Apples & Oranges (The This & That Series)

by Moss, Brooke

  There was a pause, and then a choking sound. “M-mar?”

  My blood ran cold. “Lex? Are you hurt?”

  “Mar, we need you,” She sobbed. “Right now.”

  I was already in my closet, yanking clothes off of hangers. “Where are you?”

  “South Spokane General,” she cried. “It’s… it’s Brian.”

  “Brian?” I pulled a shirt over my head. “Oh, God. What happened?”

  There was a pause, and I could hear the sound of a loudspeaker in the background, paging a Doctor Smith. “He’s…”

  “Lex? Lex, are you there? What happened to Brian?”

  Her voice wavered, as she struggled to get the words out. “He’s gone, Mar.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  When I was about fourteen years old, I snuck out of my mother’s house and went to a party with some friends. On the way home, we T-boned a Cadillac and we were all rushed to a hospital in Hollywood. For over eight hours, I sat in the waiting room at the hospital with twenty stitches in my forehead, waiting for my mother to answer her phone and come pick me up.

  All of the other kids had long since been picked up, and there I sat with a hospital social worker who was on the verge of taking me to a foster home when my mother finally stumbled in. She was wearing a skimpy, sequined party dress and smelled like whatever club she’d spent the night in, and hadn’t even noticed that I was missing until her assistant had checked her voicemail.

  When I walked into the South Spokane General that afternoon after Lexie’s call, it made that excruciating night in a California hospital seem like a walk in the park. My teenage embarrassment and pain paled in comparison to the grief I witnessed when I ran into the waiting room with still wet, uncombed hair to find Lexie holding Candace her arms as she huddled on the floor, wailing with grief.

  Brian had gotten to the fifth hole of the gold tournament before dropping to his knees from a heart attack. Fletcher performed CPR until the paramedics arrived, and he crashed in the ambulance during transport. By the time Candace and Lexie met them in the hospital parking lot, he was gone.

  At thirty-five years old, he’d dropped dead on a sunny golf course with his best friend watching. They’d had no indication of heart issues, no warning signs of impending heart failure. To look at Brian, there was no hint that he was going to drop dead and leave a wife and three kids behind.

  It was unthinkable. Unimaginable.

  I tried to talk to Candace, but there was nothing I could say to soothe her distress. She was hysterical. Inconsolable. So much so that the ER doc had prescribed her a sedative and sent her home with her parents.

  Lexie and I spent the rest of the afternoon with Brian and Candace’s kids. Crying, rocking, and comforting Ellie as she sobbed for the loss of her father; and explaining and re-explaining to five-year-old Quentin what’d happened to his daddy. I lost count of how many hours I logged sitting in Candace’s creaky wooden rocking chair, brushing two-and-a-half-year-old Aubrey’s hair back from her sweaty head as she keened for her mommy, completely perplexed by the mayhem around us.

  But no amount of comfort would be enough for those kids. They’d lost their father. Their mother was a wreck. And Candace had lost the love of her life.

  Reminders of their love were all over their house. Black and white photographs from their wedding; framed snapshots of the two of them on scattered vacations; pictures of an ecstatic Brian holding each of his newborn children. A framed love letter written to Candace by a very drunk Brian during a frat party his junior year of college. The preserved calla lilies that Candace carried on their wedding day.

  When she’d met Brian the first time, Candace had charged into my dorm room with her blonde hair flying in all directions, her blue eyes shining. “I’ve met him!” she’d cried, throwing herself onto her bunk and kicking the air wildly.

  “Met who?” I’d asked from my perch, hanging halfway out the window, where I was sneaking a smoke. We’d known each other for three months, and while I’d tried very hard to hate her for being so all-American and peppy, she’d won me over, and I already adored her.

  She sat up and beamed at me. Her cheeks were pink, and she clasped her hands beneath her chin. “My future husband. I met him. And I love him.”

  “Love him?” I’d laughed. “Do you even know him?”

  Tears filled her eyes. “No. But it doesn’t matter. I looked in his eyes and just knew. I knew, Marisol. Do you understand?”

