Damaged Goods

by Nicole Williams

  “Almost.” Paige slammed the tailgate closed then jogged around the side of the trailer. “I’ve got to say good-bye to Fang.”

  Reese and I groaned.

  “‘Fang’ as in that snake that tried to kill you a few weeks back? That Fang’s who you need to say good-bye to?” I said.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Give him my regards. And that I hope to see him adorning the boots of some tobacco-chewing redneck real soon.” I flashed Paige a grin before she disappeared around the trailer.

  “You’re such a hater, Liv,” she yelled back.

  I double-checked the tailgate to make sure it was closed all the way because having to retrieve knickknacks and clothing from some highway didn’t sound like a good way to start or end any road trip. After ensuring it was closed, I came around the side to climb into the driver’s seat, and something caught my eye. Something I’d been trying to avoid for two weeks.

  Will’s shop. He hadn’t been out in it lately—there wasn’t even a car wedged inside it. As far as I knew, Will could have packed up and left days ago. He could have left without saying good-bye. After the way I’d behaved and the things I’d said the last night I saw him, I’d understand if he never wanted to see me again.

  I’d become a slave to doubt and regret. I still couldn’t decide how I felt about Will keeping the truth from me. The man I knew and the one I was shown on that day didn’t match, not by a long shot. So where was the disconnect? Him? Me? Or was there one? Maybe the explanation was as simple as Will had been a good guy until he wasn’t. That wouldn’t have qualified as the strangest thing in the world . . . But even though my mind could have been satisfied with that rudimentary answer, my heart wasn’t. My heart felt something else altogether, and that was a big part of the reason I’d been losing sleep lately.

  I was still staring at the shop when someone came up and nudged me.

  “What the hell happened?” Reese asked quietly, staring at Will’s place before glancing at me for an answer.

  I sighed. “A whole hell of a lot.”

  “That’s nice,” she said dismissively. “Why don’t you get the hell over it?” She gave me another nudge, but it felt more like a push in the right direction . . . or at least a push in Will’s direction.

  “I am over it.” Lying to my little sister again. Not a highlight of my summer.

  Reese huffed. “Is that why you say his name in your sleep? Or why I find you glancing at his place when you think no one’s looking? Or why you’ve read that damn note of his so many times the paper’s about to deteriorate? Is that how one acts when they’re ‘over it’?”

  I shot her a frown. “I’m picking up on your tone of disapproval and am matching mine to yours in an effort to get you to zip it and get back in the car.”

  This time, instead of a nudge, Reese wrapped her arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze. “Don’t leave without saying good-bye. Whatever happened between you two, you know and I know you’ll regret not saying good-bye.” She lifted her chin toward his place. “Will deserves that.”

  My sisters had been as under Will’s spell just as much as I had. Next to me, they’d been his biggest fans. They still were.

  “I’m not so sure of that,” I answered.

  Reese stepped in front of me to make sure she was looking at me straight on. “Yeah, well, you’re not so sure of anything when it comes to people, and let’s face it, you’re the worst judge of character out there, so get your pessimistic butt up there and say good-bye.”

  I’m sure my expression mirrored my shock. I was used to hearing tough words from Paige, but Reese? Not so much. I wasn’t sure if I should applaud her for speaking her mind or scowl at her for hitting too close to the mark for comfort. So instead, I went with, “I’m not a pessimist.”

  Reese gave me a look that made me feel like a child, which I supposed I’d been acting a bit like when it came to a certain subject. “No, then what are you? An optimist?” Reese waited for me to argue, but no argument came. She was right. “If all you choose to see in a person is their flaws, that’s classic pessimistic behavior. Not to mention incredibly sad. Good thing for you you’ve got us, and we’re willing to forgive you your faults.”

  Some people had lots. Some people had none. I had at least some people in my life willing to look past my flood of flaws. “You’re the only two willing to forgive my abundance of flaws.”

