Page 84 of Chasing Clouds

I look down at our hands. Part of me feels disappointment in his reasoning, but another part of me feels grateful because I can tell him the story without there being prior prejudices.

At my pause, Reid releases me then wraps his uninjured arm around my hips to drag me up next to him. Leaning my head against his shoulder, I breathe in the scent of him and close my eyes in remembrance.

“We were supposed to be heading to my father’s country club for breakfast. It was the end of the school year, a late start day, and I was feeling selfish. I just wanted some time with her, so I convinced her to skip school and spend the day with me. They were expecting us, all of them, but I didn’t want us to go. I swear, she spent every minute she could with Patrick, and it was like I got pushed aside. The realistic part of me knows this wasn’t true, but with the way things seemed in my head and felt in my heart, I was crazy jealous.”

“Patrick?” he asks, confused.

“He was her boyfriend.”

“I see,” he says, and nothing more.

“While she was getting ready, I flopped down on her bed and watched her. She tried to ignore me, but she was a people pleaser, hated when people were unhappy with her. Turning around, she put her hands on her hips and asked me, ‘What?’ I’ll never forget her in that moment. Her room was on the east side of the house and the sun streaked in, lighting her up like a spotlight. Her hair was so blonde, her posture so perfect from years of dance, and the dress she’d chosen to wear that day made her look like royalty. I remember thinking she was so beautiful and everything I wasn’t. Sure, I danced too, but at the time, my hair was dyed bright pink and I had a large henna tattoo covering one hand.”

“Pink hair? You?” he asks, looking at me skeptically.

A small smile emerges as I think about the reactions I got after I dyed it. I loved it. “Yes. My father was not happy, but he never had the expectations for me that he did for Clare. I guess you could say I was the black sheep of our family. He had given up on me a long time ago. Somehow I convinced her to spend the day with me, for old times’ sake. We packed up a picnic, grabbed a few other things, and headed to our spot behind the house at the very end of the field. Not a lot was said—not much ever was. I think for us it was just about being near each other.

“‘Do you think you and Patrick will get married?’ I taunted her, lying in shorts and a bikini top my father never would have approved of, hoping to get a bit of a tan. I already knew the answer. Even I saw that those two had something rare, something real. ‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘I’m surprised you’re even asking.’

“She hated it when I talked about Patrick, thought I wasn’t supportive of them, but I really was. I was the most supportive of anyone, but when someone is as perfect as she was, you have to have something to tease them about, and he was it. She climbed up off the blanket, tossed her hair over one shoulder, and wandered over to pick a few dandelions. Behind the lenses of my sunglasses, I watched as, one by one, she made a wish, blew on them, and watched the seeds float through the sky. She was eternally superstitious and would do anything and everything to not tempt fate.

“I told her, ‘I just think you should spread your wings and get a taste of what’s out there.’ She turned and looked at me like I was crazy. ‘Guys are not like ice cream—you can’t go out there and taste thirty-one different flavors.’ ‘Sure you can! And that sounds fantastic to me,’ I replied. We were eighteen, and the world was supposed to be our oyster. She said, ‘Sounds terrible to me. I love him, Cam, I really do.’”

I’d forgotten until just now that she used to call me Cam.

“I told her, ‘I know you do, but what kind of sister would I be if I didn’t try to dissuade you at least a little? I mean, you’re about to move to New York City! The largest city in America. The possibilities are endless. Just think: no more fake Southern charm, and no more Father.’ Clare just giggled, and deep down, I knew that was the life she wanted.”

“Honestly, I can’t see how anyone would want that life,” Reid says, interrupting me. “Or Patrick,” he growls.

“He was different then, just like I was—not that that’s an excuse for his behavior lately, but it’s the truth.” I run my hand down Reid’s thigh. Warmth permeates through his jeans.

“What did she say next?” he asks, reaching over with his casted hand to run his fingertips over my arm.

“She said, ‘I happen to like all that Southern charm, and you’re getting your wish. I think Father is as pleased as you are about you heading to Providence. You two are too much alike.’ Of course I was appalled by this, and I said, ‘I am not.’

“She loved saying this. It was her one go-to when she needed to get under my skin, just like Patrick was mine with her. ‘You are. Both of you are stubborn and strong-headed.’ I remember my head whipping over to look at her, and her eyes were sparkling and laughing at me. It was the last time I ever saw her like that.”

Sometimes I see her like this in my dreams, laughing and happy. It’s always this scene, and I’m always so relieved—until the scene plays out. It never changes, no matter how hard I try.

“Pause.” Reid twists a little to get a better look at me. “You were going to go to college in Providence?”

“Yep, Rhode Island School of Design. Furniture design.”

“Wow, I can see that now, and I know you said dancing was your sister’s thing, but I guess I just assumed you loved it too. You had to put in a lot of work to get as far as you did.”

“I did.” I frown, thinking back to the hours and hours I spent in the studio after she died. I was clinging to anything and everything that made me feel close to her, and dance was in her soul. She loved every second of it. “Clare got into Juilliard. I was so lost after she died, I deferred all major life decisions to my father, and he thought it best I went in Clare’s place, to fulfill her dreams.”

Reid tenses beside me. “What about your dreams?”

“That summer, without Clare, I didn’t have any. Life felt over, and the only thing I wanted was her. He pulled some strings, sent a donation, and one year later the admission was transferred. I spent that entire extra year here, dancing eight to ten hours a day, trying to be the best—the best for her, for them . . . everyone but me.”

“Huh,” Reid mumbles.

Leaning forward, I pick up his water and take a sip. I know what’s coming, and I know I have to tell him, but I’ve never told anyone. Everyone in our world already knew, and I never talked about Clare in New York. I just didn’t see the point, and it was all still so fresh.

Putting the glass down, I curl back into his side.

“I jumped to my feet and threw my shirt on. ‘Take that back,’ I yelled at her, and she just laughed, screaming, ‘No way.’ It was common knowledge how much I hated being compared to him while Clare was compared to our mother. Of course, even though I love her, she’s not any better. She folds like a deck of cards when it comes to my father.