The Facade by Judy Corry
Mack
I was moresore than I expected to feel as I followed Cambrielle up the steps to her house, the muscles in my legs groaning with each motion, and I wondered if I’d be covered in bruises tomorrow.
Cambrielle led me through the sitting room inside the back door and into the dining nook just off the kitchen.
“Have a seat.” Cambrielle gestured at the table and chairs where we had eaten breakfast this morning. “I’ll be right back with the first-aid kit.”
But instead of sitting like she asked, I walked into the kitchen where Marie was busy cooking what smelled like spaghetti and washed my hands in the sink she wasn’t using.
“What happened to you?” Marie asked when she looked up from stirring the spaghetti sauce on the large stove. “You fell off your four-wheeler?”
“Crashed into a fallen tree.” I winced as the warm water stung the small cuts on my hands. “But don’t worry, Dr. Cambrielle is planning to bandage me all up.”
Marie shook her head and muttered something under her breath about teens being too reckless these days. Then she said, “You need to be more careful. Your parents don’t need a son in the E.R.”
“I know,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat as I thought about how stupid my reckless driving had been.
But after the phone call with my dad right before the ride, I hadn’t exactly been in the most responsible frame of mind.
Didn’t really see the point in being safe and responsible when Fate did what she wanted with you, anyway.
I finished washing my hands and went back to the table again. I was just sitting down when Cambrielle returned with a big plastic container with the words First Aid written on it.
“You know you’re lucky that the only injury you got is a sprained wrist, right?” Cambrielle said as she turned her chair toward me and sat down.
“I know.” I sighed, feeling tired all of a sudden.
She studied my face for a moment. “That’s all that’s hurt, right?”
Physically? Probably.
Emotionally and mentally?
Well, I had a feeling things were only going to be getting worse for the next while.
I cleared my throat and tried to push the thoughts of impending doom away. “I’m sure I’ll be really sore tomorrow morning and probably bruised, but I think my wrist got the worst of it.”
She nodded and pulled out a new tan elastic bandage from its box. “Why were you driving so fast, anyway?”
I shrugged. “Ava and Carter were going too slow for my taste, so I figured I’d take a shortcut to get ahead and get to the falls first.”
“You know not everything needs to be a race, right?” She gestured for me to hold out my arm so she could start wrapping it with the bandage. “Sometimes life is about the journey and not the destination.”
“I guess.” I gave a non-committal shrug. But since I didn’t want to get into a deep philosophical conversation about how sometimes bad things happened to good people to help you grow and all that crap, I decided to tease Cambrielle instead. I said, “But sometimes the destination really is where all the fun happens.”
Cambrielle arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow at me. “So you were expecting something fun to happen at the falls tonight?”
“You know the falls is one of my favorite places to have fun,” I said.
“But it’s too cold to swim in the water.”
“True.”
“So what were you planning to do at the falls then?”
“Well, I’m surprised it’s a mystery after all these weeks of me hinting. But…” I slipped a mischievous smile on my lips. “I was hoping to sneak behind the waterfall before anyone else got there and wait for you in case you got bored with Ben and wanted to finally take me up on that date.”
She groaned. “Are you ever gonna let that joke drop? We both know you’ve never once been serious about that.”
I narrowed my eyes, lowered my voice to my most seductive tone, and said, “You can’t tell me it wouldn’t be fun to try just once.”
I glanced down at her full lips for effect, and when I returned my gaze to her bright blue eyes, I imagined I saw a hint of anticipation in them.
Did that mean that me taking her to what was known as Eden Falls’ “make-out point” wasn’t exactly the worst idea to her?
My stomach swirled with heat as I imagined kissing someone again—kissing Cambrielle.
She was pretty—one of the prettiest girls I’d met, actually. And getting lost in a moment like that would be a nice way to distract my mind from everything that was going on. I never got lost in the moment more than when I was kissing a beautiful girl.
An image of Cambrielle and me kissing in the cave behind the waterfall came to mind, her back pressed against the rock wall with her legs wrapped around my waist as I pinned her there and kissed her until I forgot everything.