  Dissolving into tears for the hundredth time, I pressed a kiss to the now snoring Aubrey’s damp head. I hadn’t understood what Candace meant that day in my dorm, but I understood now. And I was finally ready to listen to what she’d been telling me for ten years.

  “Lex?” I called, standing up carefully so as not to wake Aubrey. I came around the corner to find Lexie and Fletcher sitting at Candace’s dining room table, going through photo albums.

  “She finally passed out?” she asked, her voice hoarse. I noticed that one of her hands was covering Fletcher’s on the table top, and my heart tightened. Fletcher looked horrible, dark circles shadowed his eyes, and I’d barely heard him utter a word in hours.

  “Yeah.” I walked over to a playpen set up nearby and slowly lowered Aubrey onto the mat. “Listen, I need to go home to grab my phone charger and some clothes for tomorrow.”

  She wiped her eyes. “Yeah. Okay. Are you coming back?”

  I nodded. “Give me an hour or so. When I get back, you two can go home to your own kids. Okay?”

  Fletcher looked up at me, his eyes shining with tears. “Thank you for being here, Marisol.”

  I tried to take a breath, but it felt like a large animal was sitting across my chest. I had to get out of that house. I needed air. I needed Demo. “You’re welcome,” I said quickly. I wanted to say so much more.

  I’m sorry you lost your best friend today. I’m sorry your CPR didn’t work. I’m sorry you had to watch Brian die right in front of you.

  But nothing I could say would make anything better. And for once in my life, no crass joke was going to cut the tension.

  “I…” I opened and closed my mouth a few times before waving. “I’ll be back.”

  I didn’t drive to my house. Instead, I drove through downtown and over the river to the Audubon Park area. It was late—after nine—so the neighborhood was quiet as I pulled up in front of Demo’s house. There was a light on in the living room, so I knew he was awake. Maybe waiting for me. He’d called and texted several times earlier in the day, but I’d not yet responded. What the hell was I going to say?

  Hey, sorry I haven’t gotten back to you. My best friend’s husband kicked the bucket today, and I’ve cried so much that I look like my mother, post plastic surgery. Talk to you later. Thanks for the mind blowing sex last night.

  Yeah. Not so much.

  Making a beeline for his front door, I didn’t look at, or even think about, anything besides getting into that house, and feeling Demo’s arms around me. I’d finally found the one man in the entire world I loved, and come hell or high water, I was going to hold on to him for the rest of my life—

  The front door swung open. “Marisol?”

  I smiled weakly, my finger still poised over the doorbell. “Hi.”

  “I haven’t heard from you all day. I was worried.” He stepped out of the door, pulling it shut behind his back.

  Well, that was weird.

  “I, um, something came up.” My voice shook and I reached for him. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

  For a split second, his arms went around me as naturally as taking a breath. They felt warm, safe, perfect. And then he stiffened. “Something came up around here, too.”

  My shoulders shook as I pictured Candace on a gurney in the hospital, a needle in her arm as the nurses sedated her. “Let me go first,” I whimpered, my tears soaking the front of his black tee shirt. “Please… if I don’t tell you now, I don’t know if I can get it out.”

  Demo held me at arms length.
“Hey, are you crying?” He used his thumb to swipe away the moisture on my face. “What’s wrong?”

  I told him everything. How my best friend lost her husband and now she was a widow with three small children. How she’d spent the bulk of her adulthood devoted to the one man who fit in her life, completing it, like a puzzle piece. How I loved him more than I even knew how to articulate, and that I never intended to let him go. That if I had a chance to have a tenth of what Candace and Brian had had, I never wanted to be without him again.

  “Oh no,” Demo said, pulling me close and resting his chin on top of my head. He rocked me back and forth as I cried. “Oh, no, no, no, no. Shit. Oh, shit.”

  Hiccuping, I pulled back and looked up at him. “Are you all right?”

  His face was different. Gone were the crinkles on either side of his eyes, and his dark brows were knit close together. “Marisol, we have to talk.”

  The curtains on the living room window shifted, and a chill ran through me. Blonde hair. I saw blonde hair. I backed away from him slowly. “Demo, please tell me that nobody’s inside your house.”

