Past
SOMEHOW, I manage to get through the next few weeks. It’s awful. In school, someone has spread the rumor that I tried to steal Blythe Lockewood’s boyfriend. Suddenly, I'm a slut, and where before, I’ve only ever been an object of mild curiosity as the girl who lives in the Lockewood mansion, now I’m a recipient of open scorn.
I spend most of my time studying, and sometimes taking pictures, using the camera Jackson gave me, even though each time, it reminds me of him, and with the memories come the unavoidable pain. I haven’t seen or heard from him since that day at the gazebo. He lives and works in the city now, and I’m sure all our plans to be together when I move to the city in the fall now mean nothing to him.
I haven’t seen Blythe either, and now I’m sure Aunt Constance was right when she said Blythe would never want to see my face again. Even Aunt Constance has been spending more time working away from the house, giving me a dreadful feeling of being shut out, unwanted, and sad... so incredibly sad.
If not for Chace and May, I’d have gone mad the last few weeks of high school, but they were there for me, but not anymore, Chace is spending the summer in New York, taking early college classes at Columbia, and May is vacationing in Spain with her family.
I hear the sound of a car from the house, and I st
raighten, leaving my camera to rest on my chest, hanging from the rope around my neck. The bird I’d been trying to capture chirps and flies up to land on a branch overhead. It’s late afternoon and around the gazebo and the lily pond, the shadows are already lengthening, adding a tranquil beauty to the scene.
Aunt Constance must have come back home. Ever since that night of Jackson’s graduation party, our relationship has lost the closeness it once had. She hasn’t changed, but I have. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that she never trusted me enough to ask me what really happened.
After a while, I start back towards the house. I don’t expect to see anyone when I go in, but I see Aunt Constance going up the grand staircase, phone held to her ear. She sees me at the door and waves, beckoning me to come up with her.
I follow her up the stairs, walking behind her while half-listening to her side of the conversation on the phone. In her bedroom, I go to stand by the window and look outside. I can see the gardens and the trees that border it, and through the trees, glimpses of the lily pond and the gazebo. I blush when I realize that if she’d been here that morning, she could have seen Jackson and me.
Jackson.
Even the thought of his name makes me want to cry.
“Jackson will be home for dinner tonight.” Aunt Constance says, unknowingly torturing me further. “He called and said he'll be in town, but just for tonight, and he’s coming with a friend.”
My throat catches as I wrestle with the surge of hope and despair that comes when I think of seeing him. Will he listen to me now? Is he coming to see me, or did I not even factor in his decision to come home?
“Are you all right Livvie? You look a little pale.” Aunt Constance frowns as she studies me.
“I’m fine,” I tell her, even though I’m actually feeling not only tired, but also extremely depressed. I want to lie down and wake up when I’ve forgotten everything that happened with Jackson and Carter and Blythe.
She tilts her head as she studies me. “Maybe you should see a doctor,” She says, more to herself than to me. “I’ll arrange it tomorrow, okay.” She settles on the couch by the window and pats the space next to her, inviting me to sit too. “I spoke with Blythe today.” She says softly. "It appears that Carter has been arrested.”
Did he try to rape someone else, I wonder, surprised by the amount of satisfaction I feel at the news. I never liked Carter, but now, I dislike him so much I have to resist the urge to throw up whenever I think of him and what he almost did to me.
Aunt Constance is looking at me, waiting for me to say something. When I don’t, she continues.
“He broke down and confessed a lot of things to Blythe. Apparently, he’s been doing drugs for a while. His parents found out and cut him off when he refused to go to rehab, but his sister has been funding his habit.”
“Lindsay?”
“Yes.” Aunt Constance sighs. “What did you do to her? It appears that she’d convinced Carter that you wanted him to sleep with him.” She looks uncomfortable, “She told him to wait for you in your room that night, and told him that it was your idea.”
I remember Carter’s smirks and winks, the way his eyes had often lingered on me as if we shared a secret. “Then she spilled her drink on my dress so I would go up to my room.”
Aunt Constance nods. “Blythe says Lindsay told her you needed her to help pick out another dress.”
Then she told Jackson she’s heard shouting upstairs, I remember, because it hadn’t been my friendship with Blythe that she’d wanted to ruin, but my relationship with Jackson.
“Carter was high, and he says he got carried away, and he doesn’t remember what happened, but when he saw Blythe he got scared and blamed it on you.”
He doesn’t remember. A bitter laugh hovers on my lips, almost escaping. He doesn’t remember, and I haven’t been able to forget.
“Did he hurt you?” Aunt Constance asks. She looks scared, as if the thought that something bad could have happened to me while in her care would be a failure on her part. I debate what to tell her. That he pushed me against the wall, ripped off the top of my dress? I don't even want to remember it.
“Not that much.” I say. “Blythe came before anything happened.”
Aunt Constance releases a long breath. “But why would Lindsay do something like that?” She muses.