When I'm Gone

by Jaxson Kidman

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Our lives parallel each other, darlin’.”

  “I know,” she said. “That’s probably why I feel the way I do about you.”

  She paused for a second and I stood up straight, ready to take her into my arms and tell her that I fucking loved her.

  But that pause ended quickly and she dove into her own heart.

  Her eyes quickly glossed over.

  Even if she didn’t love me, at least we could bleed together.

  Chapter Nineteen

  From Memories to Flames

  Sienna

  “I can remember all of their faces,” I said. “They all helped me. Spoke softly and kindly to me. But the noises around me were anything but that. The grinding and crunching of equipment as they tried to cut the car and get her out of it. It was amazing that I was just pulled out so easily. Just hanging there, upside down, waiting.”

  “Christ, darlin’,” Kace said. “Upside down?”

  “The worst part… I knew it was going to happen. Every time I got into a car with her, I knew something was going to happen. It was like a clock ticking down, but I didn’t know when it would hit zero. I could hear the clock ticking but could never see it.”

  “Damn. And you were young, huh?”

  “Yeah. Really young. But not young enough to live in innocence where I could pretend that everything would be okay. She was always that way, Kace. Always two steps to the right, never able to just not be in trouble. I never understood it. I remember this one night really vividly. It was a Friday. I’d spent all week in school thinking about what to do for her. Other kids were worried about reading or getting math problems right. My teacher even told me that I seemed distracted. I was too young to know what that meant. I came up with a great idea. I would pick out her favorite movie and make popcorn. I’d taught myself how to cook before I could read a chapter book. That was just a necessity to survive though. So I got her favorite movie and made popcorn. Just as she was going out the door, I asked her where she was going and she said that she was picking up a friend. She had a lot of friends. And by friends, I mean people that gave her what she wanted and she gave them what they wanted.”

  “So it wasn’t just drinking?”

  I shook my head, swallowing the spiked metal lump of a memory down my throat.

  “Fuck,” Kace said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That night she came home with her friend. I have no idea to this day what really happened, but I started hearing them fight. Like really fight. I can still hear the sound of fists to face, you know? That hard smacking sound. I told myself to stay away, so I sat on the steps and waited. When it was done, the guy she brought home left. I remember him going to the door and looking back and up the steps at me. I’ll never forget his stare. I have no idea who he was, but that look haunted me. I found my mother bleeding on the floor in the living room. She was crying, but when she saw me, she quickly stopped. Of all the things that got trashed in the living room that night, the bowl of popcorn was fine. How funny is that? That night, my mother hit the play button and I sat next to her. We ate popcorn and watched a movie. Each time I looked up at her and saw her puffy eye and bloody lip, she would look down at me and smile. And that’s the best memory I have of her.”

  Without a word, he came forward and wrapped his arms around me.

  The thing was… I didn’t even feel like crying as I told him that story. I’d never told anyone that story, ever. Not my closest friends. Not my grandmother. Nobody knew that story.

  I held back the tears that felt inevitable.

  “Is that wrong?” I asked.

  “Is what wrong?”

  “That it’s the best memory of my mother?”

  “Darlin’, look at me,” Kace said.

  Our eyes met and I felt the same spark as though it were the first time. I wondered how many times that would keep happening and hoped that the answer was forever.

  “It’s not wrong,” he said. “It’s reality. It’s what you remember. My father never once gave me a birthday card on my birthday. But he never forgot to give me a birthday card. Okay? He would get himself so drunk, it was my job to roll him to his side to make sure he didn’t end up killing himself. In return, I would take some cash out of his pockets to feed myself. Is that wrong? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t care. I had to survive. And you did the same thing. You have a big enough heart that you refused to accept bad memories, so you found a way to twist one into a good memory.”

  “That sounds like a load of crap,” I said. I slowly smiled.

  Kace smiled back. “Maybe it is.”

  “She just couldn’t help it. Whatever it was, it just ate at her until it finally caught up to her.”

  “That’s what it does, darlin’.”

  “Yet, we’re standing up here with beers. What does that make us?”

  “People,” Kace said. “There’s a big difference.”

  “Is there?”

  He moved his right hand to my face. “If we were them, we’d be thinking about the next drink instead of each other. We’d be looking at the bottle instead of each other. We’d be holding the bottle instead of each other.”

  “How do you make everything sound so right?”

  “I’m always right,” he said.

  “Now that’s a load of crap.”

  He laughed. His hands eased to the back of my neck and we slowly kissed.

  “I’m sorry if I ruined your night,” I said. “I’m sure you didn’t plan on this.”

  “I planned on being with you, Sienna. No matter what that means. You’ve seen the dark parts of my life. The ones still living and trying to drag me down.”

  “I can show you more of mine,” I said. “Believe me.”

  “Meaning what, darlin’?”

  “After my mother was killed, I had to go and live with my grandmother.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think my grandmother would have been happier if I wasn’t around,” I said. “And before you give me the don’t say that stuff routine, it’s true. Living with her almost justified the way my mother was. Which only confused me even more.”

