Paper Dolls Read online

  We walked for a few moments in silence, my mind going over all the questions I could ask him. What did I want to know about him?

  Who is the woman you lost? Would you rather her or me?

  I shook this thought away. Clay said he wasn’t ready to speak about her yet. But he would. I had to trust that he would. Right?

  “Come on, Aria,” he probed. “I’m sure that inquisitive mind of yours has a million things to ask me.”

  “I’m just not sure whether I want to uncover the real Clay,” I teased. “Lord knows what kind of dark, depraved secrets you keep.”

  He was silent and I caught the flash of something in his eyes and his brows furrowed.

  I nudged him. “I was joking.”

  His face melted into a smile. “Of course.”

  That was odd. But I brushed it aside and blurted out the first question I could think of. “Would you rather live in only daytime or only night time?”

  He grinned and the momentary tension from before seemed like it may have been a product of my imagination. “That’s easy. Night time.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Night time’s the best time. The world is finally quiet so I can actually think. I draw better at night. You know many famous artists did their best work at night. Toulouse-Lautrec, Proust, Kafka…”

  “I knew it.”

  “Knew what?”

  “You’re a vampire.”

  “Shouldn’t I be sparkling then?”

  I rolled my eyes. “That is not a vampire. Dracula, Anne Rice’s Lestat de Lioncourt, those are vampires.”

  “Then shouldn’t I be burning up into flames or something?” He held out his arm, the lazy afternoon sun glistening against his golden hairs.

  “True,” I acquiesced before sighing dramatically. “I guess you mustn’t be a vampire then.”

  “Plus you have garlic breath and I wouldn’t be around you if I was a vamp.”

  My hand shot up to my mouth. “I don’t have garlic breath.” My mind raced over what I had had for lunch; my standard ham and salad sandwich, a Pink Lady apple and a diet soda. But no garlic.

  Wait a minute.

  When I turned my head to glare at him, he was already grinning.

  “I don’t have garlic breath,” I repeated.

  “You have lovely breath.”

  “Hmmpft, not a vampire, maybe just some sort of zombie.”

  “Are you calling me undead?”

  “I was thinking more brainless.”

  It was his turn to glare at me.

  I laughed. “Don’t dish it if you can’t take it.”

  His glare broke and the lines across his mouth relaxed into a soft smile. “What about you? Daytime forever or live in the dark side with us zommmbies.” He raised his free arm out, walking stiffly for a few seconds before he broke effortlessly back into a walk.

  “Daytime.”

  “Why?”

  I hate the dark. “I like the sun.” I lifted up a pale arm and let the sunlight shine off my light hairs. “I guess you can tell that the sun doesn’t like me, but I need the light. The world is already too dark a place.”

  “But fun things happen in the dark.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  “Bad things happen in the dark,” I said quietly.

  A strange silence fell over us, the sun falling behind the cloud for that moment, and I shivered.

  “It’s in the darkest of nights, that the stars shine brightest,” he said quietly.

  I swallowed, hard.

  “Okay,” he continued, “so I can’t convince you to come over to the dark side with me. Looks like we have a problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We couldn’t see each other anymore because we’d be in two different worlds. Or on the same world that didn’t spin so that half the world was always in daylight and the other half always in darkness.”

  The thought that I might ever have to go without seeing Clay again made my heart wilt. Without meaning to, I had let him become so much a part of my day, my life… “We could still visit each other.”

  “Really? Would you brave the dark for me?” he asked, an edge of seriousness to his voice.

  “Only if you were there with me.”

  “Always. I’d never let you face the dark alone.”

  “Would you risk sunburn for me?” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “I’d risk anything,” he said quietly. “Everything.”

  I swallowed hard. “Why do you always say things like that to me?”

  “Because they’re true.”

  My heart thudded in my chest. I could feel his eyes on me but I couldn’t make myself meet his gaze.

