Never Let Me Go (4 page)

We sat around the kitchen, gossiping and talking like old women from church, and Nic successfully helped me dodge every question about a significant other. She was the most amazing best friend a girl could ask for.

She knew how much I hated being pitied, and even more, she knew that I wasn’t quite ready to talk about what’d happened between Brody and I, yet. Her helping me avoid the conversation altogether made her a fucking Godsend in my eyes.

“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!” five-year-old Rhys said, racing into the kitchen at full-speed, his twin brother Caleb trailing behind him.

Amanda intercepted him, grabbing him at the waist and lifting him up, propping him on the counter as she grabbed Caleb by the leg and hoisted him in the air, dangling him upside down. The tiny Callum-look-alikes giggled uncontrollably as Amanda glared at her sons.

“What did Daddy tell you when we got here?” she scolded, turning Caleb right side up and setting him on the counter beside his twin brother.

“Don’t run in Mister Colin’s house,” Rhys answered shyly.

“For God’s sake if any of you call me that one more time!” Colin exclaimed, walking into the kitchen with Julian on his shoulders. “Just call me Uncle Colin. It’s not like Keaton or Susanna are going to give me any nieces or nephews any time soon.” He walked over to Nickayla, taking a sip of her wine—Amanda had refilled her glass, but she still hadn’t touched it. “Hey, baby.”

He kissed her on the lips quickly, pulling away just in time to see her smile.

“Yuck!” Caleb and Julian said at the same time.

Nickayla grinned, smacking his butt playfully as he walked away and toward the refrigerator, pulling out a tall pitcher of sweet tea.

“What time will dinner be ready?” he asked, turning to eye the four of us girls.

Callum swatted his sons on the back lightly, eliciting giggles from the both of them. “Yeah, I want to know the answer to that, too, ladies,” he piped up too.

Amanda lifted Caleb and Rhys off of the counter, setting them on the floor. “It’ll actually be done in about ten minutes, so take the boys and get them washed up,” she said.

“Aye, lovey,” Cal said, taking the boys by the hands and rushing them off to the bathroom.

Addison handed Jamie and Colin stacks of plates, cups, and piles of silverware, shooing them off in the direction of the dining room and telling them to set the table. I pulled my cinnamon thyme salmon out of the oven and began cutting it into pieces. Nic’s chicken was done browning and we both put our respective meats on platters and grabbed serving spatulas.

“Mich, could you grab that bowl of asparagus sprigs and bring them to the dining room?” Nickayla asked, heading out of the kitchen with the platter of salmon and chicken in her hands.

“Sure thing,” I said, doing as I was asked and taking the food to the dining room.

Almost everyone was seated already. Amanda was grabbing pillows out of the living room for the twins to sit on, and she’d set up Julian’s high chair beside Cal.

The table was set beautifully, and I took my seat flanking Nickayla’s right side.

Before anyone served themselves, Amanda grabbed Cal’s hand, and Rory raced into the dining room just in time to sit beside his eldest nephew. We all held hands and Callum nodded to his brother, I assumed to volunteer him to do the blessing over our food.

I bowed my head and closed my eyes, which I presumed was what I was supposed to do even though we didn’t really bless the food in my house growing up. I held Nickayla’s hand on one side and Addy’s on the other, waiting for Rory to speak.

“Father we thank you for our guests,” Rory began, his accent slowly fading. “We thank you for bringing Colin home for the summer, and for bringing him, Nickayla, and Michele safely to us. We thank you for bringing us all together, and for blessing most of us with the most talented ladies in the world to cook this wonderful meal we’re about to receive.” He paused, clearing his throat. “Good bread, good meat, good God, let’s eat. Amen.”

“Amen,” the rest of us said simultaneously.

…

Nic’s cookie dough brownies came out of the oven an hour and a half after we finished dinner. She served them to us with vanilla ice cream and a glass of lemon water.

I, myself had ducked out of dessert talk at the table and ate my dessert in the comfort of my bedroom.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve had the need to read before bed. It soothed me and it made me forget about whatever was bothering me throughout the day. I’d started out with the
Amber Brown
series by Paula Danziger, and from there my love for reading only blossomed.

I knew why reading was so important to me: it was something that my dad loved. He’d read me my bedtime stories every night before he left, and any time he brought us gifts home from a business trip, he’d always brought me a new book he thought that I would love. When he left, I didn’t stop reading—in fact, I continued to read even more, just so that when he came to visit or when he called, I’d be able to talk to him about pretty much the only thing we had in common.

I was reading
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky out on the balcony attached to my room. My dessert was sitting on the table beside me as I propped my legs up on the railing.

Perks
was one of my favorite books. It was part of my birthday present from Dad for my sixteenth birthday, and it was one of the few that I’d read over and over again. The spine was worn and the pages were tattered after many reads—and lending it out to others—but it was a book I never planned on getting rid of.

I flipped my page, getting ready to start a new chapter when I heard a faint knocking on the door. I groaned, trying to ignore it. The knocking gradually got louder, and I rolled my eyes, putting the book down.

“It’s open!” I yelled, although I didn’t really want to see anyone at the moment.

I lifted my book back up to my face, turning the page again.

“Hey,” Rory said—I recognized his voice by the fact that he had an accent and Cal’s was barely there. “Miss Nickayla sent me to check on you.”

Without looking at him, I waved the book in the air.

“I’m fine,” I said, continuing to read.

My biggest pet peeve was when someone bothered me during my reading time. With the exception of Nickayla, Aly, and my dad, I would curse someone out in a second for bothering me while I was trying to read.

