Still Waters (21 page)

Mom gave her a long, searching glance but turned back to the kitchen without saying anything more. “I was just making grilled cheese for us. You hungry, hon?” She clattered the frying pan back onto the stove.

The kitchen smelled deliciously of melted cheese. David sat at the table, his face three inches from a comic book spread out in front of him, his hair standing up as usual. “Hi,” he said without looking up. “Mine’s the one with bacon. If you want bacon, you better tell Mom.”

Hannah sat down in the chair next to him and knotted her fingers to keep herself from grabbing him into a hug. Instead she
settled for nudging his foot under the table. “I’m just going to eat yours, is that okay?”

David’s head jerked up. “Mo—,” he started to say before he looked at Hannah’s face. “Stop teasing.”

“Never.” This time she gave in and, reaching over, squeezed him into a headlock-hug.

“Moooom!” He flailed his skinny arms.

“Han, stop,” her mother said absently. “You want tomato on yours?”

“Mmhmm.” Hannah watched her mother’s bony fingers steady the tomato on the cutting board and slice with slow, steady strokes. She was using the bread knife, like she always did.

Mom placed a slice of tomato on the toast piled with cheese and turned around; her eyes were concerned. “Han, are you sure you’re all right? You don’t seem … quite yourself tonight.”

Hannah closed her eyes, trying to shut out the black water floating in her mind. The trickle of blood flowing onto the worn hospital floor. “No,” she said slowly. “It’s been a strange couple of days.”

Hannah’s cell rang just as she was climbing into bed that night. She pulled the quilt up to her chin and glanced at the screen. It was him. Her heart thumped suddenly, even though there was really no reason she should be nervous.

She clicked the phone on. “Hi,” she whispered.

“Hey there.” His voice was strong and casual.

There was a long pause. Hannah’s tongue felt frozen. There
were so many questions she wanted to ask him—
Are you still okay? Are you still Colin? What happens now?
—but the words crowded up against her teeth and were imprisoned there.

Instead she said, “Are you packing?”

“How’s your mom?” Colin asked at the same time.

They both laughed.

Hannah cleared her throat. “Mom’s fine. She didn’t suspect a thing.”

“Oh, good. Yeah, I’m all packed. My flight’s at three tomorrow.”

Another pause. Hannah heard the shuffle of papers on the other end. “Are you reading something?”

“Yeah, I just got out a bunch of Jack’s old papers and stuff from the attic. I’m trying to learn about him some.” He sounded uncomfortable and formal.

“Oh wow, yeah. Good idea.”

“Yeah. It’s like a part of my life has opened up that I didn’t even know existed. I’m curious about what’s happened to him since, you know, that summer.”

“It’s weird to think he might be still out there.” Hannah looped her arms around her knees and the blankets pooled around her waist.

“Or dead.”

“Right, or dead.” There was an awkward little pause, and then Hannah cleared her throat. “Um, this feels weird. This conversation, I mean.”

“Yeah. I know.”

She waited for something more, but that was all he said. She
threw back the covers and went over to the window, leaning her forehead on the cool pane of glass. “Well, listen, I’m meeting Laurie at the Sunporch Café tomorrow at ten, so—”

“Oh, yeah, great. I’ll come meet you to say good-bye.”

“Great.”

“Great.”

Another silence.

“Okay, um, so I’m exhausted and—”

“Oh, sorry, yeah. Talk to you tomorrow.” He hung up, leaving Hannah holding the dead phone to her ear and her lips still poised to say good night.

Hannah lay back down in her bed and stared up at the ceiling.
Awkwardness with the boyfriend who tried to drown you because he thought he was his own dead brother who turned out not to be dead. Probably not a lot of advice lying around for this particular relationship problem
.

“You look skinny, Han,” Laurie said as Hannah dropped into the padded plastic booth across from her the next morning. The diner was noisy. A long line of people waited for brunch with papers under their arms, and steam fogged up the windows. At the front the cash register rang incessantly, and waitresses barreled past the tables with harassed expressions and platters of eggs over easy, biscuits, and bacon.

“I don’t know why,” Hannah mumbled, grabbing a huge plastic menu and hiding behind it. “I’ve only been gone since Friday.” She peeked out at her friend, who was sitting forward on the edge of her seat, her wet hair tied back in a neat ponytail and her button-down shirt precisely buttoned. She looked ready for battle. Hannah retreated behind the menu again.

