Shelter

by Stephanie Fournet

  As soon as I’d seen Elise’s name on the return address, I’d torn the envelope open with shaking hands. We’d been in New Orleans for a year and a half, but we’d only been at the Crystalline apartment for a few weeks. The yellow forwarding label attested to the fact that Elise had sent the letter to our old address, and it had taken an extra week to find us.

  I remembered the way I’d sunk to the floor, the breath sucked from my lungs at the sight of a whole page of her lovely, florid script. Deafening, caustic music had blared from Ava’s room, but everything had hushed under the rushing in my ears.

  Reading her words had felt like warm hands running over my bare skin.

  I must have read the letter a dozen times before I got to my feet and carried it down the hall to tell Ava. I had my hand on her door knob and was already turning it when I heard voices. Laughter. Not Ava’s.

  “Cole.” Ava’s voice now firmed with impatience. “Tell me.”

  Two girls had sat on the floor at the foot of her bed. Watching. Or waiting their turn. I never knew which. I hadn’t known them. But I’d recognized the guy on the bed with Ava. Talon. As if that were really a name. She’d brought him around two or three times before.

  I’d walked in just in time to see him slipping the belt he’d used as a tourniquet off Ava’s arm. He’d already collapsed the plunger of the syringe that jutted out of my sister. She hadn’t seen me come in, of course. She just lay on her back, her pupils blown, staring blindly at the ceiling.

  And I’d lost my fucking mind.

  “Cole.”

  I looked up at my sister. She might not have seen me then, but she was pinning me with her gaze now. And she wasn’t going to let up. I could see that as clearly as the ugly memory in my mind.

  I cleared my throat. “Talon,” I said, hoping the name would be enough. Ava winced.

  “What about him?” she asked, her voice just above a whisper now.

  I sighed. So much for sparing her the details. “I got the letter just before I walked in on you,” I said, and then I had to clarify. “The first time, I mean.”

  Because it hadn’t been the only time. Not by a long, long way.

  Ava closed her eyes and nodded. I expected to see tears when she opened them, but I found courage and calm instead.

  “So you did what you always do. You pushed your life aside to try to save m—”

  “Ava, you’re my sister. Of course, I—”

  “It’s too much responsibility.”

  I swallowed against the obnoxious lump in my throat, forcing it down. “It’s never been too much for me,” I swore.

  Ava reached out her left hand and gripped mine with surprising strength. She jerked her head from side to side. “No, I don’t mean you.” I flinched at her volume. “Knowing that you were always giving up things you wanted. For me. That was too much.”

  My brows drew together, and my mouth worked uselessly for a moment. “What?”

  She scooted closer to me on her knees, still gripping my hand in hers. “Don’t you get it? This is what you’ve been doing your whole life. Our whole lives. Long before Mom and D—”

  I shook my head. “We don’t have to talk about th—”

  “Yeah, we do, Cole,” Ava practically shouted. She gave a weird laugh that kind of scared me. “Jesus, you are so emotionally stunted. Do you know that?”

  “Wha— Ava—”

  She shook herself. “Wait. That’s not— that’s a subject for another day,” she said, as though she were scolding the both of us. “Right now, I need you to listen to me. And I mean, really listen, Cole.”

  My mouth hung open. “I-I’m listening.” The words came out like a question. I took a measured breath, cleared my throat, and tried again. “I’m listening, Ava. I swear.”

  She sighed, and I watched her shoulders sink with relief. Again, she squeezed my hand. “Good. Thank you. This is hard,” she said, nodding.

  I nodded back. I didn’t quite understand what was going on, but, yeah, it was hard.

  Ava sucked in a long breath. “For as long as I can remember, Cole, you have made sacrifices for me—”

  “Ava, I—” I clamped my mouth shut at the daggers in her eyes.

  “You said you’d listen.” The words came out behind gritted teeth.

  I nodded frantically. “I did. Sorry. Shutting up now.”

