Best I've Ever Had

by Abbi Glines

  I stood there after the message had ended. Annie was Alice’s older sister. Their voices so similar yet that was where their similarities ended. Annie was a dependable, stable, hard-working single mom, who didn’t let her childhood affect the person she had become. It had made her determined and not a victim.

  Alice had been the beauty of the two, yet she’d chosen a much different path. One that appeared exciting and colorful yet had been a tragedy wrapped in a shiny package. I’d been fooled by it as had so many. The memory of having to identify her body in the hospital morgue no longer caused me the agonizing grief it should. She had been my wife. Losing her should have been something that would always carry sorrow. But it wasn’t sorrow I felt toward Alice’s memory. It was anger. Her lies, her choices, her selfish and reckless behavior had taken not just her life but that of our child’s. My world had been ripped apart the night I was handed the tiny little boy barely developed wrapped in a blanket with eyes that would never open to this world. They’d tried to save him when they knew Alice wasn’t going to survive but it had been too soon for him. He wasn’t ready. All the work the doctors and nurses had done couldn’t make his body ready to face life outside of the womb. He’d been gone before he entered it.

  My gran had always said that secrets never were the winners at hide and seek. It had taken me years to figure out what she meant by that. But when Alice’s secrets had no longer had a hiding place those words of my gran’s suddenly were very clear. In death, you can’t cover up the lies left in your wake. They have a way of unraveling and bursting free to damage everyone in their path.

  The man driving the car that had crashed fatally that night killing him on impact and Alice a few hours later was her high school boyfriend. The text messages on her phone revealed a life Alice lived I had never known. Sex so twisted it sickened me and drug use I’d been too fucking naïve to recognize. The things she’d exposed our son to, I would never know. She hadn’t even given him a chance. The drugs he’d been exposed to while in her womb were very likely the reason he was underdeveloped for twenty-six weeks.

  I’d spent hours researching babies who had been born that early and survived. Trying to find a reason why my son hadn’t. Any reason other than the fact his mother had failed him. I had so much to hate her for I wanted to be able to forgive her for something if not everything. In the end, that had been a futile task. It had been me I realized that I hated. Because I hadn’t seen the warnings. I hadn’t saved our son.

  I wouldn’t call Annie back. We had said all there was to say to one another the weeks after Alice’s death. Annie thought her sister had paid the price for her sins with her life, but I disagreed. She didn’t suffer the heart-wrenching sorrow of losing our child. She hadn’t held the lifeless infant in her arms and saw his ending before he ever had a beginning. She hadn’t faced her sins. She’d escaped all the repercussions for them. I’d been left here to find a way to live through each unraveling of her demented lifestyle. It had been me that was continuously punched in the gut with one truth after another. Each one growing more horrible as the last.

  I hadn’t gone to Alice’s funeral. I hadn’t allowed our son to be buried with his mother. Annie was the only family Alice had other than me. She had fought me on it but not hard and not long. She knew there was no point. I wouldn’t budge and, in the end, I refused her calls. I didn’t even know who had gone to my wife’s funeral and to this day I didn’t care. Her life had not been one to memorialize.

  Alice had failed our child and he deserved more than being buried with a woman who had never protected him. He was pure where she was tarnished even deeper than I had realized. The ugliness that she had allowed to control her in this life had taken her in death and I wanted my son to be in a safe place. It was the only thing I had left to do for him. At that time, it made sense. It was the only way I could see them lower him into the ground. Knowing she was nowhere near him.

  I hadn’t taken any of Alice’s things when I left the apartment we had shared. I’d moved into hers when we had married, leaving things in mine due to the year lease on the place. Grate had been going to sublease it for his girlfriend but that never had time to take place. I’d been back before the ink had been dry on our marriage certificate.

  Alice had entered my world like a force of nature. I’d never known anyone like her, and I had thought what we had was the love others searched for. She was always laughing and smiling. I had been drawn to that the first night I met her. In the end, she had been a master manipulator and I had been the idiot who believed she was real. The warning in Annie’s words the night we ran off to Vegas to get married were possibly the only truths I’d been given from either of them. I hadn’t listened. Believed as Alice had told me so many times that her sister was always jealous of her. She didn’t want to see her happy because she was miserable. It had been easy to believe because I wanted it to be true. Alice was pregnant with my child and marrying her had been the next step. Even if there was doubt trying to edge its way in, I had forced it out just like I had chosen not to believe Annie’s warning.

  Remembering was easier I realized as I stood there letting it all replay like a movie reel in my mind. I had worked so hard at forgetting. Not allowing it to resurface, afraid of the darkness that always came to pull me under. There was the ache that would never go when I remembered the son I had lost. I wanted that memory and I held onto that pain. Some sorrow was meant to stay. The hatred I held for Alice was what I didn’t want to allow to control me anymore. Holding onto that kind of anger and hate kept you from living.

  “I loved a woman that didn’t exist,” I said aloud, needing to hear the words. Admitting it and accepting it was like a weight lifted from my shoulders. Forgiving her might never come but letting go of the memory of what I thought she was made the emptiness inside me fade away. The love I’d had for Alice was never real because I hadn’t known the woman she truly was. My inability to think about her, about the past had kept me from accepting it for what it was. A freedom came with letting Alice go. The last words Annie had said to me was, “Alice had been chasing death since we were kids.” I had hated her for so many things but hating a woman who was damaged since childhood was pointless. It had been me who ignored the truth.

