Page 116 of Enchanted Kisses
30
London, The Beach, And A Plan
“I’m back,” Raysa announced from the other room.
I tensed and thought about jumping out of the bed so she would think I hadn’t been in it all day.Again.
She didn’t leave me breakfast this morning like she had the past four days. She wanted me to get out of bed and make it myself. I got up to pee; wasn’t that enough?
I stayed hidden beneath a warm downy comforter.
The bedroom door creaked open.
“Did you eat?” Raysa’s shoes clicked on the wood floors as she strolled across the room.
Ringed curtains scraped against wooden rods. All the curtain rods in the loft looked like pieces of driftwood that had washed up on the shore. They had been the first thing I noticed when I entered her flat—if you could call it that.
A modern-style warehouse decorated like a West Elm catalog, in the middle of London, wasn’t what I’d pictured.
Truthfully, I hadn’t known what to expect. What I knew of Raysa before, or thought I knew, left me feeling betrayed in a way. The room she had at her aunt’s house in Georgia matched this theme identically. Still, it hadn’t been her real life. Even though it had been her real aunt, which I had to admit, made me feel a little better, given that everything else about her life was a lie.
I knew she did it because she had to. And I knew Iknewthe real Raysa behind the duty, glitter, and beauty. But right now, I wanted to be angry at the world.
Light filtered through the comforter I had pulled over my head. I might have been a little curious about the time but didn’t care that much. There was no point in knowing. I had no plans, no life, no family, no Caiden…
“Did you see them?” I asked, hearing her shoes click to the bed and stop. Her silhouette cast a shadow above my cocoon.
“I’m not answering that.”
“Only because you can’t lie. Which answers the question, anyway. Was Caiden smiling? Glowing?”
She sat on the bed and pulled the covers from my head. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”
I didn’t stop her. I squinted against the brightness of the room. “Are those the shells we collected?” I pointed weakly to several filled bowls scattered throughout the space.
“Every single one.” She smiled, maybe at the memory of us collecting them every time we went to the beach. A little over a years’ worth.
“So you really did love the beach as much as it had seemed?” I asked.
“Yes.” She exhaled slowly, then her eyes opened wide. “Want to go there? Right now? I’ll take you to our beach on St. Simon Island. We’ll collect shells like we used to and stay until the sun sets. It’ll be like old times.”
The longing in her voice made me think she missed the past as much as I did.
“Would that make you happy?” I noticed a slight shadow under her eyes. Not in two years had I ever seen her look worn.
“What would make me happy is seeing you happy.” Her bottom lip quivered with her frown. She looked at her hands. “I messed up. I shouldn’t have agreed or let you agree to Bianca’s demands. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
No matter how angry and hurt I was, seeing Raysa break down in front of me felt worse.
I sat up and gave a light tug to her silky top. “You were thinking the same thing I was. It was better than Caiden dying.”
A small part of me wondered if losing him to death would have hurt less than losing his love. How deranged was that?
“Let’s go to the beach,” I said.
Her brows lifted with either disbelief, shock, or both.
“I’m serious. Let’s go.” I tossed the covers aside and climbed from the bed. Standing felt weird. Usually, I sprinted to the bathroom—opening my eyes just enough to see where I was going—peed and raced back to bed.
