Existing (29 page)

“I’ve wanted to do that
since the day you knocked the lunch out of my hands,” he tells me. “You don’t know how hard I’ve had to fight to get to this moment with you.”

I don
’t speak, which is probably a good thing since I have no idea what he just said. I’m not even sure I can speak because my heart is racing and my lungs are struggling to keep up.

“
Oi!” he suddenly yells.

We both turn toward the shore and see a bunch of guys stealing our drinks from the beach.

“Put them back!” he shouts. Cabe turns back to me with a smile and a shrug. “We can always get more.”

I nod and start to shiver.

“Come here,” he says, pulling me into a hug. “I’m sorry you’re cold, but I’m not sorry I dragged you out here and kissed you.”

I feel myself biting my bottom lip and st
op. I glance up at him and his beautiful, grey eyes that are highlighted by the strip of moonlight we’re standing in.

He picks me up again and carries me back onto the beach. I pick my shoes up and
hook them onto my fingers.

“At l
east they didn’t take our shoes,” I say.

Cabe laughs. “Yeah, that’s true.” He strides up the beach and up the grassy steps. “Shall we sit by the fire pit?”

I stare at the orange and red flames that dance and flicker in the middle of a round set of pale stone bricks and nod.

“I’ll go grab you another beer. You sit down and get warm.”

I amble over the paving stones and take a seat on a cushioned chair. After a few seconds, I hold my fingers over the heat and sigh when they start to thaw.

“Are you having a good night
, Rose?”

I turn to see Charlotte walking toward me. She looks down at my bare feet and frowns. “What have you been doing?”

I grin. “We went in the water.”

She raises an eyebrow at me.
“We?”

I nod. “Cabe carried m
e in. We were just messing around.”

She laughs and sits down next to me. “Sounds like you’re having a good time.”

“Yeah, I am,” I admit. “A really good time.”

“Does it feel like a date?”
she inquires.

I glance at her and chew my lips as I remember the feeling of him kissing me. “Yes.”

“Oh my God,” she says loudly. “What happened? Did he kiss you?”

My eyes widen at her volume. “
Shh.”

“
Sorry,” she whispers. “Well, did he?”

I smile and nod.

“Oh my God. What was it like?”

I breathe in deeply and can’t stop the smile that creeps across my face. “Amazing,” I sigh.

“Girl, you’ve got it bad.”

I laugh and s
ay, “Probably.”

“Everyone is talking about it
, you know. Cora and Hannah are very jealous.”

I cringe. “Is
everyone really talking about us?”

She flops down onto the seat next to me and wriggles her fingers at the flames.
“You can’t tell me that you didn’t expect that?!”

I sigh loudly. “I
just don’t like being the center of attention or being talked about.”

“Well, if you’re dating Cabe you better get used to it.”

“I’m not dating him. We’re just on a date.”

Charlotte giggles. “If he likes you as much as it looks like he does
, then I think he’ll be back for more.”

“Who’ll be back for more?”

I turn and take my beer from Cabe’s hand and make a funny face at Charlotte.

“The milk man,” she blurts.

Cabe frowns and sits beside me. “The milk man will come back for more what?”

Charlotte takes a slug of her beer and coughs.
“Money.”

“Money?”

Charlotte waves her hand in the air at him. “It doesn’t matter.”

I see William walking behind her and avert my eyes when he bends over her head and kisses her on her lips. When Charlotte throws her arms around his neck and I see her tongue slipping
in his mouth, I stand up and suggest to Cabe that we find another place to sit.

As we walk back into the house
, I nearly bump into Ashley. I know he told me he’d be here, but I hadn’t seen him and thought he hadn’t bothered to come. He glances down at our hands that are intertwined and grins at me.

“Hello
, Ashley,” I say with a smirk.

“Hello
, Rose,” he winks. He looks up and nods at Cabe. “Cabe.”

“Ashley,” says Cabe curtly.

I glance up and look between the two of them but Ashley just shakes his head. “Have a good night, you two love birds. I’m off to get wasted.”

I laugh and step into the kitchen. “See you later
, Ash.”

Cabe follows behind me
, laughing.

“What’s up with you?” I ask, as I pull two
more beers out of a bucket.

“Him.”

“Who? Ashley?”

Cabe nods. “Yeah
, there’s something about him. Something about the way he looks at you.”

I smile and pat his arm. “Y
ou don’t need to worry about Ashley.”

“Oh
, I know,” he smiles. “He’s gay.”

I nearly spit out my beer and hear Cabe chuckling behind me as we weave our way through people dancing. Just as I
’m pushing my way out of the crowd of people, he pulls back on my hand and starts to dance. I hear myself laughing and then my hips start to move and I dance along with him until I get a stitch in my side.

By eleven
, I’m drunk enough that I’m starting to wobble when I walk. I stagger through the house behind Cabe and laugh as I walk into the back of him. He chuckles and turns around and kisses me full on the lips. I hear the gasps and shock vibrate around us, but I don’t care. His lips are way too warm and feel far too comfortable where they are for me to care about what people are thinking about me right now. He pulls back, waves his hand to the whole room, and pulls me out of the house.

“Are you sure you’ve only had
one beer?” I mumble as I follow him to William’s car.

The lights flash when he unlocks the car with his remote fob. “I’m sure
, Rose. I wouldn’t do anything to put you in danger.”

I slide into the passenger seat and giggle.