  “I don’t know.” Reese glanced back, not at all subtly. “I think there was a third person in the running until you managed to run him off with your bright, sunny, pessimistic disposition.”

  I rolled my eyes, more at myself than at Reese. Of course a seventeen-year-old woman who had the relationship experience of a nun would be the one to get me to stop acting like a child when it came to Will. She was right. I had to say good-bye to him, if he was still around to say good-bye to. If one thing had been made clear to me these past couple of weeks, it was that I wanted to live with as few regrets as possible because, frankly, I had far too many of them stacked up from twenty-five years of taking the narrow, chicken-shit road. I’d regret not trying to say good-bye to Will, and I didn’t want my first mile of this epic journey with my sisters to be marked with regret.

  “Fine, I’ll go talk to him,” I grumbled as I started up the hill to his place. I didn’t take the road or the driveway—I went the quickest, most direct way I could. Weeds be damned; snakes be damned too. Now that I was finally on my way, I wanted to get there as soon as I could.

  “Don’t talk to him, Liv. Best to keep your mouth closed,” Reese called after me. “Why don’t you try to listen to him?”

  I muttered under my breath. How could that girl wind up with so much wisdom at the age of seventeen while I seemed to possess little to none? That question, and the rest of the others that assaulted me as I hoofed it up to Will’s place, I tried to ignore because it was taking all of my focus to keep putting one foot in front of the other without breaking out in a nervous sweat. I didn’t know what I’d say or do if I saw Will. I didn’t know what he’d do either. He could just as easily slam the door in my face as he could pull me into his arms. With Will, it was tough to say.

  And then I realized that wasn’t true. Will wasn’t hard to predict at all. No, I was the unpredictable one. With me, it was tough to say. With me, you never knew. With me, I could have just as easily slammed a door in his face as welcomed him into my arms. Will hadn’t been the question mark in our relationship—I had. Talk about the revelation a person did not want to have as they hiked up a hill toward a person like Will’s place . . .

  I kicked a rock and kept going. Once I crested the hill, I felt hyperventilation knocking on my door, and it wasn’t because of the hike in the Nevada summer sun. I concentrated on saying good-bye, or hopefully bringing about some form of catharsis for whatever Will and I had been.

  The Chevelle was in the same spot I’d left it weeks ago, along with the other few cars scattered around the lawn. An unfamiliar one sat just on the edge of the driveway. It was red, and although not quite as flashy as the ones the dancers at The Body Shop drove, it was close. My little demons of suspicion clawed to the surface immediately.

  I forced my glare away from the red car and made my way up to the Goods’s trailer. It was the first time I’d ever approached it, the first time I’d ever knocked on the weathered door. The first time I might possibly step inside. So many firsts, and all for one bittersweet good-bye. My hand shook when I went to knock. It was clammy too. Just as I was about to rap on the door, it swung open. My fist came so close to connecting with a face, but when I took a good look at who was standing in front of me, I wouldn’t have shed too many tears if my fist had actually connected with her nose.

  I didn’t recognize her, but she was close to my age, attractive, and dressed way nicer than I did. She smiled at me. I didn’t smile back.

  “Good timing,” she said, slipping around me and leaving the door open behind her.

  “Apparently
,” I said under my breath. I wondered if coming up there had been such a grand idea. That young, pretty girl wasn’t there to visit Mrs. Goods. She had to be there to “visit” someone else . . . someone else who’d just appeared at the end of the hall.

  A puzzled expression came over his face.

  “Nice to see you again, Will,” the girl called into the trailer before heading for her flashy red car. “If anything changes for next Friday, give me a call and let me know, okay? We can take this as slow or fast as you need to go.” The girl shot me another smile and a wave before pulling open her car door and crawling in.

  My stomach felt like a void, an unending pit. I would have hightailed it out of there if Will hadn’t been coming toward me. Despite him being still a good ten feet away and unable to see me, I knew he knew I was there. He had a sixth sense for knowing when I was close by, and I guessed I would have had one for him if I’d been unable to see.

