As She Fades

by Abbi Glines

  “Your mom came by late with a slice of chocolate cake and a big glass of milk. It was nice.” I hadn’t known she was taking him anything tonight. But I was thankful she had.

  “Good. Has he opened his eyes?” I asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  “No,” he replied. “Doctor says he doubts he will again.”

  I wanted to be there. I wanted to hug him. I hated him being alone right now. If Knox hadn’t started his job at the bar in town, he’d have gone with us today. But he had to work evenings.

  “I should be there by two tomorrow at the latest,” I said.

  “Thank you. It’s hard being alone. Watching him breathe. Wondering if he’s hurting or just resting. I want him to go peacefully. What if I hadn’t gotten here when I did? What if he’d closed his eyes and I didn’t get to see him one more time?”

  “He was waiting on you, Slate. He was fighting it because he was waiting on you. Seeing you was what he needed. That pat on your hand was his way of telling you he loved you.”

  I heard him inhale deeply. I hadn’t meant to upset him. Just reassure him. “I should have told him I loved him,” he said.

  “He knew. Your actions were enough.”

  “He should have gotten the words,” Slate argued.

  Sometimes we don’t get that. “You didn’t know it was the last time you’d get to speak to him. He’s resting now because he knows you are there and he is loved.”

  He was quiet for a moment. Then I could hear him move around. “Thanks, I needed to hear that.”

  “You’re welcome,” I replied.

  “And, Vale?” he said.

  “Yes?”

  He paused, then sighed. “Never mind. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING, work was hard to get through because my mind was somewhere else. Worrying about Slate and how he was handling things. My mother texted me when she arrived at the hospital to let me know she was with him. That helped. But I still wanted to be there.

  I had called Crawford the day before to explain what was going on, but he hadn’t answered his phone. It was the last Saturday before game season began, and I knew he had practiced hard all day. I typed out a text explaining it and told him to call after twelve. I was working this morning. Again, something else we hadn’t talked about. I wasn’t even sure he knew about my job. The last two times we chatted he told me all about what he was doing but didn’t actually ask about me.

  The more I thought about it, the more I realized it had always been that way. Crawford liked to talk about himself, and I had liked to listen. I never wanted attention or the spotlight and I knew he did. It had been okay then. But since waking up, that bothered me. Along with so many other things.

  Isla asked me several times at work if I was okay. She noticed my mood and I liked that about her. She paid attention and cared. I explained a friend’s uncle was dying. I needed to leave as soon as I could to get to the hospital. It was slow by eleven, so she told me to go on.

  When I pulled up to the hospital, my phone rang and it was Crawford. I parked and answered.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey, so you got a job?”

  “Yeah. I need to work and help my parents with my costs, like Knox does.” He hadn’t asked about Slate’s uncle first. I found that odd. It was the bigger issue.

  “I just woke up an hour ago. I was going to come get you for brunch, but I got your text. So, you know this Slate guy that well? I thought he was Knox’s friend.”

  The touch of jealousy in his tone didn’t go unnoticed. I almost mentioned the herd of women surrounding him this week but didn’t. It was pointless and I didn’t have the time or energy for the argument that would start.

  “He read to me when I was in a coma. Gave my family a break regularly and brought them coffee and muffins. That makes him my friend, too. Even if our friendship started while I was asleep.”

  He was silent for a moment. I let him think about what I’d said, and hopefully he’d have a reasonable response.

  “You know his reputation, don’t you? I mean, you don’t want to be heaped in the pile with those girls. People will assume that’s what you are.”

  I gripped the phone a little too tightly in my hand. I couldn’t blow up on him. That wasn’t fair. He had his concerns and I needed to let him have them. But I wasn’t bending to his will. Those days were over.

  “He is my friend. He needs a friend right now. I don’t care who says what. I know the truth and that’s all that matters. Do you have a problem with that?” My tone had gotten snappy and I could tell he was startled by it.

  “Uh, no. I guess I don’t.”

  “Good. Mom’s in there with him now. I need to go. I’ll text you when I’m headed back.” I almost added that we could get together but didn’t. Because I wasn’t sure I’d be in the mood to see him. Not after what I was about to face.

  Ending the call the way we had for years, we said, “I love you,” but this time it felt different. Like I didn’t truly mean it. I shoved those thoughts from my head and made my way inside.

  My mom sat in a chair beside the window and Slate sat beside his uncle. He had one of Uncle D’s hands in his. When I stepped inside, his head turned to me and I saw gratitude and relief. My mom was there, but it was me he needed.

  “Hey,” I said, walking over to him. “How’s he been?”

  Slate sighed. “The same.” He glanced over at my mother, who was watching us. “Your mom has been great. I just wish I had more of an appetite to eat the food she brought. What I could eat was really good.”

  “There’s more where that came from. You just eat when you can,” she said gently.

  “Thank you,” Slate told her.

  “Mom, you go on. I’ll stay until tonight.”

  She stood up and walked over to Slate. With a squeeze from her hand on his shoulder she said, “Your uncle is a lucky man. He is loved by you and he knows it.”

  Slate nodded, but he didn’t say anything. I could tell he was having a hard time with her words. He swallowed hard.

