Stars (Penmore #1) (23 page)

I see her tears.

I see her pain.

I just don’t believe any of it.

Not anymore.

PARKER

“My Body is a Cage” by Arcade Fire is quietly playing from my bedroom speakers. My entire room is a pit of depression. The blue walls, dark drapes and music all help me sink into my sorrow.

I was on a hamster wheel in my mind, going over my terrible choices again and again.

I wish I could escape into my vivid imagination. However, sitting on my bed, where I used to come up with fictitious youthful daydreams about a future I would share with a Grayson who noticed me, made it impossible. The knowledge that I managed to grasp my make-believe then destroy it in a matter of months keeps me trapped in a prison of my own emotion.

I was meant to visit Millie yesterday. She hasn’t returned any of my calls since she came to visit me. And I was going to settle in, visit with Mimi then demand Millie talks to me.

But I couldn’t face anyone anymore. I could barely handle the pity and concern reflected in my father’s gaze as he watched me return yesterday afternoon from my discussion with Gray, put the cake in the fridge like a zombie and barricade myself in my bedroom.

It’s been two days and I’ve only left my room to stoically eat Thanksgiving lunch.

I didn’t want to leave my bed again. I could barely stomach eating anymore anyway. I was numb on the outside. On the inside, if I wasn’t replaying my choices, I was reliving the shock and horror that distorted Gray’s handsome face when he discovered who I really was. I wasn’t the cute girl he met at school. I was a crazy stalker from his hometown, one he felt he needed a restraining order for.

I had one more day before I would have to return to Penmore and the decrepit remains of the picturesque life I got to lead for a little while. I decided I would sleep the time away or pretend to sleep so no one would disturb my melancholy. However, before I have a chance to fake snore, Dad walks in and sits on the end of the bed. He knew if he knocked, he would be ignored. In the back of my brain, buried deep beneath my pain, I hoped he knew it wasn’t personal. I was planning on ignoring the entire world.

“This is about the boy next door, isn’t it?” asks my dad as he reaches out and pats my legs, currently curled up toward my chest.

I just nod and keep my face pressed tightly in my pillow, which was still damp from all my tears.

“It’s times like these I really miss your mother. I feel like she would know what to say. She was a smart woman, your mom. I know she would’ve had the exact answer needed to make you feel better.”

“Yeah, I miss her too,” I say softly, trying not to start crying all over again.

“I guess all I do know, that she wouldn’t, is what it feels like to love an Elliot woman,” he tells me.

“Huh?” I ask, shifting my face slightly to look into his concerned eyes.

“Well, I know I don’t talk about your mom too much, and I’m sorry for that. But it’s because of my pain that I know he’ll be banging down our door soon enough. No one gets over or moves on after an Elliot girl. Not even the amazing Grayson Waters everyone in this town is always bragging about.”

“He’s special, Dad,” I tell him, choking out each word. “That’s why everyone is always talking about him. I don’t think I’ll ever get over him or find anyone like him.”

“Well, my precious girl, I think you’re forgetting how special you are. And maybe I haven’t told you enough, but everyone in this town is also talking a lot about you. How amazing you are to have become this smart, dedicated, beautiful young woman who has dealt with more than many have had to face in their entire life, and who used that pain for good. Baby,
you
are special. And if that boy doesn’t realize it sooner rather than later, someone else will.”

PARKER

I spent hours mulling over Dad’s words. Thinking about the ways I have dealt with the pain and grief of losing my mother, something that never really goes away. Contemplating the ways I’ve focused my anguish into a career I was passionate about and people who have showed me the joy that can be found in living. Did that make me special? Was I becoming someone else by letting the pain overwhelm me? I decided that maybe I wasn’t okay with the answers to my questions; maybe it was time I left my bedroom. Started living again. Focusing on people and my dreams for the future—dreams that didn’t include Grayson.

I didn’t agree with Dad completely, though, especially when it came to Grayson.

He wouldn’t be realizing how wonderful I was and come rushing back.

I saw how Gray looked at me once he knew who I was.

Stunned.

Disgusted.

Outraged.

He wasn’t changing his mind any time soon.

However, I had a friend I cared deeply for and who loved me unconditionally, so I decided it was time I checked to see if anything was wrong with her.

Time to eat lunch, dress quickly and head to my friend’s house to bang down the door if I had to.

And for the first time in my life, when I left my house, I forgot to check through the windows to see if Grayson was out there.

So consumed with thoughts about Millie and taking one step after another, I didn’t think about how Gray was still staying next door. I think a part of my brain had already decided he might have found someone else. Reconnected with an old high school flame or something.

I can’t work out if I was lucky or unlucky that at the exact same time I finally decided to drag myself out of the pool of swirling emotion I had been caught in, Grayson decided to leave his mom’s house.

I wish I could say that he saw me across the manicured lawns and his heart shone through his eyes. Communicating to me that he was in as much pain as I was.

Except he wasn’t. He paused momentarily when he caught sight of me. But there was nothing. No heat. No sadness. No anger. It was as if he saw through me. As if I had gone back to being invisible. Which I think hurt more than anything else I could have seen.

I had gone back to being a nobody.

