The Fire Between High & Lo

by Brittainy C. Cherry

  It was heartbreaking, because she truly was doing the best she could do.

  He never yelled at me, which I wished he would. Erika seemed on the verge of having a breakdown. The fall school year was coming back around, and she seemed overwhelmed with the planning of her classes, along with the fact that she failed her summer class for her master’s degree. Her stress level was high.

  “Take her out,” Kellan sighed as I sat him up on the living room sofa. He was getting sick of staring at the walls in the bedroom, growing a bit claustrophobic.

  “Take who out?”

  He gave me a you-know-who-I’m-talking-about look. “Alyssa. On the coffee table are two tickets to the Opera tonight in Chicago. There’s an overnight hotel stay, too. I think she would like that. Erika and I were going to go for our honeymoon but…” His voice faded as he closed his eyes. “Take her out.”

  “I’m not driving all the way down to Chicago and staying overnight when you aren’t doing that well.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not. You had chemotherapy yesterday. You always get sick a few days later.”

  “I’m fine. Besides, Erika will help me.”

  “Kellan.”

  “Logan.” Kellan pushed himself up to a sitting position on the couch. “You deserve to be happy.”

  “I am happy.”

  “No. You’re existing. Going through the motions of life. Which makes sense. Everything you’ve been through, everything you’ve seen, it had to become somewhat of a sick routine that was impossible for you to break away from. But the only time I’ve seen you happy—and I mean really happy—was when you were with Alyssa.”

  “Kellan, stop.”

  “Remember when you came begging me for money to buy a suit that fit just so you could take her out to a piano recital in Chicago? You beamed with hope. I’d never seen hope from you.”

  “With good reason. Hope is a waste of time. Remember how she and I never actually made it to Chicago, because Ricky pissed me off and I fell off the deep end?”

  He rolled his eyes. “That’s not who you are anymore. Take her out.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No!”

  “I have cancer.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Dude. Low blow. How long are you going to play the cancer card?”

  He smiled at me, reached his hand out in my direction, and patted me on the shoulder. “Take her out, okay?”

  I nodded once. “Okay.”

  Chapter Forty

  Alyssa

  “Hi,” I said, my voice breathy as Logan stood on my porch in a suit and bowtie. His hair was slicked back, and he was beaming.

  “You look beautiful,” he said, taking in my long black dress. “So beautiful.”

  I blushed. “You do, too. I mean, handsome. You look handsome.”

  He reached out for my hand, and I took his in mine. As he walked me to the car, he opened the passenger door and helped me inside. My heart was pounding against my ribcage as the butterflies in my stomach somehow transformed into dragons, setting me on fire. I was so nervous.

  When he asked me if I’d go to Chicago with him to see an opera, I had to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. We never were able to go on any fancy dates all those years ago. We never were able to fall in love the way we truly deserved to love one another. So the fact that today, Logan was in a suit that wasn’t too big for him, and I was in a dress that was too fancy for me, was amazing.

  I still love you…

  “Are you excited?” he asked, as we drove down the freeway.

  “Yes.”

  I still love you…

  “I’ve never done anything like this, ya know? Seen an opera. I mean, I’ve been to your piano recitals, which were breathtaking, but I’ve never seen something like this.”

  “You’ll love it,” I said. “When I was in college, we had to go to shows for one of my music classes. The opera is quite the experience.”

  He smiled. “Thanks for coming with me, High.”

  Whenever he called me High, I felt like I was eighteen all over again.

  I still love you…

  The show was amazing, and as we sat in a corner box watching it, I’d noticed Logan tearing up from the action. His eyes never left the characters on stage, and mine hardly ever left him. It was crazy how it happened. How one boy could still, after all these years, control every beat of my heart.

  After the show, we walked outside in the cool, autumn Chicago weather. We stood so close to one another that every now and then our arms would brush up against each other. The hotel we were staying at was right down the street from the opera house, which was wonderful.

  “Erika and Kellan are stressed,” Logan said, breaking me from my thoughts.

  “Yeah. Extremely stressed. Erika called me the other night as she sat in her car crying her eyes out. She feels as if she’s at the end of her rope, and like Kellan is pushing her away.”

  “Do you think he’s pushing her away?”

  “I don’t know. I think he’s just scared.”

  “Yeah. Me too. I’ve been thinking… We should do something for them. I don’t know what, but I want to do something to make them feel better.”

  “That’s a great idea,” I agreed, opening the door to the front lobby of the hotel. “And I think—”

  “I’m still in love with you.”

  What? Did I just speak the words that have been dancing through my mind all night long? The words that I’ve felt for the past five years?

  No. They didn’t come from my lips.

  With a slow turn, I stared at Logan, standing on the sidewalk, with his hands stuffed in his slacks. He swayed back and forth.

  “What?” I said, my heart pounding.

