Page 39 of Searching for Beautiful
“Sure. ” I shrug, still trying to figure out what I did to help. But also feeling good that I did it.
“Can you not tell anyone I saw Max? It’s just…it’s embarrassing. ”
I get it. I know what it’s like to be embarrassed, for everyone to know your business. And it’s not like I don’t have my own secrets, too. I shudder with the memory of seeing Jason at the store. Of following and talking to him, proving how weak I am. I don’t even hesitate to say, “Your secret is safe with me. ”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Now
I stand at the door to my pottery room, willing it to be different this time. I’ve had an awesome day. I spent an hour and a half at Brenda’s, laughing, smiling, and being Brynn. I was there for Emery when she needed me. It wasn’t a lot, but it was hard for me and I did it, and somehow, it seemed to help. Again…old Brynn. She isn’t so bad, is she? I want to be her again, not this person I’ve become. I want to try to get back some of the things I’ve lost.
You can do it, you can do it, you can do it.
The door creaks as I open it. I don’t remember it always doing that, or maybe I just never paid attention before. Maybe I’m stalling by standing here wondering about this.
But do I have a right to go in here? The right to sit down to do the thing I did while she was dying?
I step backward.
I can do this. I can do this.
I can’t do it. Why can’t I go inside? Mom would want me to go inside, I think…
And I do. I step inside and go straight to the CD player and turn it on. It’s one of Mom’s favorite songs—Jermaine Jackson and Whitney Houston. It was her and Dad’s song and I’d been listening to it that day because I always listened to music out here.
It’s all too much.
“Ahhhhhhhh!” I let loose a scary-movie scream and slam the palms of my hands into the door. It flies backward and hits the wall. The scream that’s probably been trapped inside me since before Jason. Since the day Mom said she had a headache and I got annoyed with her and went to my pottery room. Everything blurs together now and it’s hard to know what is and was fact or fiction in my life.
“Ahhhhhh!”
I’m out the
door now.
A loud crash sounds behind me and I stumble backward again, clutching my chest.
“Holy shit, you scared me. Are you okay?” Christian stands behind me, breathing hard, his guitar in his hand.
“Yeah…yeah, I’m fine. ” Maybe a little crazy, but fine.
He looks around like he expects someone to jump out at any second. “Do you always scream like that when you’re okay? I was sitting on my porch and it sounded like someone was murdering you over here. ”
“Umm, you thought someone was trying to kill me yet you brought your guitar with you?”
“Jumped the fence with it and everything,” he says, semi-smugly.
“What were you going to do? Hit him with it?”
Christian actually blanches. I swear the boy pales. “Are you kidding me? This is my prized possession. ”
I shake my head at him. And here I was thinking myself crazy. “Again, then why did you bring it?”
“Well, that’s obvious. What if the scream was a distraction to get me over the fence so someone else could steal my guitar?” He stands there looking absolutely serious.
“Oh my God!” I playfully push him. “You’re nuts. ”
We both laugh for a few minutes before he quiets and then looks at me, really looks at me like he wants to figure me out. Like I’m a puzzle and he wants to fit all my pieces together to see what I make. I’m curious what it would be, too.
