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

tomorrow, he went on, “So Aunt Belle said we have to be open for business tomorrow, in spite of grandpa’s arthritis problem and Sawyer’s condition, or they’ll all be left starving in the streets.” He glanced at me with an amused smile. “Hyde’s offered to pay the utilities bills – of course.”
“But?”
He shook his head. “Aunt Belle doesn’t allow him to. We’ll have to start tomorrow – the sooner the better.”
His sudden enthusiasm probably stemmed from his desperation to keep the Old Belle afloat, but his frequent glances at me implied another reason.
All through till the next morning, every time I tried to ask Caleb what exactly happened yesterday, he would blurt a random comment or question just in time to avoid answering my persistent questions. Either that, or he would nurse his mug of tea, lost in his thoughts. He seemed relieved to go for his run at five-thirty.
Finally, when I saw the first hint of sunlight creep softly upon the crowns of the trees, he jogged up to the porch, sweaty and panting, and said, “Let’s go inside.”
“Caleb.”
He stopped at the door, his back facing me.
“Are you ever going to tell me what exactly happened yesterday, or are you just going to keep this up?”
“Keep what up?”
“You know what.” I walked to his side. “I’m not denying I have a problem, Caleb, and I know you’ve exchanged information with my parents. Hell, this whole estate probably knows everything by now.”
He shrugged sheepishly.
“I just want you to be honest with me. Tell me everything like it was.”
He laughed monosyllabically.
“What?”
“Be honest with you? The whole time you were here, you were so eager to hide that part of your life from me, and now you want me to be honest with you regarding this?”
I stared at him. “Well, I’m sorry I prefer not to go around telling everyone about my sob story, Caleb.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m being an ass, aren’t I?”
I stared at him with what I hoped was a frosty look.
“Come on, then. I’ll fill you in on the way to Miss Macy’s. Hyde’s meeting us there.”
I got dressed hurriedly, careful not to wake Jade, who was sleeping with her mouth slightly open. What did she think of me, a sleepwalking arsonist, sharing a room with her? It was obvious how she avoided me the way people avoided those who talked to themselves along the streets.
“So,” I said after I had slipped outside with Caleb holding the door open. We got on our bikes. “Yesterday.”
“You really don’t remember anything?”
“Just flashes of it. I remember a wrought-iron gate lined with vines, and the smell of grass and exhaust … and that’s about it.”
He sighed, and grudgingly started talking. “You went, well, nuts again.” With a sideways glance to make sure I had not taken offence (I put on what I hoped was an indifferent expression), he went on, “I was stepping out onto the road, and there was this van coming towards me. You freaked out, ran over to me, and knocked me down onto the grass patch.”
The smell of grass and exhaust.
“And then you started crying and calling me Blake and laughing like a crazy person, going on about how sorry you were about the yoghurt….”
I stopped pedalling. Caleb followed suit, looking like he regretted telling me anything.
“Look.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It doesn’t matter. You had a scare yesterday. You’re alright now, it –”
“And my mom was there, wasn’t she?”
He shot me a mirthless smile. “Yeah, and she was plenty pissed at me for what happened to you.”
“But it’s not your fault.”
He shrugged. “Kristen, it doesn’t matter. We’ve arranged an informal session with Jason – well, Dr Tang – and later, you’ll have a chat with him over lunch –”
“Wait, you did what?”
“You remember Dr Tang, don’t you? The guy whom you spoke to yesterday?”
Anger rose in me. “So he’s what, a psychiatrist? You and my parents are making go to another one of those quack doctors who force me to –”
“Dr Tang isn’t a quack. He’s certified and good, I promise.”
I meant to say more, or at least put up some form of resistance, but found that I had no energy to.
“We’re just trying to help, Kristen.”
It was funny how accustomed I had grown to the weight of his gaze. While it threw me off balance every time I looked at him when I got here initially, it now anchored me to where it promised not to let me drift away again.
“I’m hungry,” I said and started pedalling.

