What's Left of Us (The Us Series Book 1)

by Michele Tucker

  “I’m fine,” I repeated again, even though I knew how ridiculous that answer was after everything she just said. But honestly, I didn’t care… it was the only response I could come up with.

  "I just don't think I can sit here, and pretend like everything’s okay,” she answered back. She unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door. “Let me know when you’re done being fine, and maybe we can have a relationship again.” She got out of the car, and walked back to her front door. Before she entered, she looked at me one last time.

  We stared at each other for a minute. She was crying now. Tears were running down her cheeks, but she just let them fall. Never wiping them away and breaking eye contact with me.

  I needed something, anything… how could everything be good one minute and be so bad the next?

  I pulled into a parking lot a few miles from Delilah’s house and sat there thinking.

  I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Jake, one of my teammates. He was a little shadier than the rest, and I thought if anyone knew how to score me something, it would be him.

  After talking to him, he agreed to meet me at the school baseball field.

  I walked into the dugout, and saw him sitting on the bench along with a second guy.

  “Hey Asher, I was surprised that you called me about this, but I got you hooked up with the right person. Asher, meet Rico,” he introduced me to the guy with him.

  “So, Jake says you need some Oxy?” he asked me.

  I nodded, and he told me the price. After buying it, I went back to my car and popped a pill in my mouth.

  Before long, I was finally able to welcome that familiar numbing feeling.

  All thoughts of Delilah disappeared.

  All thoughts of everything disappeared.

  ***

  Calla

  Now

  “YES, MOM, I’m okay,” I told her when she called me Monday for the third time to check on me.

  “Is Liza still there?” she asked.

  “No, she left last night. Please don’t worry. Parker will be here later this afternoon,” I reassured her.

  My mom loved Parker. It took her a little bit to get past him being older than me and in college, but once she saw how good he was to me, she stopped worrying about it. “I’ll text you when he gets here, give Me-maw and Papa a big hug and kiss for me.”

  “Okay, sweetie, talk to you later,” she said as we hung up.

  I still had a few hours before Parker was supposed to be here, so I went around and cleaned up a bit. After Beck left on Friday night, I spent the entire weekend being lazy, ordering take out and not doing much. Part of me wished I would've just told him back then, gotten it out and prayed that Ash would forgive me. But then the other part, the one that was still loyal to Ash, made me feel guilty.

  He promised me that he would come clean. After over a month of knowing what was going on, I couldn’t take it anymore, I was sick of all the lies and secrets. I knew that I could never have started a relationship with Beck when I was keeping something so big from him, and that if it didn’t come out soon that I would lose him.

  So many things that I regretted and wished were different. I sat and thought over everything. I made a promise to myself to come clean. That was the only way to move on and hopefully have a future with Beck.

  Parker showed up around dinnertime, and after a quick text to my mom, like I had promised, we headed out to grab some dinner.

  “Where to?” Parker asked as we walked down the street. He had a hold of my hand, something that we did all the time, even before we started our weird relationship. But now that we had ended that and since Beck came back into my life, it just felt wrong.

  I let go of his hand, pretending that I needed something from my purse. Praying that he wouldn't sense my discomfort. Thankfully, if he did, he never acted like it. “How about we grab some burgers and a movie and eat in my dorm?” I suggested.

  “Sounds great, just no sappy movies. I don’t think I can take any more Sparks,” he said with a teasing grin.

  “They’re not sappy,” I said defensively.

  “Are you kidding? They so are. And they’re always the same. You can pretty much guarantee that someone will die in it.”

  “Whatever, I like them,” I said as I stuck my tongue out at him.

  Once we had our sandwiches and picked out our non-sappy movie, we headed back to my dorm.

  We were about halfway through the movie, when my cell phone started ringing. I glanced at the screen and froze. I hadn’t seen this number on my caller ID in over a year. It rang a few more times, and I never took my eyes off of the screen.

  Eventually the ringing stopped for a moment, only to start back up again a few moments later. I could not take my eyes off the screen in shock and felt myself hands start to shake.

  Parker grabbed my phone, “Who is calling you?” he asked and looked down at the screen. He slid his finger over the answer button, “hello?”

  I didn’t hear what was being said, or even what Parker was saying. I just sat there unsure of what was going on.

  Parker pushed a button on the screen, and lowered it from his ear.

  “It’s Sam,” he told me.

  Disappointment washed over me at the fact that it wasn’t Asher calling me.

  “He wants to talk to you. I’m going to go grab a soda, okay?” he said gauging me. “Do you want anything?”

  I shook my head no and he stood up and handed me the phone.

  He grabbed his wallet from my desk and headed out the door.

  “Hey Sam,” I greeted a few seconds later.

  “Hi,” he sighed into the phone. “I’m just going to say this, okay? Don’t be mad at me. I needed a phone number, and knew that Asher had it. So I got his phone from his room, and saw all the missed calls from you. Calla, you need to stop calling him. He’s not going to call you back.”