  I opened the drawer beside my bed. The box I had placed in there had been unopened since I placed the items inside of it six months ago. I’d bought the small slender cedar box at an antique store two days after leaving Sea Breeze. During the first days of my journey while I was trying to figure out what I wanted in life, I had stopped in little towns that intrigued me. Diners, coffee shops, and unique stores that caught my attention filled that first week for me and kept me moving farther away. I had traveled through four states before slowly turning and heading back east until I ended my journey only hours from where it began.

  The box had been my first purchase on that trip. I had walked through the store so full of items from my childhood. It had made me homesick and I wondered more than once while examining toys, lunch boxes, and even china that my gran had if I was doing the right thing.

  Then I’d seen this box. The words SPREAD YOUR WINGS had been engraved on the top of the box. As if fate had been trying to talk to me and remind me why I was out here on the road, I repeated the words several times then knew I had to buy the box. Back then I’d been a dreamer and believed it had been words meant for me.

  Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I opened the box and did nothing else. The photo that sat on top of the papers folded neatly inside still filled me with regret and sorrow. But I knew that was okay. Losing a child wasn’t easy and if the pain didn’t come with his memory then what kind of man was I? I held onto the way seeing his small face made me feel. It was all I had of him. All I would ever have of him. I didn’t touch the photo but simply studied the small face. That night forever marked me. Holding him had made me realize I had never truly experienced real heartbreak. But more than that, he taught me about unconditional love even though he nev
er took his first breath.

  Gently, I closed the lid and placed the box back inside the drawer beside the bed where I had always kept it no matter where I lived. However, this time I couldn’t close the drawer. I’d been unable to look at the box and face the reality of the contents for so long yet now the thought of putting him away bothered me. I took the box back out and placed it on the nightstand instead. Hiding his memory never made it fade. I never wanted to forget him.

  With one long look at the box, I stood and went to run.

  JUNE 29 / 6:34 PM

  Ophelia Finlay

  SUMMER CAMP WAS done. Parents had come today to watch their little angels dance and twirl around the room. Kids were registered for the fall classes beginning in August when school resumed. I had smiled more than was necessary and my cheeks were hurting. No amount of coffee had prepared me for the chaos of today.

  On my drive there I’d spoken with Phoenix for the first time in over a month. She’d called me and acted as if she hadn’t been ignoring my calls. I had been prepared not to correct her or give her advice she didn’t want because I knew doing so would make her ignore me for another month. But she was already realizing her mistake. I could hear it in her voice. The guy wasn’t what she had hoped he would be. This had been a call to get me to speak to our parents for her without her actually asking me to do it. Phoenix was as stubborn as she was wild. I would talk to Mom on Monday. This weekend, however, was about me and Eli.

  Pulling my car into the parking lot of Live Bay made all that exhaustion vanish. It had only been two nights without Eli, but it had felt longer. Being away from him was only getting more difficult. He’d offered to come to me today, but he’d done that last weekend and Wednesday. With his work schedule now in full effect, it wasn’t fair to always expect him to be the one to do this drive.

  He had worked long shifts Thursday and Friday so he could have off tonight. I’d suggested we eat dinner here and listen to the band they’d been advertising for the past few weeks. It was growing in popularity because the parking lot was already filling up and it wasn’t even eight yet which was when they took the stage.

  Luckily I was able to get one of the last parking spots in the front. I quickly put on some lip gloss then grabbed my purse before opening the car door. When I stepped out my eyes met Eli’s as he was making his way to me. The sight of him excited me. His blonde hair caught up in the breeze showed off the tattoos on his neck. The sleeveless shirt he was wearing also showcased more of his decorated body. His jeans fit loosely at his hips and I wanted to crawl all over him right here with the world watching.

  I only took a few steps before he reached me. I opened my mouth to speak but his was covering mine before a word could be uttered. His hands cupped my face in a way that made me feel cherished and desired. Loving this man was easy but not telling him was getting harder every day. Especially when his actions said he felt the same way even if he had yet to say the words.

  I held onto his biceps as he thoroughly kissed me, and I enjoyed it. His silent loving. He did this so often in so many ways I wondered if he even realized it. More than one night I had stayed awake trying to decide if I should say the words first. I didn’t know what he had been through or why he’d returned with so much pain inside his beautiful eyes, but I did know I rarely even saw glimpses of that darkness now. There was happiness there.

  When he ended the kiss, he pressed one last peck on my lips then held my face a moment longer. “God, I missed you.” He said the words with so much passion one would think he hadn’t seen me in weeks. This was love. I knew it was. Even if he wasn’t ready to say it.

  “I’ve missed you too,” I replied, the pleased grin on my face didn’t bother my tired cheeks at all. My earlier exhaustion was gone, and I was full of the energy being with Eli seemed to bring me.

