“I did.”
“The brilliance about gluten-free baking is it’s even more complicated than regular baking. You have all different kinds of flours in varying amounts, and weirder ingredients like xanthan gum to contend with. In the end, though, the complicated equation gives the same beautiful product.” She held one of the cupcakes in front of her, admiring it.
The back of my neck heated. “Just like you.”
Her face flushed as she looked at me. “Complicated. Yes.”
“And beautiful.” My voice shook.
I had no idea why I just blurted that out. She was beautiful, more so with each minute I spent with her. Her gloves-off, unapologetic personality was laced around this hollow space she refused to let be filled with vulnerability, though it trickled in anyway.
“You think I’m beautiful?” She sounded put off.
I nodded. “You are.”
“I’m a lot of things, Regan. Beauty is for the soft spirited girls, not the soft-bottomed ones.”
“Take a compliment, will you? It won’t hurt, trust me.”
“It might. Let’s go.” She stuck a toothpick in the center of the two cupcakes she’d placed on a plate and pulled out plastic wrap.
“What are you doing?”
She wrapped the cupcakes in the plastic wrap. “You put the toothpicks in so the plastic doesn’t ruin the frosting. It’s not as fun to lick frosting from plastic as you might think. Kind of kills the mood.”
“Where are you taking those?”
“With us.”
“Us?”
“Yes. To the pier by the playground. You’ve got a letter to open.”
My stomach dropped and writhed and dropped some more.
“Now?”
She sighed a playfully irritated sigh. “This is the moment we’re standing in, isn’t it? Follow me.”
Georgia picked up the cupcake plate and walked to the interior door.
“I thought you said the playground?”
“I have to get the letter from my car.”
My heart did jumping jacks. “Oh ... I’ll ... head down to the pier, if you don’t mind.”
She turned around and put her hand on mine. “Go,” she whispered.
I walked through the garage and across the street, standing on the rock wall for a moment, the way I’d seen Georgia do a few weeks ago. I stood with my chin lifted high, eyes closed, palms open.
“Please,” I whispered, “don’t let this kill me.”
I leaped down and walked down the beach and onto the pier. It was well worn, loved in its day, for sure, but that day had long passed. It seemed to only be suitable for foot traffic, now. Every muscle in my body shook with anticipation, dread, fear, and longing. That was the piece that had kept me from trashing the letter as soon as I received it. The longing. It was the last piece of Rae just for me. Once I read it, that would really be it.
“Hey.” Georgia spoke as soft as she could to be heard over the buffeting wind.
I turned and found her setting the cupcake plate on the railing. “Hey.”
She held the envelope in her left hand, and she reached out, holding it gently. I took it, the vibrato in my hand resonating through the starched and stiff square. I cleared my throat, never looking at Georgia, and turned to walk toward the end of the pier.
“Regan, wait!” she called after me when I was about twenty feet from her.
She caught up to me and before I could ask what she wanted she lifted on the tips of her toes and threw her arms around my neck, squeezing me in the tightest hug I’d had in a long time. My throat pinched shut as I was overcome with emotion. Human contact. And, she smelled like cupcakes. I hugged her back with as much strength as I could pull from behind the line of anxiety and breathed her in.
“I thought you said I had to open and read the letter before I got a hug.” I smiled into the softness of her hair.
“Sometimes,” she choked out, “you need to be convinced that it really will be okay.”
She dropped her arms and I took a step back, taking her hand. “Will you sit next to me?”
“I—” she started, but I cut her off.
“Please?” I cleared my throat to avoid falling apart before anything happened.
She nodded, threaded her fingers between mine, and followed me to the end of the pier.
“You’re not going to jump, are you?” She twisted her lips and cocked her eyebrow.
I appreciated her apparent need to cut through heaviness with humor. “We’ll see.”
She laughed, appreciating my identical need.
