Craving Dragonflies Read online

  I’d had that fear for a long time.

  “It’s better to find out now. Otherwise you’ll waste time or be too late.”

  Maybe if I’d told Sawyer sooner… maybe.

  “Should I talk to her before the Vanderbilt thing?” I pursed my lips at the mention of the club’s name. He caught himself, covering his mouth. “Sorry. I won’t mention it again. Their name at least.”

  I shook my head. “Even if you talk to her, if you don’t follow their rules, you won’t get in.” Or so I’d heard.

  How would I handle it if there were girls I was expected to touch without Sawyer there as backup?

  Pain erupted when Bryant reached out to get my attention. I jumped back, rubbing at my arm, giving myself away.

  “Sorry. I—I—”

  His rambling was interrupted when my phone went off in my pocket. I pulled it out and recognized the number, though I didn’t have it programmed in.

  I swiped to send the call to voicemail.

  Bryant was watching me like I was a science project gone wrong.

  My phone went off again. My father usually gave up after one try and would leave me a sappy voice message. He never called two times in a row.

  “You need to take that?” he asked.

  I nodded and he went back into the house. I accepted the call.

  Sounds of a vacuum drifted through the glass doors before they were swallowed up again as it closed.

  “Son.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Don’t hang up,” he pleaded.

  I stood there, teeth grinding, waiting for him to spew his urgent news.

  “Ashton, I know you’re there and you don’t have to say anything.”

  You don’t have the right to grant me permission, I almost said.

  “I’m so goddamn sorry.” His voice cracked.

  There were so many things for him to be sorry for, I wasn’t sure what he was referring to.

  “If I’d known, I would have taken you from her.”

  So he knew. Had the Vanderbilt Club found out somehow? Not surprising. The head of the FBI or CIA could be members, even the president. I wouldn’t find out until after I was inducted.

  Too bad for them, the secret they thought they could hold over me to keep me in line wasn’t much of a secret. I had written down my sorry story in those notebooks Mother gave me to draw in. Without toys to play with, keeping quiet meant paper, pencils, and crayons were the only things I had in my bedroom.

  “You’re not dying?” I asked, devoid of emotion.

  I’d been well taught to keep them to myself.

  He sputtered an answer. “No—of course not.” As I was about to end the call, he tried to stop me, speaking loud enough I heard. “Wait, Ashton, please.”

  My finger hovered over the end call button, but I put the phone back to my ear.

  “I meant to come back. I planned to tell my wife that night. But when I came home, she was on to me. Like a coward, I lied when she asked if I was having an affair. Her response was swift and a clear warning. She told me that if she found out I’d cheated on her, she would go to the press and ruin me.”

  His story didn’t sway me. I felt bad for his wife. She’d been lied to. Like me, she was incidental in the game my father and mother played.

  “I take full responsibility. In my defense, when I came back later, you seemed fine,” he added.

  Later, that was a joke. It had been months before he showed up again. If he wanted absolution, he would get none of that from me. Besides, by then, the idea of freeing myself from Mother’s torment had been beaten out of me.

  “Is that all?” I asked.

  My monotone disguised how heavily my heart beat in my chest. It was like all the oxygen in my lungs had been choked out of me. I was done with memory road.

  “After reading your journals, I told her.” He meant his wife. “I’m not sure she’ll ever forgive me, but she wants to meet you.”

  That had been his true reason for his call. I was just another pawn. This time in his game.

  “How did you get them?”

  There was a pause.

  “I was at the house.”

  I let out a sour laugh. “What? Cheating on your wife again.”

  “No. It’s not like that. Victoria wanted money, of course. We argued. I went upstairs to cool off.”

  Frost covered my vision. “You snooped.”

  It wasn’t like my uncluttered room had a million hiding places. There were three pieces of furniture in my room: a bed, chest, and nightstand. I had enough clothes to get me through one week and I was expected to keep my room tidy at all times. My journals were hidden in the sole shoebox on a shelf in my closet. They wouldn’t have been hard to find. I’d counted on Mother’s disinterest in my life and company banned from upstairs to keep them safe.

  “No. Yes. I just wanted to—”

  I cut him off. “I have to go.”

  Knowing more wouldn’t change anything.

  “Ashton, I never meant to invade your privacy. I found myself wanting to know you better. Your likes and dislikes. And there they were hidden in a shoebox. Just a quick look, I told myself.”

  “Now you know.” I didn’t try to hide the brusqueness in my tone.

  “Tell me what I can do to make this right.”

  Nothing was on the tip of my tongue. Every opportunity for happiness had been stolen from me. My continued existence remained a huge question mark. Then a thought occurred to me.

  “Take it all away from her.”

  Why should she profit from my pain? She’d never cared about me.

  “Who? Your mother.”

  “Yes.” The whispered word hissed between my clenched teeth.

  “There’s nothing to take away. I’ve never given her a dime. Everything is in a trust in your name, the house, the car, but you should know that.”

  Her repeated threats of kicking me out with nowhere to go looped in my head.