  “Liv.” It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t a welcome; it was a statement.

  It was the first time I’d heard him say my name without some degree of warmth to it.

  “Is this a bad time?” I pointed back at the car pulling out of the driveway then caught myself. I dropped my hand, sighed, and started over. “If I’d have known you had company, I wouldn’t have interrupted.”

  Will stopped a body length away from me and leaned into the wall. Two weeks had gone by since I’d seen him, and from the looks of it, he hadn’t slept or shaved once. He was still attractive in that way that vied for stealing my breath or stopping my heart, but time had done its best to deplete him of it. Mostly it had failed, but in certain places, it had certainly succeeded.

  “I don’t think I’d call Miss Gibson stopping by ‘company.’” His reply was just as cool and removed as his initial greeting.

  I was still standing on the porch, the summer sun beating down on me, but the ice in Will’s voice had managed to chill me from where he was standing. “No? What would you call her? A welcome distraction? The other woman? Option B?” If I could wring my own neck, I might have just done it. I’d come up to say good-bye and offer some sort of apology, but I was letting my emotions and insecurities unleash my bitter side.

  “Still jumping to conclusions, I see. Nice to know not everything changes in a couple of weeks.” Will stuffed his hands into his pockets and shook his head. “Miss Gibson is the Admissions Supervisor at the nursing home just outside of town. She’s been helping us work with the state to get my mom approved for assisted living care at their facility. She’s been kind enough to make home visits because Mom hasn’t driven in ten years and I have something of a vision impairment problem. Oh, yeah, wait. You already know all about that. You know everything about everything.” Will exhaled, kicking the toe of his boot into the floor.

  My eyes stung, but I wasn’t there to shed tears on the Goods’s front porch. I was past that. Except I actually wasn’t. I could have shed another sea full of tears for Will and what we’d had and managed to lose.

  “I guess I deserve that,” I said quietly. I had to look away from him because I wasn’t used to seeing him look at me with disappointment and anger. I didn’t want to remember this look.

  “Yeah, you sure do,” he snapped before washing his hands over his face. Will was silent for a few seconds then kicked the floor again before letting out a long sigh. “No, Liv. You don’t deserve that.”

  My gaze flickered back to him. His voice was back to the one I was used to. His expression was too.

  “I’m just tired and . . . out of sorts. Ma has been having a really hard time lately—harder than normal. That’s the main reason for getting the state and assisted living involved. I just can’t take care of her the way she needs . . . the way she deserves . . .” He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a couple of slow breaths. “Anyway, enough with the excuses. I’ve never been a big fan of them, and here I am going on like I’m the king of them. You want to come in and have a seat? I can grab us a couple Cokes.” He inclined his head to the side. The entrance leading to the living room was a few feet behind him.

  I peeked back down at the Suburban. Reese was propped on the edge of the bumper, likely watching me, and Paige must have still been saying her au revoirs to the killer snake. “Uh . . . yeah, sure. We were just getting ready to leave, but I’ve got a few minutes.” I checked my wrist . . . for a watch that wasn’t there. A little nervous, Liv?

  “Grab a seat and make yourself comfortable. I’ll grab the Cokes.” Will turned around and headed down the hall, taking the first right into the kitchen. He did it with ease, giving no indication that he hadn’t used sight to gather his bearings.

  Watching him, I could see how I’d missed his blindness. He moved like it didn’t slow him down any. He still moved with confidence. Sure, he ran into things and stumbled along the way, but we all did. The hallmark of Will Goods was that he didn’t let the curves life threw at him stop him or even break his stride.

  “You hungry? I could slap together some turkey sandwiches or something,” Will yelled from the kitchen as I made my way into the living room.

  “No, I’m good. Thanks though,” I replied as I inspected the room.

  I’d expected the inside of the trailer would be just as run down and dated as its exterior, but the opposite was true. The interior was clean and organized. It even smelled nice. There was an old upright piano in the corner, family photos scattered across the walls, and loads of knitted afghans draped over anything that stood still. Apparently, along with keeping a spotless home, Mrs. Goods liked her knitting. When I scanned another corner, where a good dozen more afghans were folded and piled up, I realized it might be more of an addiction.