We sat with our feet dangling over the water. I looked at the envelope and before I could convince myself otherwise, I loosened my hand from Georgia’s and ran my index finger along the sealed enclosure.
“That part’s over.” Georgia leaned into my arm.
I nodded, unable to speak. I pulled the card from the only home it’d had for the last seven months and immediately started laughing and crying at the same time. The front of the card had a cartoon violin with a face on it, and arms coming out of the sides, one hand up on the neck of the instrument and the other holding a bow and laying it across the strings. It was adorable, and funny, and thoughtful, and everything I missed about Rae staring me right in the face.
“She’s too much.” I wiped away tears, still smiling, allowing myself to speak in the present tense. Just once more.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Georgia wipe some tears away from her pink cheeks. “I’m going to let you do this part by yourself. Is that okay? I feel like I’m intruding.”
“You’re not intruding, but it’s okay.” I knew she’d be only a few feet away. And, I had a letter to open.
Georgia squeezed my shoulder as she stood and as her footsteps grew softer, I opened the letter:
Regan,
Kind of looks like you, right? Kidding.
I was in the campus bookstore this morning trying to find a replacement book for that damn poetry class I’m taking, and I came across this. I just had to send it to you. I’ll see you again before you get it, but there’s something romantic about mail, isn’t there? No one sends mail anymore.
Send me mail, sometime. Does chivalry mean nothing anymore?
In all seriousness, you’re perfect, and that’s the real reason for me sending this card. Violin Man was a bonus.
Well, that’s not the *real* reason I’m sending this card. But I’m nervous to tell you the real reason.
With tears flowing freely down my face, I stopped reading for a second, my heart pounding out of my chest. I covered the bottom part of the letter so I wouldn’t read anymore until I was ready. I took a deep breath and read on, nervous, too.
The real reason is ... ugh, I’m so dramatic. Take a deep breath, Rae. Yes, this is my letter so I can talk to myself if I want.
Okay. The real reason for this letter is ... I love you.
It’s too soon and irresponsible and reckless and all of that, but, I don’t care. We have fun, we laugh, and life is just better with you in it. I love you and I think you’re wonderful and I’m going to stop writing now before I write myself into a hole. Or a corner. Or whatever it is writers write themselves into.
I’ll see you this weekend. Because you likely won’t get this letter before then, you won’t think I’m crazy yet. I won’t have the guts to tell you in person until after I know you’ve received this and then we can have that awkward moment where you say, “I got your letter,” and I say, “Soo...” and we stare into each other’s eyes, wondering who will say it again. Or first.
I need to stop this horrendous tangent.
But, not before telling you one more time that I love you.
I love you.
~Rae
I calmly set the letter behind me, sitting on the corner of it to prevent it from blowing away, and then, I stopped breathing.
Georgia
He stopped once at some point during his reading of the letter and looked up, taking a dee
p breath. I thought it was all okay, that he was getting through it just fine. When he seemed to finish, he tucked the letter behind him and sat very still for a few seconds.
I said nothing.
I took half a step forward, questioning even that, before he crumpled into the fetal position with his face pressing into the splintered wood, and began sobbing.
“Oh, God,” I whispered, running down the uneven planks toward him.
His body was shaking and his wails were so loud I didn’t know if he’d ever hear anything again. Or if I would. Like the EMT in emotional situations I’d been trained to be, I snatched the letter away from the cracks in the wood and tucked it in my back pocket before it could slip away and take him with it.
“Regan ... Regan...” I didn’t come close to matching his volume, but I was hoping a piece of him somewhere would hear me and allow his body to calm down to hear the rest.
He was coughing through thick sobs, the kind that make you feel like you’re drowning from the inside. I looked around, trying to formulate my next move.
There was none. I shifted so I was sitting cross-legged with my knees up against his back so he knew I was there. It no longer mattered what the letter said, though I admit the past two weeks had allowed me to come up with all kinds of creative responses. What mattered was this ... this mutilated soul who reached up behind him mid-sob and grabbed my hand.