*

“Before you say anything, Hyde, can we please place our orders first? You’ve got two starving insomniacs here in need of fuel.”
Hyde raised his hands in defence. “I wasn’t going to say anything.” But straight after we had all placed our orders, he said, leaning forward with a smirk, “I’m sorry I missed your dramatic breakdown yesterday.”
“I’m sorry I missed it too.”
He sat back, still smirking. “Maybe I should wait till you’re done with your first cup of coffee.”
“Good idea, but I don’t drink coffee.”
“How’s Aunt Belle?” Caleb asked.
His face softened at the mention of her. “Better. Sawyer’s fever’s gone now, and he can be discharged today. I told her to take the day off with him for today. She’ll take the boys over to her dad’s and spend the day with them. She hasn’t changed one bit since the day I knew her.”
Caleb and I shared a look.
“Shut up,” Hyde grunted.
The waitress bearing our food shot him a glare, thinking he was talking to her. Hyde took no notice of her. Offending people unwittingly probably occurred on a daily basis for him.
“So why do you want to help us anyway?” he asked once she had left sulkily. “I mean, no offence, but this isn’t really part of your business.”
“I just….” It didn’t make any sense why I should explain to him how Blake and I used to trawl around the island looking for good second-hand bookstores, and how Blake would probably love the Old Belle as much as I did, for its quaintness and impressive supply of out-of-print books. Hyde would probably make another of his characteristically flippant remark about me and my dead boyfriend.
“Did I hit a sore point?”
I blinked back to where I was to find Hyde staring at me, slowly chewing his sausages.
“I think that would be a safe deduction,” Caleb said, glowering at his friend.
“No, it’s fine,” I said.
And then, without even thinking about what I was doing, I told them everything. About how Blake would show up at some random time of the day with an armful of second-hand paperbacks that he knew I would like; how he first pegged me for an Austen-lover; and how I initially thought he was just some typical muscled idiot who didn’t know Poe from Wilde until he surprised me one day by telling me what a pity it was that Wilde only wrote one proper novel in his life because gay or not, he was good.
Caleb was silent when I was through, but Hyde plunged straight into his comments. I was slowly learning that his mind was always cluttered with thoughts that he could only disentangle by articulating them.
He shook his head. “Man, you guys need a life.”
Caleb made a noise, and Hyde shrugged.
Sometimes, it was easier to just get away from everyone. Avoid the stares, the sympathetic smiles, the awkward moments when someone said something wrong.
“So that night at the cemetery,” Hyde went on. “You thought you saw your boyfriend’s ghost, is that it?”
“Hyde.” Caleb’s eyes flashed dangerously.
“Kid, it’s no good trying to protect her from her memories.” He slurped on his banana smoothie. “You’re not helping her at all.”
“And talking about it the way you are now will?”
“Hey, it’s a lot healthier, at the very least.”
“Guys,” I sighed.
I was tired of everything being about my problem, my memories, my past. I was tired of people around me trying to dissect my issues so that they could find a way to resolve them all, tired of people telling me there was nothing I could have done and that Blake would have wanted me to be happy. Just who the hell did they think they were, Blake’s spokespeople?
“You of all people should know escaping the past does no one any good.”
That got my attention. “What?”
Caleb was silenced. He stared at the ceaseless stream of people entering the diner looking for morning perk-me-ups, his jaw clenched.
At that moment, I knew better than to ask. I understood the wish to keep the past where it was. It was a hell lot easier than letting it catch up with you and mess with your head.
The rest of our breakfast was smothered by all the words unsaid. As I watched Caleb on our way to the Old Belle – him resolutely ignoring me – I thought of how scary a concept it was that every one of us had a part of our lives that we wanted to hide from, to go back to, that we could not face, and that made us who we were now.


Fourteen


“A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.”
~ Chinese Proverb


“So this Kerr … Kerrrrr … Care … I give up,” Hyde said, picking up another book and wiping it with his wet cloth.
Caleb glanced over at the cover. “Kerouac?”
Hyde nodded. “That’s what I said. So him. Do we throw him out as well?”
Caleb shot an exasperated look at me. I smiled. “You don’t just throw out Kerouac, Hyde.”
It was strangely therapeutic to be sitting amidst dusty piles of old books with the two of them, deciding which deserved to be sold to the public and which to keep.
“I’m just saying,” Hyde said, “that if you guys had cleared out half of the stuff here, you’d be able to rent out the second level for some extra keeps.”
The amount of old books to clear seemed never-ending. We were barely a quarter through and it was already one in the afternoon. Ever since Miss Macy’s, there had been a heavy air of secrets and lies that settled along with the dust around us, so we kept things strictly business by only talking about just books. Books and business.
“You’re sure this is going to work, Kristen?” Hyde asked.
I shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”
And that was what Caleb threw back at me later on as he dragged me to where I was supposed to meet Dr Tang for lunch. We went on foot since, well, since Wroughton was such a pretty place it made everyone feel like walking everywhere.
“Caleb, I really don’t know about this,” I said, stopping.
He made a double take and took my hand. “Come on, Kristen. Like you said, it’s worth a try, isn’t it? Besides, it’s just lunch. You can always leave and let him foot the bill if it gets uncomfortable.”
I grudgingly smile and resumed walking. After a while, I couldn’t help but ask, “That remark Hyde made back at Miss Macy’s … Did it mean anything?”
“No.” He let go of my hand.
It was then that I realised how much he knew about my past, and how little I really knew about his. And that was just enough to make me press on.
“I just thought it was a pretty odd thing to say.” I snuck a glance at him. He was looking straight ahead, as though