Catch Twenty-Two

by James, Marie

  Zeke is a fortress, never disclosing anything until he’s good and ready. I find it hard to believe that he may have opened up to Rowdy, and honestly the prospect wounds me. I’ve done my best to be friends with Zeke, and he just relishes turning on me every chance he gets.

  A wry grin tugs up the corner of Rowdy’s mouth. “He doesn’t talk to me, but everyone else in this town talks. Gossip is the greatest pastime around here. Folks offer up information on everyone without so much as a push in that direction.”

  “Okay.” I cross my arms over my chest and give him my full attention, even the parts that want to think about what things would be like if Zeke wasn’t the biggest jerk that walked the earth. “What are people saying about him?”

  “His family lost their own ranch. The land that Zeke was supposed to inherit was foreclosed on several years ago. They lost their house and had to move onto someone else’s property, work someone else’s cattle and land.”

  I let that sink in, trying to imagine what it’s like to lose everything, but the concept is too foreign for me. I’ve never questioned the things I’ve been afforded in life. I have absent parents, but the material things are readily available, expensive substitutes for the love and affection that I really crave.

  “If you’re trying to comprehend what it’s like for him, you’re wasting your time. It’s not something you can even fathom unless it happens to you.” A faraway look fills his eyes, and I can tell that he’s more like Zeke than I first realized.

  “You lost your ranch?”

  He swallows, his throat working before he nods. “A couple years ago. And I can tell you it’s soul-crushing when the bank comes and takes something you’d always thought would be there. Add that to the fact that Zeke’s dad is sick, and there’s no surprise that he’s angry every second of the day. His world has been filled with loss, and the hits just keep coming.”

  Of its own volition, my lower lip trembles. Could that be why he’s so miserable every day? I haven’t even lived that level of loss, and it makes my heart break for him. I can’t imagine being in the middle of it every single second.

  “Now, I’m not telling you all of this to get you to keep trying with him, but more to help you understand what he’s going through. He’s faced some struggles, and with his dad’s illness, he’s going to face more, but at the end of the day, you deserve to be treated better than what he’s been doing.”

  “None of it matters,” I mumble, turning my attention back out the window. My focus on the dry grass and skinny cows is better than internalizing what has happened this summer with Zeke Benson. “I’m leaving tomorrow, and I’ll probably never see him again. I just wish my summer wasn’t filled with hate and aggression. I get enough of that back home. This summer was supposed to be different.”

  “I didn’t know you were leaving so soon.” Rowdy pulls into the parking lot at the feed store, turns off the ignition, and twists in his seat to face me better.

  “School starts next Tuesday.” I shrug.

  “Does Zeke know you’re leaving?”

  “I haven’t talked to him in weeks. Not since he acted like a jerk at the county fair, and I don’t have any intention of telling him today. He wouldn’t care, anyway.”

  Rowdy’s eyes sparkle when he looks at me. “I’d wager a bet that you’re wrong about that part.”

  Chapter 23

  Zeke

  The leftover meatloaf Mrs. Jacobson sent home with me yesterday is cardboard in my mouth with no taste and a dryness that makes me want to spit it back on the plate rather than chew it and swallow it down. But I know the meal is fine. It’s the atmosphere around my house that is ruining lunch and making my stomach twist into hard knots.

  I came home with enough attitude to start a world war after Rowdy and Frankie drove away in his truck. I know that today is going to be different from the other days I came home for lunch.

  The hospice aide, nurse, and chaplain are all here, and I could feel the heaviness of today the second I stepped inside the house fifteen minutes ago. Low whispers filter from the living room, but I do my best not to hear what they’re saying. I know what’s coming, and that knowledge has settled in my gut like a ticking time bomb waiting to detonate.

  I clear my throat for the millionth time since I sat down, but it doesn’t dislodge the ball of guilt threatening to make me choke. Unable to eat, I stand from the dining room table and scrape the food into the trash. Focusing on washing my plate is a million times better than going into the living room and facing what’s coming.

