Inception (The Marked Book 1) (29 page)

36. SUNNY SIDE UP

The scorching sun kissed my skin like a long-lost love. I’d forgotten how good it could feel. How medicinal its warmth could be. I wanted to stay in this moment forever; let the heat encase my body like a tomb. But alas, I had miles to go.

“Where exactly are we?” asked Trace, peering down the length of the street as we stepped out from behind the hedges.

Apparently, getting us there didn’t necessarily mean he knew where
there
was.

“This is my old street. Well, my old bus stop to be exact.” We both looked up at the stop sign in unison as though it were some fascinating museum artifact.

“And that’s my house.” I ticked my head to the modest cream colored Mediterranean house adorned in tall palmetto trees at the end of the street.

“Have you figured out what our story’s going to be?” asked Trace as we started down the street side by side. It felt like an impromptu quiz the way he pressed me for an answer.

I thought about it for a moment. “I’ll tell him you’re new in the neighborhood and that today’s your first day at Cape High.” I paused as I reran the story in my mind. “And that we missed the bus,” I added, remembering that this would be the second time he was seeing me this morning.

“Not bad,” remarked Trace, his dimples pressing in modestly, beckoning me. “I’m impressed.”

He was impressed that I lie well? I shook my head, “you would be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” His eyes looked like two dazzling orbs in this sunlight.

“You know, just that you look like the kind of guy that would be impressed by something like that.”

He looked intrigued. “And what kind of guy is that?”

I shrugged as though I hadn’t given it much thought. “The kind of guy that has a lot of secrets. The kind that dates girls like Nikki Parker and answers questions with questions. The evasive kind.” I wanted to add ‘the hot brooding kind’ to the list but figured it was best to leave that one out.

He tipped his head in a nod, soaking it in. “You think you have me all figured out, don’t you?”

I couldn’t hold back my laughter. “Not even a bit.”

By the time we turned up my driveway, my heart had all but climbed up into the back of my throat, threatening a complete system failure. I was going to see my dad again. Right here. Right now. After all this time and a
funeral
. I had no idea what was in store for me but I refused to let my fear of the unknown stop me. I drew in a lungful of air and pushed open the door.

The familiar sights and aromas assaulted my senses as I walked into the house. It felt peculiar being here after so much time away. Even though everything was the same and I was more than nostalgic for it, somehow, I’d become a stranger to the house. Like I didn’t quite fit here anymore.

Apparently, I didn’t fit in
anywhere
anymore.

“Jemma? Is that you?” called my father from the kitchen. The sound of his voice hit me like a lightning bolt.

I staggered back, shaking my head. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to set my eyes on him without breaking down.

Trace slinked our hands together. “You can do this,” he whispered, rubbing soothing circles on the back of my hand with his thumb. “Just breathe.
I got you
.”

My insides pinched at his words. I couldn’t figure out how he was able to transmit exactly what I needed to push forward, but he did, and I liked him more for it.

I walked into the kitchen and found my father sitting at the table with a cup of coffee cradled between his hands. The sun dusted his features, giving him that same ethereal look I often imagined him with nowadays. It took every ounce of strength I had to resist the urge to run over to him and crawl into his lap like I did when I was a kid. When I didn’t know any better and thought there’d never come a day when I wouldn’t have my father.

“Who do we have here?” he asked, furrowing his dark brows similar to the way my uncle did when he was talking
Rev
business. It was unnerving how much they looked alike.

I couldn’t stop staring. “This is Trace. He just moved here. We missed the bus.” Frankly, I couldn’t have done a poorer job lying if I tried doing it on purpose.

“Nice to meet you,” jumped in Trace, extending his hand to my father. The sight of them shaking hands made my heart swell. 

“Likewise,” said my father. His dark eyes bounced between the two of us before settling back on me. “Are you okay, Jems? You’re looking a little—”

“Yeah, I’m totally fine.” I stood there looking anything but. I needed to get a major grip.

“Alright.” He nodded in a circular motion, not quite believing it but unwilling to press the issue. “Let me grab my keys. I’ll give you two a ride to school.”