For half an hour or more I was folded awkwardly over Regan’s body in a broken hug as he clenched my hand to his chest. Where his heart once was.
Sometime after the sky turned grey and it started to drizzle, Regan seemed to recognize the precipitation from somewhere other than his eyes. He stood without letting me see his face, which I don’t know if he meant to do, but he stood there at the end of the pier with his shoulders sitting unnaturally low.
Who was I becoming that in a matter of a few short weeks I suddenly couldn’t push him away? Not only could I not push him away, but I decided in that moment that if he jumped into the freezing and shallow water below, I’d follow him. Not wanting him to jump, though, I tugged his hand.
“Let’s get inside,” I said as he lifted his head to the sky once more.
When he turned around, I wanted to jump. His face was splotches of red and misery, hazel eyes swollen, and even worse than if they’d been empty, filled with a pain that would have certainly driven a lesser person to their knees had they been staring at him.
He didn’t say anything, but he held his other hand out when his eyes drifted to the card in my hand. I handed it to him and he squeezed his eyes shut, an impossible amount of tears wringing free. Pressing the letter to his chest, he followed slowly behind me as I led us down the pier and into the sand.
“You forgot the cupcakes.” He spoke in a shaky, terminal voice.
I glanced behind us to the pair of cupcakes I’d abandoned on the railing when I’d gone down to the end of the pier.
“I know where I can get more. Let’s get inside before it rains any harder, okay?” I winked and smiled the sweetest smile I could. I had to pull way back in my muscle memory for that kind of smile, but it worked.
He smiled, and chuckled once. A toneless breath of a chuckle that showed me his emotions weren’t all swinging from gallows deep inside him.
He’d cried himself out all the way to his toes, it seemed, as tired footsteps lugged up the stairwell behind me once we were inside our building. Once at the top of the stairs, I hesitated. Deeply rooted instinct told me to open his door for him, close it behind him, and mind my own business for the rest of the day. But, this was Regan. If nothing else, he’d spent the last few weeks showing me that he needed people and he was okay with that need. Despite my discomfort in being needed beyond what I was certain I could give, I knew even deeper in my gut that I couldn’t leave him. Not like this.
So, I opened my door and he followed without protest, crashing limply onto my couch, still clutching the letter for dear life. Within minutes, he was asleep. I might not have believed it if I hadn’t, myself, fallen asleep during or immediately following an emotional catastrophe ending in tears, but I was thankful he did. It would hurt him all over again when he woke, but he needed the rest to be able to deal with that. Even when a wound is raw and exposed, it still needs to be covered in between exposure to dry it out. It was a delicate cycle, one I’d unfortunately become familiar with. Wound care, emotional style.
Once he’d stayed asleep for several minutes, I took a deep breath, allowing a few tears of my own to join the heavy party in my apartment. Regan let it all out there ... his hurt, his internal homicide, in such a way I was almost jealous. I’d wanted to scream and kick and cry for as long as I could remember. Next week would bring a new wave of terror as my mother began shock treatment. Of that, I was certain.
I wouldn’t tell Regan about that. Not yet, anyway. I knew I should, especially after the lack of communication surrounding the existence of my mother, but ... no, not yet. Timing never had been on my side, after all. It was my problem to deal with and not burden the guy who just read a letter from his dead girlfriend. He’d want to help, and he’d be mad if he found out, but that was a risk I was willing to take to protect him.
That I wanted to protect him from anything was deeply disturbing to me, and further proof that I had to keep him at forearm’s length at the very least, since full arm’s length was not kosher with him.
As he slept, I picked up my cell phone and did the most unthinkable thing.
“Hello?” Lissa shouted over jukebox music.
“Liss, it’s Georgia. I can’t come in tonight, okay?”
“Is it your mom? Is everything okay?” I so rarely called in, I understood the worry in her tone.
“She’s okay. Thanks, though.”
