Chasing Serenity (Seeking Serenity) (4 page)

“Oh sod Tucker Fecking Morrison.” I frown. It’s not like I haven’t said something similar about my ex in the past year, but Declan’s anger at Tucker seems extreme.  It can’t just be the ridiculous amounts of testosterone I know fills the rugby pitch and Declan being pissed about having to apologize to me. Whatever it is, he ignores for a moment and his irritated sneer and curled lip disappear. “That’s right. You fancy him, don’t you now?”

“Hardly.”

His smile is wide, incredibly condescending and I can only sigh at what I’m sure will be more sarcastic jibes.  “Well now that’s a shame.”

“And why is that?”

I don’t like the ridiculous grin on his face or the way his eyes light up with humor. “I just think it might be good for you to have a nice ride, even if it is with Morrison.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re wound so bleeding tight it’s a wonder you don’t pop.”

This guy really is full of himself. A five minute conversation and he thinks he knows me? “And how would you know that exactly?”

“I did kiss you.” Declan takes a slow step in my direction, his eyes narrowed and unflustered. There is a crinkle of electricity in that expression and my throat constricts. “Drunk as I was, I could tell you liked it. You weren’t all frigid, not for the whole of it. I felt your…a…” he looks down at my chest and his eyes linger between my two top buttons, “bits that were keen.”

He can’t be serious. For a moment I can only manage to gawk at him, pausing to measure the expressions on his face. Declan wets his bottom lip and I can do nothing but laugh. I didn’t realize men were really this obnoxious. He doesn’t seem to like my reaction. His face hardens, becomes guarded and severe and his cheeks grow an even deeper shade of pink.

“You think you rocked my world?”

“I did in fact, I’m guessin.”

I’m about to lie to a complete stranger. I have zero plans for getting back with Tucker. Besides, by his comment, I get that Declan knows nothing about our history. I move in for the kill and Declan doesn’t jolt away from me when I touch his face. His green eyes darken and he bites the inside of his lip. The crackle of energy returns, but I know it is forced, that my slow, intimate movement has elevated the tension exactly how I intend. I lift my hand, rub my thumbnail across his bottom lip and he swallows, the sound of his throat working is audible.

“Funny, because I recall my world getting rocked a lot harder those few minutes Tucker and I were alone in my classroom.” I drop my hand and step back, just a bit smug when I see Declan’s flustered gape. As I continue down the sidewalk, I know he’s watching me. I know he’s frustrated, likely angry that I got to him. My heels click against the pavement, but the sound is drowned out by Declan’s low curses echoing behind me.

We were singing along to Fleetwood Mac. It was our song, something she’d taught me to play on the guitar when I was eleven. It was an effort of impossible lengths, learning that song. Lindsey Buckingham wrote some seriously complex chord changes. But I was determined and she was a great instructor and after two months of endless practice, I could play “Landslide” without stopping more than once.

She turned up the volume and I laughed at her attempt to match Stevie Nick’s deep, sultry rasp.

“Mom, please. It’s Stevie’s song. Let her sing it.”

“Come on, sweetie. Sing with me.”

The rain came down so hard that even the wipers on high couldn’t keep the windshield remotely clear. Lightning and thunder cracked against the black sky. There were brief strikes of blinding light, crashing, unrelenting rain, then blackness. Utter inky blackness, broken only by the sparse streams of headlights.

“I talked to Ava about getting you a faculty position once you graduate.”

“I told you not to do that. I told you that I could—” I don’t know how the rest of that sentence ended. I don’t know if it ended at all. I remember the rain, the way the wipers slid so hard against the glass that the car shook. I remember the high squeal of brakes, the deafening screech of tires, the smell of smoke and then, the blood.
 

There was so much blood. It covered us. Both of us.

Everything hurt. My body felt ripped apart, severed. But the pain was nothing compared to my fear.

“Mom! Mom, please wake up.”

She stared forward, straight at me, but couldn’t see anything. Her brown eyes were unfocused, empty. Her head laid against the seat and blood covered her face.

She stared right at me. She kept staring.

“Mom! Mom please!”

“Autumn. Autumn, wake up!”

Sayo’s voice rips me from my dream. She kneels next to me as I shake on my sofa. My yoga pants and tank top stick to me like paint, but I know the sweat on my body doesn’t come from the run I took this morning. It is the dream. It’s always the dream. “You were screaming. I heard you in the hallway.” She lays my extra key on the coffee table. When I sit up, try to orientate myself, she scoots next to me and rubs my back. “You alright?”

“Yeah.” I drag my hands over my face and inhale. I hate the memory. I wasn’t one of those lucky crash victims that forgot their accidents. With the exception of a few details, I remember it all. The crash, my mom with blood covering her face, the excruciating pain that radiated in every inch of my body, the hospital, Ava and my friends back from the funeral, all in black, their eye makeup smudged under their lids. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

I can feel her watching me and don’t want to hear what will come next. It’s our practiced routine. I don’t need a babysitter.

