Curved Horizon Page 2

  Chelsea looked up from her phone. “Room three,” she said, getting the woman’s attention. “She’s in room three, ma’am. Social Services are on their way as well.”

  The woman’s expression softened, and she nodded, tripping over a frantic “thank you” as she darted down the hall.

  The nurse at the desk turned toward Dr. Cavanaugh with her mouth open, ready to fire out a regulation she’d bypassed. Chelsea’s expression silenced her.

  “Might wanna call security; that mama’s ‘bout to cause a scene,” Chelsea mumbled.

  The nurse shook her head, but Chelsea heard the phone being picked up and the number being dialed.

  No, this wasn’t small-town Georgia, but some things were eerily familiar.

  2

  Aiden understood Daisy in ways that many people never would.

  They’d grown up together, Daisy had saved his life when they were teenagers, and Aiden—unbeknownst to him—had saved hers. When he’d gone through hell, she’d endured it with him. When Daisy’s heart was broken by a boy before graduation, Aiden took it upon himself to send said boy to college with broken bones. They were a peculiar unit, strange and dark.

  It was a beautiful, deep, jarring friendship. But its beauty didn’t change the fact that Aiden was an extremely bad influence. It also didn’t change the fact that Daisy knew this before she decided to initiate a binge-drinking marathon on a Tuesday night.

  “Oh, don’t bitch out; it’s one more shot. Come on! Your text said—wait, hold on, let me find it.” Aiden held up one finger, signaling for Daisy to stop arguing with him. With his other hand, he scrolled through their texts. “How down are you to get absolutely wasted tonight? That’s what you sent me at noon today.”

  Daisy threw her head back and stared at the ceiling. She held one shot glass in her left hand and a green beer bottle in the other. “I hate you.”

  “You did this. You made the conscious decision to pick up your phone and ask me to drink with you. All I wanted was cat food.”

  “Just another one of my horrible life choices.” Daisy groaned, tilting her head forward to look him in the eye.

  Aiden’s hair was longer than she’d seen it in years. Light golden pieces, arranged with whatever cheap hair gel he’d bought fell over the tops of his ears and jutted from his skull. His eyes were the same, though, clever and bright, windows into a young man made up of genuine toughness and razor edges. He smiled thinly. One eyebrow arched high on his forehead.

  “To Daisy finding her Rose Road,” Aiden teased, holding out his own shot glass.

  “God, don’t fucking say that; don’t say it,” she whined.

  “Oh, come on. It’s not that bad.”

  “You got Shannon. You hit the goddamn Camellia Clock lottery, all right?”

  Aiden snorted a laugh and tipped the shot glass against his mouth.

  Daisy did the same, but, unlike Aiden, who exhaled a long breath, she gagged and clamped a hand over her mouth in an attempt to swallow the vile, bottom-shelf, plastic-bottle, no-name vodka Aiden had stashed on top of the refrigerator.

  Aiden laughed hard enough that he choked.

  “You’re an asshole. I’m moving out,” Daisy said between coughing fits.

  It wasn’t unusual for them to do this. Aiden usually didn’t work until the afternoons, Daisy usually didn’t say no to things she should say no to, and the two of them often stayed up well into the night watching Netflix. Netflix wasn’t what she should say no to, but the random stints of almost-alcohol-poisoning, swimming in the Pacific Ocean at midnight, and anything deep-fried in the witching hours probably made the no list.

  “Wanna pierce my ear?” Aiden purred. His eyes were saucers, wide and delighted and terrible.

  Daisy tried to shake her head, but nodded. “Fuck yeah, get a needle.”

  The no list was constantly growing.

  The server offered Chelsea a laminated menu. “Would you like to hear about our specials this evening?”

  She shook her head and sighed. “No, thank you, just… Shannon, what’re those things with the legs you always get? They freak me out, but they’re delicious.”

  “Fried calamari,” Shannon said. He sat across from her on the other side of the booth, nursing a frosty glass of beer.

  “Those,” Chelsea said to the server.

  “And some mozzarella sticks, please,” Shannon piped.

