The Truths We Make (House of Poe #1)

24. Gossamer Sheets

Gossamer Sheets

Saturday, Present

T he night doesn’t feel real. Everything that happened at Crave, at Dellbrook… everything after I got on the plane at JFK feels like a dream. Or a nightmare. I’m having trouble putting the pieces into place within my reality. Paxton dying. Being murdered . Roger outed as a fraud. Oliver being so close. A man wanting to kill me. The past continuing to haunt me in the eyes of a boy who’d rather I break. It was a practical joke of devilish proportions.

Poe did always write like he was at war with the heavens. That death was God’s weapon against him and love was the only shield he could wield in defense. He loved recklessly and without pride or shame. For no mortal could be his true enemy. Not when his being alive proved there was hope of loving again. Only fitting that death and love would go hand in hand. Fate always had a way of finding you.

“And then he died,” Oliver intones.

I didn’t realize I had been speaking out loud. A habit, no doubt. Knowing the boys always loved my musings on Edgar and other literary masters. We’d spend hours just gossiping and assuming and riffing on their lives. Their whims. It was only natural I would do so now. Old hat, as they say. Even so, it doesn’t make me feel any saner.

“Sorry. I must sound moronic. I… I didn’t know I was thinking out loud,” I try to explain.

We both know I don’t have to. Oliver lends me the grace not to answer. He simply twines his fingers deeper into mine. He hasn’t released my good hand since he found me on the stairs and I’m unsure of why I let him. Fear over fury seems to be the only equation right now, and while Oliver has hurt me, at least he wants me alive.

Weary glances keep going to the wrist I have coddled against me, threaded in his shirt like a sling, and the cheek, I’m sure, resembles a plum right about now. My gaze lingers between his bare chest peeking out of his jacket and his frown. His phone vibrates for the third time in the console, and I peek over, too nosy for my own good, only to see Ally’s smirking face.

“You should pick that up. Might be important,” I say, flatly.

He shakes his head. “No.”

He doesn’t elaborate or pay any mind to his phone at all. He’s too despondent. Worried. He’d lost Issac somewhere in the maze. Had tried to beat him to the door, with no luck. He wanted to insist we go to the hospital or police, Tyler ever eager to back him up. Until I explained to both the media show that might cause. That while I know who did it, he was masked. That it would be my word against his. All while trying to find who we were now sure killed Paxton .

It’ll do no one any good, I explained. Call the family doctor and have her meet us at home. The word for Dellbrook had tasted dirty in my mouth, but I refused to replace it. I needed Oliver to agree, to believe me on his side, at least for now. Which, reluctantly, he did. Tyler, on the other hand, left more furious than I can ever remember him being.

That’s it, Poe. We’re through. I’ve dealt with this bullshit long enough. Eve is hurt and you still only care about you and your reputation. Rose had tugged him close, choosing a side we were not on despite the sadness rolling on her face. With her hand tight in his grip, he’d stormed off, curses and curse words flying.

I watched as each one hit Oliver like a punch, and by the end, he was as beat up as I was. He’ll come around, is all he said before he marched me to the waiting car. The silence stretched between us, the words threatening to throw me back to another time Oliver had promised that same resolution to me, until my brain couldn’t take it and started mumbling on about Edgar.

Thankfully, the drive is short. We barely have the car parked in back by the kitchen entrance before Oliver hustles me into Dellbrook, motioning me up to the family rooms. Before we make it to the stairs, Ally, in her tight-fitting dress and glistening hair, rushes to cut us off.

“Oliver! Where have you been? I’ve been calling you,” she scolds.

“Not now, Ally,” he says, skirting her entirely without slowing or even taking her in.

“Where are you going? Oliver!” She’s pleading now, anger making her sound desperate.

“I said, not now ! I will talk to you later. Goodnight !” Oliver calls over his shoulder.

He’s cold and removed, not even glancing back. But I do. Ally’s face is scrunched in hatred as she watches me head up the stairs, towards his rooms. As much as I’d like to gloat, I’m so numb that all I can do is face back forward and ignore her presence, too.