“What are you laughing at?” he asks, looking confused.

“I have no idea.”

He shakes his head and smiles. “You’re funny when you’re drunk.”

He pulls out of the drive
way and I swear I’ve only blinked once when he pulls up outside my house, which is smothered in a blanket of darkness.

“Has no one waited up for you?”

I lean forward and look at the windows. “Guess not.”

“Will Ava be asking you
loads of questions?”

I shake my head. “I think she’s at a sleepover tonight.”

When I turn back around, he’s leaning over and our faces are centimeters apart. He smiles and kisses me gently on my lips. It’s not quite long enough to satisfy me, but he pulls away with a grin on his face anyway.

“I’d like to do this again, just the two of us,” he tells me.

“I’ve had a great time,” I sigh. “But I’m just not sure I can be the girl that you want me to be.”

I cover my mouth when I realiz
e I’ve blurted out something that I was thinking and shouldn’t have been saying.

He frowns. “How do you know I don’t just want you the way you are?”

I laugh. “I don’t think I’m normal.”

“Because you can see a ghost?”

I turn in shock, having forgotten that he knows all about that. I shake my head. “There’s more than that.”

“I don’t care
, Rose.”

I reach up with my hands and push them into his hair at the back of his head. A deep groan escapes from his lips which makes me shiver. I stare in
tently at his almost black eyes and lean in toward him. My heart pumps furiously in my chest and I know the alcohol is making me feel dizzy and light-headed, but at the same time, I’m sure that kissing him alone would me make me feel like I’m about to faint at any moment. I pull back, just as the fire ignites and unfurls in my belly.

“Good night
, Cabe,” I breathe. I smile at the sound of my own husky voice.

He smiles and tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear. “Good night
, Rose.”

I climb out of the car and turn and wave quickly at him when I reach the door. I watch him
smile and pull slowly away as I fumble with my key in the lock. I hear it click and quietly push the door open.

I’ve only taken one step into the house when I feel a cold hand grasp the back of my neck.

I shake my head and try to tear my hair out in frustration. “No, no, no, no!”

I pace up and down the hallway screaming the word ‘no’ over and over again
, but of course I cannot be heard and therefore Hallie does not stop.

Roisin is already lying on the floor
, too injured to even cry, but Hallie continues to punch her in the head and in her chest until Roisin finally screams out.

“Shut up, you big-mouthed stupid little slut.”

She grabs Roisin’s hair and yanks her head back. I can see the pain ripple across her battered face and I scream. “Take me instead. I’ll swap. Let me feel the pain. Please!”

Roisin groans when Hallie lets go of her hair
, making her head drop back down. Her nose hits the floor with a loud thud. Hallie takes a drag on her cigarette and then rolls Roisin over and pulls her dress up to reveal her pretty, silk panties. I cover my ears with my hands when she stubs the cigarette out on the top of her thigh.

“Don’
t ever think you can go whoring around with your pompous little boyfriend and then come back into my house reeking of sex and get away with it.” Hallie wipes the sweat on her forehead away with the back of her hand and grunts. “Who is he anyway? Who does the little shit think he is, pulling up outside of my house with his stupid car? If I ever see that little shit again, I’ll be sure to tell him exactly what I think of him.”

Roisin cries again b
ut makes no attempt to move. Hallie’s going to kill her. I swoop up the stairs and try to shake Lance but he’s fast asleep. I scream in his face but there’s nothing. I see a packet of tablets on the bedside table that look a lot like sleeping pills and briefly wonder if Hallie has drugged him. I shake my head and move onto the landing, looking over the wooden rails.

“I can’
t believe you fucked someone. Can you not remember the mess you got into the last time you tried that, Rose?”

I swoop down the stairs. What is Hallie talking about? Rose groans.

“I swear to fucking God that if I have to pay to clean your mess up again I will tell your Father! I’m not keeping another dirty little secret for you.”

I freeze and drop to my knees.
What is Hallie talking about? Has Rose had sex with someone, and if so, why does Hallie know and what secret can she possibly be keeping?

I pace up and down beside Roisin as the thought
s whirl through my head. She keeps referring to something that happened last summer. Is this it? Did Rose get an infection? Is that where they went for those few days last summer? Is that why my daughter came back broken and confused and even more of a recluse than she was before she went?

`”Maybe I should tell him
,” she laughs. “He won’t think you’re the apple of his eye if he knows what you got up to last year, will he?”

“Oh, Jesus,” I whisper, crouching down to cradle her head in my lap.

“There,” says Hallie, leaning back on her heels. “You won’t go dropping your panties for him now, will you? If he sees that mark, he’ll ask you about it, and you’re not going to say anything, are you?”

Ro
isin doesn’t answer her.

“We both know they’ll take you away and lock you up. They’ll take
Ava away too, and then think what will happen to your Father? He’ll be broken and it will all be your fault.”

“You b
itch!” I scream into Hallie’s face. “You absolute bitch!”

Hallie stands back and laughs at Roisin when she surveys the damage she’s caused. She throws one last kick into Roisin’s stomach and then walks back up the stairs as if nothing has happened.

I sit next to my battered and bruised daughter on the cold hallway floor and sob for her. I cry for everything. I cry for her. I cry for Ava. I even cry for Lance, and then I cry for myself.

I need to get her to bed. I need to make sure she’s warm.

“Please God,” I mumble. “Let me help her.”