“It’s okay, Dad. You don’t need to do that. We’re catching the next bus,” I lied, easy as breathing.

He looked rather confused by my decline. I guess that made sense considering I wasn’t exactly one to turn down rides at that particular point in my life. You might have even said I was allergic to public transportation.

“Trace is new, remember? He needs to learn the route,” I added, hoping it sounded plausible enough. I felt bad lying to him like this but I guess it was for his own good.

“Alright, fair enough. You might as well sit down then,” he said, motioning to the table, grinning copiously. “Looks like you have time for that breakfast after all.” He winked at me before bending down to pillage the fridge, and I nearly broke down in complete hysterics. I never in a million dreams thought I’d get another chance to have breakfast with my dad.

I remembered asking him for a rain check this very morning all those months ago, assuming there would be a lifetime of
tomorrows
to have breakfast with him. The younger
Jemma
had far more important things to do—like meeting Jake Miller at the bleachers before class. Everyone said he was going to ask me to the dance and I couldn’t think of a single more important place to be at the time. How utterly stupid I was.

If only I knew. I’d take it
all
back, trade a hundred dances and first kisses for this one breakfast with my dad.

And now, thanks to Trace, I wouldn’t have to do any of that. He made the impossible possible by giving me a chance to right my wrong and rewrite the past.

I sat down at the table and watched as Trace interacted with my father while he whipped up a batch of his famous pesto scrambled eggs and bacon. I’d never seen Trace so loquacious before. It was kind of endearing to see, and the fact that it was with my dad made it that much more special.

As they carried on about junior hockey and classic cars, I found myself studying my dad; his voice, his mannerisms, the lines in his face. I needed to remember it, all of it, and brand those memories into the forevermore of my mind.

“Jemma here is on the varsity cheer squad,” said my dad as he set down a plate in front of me. “She’s the only sophomore on the team.” He sounded so proud of me when he spoke. I never noticed that about him before.

“Is that right?” Trace’s eyebrows shot up with interest. He was eating up every word of it. Probably picturing me in my cheer uniform this very second.

I rolled my eyes at him.

“I got lucky with this one,” continued my dad. “Never gave me any problems. She’s a good kid. A little high in the maintenance department, but a good one just the same.”

Was he trying to make me sob? I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep it together. Sucking in a lungful of air, I bore down into my scrambled eggs and blinked back the budding tears as Trace and my father went on with their near perfect, off-the-cuff conversation. It was far too easy to fall in line with the normalcy of it all. I would feel the loss later, of this I was sure, but for now, all was right in the world.

The morning passed like falling water, evading me with every drop. It didn’t matter how bad I wanted to reach out and trap it—freeze it—keep the water at a standstill. It was impermanent, another fleeting moment that would soon be over. I ate my breakfast in a daze, hardly saying a word all morning which was very unlike me, especially back then. But I couldn’t help it. I just wanted to hear my dad speak. I wanted to hear him complain about the stifling humidity and rave about his super bowl predictions. Every word he uttered seemed so important, so utterly crucial to my survival. I only wished I could stay here and listen to him speak forever.

Once everyone had finished their breakfast, I cleared the dishes from the table and loaded the dishwasher for what felt like the last time. The sun was shining through the window, though it didn’t feel right on my skin anymore. Inside I felt as gray and unsettled as the Hollow Hills firmament. The storm clouds had already gathered in my heart, knowing I was going to have to say goodbye to everything all over again.

I looked back at my dad and straightened my shoulders as I prepared myself to leave him.
This would not be goodbye
, I decided. I refused to say those words to him. I refused to let him go. I would find a way back to him, and maybe, just maybe, I’d even find a way to save him.

“I’ll see you later, Daddy.” I nestled into his arms and breathed in his familiar scent, hoping I could take it back with me as a keepsake. “I love you to the moon and back.”

He squeezed me tight as he dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “And I love you more than all the stars in the sky.”

I quickly detached from him and bounced out the door, hurrying off so he wouldn’t see my face soaked with the tears I could no longer contain. Trace said his goodbyes on his own and then jogged to catch up with me as I made my way down the street, back to the bus stop from which we had sprung.