  “Call me if you need anything. I’ll bring some dinner over later.”

  “Thanks, Momma.”

  She hugged me, then left us there. Watching his uncle hold on, but barely.

  “He’s bleeding internally from the fall. Nothing they can do, though,” he said when the door closed behind my mother. “They don’t think he’ll make it through the night.”

  “I’ll stay with you.” There was no way I could leave him.

  “You have classes in the morning,” he argued, but it was weak. He wanted me here. He was afraid.

  “I’ll get what I miss from someone else in my classes.”

  He didn’t try to talk me out of it. Which was good because I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I’ll have a farm to think about. Not sure how I’m going to handle that. Uncle D owned all of it. Worked his whole life to own it in full. He told me this summer when he got sick that he’d left everything to me. It was my decision what I did with it. I can’t run a farm right now, but I can’t just sell it. It was his life.”

  There were going to be a lot of decisions like this for him to make. Things that wouldn’t be easy. I knew they were all starting to run through his mind.

  “Does the farm support itself financially?” I asked him.

  He nodded.

  “Well, why don’t you find someone to run it—live there, take care of things, and pay them? When and if the time comes that you want to live there, it will be waiting.”

  Again, he nodded. “Okay. Yeah, I think in town there’ll be some folks who would want to do that.”

  “Don’t stress and worry over things like this just yet. It will work out.”

  He didn’t respond and I figured he needed a moment. I walked over and sat in the seat my mother had deserted. I could smell her homemade doughnuts in the box beside me.

  “I’ve never had someone in my life who would do this,” he said, lo
oking over at me. “Stay when things were tough. No one I could trust other than Uncle D.”

  That made my heart hurt. I had a big family. I had been blessed with so much in life and I’d taken that for granted, while Slate had no one else.

  “You have my family now. Me and Knox. We’re your friends. With us comes our family.”

  A sad smile touched Slate’s lips and his gaze shifted to the doughnuts. “Yeah, you’ve got a great family. Not sure what I did to get their support.”

  I knew what he had done.

  “I think it all started with the coffee and muffins you brought to them when they were watching me sleep, wondering if I’d ever wake up. And the reading to me when they needed a break. Kindness like that isn’t forgotten.”

  He shrugged. “Knox was my friend and…” He paused and his eyes locked on mine. “And I wanted to see your eyes. I wanted to hear your voice. I wanted to know you. Sleeping Beauty.”

  Oh.

  Oh.

  I blinked several times and my face heated.

  He chuckled and the sound was nice in the quiet sadness of the room. “You were exactly like I imagined, too. Maybe even better.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. So I reached for the doughnuts and took one out, then held the box toward him.

  “Doughnut?” I asked.

  Then he really laughed. And my heart did a silly flutter in my chest.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  SLATE

  AT TWO FIFTY-FIVE that morning, my uncle took his last breath. I was watching his chest rise and fall … and then it didn’t anymore. I stood up, numb, and although I knew it was coming, I still couldn’t believe that he was gone. The only thing I felt was Vale’s arms as they came around me and she held me. She was so small, but her little body was comfort. She stayed like that when the nurses came in and pronounced his death and the time. She didn’t let go when they covered him and rolled him from the room.

  When we had to get his belongings and leave the room, she stayed close to my side. Her parents and her older brother Dylan were in the hall when we walked out. It was like I had a family. People there that I never expected.

  Uncle D must have known I’d have this. This was why he liked Vale so much. He could go and know I’d be okay.

  Vale slipped her hand in mine as we went out to her car and followed her parents to their house. Her brother Dylan drove my Jeep to the house and then I was offered food I couldn’t eat before being shown Knox’s bedroom.

  When Vale left me there alone, I finally let the tears I’d been battling fall.

  The man I had loved since I was a kid was gone. I wouldn’t hear him curse anymore, I wouldn’t eat burned biscuits and gravy when I came home from school, and he wouldn’t beat me at Texas Hold ’Em and brag about it for days. I would miss every one of those things. I’d give anything just to have him back.

  Sleep finally came and I was thankful for the darkness.

  * * *

  THE FUNERAL WAS two days later in Huntsville at the small Baptist church my uncle had gone to since he was a boy. His parents had been buried in the graveyard in the back, and so had his wife and child over thirty years ago. She’d died in childbirth, as did their baby girl. He had never remarried or even dated.

  He told me once that when you find the woman you can love forever, you don’t get over her. I didn’t believe him then, but I wondered as I grew older if maybe that was true.

  Vale, Knox, their two brothers who lived in Franklin, and their parents were there beside me. The people from town who had known Uncle D and the church folk all stood around his grave as he was lowered into the ground. Vale’s hand stayed in mine through it all. It was like she knew I could fall apart if she wasn’t there to help me.

  Knox stood on the other side of me, and it was like I had a family. I couldn’t help but feel like Uncle D had orchestrated this all before he left. I wasn’t alone. If he could watch things from up there in the beer-drinking, cursing, poker-playing heaven he was in, he was smiling. This would make him happy.

  Especially the roses on his grave with the deck of cards fanned out in a circle as the centerpiece. That had been Vale’s idea. He’d think that was a riot.

