Existing (35 page)

I end the call and stand outside Roisin’s house and stare at all the windows and then her front door. I know she came home today because I was watching her house when they pulled up. I can’t bring myself to knock to see if she’s alright. I can’t face her Father again after that day in the hospital. I don’t think he’s the one hurting her, but if it’s happening in that house, then how the hell does he not know about it?

If it’s not her Dad, then it must be that bitch of a stepmother. I watched her pack all of her
suitcases and bags into her car and drive to the airport the other day with Ava, so I know she’s not home. This helps because it means I have time to try and sort some things out.

I pull my phone out of my pocket and dial Charlotte’s number.

“Hello,” she answers.

“Charlotte,
it’s Cabe.”

“Cabe?” she says. “Is it Rose? Is she alright?”

“She’s home,” I tell her. “Her Father brought her back about an hour ago.”

“Thank God,” she breathes. “How is she?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her or anything.”

“What?” she asks.
“Why not?”

“There’s something
you and I need to figure out first.”

“Us?” she asks. “Like what?”

“Like why she lied to the police.”

“She did what?” she gasps. “Are you
freakin’ kidding me?”

“I wish,” I tell her.

“So, what did she tell them?”

“Exactly what she told the both of us.”

Charlotte snorts down the phone. “So she’s telling us and the police one thing and then she’s telling Ashley something completely different?”

“Looks like it,” I sigh.

“How do you know?”

“The police visited Rose a few hours after she got home, and they’ve just told my Mum.”

“Great,” she huffs. “Fucking great. So who are we supposed to believe?”

“I want to say Rose, but my gut is telling me Ashley.”

“I agree,” she says quickly. “So what are we going to do about it?”

“Are you free today?”
I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “Do you want to meet?”

I take in a deep breath. “Meet me at the coffee shop near the Lumberyard Grill in half an hour?”

“Okay,” she says, clicking off the phone.

Charlotte is sitting cross-legged on my bedroom floor opposite me with her hair piled loosely on the top of her head and dressed head to toe in a pale pink, velour tracksuit. She’s talking. She hasn’t stopped talking since she came in here about forty minutes ago.

“Are you even lis
tening to me?” she asks.

“Yes,” I answer quickly. “You just said that it was like I was dead when you came to visit
, and that you cried for an hour next to me before you went home. Oh, and you thought you sucked big time at being a friend because you couldn’t come and see me like that again.”

She gulps. “I’m sorry
, but it’s not like you even knew I was there anyway, right?”

I smile.
“Exactly, Charlotte. You have nothing to feel bad about.” I flick through the pages of ‘get well soon’ comments and shake my head. “I don’t even know who these people are.”

Charlotte slaps her hand over the pages and stops me from turning over another. “Does it matter? These people were affected enough by what had happened to you to write something.”

I realize what she’s trying to tell me and I hate myself for how ungrateful I must sound. “I’m sorry, it’s just…well, you know I never had friends before and this just feels too different. Too weird.”

“Well, you have friends now
, and you’re sort of with Cabe so you inherit all of his friends too. But unfortunately, that also means lots of girls automatically hate you.”

I tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear. “I’m not with Cabe. Not even sort of, so they have no reason to hate me.”

“You have no idea,” she says with a smirk.

I feel my eyes narrow. I don’t like that smirk and it immediately makes me feel suspicious. “I have no idea about what?”

She pulls her hands away from the book and nods at it. “Go on. Turn it over.”

I
pinch the corners of the scrapbook in between my thumb and forefinger and hesitate. The smirk on her face has now grown into a huge smile that stretches from ear to ear. I take a deep breath and flick the page.

“Oh my God,” I
breathe.

“I know,” she smiles excitedly. “
Cool, right?”

My
eyes fly up and down the enlarged black and white picture that fills the entire page of the scrapbook. The bright white moon is a perfect circle in the center of the picture. Underneath the moon, a trail of lighter color reflects and bounces off the page, making it seem like a path is running up the waves from the moon until it reaches the two people standing knee deep in the water. The girl’s eyes are looking up, and the reflection of the moon and the depth of her desire fill her irises. I notice her flawless skin, and despite the colorless picture, I can tell her hair is dark and shiny. At the edge of each curl is a lighter color, making it look like the moon is leaking onto her. Her arms are toned and the dress she is wearing looks like it was made for her. There isn’t a single piece of fabric that doesn’t fit her properly. I can see her muscular thighs just before they disappear under the water. I can feel my breath wheezing in and out of my mouth and am fully aware of Charlotte gawking at me when my eyes finally follow the girl’s arms until her hands circle around the back of someone’s head.

I look up quickly.

“Incredible, isn’t it? William actually photographed it. I wasn’t there, but he told me after this picture was published.”

“I have so many questions,” I whisper.

“Shoot,” she says, licking the end of her thumb. “Those cheesy crisps always get stuck in my teeth.”

“Why did he have a camera with
him?”

She grins and rolls onto her stomach, kicking her heels into her backside. “He’s a photographer.
His whole family is. Having a camera in your pocket or in your car is a must.”

“Oh
, right.”

“You should see how many he’s ta
ken of me! It’s embarrassing,” she laughs.

“Why
did he black out Cabe?”