Just inside his room, in the small sitting area, the family doctor waits, poised and ready to take whatever had called her to Dellbrook in the middle of the night. Panic settles into my stomach as I see the shredded papers in the dim lighting strewn from his bed to his desk. Luckily, Oliver is too distracted to notice.

“Oliver, are you alright?” she asks, looking him over from the distance between us. She spares me only a glance, a single nod hello , already morphing into someone well adept at taking care of trauma.

“Dr. Sheryl, I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s Eve,” Oliver says, putting me in front of her, his back to the rest of the room. Finally, she takes me in. Seeing my face, puffy through the lips, and the hand I’m holding carefully in front of me, wrapped in a makeshift sling of Oliver’s undershirt.

“Oh. OH! Come here, let me look at you closer.” She gestures towards the only bright light where, once I step into it, nothing can hide.

“May I?” she asks, pointing to Oliver’s shirt tied around my neck.

I nod, unable to speak. She loosens the sleeves and removes its support from my arm, handing it back to Oliver once she’s done.

“I believe this belongs to you,” she says, looking pointedly at the bare skin of his neck, smirking as she does.

As if his playboy ways have caught up to him. As if this might just have been a rollick gone wrong. She’s known the Poes since the boys were young, and her father had known them before that. Her family was as tied to them as mine, more so throughout the generations. Of course, she wouldn’t blame Oliver. Wouldn’t assume the worst.

A small sliver of pleasure jolts through me when she asks, anyway.

“So, are either of you going to tell me what happened?”

She gently tilts my head from side to side. Prods at my bones, my jaw, and my wrist, all the way up into my shoulder. I hold in the whimpers. Tell myself the bruising looks worse than it is. That pain doesn’t exist. Not anymore. The words echo through the caverns of my internal screams. I cannot make truths out of lies.

Still, I try.

We are silent. I don’t know what to tell her that would suffice.

“Eve… got into a fight.” Oliver provides.

The doctor tilts her head in understanding. “Ah. Did a fan get too overzealous again? It’s ok, Eve. I get it. First loves die hard.”

If looks could kill, I would be on trial for murder after tonight. She laughs, as Oliver rubs at his neck as if he will play into her innocent assumptions. My pride blisters at the thought that everyone here thinks I’ve just been waiting for an opportunity to lay my claim. That I would physically force my way into his life again.

“But they do always die,” I retort, sure to enunciate clearly so as not to be misunderstood.

That silences them both. Dr. Sheryl finishes her work, then looks at Oliver when she’s done with me, unsure of how to deal with me this way.

“It looks like she’s just got a terrible sprain. I’ll need her to come in. Here’s the appointment card, to make sure, but she should be fine. It’ll need to be wrapped and stay in the sling for a bit. Make sure she’s in my office on Monday, got it? Ice and NSAIDs should do the trick until then.”

Neither one of us tells her I’ll be long gone by then. What’s the point? I make a mental note to make an appointment with my doctor back home first thing.

“Have Oliver wrap this tonight, and then ice in the morning,” she emphasizes to me, her medical training outweighing her awkwardness.

Oliver nods when I can only glare in response, and that’s enough of a confirmation for her to pack up her things and take off, closing the door behind her. I’m at a loss as I watch her go, feeling Oliver watching me.

He picks up the wrap she left and closes the distance between us, unafraid of my wrath. He’s gentle as he lifts my arm and begins rolling it around and around my wrist and hand, dedicated to his pursuit. The brush of his fingertips over delicate skin has me swallowing more than necessary. My attention bleeds into him. I need a distraction and I focus on the unfairness of it all instead.

“She won’t even question it. That’s the power you have, Oliver. A person can walk in here, see the worst and be told it’s grand and never think any different. It didn’t even matter what happened to me. Not really. Everyone dangles on the cliffs of your words, on your family’s words, and just does as they’re asked. Doesn’t that bother you?” I ask him, wondering if his answer has changed.