  “I know nothing,” I said.

  “What?” His bafflement almost seemed real. “I sent a lawyer to explain things on your sixteenth birthday along with a car. You signed the document saying you understood, not that it was legally binding. I wanted proof that you’d been told.”

  That hadn’t happened.

  “Was the lawyer a man?”

  He cursed as a memory surfaced of Mother getting a new car on my birthday.

  “How would you know my signature?” I asked.

  Silence. He had no good answer, seeing as he’d stop coming around years before.

  “Ashton.” It was a plea in the form of my name. “I couldn’t come. Being a senator meant I was constantly watched by the press. Any interaction with you could have been caught. I warned her to take good care of you and sent others to check on you.”

  If anyone came, I didn’t know them from the other men Mother entertained.

  “It doesn’t matter.” I felt numb.

  “It does,” he yelled. “I could fucking kill her for what she let happen to you.”

  Why do you care now? But I didn’t say it. I’d said far too much and my stomach rebelled as I was forced to face my demons.

  “I’ll have a lawyer contact you to sign the papers to evict her. She won’t leave with more than the clothes on her back,” he declared.

  Mother wouldn’t be pleased. The thought of her kicking and screaming as they forced her from the premises almost made me smile.

  “Sell it,” I said.

  “What?”

  With more vehemence, I repeated myself.

  “Sell it all. I don’t want any of it.”

  Keeping the house of horrors and all the memories, including living across from Sawyer and his family, wasn’t something I wanted. I had to sever all ties to the past if I had any chance of surviving the future.

  “I have to go,” I said and hung up, not giving him a chance to say more.

  I felt cold when I realized it had started raining. I closed my eyes, hanging on to
the feeling. Rain was one thing that didn’t burn when it touched my skin.

  As I stood there, the sliding glass door opened as did my eyes. Before me, she held there, bright like the sun peeking from the clouds. A shy smile graced her delicate face.

  “Sorry to interrupt.” She glanced around. “I’m searching for my phone.”

  I would wonder later how easily words tumbled from my lips. “When did you last see it?”

  She shrugged as pink flooded her cheeks. I thought I’d been the only one who didn’t value their phone like it would mean sudden death without it.

  “You know it’s raining, right?” she asked.

  I pushed off the railing and closed the distance.

  “I do. And?” I asked as water ran rivets down my face.

  Something about challenging her breathed life into me.

  “Do you think you could check out there? I might have put it down last night.”

  I scanned the area and saw nothing. I shook my head slowly, sending water flying to either side of me.

  “Let me get you a towel,” she said and disappeared around a corner.

  She hadn’t gone far. I heard her talking to one of the cleaning personnel. She came back with a fluffy yellow towel, its color too cheery to belong to any of the guys in residence.

  I stepped inside and made sure our hands didn’t brush when I took it from her.

  “Thanks for looking,” she said before I could thank her.

  The corners of her mouth curled up halfway in an attempt at nonchalance before her eyes dropped back to the ground.

  “I guess that means my date can’t call and cancel.”

  The shy lift of her shoulder could have been called cute. Then I uncomfortably remembered the guy I was sure had been into me had ultimately asked her out.

  “Did I say something wrong?” she asked.

  I glanced up into those soft brown eyes of hers and was speechless for a different reason.

  12

  Past

  * * *

  Mother hadn’t come.

  My stomach hurt.

  I was so hungry. I crawled over to the plate she tossed down the stairs before I’d been ordered down them.

  Barely any moonlight came through the windows, but I could see things crawling over the spilled food.

  I wiped away what bugs I saw and shoved the rest into my mouth, too hungry to care.

  The door opened, and a shaft of light spilled over me.

  “You’re disgusting,” Mother said.

  I sat up straight, so grateful to see her, and spat out the nasty food back onto the plate.

  “Get that mess and then go get cleaned up. I’ll be in my room, and I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  I picked up all the food I could see now and walked slowly upstairs.

  If I dropped the plate, I would be punished, and freedom was only steps away.

  “Can I go outside?” I asked before I reached the top.

  She narrowed her eyes and I feared I made a mistake.

  “Fine. But once you come back in, take a bath.”

  I nodded and dumped the food into the trash and cleaned the plate before putting it into the dishwasher as I’d been taught.

  She left after ensuring I’d done as told.

  Then I walked out the front door and into the rain.

  The water didn’t hurt when it touched me.

  I lay in the grass, enjoying every drop until a voice broke into my thoughts.

  “Hey. Are you okay?”

  I had no idea I looked into the face of my savior.

  13

  Willow

  * * *

  Unreadable stormy eyes held mine. As if the ghost that haunted him floated through me, I shivered, wrapping an arm around myself. I rubbed at my chilled skin as the summer storm poured down behind him.

  “I should—uh—go.”

  Lifting a finger, I pointed toward the front, belatedly unsure why I’d been waiting there. His looming presence with the ends of the towel hooked around his neck in his two hands rattled me.