  When the server left, Chelsea directed her attention to Shannon, who was already looking back at her with kind, tired eyed. His hair was pushed messily out of his face and held back by his sunglasses. Dark circles, telling of sleepless nights spent researching the homicide case he and Karman refused to let go, bruised the skin beneath his eyes. A mouth-shaped bruise just above his collar told of the other reason he lost sleep.

  “How’s that case goin’?” Chelsea asked. “You made any progress?”

  “No, not yet,” Shannon said dryly. Chelsea watched his rainy-blue eyes roll. “It was supposed to be a cut-and-dried case, but it’s more complicated. The two people we’re after have family all over the place. We get a source, lose a lead, get a lead, lose the ability to pursue. It’s a shit show.”

  “I think you need to get some sleep. Might wanna pass that along to Aiden, since I know he’s the one keeping you up.”

  “I think you’re deflecting.” Shannon reached out, opening his beach-tanned hand on the table as an invitation. “Let’s see it; come on.”

  Chelsea tried her best glare, but Shannon wasn’t fazed. He’d seen it too many times to take it seriously. She heaved a deep sigh and slapped her right hand in his. He yanked her wrist, and his fingers closed over her knuckles as if he were admiring a ring.

  “You’ve got two days left,” he said matter-of-factly. “Nervous already?”

  “Of course I am.” She pulled her hand away and reached for a sugar-rimmed martini glass filled with raspberry vodka. “I’ve been terrified of this since I was a little girl, but at least then I had a plan. Now I have no clue what’s going to happen.”

  “What’s going to happen is what’s supposed to happen,” Shannon said.

  The server returned with their appetizers.

  Chelsea stabbed a tiny, deep-fried squid with her fork and dunked it in a container of spicy marinara. “I thought you were my future for so long, Shannon.” She spoke around a cheek stuffed full of calamari. “I was young and stupid, and I had this fantasy that you’d come back for me. It was immature,” she said pointedly, chewing and swallowing. “I’m not sayin’ all this to make you feel bad; I know I was wrong. I wasted years of my life waitin’ on someone who didn’t exist to come sweep me off my feet. I put that imaginary person to your face, because you’re the only one I ever saw myself with.”

  Shannon looked genuinely hurt. His lips pulled down and his brow furrowed. “I’m sorry, Chels, but what happened, happened. How was this imaginary person different from me?” His voice wavered. “I mean—do you still have an idea of your future, because, trust me, the Clock doesn’t care. Fate gives you what you need, not what you think you want.”

  “And you needed Aiden?” Chelsea muttered, hoping she didn’t come across as cold as her voice sounded.

  “Still do,” Shannon snapped. His irritation showed in the click of his teeth.

  “Can we not fight?” Chelsea groaned. She smashed her hands over her face and sighed again, drawing in the longest breath she could before letting it out. “I was young, honey. I had this idea of me and you: me being a doctor in Milford and you taking over as sheriff at the station. It was just an idea. I was already scared over this,” she waved her right hand at him, “when you flew home last year for New Years. Aiden just… when I saw the way you looked at him, it made every fantasy I’d ever given the time of day into a rude awakening.”

  “You’re gonna find someone wonderful,” Shannon whispered.
>
  She dropped her hands and looked at the man across from her. His sweatshirt wasn’t his; she could tell by the old cigarette burns on the sleeves. His mouth squirmed into a smile as he played with a piece of fried cheese on the appetizer plate in front of him.

  Shannon Wurther after seven years without her was not the man Chelsea assumed he would become, but he was still her best friend.

  “What if I don’t?” she tested, allowing a shred of her fears to be visible. “What if what Margot said at the convention was true; what if it runs in the family, and I get—”

  “No,” Shannon interrupted. He shook his head, studying her carefully from under dark lashes. “That won’t happen.”

  Shannon’s phone buzzed.

  Chelsea cleared her throat, snatched a mozzarella stick, and chomped on it.

  “You feel like hanging out with Daisy and Aiden?” Shannon asked. His thumbs hovered over his phone, waiting for an answer.

  “What’re they doin’?”

  “Aiden said they’re watching Netflix.”