  “Damn,” Kace said.

  “It wasn’t like I had nothing in life, okay? I had a roof. I had food. I had everything I was supposed to have. At least on the surface. But what happened to my mother was like this thing. Like this event we had to keep talking about and celebrating. My grandmother loved the attention of having an alcoholic daughter who was now dead, and showing off that she was raising me. But when the doors were shut and nobody was looking, it was like I took up her entire life. Always in the way. Do you know I used to draw?”

  “You? Really?”

  “Yeah. That was something I enjoyed. I would scribble these pictures and then write stuff about it. I had this black leather notebook. It was my favorite notebook.”

  “You don’t have it anymore?”

  “No. I left it there. I had to go, Kace. I had to just get out of there…”

  “I understand,” he said. “Believe me. I understand.”

  The door to the roof squeaked open and I turned my head to see Mack rushing through.

  “What are you doing up here?” Kace called out.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Mack said. “Did you see it yet?”

  “See what?” I asked.

  “Turn around, Kace,” Mack said. “I’m really sorry, man. I’m really, really sorry.”

  “For what?” Kace asked as he looked over his shoulder.

  I side stepped to see around him.

  I put my hand to my mouth.

  There was fire in the distance… and I had an idea of what was burning.

  I didn’t utter a single word until we got close enough to see the flames. Even then, Kace was in a hurry to get out of the truck. I scrambled to match his speed because he had that shocked look in his eyes. I thought that he was going to push through the firefighters and try to get close to the burning house with the hopes of being able to save it. />
  I managed to catch him a few feet in front of his truck. There was no way I could stop him with my strength because he was so much stronger than me. So I all but hugged his arm and slipped my hand into his.

  “Kace, don’t,” I said. “You can’t get close. You’ll get hurt or get in trouble.”

  To my surprise, he stopped.

  He just stood there, staring forward as the flames ripped apart the house he once told me he dreamed of buying and fixing up.

  The Wethen House was now a black charred frame with the flames mostly contained on the ground. Two firetrucks were positioned on each side of the house, their powerful hoses dousing the flames, slowly killing them off.

  The lights of the trucks flashed, their engines rumbling, randomly letting out a hiss, the firefighters walked around the scene, talking to each other.

  “Holy shit,” a voice said.

  Mack stepped up next to Kace.

  I didn’t realize that Mack had followed us.

  I figured I’d leave them to figure this out together. I had nothing to do with this house. Kace showed me the house one time. This was deeper than whatever I had with him.

  As I broke away from him and inched back, he grabbed my hand and pulled me close to him.

  “Don’t go,” he muttered, his eyes never leaving the burned dream.

  I swallowed hard. “I won’t.”

  “I’m so sorry, man,” Mack said. “Fuck. What a fucking mess.”

  Mack put a hand to Kace’s shoulder.

  The three of us just stood there, the only people there except for the firefighters and police. There was also a single ambulance, probably just in case people were inside when the fire started.

  A firefighter walked in front of Kace and he reached out. “Hey. What happened?”

  “Party gone wrong.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Looks like some people were hanging around inside,” the firefighter said. “Not exactly sure how it started, but there’s evidence of a gathering. Doesn’t take much for a place like this to go up in flames. It was a giant piece of kindling. You know someone who lived here or anything?”

  “No,” Kace said. “I just appreciated the house.”

  The firefighter nodded and walked away.

  That’s when Kace turned and walked back to his truck.

  I glanced at Mack and he shrugged his shoulders.

  “What do we do here?” Mack asked me.

  “Be there for him,” I said. “Let him go through whatever he needs to go through.”

  “He won’t talk to me about it,” Mack said. “He keeps himself guarded. Best friends or not. I usually just give him a few days of self-destruction and then check up on him.”

  “Not this time, Mack,” I said. “I won’t walk away from him. No matter what happens.”

  Mack touched my arm. “Hey, Sienna. All he knows is people leaving. They may come back later, but in the moment… a moment like this… he expects you to leave.”

  “He can expect anything he wants. I’m not walking away from him.”

  Mack nodded. “Right.” He turned his head. “I can’t believe this house is on fire.”

  “It’s not on fire, Mack. It’s burned to the damn ground. He wanted to buy that house and fix it up. That was his ultimate project.”

  “He started talking about that house when we were teenagers. Fuck.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Hey, are you okay?” I asked.

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah. I just… fuck.” He looked at me, eyes glossy. “We were going to be better than all this shit. I wanted him to do this work with me at the building and then eventually get this house.”

  “You’re a good friend, Mack,” I said. I touched his back. “A really good friend. He appreciates everything you do. Even if he doesn’t say it.”

  “Just take care of him, Sienna. I’ve never seen him open himself to someone like he does to you. Go. Now.”

  I rushed toward the truck as Kace opened the driver’s side door.

