Rachel Van Dyken
Dani
Lincoln offered to drive me back to the hotel once we finished packing.
The drive back wasn't as awkward as the drive there.
Mainly because I was getting used to him, sort of. You know, if it was possible to get used to good-looking men who smiled — a lot.
He was a smiler.
I hadn't expected that.
Most of the pictures I'd seen of him were shirtless-brooding-angsty — total opposites of the guy sitting next to me. The guy who packed a pig with him everywhere he went.
A pig.
It had been on the tip of my tongue to tell him about the pig my parents had gotten me when I was little.
I still had her.
It was more common ground, something I felt like we needed, since I might as well have been an alien to him.
But the minute I'd opened my mouth to try, to really try, the only thing I could force out was a weak noise that sounded like I was trying to hum.
Totally embarrassed — that's what I did. I hummed because I didn't want him to think I had Tourette's on top of everything else.
I held my groan in until he dropped me off, making me promise to show up the next morning bright and early…
I waved.
And he waved back, something I wasn't used to.
Typically, once people discovered I was mute, they stopped noticing me, almost like I didn't deserve the attention because I couldn't properly contribute to the conversation. It sucked.
It was also why one of my best friends, Demetri, had come up with the whole texting thing.
It had basically saved my life.
Then again, he'd basically saved my life, both he and Alec, lead singers for AD2.
It was strange, going from fan-girling over the guys to having them by my side after the accident.
Demetri lived next door to me.
He'd been there the first night things had gone dark.
I still don't know why it happened, or how…
My leg was still healing from the accident, and I'd been told I had to exercise it as much as possible.
Walking at night was my mom's and my favorite thing to do, so I went for walks and talked to the stars and sometimes, I really believed they talked back.
I didn't hear the car coming.
All I saw were lights.
And then screaming.
So much screaming I had to cover my ears because I thought my eardrums were going to explode.
Demetri was with me, not that he could have done anything to prevent it, just like I couldn't do anything to prevent the screaming.
My voice was hoarse.
Completely gone.
On the outside, I was fine.
The car had missed me just in time.
But on the inside?
I was absolutely destroyed.
I had no idea who was driving it, just that it was a black Mercedes AMG. The plates had even been a blur. Not that it mattered since the person hadn't actually hurt me.
I think I'd been hurt before that night, my emotions hanging by a thread, and then the car had acted like scissors, snapping the thread in half, leaving me falling into a pit of despair.
I hit the penthouse level again and waited, praying the elevator wouldn't do the creepy thing it had before.
A short Asian girl with dark hair ran toward the elevator. “Can you hold it please?”
I nodded and pressed the button, but the doors wouldn't re-open. They closed with her yelling “Bitch” in my face.
That was another thing that sucked about being mute.
People constantly thought I was stuck up or rude.
My own friends — friends I no longer had in my contact list — had told me I acted like a bitch.
It had hurt.
It still hurt. And sometimes I wondered if that was true, or maybe this was my punishment for not being thankful enough during high school.
The elevator dipped, then soared to the top floor and opened.
I quickly let myself into the large suite and quietly went into my room. Tomorrow we were returning to Seaside since filming would be starting.
I shivered.
Seaside used to be home.
Now? It held just about every bad memory it could.
Because, everywhere I walked, I saw my parents and every time I closed my eyes, I woke up thinking they were still alive.
Only to realize within a few seconds that it wasn't just a bad dream — they were dead.
I stuffed a few pillows behind me so I was sitting up in bed and grabbed my phone to check my text messages. I needed a good distraction.
With a laugh, I wrote him back and sent a few emojis of smiley faces with hearts in their eyes.
He sent a picture of his angry face. The guy was seriously hot. Married, taken, and completely happy — but hot. No sane girl could ignore his crazy dimples, blond hair, and crystal blue eyes.
I smiled through my tears. I'd never had brothers; I didn't count the two guys that my parents used to support down in Haiti, even though my sister often did.
Demetri and Alec were as close as I'd ever gotten. I imagined they were even better than the real thing.
I smiled and texted back a thumbs up with a girl sleeping.
I set my phone on the nightstand then stood up and paced my room. Maybe he was right. I needed to do something fun this summer. After all, I was only going to be seventeen for another month.
Without any clue about my future or what I even wanted to do.
Every time I thought about moving away from Seaside, I started getting all panicky, yet staying there did the same thing.
It was as if no matter what I did — the anxiety would still be there.
Shaking my morose thoughts, I stripped off every inch of clothing and crawled into bed… another fun quirk. If I wore clothes to bed, I ended up sweating so much I had to change.
It was the nightmares.
The therapist had said to make sure my room was always chilled. And she'd thought that maybe my clothes brought on a panic attack because of the restriction, which caused me to sweat.
So I started sleeping without clothes.
And, thank God, it had actually worked.
Over on the nightstand, my phone buzzed again. I smiled, ready to text back to Demetri that he needed to get some sleep since he had to record tomorrow. But it wasn't Demetri.
I snorted and sent him ten pig emojis.
CHAT:Linc texted back a farmer emoji.
I giggled as I sent over Demetri's least favorite emoji of a crow circling over and over again.
I swallowed the emotion in my throat and wondered if I should answer truthfully or just joke it off.
I don't know why I was embarrassed about my age. Maybe it was because he felt so much older. Not that he was. Without losing my nerve, I quickly typed back.
He didn't respond right away.
I frowned at the screen. What? Had I acted younger?
My face heated.