  “You sure you want to eat here?” he asked. His reluctance to be around his friends and family had bothered me at first. I thought it had been me he was trying to hide. But after a few times of them forcing themselves on us, I realized it wasn’t that. Eli got annoyed with them. He liked our time together to be just that. Us.

  Fitting into his world was important to me though. I wanted those closest to him to like me. Keeping him away from them wasn’t going to earn me any points. So I nodded my head. “Yes. Please,” I replied. “We don’t have to stay all night. Just long enough to eat and hear some of the band. I’d like to dance with you too.” I added the last part because I had thought about that earlier today and I wanted to experience it.

  He sighed and reached for my hand. “Fine. Let’s go eat.”

  I giggled at his lack of enthusiasm. “I’m starving,” I told him.

  “They’ve got the best greasy fried club food in town.” His voice still unimpressed.

  I wasn’t going to let him sulk. This was good for us to get out and be around others. “What’s your favorite fried thing on the menu?” I asked.

  “Loaded potato skins with crabmeat,” he replied immediately.

  That sounded delicious. “That’ll be a great appetizer.”

  He chuckled then and looked down at me. “I fucking love how you eat.”

  I had made him laugh. It was one of my greatest accomplishments and every time he did it, I was filled with warmth. I loved hearing it and knowing I had done that.

  “What do you love about the way I eat, Eli Hardy?” I asked in a prim voice.

  He shook his head and we continued to the entrance. “Your passion for food.”

  I was passionate about food. Smiling, I swung our joined hands back and forth. “That’s good to know. Because later you can buy me an ice cream cone.”

  He opened the door and let my hand go so I could walk inside. “Don’t I always buy you an ice cream cone?” he asked.

  “Yes, but instead of me hinting I want one I can just come right out and say it. Since you love my food passion.”

  He started to say more when he was interrupted by a, “ELI, GET MY BEER FROM LARISSA!” yelled from across the room. Eli shot an annoyed glance in the direction of the voice. Jimmy Taylor was at a high top with Marcus, Jude, and a guy I didn’t know.

  Eli didn’t walk over to the bar or to the table with his friends. Instead, his hand rested on my lower back and he steered me toward a regular table closer to the entrance.

  “Is he drunk?” I asked, studying the table we were obviously avoiding.

  Eli shook his head. “No. Just obnoxious.”

  I was still curious. “Why did he tell you to get his beer?”

  “With Jimmy, it could be a number of reasons.”

  That wasn’t a real answer. I was going to ask another question when Micah’s much closer voice stopped me. “He pissed off Larissa. She’s withholding his drinks.”

  I turned in my seat to see Micah approaching us. He gave me a nod hello then gave his attention back to Eli. “Got a minute?” he asked. Micah rarely looked so serious. Come to think of it, I had never seen him appear so . . . concerned?

  I kept my focus on Micah trying to figure out what was wrong, but I felt Eli’s gaze on me and glanced over at him instead.

  Eli appeared annoyed as he gave me an “I told you this was a bad idea” look then glanced back at Micah. “Sure. What?” he drawled sounding as annoyed as he appeared.

  There was a pregnant pause and it was awkward. I shifted in my seat nervously.

  “Best if we step outside. It’s a, uh, private matter.” He said the words with such intent I was now getting worried.

  That got Eli’s attention too. He frowned and said nothing as he stared up at Micah. I knew he was trying to decide if this was important or not.

  “I’m fine,” I assured him in case he wasn’t moving or saying anything because he would have to leave me if he stepped outside.

  It was clear he didn’t want to go but the way Micah was looking at him, we both knew he needed to go.

  “I won’t be long,” he told me before standing and following an already ret
reating Micah to the door. I waited until they had disappeared and the large wooden door had closed behind them to let out the breath I was holding. What could that be about?

  A dread settled in my gut and I tried to ignore it but the feeling only grew.

  JUNE 29 / 7:02 PM

  Eli Hardy

  GRAN. THIS WAS about Gran. My stomach knotted as I followed Micah out into the parking lot. He continued walking until we were around the back of the building. Very few cars were back here this early in the evening. It was private. That was for sure. I fought the urge to tell him to say it already. To stop fucking walking. We were alone for the love of God. What could possibly be this damn personal?

  The back door to the club opened and I was expecting Larissa to walk out to join us. For a brief second, I thought he’d walked me back here to talk to her. Let her tell me whatever it was.

  But it wasn’t Larissa.

  Annie stood there looking years older than the last time I had seen her six months ago. It took a moment to let her presence here where she didn’t belong sink in. I was thrown off balance as a part of that world walked into my world here. Anger didn’t simmer slowly, it exploded within me. She didn’t belong here.

  I didn’t wait for her to speak. I didn’t turn to Micah to find out what the fuck he had to do with this. I turned and began to leave.

  “ELI, wait!” Annie’s voice called and I cringed at the sound of it. I never wanted to see her or anyone connected to Alice again. They were as dead to me as she was. I didn’t stop. I kept walking. “Please, Eli! Please just at least let me give you this. I need to explain, you need—”

  I stopped and spun back around to face her. Not wanting to hear another word come out of her mouth. “NO! Do you understand? I said NO! Now get the fuck out of my life. You don’t belong here.”