“You know, Autumn—”

When I hear the lecture coming, I need a distraction, head into the kitchen to grab a water. The air from the open refrigerator cools my hot skin as I grab the bottle. “I’m fine, Sayo. I don’t need to see anyone and no, you don’t need to stay with me again.”

I take a long drink and wait for her reaction. The top of the fridge door is moist when I rest my chin on it and look around my kitchen, loving the emotions it invokes in me. There are reminders of my mom helping me paint the cool gray walls, her sanding down the knotty butcher block countertop, even her exuberance when she scored a vintage farmhouse sink from an antique dealer makes me smile. She’d been so proud of me venturing out on my own and this place whispers with memories of her—small traces of her are everywhere. My grandparents had left a nice inheritance for me and this place was a result of that. Mom had been proud that I’d invested that money and not blown it all on frivolous things like first edition novels or life insurance. She had weird ideas about what was “frivolous.”

The refrigerator door closes with a small pop and I return to the plush regency style sofa, a lucky find that Mom and I reupholstered together. Sayo relaxes against it, watching me as I sit next to her. I’m certain her eyes haven’t left me since she walked into my apartment.

I never thought I’d get her to leave after the accident. She stayed here with me, nursed me back to health, let me cry on her shoulder, took me to physical therapy, and handled the funeral arrangements with Ava. Sayo saved my life, but she is a fusser and after a while, when I was able to take care of myself, all I wanted was some space.

She is silent for a beat and keeps worrying her fingernails, peels the polish off, bites on a hang nail. I know her moods better than she does and can guess what’s on her mind. Sayo and Ava. They act as though I’m a fuse waiting to be lit, as though this episode with my mother has irrevocably shifted my reason, my control. That may be partly true, but I don’t need those Mama Hens fussing over me every time something upsetting happens.
 

“Spit it out,” I say.

She glances at me and finally pulls her finger away from her mouth. “Ava called me.”

“Ah. She told you about Brady being in town.”

“Yes.” She starts to chew on her finger again, but drops her hand into her lap when I clear my throat. “Well, shit, Autumn, I know how you get about your dad.”

“My father, not my dad. He stopped being my dad when he walked out.”

“Whatever. You know what I mean.” She turns to face me and laces her fingers into her dyed pink hair. I can’t help but smile at the latest insane outfit she wears. Today it’s black leggings with horizontal tears that expose her tan skin, a long, black baby doll dress and some Victorian-looking pink jacket that falls to her thighs. She sets this off with silver flip flops and a pageboy hat. This is our Library Director. Such a professional.

“What’s your point? He’s here, but if history repeats, and let’s be honest, it will, he’ll take off again. I just have to avoid him. Shouldn’t be hard.”

Sayo gives me that pathetic little Oh, I feel so bad for you stare of hers and my temper rises. That expression is familiar so I set my bottle on the table before heading into the bathroom to grab a hair tie.

“I just think maybe you should hear him out,” she calls out from the other room.

I stop pulling my hair back and walk back into the living room, one hand full of my hair, the other holding a brush. “Excuse me?”

I know my tone isn’t light, that my best friend picks up on the annoyance flirting behind my question. She hurries to explain, jumps from the sofa and sags against the doorframe. “I just mean that, well, with your mom and all,” she looks up at me once, then quickly back down, “I’m just saying that he’s the only family you have left.”

“He’s not family. He’s a sperm donor.” I turn back into the bathroom and finish pulling my hair up. “And I cannot believe you would even suggest—”

“Everyone needs family, Autumn. Family is important.”

The brush cracks in half when I slam it against the sink. “No, Sayo, you need family. Family is important to you. Not all of us grew up with a house full of brothers and sisters and parents who act like newlyweds. They picked you. They made you their daughter on purpose.”

She stands up straight and her dark, hooded eyes narrow. “Don’t act like you understand what it was like for me. Do you have any ideas what an adjustment it was, being a five year old and put into a family where I was the only Asian kid?”

“I imagine just as much of an adjustment as it was for your brother being the only black kid in that same family.”

The bathroom goes dark when I hit the light. Sayo’s face is flushed, and I fall onto the sofa, catching how tense her lips are. I know she’s angry, annoyed by my stubbornness. She sits down on the coffee table and leans back on her palms.

My voice is light, less petulant when I continue. “My point is that you were surrounded by the noise of a huge family where everything was intentional. Joe Brady had a wife and a daughter who were crazy about him and he just decides one day to take off? No reason, no explanation, just ‘I’m gone,’ and that’s it? My childhood wasn’t like yours, Sayo. And yes, he’s technically the only family I have left, but there’s a big damn difference between family and people you are related to. You’re my family. So is Ava, Mollie and Layla. That’s family enough for me.”

