Page 19 of Splintered Memories
It had been almost ten years since my sister was killed, and still, when I thought about her, it hurt like an open wound, pulsing and bleeding. Delainey had been the best of us, the strongest of my siblings, and I had depended on her for a very long time.
When she died, I’d been getting ready to graduate from high school that very year. I was only months away from moving out of the house where my mother ruled. Delainey and I were going to get a placetogether when I finally moved out. She was going to save me, like she had so many times before growing up.
But then, she was taken from me. Slain in the middle of the night in her own apartment by a monster who wasn’t even there for her, but for one of her roommates. She just happened to see him and became nothing more than collateral damage in the crime.
“I’m not so sure about this one.” Lark’s voice distracted me from the sudden, drowning grief. I looked up from the bubbles of champagne. She stared at herself in the wall of mirrors on a raised platform. The dress she wore was stark, blaring white with swirls of beaded filigree that sparkled in the lights above her.
I blinked at my friend, still wading through that burst of grief.
Lark had been there the night Delainey had died. She lost someone precious to her, too. Her best friend, Thea Ramsey. The real target of the attacker who took my sister from me.
Something nudged my knee, stealing my fractured attention.
My eyes slid to the space next to me. August sat there, man-spreading and taking over two-thirds of the velvety, blush-pink couch. His knee was touching mine. One arm was draped over the top as he leaned back, looking the embodiment of ease.
But his eyes tightened as he looked at me, his head tilting to the side as he scanned my face. There was a question in his expression, one that I could hear as clearly as if he’d said it out loud.
Are you okay?
My back straightened, highly aware that those gray eyes saw too much sometimes. I forced myself to reel in that grief, swallow it all down and pretend like it didn’t exist. I slapped a bandage over theraw wound, considering it healed, as I raised my chin and threw my shoulders back.
I cut my gaze back to Lark, to my friend, and this moment in the bridal boutique. This wasn’t about me.
This was about her.
I opened my mouth as I scanned the dress again. “It’s…pretty,” I said with a shrug, happy my voice sounded normal. Not clogged with the heavy sadness from a moment ago.
Lark’s big brown eyes met mine through the mirror. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip. “It is,” she agreed, but her tone was unsure. She shifted on her feet, her fingers drifting absently over the fluffy, beaded skirt that puffed out at her waist.
“I’m not sure if it’s really you, though,” August said.
Lark let out a breath, her shoulders sagging. “Right?” She spun around, facing the two of us. “It just…doesn’t feel like the one.”
I glanced at August out of the corner of my eye.
He shook his head. “Definitely not the one.”
Part of me bristled. We had been here for an hour, me sipping on champagne while we sat on this couch and watched Lark try on dress after dress. I didn’t know what I had expected August to do when I told him I was going to Lark’s wedding dress appointment, but it wasn’t this.
As my new bodyguard, he wasn’t allowed to leave my side, except for when I was locked up in my own home with the security system armed. I wasn’t sure what our first venture into public would look like—maybe part of me hoped he’d watch me from the car or something.
But no. August had come striding in by my side and acted as though he belonged there. Like hebelongedwith me. He had sat at my side andcommented on every dress and acted as if this were the most natural thing in the world.
And what really got to me was the fact that he wasbetterat this than me.
A stone of resentment sat in the pit of my stomach. Or maybe it was just jealousy. August, in all his burly, cocky masculinity was totally being the better best friend than I was.
I was definitely out of my element here. Maybe, when it came to people and relationships, I was always out of my element.
I tilted my glass of champagne back to my lips and gulped the rest of it down.
“Can I get you more to drink?” a soft-spoken voice asked.
I glanced up into the bright-blue eyes of Melanie, the bridal shop owner. I set the empty champagne glass down, a little too hard, on the small side table beside the couch. “Sure.”
Melanie nodded and went to fetch the bottle. She’d been helping pick dresses and assisting Lark in changing into them. When she returned and filled my glass, she inspected the three of us.
“Hmm.” She pursed her lips as she regarded the poofy, sparkly thing Lark was wearing. “Your friends are right,” she said eventually, nodding. “It’s not the one.” She held up a finger. “But I have an idea.” She gestured to the pink curtain next to the raised platform that hid the changing room. “Go on in and I’ll be right back with a new prospect.”