“Well,” Laurie said, leaning forward, “maybe you look so god-awful because, oh, I don’t know—
your boyfriend tried to kill you
.”

“You ladies ready to order?” A waitress with a tight auburn perm stood beside the table with her pad in hand.

“Toast, please. And coffee.” Hannah handed the menu over, trying to gauge if she’d heard Laurie’s words, but the woman’s face was impassive.

Laurie smiled up at the waitress sunnily. “The number two please with bacon and scrambled eggs. And a side of hash browns.”

The waitress nodded and scribbled, then hurried away with the menus tucked under her arm.

“What, you’re not eating?” Laurie returned to the attack.

Hannah scowled at her. “No, I’m just not hungry.”

“Have you talked to Colin since you’ve been back?”

Hannah bit her bottom lip. “Yeah, he called last night. He’s coming by here to say good-bye.” She poked her fork through her napkin and looked up to find her friend studying her carefully. “What?”

“Come on, tell me.”

Hannah sighed. “How can you always tell when something’s wrong? I mean, other than the obvious.”

“Years of practice. Spill.”

Hannah twiddled the fork between her fingers and stared out the window at a guy feeding a parking meter. “It was such an awkward conversation last night. I felt so weird, like I didn’t know what to say to him.”

“How about, ‘I’d really prefer stabbing to drowning, my dear?’”

Hannah glared. “Not funny.”

Laurie rolled her eyes. “Sorry. Look, honestly, how can it
not
be a little awkward between you guys? It wasn’t exactly Disneyland up there, from what you told me.”

“I know,” Hannah muttered. “I just don’t want it to end like this.”

“Maybe it doesn’t have to.” Laurie nodded significantly over Hannah’s shoulder.

Hannah turned around.

Colin was standing behind her in a pool of sunlight, wearing a backpack. His blond hair was tousled in the front and sticking up at the back, as if he’d just woken up. On one side of his forehead, the bruise was fading to yellow. “Hey there.” He smiled, the same charming Colin smile she loved.

“Hi,” Hannah said softly.

They looked at each other. Across the room, their waitress was yelling at one of the cooks. A young mom wheeled a giant stroller past their table.

“Well!” Laurie said after a long pause. “I’d better go. You know, work and all.” She collected her bag and slid out of the booth. “Bye, lovebirds. Colin, good luck at Pratt.”

“Huh?” Hannah tore her eyes away from Colin’s long enough to see Laurie hurrying away toward the door. “Wait, what about your breakfast?” she called.

“You still want these?”

Hannah looked around. The waitress was standing at her elbow with the toast and coffee and Laurie’s loaded platter.

Hannah lifted her eyebrows at Colin.

“Sure, we want them,” he told the waitress. “Now I don’t even have to order.”

Hannah sat down, and Colin slid in beside her. She watched as he speared a chunk of scrambled egg, and then she took a deep breath. “Colin, I know things were weird on the phone yesterday and—”

“Han—” He tried to interrupt but she held up her hand.

“No, don’t deny it, I know you felt it too, and I wanted to just say that we went through a lot this last weekend and—”

“Hannah—”

“—I’m sorry I haven’t said anything before now, but—”

“Han!” He raised his voice slightly and a white-haired couple at the next table looked around.

She blinked. “What?”

“I brought you something.” He grinned at her and leaned over to unzip his backpack, pulling out a small, flat object about the size of a book, wrapped in brown paper. He placed it on the table in front of them. “I just finished it before I came here.”

Hannah stared at it like it was a leprechaun.

Colin pushed it toward her. “Open it.”

Cautiously, Hannah slid her finger under the tape and pulled off the paper. She caught her breath. It was a black-and-white photo, on a plain white mat, of a girl’s profile in silhouette. Her hair fell over one shoulder like a curtain as she gazed down at something in her hands, her expression intent and absorbed. Behind the girl was a window, making a frame for her face, and
through the window, a gorgeous tapestry of lights spread, pinpricks of white on black, all rolling and tangled as if they’d been tossed by the wind.

“It’s me,” she breathed, holding the photo gingerly by the edges.

“When we were in the attic last week, remember?” Colin leaned over, smiling. “I snapped it while you were fiddling with your lens.”

“Yeah … that day seems so long ago.” She grinned a little. “It was a long weekend.”