It wasn’t a bad image, actually.
But then I imagined Carter finding us and punching me in the face for defiling his sister, and all happy feelings were gone.
“Sorry.” I shook my head, hoping Cambrielle couldn’t read my mind. “I think I hit my head too hard when I crashed. Forget I said any of that. Apparently, I have a problem with taking jokes too far and obviously none of that would ever happen. Especially with your feelings for Ben and everything.”
Her gaze seemed to relax, and she nodded. “You don’t have a concussion, do you?”
Was I really acting that weird?
“I don’t know, are my pupils dilated?” I leaned closer so she could look at my eyes.
As she inspected my eyes, I decided I really must have hit my head hard because all I could think of was how she had the most beautiful blue eyes with little turquoise flecks that reminded me of the beaches in Hawaii.
How had I never noticed her eyes before?
Or how she smelled like an angel?
I blinked my eyes shut. What was happening to my brain? This was Cambrielle I was thinking about. The girl who made mud pies with me in the backyard when I was eight.
I must be going into shock or something.
The news from my dad combined with my accident must be making me delusional.
But Cambrielle leaned back with a shrug and said, “Your eyes seem normal.”
“That’s good,” I said.
She went back to wrapping the bandage around my hand and wrist, and my skin warmed under her delicate touch. She had nice hands. Her fingernails were painted a light-pink that appeared nice against her tanned skin.
Cambrielle’s dad was white like my dad, but her mom had slightly darker features—my mom once mentioned that Mrs. Hastings had some Native American blood in her.
And even though Nash—her only full-blooded sibling—was blond-haired and blue-eyed like their dad, Cambrielle was a perfect mix of both. Smooth, tanned skin closer to Carter’s coloring, bright blue eyes like her dad, and brown hair like her mom.
It was always interesting to me how different traits showed up differently in families. I myself looked almost identical to my father aside from being a lot darker and my hair having a much different texture. I had his straight nose, the Aarden family’s defined jawline, his long fingers and big hands that helped me handle the basketball on the court.
We both wore size fifteen shoes—which meant that we had to special order those in most of the time. We even had the same long lashes that my mom was always so jealous of.
I’d liked taking after my father, since he was the male parent and what guy wanted to resemble a woman?
But now that my mom was only going to be here a short while longer, it made me wish I had more than just her curly black hair, ears that were slightly pointy on top, and what our friends call our mega-watt smiles.
I wanted more of her in my genes, so I could pass them on to my future children who would never get to meet their grandma.
I drew in a deep breath and tried to focus back on the present moment where my mom was still alive and Cambrielle was simply bandaging my arm.
She wrapped the end of the bandage over the back of my hand and secured it with two silver clips.
And then, since Cambrielle seemed to read me better than anyone else these days, she took my hand between hers and said, “What’s really going on, Mack?” She had that look in her eyes that sometimes made me wonder if she could see into my soul. “When you came down before the ride, something was wrong. Is that why you were driving so fast? Did something happen before you came out?”
I looked down at our hands, lifted my pointer finger so my nail brushed against the inside of her wrist, and debated on whether to tell her about my dad’s call. But since she’d be finding out soon anyway, I sighed and said, “My dad called me right before the ride.”
“He did?” she asked, anxiety in her voice.
I lifted my gaze to hers. “I guess my mom had another seizure. A pretty bad one this time and…” I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. “And they’re reconsidering the treatment.” My tongue felt heavy with the words. “They’re talking about driving back after she’s rested so she can live out her time at home.”
Even though I’d known about this for an hour—known the end had been drawing near for months—tears still pricked behind my eyes.
I pinched my eyes shut, pushing the tears away before they could fall.
Cambrielle let out a tiny gasp. In a soft voice, she said, “I’m so sorry, Mack.”
I nodded and turned my head to the side to look out the window, hoping that if I didn’t see the sadness I knew would be in Cambrielle’s expression, it would help me keep things together.
I hated crying in front of people. Call it what you want—toxic masculinity, or that I’d been born in a world where guys were told to be tough and not to cry—but I hated getting emotional in front of people.
