“With the lights off.” Someone else chimed in with that charming little comment.
Ducking back inside the bathroom, I pushed my palm against the door, so it closed slowly, without a sound. That’s the last thing I needed—them knowing I’d heard them. It would only make it worse, and I didn’t need to hear the fake words of apology or how I’d misheard the comments. Stop being so sensitive. You’re overreacting. Don’t make a scene.
I stood in the bathroom with my garment bag surprise from hell and stared at myself in the mirror until I slammed my eyes shut, unwilling to spill any tears in front of them. Splashing water on my face, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Flushed, a little blotchy, and apparently only a good enough lay in the dark.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tightened my grip on the edge of the sink. Breathe through it. Don’t let their words chip away at you. Why was I even surprised? Why had I thought things would be different? And to have Berk have to witness it. Kill me now.
Checking outside to make sure they were gone, I bolted straight for the room and didn’t look back. Nothing mattered but getting out of there and trying to hold myself together. Sixty hours. Make it through the next two days and everything would be okay.
I nearly tackled one of the staff and asked about getting the key to my room. Shifting from foot to foot and checking over my shoulder like I was being inducted into the witness protection program, I rushed out of the lobby with my key in hand and an apology that my bags had been misplaced ringing in my ears. This wasn’t the airport. How were my bags ‘lost’ from the bottom of the bus to here? Probably something to do with my mom and sister not wanting me to find alternate clothing options for tonight. I could scream, if I weren’t already on the verge of crying.
The garden and greenhouse were where I usually went when I needed to think out here, but the hot mugginess outside was enough to deter me. The last thing I needed was a knockdown, drag out fight with the frizz if I wandered around outside, let alone in the greenhouse. Plus, my room was safer.
Creeping down the hall, I spotted my room number, or, should I say our room number. Eventually I’d emerge and find Berk, apologize profusely, but at least I’d maintain a little of my dignity. I hung up the garment bag on the bathroom door and flopped down on the bed. Damn, it was comfy. The people who my mom had gotten to take over the place had nothing if not impeccable taste. I tilted my head to the side.
There was a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket beside the mini bar. Freshly cut flowers in an arrangement sat on the low table in the seating area by the door.
I stared up at the ceiling. “Dad, I don’t know what to do. They’re all I have left—but I don’t know how much longer I can take it.” I talked to him like I had for so many years since he’d been gone. Wishing and praying it had all been a mistake and he was sitting in some hospital somewhere, maybe with amnesia, and one day he’d come back and whisk me away from all this. Somehow it hurt more that they were my own mom and sister, not some evil steps who wanted me out of the way.
It made that pain even worse. I was part of my mom and all she wanted to do was cut that part of herself out and throw the rest of me away. Throw my dad away. But I wanted the books first. I wanted the Peter Rabbit books she’d promised me. I needed them to remember those rainy days with my dad, curled up in his favorite window seat while he read them and did all the voices. I could go buy other copies from a store for the stories themselves, but these books were the ones he’d touched and drawn in. That mattered.
Pushing my glasses up, I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. So many tears spilled over their words and digs at me.
I longed for those books. Those were happy family memories I couldn’t let go.
The door opened and I sat up and stared out the window.
“There you are. I came here first when you disappeared, but you weren’t here.” Berk closed the door behind him.
“I got a little side tracked.”
“Okay, should I check out this costume? I’ve been dying to see what’s inside.”
“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” I blurted out.
“You bring me all the way out here and you want me to go.” The hint of hurt in his voice pressed the knife in deeper.
What the hell was I doing? Why had I let him come? I wanted to spend time with him, that’s why. My pathetic attempt to maybe force some bonding and have one person I knew who would be on my side this weekend.
Tilting my head to the side, I looked at him with what had to be red-ringed eyes. “Do you want to stay?”
“If you want me to. I promise I won’t embarrass you—much.” He smiled and ducked his head trying to catch my gaze.
“It’ll probably be the other way around.”
“You’ve never been to one of our parties. I’ve been known to bust out The Worm and The Robot on occasion.” He swung his garment bag down off his shoulder.
I chuckled. “Doesn’t sound too embarrassing.”
“I didn’t say I was good at them.” He crossed the room and threw his bag over the edge of a high-backed chair in the seating area.
If Laura or my mom saw that, they’d have a freaking cow. I stared at my own garment bag hung neatly off the bathroom door and I wanted to run up, grab it, and throw it on the floor. I hadn’t looked inside yet. The strength for that would take a few more minutes or hours to gather.
“What’s up, Julienne Fries?” The bed dipped as he sat beside me.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been around this group.”
“And it feels weird?”
“It’s weird hanging out with people I grew up around now that I’m in college. I’ve… changed.” More like gotten used to living my life on my own without the voices in the background constantly reminding me how I’d never stack up. “Is it weird for you, going home?”
In his letters he’d always kept our conversations to the present. The here and now, and never ventured too far into the past. I was okay with that. I didn’t want to be the same girl with the even sadder story.
“I don’t.”
“You don’t? As in you don’t go home?”
“No, I don’t have a home to go back to.” He tilted his head and corner of his mouth lifted, but it was a thin ghost of a half-smile.
“No family?”
A flicker of sadness rushed across his face. “I have a sister, but… that’s complicated. So, to come here and see a place your grandparents owned, that’s pretty cool.”
Here I was bitching about my shitty family when Berk barely had any family at all.
He hadn’t mentioned it much in our letters. I’d kept things to my sexy thoughts I was too scared to live out in the real world, and things like movies I liked because I didn’t exactly feel like delving into my past. It seemed he’d felt the same way. All the time I was worried about him knowing too much, but he hadn’t been delving into his past either. As much as our letters had changed over time, we’d both been keeping things from one another. “I didn’t know about your family.”
“How could you?” He lifted one shoulder. “And I didn’t say that to make you feel bad for me or anything.” His gaze danced around the room, finding every fresh flower and wallpaper design fascinating and ignoring my own.