When Cicadas Cry

by Laura Miller

  “I know. He was my brother.” I say the words a little too coldly. I hear them fall out of my mouth, and I immediately regret them. But hearing her talk about my brother... She knew him. She loved him.

  “Rem, do you think this is easy for me?”

  I don’t say anything, and I still don’t look at her. And before long, I feel her hand touch mine, and as if it’s almost by reflex, I pull my hand back and lift my gaze.

  Tears—one right after the other—are barrelin’ down her cheeks now. Her eyes are red. She’s shakin’ her head. “Don’t,” she pleads. “Don’t pull away like he used to. Don’t shut me out.”

  “No.” I stand up and walk toward the steps that lead to the backyard. “You can’t compare us. He might have loved you, but...” I stop and bring my hand to the back of my neck. “I never did.”

  And if you can literally see a heart breakin’ by the expression on someone’s face, I think I just saw Ashley Westcott’s heart break in half.

  “What?” Her word is soft and torn.

  “I never loved you,” I say.

  And then, I turn.

  And that’s it.

  My world crumbles, as I walk away.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Past

  Rem

  I drift into Hall’s and find a seat in one of the old stools at the bar. She’s at my house. I didn’t know where else to go. I just took off walkin’, and two miles later, I ended up here.

  “Rem.” Kristen turns and looks at me. I avert my eyes. “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  “Bad day,” I say, takin’ off my cap and settin’ it on the bar top. I don’t even try to elaborate. How do you tell someone you’ve just lost everything?

  Kristen pulls a beer from the cooler, opens it and then sets it in front of me. “You wanna tell me about it?”

  I shake my head and take a swig from the bottle. “Not really.”

  “Okay,” she says, noddin’. “You want me to call Jack, so you can tell him about it?”

  I look up at her. She’s got this wry smile on her face, yet her expression is still somehow sympathetic. “No,” I say.

  Her lips quickly turn into a frown, and I realize I probably said that a little too harshly. “But thanks,” I add, flatly.

  “Anytime,” she says, barely over a whisper.

  I bow my head and stare at the worn, wooden bar top, thinkin’ about what the hell just happened today. I still don’t think I quite believe it all. Of all the people in this whole, damn world, it had to be her; it had to be my Ashley. Damn it, Owen.

  I look up, and Kristen’s still just starin’ at me.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I never said I was okay.”

  Her shoulders rise and then fall in a breath.

  “Is it Ashley?”

  I don’t say anything, though I’m pretty sure her answer’s written all over my face.

  “Real love bleeds, you know?”

  I take another swig of my beer, set it back down and then habitually nod.

  “That’s how you know it’s real,” she says.

  I try not to react to her statement, even though it hits my heart in an awkward place.

  “Well, at least, fix your hair,” she says, regaining my attention.

  When I lift my eyes, she’s givin’ me a playful look. “You’ve got this Alfalfa thing goin’ on.”

  I mindlessly run my hand through my hair just to humor her.

  “Hold on,” she says, leanin’ into me. She takes both of her hands and runs them evenly through my hair. “There,” she says, standin’ back.

  I chuckle. I don’t even know where the sound comes from. It doesn’t feel right. In fact, the motion of actually smilin’ just makes my heart break even more because I realize then that I can’t feel the smile. My mouth moves up, but my heart keeps sinkin’.

  Just then, I hear the screen door slam, and Kristen and I both turn to see Ashley standin’ in the doorway.

  I immediately stand up. Ashley looks at me, and in one look, it’s as if I can tell somethin’ snaps inside of her. It’s more than hurt. It looks like rage. She glances at Kristen but saves the longer look for me. And then she turns toward that screen door again.

  “Ashley, wait!” I call out, but it doesn’t do any good. I watch her blond hair fall in choppy waves down her back as she slides out the door. And then I freeze. What was that look?

  “Rem.”

  Kristen snaps me out of my thought. I look over at her. There is guilt in her eyes now.

  “I didn’t... I mean, I didn’t mean...,” she stutters.

  “Oh, shit,” I say out loud, finally connectin’ the dots. Did she really think somethin’ was happenin’ between me and Kristen?

  I run to the door. I don’t even remember goin’ through it or runnin’ halfway across the parkin’ lot.

  “Ashley!” I yell.

  She turns, and the daggers in her eyes pierce right through me, forcin’ me to fall back on my heels.

  “How did you get here?” she asks.

  “I walked.” I’m still angry, but more so, I’m sad...for us. “You didn’t know I was here?”

  She crosses her arms over her chest. “I came here to talk to Kristen. I didn’t come here to talk to you.”

  I take a sharp breath. Her words are ice cold.

  “Ashley, it’s not what it looked like...in there.”

  She shifts her weight onto her other leg, but her cold eyes never leave mine.

  “Ash...,” I stutter, before I stop. I want to tell her my mind is such a train wreck right now that I don’t know whether to cry or punch a wall...or laugh. But the words don’t come.

  “You were laughing,” she says. “I don’t think my eyes made that up. You tell me that you don’t love me, and then, barely an hour later, you’re here, laughing, like this was all just a game to you.”