I was the funny guy at school. The one who always cracked a joke to ease the tension. The one who used the smile my mother had given me to brighten other people’s day.
I wasn’t the one who broke down and made people feel sorry for me. I saved up my tears for when I was alone in my room so no one would see Mr. Congeniality breaking down.
I knew the facade I tried to put on didn’t really fool anyone—that all my friends knew I’d been different lately. But I appreciated that they went along with it. Had fun with me when I needed it and let me take time away when I needed that, too.
Cambrielle slid her hand up my arm in a soothing gesture. “I won’t pretend like everything’s going to be okay, because I know what’s coming is a nightmare. But…” She sighed and squeezed my forearm. “But I’m going to be here for you. My whole family will always be here for you and your dad.”
When I met her gaze, her eyes were as watery as mine. And even though I hated that my pain seemed to spread like a virus to everyone around me, I appreciated her words.
Appreciated that she always seemed to know just what I needed to hear.
“Thank you,” I said.
We were quiet for a beat as I tried to think of something more to say. But when nothing came to mind, I sighed and said, “I think I’m going to go lie down for a bit. Tell everyone I’ll see them later?”
“Of course.”
We both stood. Before I could leave, she said, “Can I at least give you a hug?”
“Sure. You know I’ll never turn down a hug,” I said, opening my arms to her.
She stepped closer and I let my arms go around her back. She was so short that the top of her head only barely reached my chest when her arms wrapped around my waist.
I was a pretty affectionate guy and frequently hugged my friends. But for some reason, Cambrielle and I had never hugged a ton. Probably something to do with the glares Carter gave me anytime he caught me looking at her for more than two seconds.
But it was nice. She felt nice.
She was tiny. Short enough that I was pretty sure she could still shop in the kids’ section if she wanted. But she was also soft in a way that was comforting. She’d been skin and bones when she’d come home from the ballet academy in New York a while back—like the stress of being away from her family had kept her from eating a full meal. She’d gotten some meat back on her bones since then and was looking much healthier now. And not only did she look and feel healthier, but she also had those curves that I’d noticed earlier in her bedroom this morning—curves that also felt nice pressed against me.
Really nice.
In fact, it was kind of hard picturing her as the girl who played night games with me in the woods while growing up, or the girl I used to prank, like that time I’d snuck a snake into her bed. Not when she felt like the kind of girl I’d take to the prom or make out with under the bleachers before a basketball game.
Or…
Okay…enough with the make-out-with-Cambrielle fantasies.
How was it possible that I could go from the verge of a breakdown one minute to considering feeling up my best friends’ sister the next?
Teenage hormones were weird.
I stepped away before my imagination could get carried away again.
I must have done it too suddenly though, because when she looked up at me, she frowned in confusion.
And since I was in idiot, I said, “Sorry, your hands moved a little too close to my butt.”
“They did not!” Her jaw dropped, like she was shocked I would suggest such a thing.
“I know I look a little too good in this jumpsuit of mine.” I gestured to the boxy, zip up suit. “But I can’t have you getting distracted by me.”
“I wasn’t trying to touch your butt.” She smacked my shoulder.
I couldn’t keep a grin from my face because riling Cambrielle up was one of my favorite pastimes.
“It’s okay, Cambrielle.” I patted her shoulder. “I know it’s hard to ignore our crazy chemistry when we’re together. But we don’t want to make Ben jealous. So I’m going to go upstairs, and you’re going to remind yourself of all the reasons why it could never work out between us.”
“Maybe we should have your dad check your head after all,” she said. “Because I think you’re delusional.”
But from the way she was fighting back a smile, I knew I hadn’t pushed her too far. Which made me happy that I was at least able to end on a lighter note to make up for the past thirty minutes.
I started toward the staircase that would lead to my temporary room. But before heading up, I turned back to Cambrielle who was closing the first-aid kit.
“In all seriousness though, I’m sorry I ruined your afternoon with Ben,” I said, feeling bad since I’d known how much she’d been looking forward to it. “I’ll find a way to make it up to you."