  I heard Will’s footsteps enter the room. Since I knew he couldn’t see it, I let myself smile at him as I turned around. Contrary to what I’d thought, smiling at Will wasn’t painful or impossible. “I think your mom and my mom represent the opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to house cleaning.” I took the bottle of Coke he extended my way.

  “Ten years ago maybe, but Ma doesn’t clean anymore. I mean, if I don’t remind her to shower, she wouldn’t these days.”

  “You do all this?” I appraised the room with new eyes. Even with the use of my vision, I didn’t keep our trailer as clean as Will did his mom’s.

  He shrugged. “With the help of my own two hands and legs.”

  “Impressive.” I stopped gawking around the room long enough to sit on a worn rose-colored recliner.

  “It would be even more impressive if I had the help of my own two eyes, but that’s pretty much the definition of a moot point.”

  Whether it was seeing him so physically worn or hearing him joke about something I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to see in a humorous light if I were in his shoes or that was just the exact moment guilt decided to topple every last ounce of its truckload on me, I couldn’t get my next words out soon enough. “I’m sorry, Will. I’m so, so sorry.” I clutched the Coke tighter, until it felt close to shattering. “The way I approached you that morning, the things I said . . . Shit, pretty much every way I could have done it, or should have done it, I went with the opposite. I needed to talk with you about the things I’d found out—I needed to have them addressed—but I didn’t need to attack you. I didn’t need to scream and be cruel and say the things I did.” I couldn’t even look into his face, because that would break whatever remained of my crumbling strength. “I’m just so damn sorry for the way I handled it.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Will set his Coke on the coffee table and lean forward.

  “You want to know how I feel about that?” he asked, nothing antagonistic in his tone.

  I was still choked up from my apology, so I answered with a nod . . . before remembering Will couldn’t see that kind of response. “Yeah, I want to know.”

  “I’m not sorry.” He leaned forward farther, and I would have sworn his eyes were burning holes through me from the intensity in them. “I’m not sorry.”


  “How can you even say that?” When my voice trembled, I grabbed the soda and took a sip.

  “Well, I couldn’t say that a couple of weeks ago because, you’re right, I was pissed. Actually, pissed isn’t even close to describing how I felt about it . . . but”—Will lifted his shoulders—“a little bit of time and a whole lot of perspective changed my mind a bit.”

  “How could time and perspective change your mind that completely?” I asked.

  Another shrug. “Because whatever you’re feeling at whatever given moment isn’t wrong. Expressing that is being true to who you are in that instant. You’ve spent so much of your life disguising what you felt while you were in the moment. I would have spun a cartwheel that you’d finally let yourself go if it hadn’t been directed at me. About the things it was.”

  His words rang with truth, as did most of his words, but there was a rather large loophole he was missing.

  “I get that, Will. I do. But being right or wrong about something is a totally different thing from being sorry or not sorry. Maybe me expressing what I did how I did wasn’t wrong . . . but I’m still sorry for the way I went about it.” He was readying himself for a rebuttal, so I stopped him before he could form it. “Please, just accept my apology. I feel like I’ve been suffocating beneath the weight of it, and even if you won’t take it for you because you feel it’s not needed, would you take it for me? Because I very much feel like it’s needed.”

  Will leaned back into the couch and shifted, either searching for his answer or for a more comfortable position. “I’ve never been picky about what you’ve wanted to give me, Liv. A man’s got to be happy with whatever a woman like you is willing to give. Apologies included.”

  That was a loaded answer if I’d ever heard one. “Does that mean you’ll forgive me?

  “That means you’ve been forgiven since way before you asked for it.”

  I knew this would be hard with him. I knew whatever few or many words we said to one another, easy would be the last thing to be found. I’d known that . . . But knowing something and living it were as different as night and day.