so disappointed in you girls.” That was the first thing she’d said since we’d sat down.

Ella and I shared a look that basically said that we had really done it now. For some reason I always felt worse when I was in trouble and someone said that they were disappointed in me. That really hurt.

“We came to you two first,” Ella pointed out again. It seemed like she was trying to turn the blame from us to them. “You could’ve helped us.”

I stuck my hand into my pocket and pulled out the picture of Mom, John, and the twin blanket bundles and unfolded it before placing it on the table. I had been carrying it around with me since I found it. For some reason I thought there was going to be a moment when I was walking around town that I’d see a familiar face, then pull the picture out and realize that it was John. Things like that only happen in movies though.

Grandpa walked over and picked the picture up, looking down at it with a frown. “I understand that you girls wanted information, but there are ways to go about getting what you want without going through someone’s personal property.” He sighed deeply, then pulled out the chair next to Grandma and took a seat. “I know that it’s hard for you girls not to know even the basic stuff about what happened last year, and to know that you have siblings in the world that you’ve never met, but it’s hard for your mother to be separated from them too. Everyone is struggling.” He placed his arm on the back of Grandma’s chair, and looked at the side of her face as he said, “It’s hard for us never being able to meet them either.”

Grandma looked back down at her tea and nodded. Then she finally raised the glass and sipped at it. If it was cold, she didn’t show it.

“Your mother is very fragile right now. We don’t want to have her fall back to that place she was in not long ago. She doesn’t need any more stressors in her life right now. Because of what you two did she’s been torn up all day. She hasn’t even left her room except to use the bathroom,” Grandpa stated.

“I know,” I responded, feeling the weight of my actions on my shoulders.

He moved his arm from behind Grandma and reached both hands out across the table. He took my hand in one, and Ella’s in the other. “Don’t you think that that John Symmes fellow deserves to be left alone? Your mom chose her wrecked marriage over sharing a life with him, you girls, and the babies. And even now that she’s ended things with your father she still hasn’t contacted him.” He squeezed our hands in his to emphasize his point, but my mind had traveled elsewhere.

John Symmes.

Grandpa had just given us John’s last name without even realizing it. Maybe he thought we already knew it, or maybe he just accidentally let it slip. Whatever the reason was, I didn’t care. I was too busy trying to keep the excited grin off of my face, and from the looks of it, so was Ella.

Grandpa continued to berate us with the errors of our ways for another half an hour or so before he gave us one more disappointed look and excused us from the table. I hung my head in shame as I stood from my spot and exited the room. Ella followed me up the stairs, and once we were in the hallway I glanced over my shoulder and grinned widely. She was smiling hard too. I didn’t want to risk being overheard by our mom, so I took her by her wrist and pulled her into her room, shutting the door behind us.

As soon as the door was closed, Ella whispered, “John Symmes.”

“I know!” I whisper yelled. “Everything is falling into place.”