by Trisha Leigh
The buzzing noise seeps into my dream and it takes a moment for me to realize it’s my phone. I snatch the phone off the bedside table, squinting at the bright screen, and groan when I see the phone number.
“Yeah. I’m awake.”
“I should hope so. It’s past noon.”
I pull the phone away from my ear to look at the time: 12:34 p.m.
“What’s up?”
“We need you to come in tonight around seven to re-record some vocals on ‘Firefly’.” I can tell by the almost bored exasperation in his voice that Gene Hadley is getting tired of re-recording vocals because I was too parched and hungover on the initial recording. “Get some rest and drink plenty of water.”
He hangs up and I stare at the screen for a moment as the calls disappears. I swing my legs over the side of the bed and the first thing I see is a black bra on the floor. With great trepidation, I turn my head and peer over my shoulder. I wish I could say I’m surprised to find a thin brunette tangled in my bedsheets. Her left breast is exposed and her pouty lips are slightly parted as she sleeps.
I don’t remember what time I got in last night, but I do remember bits and pieces of the party in Tristan’s hotel room. Despite the problems with recording, I managed to convince Gene to allow Tristan and Jake to play bass and drums on the tour that kicks off at the end of this month. Tristan and Jake flew out a few days ago and we celebrated having the band back together last night.
It looks like I got a suite in the same hotel for me and … What’s her name again? Laura? Lara? Lorena? I can’t fucking remember.
I rise from the bed slowly and she begins to stir. I freeze for a moment, but she settles down quickly and continues to sleep. I tiptoe out of the bedroom and into the sitting area. Grabbing a bottle of water out of the minibar, I sit down at a glossy mahogany writing desk.
How can it be that it’s been five months since I last saw Claire and hers is still the first face I see in my mind when I get the urge to write a song? My memories of Claire are relentless. And no amount of alcohol or sex can erase her.
Picking up the hotel pen and pad of paper, I close my eyes and allow myself to remember. The first thing I see is Claire sitting in the shade of a giant oak tree in Moore Square, smiling as I sing to her. I press the pen to the paper and write the first lines: We kissed under the trees, and talked about missing things. I wish I could have held you in; held in the heat of your breath; held onto you and I at our best.
Forever Ours
May 27, 2013
It’s hard not to think about Chris on his twenty-first birthday. But I’m going to try my hardest not to. I know wherever he is today, he’s probably having lots of fun. Drinking lots of booze. Screwing lots of girls. He’s living. So that’s what I’m going to do today. I’m going to live my life without thinking about Chris.
Senia is moving in next week and we’re going to have a great summer. My new apartment in Wrightsville Beach is kind of old and some of the doors and cabinets are swollen with humidity, but it smells like fresh paint. And it’s mine.
Dropping out of UNC just may turn out to be the smartest decision I’ve ever made.
Chris dropped out and look at him now.
Nope! Stop thinking about Chris.
I grab a bottle of water out of the tiny refrigerator that came with the apartment, then I head out the door. I walk through the small parking lot and toward my new workplace: Beachcombers Café. But I don’t go inside. I continue down Lumina to the surf shop next door.
A bell jingles as I enter the shop and I’m reminded of the movie It’s A Wonderful Life. “Every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.” This reminds me of Christmases with my mom and I realize that I didn’t just come here to forget Chris. I came here to forget my mother.
Today, a new Claire emerges from the ashes of the fire that burned down every good thing in my life.
The walls of the shop are covered in surf apparel: wet suits, rash guards, board shorts, T-shirts. The floor displays are stacked with everything from surf wax and leashes to energy gum and tourist gifts. The surfboards are all standing up like soldiers behind the counter.
“Can I help you?” asks a young blonde girl with dreadlocks.
“I’m looking for Fallon.”
My voice is a bit shaky, but she doesn’t seem to notice or care. Her face lights up when she smiles. She slides off her stool and rounds the counter.
She holds out her hand for me to shake. “I’m Fallon.”