“He just thought the nameless, faceless silhouette would make it s
eem more interesting.” She taps the picture with the end of her finger. “I think it worked amazingly well. People look at that photo and wonder who that beautiful girl is, and who it is that she’s looking at like that and why. There’s so much mystery, but then they look at your face and it’s all there for everyone to see. You’re beautiful, Rose, and soon the whole world will see just how beautiful you really are.”

I wrinkle my face up. Out of the two
faces, I should have been the one blacked out. Cabe is far too beautiful to be colored in. “What do you mean the whole world?”

She grins again and says, “William needs to talk to you
about something important. Just remember it’s a massive deal for him when he does speak to you. I’ve told him to wait until you’re back at school so I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anymore.”

“Oh
, come on,” I sigh, “you can’t say all of that and then just leave me hanging. How about a clue?”

She smiles and shakes her head.
“Nope. He made me swear on my Mother’s life.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

I shake my head. “I really don’t understand.”

She giggles and turns the page, revealing yet another picture of me. “You’re not supposed to. And before you ask, no, it doesn’t bother me that he’s taken pictures of you. I can see why he has, and I don’t think he likes you, well…not in the I-want-to-fuck-your-brains-out way.”

This time it’s another black and white picture and I’m sitting carefully on the edge of a seat with my fingers curled over the edge.
It’s obvious that I’m thinking about something, and the way he’s colored in the flames dancing in front of my face causing my eyes to light up is mesmerizing. “Wow,” I say. “I mean, I hate my picture being taken but he has some talent. He makes me look interesting and thoughtful, rather than boring and gormless.”

Charlotte rolls onto her back and roars with laughter. “Who on Earth says gormless these days?”

“Oh, shut up,” I smirk.

“
So do you still not remember what happened to you?”

I shake my hea
d and sigh. “It’s foggy. I remember the party and everything that’s ever happened before that, I think.”

“But nothing afterward
?”

I shake my head. “Sometimes I dream about waking up in
my bed in pain and not knowing how I got there, but that just frightens me so I refuse to believe that actually happened.”

She leans down and looks at me carefully. “Why does that frighten you?”

I sigh loudly and pick at the carpet. “It just makes everything more complicated. If I woke up in pain, then I was obviously injured before morning. And if I woke up not knowing how I got to my bedroom, then where did I go after Cabe dropped me off? Why would I not remember how I got into my bed?”

“That’s some messed up shit you’ve got going around in your head
, Rose.”

I snort. “I know.”

“Do you want to get some fresh air?”

I glance up and toward the window where the sun is beating down through a perfectly clear, blue sky. “I would love some
, but I’m not supposed to go out.”

“Oh come on,” she says
, standing up. “We’ll just go to the breakfast diner on the coast. It’s still early, so it’ll be quiet.”

“U
m, I don’t know if I can walk that far yet.”

She smiles gently at me. “It doesn’t matter if you can’t. We’ll stop and you can come back whenever you want.”

I stare down at my clothes. “Will you help me get dressed and ready, please?”

Charlotte glances down at her
own velour tracksuit and shrugs. “Sure, why not. You nearly died after all. Your wish is my command for today.”

I pick out a pair of jeans, white
tennis shoes, and a white t-shirt with a sequined rainbow over the front and a sparkly sun that says, ‘I’m always shining from the inside’.

“That’s a cool t-shirt. Whose is it?”

“It’s actually a charity t-shirt.”

She
pulls my shirt over my head, tugs down my grey sweatpants, and quickly orders me to step into my jeans before slipping my sneakers over my feet.

“Do I need a sweater
?”

Charlotte laughs. “Rose, it’s the nineteenth of May. It’s w
arm. You do not need your sweater.”

“Seriously?
” I say as I smooth my t-shirt down. “I never realized it was May!”

Charlotte laughs and then looks at me seriously. “Are you going to ask your Dad to dress you when you come back to school?”

“No,” I say, disgusted. “It’s another two weeks away. I’ll be fine by then.”

She eyes me curiously before turning me around so that I face the mirror. She applies
a thin layer of tinted moisturizer, a quick gold shadow over my lids, a thin coat of mascara, and clear lip gloss. She squirts some curl spray through my hair and twists sections of it around her fingers until my hair falls in a mixture of delicious, gentle waves and tight curls down my shoulders and back.

“Wow,” I say
, amazed at how quickly and easily she can transform me. “You have talent!”

“I know,” she laughs, “if only my Mother wasn’t so adamant that I should
study law!”

It’s a long time since we left my house but we’ve made it. I huff through the door and slide into the first booth I
reach. I lean my head on the table so I can focus on breathing and not passing out. I feel my skin going hot and sweaty but I’m shivering. Oh god. Please not in here. Please, don’t let me pass out in here.

My eyes have just started to flick to the back of my head when I feel hands on my hips dragging me out of the booth. I’m spun around so my legs hang over the edge of the seat and then two hands are pushing my legs apart before
something cold touches my hot neck. My head quickly drops forward until my forehead is virtually touching my knees, and soon I feel the faintness and the dizziness disappearing back to where it came from.

“Shit,” says Charlotte. “She was doing so well too.”

“Maybe she’s done too much,” he says.

“She was fine. Trust me. I know what I was doing and what to look out for
, but there were none of the signs.”

“Okay. I believe you. Can you fetch her some water
, please. She’ll be thirsty.”