  Knox’s hand was on my shoulder as the first shovel of dirt covered the grave. Uncle D was really gone. But I would live a life that would make him proud of me.

  Lifting my head toward the sky, I said a silent thank-you for the life he’d given me. The little boy who needed a home was given not only that, but also the love of an old man who needed someone himself. We had been there for each other and it had worked for both of us. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  VALE

  AFTER THE FUNERAL, Slate decided to stay at the farm a few days and help the older couple he had hired to take care of things get settled in. They’d get to live rent-free and they would earn twenty percent of the profit from Uncle D’s beef cattle, pigs, chickens, and vegetable garden.

  The town had gotten the word out that Slate was looking for help, and he had takers within days. That had been one worry off his mind. My dad had helped him some, too, until he was able to head back to school.

  It was a week later when Slate walked into the coffee shop at eight on a Saturday morning. He smiled at me when our eyes met, and although we had been texting daily, it was good to see him. I’d missed him.

  “Hey,” I said, wanting to run around the counter to hug him but feeling as if that time was over. Hugging him when his uncle had just passed was okay, but now it seemed … different. So I stayed put behind the counter.

  “Morning. Just got back and I need a black coffee with a chocolate-chip muffin.”

  “Coming right up,” I said, holding up my hand to stop him from getting out money. “This is on me. A welcome-back breakfast. I can’t cook like my momma, but I can buy your coffee and muffin.”

  “I sure am gonna miss your momma’s cooking,” he said. “And thank you.”

  “You can come home with us anytime. And you’re welcome.”

  Isla walked out of the back and paused when she saw Slate. She knew about his uncle now and she wasn’t so focused on his man-whore ways. “Hey,” she said, blushing as she spoke to him.

  “Hello. Isla, isn’t it?” he said, smiling at her. I wondered if he was aware of what that smile did to women. Probably.

  “Yeah … uh, how are you?” she asked, leaning on the counter toward him.

  I started to make his coffee and warm his muffin because it didn’t look like Isla was going to be helping me.

  “Getting by. Thanks,” he replied.

  “You, or, uh, if you need anything. I’d be happy to help,” she said.

  This was not the Isla I was used to. For starters, her flirting was normally much better than that. I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t. I understood that Slate was gorgeous. It was hard not to notice.

  “Uh, thanks,” he said awkwardly.

  She giggled. She actually giggled. “Sure. Anytime.”

  I warmed the muffin and hurried back to him before she embarrassed herself any more. She was going to replay this over and over all day and slap herself on the forehead for it. And I was going to have to listen to it.

  Walking up behind her, I smiled at Slate and handed him his order. He looked as if he was studying me. Looking for something. I wasn’t sure what that was, but then he turned back to Isla and his expression changed.

  “So, what are you doing tonight?”

  What?

  “Uh, nothing,” she said quickly. “Nothing at all.”

  What was he doing? Isla’s flirting was funny, but apparently he liked it. Was he going to use her like he did the others?

  “There’s a party at Sigma Kappa. Want to come?”

  A party at the frat house? What?

  “Yes!” she said almost a little too loudly. “I’d love to!”

  “I’ll meet you there at seven,” he replied, then winked before taking his stuff
and walking away.

  What the hell had just happened?

  “Oh. My. God,” she breathed as she turned to look at me. “I guess y’all really are just friends like you said. I wasn’t sure I believed you but I do now. OhmyGod! I am going out with Slate Allen.”

  Who was that just now? The guy I had gotten to know wasn’t what I’d just witnessed. I had heard of his reputation, but I didn’t really believe it. The Slate I knew had a big heart. Had he not seen how nervous Isla was and how innocent her flirting had been?

  “You don’t look happy about this. Are you mad? Do you like him?”

  I was frowning at Slate’s retreating form as he headed down the street and out of view. “No. I don’t like him. Actually, I don’t think I know him.” Then I turned and asked the next customer what I could get them.

  I was at work. I had a job. I would focus on that. Crawford had already made plans for us this evening. I had been reluctant to go, but I’d said yes.

  I didn’t know Slate Allen at all. But I did know Crawford. It was safe to trust what you knew. Crawford had been trying hard to be understanding about Slate and supportive while he called and texted trying to get time with me. The guilt from my behavior since coming to school now sank in.

  My feelings for Slate had gotten confused. Wrapped up in him needing me and knowing there was a good guy underneath all that. He would only ever be a friend. That is, if he didn’t use Isla. If he respected her tonight.

  Still, my chest ached some. I thought he was different. That he’d changed. I wanted to be right.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  SLATE

  WHAT THE FUCK had I been thinking?

  I slammed my bag onto the bed and growled in frustration. I had gone to see Vale and invite her to the party tonight. Because I didn’t want to party—I wanted to see her. But when I saw her face, I couldn’t do it. Knox had told me she had a date with Crawford tonight. I couldn’t make her choose one of us. I was terrified it wouldn’t be me.

  And damn, she’d been so beautiful. Her long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, smiling at me like she was thrilled to see me. Those blue eyes of hers were happy. She was like that for me, a form of sunshine that I needed. She made me fucking happy.