by TM Frazier
“He saved your life. It’s natural that you feel something toward him, along with a sense of guilt because you lived and he didn’t.” Edna paused, gathering her thoughts before she continued. “You know, kid, it sounds to me like you still need that closure we’ve been talking about.”
“Closure?” I squeaked. The idea of it sounded ridiculous. “I’m not sure about that. How can you close something that never really opened?” I felt myself starting to tear up and immediately felt embarrassed.
Awe shucks, Doc.
She nodded and handed me a tissue. “From what you’ve told me, you’ve never gotten a chance to really grieve, to close that chapter in your life and move on.”
“But I don’t know how to get it.” Or if I even wanted it. I’ll never forget the day my dad and I went down to Sarasota together to help transport Mirna to a facility closer to our house. I was debating taking a solo ride down to Logan’s Beach when one of the nurse’s mentioned his name and wondering why he stopped visiting. The other explained to her why he couldn’t visit. He was dead.
Right then and there I couldn’t breathe. My heart stopped. A piece of me died right there along with him.
Edna held me tighter and rocked me back and forth like Mirna used to. She pulled me back and looked down to my hands where I was now staring. She snapped her fingers and smiled brightly. “When you’re ready, and ONLY when you’re ready, I think you should seek out those who cared about him. His friends, family. Have a conversation. Talk about his life. I truly think it will help you find what you need.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, and I did. The only “interaction” I ever had with his friends was that one encounter from Bear.
“At least read the letter,” Edna suggested. “Maybe that will help you decide.” She pulled out the envelope that had arrived a few months earlier with no return address, just a stamp from the Logan’s Beach Post Office. “It’s time,” she said, handing it to me.
“Can you open it?” I asked. Edna shook her head.
“No, that’s for you to do, but I’ll give you a minute alone,” Edna said, patting me on the shoulder and stepping out of the room.
I tore open the envelope quickly, thinking that if I did it fast like a Band-Aid it wouldn’t hurt as much.
I was wrong.
Doc,
There’s this place where light and dark meet in the sky when the sun’s setting where it’s not quite day and not quite night. A grayish mist among the black and yellow.
I like to think of it as a place where right and wrong, black and white, life and death aren’t finite.
I call that place ‘the in-between’ and to me that’s where you and I will always exist.
Together.
It’s where we can’t be hurt. Where our pasts don’t haunt our present. Where there’s no such thing as lies. Where pain isn’t even a thing.
We couldn’t be together in this life. Maybe not even in the next. Who knows. My luck is pretty shit these days. But now when I think of you, which is still every fucking day, and when I can’t catch my breath wondering what could’ve been, I drag my ass outside, I sit in the yard, and I wait for it. That brief glimpse of the changing of the guard in the sky. And every day, even though the pain cuts just as deep as the day you left, even though I know the truth is that I’ll never see you again, I smile.
Because you and I are there.
And we’ll always have the in-between.
LOVE,
Samuel Clearwater
Preppy, BAD-ASS MOFO
PS – If you are receiving this I’m dead so I think it’s safe to tell you that you are by far my biggest regret. The light amongst all my dark.
I’m so sorry.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
DRE
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER…
With Brandon sitting by my side on the plane to Florida, I was finally ready to go and seek the closure that my dad, counselor, and my sponsor were always so adamant about.
As we flew over the still waters of the Caloosahatchee River, I tightened my grip on Brandon’s hand. He offered me a reassuring smile and gave me a thumbs up, covering my hand with his own. He probably thought it was the flight that had me freaking out. And although flying wasn’t my favorite activity in the world, it wasn’t the fear of plummeting to the ground below that had my windpipe tightening like a guitar string as the plane descended. No. It was the water tower. The one that stuck out on the flatland, towering above the earth like a redneck statue of liberty, reaching up toward the plane. Its huge black spray painted dick was in full frontal view as the landing gear clattered and screeched, locking into place.
I wanted to both laugh and cry at the sight of it.
Suddenly, it was all too real.
I was going back. Back to where it all started. Back to where it all ended.
Back to where it would only just begin.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
DRE
I raised my trembling hand to the door and knocked. The sound of squealing children playing in the back yard echoing over the house.
I was about to change my mind and turn around when a blond girl with the lightest-blue eyes I’d ever seen opened the door. “Can I help you?” she asked with a small but friendly smile.
“Um…Hi, I’m Andrea Capulet, but I go by Dre,” I said, holding out my hand. She shook it tentatively. “I’m a friend or, I was a friend of Samuel’s. Preppy’s.” My chest tightened as his name crossed my lips. It had been years, and although I expected that feeling to die off, it never had. If anything, it had only gotten worse.
The girl remained silent, looking me over several times like she was trying to place me. “I’m Ray,” she finally offered. “What can I do for you?”
“Ray, Hi. I just wondered,” I trailed off, looking down to my feet.
“Do I know you?”
“She was going to be a BBB once,” Bear said, coming to stand behind her. “You ain’t here to drop off any kids with uncanny resemblance to people who may or may not be here, are you?” he asked, and I couldn’t quite tell if it was a joke. Shit, I was surprised he remembered me, but obviously he didn’t remember everything because last time I checked you couldn’t get pregnant through anal. My cheeks grew red at my own thoughts.
I shook my head. “Hi, Bear,” I said with a small nervous wave. I pushed my glasses up my nose. Bear looked me over and as if he’d decided I wasn’t a threat, he’d turned around and went back inside the house.
Ray seemed to agree. “Well come on in,” she said, stepping aside.