Colin nodded. “And there’s more hard stuff ahead of us too, since I’m going away. But that’s why I made two copies of that photo—one for my dorm wall at Pratt and one for you. This way, you’ll know exactly what I’m looking at every night when I go to sleep.” His voice cracked a little and his eyes were suspiciously shiny.

Hannah swallowed past the ache that had risen in her own throat. “Colin, I know things will never be the same as they were between us, but I’ve been sure of something for so long. I didn’t want you to leave without knowing that—” She stopped. “I love you.”

For a moment he said nothing, and it seemed to her that all the colors of the diner faded to gray. Then he said, “Han, I love you too,” and everything burst into glorious focus.

She grabbed him and buried her head in his chest as his arms came around her. He held her, murmuring into her hair, “I can’t believe it took you this long.”

“I figure that if I still care about you after this weekend, it must be the real thing, right?” she said into his chest.

He laughed. “No one can say we haven’t been tested.”

Hannah leaned back, gazing up at her boyfriend’s face. “Do you really have to leave today?”

He nodded. “I have to. But, Han …” His eyes searched hers. “You know that you’ll always be with me.”

I would like to thank my agent, Michael Bourret, who believed in this book from the start, and my editor, Emilia Rhodes. Her sharp insight showed me what this story could become. And thanks are also due to my dad, whose view of the world has shaped my own, and who appreciates a good scary story as much as I do.

Here’s a sneak peek at

CLOSER

a new novel by Emma Carlson Berne

COMING FROM SIMON PULSE

FALL 2012

The party had been going on for hours. Megan knew she shouldn’t have anything more to drink. Already, the edges of the dark basement room had grown fuzzy, the knots of sophomores and juniors lining the walls and lounging on the floor retreating into a vodka-induced haze. Music pounded from two huge speakers, and shadowy couples grinded together like contortionists, clogging the space in front of the drinks table. Megan looked down at the big plastic cup in her hand and swirled the orange liquid before tilting a little more down her throat. Vodka and orange soda. You’d think it would be nasty but it wasn’t too bad.

She stifled a burp against the back of her hand, slowly sliding down the wall until she was sitting on the cream carpet. She could feel the bass vibrating through the floor. She edged herself over a couple inches to the right to avoid a large puddle of salsa seeping into the expensive weave and carefully propped
her cup against the wall. At least she wasn’t standing by herself anymore. Megan glanced at the clump of juniors sitting to her right—Kelsey, Logan, Maya, all with heavy, silky long hair, the kind that always fell into place, no matter how much you played with it. Megan resisted the urge to smooth her own thin, wavery strands and the cowlick that always rose up into a stubborn curl in the front. She aimed a tentative smile at Logan, who stared back blankly, as if she didn’t recognize Megan.

Whatever. They were all Anna’s friends anyway.

Megan picked at the carpet, willing the hotness in her face to fade. Anna was in Europe with her parents. “Promise me you’ll go to Mike’s party,” she’d insisted before she left. “He’s so sad I’m abandoning him for Europe.” She and Megan had been sitting on the wall outside Anna’s parents house, eating Funyuns. “Promise! He wants everyone to come—even you.” Anna had delicately poked her hand into the bright yellow bag. Even eating greasy onion rings, she’d still managed to look like an Irish princess.

Even you
. Megan tried to wrap her mind around the words but the moment had passed. Just like always. “Okay,” she’d said. “I will.” Of course she would. She always did what Anna asked. Which is why she was here, at Anna’s boyfriend’s party, alone. Megan gulped the rest of her drink down in one swallow and paused, coughing a little, as the girls sitting beside her seemed to grow larger, then smaller.

Kelsey looked over. “Nice, Megan,” she said, grinning and patting Megan on the back.

“Yeah, go crazy!” Maya jumped up, pumping her hips back and forth as she chanted, “Go, Megan, go, Megan, go Megan …”

In a far corner of her mind, the sober corner, Megan knew they were making fun of her, but it didn’t seem so shameful right then. Just friendly and funny. She giggled and climbed to her feet as the rest of the girls started dancing in a circle, swaying and waving their arms in the air. The heavy, insistent beat of the music pounded in Megan’s bones. The space grew more crowded. People pressed in from all sides and Megan gulped for air like a goldfish. Sweat trickled down the side of her neck and into her bra. Surreptitiously, Megan swiped at the front of her shirt just as Mike’s bulky figure loomed in the semidarkness like a panther.