“You know it does,” he scoffs. “But what am I to do, Eve? Just let you not get checked? Not use all of my resources to take care of you? We’re not children anymore. I can’t just relinquish my name. It would just make me more of what they expect, anyway. I cannot escape my nature any more than you.”

I know he’s right, but I’m still angry about it. And being angry is better than the guilt I have at the scattered pages, just out of reach of the pooling light, that I’ll have to explain to Oliver soon enough. Or the pain as his words hollow me out, a damn near reflection of how I felt coming here to begin with. I hear the poison in each sentence and the promises he made to Paxton reflecting in his voice. He knew he’d never marry. He’d promised not to have a life with me. And even though we’re not together, something in me snaps as I realize he’s still keeping his oath. That it’s the thief that’s stolen over eight years between us.

Before I can do anything, the soft melancholy of Oliver’s voice stills me.

“Is it true?” he asks, pining his finished ends together, fingers still pouring heat through to my skin. The question is a needle in a haystack that, once dropped, is impossible to find.

“Is what true?” I ask, cruelly.

“That our love died. That there is nothing left at all?”

He’s so still. An animal at warning. Even in the graves of his vows, his worry is still only that I love him. It’s all he can hope for when keeping promises like he does. I try not to breathe. It’s the hush on a field decorated for battle, right before the war begins. What will the death toll be this time? I wonder. I mirror his statued face with one of my own, only moving my lips to answer.

“For years, I’ve hoped so. I want it to be,” I sigh, releasing the tight grip I have, realizing that I have no more control on this moment than I have had on any in the last eight years. I’m too tired tonight to hold fast to hostility. It has done nothing but drive the wounds deeper, anyway. I drop the facade and give him my pain. “But try as I might, I cannot escape you.”

It’s an accusation. A demand of repentance. Fire, to leave burns on his soul just like his touch has left heat on my skin.

“I figured you wanted clean cuts to our ties. I’ve left you be…” he says, but I don’t let him finish. I don’t give him the forgiveness of excuses.

“Oliver. You wanted clean cuts. You couldn’t keep your promises to Paxton if every day you had to look at me. You made me… you left me believing it was my fault ,” I say.

“I didn’t have a choice… I had to let you go,” he whispers.

A callus laugh escapes me. “Let me go? LET ME GO? Don’t you know you’re everywhere? The wisp of your black curls as I swear you disappear down an alley just ahead but are gone before I can get there. I hear the squeak of those damn shoes you refused to throw away because you’d loved them so much, claiming they held your memories, even after they’d broken. The smell of maple syrup and coffee, from the time you wanted to quit refined sugar and ended up loving it so much you never looked back.” The tears are now thick in my throat, making the words scorching, telling me to turn back. That this is too much, too raw, too close to things we shouldn’t say. Feelings I don’t want to be true. But it’s too late.

“You’re everywhere. In all of my senses. And I’m not okay, but the world thinks I am. Because normal people don’t like it when you live in graves. Only in the dead of night, when the rest of the world sleeps, am I able to crawl into my casket. Only then can I miss and hope and wither without you. Then, again, in the morning I pretend I don’t hear your laugh or smell your kiss or see your skin in my peripheral. I’m forced to remember that we don’t exist anymore. That is where you’ve let me go.”

My breathing is ragged. I feel wild. Alive and fragile and new. It calls Oliver to answer. And even shattered, he cannot resist his heart.

“Darkness. We have always existed. Will always exist. And there is nothing more I want than to lead you back home.” Oliver’s eyes are blown out, and he’s matching me, inhale for inhale. The pain seems to lessen in the cascade of our words, something feral finding home.

He closes the gap between us, careful of my battered body, and gently lays a kiss on my mouth before leaning away. I don’t let him. There’s too much pain. Too much want. I’m too caught up in the fear that tonight could have been my last. That a few weeks ago, for Paxton, it was . I’m angry and frustrated and sliced to pieces. But most of all, I’ve been in love with a ghost, who for tonight has become corporal, and I cannot let that go so easily.