She exhales and lowers her shoulders. Her anger melts away as her body relaxes. “I know that, Autumn, I do. I’m just scared you’re intentionally closing everyone off.”

“Because I don’t want to meet with the man who abandoned me?”

“No, because since your mom died we are the only people you let get close to you.” She grabs my hand. “It’s not healthy. You’ve got to open yourself up.”

“I’m open. My God, I didn’t backhand Nichols when he said hello to me yesterday.”

Sayo doesn’t laugh. She sits up straight and crosses her arms, giving me a blank, wholly unamused glare. “You haven’t had one date since Tucker left. Not one in the past year.”

“God, don’t remind me.”

“He got to you, didn’t he?” I should have never called her yesterday to vent about Tucker showing up in my classroom. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her yell quite so loud.

“No.” I don’t want to discuss him. I pull my water bottle from the table and pick at the seam on the label. I know Sayo means well. I know she’s worried about me and I’m certain the phone call she mentioned with Ava included a lengthy discussion about my singledom. They really are so damn nosy.

“Did he at least look like shit?” I glance at her, shaking my head. “Well that’s disappointing. He’s going to ask you out. You know it’s coming.”

“He already has.”

Sayo’s eyes narrow so thin that I can barely make out the chocolate color in her irises. “What did you say?”

“You know I said no.”

She sits next to me on the sofa and rests her head on my shoulder.
  “You need a date.”

“I need a less nosy best friend.” I smile when she elbows me. We enjoy a comfortable silence for a moment before I find myself admitting, “It’s weird. I thought about him for a long time after he left. What I would say if he came back.” I lean up against the armrest, facing Sayo when she nods. “I thought maybe I’d be nervous or something. Maybe I’d be cool and act like it didn’t bother me that he was back.”

 “And?” I don’t answer her for a moment. I just watch her lift her arm to the back of the sofa and finger the button on the fabric.

“I didn’t feel anything really. Anger mostly and he acted like I should have been happy to see him. He actually said ‘don’t be so cold to me, Autumn.’”

“Dick.”

“Right?” I was lying to say he hadn’t affected me, but thinking about his impossibly blue eyes and his distinct smell, like grass and the wind and sandalwood soap, doesn’t erase what he did to me.

The night he left had been one of the most difficult in my life. Of course, that was before the accident, before my mom, but Tucker’s leaving did one great thing. It opened my eyes.

“Pack your things. We have to go to Europe,” he’d said. Not, “Will you go with me?” or “Let’s take an extended trip.” Just “Pack your things” and then he’d waited for me to bustle around my apartment throwing together a suitcase, grabbing my passport. When I reminded him that I had a job, a family and life in Cavanagh, that I had plans, he scoffed, thought I was being selfish. “Really, Autumn, that stuff will be here waiting for you when we get back. Hurry up, you’re going to make me late,” he’d said. I’d never been angrier. I’d given up so much of myself to Tucker, so much of who I wanted to be and it still wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He always wanted more.

 “It doesn’t matter,” I tell Sayo. “Tucker thinks he came back to the same stupid idiot that followed him around like a groupie. That’s just not me anymore.” Her face relaxes and I know she agrees. “You say I’m closing myself off and maybe I am. But don’t you think, after everything that has happened to me, that I have a right to guard myself?”

“Guard yourself, yeah, of course, but not close yourself completely.” I smile when Sayo takes the water bottle from me. She doesn’t like it when I peel the label. “I know he hurt you. I know your father did. And I know that the past year has been suckage of epic proportions. But, Autumn, you can’t spend your whole life worrying about the next bad thing that might happen. If you live your life so guarded, so protected, then you aren’t living at all. You’ve got to try to relax and enjoy yourself. I’m not saying you should get back together with Tucker.” Sayo pinches her mouth into a tiny scowl. “God, no, but you can at least try to have some fun.” She scoots next to me and we fall back against the sofa. She gives my hand a squeeze and I play with the silver ring on her pinky.

 “We haven’t done Halloween at Fubar’s in forever.”

“We went last year.”

“We didn’t dress up, remember? You were still ‘I hate all men in life’ and when that senior from Cameron hit on you, you threw your drink in his face and told him you were a lesbian.”

She was right. I’d ruined our favorite holiday because I’d spotted half of the rugby team at the bar. Which reminded me of Tucker. Which only pissed me off.
  My friends didn’t speak to me for three days afterward.

“Are you going to make me dress up?” Instead of answering, she squints at me with that weird, scathing sneer of hers.
  I give in.  “Fine, but I’m not being the slutty fairy this year.”