Paper Dolls (6 page)

She rested her box on the counter as she snatched the latest sale receipt from my hand and eyed the total price. She whistled. “Nice work. For someone who hasn’t
actually
experienced the joys of sex, you sell it damn well.”

I laughed to cover up the thread of discomfort in my belly. I might not know sex. But I knew people. I had learned quickly when I had been suddenly homeless and alone at fifteen how to read people; who they were, who they weren’t, what they
really
wanted from me…

“I guess that’s a compliment?”

“Tell me,” she tapped her chin, “what are you waiting for again?”

“For the knight on his valiant horse wearing shiny armour.” This was a running joke between us. Only because I never wanted to talk about my reasons why. I wasn’t waiting. I had just been occupied with more important things for the past three years…like trying to find Salem.

“A knight? Puh-lease, just give me his long, thick lance.”

I laughed at her crude joke.

“Or maybe,” Flick said, her voice lowering, “you’re waiting for Mr Dark and Delicious to make his move. He doesn’t have a horse but I bet he’s got something you could ride.”

I hid my blazing cheeks and waved at her. “This isn’t break time. Stop standing around and go unpack your panties.”

“I can’t remember,” she said, shaking her head as she picked up her box again, “exactly
who
is the boss here?” She spun, her thick ebony hair swirling around her head like a shampoo commercial. God, how I envied her hair, falling in rich dark waves the colour of ravens. Not like my straight-as-a-curtain, auburn hair.

She sashayed towards the front display table, her ample curves swaying hypnotically. Ample curves − something else I would never have. Despite what I ate I remained slim as a beanpole.

When I had arrived here several months ago, Flick had taken one look at me, loitering on the sidewalk outside her store one early morning, a map in one hand, a single backpack slung over my shoulders, and hauled me into her store and her life despite my initial resistance. She agreed to hire me and house me without references and without a contract, which meant I could leave at any time if I wanted to. Although without any sign of where Salem had gone, I had nowhere else to go.

I fussed with one of the racks of clothes… Actually
‘
clothes
’
might not be the right word. They were thin strips of leather, studded or braided, or with indecent cut-outs making them look like lace. I would never wear one of these outfits, but I was there to work, not to judge. “Whatever floats their boat, and we cater for all kinds of boats,” Flick always said with a wink.

A shadow fell across the store window and the hairs on the back of my neck rose to attention. I was being watched.

My gaze shot up. Clay stood leaning against the glass front of the store, peering in, partially silhouetted in the afternoon light, with his arms overhead like he was stretched out on a beach. His torso fanned out even more with his arms like that, his biceps straining against his shirt sleeves, and the bottom hem lifted so that there was a strip of taut stomach showing above the pale stonewashed jeans that showed off his strong legs.

He had no qualms about being seen staring into a lingerie store. But that was Clay. He didn’t care what people thought of him. I liked that, envied it a little. It wasn’t that I cared what people thought of me, it was more that I wished they didn’t think of me at all. Mostly I got my wish; for most people I faded away, but not to Clay. Never to Clay.

I tried to swallow, my pulse suddenly beating in my throat. I got a flash of him above me, his powerful arms like a wall on either side of me, shutting the rest of the world out, his necklace swaying like a hypnotist’s pendant as he−

I shook that image off but the heat it left behind remained. Two kisses and I was turning into…Flick.

Through the store window, I saw the grin stretch across his face when his eyes found me. He looked at me as if nothing or no one else existed. My stomach flipped the way it always did when I was caught in his gaze. It could have been seconds or even hours that we were staring at each other, I don’t know. Time does funny things when I’m around Clay.

He pushed off the glass and walked to the entrance. The doorbell dinged as he stepped inside, joining the clanging of my heart.

He weaved through the display tables and stopped before me. I’m tall, five-eleven, but he still towered over me, his shoulders hanging like outcrops of a cliff. His hand reached out and picked up a strand of hair from the top of my blouse. Where his fingers brushed my skin, tingling shards showered down through my body. He twirled a strand of my hair and grinned.

