Awakening (Lily Dale #1)(24)

“Eleven thirty! I can’t believe I slept so late.”

“Wow. You just got up? You must be really relaxed up there.”

“Not exactly. It’s . . . more the opposite.” She quickly explains to Lisa, in a hushed tone, with one eye on the closed door, what’s been going on. She doesn’t go into the creepy “dredging the lake” comment—which, after all, might not even be a recollection but a mere dream. She also instinctively neglects to tell her friend about the ghost she herself glimpsed.

She’s glad she didn’t mention that part when she hears Lisa’s response to the news that Odelia—and, reportedly, everyone else in town—sees and talks to dead people.

“What a bunch of freaks! You need to get out of there, before you get into trouble.”

“Like what?”

“Who knows? With all those freaks running around, there’s no telling what can happen.”

“Well, where am I supposed to go? My dad’s in California now.”

“You could come back here. Please, Calla. I miss you so much.”

“I miss you, too. But I can’t come back. There’s no place for me to—”

“You know my mom said you’re always welcome.”

Yes, she knows. She also knows Kevin is still home from college. Then again . . .

She can’t help but remember how right it felt when he touched her arm that day in the cemetery. Or how he told her to let him know if she needed anything.

She does. She needs familiarity. She needs Kevin and Lisa and . . . home.

“What abou—” She breaks off, takes a deep breath, and allows herself to ask Lisa, “What about Kevin?”

There’s a pause. Never a good sign.

“What about Kevin?” Lisa asks. “He’s here. That’s about it.”

It isn’t like her to speak so tersely about her adored older brother. There was a time, when they were much younger, when Lisa’s nonstop “Kevin this” and “Kevin that” drove Calla crazy. Then Calla fell for him, and she and Lisa had even more in common.

After the breakup, Calla alternated between warning Lisa that she didn’t want to hear a thing about Kevin to pumping her for information. Lisa was willing to oblige in either case.

Now that the wound isn’t so raw, Calla finds herself curious about him and asks Lisa cautiously, “What has he been up to lately?”

“Mostly bugging my parents to buy him a car to take to school. And I think they might actually do it, too.”

“That would be good.”

“Yeah, only then he’d have to drive all the way back up north alone, and my parents don’t want him to do that.” Lisa changes the subject. “So listen, if you came back down here, you could sleep in our guest room and finish school at Shoreline like you were supposed to. We’d get to be like sisters, living in the same house and everything. Remember when we were kids and we used to pretend that we were?”

“Sisters?” Calla smiles. “Yeah, only nobody ever believed us.”

“I was hoping one day we’d be sisters-in-law, you know?” Lisa says unexpectedly, and quietly. “Then my brother had to go screw that up.”

“Lisa, don’t—”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I just miss the way things were.”

Yeah. She’s not the only one.

“And I miss you, Calla. I wish you’d come back and stay here.”

“How can I if Kevin’s around?” Calla stares at the overcast sky through the window above the kitchen sink. “Wouldn’t that be awkward?”

“I guess it would,” Lisa says reluctantly, “especially since— oh, never mind.”

“Since what?”

“I hate to tell you this, but I feel like you should know. . . .”

“Know what?”

“Kevin’s new girlfriend. He, uh . . . has one. And she’s coming down to visit.”

Ah, the sucker punch. How can Calla be caught off guard, though? She knew he was seeing someone else. Again, an educated guess. Or maybe a psychic vision. Women’s intuition or just plain old-fashioned logic.

When you’re suddenly dumped after two years, chances are you’ve been replaced.

“Look, maybe,” Lisa is saying, “you and I could go away somewhere while she’s here. We could, you know, visit Tiffany. She’s at her family’s house on Sea Island till school starts.” That means September. Shoreside Day starts late, for Florida—not until after Labor Day.

“No!” Calla’s tone is curt. She can’t help it. “No way am I going to visit Tiffany. And no way am I going to live under the same roof as Kevin. I just . . . I can’t.”

“I’m really sorry, Calla,” Lisa says softly. “I promise to hate her when I meet her.”

Good old loyal Lisa.

“So . . . who is she?” Calla hears herself ask, though she isn’t sure she really wants to know. “Does she go to Cornell with him?”

“I guess so. She’s from Vermont or New Hampshire or something. Her name is Annie.”

Annie. Only adorable, sweet, nice girls are named Annie. Everyone knows that. Well, Calla knows it, anyway.

So let Kevin live happily ever after with adorable, sweet, nice Annie. That’s fine with her.