  He grit his teeth together. “I… yes, there is.”

  Grief and pain were quickly replaced with rage. “Please tell me that isn’t Stacia who just glared at me through your window.”

  Demo took a step closer to me. “Listen, I can—”

  He didn’t get to finish his sentence, because the door opened with a shrill creak. Stacia appeared in the doorway wearing a tight black dress and a smug smile. “Demo? Are you coming back in?”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” I stepped out of Demo’s reach and backed down the stairs. “Okay, I really need to hear you say that she wasn’t invited here tonight, Demo. I need to hear that she showed up, and you don’t want her here.” When he stood there saying nothing, my voice rose to an embarrassingly loud level. “Listen. I don’t think you’re understanding what I’m needing to hear right now, okay? Please tell me she’s not welcome here, Demo.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be welcome here?” Stacia stepped forward, one hand on her stomach.

  Holy hell.

  “Marisol, Stacia stopped by tonight to tell me something.” Demo followed me down the steps, but I backed away from him. He dragged a hand through his hair. “Dammit. I’m still processing it all myself.”

  My eyes flicked from his face, to Stacia’s hand rubbing her flat stomach, and then back to Demo. “It all? What does it all actually entail? Because from where I stand, it’s not looking so good.”

  Stacia looped her arm through Demo’s. He moved to the side, but her grip on his elbow remained strong. “You should tell her,” she whispered. “It’s not fair to keep her in the dark. We’re all adults here. We can handle ourselves.”

  “You’re giving me entirely too much credit, my dear.” I clenched my hands at my sides, and turned my focus back to Demo. “Please. Just tell me what’s going on. I’ve…” My breath halted, and I had to take a second to compose myself. “I’ve had such a horrific day.”

  Demo’s face was pale. “Marisol, Stacia is pregnant.”

  My heart screeched to a halt, and I stooped over like I’d taken a punch to the gut. “This is real,” I told myself, wiping my sweaty hands on my legs. “This is really happening.”

  Demo stepped out of Stacia’s grip. “Mar, let’s talk about—”

  I put up my hands. “No. Let’s not talk.” Yanking my keys out of my pocket, I forced myself to smile, despite the fact that my heart was completely annihilated. “Listen, congrats. To both of you. Demo, you said you wanted a family.” My voice cracked, and I cleared my throat. “Well… here you go.”

  He called my name, but I could barely hear it over the buzzing inside my ears. Thankfully, I got into my car and drove it a few blocks away before I had to pull over because I was so blinded by tears.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Speaking at funerals wasn’t my bag, baby.

  Okay, so jokes were highly inappropriate at a time like this, but that was all I had. Too many emotions were pushing themselves to the surface. Too many terrified thoughts. Too many worries. Too much anguish had been witnessed. And I’d felt entirely too much pain for my own good. If the old saying was when it rains, it pours, then it was a freaking tsunami in the middle of monsoon season in my life.

  When Candace asked me to stand up and say a few words at the end of Brian’s funeral, I thought she’d officially lost it. It was time to put her in a padded room with fork corks, the whole works. She’d lost it.

  After all, Brian and I spent most of our time poking fun at each other and arguing. But the more I thought about it, the clearer it became. Candace could see what I’d always ignored, which was that her husband and I had become good friends over the years. He’d filled the space left empty by my parents when neither of them had any other children. He was, for all intents and purposes, my brother.

  And so, with shaking knees and more sweat underneath my arms than a real lady would admit—but hey, let’s be honest, I’m not a lady… and I was sweating like a damn cow—I stood up and recalled one of my best Brian memories.

  It happened during our senior year of college. He was planning on proposing soon, and I was the only one who knew about it. Candace had dragged us to one of her stupid plays, and he and I were bored out of our gourds and whispering back and forth in the darkened theater…

  "Good Lord,” he’d hissed to me during an especially long stretch of undecipherable dialogue. “I'd so rather be watching ATTACK OF THE LIVING DEAD HOOKER FROM OUTERSPACE.”

  I snickered. “Or watching paint dry.”