  “Ashley, you know that’s not true.”

  “I don’t know what’s true anymore.” Her words slice at the thick air, and then just like that, silence fills the space between us. But she keeps her eyes in mine. They’re piercin’ right through me, causin’ my heart to pound and my head to spin. I want to say somethin’, but I don’t know what to say. Every time I try to form a thought, an image of her and Owen fills my mind.

  Long, tense moments pass like this before she shakes her head and drops her gaze from mine. And now, she just looks sad and almost scared. I want to take a step toward her, but I’m afraid, too. This can’t work. It was doomed from the start.

  One second.

  Two seconds.

  Three seconds.

  Four seconds.

  She looks up at me with a pair of soft, beautiful eyes, and it makes me want to go to her that much more. I love this girl, damn it! I love her. And I hate that I do—because she’s not mine.

  More seconds draw on. I don’t know if she can tell what I’m thinkin’, and I have no idea what’s goin’ through her mind right now. All I know is that there’s this ache in my throat—as if I just took every soft kiss, every gentle touch, every sweet memory we ever made together and tore ‘em to pieces and then swallowed ‘em. Damn it! This isn’t fair! I want so much to go to her. But I don’t.

  I don’t go to her, and there’s a look in her eyes that tells me she knows that.

  And that one moment—that one moment of idleness, when I chose to keep my feet planted... That was the one that sealed our fate.

  She knows it.

  I know it.

  The color fades from her cheeks, and she gives me this look. I can’t be sure of what it means; I can only imagine. I can only imagine it means: The end.

  My heart breaks in half.

  Our time’s run out.

  Chapter Thirty

  Past

  Rem

  “Dude, did somethin’ happen with you and Ashley last night?” Jack asks. He throws a log onto the pile and dusts his hands against his jeans.

  I don’t say anything at
first. I just shove a few pieces of wood under my arm and walk over to the stack. But when he turns around and looks at me, I can tell he’s waitin’ for some kind of an answer.

  I throw down the wood and head back to the dead tree we’re cuttin’ to pieces. “Why do you ask?” I say, tryin’ not to sound as broken as I feel.

  He hesitates. No one else might have noticed it, but I’ve known Jack all my life. That kind of pause means there’s somethin’ he knows that he doesn’t want to tell me. I pick up the axe from the ground and position a log vertically on the stump. And with one hard swing of the axe, the piece of wood falls into two.

  “She left this morning.”

  Without even thinkin’, my gaze cuts to him. “What do you mean she left?”

  He just stares at me. It’s that kind of stare a man gets when he knows he’s the bearer of bad news.

  “She must have just packed up her car and left,” he says. “I saw Karen in the bank this morning. She said Ashley was in there earlier closin’ her account. I didn’t really believe her, but when I drove by Ashley’s place, it looked empty. Even that wind thing she had hangin’ on the porch was gone—and so was her welcome mat.”

  I keep my eyes on him, as the words slowly, but surely, sink in. Then I lower my head, pick up another piece of wood, set it down onto the stump and swing the axe.

  “Buddy,” I hear him say over my shoulder, “I know I’m not the best at givin’ advice...or at knowin’ what to say or anything like that, but I’ve got an ear.”

  I set another log on top of the stump and swing—hard.

  “We broke up,” I say. I try like hell to make the statement sound as matter of fact as I can.

  “You broke up?”

  “Yeah.” I don’t bother lookin’ up. Instead, I shove two big pieces of wood under my arm and walk them to the stack.

  “What happened?”

  I toss the logs down, one on top of the other and shrug. “It just didn’t work out.”

  “But, dude, she left.”

  I ignore him, but I guess he takes that as an invitation to keep talkin’.

  “Hey, I ain’t no rocket scientist, but that seems like a little bit more than ‘it just didn’t work out.’” He holds up his fingers like they’re quotation marks.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know.” I keep my eyes on the wood pile, allowin’ myself to think for a second. Damn it. Where the hell did she go?

  “But you were gonna propo...”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not anymore,” I say, cuttin’ him off.

  There’s a lump growin’ in my throat. I try to swallow it down, but it doesn’t go anywhere. And all of a sudden, I feel rods of pain start shootin’ through my chest. I close my eyes and instantly feel dizzy. This is all becoming too damn familiar.

  “You okay, buddy?”

  It takes me a second to answer. “Yeah, I’m just gonna go inside for a minute.” With that, I slowly stalk off toward the house, all the while, tryin’ to take as deep of breaths as I can. But every breath feels as if it has to travel through a straw to get to my lungs. And by the time I reach the back door, my head is swimmin’ in a sea of muck. She left? I think it’s all just hittin’ me now. I can’t be with her, and I know it. And I already know somethin’ else, too: This is gonna be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through—and that’s if I even make it through it.

  Inside, I fall into a chair at the table, simply because it looks closer than the floor. I was worried my legs were gonna give out.

  I rest my elbows on the table and cradle my face in my hands. I feel lost. I never knew you could feel lost in your own home.

  A handful of moments pass before I lift my head and let it fall back. At the same time, I exhale and will my heart to slow down for a damn second. Gone. That word keeps playin’ over and over again in my mind. She’s gone.