“Uh ... okay. It’s slow tonight, anyway. I’ve got you covered. Keep me posted if you need anything, K?”
“I will.”
I hung up the phone and watched Regan sleeping curled on his side on my oversized couch. With more tears streaming down my face, I shuffled over to the crescent shape formed by the curve of his body, and curled myself into it, my back to him, and cried into the couch cushions until I drifted into a dreamless sleep.
No white rabbits.
No Red Queen.
Just a lonely girl.
Who needed a friend.
Regan
I slept for what felt like three days. Before I opened my eyes, I took a deep breath and was surrounded by warmth and vanilla. Not the kind of vanilla girls can buy in a spray bottle, but the kind that comes from the actual bean. Madagascar, I think they’re from. It was sweet and comfortable.
It was Georgia.
Georgia?
My back and arms stiffened as I mentally assessed the situation. Like a tsunami, it came back. There was Rae’s letter, Georgia’s cupcakes left on the dock, and ... I was asleep on Georgia’s couch. Rather, had been before I opened my eyes and found myself nose to a button-nosed sleeping Georgia.
Her arms were curled up against her chest, which was pressed against mine, and her features were soft. There was no ridge between her eyebrows from her ever-present cynicism. Her cheeks were pink and her lips were soft and warm. And, I know that because they were touching mine. Touching. Not kissing. Not moving. Just resting there with each other.
If I could have frozen my muscles any further I would have. As it was, my arm was draped over her waist and my back was pinned against the back of the couch. Before I could think much more about what we were doing in that position, and why, I heard Bo and Ember’s voices across the hall.
“Regan? You there, man?” Bo’s voice had an anxious edge to it that was rarely present in him. “I’ll call him again.”
A few seconds later, from the table by the door where I must have discarded my things, my phone started to ring, and their voices stopped outside.
Great.
I shifted slightly, needing to get to my phone and the door and Bo and Ember, but not wanting to roll
Georgia onto the floor. I didn’t need to be concerned about that for too long, because as soon as I moved some more, and a soft knock sounded on her door, Georgia’s eyes shot open.
“Shit!” Her blue eyes widened in apparent horror as she shifted backward and landed on the floor with a thump.
“Georgia?” Ember sounded concerned as she knocked faster. “Are you okay? It’s Ember. We’re looking for Regan.”
“I’m fine. Just a sec!” Georgia looked between me and the door like we were all on fire. I chuckled as I stood, reaching down a hand to help her.
“This isn’t funny! What the hell is the matter with you?” Her voice was deep and raspy from the sleep. She refused my hand and stood, wiping her eyes and looking around.
I looked out the window and saw it was far darker than it should have been after a little nap. Once I reached my phone I saw it was past ten, meaning I was late for my drink with Bo, explaining their presence here.
As I placed my hand on the doorknob, Georgia snapped her fingers.
“What are you going to tell them?” she whispered in panic.
I shrugged. “Let’s find out.”
I wasn’t thinking clearly, and that was the only thing that was clear as I opened the door and found Bo and Ember standing there, looking around like they were playing a game of Marco Polo.
“Hey guys.” I yawned and stretched my arms overhead.
“Hey ... Regan.” Ember craned her neck and peered into the apartment. One look over my shoulder and I saw Georgia busying herself in the kitchen.
Bo leaned against the doorframe. “Everything okay? You were a no-show for our beer, then we couldn’t get ahold of you and Lissa told us Georgia had called in...”
I looked behind me again and found Georgia blushing as she seemed to move pans from one shelf to another. When I looked back at Ember, her eyes were deathly focused on my face.
“You’ve been crying,” she said flatly. “What happened?”
“What?” I waved my hand dismissively. “I’m fine.”
“You do kind of look like shit, dude. What’s up?”
I had to close my eyes and take a breath. I was certain it was inappropriate to still be feeling the heat from Georgia’s lips against mine as I was staring at Bo.
Sweet Forty-Two Page 18