  “Maybe we could build a house that sat on the dividing line,” he said. “Half day, half night.”

  “That’d work.”

  “We’d keep the garden on your side.”

  “We’d have the bedroom on your side.” I sensed rather than saw him grinning. “What?”

  “You do realise,” he said slowly, “you just admitted that you wanted to sleep with me.”

  “I did not,” I exclaimed in horror. But I did. I said the bedroom, not the bedrooms, my inner desires made clear. The thought of sleeping next to Clay in the dark made shivers run up my arm.

  “And that you just admitted to wanting to live with me,” he continued. “Soon you’ll be begging me to marry you.” He winked.

  I rolled my eyes, trying to brush off the heat that was coiling about in my stomach. “It’s your turn to ask a question.”

  “Are you trying to deny you want me?”

  “It’s your turn to ask a question,” I repeated through gritted teeth.

  “That was a question.”

  “That was not a game question.”

  “One of these days, Aria…” he muttered. “Fine. Would you rather have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?”

  My stomach tightened as I thought of Salem, the only person I had ever loved. And I had lost her. I thought of the three years I had gone trying to find her, chasing a ghost, chasing a woman who didn’t want to be found. I let myself feel the empty aching hollow pain in my stomach that used to be filled with her presence. Somehow in the last six months, it had gotten worse. But I had learned to ignore it. To cover it up. “Never at all. I’d rather not love anyone. It hurts too much when they leave.”

  He was silent before he answered. “I don’t think you mean that.”

  “You don’t know what I mean. You’ve only known me three months.”

  “I know that you loved your sister and it hurts you that you lost her. But I’ve lived in a world without any love. And I can tell you, it’s worse. Don’t wish for a loveless life, Aria.”

  “You think the pain of losing the person you love is worth it?”

  “It is.”

  “Then you’ve never lost someone you truly loved.”

  “Yes, angel.” His voice weighed heavily and it made me look at him with sadness. “I have.”

  And I remembered, her. The woman.

  This time he didn’t stop at my sidewalk. He walked me all the way up to my front door.

  Up to my front door. Of my apartment.

  My feet wobbled in my sneakers and my mouth felt like cotton. I stood with my back to the door and faced him. He seemed to cast a shadow over me as he stepped in close. He lifted up his fingers and I could barely move. I stopped breathing as he brushed my cheek before pushing the hair back behind my ear and tracing down my neck, then twirling a strand of my hair. My mouth parted, ready to taste him again.

  But he didn’t lean in. He cleared his throat. “See you around, angel.”

  My heart sank into my toes. “Okay.”

  But he didn’t pull away as he usually did…

  I don’t know if he moved first or I did, but suddenly we were against each other, lips on lips, chest to chest, hip to hips, kissing with the fire that we lit yesterday. All that existed of me was contained in our mouths and under his han
ds, now moving from my waist and up my sides and dragging sections of my clothing along with it so that the cool evening air rushed in. My back banged against my front door but I didn’t care. His thigh moved in between my legs as he leaned against me with his weight and pressed up against the ache that was already shouldering for him. I moaned and pushed my hips farther into him, sending a wave of pleasure through me unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I felt the vibration of his groan against my tongue as he hardened against my hip.

  I didn’t care who saw us. I just didn’t care.

  Suddenly he wasn’t there anymore. The cold air rushed in between us as he stood, arms straightened, holding himself away from me, his fingers on my shoulders still holding me to the door. We were both panting. My head spun and if it weren’t for him holding me up, I may have slithered to the ground into a puddle.

  “Why did you stop?” I whispered.

  “Need a second,” he muttered. “And a cold shower.” He looked at me, lust still clouding his eyes like a troubled sky.

  All I could think of was that just beyond this wooden door was my living room and a few more steps and there was my bedroom and my bed. Clay Jagger, in my bed. The thought made a sharp ache lash through my body.

  “Do…do you,” I paused to lick my lips, which had suddenly gone dry, “do you want to come in?” My voice warbled at the end of my sentence.