  But I don’t get to hide away for long.

  “Zeke?”

  I hang my head, hands gripping the edge of the sink when I hear Anne’s voice. The nurse has been nothing but helpful, a true blessing for my mom since my dad came home from the hospital, but the tone of her voice right now says the million things she doesn’t have to express with actual words.

  “Yes, ma’am?” I can’t turn to face her. I need one more minute to myself before I see the sadness and truth in her dark brown eyes.

  I want Frankie here. I need her kindness and compassion to cocoon me from this damn day. But I don’t get that. I don’t get to feel the warmth of her body when I need it the most because I’ve pushed her away. I’ve been so vicious and vile to her that she doesn’t even look in my direction. She’s avoided me for weeks when I know she has to be going crazy staying in the house all day.

  “It won’t be long now.” I flinch when her warm, comforting hand touches my back.

  I nod, understanding completely.

  It all comes down to this. After weeks of pain, discomfort, medication, and Dad slowly slipping away, today all of that goes away. After he’s gone, it’ll only be Mom and me and more months of pain and discomfort from his loss.

  “You should spend some time with him,” she encourages, much like my mom has done numerous times.

  Yet today, I can no longer avoid that room. I can no longer head back to the ranch and put all of my focus on work.

  I nod, squeezing my eyes shut in an attempt to ward off the tears stinging the backs of my eyes, and Anne must realize I need a moment alone because her soft footsteps fade away as she leaves the room.

  Standing at the sink, I take a little longer than I should, but then a sense of urgency forces me to move. When I leave the kitchen, I see Mom crying on the sofa, the chaplain’s arms wrapped around her sobbing shoulders as he whispers quietly to her. She nods in understanding to whatever he’s telling her, but his soothing words do nothing to staunch the tears rolling down her ashen face.

  I don’t even pause when I reach their bedroom door. I open it and step inside, trying to picture my father as the vibrant man he was in so many of my childhood memories, but even as I try to project those images in my mind, there’s no way I can unsee my withering father.

  With sunken cheeks and ashen, discolored skin, the man in the bed is unrecognizable. It’s unfathomable how quickly cancer can destroy a person, destroy a family.

  But no matter my own feelings or the pressing need in my blood to run, I step inside and close the door behind me. His ragged breaths fill the silence as regret swims in my gut, threating to expel the few bites of lunch I was able to manage before giving up on the meal.

  He deserves more.

  He deserves a son that stuck by his side during the last weeks of his life.

  He deserves to stay on this earth and live a healthy, long life.

  “Dad?” I whisper as I draw closer to the bed.

  He doesn’t respond. He hasn’t had a second of consciousness in days, and I’ve missed my opportunity to tell him a million different things I know he needs to hear before he’s gone, things he shouldn’t leave this world without knowing.

  I take his hand as I sit in the hard chair by his bed, doing my best not to flinch at how cold his skin is already.

  “You are an amazing father.” I choke on a sob, unable to hide the emotion.

  Needing to do something other than sit h
ere and cry, I smooth out the blankets on his chest as hot tears make salty trails down my cheeks before dripping from my chin.

  “Even though I didn’t tell you or prove it with my actions, I love you. I couldn’t have asked for a better man to raise me.”

  The lump is still lodged in my throat, but I don’t think it matters that my words are coming out filled with gravel. I wish I could’ve told him these things while he was lucid and able to hear me, but I continue speaking.

  “You are the best role model a young man can have, and if I grow up to be even half the man you are, I think I’ll be doing well.”

  I don’t bother to swipe away the tears falling like rivers onto our combined hands.

  “You’re my best friend, my hero, the example I try to emulate in my own life.”

  I don’t confess that I haven’t been the man he expects me to be this summer. That regret is something I’ll have to live with, not something I want him taking with him when he leaves us.

  “I don’t know how we’ll make it without you, Dad.”

  I lift my eyes to the ceiling, wanting, needing to beg for more time, for better health, willing to barter anything imaginable to just keep him a little while longer.