“Well, that’s good to know,” Rory said, laughing. “How are you enjoying Big Springs so far?”

I groaned inwardly, putting my book down on the table beside me as I waved Rory over. If I was being honest with myself, having him for company wasn’t too bad. It could be much,
much
worse.

He sat down on the floor in front of me, crossing his legs Indian-style.

“It’s not bad, actually,” I replied. “I can see why Nic and Colin are considering moving here permanently.” I stared off at the sky, where the sun was setting and turning a brilliant horizon hue as its reflection hit the water. “It’s definitely
nothing
like home.”

“How so?” Rory asked, resting his chin in his hand as he looked intently up at me.

“Well, for starters, no one knows me here,” I said. “Here, I can start fresh—tabula rasa—because no one knows who I am or what my story is, where at home, everyone knows me.”

“As opposed to B.S. where everyone knows everyone?”

I laughed.

“As opposed to B.S. where no one’s going to judge me because they don’t have any information besides what I choose to give them,” I said.

He nodded.

“Yeah, I definitely know what you mean,” Rory sighed. “I grew up in Ireland, and I only moved here when my mom got sick when I was fifteen. Cal had come here with Dad when he was seven. Back home, there are things that are expected of me—not from the people there, per se, but more from my family. The people here are…slightly more accepting.”

At that, I sat forward.

I crossed my hands in my lap, scooting to the edge of the seat so that Rory and I were closer.

“Accepting of what?” I asked, curious.

He was silent for a long time. He ran his hands along the ridges on the tile floor, staring as his hand to and fro. When he ceased doing that, he ran his hands through his hair, then turned to look at me, his brown eyes filled with a sadness I knew I couldn’t possibly understand.

“My lifestyle,” he said finally, but it was so low that I could barely here him.

“Rory, are you bisexual?” I asked, because that could be the only possible explanation behind his sadness, his choice of words, and the way he’d flirted with me earlier.

He smiled sadly and gave a curt little nod, and I knew that there was more to this boy than I imagined.

“You might be the only person besides Cal to guess on the first try,” he replied.

I nodded, giving him a genuine smile of my own.

“How long have you known?” I asked.

I had never known anyone who was bisexual in Harlow. Well, maybe I did, but I just didn’t know it. Sexuality wasn’t exactly something that people talked about freely. Shit, there was still a high school in our town that sent pregnant girls away until they had their babies, so it wasn’t so unusual that we never talked about anything that might have been considered “uncomfortable” or “inappropriate”.

“Forever, I think?” he said, but he phrased his words like a question. “I’ve had girlfriends, and I’ve had both exclusive
and
non-exclusive boyfriends—the latter was mostly back home.” He sighed deeply, turning so that he faced me.

“My first girlfriend was the first person to figure it out. We’d dated for about six months, and one night we had a big fight. She decided to go to this party with another guy at our school, one that she knew I was planning to attend. She introduced him to me in a way that only she could, trying to get a rise out of me and hoping that I would beat him up or something.” He paused. “Well, three hours into the party, me and this guy are talking and laughing and having a grand time. Our talking led us to find out that we were both interested in the same things—each other. We’d escaped to the basement, trying to hide out, but one of her friends saw us go down there, and she caught us making out. She left crying, and at school on Monday, I found out she’d told the entire school that I was gay, and some of the guys—some of whom I thought were my friends—proceeded to jump me.”

I closed my eyes, stunned into silence once I knew the reason behind the sadness in his eyes.

“Jesus, Rory, that really blows,” I said sympathetically.

He shrugged, stretching his legs out in front of him.

“I deal with it,” he replied. “But enough about me. What’s your story?”

I laughed, leaning forward and crossing my legs.

“It’s simple, really, and quite cliché if you ask me,” I responded. “My dad left when I was five, and he got remarried and had more kids and pretty much forgot about me and my sisters. We still talk from time to time, but the most I hear from him is on birthdays and holidays. About ten years later, I fell in love with a boy that I’d known all my life, and I expected more from him than he was able to give me. Even though he kept hurting me, I kept going back to him, trying to make him someone that he would never be. In some sick, twisted way, I suppose it was me trying to gain his approval in the same way that I’d always craved my dad’s. Well, long story short I went back to him again, he broke my heart again, and now I’m here in Big Springs to get away from him for the summer.”

Rory stood up, then took a seat next to me and took my hand.

I couldn’t describe how it felt to talk about Brody for the first time. It was both a relief and a burden that I didn’t want to worry about while I was on vacation.

“Hey, I may not know you very well, but I think you’re great,” he said, squeezing my hand. “And if this jackass—whatever his name is or whoever he thinks he is—can’t see that, then he’s also a dumbass.”

I grinned, hugging him tightly. He blanched, stiffening slightly, but before I knew it his arms were around me as well, holding me.

I pulled away from him and smiling at him brightly.

“We should definitely be friends,” I said.

“Definitely,” he replied, grinning back at me.

Chapter Three

When I woke up the following morning, Nic and Colin were sitting at the breakfast table. They were arguing over what to eat, while I just wanted coffee. I trudged into the kitchen in my slippers, feeling so refreshed after a seven hour flight the previous day.

I was wearing a tank top and Victoria’s Secret LOVE PINK sweats, my hair up in a mess of a bun with random pieces of my hair sticking out everywhere. I was sure that I looked well-rested—I most definitely felt that way.

I’d slept better than I had in years, and I was sure that it had
everything
to do with the mattress and almost
nothing
to do with the fact that I’d bared my soul to Rory the night before.