Paper Dolls (11 page)

“No, but I will.”

“Are you ashamed of me?”

I gasped and spun, my hand still stuck in my handbag. “I’m not ashamed of you. Clay and I, we’re just… I’m just waiting for the right time.”

“Uh-huh.” She jumped off the couch and stalked over to the window.

“Get back from there. He’ll see you.”

Salem just kept staring outside through the blinds. “Please, even if he does, he’ll think I’m you.” She sniffed. “It’s too dark for me to get a good look at him anyway.” She returned to her couch and the movie.

I found what I was looking for in my bag. “I almost forgot. Here.” I held out a key. It was a copy of mine and at the end was the other half of my key-chain pair, the other half of my heart. “I had a second key cut for you.”

She laughed at something on-screen. “Just put it down on the table.” She made a nudging motion with her chin.

I shoved away a sliver of rejection and slipped it on the table before straightening. “Okay, I’m off.”

Salem made a solemn Queen-wave at me, her eyes still on the TV.

“How do I look?”

“Does it really matter what clothes you’re wearing if he’s just going to tear them all off anyway?”

“Salem!”

She tore her eyes away from the screen and graced me with a brief once-over. “You look great. Now leave.”

“Okay, then,” I muttered to myself, “don’t miss me too much.” I turned and walked out of my apartment, my bag slung over my shoulder.

I paused just outside the door and worried my lip.

What was I doing?

I should stay here with Salem. Hang out with Salem. After all, I haven’t seen her in three years.

I stuck my head back into my apartment. “Are you sure you don’t want me to−”

“Oh my God, get out!”

I shut the door before the pillow she threw at me could hit me in the face.

Outside, Clay was leaning against his Mustang, waiting for me, outlined in the fading afternoon sunlight. Me. This gorgeous man, dressed in dark denim that hugged his strong thighs, and a white shirt, was waiting for
me
. My worry over Salem faded at the sight of him.

He grinned as I walked up to him. “You are gorgeous.”

I looked down at myself. I was wearing skinny jeans teamed with silver ballet flats and a white cotton top threaded with silver, giving it a subtle shimmer. “You’re biased.”

He pulled me into his arms, leaning down so his nose rubbed against mine. “Maybe. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re gorgeous.”

“What if…I were wearing a potato sack?”

“That’s a very lucky potato sack.” He rubbed the end of his nose along my cheekbone and towards my ear.

“What if…I were tarred and feathered.”

“Then you’d be the sexiest chick in the world.”

“What if…I were wearing a grey cow onesie?”

He hummed against my ear, sending shivers down my spine. “Then you’d be udderly irresistible?”

I slapped him lightly on his chest, hard like granite.

He laughed, the sound rolling into my body, and he pulled me flush against him. “You can play the What If game all you like, but you’ll still be the most beautiful thing to me, whether you were wearing a sack, a grey cow onesie, or…nothing at all under all those feathers.”

His breath against my ear made me shiver.

When he covered my lips with his, my whole world silenced, fading like a ballet chorus behind a velvet curtain as the spotlight fell upon just Clay and me. We became my whole world and everything in it, my nose filling with his scent of cedar and a hint of warm spice. His lips parted as he tilted his mouth and he brushed the seam of my lips with his tongue. I opened my mouth to let him in and offered him a sigh in return. His strong hands slid around my back, holding me firmly to him. I seemed to melt further and further into his unyielding body, melding to him like I was made to. My fingers fluttered over his chest and his neck, too scared to land anywhere, almost disbelieving that he was real at all.

Clay Jagger was real and he was kissing me.

Finally and yet all too soon, he pulled away. “Let’s go,” he whispered. “Before we do something on your street that your neighbours wouldn’t appreciate.”

My skin tingled as my thoughts rolled over exactly what he had meant by
something
.

He let go of me and his eyes flicked to something over my shoulder. “You know, it looks like you left the TV on.”

