Bedful of Moonlight by Raven Held (audio ebook reader .txt) 📕

I made my way around the bend.

*

“I didn’t know if you’d show up,” he said, “but I made you a cup anyway.”
I took the cup of now-lukewarm tea from him and took my usual seat next to him.
“Weren’t you afraid of getting lost?”
“I ended up at the cemetery,” I said. “Hyde was there.”
“I bet you woke him up. He always sleeps on the job. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s trying to get himself fired so Aunt Belle would hire him out of pity.”
“He’s probably not as scheming as you are,” I said.
He laughed.
Just for the need to explain myself, I said, “I just needed to be alone for a while.”
He raised his hand as a placatory gesture. “I get it. You were upset about your mom’s sudden appearance here.”
The buzzing air hovered over us like an expectant cloud.
“I think,” Caleb said slowly, as though he was picking tiptoeing through a mine of words, “you should talk to her again.”
I looked at him.
“No, really. I mean, I know it’s none of my business, but you should give her another chance. It wasn’t like she ditched you and never looked back, right? She still wants to be with you guys –”
“You’re right.”
“I am?”
“Yeah. It is none of your business.”
He shrugged as a form of apology. But he did not look it. Apologetic, that is. “Look, at least your mom’s trying. You’ve got to give her some credit for that – or at least, the benefit of the doubt.”
“Why the hell do you care so much about my mother, anyway? Don’t talk like you know her so well that you have the right to exonerate her actions.” I turned back to staring at my tea. “You really have to get over this whole my mom is worse than your mom thing.”
“Is that what you think this is about? How I’m trying to show you my mom’s a poorer parent that yours?”
It was a tone unfamiliar to me, snappish and defiant. I looked at him.
He shook his head. “Where do you get off, talking about them like that? I see the way you look at my mom and Gabriel, and you must be thinking, Oh, what horrible people they are, the way they talk to their kids. The fact is, I’m a whole lot less messed up than you are, even though you think your parents are such saints.”
An awful silence jostled between us after that. I could only stare at him. It was one of those disorientating moments when you forgot who you were and why you were there. Right then, Caleb was just a stranger sitting next to me, wielding words to defend himself, hurting others so that he could be protected.
So I did the only thing I was capable of doing then. As I shut the door behind me, he was still sitting at the silvered porch, a faceless figure hunched over his lukewarm mug of tea, alone with his words.


Twelve


“What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story … for all life is a dream, and dreams … are only dreams”
~ Pedro Calderon de la Barca (Spanish playwright and poet, 1600 – 1681)


“I’m telling you, she just invited herself. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
It surprised me to realise that I’d fallen asleep. A slant of sunlight had slipped in through the curtains, and I opened my eyes.
“Well, then un-invite her,” Caleb said. “Didn’t you see how Kristen was affected by her visit yesterday?”
“You didn’t seem so against her yesterday,” Jade said. I could hear a slice of shrewdness in her voice.
“All I’m saying,” Caleb said, “is that we should let them meet in a more private setting, not where the whole estate would be there to scrutinise them.”
I sat up in my bed.
“Well there’s no way we can un-invite someone,” Jade said. I got dressed hurriedly. “And it’s not like we can put a restraining order on her. She’ll be there if she wants to, Caleb.”
She was right. There was no stopping my mother when she wanted something. She would break a limb just to get it.
Which explains why I went out of my way to avoid her when we were at the marquee, where the fete was held. It was a large field with a huge white tent in the middle of it, so it was not such an easy thing to do.
When we got there, Jade went straight off in search of Reilly and her friends, so it left only me and Caleb standing before the field, neither of us venturing a look at each other.
I rubbed my arms and took in my surroundings, just so I had something to do.
“Last night was out of line,” he finally said, “on my part.” He turned to look at me. There was no trace of his usual knowing smirk or conspiratorial grin on his face. “I shouldn’t have said all that. It was stupid and downright rude, and I’m sorry for that.”
“Well, I’m sorry for losing my temper, and leaving you there. That was rude,” I offered.
“Guess I deserved that,” he said, shrugging. Then he laid a hand on my shoulder and whispered conspiratorially, “If you see anyone you don’t want to, you can take cover. I’ll fend them off.”
“Thanks, but I’m not going to drop everything and run at the sight of my mother,” I said, shooting him a slight smile and hoping he understood how much I appreciated his offer.
“Cale,” Jade said, coming over back to us.
We dropped our gazes, my face burning up as though I had been caught doing something wrong, which was ridiculous, because I hadn’t.
“Mom says we have to stay here and man the guest-list. See if anyone was unable to make it after all.”
“Why’s that important?” I asked.
Jade shrugged. “It is to her, I guess.”
Working – because that was how it felt like, sitting there at the table and ticking off the names of those who came – at the reception table was not exactly very exciting, so the three of us started shooting rapid-fire questions at each other, much like the how Caleb and I had two nights ago.
“Okay, Caleb,” Jade said. “A wart on your nose or a mole on your forehead?”
“Do we have to start out like this?”
“Either-or, Caleb,” Jade reminded. “Give any other answer and you lose, but I’ll waive it this once as a gesture of goodwill.”
Caleb snorted. “Okay, a wart, I guess.” And then, once Jade was satisfied with his answer, he turned to me. “Okay, Kristen, cereal or bagel?”
“That is so unfair,” Jade said, frowning. “You’re coddling her.”
“I’m genuinely curious. Now, Kristen, cereal or bagel?”
“Cereal.” I turned to Jade. “Reilly or Caleb?”
“Personal attack,” Caleb called out, just as Jade said, “Reilly. No question.”
“Really,” Caleb said, looking at me. “Was that necessary?”
I shrugged. “I was genuinely curious.”
Jade grinned conspiratorially at me before saying, “My turn. Kristen, raspberry or grapes?”
“Isn’t that a form of coddling as well?” Caleb said.
But it wasn’t. “Grapes,” I blurted immediately.
Caleb raised his brows at my reaction. “Seems like you harbour a passionate hatred for raspberries.”
“They just taste like vomit to me,” I said.
Because they did.