“Hey, angel,” he said. His deep voice easing around his nickname for me ran up and down my back like fingers, causing small shivers.

“Why do you call me angel?” Even though he wasn’t touching me, just that strand of my hair, I could almost
feel
his fingers. Just knowing he held a part of me in his hands was enough to make the roots of my scalp prickle.

He smiled. “Because you’re as pure and innocent as one.”

I frowned at his assessment of me.

“You can’t have her yet,” Flick called out from the other side of the store, bursting this invisible bubble around us and letting the rest of the world back in. “She’s still mine for the next thirty minutes.”

Clay winked at me before responding to Flick. “She’s always been mine, Flick. I’m just lending her to you.”

His.

He always said that I was his, even before he kissed me. I had feared that things would be weird between us because of our kiss yesterday. But here he was just being Clay. I shouldn’t have worried.

“Do you want to wait outside?” I asked him. “I won’t be long.”

“Nope.”

“No?”

“I can see you better from in here.”

Before I could answer, I saw a shadow move in front of the store window. I looked up, frowning, because the only man who ever stood at that window was standing next to me. But it wasn’t a man leaning against the glass, silhouetted in the afternoon sun.

It was Salem.

3

I found her. I found Salem.

After three long, lonely years…

Or, more like, she found me.

For a second I just stared at the mirror reflection of me in my twin sister. Her auburn hair was just as long as mine but where mine fell straight down my back, hers was wild around her head like a fiery halo, like she had just gotten out of bed.

Whose bed did she get out of?

I saw the porcelain skin of her hands pressed against the glass, her cherry mouth which, if I wasn’t mistaken, carried the same pout that only I had learned to soften. But mostly I saw her fierce doe-eyes which I knew were the colour of a stormy sky. They weren’t looking back at me. They were glaring at Clay.

Before I could move, before I could blink or even mouth the first syllable of her name, she disappeared out of sight, slipping past the edge of the window and letting the light stream back in where she had stood as if she had never been there in the first place.

“Wait,” I cried.

“What’s wrong?” I heard Clay asking, but for once he couldn’t control my attention like he usually did. I shoved my way through the store, ignoring Flick’s startled cry and the clattering of hangers that I’d knocked off the racks. I didn’t stop to pick them up or even to yell out an apology. The only thing I could think of was Salem. Getting to Salem, throwing my arms around Salem. To yell at her that I hated her for leaving me behind, and that I loved her and I would never ever let her leave me again.

I hit the door with my palms and tumbled out onto the sidewalk of the Mirage Falls main street, a wide thoroughfare of mainly stores and shops, the bell jangling like an alarm above my head. Where was she? Where did she go?

I spun wildly, staring up and down the street, ignoring the pedestrians, some of them giving me a wide berth, some with quizzical looks on their faces.

I couldn’t see her. Not the flick of her auburn hair or the black crop top and ripped black skinny jeans she had been wearing. Nothing. She was gone.

She must have slipped into one of the many side streets that angled off from this main road. But which one?

I grabbed a man walking past, a man I didn’t recognise. “Sir, please, did you see a girl? She looked just like me but she was dressed in all black. She was just here.”

He shook his head, grumbling, yanking his arm away from me before he hurried away, glancing back at me with wide eyes as if I were mad.

I’m not mad. She was here. I saw her.

But now she’s gone. Salem’s gone.

I almost had her. But she’s gone.

What if I never find her again?

“Aria!” The bell jangled again as Clay came running out after me, stopping at my side. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I might as well have.

I’d only seen glimpses of Salem since she ran away. But it’s been enough to let me know that she was still alive. And enough of a trail of breadcrumbs to know when she’d moved on.

That’s why my trail had stopped cold here. Salem was still here in Mirage Falls.

She knew I was here.

She knew I was looking for her.

Why hasn’t she let me find her?