  “I’m still in love with you,” he repeated walking closer to me. “I’ve tried to stop it. I tried to ignore it. I tried to wish it away, but it won’t leave. Whenever you’re near me, I want you closer. Whenever you laugh, I want the sound to never fade. Whenever you’re sad, I want to kiss your tears away. I know all of the reasons that I shouldn’t want to be with you. I know that I can never be forgiven for what happened all those years ago, but I also know that I still love you. You’re still the fire that keeps me warm when life becomes cold. You’re still the voice that keeps the darkness at bay. You’re still the reason my heart beats. You’re still the air in my lungs. You’re still my greatest high. And I am still truly, madly, painfully in love with you. And I don’t think I’ll ever know how to stop.”

  “Logan…” He kept walking toward me, making my heart speed up until I felt faint.

  “Alyssa…”

  “Lo.” My fingers slowly laced together with his.

  “High.”

  Him.

  Me.

  Us.

  We grew closer. Our bodies wrapped together, and I felt him trembling as my fingertips rested against his chest.

  “Nervous?” I asked.

  “Nervous,” he replied.

  My lips hovered millimeters away from his. His breaths became mine, and mine were solely his. He was my life support, making my heart rise and fall, over and over again.

  I shrugged.

  He shrugged.

  I laughed.

  He laughed.

  I parted my lips.

  He parted his lips.

  I leaned in.

  He leaned in.

  And we were both still so very much in love.

  ***

  For a few brief moments, he let me into his heart, and I allowed him into mine. His skin met my skin, his lips met my lips. That night we held onto one another. We stopped our minds from wandering off. We didn’t speak of yesterday, and we refused to speak of tomorrow.

  But we did remember, and we did dream.

  We remembered everything we were and dreamed of everything we could someday become. Every time he moved into me, I whispered his name. Every time he pull
ed out, he whispered mine.

  “I love you,” I softly said against his ear.

  “I love you,” he gently replied, kissing my neck.

  We loved each other that night. We loved each other with no restraints, no restrictions, no fear. We loved each other with every kiss, every touch, every climax.

  We loved the pain, we loved the scars, we loved our wild fire that could never be extinguished.

  We loved that night.

  Yes…

  We loved so slowly.

  ***

  When I awakened, I still felt as if I were dreaming, because I woke up in his arms. His eyes were opened, and he placed a gentle kiss on my forehead.

  “Hey,” I yawned, rubbing my eyes.

  “Hey,” he replied.

  “Is it time to get up?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “It’s only three in the morning.”

  I sat up slightly, concern building inside of me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Logan. Tell me.”

  “I’m just worried, that’s all. Kellan had his chemotherapy a day ago, and since I’ve been back, I’ve never not been there. He sometimes gets sick in the middle of the night, and I’m worried, that’s all.”

  I climbed out of bed, and started collecting his things, then I tossed on my clothes.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  A pair of pants slapped him in the face. “Get dressed. We’re going home.”

  The drive home was quiet, but he held my hand the whole way. I knew it seemed silly, but on that car ride, I fell even more in love with him. He pulled up to my house to drop me off, and leaned forward to kiss me.

  Oh, how I loved his kisses.

  “Call me if you need anything,” I said. The sky was still dark, the sun still sleeping. He agreed to keep me updated. “Oh, and I have something for you.” I reached into my oversized purse and pulled out a stack of DVDs. “I collected these over the past years, thinking they might be documentaries you’d be interested in. I watched a few, and loved them. The one on the phoenix was my favorite, and reminded me of you.”

  His lips parted, and his voice cracked. “Why didn’t you ever give up on me?”

  I shrugged. “Because some things—the best things—are always worth fighting for.” I kissed his lips, and started to climb out of the car.

  “Oh, and High?” He reached into the glove compartment of the car, and pulled out a DVD. “This is for you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I made a documentary while I was in Iowa.”

  “What?” I asked. “What is it about?”

  “Us,” he replied, a bit shyly. “It’s called Highs and Lows. Every message you left me has a response on that. One thousand and ninety replies. Plus a few in-between moments.”

  “Lo…”

  “It’s not all good, but it’s real. It’s raw. But I thought you should know that I did respond. To every single message. And I want you to know that you’re the one who helped me get through every second of getting clean. Your voice saved me.”

  The moment I got into my house, I tossed the DVD into my laptop, and I held my breath for an hour straight. Some of his replies he spoke to me, others he simply spoke to the camera, as if it were a diary of sorts. Each reply told me what I’d wished I could’ve heard all of those years ago. Each reply matching how my heart bled, for five years straight.

  Reply #1

  I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, High…

  Reply #56

  It’s my fifty-sixth day at rehab, and I’m lonely. I still don’t know what this all means. Being alive, being dead. Inhaling, exhaling. The simple idea of existence was always confusing to me. But then you walked into my life one day, and everything started to make a little more sense.

  Maybe the point of life is to teach us that we aren’t always going to be our past mistakes. Maybe the point of life is to open ourselves up to the things that we fear most—like love.

