Dark and Shallow Lies(34)

“I like that idea,” I tell him. “All of us recycled over and over in each other’s lives.”

“Me too.” Hart looks up toward the dark sky, then he takes a long drag off his cigarette. I wish he could breathe out hurt, the way he breathes out smoke. “Maybe next time I can save ’er.”

We sit in silence while I finish my second beer, and Hart offers me a third. But it turns out there aren’t any more. Which is probably good, because my head is spinning now, and Hart’s words sound sloppy. But I can’t tell if it’s his tongue that’s not working right, or my ears.

He stands up and moves toward the back of the boat to rummage around under one of the seats, then he holds up a half-empty bottle of whiskey and grins at me in triumph. “For special occasions,” he announces. And I guess the saddest birthday party in the world counts, because he unscrews the top and turns to pitch it into the dark like a baseball player. Then he tips the bottle up and takes a long swig without even flinching.

“Hart.”

He doesn’t respond. He just stands there for a long time. Staring out at the water.

Still.

Watching.

Waiting.

If it weren’t for the whiskey bottle dangling from one hand, he’d remind me an awful lot of Willie Nelson.

Finally he turns around to look at me.

“Don’t come back here, Greycie. Next summer.” I stare at him. “Elora didn’t want you here. That’s what last summer was all about. At least mostly. All that shit that went down between the two of you. She didn’t want you to come back here. Ever. She didn’t want you to have any reason to.”

I feel stung. Like he’s slapped me hard across the face.

“She wanted to get rid of me.”

Hart shakes his head. “Dammit, Greycie. You aren’t listening. She wanted to save you.”

I hear the words, but my brain won’t process them.

“Save me from –”

He cuts me off midquestion. “From this godforsaken place.”

“Why?”

“Jesus.” He lets out an exasperated sigh, and it makes me feel stupid. “Because she was scared for you. Of what you might become if you came back here.” He washes the words down with another long swallow of whiskey. “Because she fuckin’ loved you.”

Something Zale said last night swims up through the beer and the confusion to bob up and down on the surface of my memory.

This town is poison, Grey. Elora knew that.

That night on the dock, at the end of last summer, things had gone so wrong. It was my last night in town, and I’d wanted us to spend it together. Just the two of us. Like always. That was our end-of-summer tradition. Elora had been acting so weird for months, but I figured . . . if we could just have that one good night . . . then everything would be okay. Then she’d run off somewhere for most of the evening. And when she finally showed back up, she was evasive and distant. Not in the mood to talk. So I accused her of being selfish, and she accused me of smothering her.

Grow the fuck up! We’re separate people, Grey! We’re allowed to have our own lives! I’m getting out of here soon. I promise you that. And don’t expect me to ever come back to this shithole town. Not even for you!

Her words tore my heart out. And the hurt of it set me on fire with rage. I called her a bitch. And then I said the worst thing of all. The one thing I knew would cut her to the bone. I told Elora that she’d never get out of this place. Not if she lived to be a hundred. Because she’d never have the guts to face life out in the real world.

Not on her own.

Especially not without me.

I looked my twin flame right in the face and told her that she’d die here. In La Cachette. And there was nothing she could do to change that.

And that’s when she called me a pathetic liar. And punched me. Right in the mouth.

It was her fist that caused the bruise under my jaw, but it was her words that drew blood.

There’s nothing special about you, Grey. And there’s nothing special about us. A few years from now, I won’t even remember you ever existed.

For almost a year, those parting words have been the first thing I hear when I open my eyes in the morning, and the last thing I hear before I fall asleep at night. They ring and echo in my head every single second of every day, like Evie’s wind chimes.

They’ve been the rock in my rock bottom.

And now Hart’s telling me she didn’t mean them. Not really.

And I don’t know where that leaves me.

Except drifting.

Hart makes his way back to me. He squats down low and puts a warm hand on my bare knee to steady himself. “You shouldn’t have come home this year. I shouldn’t have let you.” He tips his head way back and drains the very last drop from the whiskey bottle. “But I needed you so bad, Greycie.” His voice cracks, and my heart cracks right along with it. “God, I fuckin’ needed you.” The pain in his eyes makes me ache. “I needed to be with someone who loved her as much as I did. Ya know?” He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. “But you got no business bein’ here. There’s nothin’ good here any more.”

Hart’s face is swimming back and forth in front of me. I try to focus on him, through the alcohol and the tears that are welling up in my eyes. He’s the only anchor I have left. And I finally let myself reach out and touch those beautiful curls.