  For all my intentions to keep things positive, I sit with him for hours, telling him every bad thing I did growing up. I confess to breaking the handle off his favorite saw, to setting the small fire in our own barn when I was ten, and to sneaking out of the house last fall to go to a party he strictly forbade me from attending. I don’t leave out cheating on my math test or kissing Brooke Reiser even though I knew she had a boyfriend.

  Most importantly, I don’t stay silent about how much I hate God for what he’s putting us through, for the aftermath of what’s going to be left behind.

  By the time Mom joins me in the room, my sobs have quieted, even though my tears refuse to dry up. I don’t head back to the ranch, and I don’t bother calling Mrs. Jacobson to let her know what’s going on. I don’t answer my texts when my phone buzzes with a message from Rowdy wondering where I disappeared to.

  I don’t take my eyes off my father as the sun sets low in the sky, casting calm shadows around the room.

  I simply hold Dad’s hand while Mom clasps the other.

  “He’s so proud of who you’ve become,” Mom whispers, breaking the silence in the room.

  I don’t argue with her. The confessions I made to Dad aren’t hers to hear.

  “I know he wishes that he could’ve done more for our family, but I’ve lived a happy life.”

  I nod, knowing now that the material things I used to get so upset about not being able to afford don’t mean a damn thing now. If I could turn back time and return everything, give up all the comforts we were able to manage, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I want to barter. I want to beg, and plead, and sacrifice every single thing to keep him with us, but deep down I know it won’t change a thing.

  Tonight was inevitable long before the ambulance arrived after I yelled at him at the supper table, but it doesn’t stop the guilt from renewing and weighing heavy on my shoulders. If only things could be different.

  “He’s a great dad,” I tell her instead. “The best I could’ve asked for.”

  It’s hard to be strong for my mom right now when I want to scream and pull my hair out. When I want to yell at God for doing this to us, but I somehow manage to keep my jaw tight and my words in my head.

  We sit, silence once again surrounding us, and as the sun sets completely, Dad takes his last ragged breath.

  My world just implodes, and I don’t have any clue how to live in a world that doesn’t have my father.

  Chapter 24

  Frankie

  Various sounds I’ll never hear again once I return home create the symphony I’m enjoying as I relax on Nan’s front porch. It’s late, and Nan has already gone to bed with the reminder to make sure I’m packed for my flight that leaves first thing in the morning.

  I didn’t bother telling her that I’ve been living out of my suitcase for the last week, contemplating if I should change my flight time and go home early because staying here in Utah hurts more than it should.

  But right now, it’s quiet. There isn’t an angry boy sneering in my direction. There isn’t a heaviness in the air making me wonder when the next insult is going to fly my way.

  Taking a deep breath, I look up at the stars, committing them to memory. I’m on the fence between hating my time here and loving it. I know I’m going to miss Nan, and as much as I want to take her up on her offer to visit more often, I also know I can’t handle much more of Zeke and his hateful attitude.

  I’ll miss Rowdy, but we made plans to keep in touch, and that’s the best I can do.

  Zeke is a whole other story. I’ll miss the nice side of him, the side that treated me well. I’ll miss the way he would look at me sometimes and the soft brush of his hand when he’d push hair out of my face. I’ll miss the softness of his lips, and the way he made me feel pinned to the wall in the haunted house, but none of that cancels the hate he spewed nearly every chance he got.

  I know I’ll never be able to forget him, not for as long as I live.

  Freezing as a shadowy figure walks toward the barn, my blood fills with terror until I recognize the easy swagger that belongs to Zeke, only right now it’s hindered. It’s as if he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, dragging him down, as he disappears into the barn.

  I stay seated on the porch, contemplating whether I should get up and tell him goodbye, or walk in the house like I never saw him. I could put this entire summer behind me come morning. I could act as if the boy never existed, as if he didn’t get more of my firsts than I’d like to admit. But that’s not fair. I willingly gave him my first kiss, my first touch, and he was kind in those moments, handling me with care and passion. It was the aftermath that sucked, and that’s where my regrets lie.