I grab for him, a woman possessed, kissing him harder than my wilted face allows. The pain blooms, pricking and needle thin, only spurring me on. Reminding me I need it. That I can feel more than emptiness.

He meets me in stride, hoisting me up, easing the strain of my lips on his enough to not scrape like gravel, without losing the momentum of our kiss. His fingers dig into my thighs, pulsing fiery circles against them. His body wraps tightly to mine, letting me feel every ridge and dip. His heartbeat pounds a rhythm between us. The pressure in my chest lifts at being wanted. At openly wanting. I forget all the regrets that could follow and instead allow him to carry me towards the open bed.

One more night I can be his muse. Give him something worthy of blank pages and fanfare. Give us both a memory worth keeping before we destroy our future.

I feel his foot slip on a loose piece of paper. He kicks it out of the way, easy to cast it off as a misguided outcast from the rest. But then there’s another. And another. His feet are slipping through a slurry of words. And the encumbrance of it all comes back, slapping my gut full force. I wiggle down from his grasp, needing to be on the ground for what comes next, which he allows both out of confusion and concern at not hurting me.

“What the—hold on, Eve. I’ve just got to turn on this light,” he tells me as he disappears into the dark towards his desk.

The warm yellow glow flickers on and with it, any chance I have of forgetting. Oliver’s face falls, his heart bobbing in his throat as he swallows and then swallows again. His fist pumps at his side. He doesn’t know what’s happened. I watch as he tries to put together the pieces. For a split second, I consider letting him come to his own conclusions. Allowing whoever else to take the blame.

“Oliver… I can explain,” I say instead. His eyes shoot to me as if I’m a traitor.

I feel like a traitor.

“I only came in here to get the rest of the letter. I didn’t intend on any of this happening. But then I saw the poems. And I had heard about Ally. Knew there were other women. Something in me snapped.”

I’m ashamed that the doctor was partly right, after all. That I couldn’t control myself. That I’m not the woman I pretend, only the girl I’d hoped to leave behind. But I don’t apologize like I intend to. Sorry doesn’t feel adequate, anyway. His laugh is hollow. He stoops to pick up some of the ripped pages, along with others that somehow remained intact. He’s calm, deliberate with his movements, the disbelief at what I’ve done, not allowing the veracity of it to kick in just yet. He startles me when he speaks, a cold sweat dampening my skin from the chill of his tone.

“A huge part of myself had been ripped away when you left. When everything happened. Even though it was my fault. And for a while, I thought, maybe I should move on. Heal old wounds. I was so angry at the world. But the truth was that I didn’t want to heal. Healing meant accepting that that piece was gone for good. I couldn’t allow it. Didn’t want to live without the dream of it. I still had hope. For me. For you. For us. So, every day, I got drunk enough to forget the pain, long enough to breathe, but not enough to forget you.”

His eyes are glassy and red, making my veins feel on the precipice of bursting. I want to go to him, but I know I’m unwelcome. His confession is turbulent, a piece of his soul I’m not meant to see, and it makes me hot with embarrassment at being a witness to it. Unable to do anything else, I stand and take what he has left to say in the absence of comfort.

“Then, about a year ago, I was in New York and stumbled into some university’s library, drunk and miserable, to sign a few books. It wasn’t planned. I was on a layover for another tour. And when I looked over, there you were, stunning as ever. I couldn’t remember why you weren’t next to me. Why we weren’t together.

“Then some guy came up and kissed you, which I expected since I wanted to do the same. What surprised me was that you kissed him back. Really kissed him, and when you pulled away, a soft smile I hadn’t seen in years lit your face. One that I didn’t think still would when everything to me felt so royally fucked. That’s when I realized I was the only one broken enough to want to live in pain with the memory of you, rather than in the joy of a life where you no longer existed.”

He runs his hands down his face, wiping the evidence of distress onto his sleeves. My entire world is crumbling at his confession. At the realization that we’ve cursed each other to this. I do not know what to say. What to do. Leaving me nothing but to stand like the shadow I am. He paces, picks up another poem, then decides he’s not quite done with me yet .

