by J. S. Cooper
“Hey.” I poked him in the arm, hard.
“Sorry, but isn’t that what normally happens?”
“I don’t know. My dad isn’t in my life.” My voice was bitter and upset and he looked at me in concern.
“Sorry, Lexi, I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“It’s okay.” I smiled at him quickly, not wanting to ruin the easy camaraderie we had. But I was upset. He was being quite rude about my mother, ruder than I thought he had the right to be.
“So why did my philanderer dad and your slutty mom break up?”
“My mom’s not a slut, Bryce.”
“Well she knew my dad was married, right? Who in Jonesville doesn’t know the Mayor is married with a golden child?”
“You’re not exactly a golden child though, are you?”
“I’ve made some mistakes, yes,” he sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. I’m choosing the wrong words. I’m just anxious to hear what you have to say.”
“We have a sister.”
“Just please tell me, wait, what?” He frowned at me. “Please, dear God, tell me you are not my sister.”
“I’m not your sister.” I laughed. “That would be gross.”
“Okay, so repeat what you said.” He wiped his temple.
“We have a younger sister.”
“We have a sister?” He looked around the room and I laughed.
“She doesn’t live here.”
“Well she doesn’t live at my house either.”
“She’s at the Jonesville orphanage.”
“The orphanage?” He frowned. “Why?”
“Because they didn’t want her, obviously. It’s not like your dad was going to leave your mom to come marry my mom and raise their bastard child.”
“So why didn’t she raise her by herself? She raised you as a single mom, right?”
“Why should she hold the responsibility to raise their child?” My voice rose. “That’s a really unfair thing to say.”
“I’m not blaming her.” He tried to hold my hand and I pulled away.
“Well, it’s not her fault.” I frowned. “Anyways, we have a sister and she’s four now.”
“What’s her name?” He tried to sidle up to me and I stood up.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” He looked at me in disbelief.
“I don’t know anything about her. I just know she’s at the orphanage.”
“And you’ve never been there to see her or anything?”
“No. Have you?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Now you do.” I stood there with my arms crossed against my heaving chest. I felt like crying. I didn’t understand why we were arguing like this.
“I’m sorry, Lexi.” He came up to me and held his arms out stiffly. “I’m trying to be a better guy.” He gave me a winning smile and I went into his arms, though his embrace didn’t comfort me as much as I thought it would.
I realized, at that point, that I wanted Luke. I wanted him to hold me close and to sing a silly song to make me better. I closed my arms. I missed Luke. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t be happy for me. I was here, happy and in love with Bryce. Bryce Evans. The quarterback of the football team. The guy every girl in high school had wanted to be with. The guy who I had dreamt about for years. The blond God of my dreams. Why couldn’t he understand that I finally felt like a someone. People in Jonesville would respect me now. They would actually know who I was. I would be a somebody.
“So what do you think?” Bryce whispered in my ear and I blinked up at him.
“Sorry, what?”
“Shall we go to Harpers Creek?”
“You want to go to the Creek?” I was surprised at his words.
“Yeah. We can go and just relax, maybe do some fishing. Just the two of us.”
“I guess so.” I paused. “Don’t you want to talk about our sister?”
“No, not right now.” He frowned. “I don’t blame you for keeping this a secret, Lexi.”
“I feel so guilty.” I looked up at him. “I feel like I should do something for her. Tell someone about her.”
“Who are you going to tell?” He shook his head. “There’s nothing we can do, Lexi. It’s probably best you kept it a secret.”
“It doesn’t feel right.” I cried out. “I don’t feel right. This has been haunting me for years.” I couldn’t believe that he wasn’t more upset or astounded.
“I forgive you, Lexi. It’s okay.”
“Thanks.” I turned away from him. I didn’t need his forgiveness. That wasn’t why I had been anxious. I was worried because I thought he would want to confront our parents and demand that they do better for our sister. I couldn’t believe that he just didn’t seem to care.
“I was thinking we could go to the Creek and talk about the letters.” He smiled and me and his blue eyes sparkled. “I still can’t believe that you are Miss. I was looking for you.”
“Wait, what?” I frowned. “How did you figure out it was me? What part of the letters?”