  The unexplainable need to speak with him one last time wins out, and I slowly step off the porch and make my way to the barn. I keep my steps even but stilted as I approach, still not one hundred percent sure I want to speak with him. I’m seconds from backing away, having decided to leave him alone, when a sob echoes through the barn.

  All the hairs on my arms raise in response to the emotion he’s struggling with, and before I know it, I’m moving in the direction of the guttural sound. He’s not in the storage room, but I feel the air shift when I step inside the darkened tack room.

  “Zeke?” I whisper, waiting for him to lash out at me. “Are you—”

  Arms grab me and lips crash against mine before I can finish my sentence. At first, I try to push him away, but when our mouths break for a second, another sob escapes his lips and I can taste the salt of his tears.

  Something inside of me breaks for him. Not once has he cried or shown any other hint of emotion besides anger since we met. He’s hurting, and I hate when others are in pain. It’s not my job to fix him. He probably doesn’t even deserve what I’m offering, but I refuse to listen to those voices in my head.

  I kiss him back, hoping it helps with whatever he’s struggling with. He doesn’t have to be a good person for me to offer kindness and compassion. Those are his faults to battle with later, not my own.

  His hands roam my body, not aggressively, but also without the same level of care he presented at the fair. His lips meet my neck, nipping and biting at the sensitive skin near my collarbone before rough hands shove my shirt out of the way. He doesn’t bother pulling my bra to the side to gain access to my pebbled flesh. He merely bites at my nipples over the lace. The tiny jolts of pain renew the arousal I felt weeks ago in the haunted house.

  I keep my hands on his shoulders, unsure of what to do or say as he takes what he needs from me. I know where this is heading, but that still doesn’t stop the shock when one rough hand tangles in my hair so he can angle my mouth to his liking while the other works open the front snap of my shorts.

  Every synapse in my body is f
iring all at once, leaving me off-kilter, but he doesn’t seem to notice when my fingernails dig into his shoulders so hard, they’re bound to leave marks on his skin.

  “What are you—”

  He silences me once again with his mouth, and even though my head is telling me to pump the brakes, my body loves every ounce of his attention, and that’s what’s winning out right now.

  When his fingers dive into my shorts, rubbing me over my panties, my knees nearly buckle.

  He doesn’t laugh as he has to step closer to keep me upright. He doesn’t speak as he shoves my shorts down my now trembling legs. He doesn’t assure me that everything is going to be okay as he kneels before me and tugs my boots from my feet and shoves my clothing away.

  And I’m no better.

  I don’t ask for an explanation as he shakes out a horse blanket, laying it on the floor. Instead of trying to get him to explain exactly what’s going on, I place my hand in his when he reaches for me. I don’t complain or halt him when he settles between my thighs and takes my mouth again with his. I can only whimper when he grinds forward, proving that he’s as affected by me as I am by him.

  But when he unzips his own jeans, the rasp echoing around the tack room, roughly shoving them down enough to free himself and pressing against my entrance, my brain finally decides to catch up. I push my palms to his chest. Waiting for him to refuse to stop, but he merely looks down at me, breath rushing from his parted lips. The minimal light in the tack room is just enough for me to see a flush to his cheeks and need glittering in his eyes. I can only imagine what he sees when he looks down at me.

  “Condom,” I manage on a gasp as he locks eyes with me before pushing forward. My body struggles to accommodate him, and I push against him harder with an insistent shove to get his attention. “Condom.”

  He groans as he inches back, but he doesn’t throw a fit like I anticipate. He kneels back on his haunches as he struggles to pull his wallet out of his shoved-down jeans. He doesn’t say a word as he fishes a foil packet from the leather, but watching him seems too intimate despite what’s about to happen, so I look away, letting my eyes focus on a spot in the darkness while I wait for him to prepare himself.