“Are you okay?” he asked upon reaching me. His deep voice was rich with concern.

I wiped under my eyes and pulled in a deep breath. “No, but I will be,” I nodded, doing my best to put on a brave face. “That was a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

His face looked pained. “I’m sorry, I should have known—” 

“Don’t apologize,” I interrupted, stopping abruptly to face him. “What you did for me today...” I shook my head. Words couldn’t express what those moments meant to me. What they did for my shattered heart. “I’ll never
ever
forget it.”

A humble smile graced his face and I could see he was pleased. He was happy that
I
was happy, and it melted my heart. Overcome with emotion, I pushed up on my toes and leaned into him, bouncing a kiss off his cheek. He didn’t move an inch—not forward nor backward—not even after I pulled away.

“What was that for?” he asked, his jaw muscle ticking.

For being there for me when I needed him. For putting himself at risk time and time again. For taking me to see my dad even though he didn’t have to do it. Regardless of what he may have
said
in the past, he’s been there for me more times than I can count and I was eternally grateful to him.

“Just for...everything," I answered, silently vowing that I would one day find a way to repay him.

His dimples pressed in as a small smile formed on his lips. “You ready to go
home
?”

I sighed, not entirely sure where that was anymore. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

37. CONTACT

Hollow Hills greeted us with its elegiac song. Water trickled down the window like tears, welcoming us back to a melancholy world that never rested. It was already late afternoon by the time we returned, which had surprised me. Apparently, time moved a lot quicker here…or perhaps it moved slower for us in the past? I wasn’t yet sure how that worked.

Trace and I spent the next couple of hours alone in his bedroom where we sat on the floor with our backs against the bed and the music humming in the background. We talked about everything and nothing; killing time as it were, and for the most part, we kept things light and easy, and we were both content with that. That is, until I unwittingly asked about his mother.

I wanted to know what time she would be home and hoped to pass it off as a minor curiosity, but the truth was, I was afraid I’d wind up face-to-face with her having to explain what I was doing in her son’s bedroom, unsupervised. Mothers always made me incredibly uneasy. I didn’t know how to interact with them—probably because I never really had one.

Trace swallowed hard and lowered his eyes.

“Did I say something wrong?” I asked, confused by his response. However backhanded my intentions, it was an innocent enough question.

“No, you didn’t say anything wrong.” He looked up at his iPod deck and listened for a few beats. “My mom’s not well,” he finally said, turning back to me with guarded eyes. “After Linley died, she had a hard time coping with everything.”

He went on to tell me about the breakdown his mother suffered after his sister’s death. Though he didn’t offer too many specifics regarding what that entailed, I could tell it was something that weighed heavily on him.

“She’s been in an institution for the last few weeks,” he revealed, growing more sullen with every admission. “My father said it was for her own good, but I know he just got sick of dealing with her. Out of sight, out of mind.”

My heart sank.

“I try to go visit her every day before school but it’s hard seeing her that way.” He looked up at me and shook his head, possibly mistaking my silence for fear. “She’s not crazy. She’s just heartbroken.” His eyes were gleaming in the dim light, deepening the shades of blue. 

“I know,” I said, covering his hand with mine. I didn’t know what else to say to him.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he answered softly and then turned his hand around so that his palm was flat against my own. His eyes never strayed from mine as he laced our fingers together, causing my heart to drum even faster. “I didn’t tell you about her to get anything back from you.”

But how could I not give him something back? After everything he’d done for me, the least I could offer was my friendship, my compassion. Maybe even the gift of knowing he wasn’t alone. That I’d traveled down a similar road to his mother and came out of it okay, even if it was under different circumstances. Sometimes all we needed was a shoulder to lean on, or in some cases, a hand to hold.

I looked down at our entangled fingers. “I watched my father die eight months ago at the hands of a Rev. I watched him give up his own life so that I could get away, and I’ve had to live with that ever since. I pretty much lost it after that and wound up getting committed.” I glanced up at him, gauging his reaction before saying anything else. “I was out of it for a long time. The more I resisted, the more they drugged me into oblivion. So much so that I actually started to believe that maybe I
did
imagine the whole thing. Maybe I
was
crazy.” 