Her voice is kind of husky, but it’s comforting. I take her hand and shake it lightly. Her skin is a bit rough, but that makes me trust her. Fallon works until her fingers are calloused. Living with Jackie and Chris, seeing the long hours Jackie worked at the bakery and the endless hours of practice Chris would endure to get a song right, I’ve come to appreciate a strong work ethic as a very desirable quality.
Must stop thinking about Chris.
“Great!” I reply, letting go of Fallon’s hand. “I was just wondering … Well, someone told me that you give … Um, I was told that you’re a guru or something. I mean, I don’t know what to call it. I just … I want to learn to meditate.”
She continues to smile serenely as if I’m the millionth person who’s walked in here stammering like an idiot and she knows just how to fix it. “I can help you, but are you sure you’re ready?”
“What do you mean?”
She tilts her head as her gaze wanders over my face and to the empty space above my hair. “Do you think you’re ready to let go of all this?” She waves her hands around my ears as if she can see all my negative thoughts floating around my head. “All this stuff you’re carrying, it’s heavy. Real heavy.”
I can smell smoke on her breath and I’m wondering if maybe I made the wrong decision. She’s obviously smoking some good stuff. But maybe that’s what I need. Not to smoke some good stuff. But maybe I need someone who’s willing to do what I’m not willing to do. Maybe she can teach me how to do what I’ve been unable to do on my own. Maybe she can teach me to forget.
“I don’t know if I’m ready,” I reply. “But I know I’m desperate. That counts for something, right?”
She purses her lips, which are a bit too pink for her golden skin. “We’ll see. Meet me at the shore tomorrow at six a.m. I always start with a surf lesson to get to know you before we attempt meditation.”
I search my mind for my work schedule and realize I work at nine a.m. tomorrow. Linda won’t mind if I’m late to work. In fact, I’ll stop by the café right now and see if I can get someone else to cover my shift. This is too important.
I thank Fallon and leave the shop feeling lighter than I’ve felt in months. She’s right. I was carrying some heavy stuff around. But I already feel it being lifted away.
Now I know what people mean when they say today is the first day of the rest of my life. That’s exactly how I feel right now. Today, on Chris’s twenty-first birthday, my life without Chris finally begins.
Thank you!
Thank you for reading Forever Ours!
Turn the page for a preview of Relentless, book two of the Shattered Hearts Series.
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Relentless
Preview
Relentless Addiction
Mom is too tired to play hide-and-seek. Her stomach hurts so she took some medicine to make it feel better. I don’t like it when she’s sick. Grandma Patty doesn’t know about Mom’s stomachaches and I haven’t seen Grandma in a few weeks, but I’m starting to think I should tell her.
Mom is asleep on the sofa; at least, I think she’s asleep. I can’t really tell the difference anymore. Sometimes, when I think she’s sleeping, I’ll try to sneak some cookies out of the cupboard. She usually hears
me and yells at me to get out of the kitchen. Sometimes, she sleeps with her eyes half-open so I wave my hands in front of her eyes and make silly faces at her. She never wakes up and I always get bored after a couple of minutes. It’s no fun teasing someone unless there’s someone else around to laugh, and it’s just Mom and me here.
Her skinny arm is stretched out over the edge of the sofa cushion and I stare at the bandage. It’s too small to cover that big sore. One of those things she calls an abscess opened last night while she was making me a grilled- cheese sandwich. Some thick, brown stuff oozed out of her arm. It reminded me of the glaze on maple donuts, but it didn’t smell anything like a maple donut. The whole kitchen smelled like stinky feet when she put her arm under the water in the sink. Then she wrapped a billion paper towels around her arm and I had to eat a burnt sandwich.
She didn’t want to go to the doctor. She said that if she goes to the emergency room and shows them her arm the doctors might make her stay in the hospital for a long time. Then I’ll have to live with people I don’t know, people who might hurt me, until she gets better. My mom loves me a lot. She doesn’t want anybody to hurt me the way she was hurt when she was nine.
