Secrets Whispered from the Sea - Emma St. Clair Page 0,62

stop him, but not sure how. He was like a grocery-loading machine.

“Craig, stop. You don’t need to—”

“Jason didn’t know about your grandmother. He felt bad. I told him no one should feel bad about something they didn’t know.”

I sighed, wondering how he figured it out. “That’s very true.”

“But he paid for your groceries, anyway. He’s a good brother. Even if he has too many girlfriends. You should only have one at a time.”

I laughed and picked up one of the grocery sacks, placing it in the back of the jeep. “I like you, Craig. You’re wise and you’re honest. I’m not sure anyone could ask for more.”

“Clear skin,” Craig said.

I smiled. “Overrated.”

21

When Lucy arrived without the rest of the Three Terrors to pick up their groceries, I was a little bit surprised. I didn’t think I could handle all three, despite all the carefully planned-out responses I had to any questions they might ask. I had to assume they heard what happened at the store. For all I knew, Jason had their numbers in his phone since they were apparently on a first-name basis with the deli worker. Maybe he had called one or all of them. It would explain how he found out about Nana during the brief period when I ran off.

“Why are you lying here in the dark?” Lucy asked, walking right into the house. Even with the new lock Alec had installed, I fell into Nana’s habit of leaving it open.

“It’s good for the environment. And the electric bill.”

Plus, it was the middle of the afternoon. Despite the gray clouds that continued gathering as the day wore on, there was still light filtering in through the windows.

“It’s depressing,” Lucy said, proceeding to turn on every light in the living room. I hugged the pillow tighter over my face.

“Are you sick?” she asked.

I had a headache that felt like tiny hands clawing behind my eyes and occasionally moving to the top of my head. But no. I wasn’t sick.

Once a month or so, I got hit with a day like this. Not just the headache. A heaviness would blanket me, pressing me down beneath a snowdrift, dark, heavy, and numb.

On those days, the world just seemed like too much. Fighting it did no good. And given that usually it passed in a day or, at most, two, I started giving in to it, riding out the mood in bed or on the couch. Ignoring phone calls and the land of the living outside.

I told myself that if it happened more frequently, I would go see a professional. I would get on something, do something about it. But it was infrequent enough that I just suffered through. Usually, no one saw me like this, so the people in my life were none the wiser. Somehow, I felt like Lucy more than Vivi or Sylvia would really see me, in a way I didn’t want to be seen.

“Headache.”

“Migraine?”

“Just the garden variety kind,” I said.

“Need anything? Ibuprofen? Water?”

I shook my head, keeping the pillow half over my face, the way it had been for the last hour. The couch shifted when she sat down by my feet.

“It wasn’t my idea,” she said after a moment. “The whole setup. Just for the record.”

“I didn’t think so. It had Vivi and Sylvia written all over it.”

“Jason’s a player.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at her words. Just hearing someone Lucy’s age using the term player was too much.

“Don’t get me wrong—I’m not against setting you up with a nice island boy. Just not one who slices meat for a living and hits on anything that has breath and breasts.”

I removed the pillow from my face and gave Lucy an assessing look. “Are you feeling okay?”

Giving my feet a squeeze, Lucy smiled, then got up and moved to the kitchen. I put the pillow back over my face, listening to her rattle around in the grocery bags.

“Some things are in the fridge. I didn’t know what belonged to whom, so it’s all mixed together,” I said.

“I’ve got it. You just rest.” She shuffled for a few more minutes. “How about some coffee? The number one cause of headaches is caffeine withdrawal. With dehydration coming in at number two. Is this coffee contraption new?”

I had bought the same Nespresso maker Ann had. It made great coffee, but it was just one more thing to pack up when I left. There was the coffee maker and the painting from Alec. Then a set of new dishes