Paper Dolls by Hanna Peach Page A

I’m here.”
    “What were you thinking about?”
    “Salem,” I said without thinking. I flinched, surprised at myself. Something about Clay just drew things out of me without my control. I wasn’t sure whether I liked this effect that he had on me.
    I glanced at him, biting my lip, the same caution riveting under my skin as when he first started walking me home. It was faded now, worn down by Clay’s persistence, but it was still there, hidden underneath my trust and the comfort I felt around him.
    “Salem. Your sister?”
    I nodded.
    “Was that who you thought you saw today?”
    I stumbled on a crack in the sidewalk but Clay caught my arm before I could fall, holding me with such ease like I was as light as a doll. “Thanks,” I muttered.
    “So was it?”
    “What?”
    “Was that your sister who you thought you saw today?”
    “Yeah.” I let out a huff of breath. There was no getting away from this conversation. “I’ve…I’ve been looking for her.”
    “Why?”
    There was something so easy about being with Clay that made me want to let go and just open up to him. But I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t talk about Salem.
    “You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “We can talk about something else if you like.”
    I nodded, and felt release. His small kindness in allowing me not to talk about it meant everything to me. Perhaps that’s why I felt it was so easy to be around Clay. He pushed me, but he knew when not to push. Perhaps it was this that made me want to open up to him.
    “She ran away three years ago. Since then I’ve been looking for her. I had been looking for her, until I arrived in Mirage Falls and lost her trail.”
    He whistled. “Three years is a long time, Aria.”
    “I know.”
    “Why did she run away?”
    You’re so tight. I flinched and batted away the memories that threatened to bubble back up to the surface. I felt Clay’s reassuring arm around my shoulder. “I’m sure her reasons were good ones.”
    I nodded, biting back tears, thankful for his steadying presence, for his warmth and for knowing exactly when I didn’t want to talk. No one had known me quite like this…not since Salem.
    “So…what happens if you find her?”
    “ When I find her.”
    “Okay. When you find her, then what?”
    “Then she can be in my life again. I can try and…help her.”
    “Someone has to want to be helped to be helped.”
    “She wants my help.”
    “Are you sure about that?”
    A hot blustering anger rose up inside me and I shrugged Clay’s arm off my shoulder. “What are you saying?”
    “I’m saying that maybe you should let it go.”
    “Let it go? I’m not just going to abandon her.”
    “The way you describe it, she abandoned you.”
    She had good reason to. “It wasn’t like that.”
    “Maybe she doesn’t want to be found.”
    “That’s not true. She wants to be found. That’s why she keeps appearing.”
    “Then why would she run away today?”
    “Because…” because she doesn’t trust me. Because when she needed me, I failed her. “She has her reasons. You don’t know her like I do.”
    “I might not know her but I know you−”
    “You don’t know anything about me,” I hissed. I broke out into a jog to get away from him.
    “Aria,” he called out after me. “Aria, stop. I’m sorry,” he said. He grabbed my arm and spun me.
    The anger coursing through me made me yank it from him. “Don’t touch me.”
    His face crumpled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. That’s the last thing I ever want to do to you. Please, Aria.” His voice was so pained it struck a nerve in me even through my anger.
    I tried to speak, but a sob came out instead. My anger broke into the icy, bitter shards of guilt. I buried my face in my hands.
    I heard him curse. His arms folded around me, his hands sliding across my back, warming me from the outside in. I stood there letting his presence and his touch calm me.
    “It’s my fault she ran away,” I mumbled.