  She closed her eyes, seemed to collect herself, and then blinked them open to stare at me. Seconds ticked by. I drew my lips in on themselves so I wouldn’t speak. It was harder than it should have been.

  “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, Cole.” Her focus moved between my eyes. “Please don’t think I’m ungrateful, but I’ve always felt unworthy of your sacrifices.”

  My lips parted, but when Ava’s nostrils flared, I clamped them shut again.

  “I always felt so crappy about that,” she said, her voice going shaky for the first time. “You never said it, but I always knew when you were giving up something you wanted so you could be there for me or look out for me.”

  Ava shut her eyes like she was in pain. Keeping my mouth closed was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. She’d as much as told me to shut up, but she hadn’t said anything about not touching her. I took both her hands in mine and held them between us. I looked up to find Ava’s face easing with a smile.

  And, yeah, she had tears in her eyes, but the courage was still there too.

  When she spoke next, her voice was so soft, I knew the words were so hard. “The list is too long, Cole. Friends, girlfriends, sports, schools.” At this, her voice rallied as she gave me a stony glare. “And don’t you dare tell me Tulane was your first choice. You had MIT pennants on your walls from the time you eight years old.”

  I sniffed a laugh, even though the fact that she understood this stung with bittersweetness.

  “And when we lost Mom and Dad—”

  I clenched my teeth and hissed in a breath, allowing her the words but bracing against what felt like a hailstorm of razor blades. How could she say “lost Mom and Dad”? Why didn’t she say “when Dad killed Mom with your gun”? Or if she wanted to be merciful, why not just say “when everything went to shit”?

  “After they were gone,” she said, clearly reading my distress. “You gave up the life of a normal college kid to take care of me. My God, Cole, you’d finally gotten out of that hellhole and had a taste of freedom. That’s all I ever wanted for you, and you insisted on throwing it away.”

  Without speaking, I looked at my sister as if she was crazy.

  “Cole, I could have finished senior year with friends or transferred to Sacred Heart and boarded for a semester. But you wouldn’t hear of it.”

  I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. “You think I should have left you behind?” I asked, shocked. “You think I could have?”

  The look she gave me was almost pitying. “I know you should have. Anything would have been better — for both of us — than knowing you gave up so much for me and never feeling like I deserved it.” Ava shook her head. “I’m really just beginning to understand it myself, but it was as if the more you sacrificed, the more I self-destructed.”

  If I hadn’t already been sitting, I probably would have had to take a knee. It made no sense. And yet, it totally did. All my efforts to protect my sister — to take care of her, to give her a new life — they’d only achieved the opposite. I’d witnessed this. I’d punished myself for it.

  But I’d never understood why.

  I raked a hand through my hair and down the back of my neck. “So, basically, what you’re saying… is that my judgment sucks.”

  Ava choked on a laugh, and then she laughed full out, squeezing my hands as she did. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  Her laughter was a welcome sight, even if what she’d said left me questioning my purpose. Still, I allowed myself a rueful smile. Even if my judgement sucked, at least we’d made it this far. “Maybe this means I should just take my instincts and then do the opposite, right?�
�� I asked, only half-joking.

  Still smiling, Ava shook her head. “No, big brother.” Her eyes narrowed in sympathy. “Just listen.”

  “Listen,” I echoed skeptically.

  Ava arched a brow and nodded. “You’re better at it than you used to be, but you still have a long way to go.”

  I thought about the history of our arguments. Listening definitely wasn’t my strong suit.

  “So where is it?” Ava asked.

  I frowned. “Where’s what?”

  She crimped her mouth with impatience. “The letter Elise sent you. I know you. I know you didn’t throw it away.” Then her eyes hardened, became threatening. “At least you better not have.”

  I hadn’t. The letter was in my safe box. Tucked away among our birth certificates, our passports, investment account numbers, and passwords. I hadn’t let myself even look at it since that day, but I also hadn’t been able to throw it away. Locking it in the safe had been the only way I could honor and protect it. It had seemed only fitting to keep it among the other pieces of paper that told me who I was, where I’d been, and what I was worth.