  His eyes widened for a second, letting me know that I had surprised him with my question.

  “I want to,” he breathed out. “But I can’t…not tonight.”

  My heart squeezed so hard it hurt. “Oh. Right. Why…why not?” I asked, hoping that I didn’t sound so disappointed.

  “I have things to do…a comic deadline. And I know if I go inside, that…” he turned on his gorgeous half grin, a mix of lust and cheekiness and a hint of danger in his eyes, “we won’t leave for days.”

  We won’t leave for days. I shuddered at the promise.

  “One day. One day soon, angel. I want to do this properly with you. You make me want to make up for…the times I haven’t done it properly. I want to make it right, with you.”

  His words trickled into my chest and pooled into my heart. It didn’t ease the ache for him, if anything, it just enflamed it. I shut my eyes, just listening to his breath and my breath, both heavy, both, I realised, pleasantly in time with each other. I felt the outline of his wide palms and his strong fingers on my shoulders and tried not to imagine that same feeling down further across my skin. I tried not to imagine what it would feel like to have those large hands across the rest of my body.

  He cleared his throat. “I should go now, angel. I have a deadline.”

  I opened my eyes and he was peering at me with slight concern. I nodded, trying to ignore the ache in my core, trying to feign coolness. “Of course. You know, I want to see your work one day. If you’re happy to show me?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You want to see all the nerdy comics I draw?”

  I smiled. “I’d love to see you geek out.”

  “It wouldn’t bore you? It’d bore most girls.”

  “It would be the most interesting thing in the world to me to see what you’re passionate about.”

  He grinned. “Don’t suppose you’d come to the next comic-con with me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Dressed up.”

  “Now you’re pushing it.”

  He laughed and tugged my hair again. “See you around, angel.” He turned and sauntered away down the sidewalk, leaving me staring after him.

  I closed my door behind me, turning the key all the way before I leaned against it with my forehead on the glossy surface. This desire for him had faded to a barely tolerable ache. What was he doing to me? A few kisses and I was turning into a sex maniac. Apparently innocent little Aria didn’t want to stay innocent little Aria anymore. This wasn’t me. Was it?

  Or perhaps it was. A piece of myself I had ignored. Hidden. Underneath my carefully constructed façade. Clay was just the catalyst. He was doing things to me, revealing parts of me I never knew I had, igniting desires in me I never thought I’d want.

  Oh Clay, you’ll be the death of me one day.

  * * *

  I woke up the next morning like always, newborn and fresh, staring at blankness, before an image of two dark and intense eyes, and a certain pair of soft, inviting lips cast across the backs of my eyelids. I stretched and shifted under my sheets and my mouth carried the lightness of a soft smile.

  My mind turned to our kiss yesterday. The way the temperature had heated, the way the kiss turned aggressive, almost violent, as he crushed me against the door and held my mouth to his with his fingers twisted in my hair. My body heated, the fissures appearing like molten cracks under my skin, making my lungs open, seeking more air.

  I shivered at the promise of more…intimate things with Clay. Of his fingers seeking places never before explored, of his lips painting kisses on my skin new as blank canvas, of letting him into my body.

  A realisation lashed through me, causing me to bolt upright, clutching the sheets to my chest.

  Salem.

  I didn’t think of Salem first. I thought of Clay.

  What did this mean?

  You’re forgetting her. A tiny thread of guilt wormed its way through me.

  Never. I would never forget her. I would never stop missing her.

  You’re replacing her.

  I couldn’t. I could never replace her…

  A knock sounded on my front door, snapping me out of my thoughts. I glanced over at the clock on my bedside table. It wasn’t even 8:30 a.m. Who would be knocking?

  Clay.