He cleared his throat as though he were going to say something but decided against it. The gesture made me hesitate, like maybe I was doing that rambling thing again and revealed a little more than he was ready to hear.

“The point is that I came out of it okay, and your mother will too. When she’s ready to cope with the world again, she will. She just needs time.” I squeezed his hand reassuringly.

He stared back at me without speaking.

I couldn’t tell what he was thinking from his ever-reticent countenance, and I wished—not for the first time—that I could read his thoughts the way he could read mine.

“No, you don’t. Trust me.”

“That bad?”

He didn’t answer.

“Are you freaked out?” I asked, biting my lip nervously.

“Why would I be freaked out?”

“Because of what I told you,” I shrugged, afraid to ask him what he thought of me now. “I don’t want you to look at me differently now that you know.” I dropped my gaze knowing I couldn’t bear it if this changed things between us. Especially now that we were in a good place.

He shook my hand a little as if to call back my attention. “You really don’t remember, do you?”

That wasn’t the answer I was expecting. I looked up at him and found him studying me curiously. “Remember what?”

“The first time we met.”

“In History class?” I remembered it vividly but what did that have to do with anything?

“That wasn’t the first time.” He licked his lips, still watching me with that guarded expression. “I was the one who took Tessa to see you...at the hospital.”

“Oh.”
Oh. My. God
. I pulled my hand away.

He saw me while I was in the hospital? While I was sedated and blitzed out of my mind, ranting and raving about vampire attacks and who knows what else? How could I not remember this? How could I not remember
him
?

I felt naked, overexposed. “How many times did you...?”

              “A few.”

“Can you be a little more specific?” I could feel my ears buzzing with heat though I wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or my mounting anger. “Did I speak to you? I mean, did I even know you were there or were you just observing me from a distance like some kind of caged animal at the zoo?”

“Jemma.” My name passed softly through his lips as he tried to reach for my hand again, but I pulled it away. “It isn’t what you think.” 

“You don’t
know
what I think.” I jumped up to my feet, overcome by the urge to move around. To jog. To run away. “How could you not tell me about this?”

“Because I thought you knew.” He was in front of me before I could blink, rerouting all my attention back to him. “Look, I’m sorry you don’t remember but it’s not like any of this was a secret. I took Tess to see you because she asked me to. And yeah, I saw you a couple of times, because I was there with her,” he added, his voice calm and sensible. “I wasn’t peeping through your window or hiding under your bed.”

Okay, fine, so he kind of had a point. I suppose it wasn’t his fault I didn’t remember or was too drugged to know the difference. And here I was thinking I’d gotten a fresh start in a new town where no one knew anything about me. He knew me. He knew from the moment I laid eyes on him that day in History class. He knew me even before then.

Maybe that was the pull I felt for him. Maybe my subconscious self remembered him all along and was just waiting for the rest of me to catch up.

And then something painful occurred to me. “Is that the reason you wanted to stay away from me?” I sat down on the edge of his bed and looked up at him, petrified to my core of what he would say next.

“Jemma.” He shook his head, a silent plea for me not to go there. The fear in his eyes alone made it impossible for me to refrain. I had to pry deeper. I needed to know the truth.

“That’s it, isn’t it? That’s the reason you wanted to stay away from me, isn’t it? Because I’m a total head case, right? Whatever, it’s totally fine, Trace. I just wish you would have told me the truth from the beginning. I would have understood. I would have accepted it.” While my words were full of certainty and courage, my eyes were stinging with tears I knew he could see. How idiotic I must have looked.

He let out an angry curse as he pushed both hands through his hair and sat down beside me. “I never
wanted
to stay away from you,” he said, closing his eyes as though the weight of his words—of his secrets—were too much for him to bear. His thick dark lashes fanned over his eyes like a shield, distracting me with their splendor. “You don’t know what you’ve done to me, Jemma. What you
do
to me.”

My insides knotted as his weary eyes met mine.