  “I know he won’t, but I just want him to know that I miss him, and hear his voice,” I replied.

  My heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest, and I started having a hard time breathing.

  “That’s not all… I noticed that he had a lot of unchecked voicemails. So I listened to them… we need to talk,” he told me, his voice laced with something that sounded like concern and pity.

  “I know,” I answered, resigned that I was going to have to tell him everything.

  “I’ll call you when I get back and we can meet somewhere,” he said.

  We said goodbye, and I tried not to think of my conversation with Sam, but deep down there was a panicked feeling that settled over me.

  Parker came back about twenty minutes later. He sat down next to me and handed me my Dr. Pepper.

  “Everything okay?” he asked me warily.

  “I don’t know. He listened to messages I left for Ash.”

  He nodded in response. I knew he didn’t approve of me calling Ash still, but he kept quiet about it.

  I wanted to make him feel better so I went and sat down next to him.

  “I haven’t been calling him that much…lately. I promise.”

  He put his arm around me and laid his cheek on top of my head.

  “I’m just worried about you. I know you think you’re doing better. But I still see you hiding certain things. Until you can come clean, those things will always be there and you’ll never be able to move past them.”

  “I don’t deserve to move past them. Look what I did to them. They had been best friends their whole lives.”

  “They would want you to be happy. Beck might be upset with you, but the way he looked when he saw us together that day… He still has feelings for you.”

  “I love him,” I told Parker. I watched his face to make sure that I wasn’t hurting him, but he deserved to know. I had known since before Beck told me that he loved me, but once again, I was too scared to admit to anyone, especially myself.

  “I know. I think I realized that when we were dating. You guys had such a bond. It was natural. Yo
u two never had to work on being close, you just were.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” I told him.

  “It’s not your fault. You can’t help who you fall in love with.”

  We finished watching the movie, and Parker got his stuff together to leave.

  As we said goodbye, he told me he’d stop in on his way back through campus.

  I decided to attend church in the morning; I was trying to come clean. I figured I owed it to God to come clean with him too. I decided to go to the little church I had passed when I first got here.

  There was something comforting about it. Sitting there, I felt a little lighter. Before I left that night, a sweet older lady came up to me and randomly gave me a hug. What normally would feel awkward, felt comforting and I gently squeezed back. I bowed my head and prayed that God would give me strength I needed to get through everything that was yet to come. I asked Him to forgive me for the hurt I had caused others and for turning my back on Him along with all that I love. As I sat there praying I could feel a weight being lifted. If only for a moment I felt the grace of God. I tried to push it away, not sure, I had reached a point where I could forgive myself, much less allow God to forgive me completely.

  Thanksgiving came, and just felt like a regular Thursday. I woke up in time to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

  Around three that afternoon, I began feeling a little cooped up from being inside all day, and decided to take a walk and see if there was any place open to eat. All I had in my dorm was top ramen noodles and Pop-tarts and they didn’t seem like very appropriate meal choices to eat on Thanksgiving.

  As I walked the streets, I noticed everything was closed. I walked about a mile and finally came across a little diner.

  It wasn’t much to look at from the outside, just a typical little place that sat on the bottom corner of a four-story building. They had turkeys and pilgrims painted on the windows, and a sign outside that advertised “A Special Thanksgiving Dinner.”

  I walked inside, and was greeted with the smell of turkey, mashed potatoes and apples. The inside matched the outside, it looked tired and worn. It was in a huge need of a remodel, with the red vinyl booths, and black and white tiled floor. Only the white was more of a brownish-tan color, which probably hadn’t looked white for at least twenty years.

  I sat down at a corner booth, it wasn’t too busy there. Mainly there were just some older men that were eating, probably bachelors with no family.

  An older lady came up to my booth. “How are you, sweetie? You here for the special?” She asked me. I looked at her nametag and saw that her name was Flo; it fit her and this restaurant.

  “Yes ma’am, with a sweet tea please.”

  “Coming right up. Is it just you then?” She asked me.

  I nodded and she scowled her brows a little.

  “I’ll be right back with your tea.”

  I watched Flo walk over to a few more customers, then head over to the kitchen. I really started missing my family, so I decided to call my mom.

  She told me about the family football game, which my dad and uncle ended up getting really competitive and the four on four game turned into a one on one game.

  After a few more minutes talking with her, Flo returned with my food. I hung up with my mom, and Flo sat down across from me.

  “You okay?” She asked me.

  “Yeah, just a little homesick. This is the first holiday away from my family; I didn’t think I would miss them this much.”

  “I remember my first year away from my family. I just got married, and we spent Christmas with his family. I cried when his mom brought dinner out, my family always served roast beef and she brought this ham out. It was ridiculous that I got so upset about what type of meat we ate, but it wasn’t tradition.”

  “Ha-ha, what did they do?”

  “My mother-in-law went to the fridge, and pulled out some leftover roast beef and made me a sandwich. From that point on, every time we spent Christmas with them, she had a sandwich already made for me, sitting on my plate.”