Mom teaches me a lot. She isn’t just my mom; she’s my teacher. When she isn’t sick, she teaches me math and spelling, but my favorite subject is science. I love learning about the planets the most. I want to be an astronomer when I grow up. Mom said that I can be anything I want to be if I just keep reading and learning. So that’s what I do when she’s sick. I read.
She’s been asleep for a long time today. I’ve already read two chapters in my science book. Maybe I should try to wake her up. I’m hungry. I can make myself some cereal – I am seven – but Mom promised she’d make me spaghetti today.
I slide off the recliner and land on the mashed beige carpet that Mom always says is too dirty for me to sit on. I take two steps until I’m standing just a few inches away from her face. Her skin looks weird, sort of grayish-blue.
“Mom?” I whisper. “I’m hungry.”
Something smells like a toilet and I wonder if it’s the stinky abscess on her arm. I shake her shoulder a little and her head falls sideways. A glob of thick, white liquid spills from the corner of her mouth.
The memory dissolves as someone calls my name.
“Claire?”
The cash register comes into focus as the rich aroma of espresso replaces the acrid stench in my memory. I’ve done it again. For the third time this week, I’ve spaced out while taking someone’s order. The last two customers were understanding, but this guy in his Tap Out T-shirt and veins bulging out of his smooth bald head looks like he’s ready to jump over the counter and either strangle me or get his own coffee.
“Sorry, about that. What was your order?”
“Wake the fuck up, blondie. I asked for an Americano with two Splendas. Jesus fucking Christ. There are people with serious jobs who need to get to work.”
I take a deep breath, my fingers trembling, as I punch the order in on the touchscreen. “Will that be all?”
Baldy rolls his eyes at me. “And the scone. Come on, come on. I gotta get the fuck out of here.”
“Hey, take it easy. She’s just trying to take your order,” says a voice. I don’t look up, but I can hear it came from the back of the line of customers.
“I already gave her my order three fucking times,” Baldy barks over his shoulder. “Mind your own fucking business.”
Linda comes up from behind me, placing a comforting hand on my shoulder as she sets the guy’s Americano on the counter next to the bag holding his multigrain scone. She doesn’t say anything, but the nasty look she casts in his direction could make an ultimate fighting champion piss his pants. Linda is the best boss in the world and one of the many reasons I still work at Beachcombers Café. All the other reasons I still work at one of the tiniest cafés in Wrightsville Beach have to do mostly with my desire to disappear after dropping out of UNC Chapel Hill ten months ago. But that’s a whole other story.
Baldy peels the lid off his coffee, rolling his eyes as he peers into the cup. “I said I wanted room for cream. Are you all fucking retarded?”
Before I could reach for the cup, a guy in a suit steps out of line, grabs the cup off the counter, and dumps the entire contents into Baldy’s scone bag. A loud collective gasp echoes through the café.
“Now you’ve got plenty of room for cream,” the guy says.
I clap my hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh as Linda scrambles to get some paper towels.
The rage in Baldy’s eyes is terrifying. “You motherfucker!” he roars as my hero grins.
And what a sexy hero he is. Even in his pressed shirt and slacks, he can’t be more than twenty-two. He has an easygoing vibe about him, as if he’d rather be surfing than wearing a suit at seven in the morning. With his sun-kissed brown hair and the devious gleam in his green eyes, he reminds me of Leonardo DiCaprio in one of my favorite movies, Titanic.
Baldy charges my Jack Dawson, but Jack swiftly steps aside at the last moment. Baldy trips spectacularly over a waist-high display of mugs and coffee beans. All six people in the café are now standing silent as Baldy spits curses at the cracked mugs and spilled beans underneath him.
I look at my hero and he’s smiling at me, a sneaky half-smile, and I know what he’s about to do.
Before Baldy can get to his feet, Jack drops a few hundred-dollar bills on the counter. “For the damages.”