“From the first time I saw you, all I wanted to do was be near you. To get as close to you as I possibly could.”

Suddenly, I was very aware of our proximity—of how close we were sitting. And the bed we were sitting on. And the way his knee was pressed up next to mine. And my breathing. Oh God, my breathing.

“I’ve always wanted you, Jemma.” His deep voice thrummed through my body and sent a delicious tingle down my arms. “In spite of everything, I wanted you.”

“Well you had a funny way of showing it,” I murmured, breathless and dizzy from his confession. A confession that I had secretly longed to hear since the day I met him.

“I don’t want to stay away from you anymore. I'm tired of fighting it.” His fingers brushed against my cheek softly, feeling my skin, testing my response. “I don’t want to live in the past anymore, and I’m sick of worrying about the future. None of it is worth it if I can’t have this.” There was something hidden in his words. Something he wasn’t saying, or was saying, but I couldn’t concentrate when he looked at my lips that way. Like he wanted to taste them.

He leaned in closer—close enough that I could feel his warm breath feather across my lips. “And you want to know something else?”

I nodded, barely able to focus through the haze that had infiltrated my mind.

His mouth moved to my ear, drowning me in his heat. “I know you feel the same way about me.”

My breath hitched.

“I know you’re going to
love
me someday.”

My inclination was to deny it and pull away from him but my body wasn’t having any part of it. I swayed towards him like a wanderer to its Northern Star, feeling lost and found all in the same breath. Every cell in my being was electrified under his touch, craving him like the analeptic I never knew I needed.

His lips grazed a track along my jawline as his hands weaved their way into the crux of my hair. Grasping the nape of my neck, he guided me to him, pulling me in until our noses touched, until our breath was mixing together in a tonic of heated euphoria. So close and yet I wanted to be closer still.

“Trace...”

His lips brushed against mine in response and I nearly toppled over from the brief contact.

My hands rushed up for support, gripping his arms as I tried to steady myself from the hint of a kiss I was now starving for. A flood of emotions scrolled through his eyes, ensnaring me in their mystery until I could take no more. There was no more denying what I wanted...what I needed.

Kiss me.

His lips crashed down onto mine in a heated rush and I welcomed them, basking in the slow burning charge. My hands moved again, reaching higher this time, wrapping themselves around the back of his neck and clutching. Pulling. Fisting themselves in his hair and then moving down the cambers of his shoulders. A low growl escaped the back of his throat as his kisses grew more urgent, each one stirring me with their velvety caress. Every fiber of my being wanted this—wanted him, and it charged me to know he felt the same way.

His hands slid down over my curves, gripping my waist and pushing me further back onto his bed before his mouth found mine again. We collapsed together, our bodies adhered to each other in a way that would have you believe we were born this way. That we were always meant to be this way. He hovered over me like a dazzling apparition, the manifestation of my past, present, and future all wrapped up in one divinely sculpted Adonis. And I, evermore his willing worshiper.

He deepened the kiss, parting my lips as he touched his tongue to mine. Fireworks ignited all around me, inside me, crackling on the surface of my skin like a live wire. I clutched onto him harder, savoring the sweet taste of his mouth and the feel of his full lips against my own. I never knew lips could feel this good—could taste this good. I couldn’t get enough of them. Of him. I was consumed, hypnotized in every sense of the word.

I could stay like this forever.

“So could I,” he whispered back huskily.

He brushed his lips against mine and pulled back, propping himself up on his elbow above me.

“Why are we stopping?” I asked, still trying to catch my breath as I stared up at his perfectly shaped mouth, voracious for more of its elixir. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he smiled, his dimples igniting on either side as he looked down at me in a novel way—a tender way. “I just want to look at you for a minute,” he murmured, his finger tracing a line over the bridge of my nose and down to my swollen lips.

Even after all this time, I still couldn’t look at him without blushing, yet I couldn’t bring myself to turn away from him either. I was a fiend, addicted to the way he looked at me. To the way he made me feel when he watched me with those glacial eyes. I could spend a lifetime under his spell and it would still never be enough. He was utterly and completely spellbinding.