  “That’s so great. Sounds like you got along with them.”

  “I did. I got lucky; people always talk about their horrible in-laws. But I never understood that, I always got along with them like they were my own. You got a guy?”

  I shrugged, not really knowing how to respond.

  “Well make sure you get along with his family, especially his mama.”

  “I do. She’s like my second mom.” I answered automatically.

  “Good, now why the shrug when I asked you if you had a guy?”

  “It’s complicated. I don’t know what we are now. He was my best friend, and just when we were about to start a relationship, something happened. I didn’t talk to him for over a year.”

  “If it’s meant to be, then you will find your way back together. I know it’s cliché but it’s true. Stop focusing on what has happened, and look to what can happen. Every day is a new beginning; the Lord gives us second chances with each new day. A new chance to pull ourselves up and start over.”

  “There are some things that can’t start over, what then?”

  “Then you just make up for those, and eventually you come to grips with it and accept it.”

  She stood up and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I better head back and take care of all these bachelors,” she said nodding her head to all the lone men that were sitting at the front counter.

  I sat there looking at my food, thinking about everything she said. All of a sudden, I felt someone right behind me.

  “You’re going to have a lot of hungry—” I started to say, but stopped when a single white calla lily dropped in front of me.

  Butterflies immediately started pounding in my chest, and I had to blink a few times to make sure I wasn’t imagining the lily there.

  “Hey, Cal,” Beck said pulling me from my daze. He was here, for me this time.

  Tears instantly fell from my eyes. I tried to wipe them away, but it was no use, there were too many of them.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

  “I needed to talk to you. I hated the way things ended when I saw you last.”

  “Your ma’s going to skin me. You should be there with her.”

  “Naw, she’s the one who sort of made me realize that I needed to come and talk to you,” he said chuckling a little. “She also said that I can convince my head that I don’t care for you, but not my heart.”

  “You told her?”

  Beck laughed. “Well she pretty much already knew. Said that she had always known.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Nope, don’t apologize. We aren’t going to talk about anything that happened. I miss you, and I want to spend time with you,” he said as he stood up and walked over to my side of the table and sat down next to me.

  He leaned over and kissed me on my cheek. “Then we need to talk Sunday night. I would like to work things out, at least get my friend back.”

  “Okay, it sounds really nice,” I turned to face him and he lowered his head and rested his forehead against mine.

  “I’ve missed you so much, every time I saw you; I thought my heart was going to burst. I didn’t know what to do, I was still mad at you but after not being around you for that time, I just wanted to hold you.”

  He brushed a few tears that had fallen from my eyes. He had come back for me; this wasn’t a pity thing or a coincidence. I didn’t know exactly why he was here, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was sitting next to me.

  “Don’t cry,” he told me. He grabbed my hand, and held it onto it tightly. I think we were both afraid to lose contact with the other. After all this time of being apart, it was like our hearts were mending together and healing.

  I finally felt the thing that has been missing this whole time… hope. Hope of a future with Beck, whether we were friends or more. I would take him any way I could.

  “Wait, how did you find me?” I asked hi
m suddenly realizing that he had no clue where I would be.

  “I went to your dorm and you weren’t there, and then walked around for a while. This was the only place open, so I thought I’d check and see,” he answered while taking a bite of my mashed potatoes.

  Flo came by with a big smile on her face and handed me the check. We got up to leave and I went and paid my bill.

  “Okay what now?” I asked him.

  “Now I want to show you something. We drove for a few minutes, until he pulled into an unfamiliar parking lot.

  “Uh, where are we?” I asked looking around the dark lot.

  “My apartment,” he said, and looked at me expectantly.

  “Your apartment…” I looked at the building again, and then back at Beck. He still looked like he was expecting me to say something, and I knew he wanted me to jump and squeal. He always used to say that he would never live in dorms with annoying roommates, and Ash and I would just tell him it was wishful thinking.

  “Okay,” I said, trying my best to sound indifferent, although I was dying to squeal like a little girl about it. I couldnlo’t believe he had his own apartment.

  He shook his head and smiled. “Come on.”

  He got out of the truck, came to the passenger side door, and held out a hand while I jumped out ungracefully.

  “Second floor,” he said, because I was ahead of him, and so we climbed the stairs. I was bursting at the seams from keeping my excitement in. I stopped at the top of the stairs and let him take lead because I didn’t know where to go. He turned left and stood in front of a big yellow door with two locks. He pulled out his keys and unlocked them, and then gestured with his hand inside in a this-is-it way.

  It’s almost like one of those MTV Cribs episodes, except his apartment was tiny. Tiny, but adorable. High ceiling, a sofa and a TV in the middle of the room, light blue sofa in front of it. There was a kitchenette in one of the corners with navy cabinets, a microwave and a sink. There were three doors, off the hall by the kitchen. My guess was two rooms and a bathroom.

  Overall, it was very Beck, in a cute, manly sort of way. I knew he would hate it if I voice that, so I just nodded appreciatively.