“This, these poems ,” he waves it in my face. “Were about you. Not fucking Ally. Not some other woman. All of them are about you .” He whispers the last part, a splintered record trying not to skip over the melody. “Get out.”

The words aren’t shouted. They’re swallowed and sullen. Poison hidden in their demureness. I can feel them killing me as I take careful steps out of his room, unable even to look back at the man I’ve crushed.

I don’t even try to argue, too stunned and ashamed to do anymore damage. I’m not sure how I manage to drag the door shut. My body feels leaden, sunken with guilt and the unmistakable weight of shame. I can’t say I never wanted to hurt Oliver. I did. I wanted him to feel my pain. To remember, I existed once before. But I never wanted him tortured. Destroyed. Left in the desolation of the past, alone.

Thousands of poems, all for you.

I know our past wasn’t easy and that he made mistakes, too. Justice still cries out that I be angry at what he did to us and let him simmer in the silence of these memories. Animosity still settles as I hear his voice on video telling Paxton I’ll never be a Poe. Nineteen-year-old Eve wants everything to burn. She wants to dance in the war our love has created.

But eight years without him, and one week back, has taught me that mercy is the companion of passion, and I cannot be whole without either. And while my heart is punishing a younger Oliver, what I just did in there cannot be blamed on the past. I should have known better. I should have been better . Somehow, Oliver and I will need to find peace in the turbulence of our pain. Or we’re both conscripted to continue our lives fighting ghosts.

I find the will to move, knowing for tonight at least we’re finished. No amount of revelations I’ll have darkening his doorway will allow me back inside. I’m not sure I could even face him now if it did. All I can hope at this point is that we haven’t gone so far as to not be able to find North again.

The hall through the bedrooms is haunting, deep shadows blending with each other to create pools of ether. The air is heavy, leaving me to feel as if I’m swimming through it, trying to catch my breath underwater. I pick up my pace, only to still at the distinctive creak of a door. All the nerves I’d thought fried fire up in recognition before I know what I should be afraid of. I tiptoe towards the open cavern where a door should be, realizing I’m heading into Paxton’s room.

The place has been ransacked. The moon spilling through a broken window, allowing the light to glow on the complete mess that’s been left. None of the pristine placements are to be found. His room robbed of when he last stepped foot in it. I know I should back away, but curiosity kills everything it touches, for it is the hand and I am Midas, so instead I move forward.

The remains of books and pictures lay smashed and shattered. Glass glitters in the inky edges of the light. My mind sees no pattern, no reason, but I look for one, anyway. Something that sticks out of place in the heaps of out-of-place things. Until finally, I think I’ve found it. A torn envelope, ripped right down the middle, whose contents have been taken. The sender’s address, still intact in the corner, is one I don’t recognize. All except the name. This is a clue to follow, an address of importance. I pocket it before making my way back to Oliver’s room.

I hesitate far longer than I should to knock. I don’t want to do this. To look in his eyes with our hearts still dripping from our sleeves. But I have to. He’s the only one who can decide what to do, if he wants to report the robbery or hide it before Madeline sees. I owe him that much.

He doesn’t answer the door, so I open it, thankful it’s still unlocked. He’s sitting at his desk, torn papers still fluttering around him, head bent down, and pen in hand. A bottle sits nestled within reach, liquid already dribbling down to pool at the edges of his words. As if this is how he’s always been meant to be.

“Oliver,” I start, but he interrupts.

“Leave me be,” he croaks, vocal cords thrumming like a bass string that’s just been plucked. I sigh, hating to have to do this, but knowing it can’t wait.

“It’s Paxton.”

He turns, eyes sunk, and hair battered from anxious fingers running through. The blackness of his room swells to him as if he’s calling it forth. He closes his eyes and when he opens them, Oliver, in sorrow, in love, is gone. In his place is the shell of a person whose only need is answers.

“What happened?”