Bait: The Wake Series, Book One(113)

That had to be why my mind had finally cracked. Her voice was only a figment of my imagination a reprieve my consciousness gifted to sooth me.

“Casey?”

There it was again. The sound was almost clear enough and bright enough to believe. I ignored it. I wouldn't let myself turn around only to learn I really was going mad. Then I felt a cool hand on my leg, as I stood on the lean-to ladder resting against the almost red building.

The fingers stayed in place and I felt my eyes close. Either I was certifiable or it was real. I was afraid to find out which. I held my breath as fought my mind to tell me the truth.

Was I fooling myself?

Was it really her?

Had I brought her out of the thin air by concentrating on her so hard?

Then she said, “Hey.”

I finally allowed myself to look down at my leg. There was a hand. And it belonged to my honeybee. She was really there. On the ground at my mom's house.

I rested my head against my arm and tried to calm my breath. I didn't know what to say. Excitement at the thought of seeing her ran quickly through my veins. Then, I realized seeing her now would be one more memory I'd have to hide from later.

“What do you want, Blake?” I sounded tired and beaten.

She didn't answer, only retracting her touch from my leg.

I was past the point of tip-toing around her feelings. She didn't mind stomping all over mine in her wedding shoes.

One shaky foot after another, I climbed down off the wooden ladder.

“I don't want anything, Casey,” she answered softly.

“From me, you never do.” Stepping away from the last rung, I dipped down to grab the last water bottle I'd brought down with me. I took a long drink, tipping the bottle back, and I got my first good look of her, that I’d had in months.

Her hair was the same, but she looked thinner and more tired than the Blake of my memory. When I'd got my fill of water, I poured the last little bit over my face, dropping the bottle onto the ground when it was empty.

I ran my hands back and forth over my buzzed hair and the water came off the short strands in a mist that felt good on my hot, sunburned shoulders.

“I just wanted to come and see how you’re doing since…,” she paused not knowing how to word the obvious, “…well to see how you're doing.” She looked over the paint job avoiding my eyes. “This looks nice.”

I didn't have any fight in me, not at that moment. “It does,” I said, and walked a few feet away to the shade and sat down on the long grass.

It needed a mow.

I brought my knees up and leaned back on my aching arms.

“Look, Blake. I'm not in the mood for your shit right now. If you came here to play the concerned lover, or friend, save it. I don't want to hear it.”

My abrasive words bounced off her and she finally met my eyes again.

“I am concerned.” She twirled a finger into the hem of her T-shirt and I saw her other fingers shake from where I sat. My ability to read her body still present as ever.

“Okay.” I raised my eyebrows when I said it to tell her, with my face, that I was losing my patience.

Neither of us said anything as she stood there in the sun, beads of sweat beginning to form on her forehead.

It was a standoff and it was going anywhere. I had to break the silence, move this forward. To where I wasn't sure. “You could have sent a card or whatever. You didn't need to come here.”

Her voice steady and sure she said, “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“Why?” I drew out the word on a long exhale.

She looked to me and then to the pail of cherry red color, then back again. I was lost as to what she was thinking. I could see something growing braver behind her eyes. She went to the unused pack of paintbrushes and chose the widest one. She held it up as if to ask if she could do something with it.

I shrugged.

She walked to the paint and slowly dipped the long horse-hair brush deep into it, lifting it when it was thoroughly coated. She looked to the wall, silently questioning if it was still okay.

Again, I shrugged. The whole thing was like a weird dream. Maybe the sun got to me and it was one. Maybe I was laying on the ground unconscious and it was all a fabrication of my subconscious. My vision blurred as I thought about the likelihood of that being possible. I stared off into the woods to the side of the barn.

Blake saying, “Because of this,” broke my spell. When I gazed back at her I saw that in letters about two feet in height, she'd wrote the word BAIT.