  Chelsea considered it as she shoved another piece of calamari into her mouth. “Fine,” she said through a groan. “Not a late night, though. I have to be at work early.”

  The thump of something hitting the floor came from behind the front door of Aiden’s apartment.

  “That sounded like a person,” Chelsea said.

  Next was laughter, which rang out in huffs and puffs alongside the grating noise of whatever terrible music they were playing.

  “They’re not watching Netflix,” she added, lifting her brows at Shannon.

  Shannon rolled his eyes and opened the door.

  Beer bottles littered the coffee table next to Daisy’s closed laptop, along with a couple shot glasses and an almost empty handle of vodka. Pillows and blankets from Daisy’s makeshift couch-bed were flung on the floor beside a stuffed suitcase and a pile of shoes. Chelsea averted her gaze to the TV, which was playing a crudely titled song by Flume.

  She wasn’t used to the topsy-turvy nature of Aiden’s apartment and she thought she never would be. It was a mess and a museum at once. On the wall next to the television hung Aiden’s treasures, including the artwork Catalyst, which was centered among collages, photographs, paintings, and sculptures. Beyond the sliding glass door was a balcony brimming with plants, in pots, hanging in baskets, climbing the walls, even atop his balcony table.

  The only thing relatively serene amongst the chaos was the puff of white fur lounging on the middle couch cushion. Mercy’s smashed face flattened even farther as she opened her jaws in a wide yawn.

  “Okay, just do it.” Aiden’s voice came from down the hall. “On three. One. Two—”

  Daisy squeaked.

  “Holy—ow, Jesus Christ, that hurt. Do your hands always shake that much? Is it done?”

  “It’s bleeding,” Daisy whined.

  Shannon’s head hung back, and he closed his eyes, clearly used to this. “What the hell are you two doing?”

  Chelsea stepped around him and walked down the hall. She found Aiden sitting on the toilet and Daisy standing in front of him, holding a wad of toilet paper against his left ear. Aiden grinned, but it looked more like a growl. Daisy flinched, but Chelsea saw the pleased smile pulling at the edges of her lips.

  “We pierced my ear,” Aiden barked.

  “With a safety pin,” Daisy added, rolling her bottom lip between her teeth to stifle a laugh.

  “How drunk are you?” Shannon asked.

  Aiden said, “Don’t be Detective right now. Only a little.”

  Daisy asked, “Do you know if he’s had a tetanus shot recently? He wouldn’t tell me.”

  Chelsea thought this was the most fitting definition of typical she had ever seen.

  “We’re leaving,” Shannon said, nudging his shoulder toward Chelsea. “I’m definitely not up for this tonight.”

  “Babe,” Aiden howled. It was strange to hear Aiden use a pet name. “Daisy times out in seven hours. Cut us some slack!”

  “This is entirely my fault,” Daisy assured. Her pretty dark eyes were heavily misted; her smile looked as forced as the pin in Aiden’s ear.

  “What?” Chelsea couldn’t help it; she wailed, laughing and laughing, not because it was funny—it certainly wasn’t—but it was typical. “You’re meeting your soul mate in six hours and you decided to drink an entire bottle of vodka to prepare?”

  “And four beers,” Aiden added proudly.

  “And four beers,” Daisy echoed, whimpering at the end.

  “C’mon, have a couple drinks and hang out with us,” Aiden said. He tilted his head, showing off the pin shoved and clipped through his skin. “Does it look good?”

  “It looks like there’s a safety pin shoved through your earlobe,” Shannon said. His eyes curtained slowly. Chelsea watched him process the situation. He opened them to glance at her, asking a silent question.

  The answer was usually no, but Chelsea’s particularly shitty day at the hospital and the thought of being engulfed in someone else’s mess tempted her to stay.

  “I’m really fucking scared, guys,” Daisy said suddenly. Her small frame quaked; her long artist’s fingers buckled into fists. She looked at the exposed lights above the mirror, and Chelsea caught the distinct tremble of her full mouth. White and black hair hung around her face; bangs messily arranged this way and that.