I spun. The space between the living room window curtains was flashing with lights from inside. I forced a smile. “It’s to discourage burglars.” I wasn’t ready to explain about Salem yet. Tonight was just supposed to be about us.

He nodded, seeming to accept my answer. I glanced back to my apartment. Did the curtain just move? Was that Salem at the window again? My heart stabbed a little with guilt. It wasn’t fair that I was leaving her tonight to be with Clay. I shouldn’t have left her there alone.

“Look, twins.”

I turned sharply towards him. “
What?
” Had he seen Salem?

“Twins.” He pointed down to the two of us. “We’re practically wearing his and her outfits.”

We were both in dark denim and white tops. I laughed, partly in relief. “Aren’t couples supposed to start doing that after they’ve been together
too
long?”

He grinned at me.

“What?”

“You just acknowledged that we’re a couple.”

“Did I?”

He pulled me in for another slow and lingering kiss. “About damn time, Aria Adams,” he murmured against my mouth.

* * *

I stepped out of the car after Clay had parked it on the side of a thin road surrounded by trees. He had driven us out of town along one of the hinterland roads that looped up the mountain range that Mirage Falls was nestled in.

A few street lights dotted sickly pools of light over the nearby bridge, the sound of water drumming off rocks and the air moist with misty drops. There were no other cars parked here and for the last fifteen minutes until we stopped, none had passed us. We were definitely alone here for miles. Why would he bring me out here?

Wouldn’t want my Rosey-girl getting involved with the wrong guy.
A trickle of fear dripped down my spine.

Clay’s door slammed shut, making me jump. I shoved my apprehension aside. “Clay, where are we?”

He stared towards the bridge. “The Mirage Gorge. This is where Mirage Falls gets its name.”

“Why are we here?”

He didn’t answer. He walked around to my side of the car and slammed my door shut. The noise was like a gunshot in my ears, sending another jolt through me. The sky was turning a brilliant fiery colour, sunset was almost upon us.

“Clay, why are we here?”

“I want to show you something.”

This was ridiculous. I trusted Clay. He would never hurt me. So why did my body shiver as we made the short walk to the bridge? The sound of gravel crushed under our feet like a death march.

The bridge crossed over a deep narrow gorge, a waterfall dropping from behind it. Wooden slats lined an iron structure that was wide enough for one brave car; thin poles and strung wire to the height of my hipbone were the only things to stop someone from falling into the abyss. I kept to the middle of the bridge, my feet clattering over the wooden slats, and Clay walked closest to the railing. I wondered how old this bridge was and hoped to God it would hold us.

I was being ridiculous. Of course it would hold us. It was designed for cars to pass over.

He paused at the centre of the bridge, leaned against the railing and looked out, his back to the waterfall. We were high enough that we could see the burning sun just about to dip under the sea of forest across the mountains. I stood next to him and tried to enjoy the view, trying to ignore all these jumbled feelings churning inside me. For a time all that I could hear was the drumming of the waterfall crashing down upon all those jagged rocks below.

Finally he turned to look at me, an odd look in his eyes. “Beautiful, isn’t it.”

I nodded.

“Have you been here before?” he asked.

“No.”

His face became serious, almost pained, and his eyes took on a faraway look, as if he was looking straight through me. As if I wasn’t there at all. I shivered. “What is it?”

He shook his head. “Just remembering something.”

“Remembering what?”

He looked out again, his eyes becoming unfocused. “Remembering…the last time I was here.”

A fear ricocheted through me. This was why I had strange feelings about this place. It was like I could feel the ghost of someone’s past hovering about my shoulder. It was the ghost of Clay’s past.

“What happened here?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. Then his next words were almost a whisper, “I almost died here.”

6

I almost died here.

“
What
?”

Clay stared at his hands, the tips of his fingers running along the grooves of the top of the railing. “When I was eighteen, my world fell apart. My mother was my whole world and she just…she died. My father couldn’t handle it so he just left. I was left all alone. I couldn’t cope. I came here to…” he trailed off.

He came here to end his life.

My voice was barely a whisper. “You were going to jump?”