  I level my eyes again and catch a light blinkin’ on my phone.

  Ashley.

  In the next second, I’m reachin’ across the table toward the light. It’s a message. It’s from her. My hands are shakin’ as I click to listen to it.

  “Rem.”

  Her first word comes soft and gentle, but it also sounds as if it’s spoken through tears. The stingin’ pain in my chest returns, and I press my other hand to my heart to try to curve it.

  “I don’t know,” the message goes on. “I don’t know how to feel.” She stops there and tries to laugh, I think, but the result only sounds as if she’s tryin’ to hold back more tears. “But since you’ve made it so easy for me to leave...I’ll make it easy for you to forget. I’m leaving Ava, Rem. I’ll be gone today.”

  The message ends there. My hand holdin’ the phone falls to the table. And I just sit there and stare; I stare at that phone’s bright screen until it turns black.

  Several months ago, I met a pretty blonde with a big smile, and I knew I had to know her name. Then once I knew her name, I knew it’d only be a matter of time before I loved her. And then once I knew I loved her, I knew I had to find a way to make her mine.

  But then, that was before...

  Now, all I know is that I have to find a way to forget her.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Past

  Rem

  I pull up to her house. I had to see it for myself. I park my truck on the curb and step out onto the sidewalk. There’s a letter in my hand. But I guess she’ll never see it because that wind chime is gone and so is her love plant. It always used to sit on that desk right inside her front window.

  I stop on the little concrete steps for a moment, replaying yesterday, remindin’ myself why she’s gone before I slowly make my way to the porch swing and sit down. Then I notice somethin’. That heart rock she found mushroom huntin’ is restin’ on the arm of the swing, almost as if she meant to leave it here—almost as if she knew I’d come back here sometime. I pick it up, turn it over in my hand and squeeze it against my palm. Then I put it in my pocket and focus on the letter.

  I wrote it last night. I knew she was already gone, but there was a part of me that wished it were all just a nightmare or that she’d be back this morning.

  I sit back against the wooden swing and unfold the page. Briefly, my eyelids fall over my eyes. I can feel the soft, late-summer breeze pushin’ over my face. The air is thick with the smell of freshly cut grass and dogwoods. I breathe it all in. The air fills my lungs, but the smell is dulled. There’s this fog that set in yesterday, and it makes everything feel less like it should. It clouds the scent of the grass and makes the leaves on the dogwoods look dry and dreary.

  I unfold the letter in front of me. Everything I know is on this page. My eyes go to readin’ over it one last time. And I don’t know if I read it to force myself to feel somethin’—anything—or if I do it in hopes she can feel me sayin’ these words somehow. I don’t know why I do it, but I do it all the same.

  My Confessions

  Ashley Westcott, you are the most wonderful and special human being I have ever met in my life. Any guy would give anything and everything just to know who you are. I don’t fault my brother for this.

  Ever since the moment I first saw you, I knew that there was something incredible about you. You made me feel something that I had never felt before. It took me forever to gather enough courage to ask you out. You were...are...so beautiful. And I think there was a part of me that thought there was no way that you would be interested in me. But I had to try. I had to know you.

  And then you agreed to give me a chance. And soon after, I got this feeling inside of me that was stronger than anything I had ever felt in my entire life. And the only explanation I had for the way I felt was that I must be in love.

  Ashley, you have no idea what you mean to me. You are everything I could ask for and everything I never thought to ask for. You’re smart and funny and sexy and gorgeous, inside and out. You’re the whole package, babe. And I already miss you. I miss holding your hand—just feeling your touch warms my heart. I miss cuddling wit
h you on the couch on those lazy Sundays and some Mondays, too. I wouldn’t trade that for the world. And I miss the little things, like the taste of your skin, the sweet smell of your hair, the sound of your laugh.

  And as I write this, I wonder if you’re thinking about me. I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking about you. The truth is, if you were here, I’d take you in my arms, and I’d hold you until you made me stop. I’m wishing... I’m wishing a lot of things right now. But mostly, I’m wishing I had met you first. And I know we can’t change any of that. And to be honest, I don’t know what that means for us. But I just wanted you to know that no matter what happens to us, you’ll always be a part of me and you’ll always have a place in my heart...always.

  And...I’m sorry.

  You deserve to know this.

  ~Rem

  I finish readin’, and then I carefully fold the letter. And then I fold it again. And I close my eyes until the only thing I feel is my heart beating. Then I rip the page in half, turn it, then rip it in half again...and again...and again, until it’s just a bunch of little pieces in my hand. Then I squeeze the little bits of paper in my palm. And without another thought, I toss the pieces into the wind.

  They hang in the air for a moment before gradually floatin’ to the concrete and scatterin’ every which way on the porch floor. I watch them for a few seconds dance in little circles in the breeze.

  If everything were different, it would matter what I just did. But nothin’s different, and that’s not gonna change. My brother loved her first. And even if she doesn’t still love him, I just can’t do that to him. I just can’t do that to my brother.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Present

  Rem

  I write the word. It’s only one word, but it means everything to me, and maybe it will mean everything to her, too.