  “No,” Aiden jumped from his place on the toilet and gripped Daisy’s cheeks. “Don’t you do it; if you start, you won’t stop. Daisy, don’t—”

  Daisy burst into tears.

  Shannon sighed. Chelsea bounced her head one way and another, enduring the sound of hiccupped sobs intermingled with I can’t do this and I’m not ready and it was supposed to be Vance. Chelsea didn’t know who Vance was, but Aiden’s expression told her he was someone she wasn’t supposed to like.

  “Beer or cocktail?” Shannon asked.

  Chelsea shrugged. “Might as well do shots, honestly.”

  3

  Daisy dreamed of things she hadn’t dreamed of in a long time.

  At three in the morning, she lay on the floor next to the couch Chelsea had fallen asleep on and listened to the wet sounds of Aiden and Shannon making out in Aiden’s bedroom until she finally drifted off. Her head had been spinning, and she hadn’t been bothered by her best friend’s drunken sex with his boyfriend, but something about it stirred her stomach into knots.

  It was her own fault for not pursuing anyone. She knew that.

  Daisy understood that every opportunity she’d had to date a nice someone had been brushed aside with the excuse that school took precedence. It didn’t—it never had. Daisy just didn’t know how to be with someone after belonging to someone.

  She’d belonged to Vance, and she dreamed of belonging to someone again.

  He possessed her thoughts. He became real in the most visceral way: his teeth in her shoulder again; and his breath on her jaw again; and him saying, “You’re a better kisser than Aiden,” while he put his hands under her shirt again; him almost saying I love you and turning into a shadow before he got the chance; him retracting his hands from her shirt and wrapping them around her throat instead.

  When Daisy woke, she knew it hadn’t been a dream, but a memory from another life and another time.

  Her mouth was sour with stale vodka, and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Inhaling one breath after another, she blinked at the ceiling. “Chelsea?”

  The couch was empty except for Mercy who blinked at her with her little pink tongue pinched between her teeth.

  Daisy sat up and pawed at her eyes; her blurry vision sharpened as she looked around the living room.

  “Guys?” Her voice rose to just below a shout, but there was no answer. Aiden and Shannon were still dead asleep or they’d left to get something to eat. She probab
ly couldn’t stomach food for very long, but the fleeting thought that they’d left without her caused uneasiness to fester in her chest.

  “I’m right here,” Chelsea said through an extended yawn. “Lovebirds are still passed out.”

  The sound of the refrigerator opening and closing prompted Daisy to crawl on the couch. She grabbed Mercy, pulling the cat gently into her lap.

  Chelsea stared at the coffee pot as if it’d personally offended her and tapped her foot. Long blonde locks, stark against one of Aiden’s old band shirts, fell messily down her back. Her jeans were unbuttoned and folded down, exposing a dainty strip of lace underwear.

  “Do you want coffee?” Chelsea asked, turning to look at Daisy. Her eyeliner was smudged on the bottom of her eyes, making her look strange and unlike herself.

  Daisy conjured enough saliva to lubricate her throat and nodded. “Yeah, please.”

  Scenes from the night before came back slowly. She remembered piercing Aiden’s ear, ugly crying in his lap, Aiden’s tongue sliding across the edge of the paper after he rolled a joint, and Shannon saying, “You shouldn’t smoke after you’ve been drinking.”

  That was the last of it.

  “Come here. I don’t know how to make your coffee.” Chelsea’s voice was hoarse and sleepy. “Do you guys have aspirin anywhere?”

  “Somewhere,” Daisy said. She trudged into the kitchen, adjusting her pajama bottoms as she went. “Who put these on me?”

  “Aiden did.”

  Daisy grabbed a coffee cup and filled it. She didn’t bother with cream or sugar. “Did I do anything stupid?”

  “You pierced Aiden’s ear.” Chelsea shrugged.

  “Okay, yeah, but like, you know, anything really stupid. Did I puke on anyone?”

  Chelsea laughed in her throat and shook her head. “No, you were fine. You just cried a lot and held Mercy against her will for a couple hours.”

  Daisy leaned against the fridge across from Chelsea and nodded slowly. “That’s good.”