He nodded.

Dear God. I stared at the abyss over the edge of the railing. I saw Clay almost three years ago as his fingers curled over the railing and he pulled his legs up and over. I shook this image away. “Why didn’t you?”

“An angel came to me, right here on this bridge. She wore a white dress and her halo shone brighter than anything I’d ever seen.”

I froze. An angel? Was he serious?

Then I realised. He saw things too. Just like me. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after his mother died. How brave he was to share his hallucination with me. I wouldn’t make light of this gift. I wouldn’t judge him. “And she saved you?”

He nodded. “If I lived she promised me…” He looked up and his eyes burned into mine. “She promised me
you
.”

I swallowed, hard. “What?”

He smiled softly. “Don’t misunderstand me; she didn’t actually promise me
you
. I didn’t know you then. She promised me that I wouldn’t always be alone. She promised me that if I could make my way through this darkness, I’d find my light again.”

My head spun as I tried to process everything he was saying.

His eyes bored into me. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

I shook my head. No crazier than me.

He looked out over the gorge, leaning his hands on the railing. “Sometimes we need to crumble to nothing before we can rebuild ourselves into someone better. Sometimes we need to start again at nothing.”

“You are nothing.”
I thought I heard
his
voice behind me and jumped. I stared back at the road I had just walked up but there was no one else here. This place. There was something about this place. It felt like the past was a ghost here and he was reaching for me with his hands. A wind shook the trees that lined the road and there it was, that voice hissing through the leaves and over the sound of thundering water.
“Why couldn’t it have been you?”

Oh God, not here. I clamped my hands over my ears. Keep it inside.

“Why didn’t you die and not her?”
His large hand wrapped around my wrist. I tried to pull my hand from his. “Go away,” I hissed. But he wouldn’t let go. He began to drag me forward, stumbling, farther and farther forward to the edge of the bridge. Below me the gorge gaped down and the dying light caught off the splashing water.
“It should have been you.”
I felt myself tipping.

An arm went around me and I smelt cedar and musk. Clay. Suddenly I was tethered between the past and the present, a paper doll being pulled from both sides.

“Let go of me!”

But neither of them would. Two pairs of hands, one from the past, one from the present, just gripped me tighter and pulled.

“Come back to me.” Clay’s voice was like the morning light, breaking through the mist clouding my reality. He shushed into my hair, his gentle whispers drowning out the other voice. “I’m real. I’m here. Focus on me.”

I slipped out of the grip of the hand from the past and it faded into the dark shadows. For now.

Clay held me securely in his arms, and rocked me gently. It was like he knew instinctively what to do. Why wasn’t he running? After seeing me in the midst of a post-traumatic stress hallucination, acting as if it were real? “Why are you still here?” I spat out.

He turned me to face him, grabbing my shoulders. “Aria,” he said fiercely, “do you believe in signs?”

“Signs? Like what?”

“Signs. Messages from God−”

“I don’t believe in God. No God would allow such horrible things to exist…” I trailed off.

“I do. You shine to me, Aria. Brighter than anything in my whole wretched life. I knew after I saw you that you were my Northern Star.”

I choked on a laugh that had no humour in it. “Can you get a refund for faulty goods?”

“There is nothing faulty about you.”

Flashes of black memory flapped across my eyes like angry crows and I felt sick to my stomach. “You don’t know everything about me,” I whispered.

“I know enough.”

“No, you don’t.”

Clay held my chin gently and lifted. “There’s
nothing
you could tell me that would make me love you less.”

My mind stuttered over his words. Did he say what I thought he said? He couldn’t possibly…

“You love me?”

“I love you. All of you, every piece of you. Even the pieces that are torn or smudged. Especially them.”

My heart clenched so hard that it physically hurt. I swear it just cracked open. A warmth soaked out and into my bones.

In that very moment, how could I not fall in love back with Clay Jagger?

I fell against his chest, my legs still not working properly. I opened my mouth to speak. To say…something.

You’re saving me.

Thank you.