  “I still have it.”

  Pride suffused my sister’s face. “There’s hope for you yet.” Ava sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Now what are you waiting for? Read it, and this time listen.”

  The letter was easy enough to pluck from the certificates and financial documents. It was the only one that was pink. The color threatened to slay me now with its sweetness, its innocence. Pink was such a vulnerable color. Like each of Elise’s blushes.

  With care, I slid the folded stationery from its envelope and opened it the way one would open a sacred text. I hadn’t looked at it in more than six years, but when I unfolded the page, its power over me felt exactly the same. Her handwriting, her words I felt like a touch. And when I read the words again, I could hear her voice as clearly as if she spoke them against my ear.

  July 10, 2010

  Dear Cole,

  Today is my eighteenth birthday. I feel silly writing this to you, so I might not even send it. And I guess if I don’t send it, I can write whatever I want, right? And if I do send it, it wouldn’t be the first time I made a fool of myself in front of you. I mean, that’s pretty much how it’s always been between us.

  The years had stolen this detail from me, and I smiled, reading it again, just as I’d smiled the first time. I’d never thought her the fool. I’d only loved how real she was, and here on the page, though twice removed by time and space, she was just as real.

  First, I want to tell you that I spent a long time feeling rotten about the last thing you said to me. I still feel rotten about it, I guess, but I want you to know I’m not angry. I never was. It just hurt — especially after we’d been so close — that the day you left, you seemed to hate me. I can only say this to you now because I have to believe that you don’t really feel that way. That you don’t really blame me or our time together for what happened. If I’m right, and you don’t hate me, the cool thing to do now would be to tell me so.

  To my shame, this part I had not forgotten. When I’d read her letter back then, I’d felt a sense of urgency to reach out to her and let her know that I’d only ever blamed myself. That I’d been angry and wrecked the last time I’d seen her, and I’d always regretted my harsh words — even though I’d known I had to let her go. That I could never hate her. That I missed her so much, I couldn’t allow myself to think of her.

  But seeing Ava with a needle in her arm had convinced me of two things:

  1) I wasn’t free to give any part of myself to Elise or anyone else.

  2) Elise was better off without me anyway.

  Look what had become of the only person I had left to care for.

  And now, with the ruthless clarity of hindsight, I knew Ava was right. My judgment sucked. At the very least, I should have done whatever it took to erase Elise’s memory of that last day. Take away the pain I had handed to her so recklessly. Hell, I should have moved back to Lafayette then. What might have happened if I’d just accepted this sweetest of invitations?

  I had to believe that Elise and I would at least be on speaking terms now. That she could stand the sight of me enough to stay at the opening of her best friend’s art exhibit. Or text with me for longer than five minutes. She might even accept my invitation to dinner.

  Really, I’d be glad if you told me anything. How are you? How’s Ava? I miss you guys a lot. Mama and I are doing fine. We live in a cute apartment now by The Grand 14, and Mama cooks for Jolie’s Bistro. I don’t think she likes the late nights, and I know she misses the both of you, but it’s a good job.

  I still have a year of high school left, but like I said, I’m 18 now. You don’t get to call me a kid anymore. But then again, if you’re still the same Cole I knew, you’d call me a kid just to bug me.

  Standing in my little study off the kitchen, I chuckled at this. I hadn’t remembered laughing when I’d read it the first time. Had she sounded so young to me then? Had I appreciated her fearlessness to say these things to me even though she hadn’t heard from me in a year and a half?

  And you still bug me, Cole Whitehurst. I remember everything about that night and that stupid promise you wanted me to make. You made it impossible to forget. So, maybe for my 18th birthday, you could write me back.