  Maybe the whole point of my life was to simply find you, even if it wasn’t meant to be forever.

  And that thought alone is enough to get me through each night of loneliness.

  Reply #232

  The baby would’ve been born this month. You left me a message telling me this, but I already knew. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t stop thinking about lying beside you, holding you close to me. But I’m not better yet. I’m still lost. I’m not strong enough to love you the way you deserve to be loved. So here, I wait. Until I’m something you can be proud of.

  Reply#435

  So this is my apartment. I don’t know if I’ve shown you before, but here it is. We have all of the basics. Kellan helped me. Over here, you’ll find Jordy the mouse. He comes out to play every now and then. And, that’s pretty much it. It’s small, but it’s mine, I guess.

  I know you’re mad at me.

  But I miss you so much it hurts to breathe some nights.

  You asked me what I do when it rains?

  I lie in bed, and think of you.

  Reply #1090

  You said you were done calling me. I’m happy to hear that, but at the same time broken. I want you to be happy. I want you to find someone worthy to love you. I want you to fall in love with a heart that beats like mine beats for you. I want you to laugh so loudly, and I want someone to fall in love with the sound of your laughter, the way I love those sounds.

  I want you to have your happy ending.

  I want you to move on.

  I tell myself each day that I’m not in love with you anymore, that I moved on.

  But somehow that’s not true. Each day it happens, right before I close my eyes to sleep. I see your face, your smile, your soul, and in the quiet whispers of the night, I fall in love with you all over again.

  I hope that never changes.

  And selfishly, I hope a small part of you always loves me too.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Logan

  Walking into Kellan’s place, I paused a moment when I heard the sound of upchucking. I rushed to the bathroom where the sounds were traveling from, and found Kellan on the floor, his head in the toilet as he threw up everything he had inside of him.

  “Jesus, Kel,” I muttered, reaching for a towel to wet. I bent down beside him as he gagged, unable to throw anything up because he hadn’t much left inside of him.

  “I’m okay,” he muttered, before the dry heaving began. My hand landed on his back. There wasn’t much I could do, other than be there with him through the pain.

  “What’s happening?!” an alarmed Erika said, poking her head in the bathroom. Her eyes widened as she deliberated over which direction she should go—stay in the bathroom with Kellan, or go toward the living room.

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” she asked me.

  “I just got home.”

  Her hands raked through her hair. “Okay. He needs the nausea pills.” She hurried away, her feet hammering against the wooden floors. She came back with a glass of water and a little pink pill. “Here you go, Kellan.”

  “No,” he whispered. “I don’t want that.”

  “It will help with the nausea.”

  “I don’t want that.”

  Erika’s chin quivered and she pushed the glass and pill toward him. “Kel, come on. It will—”

  “Just leave me alone!” he hollered, pushing the glass from her, and making it fly to the ground and shatter.

  Erika leaned back, grimacing. Her lips trembled as her breaths sawed in and out. She placed the pill on the bathroom sink. “It’s right there if you need it.”

  After I helped Kellan back to his bedroom, he took the pill from me. I took a few tentative steps toward the kitchen, where I found Erika going through her cabinets. In front of her was a box of new glassware, which she was unloading.

  “Erika, he’s just tired.”

  She nodded repeatedly, pawing her hands through her hair. “Yeah, I know. I know. It’s fin
e. I just wanted to get these glasses switched in before morning. I’m so glad I bought these. I knew they’d come in handy, and they are actually better than the ones before. Stronger. I don’t know why I didn’t switch before.”

  She closed the box after all of the glasses were switched, and headed for the living room, where she stood with her hands on her hips, blankly staring ahead.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “I think if I move the sofa to face the east wall, more people could see the television. Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”

  “Erika.”

  “Or maybe I should buy a new television. I saw a sale in the paper and—”

  “Erika, come on. Go to bed.”

  “No. No. It’s fine. I have to clean up the glass in the bathroom. It was seriously so lucky I had the replacements.”

  “Erika.”

  She burst into sobs, covering her face. Jesus. “Why isn’t he like that with you, huh?! Why doesn’t he yell… Why doesn’t he…”

  “I left before and had no plans on coming back. He probably thinks I’ll leave again. Or worse, that I’ll start using.”

  “I’m broken. I’m so broken. I’m not prepared for school to start. I failed my summer night class. Failed. I never failed anything in my life. And now Kellan’s mean. Mean. Kellan has never been mean. I don’t know how much more I can take.” She continued to sob, and I wrapped my arms around her.

  I wasn’t sure what to say, or what kind of comfort to deliver her. She wasn’t wrong. It seemed each passing day, Kellan grew darker and darker toward her, pushing her away. “Do you want to smoke some weed?”

  She pulled away from me and cocked her head, shaking it. “No, Logan. I do not want to smoke some weed.”

  “Okay.”