  It could only be Clay. Perhaps he forgot that I was starting later today. I threw on a terrycloth dressing gown over my shorts and thin camisole and tied it up as I padded barefoot to my front door, my heart skipping with joy at the thought of seeing him so early. I only wish I was wearing something more…sexy. Perhaps I should take advantage of the staff discount at Flick’s boutique.

  I unlocked the door and swung it open, a smile on my face as I squinted against the sun. My eyes adjusted and the world outside came into focus as did the person standing at my door.

  My breath lodged into my throat and I made a wheezing noise. My heart, thudding inside my ears, drowned out the sounds of calling birds and a distant lawn mower. I stumbled back, blinking, trying to clear my vision. I must be seeing things. Hallucinating.

  It wasn’t Clay standing there, on my threshold.

  It was Salem.

  4

  My mirror image, my twin, the very woman I had been searching for the last three long and lonely years, stood right there in front of me. Feelings so convoluted and overwhelming slammed into my body like a wave and I was left barely standing and choking like I was underwater.

  “Heya, sis. What’s crackin’?” Her voice, sounding so much like mine but rougher and with a hard edge, forged by the one experience we didn’t share when we were together.

  “S-Salem,” I managed.

  Why? Where? How…? Everything I had wished to say to her over the last three years crammed up into my throat, turning itself into a barricade. All I could do was gasp.

  She raised an eyebrow. “So, you gonna invite me in or what?”

  Right. Invite her in. That would be a good first step. I nodded and stepped aside, barely feeling the cool tiles underneath my feet. She moved past me, a black scuffed duffel bag over her shoulder. Some sort of sweet perfume hit my nose like a thick incense, dragonsblood and musk, but underneath I recognised the sour sharpness of whiskey. I don’t remember her ever smelling like that.

  I shut the door and turned the key in the lock, the cheap keychain, half a silver heart on the end swaying as I stared at it. And stared at it. They had come in pairs. I had bought them hoping that one day I’d be able to give Salem the other half of my heart, the other half that she already owned.

  Would this be that day?

  When I turned a
round, would she really be there? Did I dream that Salem showed up? Did I imagine this? Wishful thinking? Temporary insanity after three desperate years of searching?

  You stopped searching, remember?

  Did Salem know that I gave up on her? I turned slowly as if I were facing a firing squad.

  But Salem wasn’t there.

  Holy shit. I was going mad.

  I heard movement in my bedroom. Moments later she appeared, walking back into the living room.

  I wasn’t going mad.

  Salem was here.

  She was here.

  In my apartment.

  She dumped her bag on the floor of my small living room. “Nice place.” She plopped down on my couch and lifted her booted feet up on my coffee table.

  That was Salem.

  “You gonna offer me a drink or what?”

  “Drink. Right. Water?”

  “Coffee.”

  “Milk? Sugar?”

  “You have any whiskey?”

  “In your coffee?”

  “It’s called an Irish coffee.”

  “But…” I blinked, staring at the lime-coloured digits on my microwave. Yes, it was still morning. It was 8:36 a.m. No, the numbers weren’t flicking around like crazy so this wasn’t a dream. I had read somewhere that was how you knew whether something was a dream; if the clock numbers spun or if you couldn’t read words. Or was that a movie I saw? I don’t know. My memory had never been any good. “But it’s still morning.”

  When I looked back at her, Salem gave me a searing look. After all this time I recognised that look. It was the ‘chill out, man, stop being so uncool’ look. It was the look she used to give our neighbours behind their back when the old bat told me off for stealing the cherries out of her tree. I would never be game enough to climb any trees, it was always Salem that did it. But somehow I was always the one who got in trouble. I would never rat Salem out though. I would never tell on her. I just took the scolding.

  When did I become uncool?

  You were never cool. You were only cool because you were with Salem.

  “Fine,” Salem drew that word out and combined it with a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll just have it black. Like my heart.”

  I somehow made it into the kitchen and fumbled around with cups and spoons and a half-empty container of instant Nescafe Gold, as the water roared away in my shitty plastic kettle.