  I frowned as I reread the letter. She’d mentioned her birthday three times. Surely, I’d noticed that before, right? I hadn’t forgotten the promise I’d wanted to claim from her. But when we’d left for good, I couldn’t allow myself to think about it. Was this her way of saying she’d kept it?

  Clutching the letter, I closed my eyes and slid back to that night. The sacred, heavenly part of that night when I’d had her. I’d known then — before my world ended — I couldn’t keep her. But I’d wanted her.

  So badly.

  I’d wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything for myself. Yes, I’d needed safety for my mother and Ava. That had always come first. But I’d wanted Elise just for me.

  She was the only thing I’d ever wanted just for me.

  The horror of what happened after — and the years of trying to build a new life for Ava — had blotted out those precious details. But now they spread themselves open in my mind’s eye.

  I’d asked her for a chance.

  I had been jealous of anyone who had ever come near her. Of anyone who would ever come near her. So much so, I’d told her she was too young to have a boyfriend. How selfish I’d been. I’d asked her to wait. Until she was eighteen.

  “Oh, my God.”

  I told her I’d come back when she was eighteen. And here in her letter she’d as good as told me that she’d waited for me.

  Ava was right. I never listened. But that could change, couldn’t it?

  Chapter 23

  ELISE

  They were the color of his eyes.

  I stared down at the 6mm round-cut aquamarine stones as though for the first time. They were the color of Cole’s eyes. An exact match.

  Since our text conversation on Monday, I’d been in a funk. A three-day funk. I’d left Monday night without finishing the bracelet. My joy for the project had vanished, so I’d put it aside, and then I’d woken up today — Friday — fed up with myself.

  I was not allowed, I told myself, to think about him. To wonder if I should have said yes to his invitation, or to contemplate texting him back. Cole Whitehurst as a subject of contemplation was completely off-limits.

  But when I’d sat down at the workstation first thing this morning, determined to finally finish the bracelet, the truth confronted me in the startling shade of blue.

  I didn’t have to leave the solitude of the workroom to search the display case at the front of the store that held my name. More than half the pieces there bore that signature ice-blue. Aquamarines, Brazilian blue topaz, blue tourmaline. However I could find it. Ed had called that shade of blue my aesthetic.

  But, in truth, it was my
heart.

  I’d been chasing after Cole Whitehurst for years. With nearly every piece of jewelry I made. Without even knowing it.

  What did that say about me? I mean, what woman in her mid-twenties was still hung up on the boy she’d kissed at sixteen? We hadn’t even dated. What I’d felt with him in that short span of days as a teenager couldn’t have been real, right? At most, it was just new enough and raw enough to fill my head with fantasy.

  I had measured every prospective boyfriend against Cole since that night on his patio, and as I’d known they would, they had all come up lacking. But maybe that was because I had been comparing them to an illusion.

  Maybe falling for Cole had stunted me. My heart had been arrested, beating away in a time capsule.

  “You okay, buttercup?”

  I looked up to find Ed leaning against the doorway of the back room, watching me with a concerned frown.

  I blew out a breath and nodded. “I’m fine.” I hoped I sounded convincing. Maybe I could even convince myself.

  His frown deepened. “You’ve been moping around this place all week. Want to tell Uncle Ed about it?”

  For once, my boss didn’t look ravenous for gossip. He looked worried. I gave him a weak smile.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s okay.”

  “Well…” He lifted a hand and for the first time, I noticed it held an ivory envelope. “Maybe this will cheer you up. It was taped to the door when I opened up the front just now, and it has your name on it.”

  I sat up straight. “Who’s it from?” I asked the question, but deep in the marrow of all of my bones, I knew the answer.

  Ed coughed a laugh. “Don’t know, sweetheart, but I’m starting to get pretty curious.”

  All the rules I’d just lain down for myself blew away like sawdust. Settle down, I told myself, but my heart was discovering new dance rhythms. I shot to my feet.

  Ed placed the envelope in my hand, and I felt the heavy, expensive stationery, and those new dance rhythms became electric.