  He grinned. “Or cutting my toenails."

  I laughed, and slapped a hand over my mouth when Candace shot me a glare. "What?” I whispered from behind my fingers. “You don't simply adore this version of Much Ado About Nothing as seen through the lens of the Victorian age? But it's so character driven, and the costumes..." I sighed melodramatically, just as Candace had a moment before, "...are divine.”

  Brian looked over at Candace, and the love in his eyes made my chest hurt, just a little. "Oh, Hell no. It's zombie movies all the way."

  "Good luck getting Candace to go to those."

  "Yeah," he said. Then he moaned loudly. "Brains!"

  Candace shushed us, and I sank down lower in my seat. "Looking for one?"

  He moaned again, softer this time. "Oh hey, sounds like your dorm room last night. Only if they're moaning brains they're in the wrong room. I guess you're safe from the zombie apocalypse.”

  I hit him on the shoulder, but I laughed, because I never could help it when Brian was around. "You're disgusting."

  "You wouldn't have me any other way," he'd said. “Can, on the other hand, would love to see me more refined.”

  I looked at my blonde friend, watching the stage with her lower lip between her teeth. “Nah. She might like you to act human once in a while, but she loves you just the way you are.” I paused and Brian just looked at me. “You know, because her standards are so low.”

  “Right.” He smirked. “But you know what?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’d do just about anything for her.” He slid his hand over hers in the darkness. “She’s worth it. We’re worth it, you know?”

  I just nodded. In typical, know-it-all Brian fashion, he was right. But then, he was ALWAYS right.

  I don't think Brian ever got Candace to watch zombie movies with him. But I can't even count the number of times they went to see Shakespeare. Every year, he'd go, and, as far as I know, he never once tried to weasel out of it. Because that's how much he loved her—he'd do anything to make her happy.

  Because for Brian, spending three hours with Candace, even if it was at one of those super boring snoozefests that she liked so much, was three hours well spent.

  And at the end of the day, isn't that what we all want?

  Later, after the service, I looked at Candace’s red, splotchy face, and forced myself to smile. “Why don’t you g
o upstairs to lay down, and I’ll bring you a cup of tea or something to sip on.” She didn’t move, didn’t blink, didn’t register a thing I’d said. So I squeezed her shoulder, making her jump. “Candace?”

  “Yes?” She focused on me, and blinked a few times. “What?”

  My stomach dropped. She’d been like this for days. Six, to be exact. The funeral had taken the last shred of strength I’d had. Between speaking, the music, slide shows and shared memories, I had more crumpled tissues at the bottom of my purse than I’d even thought possible. At one point, I’d actually thought I was going to be sick from crying so much. All those years of barely shedding a tear, and now I couldn’t seem to stop.

  But Candace? Candace was beyond…

  Her grief was palpable, like you could reach into the air surrounding her and grab a handful of it. She’d lost ten pounds already—that’s what happened when you refused to consume anything but coffee—and her black dress hung on her bones like a coat rack. Her hair, which I’d had to force her to wash this morning, hung in a limp ponytail down her back, and the circles around her eyes resembled soot.

  I’d brought her home after the funeral and reception, in the hopes that being alone with her kids would perk her up. Candace’s parents were too busy taking care of the funeral arrangements—and Candace herself—to watch them. And Brian’s mother was drowning in her own grief, so sitting at home with three small children was impossible for her, as well. Lexie had two kids of her own to care for, plus she was struggling to help Fletcher cope, and it wasn’t going so well.

  I watched as Candace looked past my shoulder at her kids watching a video in the darkened family room. She’d hardly touched Ellie, Quentin, and Aubrey since the day Brian died, and they were climbing the walls, desperate for Mom’s attention. Ellie and Quentin were now sleeping under Quentin’s bunk bed together at night, and had wet their pants at least twice a day, every day this past week. I’d done more laundry recently than I’d ever done in my adult life, and I had no idea how to help them stop regressing. Aubrey also refused to sleep unless she was resting on my shoulder, so I’d spent the last few nights sitting upright, so she would sleep. My back was killing me, and I couldn’t turn my head to the left at all.