*

Despite what I told Caleb, I did end up taking cover, eventually.
My mother was talking to that portly lady called Magenta, the one Caleb and I met at the supermarket the other day. What was she even trying to do? Prove how settled she could be, with us, in this little corner of the world?
I wondered briefly if dad knew about her return, and then reflected briefly on how long I had gone without catching a glimpse of him even though we were living in the same house. But I was more focused on – let’s face it – hiding from my mother.
The truth was, so much had happened since she left. There was a huge part of my life that she did not know about, much less was a part of. I just didn’t know if I could accept her back in like the last month had never happened.
I told them I had to use the washroom and left before either of them could say anything. Starting off in the direction of the Ladies, I turned left away from the fete, and kept walking. Behind me, there was still the buzz of small talk and laughter, but slowly, they grew softer until they faded into silence.
When I finally stopped and looked up, I had no idea where I was. Perhaps on the edge of the marquee. But there were considerably less people here, which was a good thing because the noise and laughter all around were starting to get on my nerves.
Maybe that was why the sound made me scream out loud and duck for cover.
It felt like another of those nightmares I had until I made myself stop sleeping – the same scream of tires against wet asphalt, the same tension biting the air. But unlike my nightmares, it was balmy, not chilly, and colours were more vivid all around.
It was happening again, and I would be witnessing it all over again.
“Blake!”
While before I felt my entire weight pinning my feet to the ground, I now found myself pitched forth towards him. He was staring at me with confusion on his face, as the van careened in his direction after swerving around the bend.
There was no doubt it was Blake, just as there was no doubt I would not see him dying in front of me again.
I hurled myself towards him, feeling the heat of our bodies as they collided and rolled onto the grass patch next to the road. That, right there, was solid proof of Blake. He had never been dead. Maybe all those nightmares had only been premonitions, not memories.
He was panting hard – so hard that I could feel the stillness of my breath next to his – as we lied there on the grass patch, hearing the rumble of tires an inch away from our ears.
“Kristen,” he murmured, pushing the hair away from my face.
I got up, only absently aware of my trembling hands clinging onto his shirt. My breath was choppy as it tore through my lips.
“Blake.” I brought my hands to his face, his chest, and finally resting in his hands. I half expected him to disappear. Didn’t mirages disappear the minute you touched them? Illusions were smoke and mirrors, after all. But this was as real as it could get.
My vision blurred as warm tears blinded me. Had it only been a month? It felt like forever that I had not seen him. Why had he left? Did he even ever leave?
I was vaguely aware of myself blubbering and gabbling, and the tears burning tracks in my cheeks.
He shushed me gently and lifted me to my feet, his arms firmly around me. “Come on, let’s get you somewhere else.”
I trailed along after him, my tears in a ceaseless stream down my face.
We slipped through a small wrought-iron gate framed with vines. The passage that led to a narrow opening was dark. There were no seats in the small clearing, so Blake sat me down on the ground, under a tree. Leaves pricked me, but I hardly cared. He was here, back here, in front of me, though peering into my face with a peculiar expression on his face.
“Are you okay?” Both his hands were on my shoulders as