Almost as quickly as he stopped, he dismissed me and jumped into his Jeep. It took me much longer. I stood on my dad’s porch, imagining what I should have done. I should have called out. I should have apologized.

I should have made him
see
me again.

It isn’t until the sound of a distant car backfiring that I am jolted out of my trance and back into reality. I needed to focus on getting to Millie.

Nothing else.

Otherwise, I knew there was a strong possibility I would run back inside and hide beneath my covers. I wouldn’t be able to leave again until someone moved me into a home for the elderly, where I took tablets to stay lucid and spent my free time talking to strangers about how, for a short period of my life, I dated the star football player. Explaining how he was the love of my life.

Until he realized I wasn’t his.

GRAYSON

I was about to leave to go back to school, back to training. I just had to get through two more days. Two was too fucking many. It left me no choice.

I needed back-up.

I didn’t give a shit if it made me a pussy. I figured if there was any point in which calling back-up was necessary, it was when you learned the girl you fell in love with had been creeping on you for years without saying so much as a fucking hello.

“Thanks for coming,” I tell Maris as she jumps into my car at the airport pick-up.

“You call, I come. Not to mention the small fact that you mentioned the mouse happens to live next door to you. Has done so for the last thirteen years, secretly pining after you, before she followed you to school. You couldn’t keep me away. Missing this drama would be more cray-cray than saying that story out loud,” she tells me on a chuckle. A small smile tugs at my lips for the first time since Dr. Elliot placed his hand on Parker’s shoulder. Fuck, I knew she would entertain me. I would have called Andy as well, had I not known he was busy deal with his crazy family trust issues. The more I spent laughing with them, the less I spent thinking about
her
.

“Maris, I honestly just need a distraction,” I tell her, hoping she understands that I was after minimizing the drama, not offering a performance for her to witness and weigh in on. “I don’t want to think about anyone, or anything, regarding this fucked-up situation any longer than I already have.”

“Babe, like I told you on the phone, Lucky’s is basically dead since everyone left for the holidays. I was bored out of my brain hanging around, so visiting your neck of the woods was definitely a good idea.”

She reaches in her handbag for gum.

“Plus, I just bought the best little black dress and killer heels. My guess is maybe if the mouse sees me done up and traipsing around town with you, we might even make her jealous. And maybe the bitch deserves a little payback,” she tells me, reclining in her seat with a little attitude and her inner diva shining through.

However, the thought of making Parker jealous doesn’t appeal to me. The idea that she might move on too or try to make me jealous makes my stomach roll. Consequently pissing me off even more. Fuck, even now, knowing the shit she pulled, my heart still beats as if it belongs to her.

I’d fix it, of course. Knew I just needed to go back. Focus on the game. Pretend she didn’t exist, even if it hurt at first.

Just like how I handled my father. When my dad’s latest scam got in the way, I had to learn the best way to deal was to move on. Look forward. The problem ceases to be in my mind. Then I get my heart pumping, beating for the game, and reconditioning it to forget the crap that it used to beat for in the past.

This is why I tell her, “Maris, thanks for the thought, but seriously I just want to lay low. Maybe have a few drinks. Hang and discuss random shit that won’t make me tear Ma’s place apart. Then we get back to school and I can focus on training.”

“If that’s what you want, that I can do. So, if you want a distraction, did I tell you what my charming-ass mother told me when she dropped me off at the airport?”

“No, what was that?”

“‘You really need to think about investing some of your bar earnings into implants, Rissie. Sooner or later, those titties are just gonna look like additional rolls on the shar pei figure you’re rocking these days,’” she says in a deep, tobacco-affected rasp, imitating her mother’s tone perfectly. “With implants, men might find me attractive, apparently, which is the only way I’ll be able to keep the bar afloat in her mind.”

“What the fuck?”

“I know, right? I’m a size two, thank you very much, but even if I wasn’t I wouldn’t fucking need implants to attract anyone. And I definitely won’t need a man to keep my bar running smoothly.”

“Does she have sight issues?” I ask, not exactly surprised if all of the chemicals Getting Lucky’s inhaled has caused her to go prematurely blind.

“Dude, she’s the same as she always is, looking like she’s ten years older than she is and acting ten years younger. Every once in a while, though, she just needs to beat me down to make herself feel a little better.”

“How far down, exactly?”

“To the grave, I believe.”

“Hell. Wait until you meet my mom. She thinks anyone under a size eight needs to eat more. You’ll love her.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she tells me. Smiling, she knows that while I was concerned about her and plotting ways to tell Ma the shit hers had said, the sadness that had been lurking in my eyes was replaced with determination.

Exactly what she thought I needed.

PARKER

I wait outside Millie’s parents’ house for what probably equates to my thousandth visit.

Her family was always my second family, my home away from home. Their ranch house, with its peeling paint and cracked pathway, gave insight into the fact that sometimes Millie’s family had their struggles, but they had an open-door policy when it came to me. I loved their house. I feel like I’ve missed it almost as much as I’ve missed my dad’s house and Mimi’s cottage.

This time, however, was different than all my other visits because the door didn’t open before I knocked. Millie didn’t cheerfully jump up and down to greet me and complain about waiting all day for me to arrive. I was suddenly nervous that she wasn’t here at all.