She saw me in that store, I know she did. So why had she disappeared instead of coming in?

Because you failed her…

I shut my eyes as the familiar feelings of guilt rose up to lash open the scars that lined my insides. I could make it up to her. I could. If she’d just let me find her. If she’d just come back to me. The hole in my soul, the one shaped and looking exactly like me, throbbed without her presence, like a phantom limb.

“Aria?” Flick joined us both on the sidewalk. “What’s going on?”

“Didn’t you see her?”

“See who?”

Clay was just staring at me, the furrow between his brows the only sign of emotion on his face.

Neither of them knew that I was trying to find Salem. Nobody did. I never talked about her to anyone. Firstly, because why bother trusting anyone if I was just going to move away? Secondly, and more importantly, I couldn’t risk anyone talking to the police.

Except yesterday I had told Clay about our punch buggie game…

“No one. It was nothing.”

Flick gave me a clear look of disbelief. “Don’t give me that. You ran outta there like the place was on fire. Didn’t she, Clay?”

Clay remained silent. Just watching me.

I had to diffuse this situation before they started asking too many questions. “It’s nothing. I just thought I saw someone I knew. But it was no one.” Before Flick or Clay could ask anything more, I brushed past them towards the store. “I’ll fix up those hangers.”

In the reflection of the store glass window I saw them glance at each other.

* * *

After my shift ended Clay and I walked along the sidewalk towards my apartment. It was mid-November in Queensland, which meant perfect blue skies and the coming of long summer days, our shadows long and skinny in front of us.

Our footsteps always fell into a comfortable pace, side by side, like we’d been walking beside each other for years, walking so close that our arms would sometimes brush.

As close as Salem and I used to walk.

As much as I had tried to push her to the back of my head, there she was. So near I felt like she was right behind me. Salem
was
in Mirage Falls. I had been right. After three months of nothing she had reappeared. Why now?

Did it matter? She was back.

Why didn’t she come inside the store? Why did she run away?

Maybe she’s still mad at you?

I’d apologise. I’d make it right. I just had to find her. It’s a small town. I’d find a way. Besides, she had to eat, live somewhere and work. Now that I knew I was in the right place, all these things gave me avenues to start hunting again.

“Earth to Aria.”

I shook my head of Salem-shaped thoughts and glanced over to Clay. “Sorry. I’m here.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Salem,” I said without thinking. I flinched, surprised at myself. Something about Clay just drew things out of me without my control. I wasn’t sure whether I liked this effect that he had on me.

I glanced at him, biting my lip, the same caution riveting under my skin as when he first started walking me home. It was faded now, worn down by Clay’s persistence, but it was still there, hidden underneath my trust and the comfort I felt around him.

“Salem. Your sister?”

I nodded.

“Was that who you thought you saw today?”

I stumbled on a crack in the sidewalk but Clay caught my arm before I could fall, holding me with such ease like I was as light as a doll. “Thanks,” I muttered.

“So was it?”

“What?”

“Was that your sister who you thought you saw today?”

“Yeah.” I let out a huff of breath. There was no getting away from this conversation. “I’ve…I’ve been looking for her.”

“Why?”

There was something so easy about being with Clay that made me want to let go and just open up to him. But I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t talk about Salem.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “We can talk about something else if you like.”

I nodded, and felt release. His small kindness in allowing me not to talk about it meant everything to me. Perhaps that’s why I felt it was so easy to be around Clay. He pushed me, but he knew when not to push. Perhaps it was this that made me want to open up to him.

“She ran away three years ago. Since then I’ve been looking for her. I
had
been looking for her, until I arrived in Mirage Falls and lost her trail.”

He whistled. “Three years is a long time, Aria.”

“I know.”

“Why did she run away?”

You’re so tight.
I flinched and batted away the memories that threatened to bubble back up to the surface. I felt Clay’s reassuring arm around my shoulder. “I’m sure her reasons were good ones.”