NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) by Courtney Cole Read Free Book Online

 

 
    “Hey, bro.”   Calla
walks into my room, abruptly, unannounced, and I instantly close my journal,
hiding my thoughts behind its brown leather cover.    “ What’s up?”
    I smile, swallowing my panic, hiding
everything carefully and completely behind my teeth.  
    “Not much. You?”
    “Not much. Just restless.”
    She hops onto my bed, sitting
next to me, her fingers immediately tracing the letters on the front of my
journal.   She knows enough not to
open it.  
    I shrug.   “We should do something.”
    Act normal.
    She nods.   “K.   Like what?   Wanna drive to
Warrenton beach?”
    To
see the old Iredale wreck? We’ve seen it a million times,
but whatever.
    “Sure,” I answer simply.   Because sometimes saying
fewer words makes it easier to conceal the crazy.
    We climb off the bed and Calla
turns to me, grabbing my elbow.  
    “Hey, Finn?”
    I pause, staring down at
her.   “Yeah?”
    “You’ve seemed… .off this whole week.   I thought when you went to group a second time it’d help, but you still
seem strange.   If something’s wrong,
you’d tell me, right?”
    Youcan’tYoucan’tYoucan’tYoucan’t.   You’re crazycrazycrazycrazy.   Don’tTellHerYourSecretSecretSecret.
    I swallow back the voices.  
    Act normal.
    “I’m fine,” I lie.   A blissful lie to spare her worry, to
spare my pride, to spare me the humiliation of being dragged away to a padded
room, to a place where keys are thrown away and the crazy people are forgotten,
replaced by medicated shells.  
    “Promise?”   Calla is hesitant, her red hair standing
out like fire against my white curtains.   She almost always accepts my word, but this time, she knows me.   She knows I’m lying.  
    “Repromissionem,” I assure her.
She rolls her eyes.
    “You know, sometimes, Latin just
complicates things.   That took you
five syllables to say what you could’ve said in two.”
    I smile and shrug.   “It’s a dignified language. It has
character.”
    “If by dignified, you mean dead , ok.”
    She laughs and I pretend to, because
honestly we’re shells anyway, medicated or not.   We’re not the people we used to be.   We just look like it on the
outside.  
    We clatter down the creaky steps
of our house, bickering back and forth, doing our best to seem normal because
mom always said fake it ‘til you make it.   We’re definitely doing our part.  
    As we round the corner into the
large, elaborate foyer, the distinct roar of a motorcycle splits apart the
serene atmosphere of the funeral home.    We stare at each other.
    We don’t typically get mourners
on motorcycles this far up the mountain.  
    Dad steps past us, eyeing Calla
curiously.  
    “Thanks for referring someone to
me for the carriage house. I wasn’t expecting your help with that, considering
how much you wanted it for yourself.”
    Calla stops still, frozen in
place, while she stares at dad.
      “He called?”
    He?
    Her voice is filled with anxiety
and happiness and hope.   I stare at
her.   What the hell is this?
    Dad nods.   “Yeah.   This morning. That’ll be him now, to
look at it.”
    Calla spins around and stares
out the window, and I look over her shoulder.  
    A black, aggressive motorcycle,
a Triumph, is parked on the circular drive, as a tall dark-haired guy stands in
front of it, removing his black helmet.  
    Calla is so absorbed in watching
him that she doesn’t realize how closely I’m watching her.  
    She smiles a beatific
smile.   “It’s been days since I told
him about it.   I thought he didn’t
want it.”  
    My dad raises his eyebrow.   “He still might not.   He’s just here to look at it.   Really quick—how did you meet him?”
    She pauses.   “I met him in the café at the hospital
the other day. I’ve bumped into him a couple of other times.   He’s been there visiting someone. He
seems nice.”
    Nice.
    Dad doesn’t push her because the
guy is already walking up the porch steps.