  Our continued silence became awkward. Slowly, I turned and made my way to the door. I didn’t understand him. If it wasn’t a stupid idea, I would almost say he stared at me the way he had Sawyer.

  I shook my head because that was dumb. Besides, if I was right, it didn’t mean he was remotely into me.

  The rain poured down in sheets and I made a mad dash for my car. My hair already swollen from the humidity would be a sopping tangled mess by the time I got back to the apartment.

  Once inside the car, I didn’t immediately turn it on. I found myself looking back. The door was closed, but I swore I still felt his penetrating gaze on me.

  Don’t be foolish, I said to no one. I started the car and drove the half a mile to the other side of campus where student apartments were.

  “Did you find it?” Celeste asked when I walked in.

  I blew out a breath and shook my head, which turned out to be a total mistake. The frosty air-conditioned air chilled the water that dripped from me onto my skin.

  “Dad’s going to be pissed. How do you keep losing your phone?”

  The only reason I had a phone was for her. It wasn’t like Mom called me every day.

  “Don’t tell him. It’s not like I really need one,” I admitted.

  She gave me a disapproving shake of her head and switched topics.

  “Do you think they’ll cancel the concert?”

  Her question had crossed my mind. I shrugged and headed toward the bathroom.

  “I should get ready because I don’t know if he’s still coming tonight,” I said, considering he couldn’t call me.

  How did I feel about that?

  “I hope so for your sake. You need this,” she said with sisterly concern.

  She had no clue how patronizing that sounded.

  In the bathroom, I faced the mirror. The idea of detangling my hair only to step outside and have all my hard work explode into a puffball of frizz didn’t appeal to me.

  “Maybe it’s for the best.”

  Though I’d spoken out loud, it had been aimed at no one.

  Celeste came and leaned against the doorframe.

  “My fingers are crossed for you. You deserve this.”

  I reached for my wide tooth comb. “Sometimes I wonder if I should just give up and accept that I’m a spinster or an old maid depending what era you consider.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be dramatic.”

  “Dramatic. I’m a twenty-one nearly twenty-two year old virgin. I’ll never be you.” Her nose wrinkled. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just you can have your choice of guys.”

  She huffed, “Sawyer doesn’t even see me.”

  A flash of nameless guy crossed my mind and why hadn’t I introduced myself or asked his name when I’d spoken to him a little bit ago. I decided against asking Celeste if she knew it. She’d made it pretty clear that I was wasting my time thinking about him.

  “Well, guys are stupid,” I said in sister solidarity.

  She smiled. “Exactly.”

  “Maybe I should auction my hymen off for charity.” The curve of her mouth turned upside down. “Don’t judge. I’ve heard of girls doing that.”

  “Let me put it this way. When some creepy old guy with a beer gut wins the bid, because let’s face it, most guys our age won’t have the cash to outbid some old dude, what will you do then?”

  My grimace must have shown on my face because she nodded.

  “Okay, so that’s out,” I said.

  The comb caught on a snarl and I nearly doubled over in an effort to pull the tangle free.

  “That should totally be a yoga pose,” she said with amusement.

  I half-laughed and winced at the same time. “Yeah. And it should be called tangled snarled.”

  We cracked up or she did more than me. When my comb came free, my head snapped up and my momentum sent me bending the other direction.

  C
eleste held out a hand to stop me and sighed. My self-serving stepsister had her moments of selflessness.

  “Let me help.” She pointed to the closed toilet lid. “Sit. Don’t give up yet. Auctioning off your virginity is just as bad as volunteering for virgin night.”

  “What’s that?”

  I’d never heard of it.

  “It’s a total frat thing. Though I’m not sure which one. It isn’t like it’s blasted on social media. But from what I’ve heard, girls are chosen.”

  I held up a hand. “How do they know if a girl is a virgin or not?”

  She shrugged. “All I know is that you’re given the opportunity to lose your V-card to one of the guys in the frat. It’s all hush-hush.”

  “Then how do you know about it?”

  It should have been a bad thing. But she’d made it seem like you’re given a choice in doing it or not. She didn’t say the girls were tricked.

  “Don’t even think about it. Besides, you’ve never been—”

  She stopped herself, but her unspoken words had been received loud and clear. I’d been to frat parties with her over the years and I’d never been chosen.

  “It’s stupid,” she finished.

  When I shook my head, I cried out in pain. She’d been combing through a particularly nasty tangle and I turned my head in the opposite direction.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  I broached the question that came to my mind about how she knew all of this.

  “Were you chosen?”

  She wouldn’t meet my eyes as she continued to comb through my hair.

  “Celeste, it’s okay. You know I would never judge you.”

  Her confession was slow. “I thought he really liked me. Stupid me.” She parted another section and I remained quiet, letting her take her time. “Anyway, it was just a game to him.”

  “Who is he?”

  Her head darted side to side in a definitive no. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Sawyer?”

  He had quite the reputation.

  “No. Just let it go.”

  “This guy tricked you.”

  That blew away my theory not to judge the so-called virgin night.”

  “No. I was given a clear choice. I just thought—”