Another large and equally beautiful man was sitting in the living room. He lifted his head and glanced at me briefly before Bear sat back down and they both leaned over the coffee table, speaking softly, instantly deep in what seemed like an important conversation.
Ray waved in their direction. “Don’t mind King and Bear, they’ve been a little crazy this past week with all that’s gone down,” she told me, as she led me through a neat and newly updated living space that smelled of fresh paint and cleaning products, down a narrow hallway. My heels clacked against the shining hardwood. She stopped in front of a closed door.
Preppy’s door.
Or, what used to be Preppy’s door.
My heart stilled.
I was suddenly mad at everyone who insisted that I come here and get closure by talking to his friends. It was too much. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t breathe. My memories flooded with his face. His sent.
HIM.
“No, I mean, I don’t need to go in there…” I started backing away from the door.
Ray sighed, “I know what you mean. It’s hard to see at first. The prognoses shifts around a bit from doctor to doctor, but he’s a fighter. We have hope and we have time.”
“Huh?” I asked, confused as to what she was talking about when she pushed open the door and stepped aside. Tentatively, I entered the room, taking a deep sigh of relief when I noticed the room wasn’t at all like it used to be. Pr
eppy’s things were no longer there. The relief was followed by deep disappointment and a sick feeling. A longing for what once was.
For who once was.
The walls, once a deep blue, were now a bubble gum pink with stenciled daisies and clouds surrounding the window. A Cinderella lamp sat upon a small white nightstand next to the bed.
Of course his things weren’t there you idiot, because he’s…
I paused. My ears picked up a steady beeping sound, my eyes followed the sound across the room to the IV stand in the corner, set up next to a rollaway hospital bed. Lines raced across the screen that was mounted below the IV, little green mountains peaked and fell, followed by a chirp of the machine in even two second increments.
“I don’t understand,” I said, not allowing my eyes to travel to the bed. I wasn’t sure if I was afraid of what I would see or what I wouldn’t see. WHO I wouldn’t see. I turned back around to face Ray. “Who…who is that?” I asked, dread and hope fighting a battle in the pit of my stomach…and my heart. I pointed to the mound of blankets rising and falling in rhythm.
“Wait, you don’t know do you?” Ray breathed, “I thought everyone in Logan’s Beach knew by now.”
I shook my head. “I’m not from here.” Not able to take another minute of my rapidly beating heart fighting its way out of my chest, I spun around and small step by small step I made my way over to the bed where a shell of a man lay unconscious with tubes running through his nose and mouth. His eyes and cheeks sunken in. His hands resting above the clean navy comforter. I didn’t even need to see the tattoos running across his knuckles to know it was him, but there they were, in all their familiar glory.
I let out a strangled cry, that startled even myself, as hot tears fell down my face. Elation and an overwhelming feeling of confusion smashed into me, like I was finally run over by that train. I leaned over him, careful not to disturb any of the tubes, I pressed the side of my face against his chest, I needed to hear it for myself and sure enough, it was there. The thump thump. The most beautiful sound in the world. His heart.
Beating.
Heavy footsteps entered the room. King, Bear, and a girl with pinkish-red hair stood around the doorway, gaping at me as if I were the one risen from the dead. “How?” I asked, without moving my head from his chest. My hand covered one of his own and squeezed as I breathed deeply, inhaling this new life, inhaling him.
“You really didn’t know?” King asked skeptically, pulling Ray into his chest. “Thought everyone knew.”
“No,” I said, although no sound came out so I just mouthed the word. “I didn’t know anything.”
“What’s going on?” the pink haired girl asked. Bear wrapped his arms protectively over her waist, which was when I noticed her rounded belly. Bear leaned down and whispered in her ear. She nodded in some sort of understanding, but continued to stare me down like she was unsure of me at best.
But that didn’t matter. SHE didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered.
Overwhelming joy consumed my entire being. How he was alive didn’t matter just then, all that mattered was that he was alive.
My Preppy.
My Samuel.
“Who exactly are you, again?” Ray asked, staring at me as I practically laid across Preppy’s body.
Reluctantly, I lifted my head from his chest, although I kept my hand over his. I sniffled and wiped the tears streaming down my face. I took a deep breath to steady myself and when I spoke, I made sure I was looking at each and every one of Preppy’s friends. I was about to speak when I was interrupted by a scratchy voice. I spun around and was met with bloodshot amber eyes that were locked on to mine when he spoke.
“She’s my wife.”
The End (for now)
Other Books by T.M. Frazier
KING SERIES:
KING
TYRANT
LAWLESS
SOULLESS
PREPPY, PART ONE
PREPPY, PART TWO (COMING SOON)
STANDALONES:
THE DARK LIGHT OF DAY, A KING SERIES PREQUEL
ALL THE RAGE, A KING SERIES SPIN OFF
About the Author
T.M. Frazier is a USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR best known for her KING SERIES. She was born on Long Island, NY. When she was eight years old she moved with her mom, dad, and older sister to sunny Southwest Florida where she still lives today with her husband and daughter.
When she was in middle school she was in a club called AUTHORS CLUB with a group of other young girls interested in creative writing. Little did she know that years later life would come full circle.
After graduating high school, she attended Florida Gulf Coast University and had every intention of becoming a news reporter when she got sucked into real estate where she worked in sales for over ten years.
Throughout the years T.M. never gave up the dream of writing and with her husband’s encouragement, and a lot of sleepless nights, she realized her dream and released her first novel, The Dark Light of Day, in 2013.
She’s never looked back.
For more information on books and appearances please visit her website:
www.tmfrazierbooks.com
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