Fake Me To Church

Twelve Years Ago

Part Seven

The gush of splashing, swishing waves was the first sound filtering through Lane's ears. All around her, it was bright—so beautifully, beautifully bright.

As she squinted her eyes, she could make out the fingers of light reaching in from the left. Thick lines slowly faded into view through the glimmering sunshine.

The warmth on her face and hands was accompanied by a superficial cool—one that seemed to brush lightly against her skin as it flowed across her body. The peaceful sounds of the water flow flushed all around her, made her recall the first time she'd traveled to the beach...

She'd gone with her class back in first grade, and GiGi's mom had been one of the supervisors. Together with her best and truest friend, Lane'd eaten yellow popsicles that tasted like her lemony lip gloss, then started collecting seashells to take home to her dad; the pearly-white ones were his favorites.

Her eyes scrunched together but still peeking open, Lane felt that she could see her daddy now—what a gorgeous face he had. And that creamy vanilla blond hair of his swept back into luscious, shining waves.

Little Lane loved it when he picked her up from school, when all the other kids in her class watched in awe as he swooped her in the air and cuddled her tightly against his chest. She loved that feeling when his muscled arms encircled her, held her, protected her—she loved how strong her daddy was, how strong he seemed always to be. And somehow, somehow, he was still so tender.

Smiling, he reached a single hand to stroke her cheek. That hand, rugged and soft all at once—it warmed her, even as a stream of tears fell from Lane's eyes like the waterfall she could still so faintly hear.

"I love you, Daddy." Lane couldn't even tell if she was really speaking.

"I love you too," answered that gorgeous face, those zircon blue eyes, that sheeny crème-blond hair. "My sweet, beautiful Baby Lane."

As he smiled at her, something started to peek out ever so timidly from behind him. A girl...or was it a woman? Eyes as freshly blue, hair as silky blond, but—

Mom?

No, it wasn't her. Mom's eyes were brown, and her hair fell in wispy frizzes.

So who was she? That girl? That woman? Why did her eyes stare so longingly...and why at Lane?

"I love you," her father echoed sweetly, purely. "I love you so much."

"I love you too, Daddy." She kissed his hand, felt his perfect warmth again.

****

Lane blinked tremulously, felt the tears she'd cried in her sleep as they dried against her face. She tried lifting her head, but a stab of pain shot up from her shoulder and pierced the side of her neck.

"Ow!" she screamed, shutting her eyes against the agony. She drew her hand to rub at the pain, noting a similar throbbing as it erupted in her temples.

Lane's eyes began to water again as slowly, every awful memory torrented back into her brain. Beneath her eyelids, that sweet image of her father felt almost soiled now, corrupted with every brutalized second of the night before.

Faintly in the distance, Lane thought she heard footsteps. She jumped at the sound of fluffy slippers as they tapped across an evenly carpeted floor.

Lane instinctively drew the bed's covers closer to her as a thin, dark woman appeared to glide gently into the room. As the sun bloomed so softly through the glassy windows along the wall, the glitter of the gleaming light seemed to dress the lady who stood before Lane in the warmest, most welcoming effulgence imaginable. She was an angel—a tall, beautiful angel of chestnut skin and ebony hair.