He winks at me as he steps on Baldy’s back then hurries toward the exit with no coffee, just a huge grin that makes everybody laugh and cheer. He gives us a quick bow, showing his appreciation to the crowd, and slips through the door as Baldy lumbers to his feet.
My gaze follows Jack as he slides into his truck, one of the newer models that looks like something conceived in the wet dreams of a roughneck and a Star Wars geek. He pulls out of the parking lot and disappears down Lumina Avenue.
I have a strong urge to whisper, “I’ll never let go, Jack,” but I’m pretty good at keeping my urges to mutter lines from Titanic to myself; especially when there’s a six-foot-two ‘roided-out freak staring me down. Something snaps inside me as I remember what started this whole fiasco.
I step aside so Linda can take over and I skitter away through the swinging door into the stockroom. I unfold a metal chair and sit down next to a small desk where Linda does the scheduling. Pulling my legs up, I sit cross-legged on the chair, place my hands on my knees, and close my eyes. I take a long, deep breath, focusing on nothing but the oxygen as it enters my lungs. I let the breath out slowly. A few more deep breaths and the whole incident in the café never happened.
Some people are addicted to heroin. Others are addicted to coffee. I’m addicted to meditation. No, not medication. Meditation.
Meditation doesn’t just relax me; it helps me forget. It’s like a friend you can count on to say just the right thing at the right time when that thing you want them to say is nothing. Meditation is the friend who intervenes when you’re about to say or do something very stupid. Like three months ago, when meditation saved me from taking my own life after I realized I had become my mother.
Relentless Memories
I haven’t been to a party with my best friend Yesenia Navarro in ten months. The last time was the Halloween bash at Joey Nassau’s house where I got stuck talking to Joey’s thirty-something cousin who spent three hours attempting to convince me to go back to school. I want to go to tonight’s party at Annabelle Mezza’s house about as much as I want to eat a spoonful of cinnamon. Tonight’s party will be packed with all the people I have been successfully avoiding for ten months.
“I’ll be velcroed to your side the whole night,” Senia assures me as I gather my purse and a bottle of water from the kitchen counter.
Senia thinks I’m a freak because I never leave the apartment without at least one bottle of water. I’ve spent enough time avoiding the various other substances my mother abused. She could
hardly call an addiction to water and meditating a bad thing. This doesn’t stop her from trying. And true to best-friend form, every day when she comes home from work she still brings me a six-pack of my drug of choice. To say that I love living with my best friend would be a huge understatement.
“Whatever,” I mutter. “It’s just down the street. I’ll walk home if things get too uncomfortable.”
“Speaking of uncomfortable.” Senia cocks an eyebrow as she examines my outfit: faded skinny jeans, a plain white tank top, a green hoodie that’s three sizes too big, and a five-year-old pair of black Converse. “Is that what you’re wearing?”
Senia could be a supermodel with her perfectly tanned skin, dark tousled hair, and spot-on fashion sense. At five-ten, she towers over my five-foot-six frame in her four-inch heels. She has the perfect button nose and full lips that I’ve always dreamed of having. My blonde hair is too thin, my nose is too small, and my upper lip is too big. Senia says it gives me a sexy pout, but she only says that to make me feel better. I’m average and I’ve learned to not only accept it, I embrace it.
“Don’t make me say it,” I reply as I unscrew the cap on the bottle of water and take a swig.
She holds up her hand to stop me. “Please don’t. And, by the way, that has to be the worst motto ever adopted by any person ever in the history of all mankind.”
I pull my keys out of my purse to lock the front door as we make our way out of the apartment. “You might be exaggerating just a little bit.”
Her heels click against the pavement and I inhale a huge breath of briny ocean breeze as we walk to the covered parking spot where Senia keeps her new black Ford Focus. She isn’t rolling in cash, but her parents make pretty good money with the real-estate company where their entire family works. She works in one of their satellite offices in Wilmington while the rest of the family works at the main office in Raleigh. Her parents pay her half of the rent on our apartment, her entire UNC tuition, and she gets a new car every two years on her birthday. Nothing fancy, but new.