  I tried to be cool and slam the door shut with my hip, but ended up bouncing off the door and stumbling to the right.

  “Christ, darlin’, what are you doing?” Kace growled.

  “I’m going with you,” I said. “Wherever you’re going.”

  “Sienna…”

  “You’re my ride.”

  “I’ll take you back to the bar.”

  “I want to go home with you, Kace,” I said.

  “Stop.”

  “No, I won’t fucking stop.” I pushed at his arm. “Look at me. Right now.”

  Kace looked down at me. “What?”

  “You asked for my heart and I gave it to you. What I told you… I’ve never told anyone. So don’t push me away right now. Or ever. I’m not going to leave you. I’m not going to hurt you. You can be hurt in front of me.”

  “Just get in the truck, darlin’.”

  I did as he said, but Kace didn’t drive. He started the truck and we just sat there. It was almost like the first time he took me there. I watched carefully as his hand slipped across the seat and touched my hand.

  “I thought I could fix everything,” Kace said slowly. “I thought I could buy the place and turn it into something nice. Something usable. A place for a family to live and love each other. A place that was as far from my home as I could get without actually leaving. Maybe it was supposed to be my version of heaven after living in hell. But each time I saw the place, I just thought about what I could do to it. It eased my mind more times than I could ever remember.”

  “I’m sorry, Kace,” I said.

  The red lights of the firetruck flashed over and over, bright white lights shining on what was left of the house.

  “You’re not going to say anything cliché right now, right?” Kace asked.

  “No,” I said. “I won’t do that. You loved that house. That house had an important purpose in your life. And now it’s gone. And that sucks. Really bad. All I want to do is be there for you.”

  He turned his head. Our eyes met. The same butterfly feeling happened again. I wanted to smile, but knew that this wasn’t the time.

  “I’m in love with you, Sienna,” Kace said out of nowhere.

  My eyes went wide. “What?”

  Kace didn’t repeat the words. Instead, he took his hand away and put the truck into reverse. I stared at him intently and watched as he turned the truck around and looked in the mirror a few times.

  His words tickled my mind and flirted with my heart the entire drive to get my car.

  When Kace dropped me off, I got out of the truck and walked around to the driver’s side. I stood there and playfully knocked on the window, smiling as I did so.

  He looked at me. I studied his face for a few seconds. The chiseled cut look of his jaw. The perfect amount of scruff that made my fingertips ache, wanting to dig into it during the short breaks in between kisses.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’m in love with you too, Kace,” I said.

  “You sure about that, darlin’?”

  “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my life.”

  “Great,” he said. “We might be in trouble here.”

  I put my hands over the open window. “Big trouble, Kace. Really big trouble.”

  “I need you tonight.”

  “I know you do,” I whispered and moved to my toes, leaning into the truck to steal a kiss.

  Kace stopped me. “And not just tonight, darlin’. You make forever feel like a real thing.”

  There was an instant lump in my throat.

  He kissed me, stealing my moment, but that was okay. He could steal anything he wanted from me. He already had my heart. He already had my body. And I could give him forever.

  But right then, I wanted another kiss.

  So I took one from him.

  And then I followed him home… into forever.

  Chapter Twenty

  My Sweet Flame
r />   Kace

  She slept in my arms, and whenever I slept, it was nothing but old dreams from the ashes of memories that I sometimes wanted to disappear for good. Each time I opened my eyes, I’d look down and see Sienna sleeping peacefully on my chest. I wondered if my heartbeat soothed her. If she counted my heartbeats until she slept. Knowing my heartbeat meant that I was alive and I was now someone that she could trust and love.

  There was a sudden sense of responsibility that rested on my shoulders. But at least for once it was a weight worth carrying and caring about.

  My dreams were intense. Dreams of the house burning down. Of the house I grew up in burning down. Of the workshop burning down. Of Andy’s house burning down. There was one with Andy hanging out her bedroom window, screaming for help, and I just stood there and watched the house become engulfed in flames. That was the worst dream.

  My eyes popped open from that one and I refused to try and sleep again. The only comfort I needed was Sienna in my arms. Her love in my heart. All the stuff I swore would never happen was happening. There I was, gently rolling Sienna out of my arms so that she could keep sleeping in my bed. I snuck out of my own bedroom and did my best not to make too much noise. For the first time I could remember, I looked around the apartment and gave a damn what it looked like. If it was big enough for me and Sienna to live in together.

  Live together?

  That thought really made me shake my head.

  But what difference would it make? For me, I couldn’t imagine anything better than waking up next to her and coming home to her there. Or sitting up on the couch, watching mindless TV, looking at the door every few minutes, waiting for her to get home from her shift. Taking her into the shower to wash away the night’s work and get her ready for bed.

  “Easy, man,” I whispered to myself. “Easy.”

  I started with coffee. That was good enough for the moment.

  I sat at the counter with a cup of black coffee and had a plain white notebook and a pencil. I was far from an artist, but I could sketch something that was semi-decent.