“Lexi, every word you wrote should have told me it was you.” He kissed my forehead. “We were fated to be together.”
“Do you believe in soul mates?” I asked him, softly.
“I believe you’re my soul mate.” He looked at me with intense eyes. “We were made for each other.”
I smiled at his words, the words I had always wanted to hear. But I felt confused and detached. I shook my shoulders; it had been a long twenty-four hours. Anyone in my position would be confused. It was only natural. I had to keep telling myself that. It was only natural. My ringing phone broke into my thoughts and I walked over to it, slowly, answering it without looking at the caller ID.
“Hello.”
“Lexi.” It was Luke. Just hearing his voice made me happy. He wasn’t mad at me.
“Hey,” I answered, eagerly. “I’m so happy you called.”
“I wanted to apologize for this morning. I kinda just slammed that on you all at once, it wasn’t fair.”
“It’s okay.” I whispered into the phone and turned away from Bryce, who was looking at me with a curious look on his face.
“No, it’s not. I know how you feel about Bryce and I know that things are looking up for you there. I should have been happy for you.” He paused. “Anyways, I called to invite you out this afternoon.”
“Oh?”
“I thought you, me and Anna could go to Chicago. I’ll drive.” He laughed.
“You know I don’t have gas money for Chicago.”
“Or maybe we can go on a hayride and have a midnight picnic.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“I promise I won’t pretend to be a scarecrow.”
“What? No scaring the little kids?” I laughed.
“And the dog will stay at home.”
“And no slobber,” I grinned into the phone.
“Exactly; I promise not to slobber on you.”
“Oh Luke, hahaha.” I couldn’t stop laughing and I saw Bryce sitting on the bed, frowning. “I’m going to have to take a rain check. I have plans.”
“Oh, with Bryce?”
“Yeah.” I tried to keep my voice light. I didn’t want to rub it in Luke’s face.
“Well, I would say invite him, but maybe that’s not such a good idea right now.” Luke’s laugh sounded forced and I wanted to cry at the awkwardness.
“Soon, though. Soon we can all hang out.”
“Yeah. Hopefully before I move.” And then he hung up. I looked at the phone as I closed it and faked a smile at Bryce.
“That was Luke, he wanted us to hang out.”
“Oh? That would have been fun.”
“I thought you didn’t want to hang out with Luke and Anna.”
“Oh, Anna was going to be there as well?” His face blanched.
“Yeah. We love to all hang out together.”
“Oh, okay. Well, maybe another time.” He smiled. “I really wanted to go to Harp
ers Creek today.”
“Yeah. Let’s go to the creek.” I picked up my bag.
“It’ll be fun. You’ll see Lexi. Just you and me, away from the stress of the city.”
We walked down the stairs to his car and my breath caught as he pulled me towards him and gave me a big kiss before we got into the car. He was so handsome. So masculine. So into me. I felt like I should feel like the luckiest woman in the world. I was twenty-two and it seemed to me like my whole life was finally coming together. I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head that told me it was all falling apart.
Chapter 16
I thought I was going to have a heart attack when Lexi got the phone call. I thought, for sure, that everything was going to be over before it started. Part of me wanted to make love to her, so that we could have that bond. I knew how girls were about sex, I knew it would be harder for her to walk away from me then. But I couldn’t do it. I was honest when I told her that I wanted our first time to be romantic. I wanted her to see fireworks and explosions. I wanted her to feel like she was in heaven. And now wasn’t the time. I wasn’t going to bind her to me with sex.
“So, tell me about your experience in the marines.” She looked at me with a concerned expression. “That is, if it doesn’t hurt too much.”
“It does and it doesn’t.” I thought about everything I had been through and about the nightmares. I thought about the pills I had to take. I didn’t want to tell her about the darkness. I didn’t want to tell her about the things I had seen. “I became a man in the marines.” I tapped my hands against the steering wheel. “I became a man.”
“What’s the saying again? Die-hard. Live hard?” She laughed.
“In my troop we used to say that there are two kinds of marines: the ones who survive and the ones who die.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She touched my arm. “Did many of your friends die?”
“Some.” I didn’t want to think about it anymore. “Your letters got us through. We all lived for your letters.”
“You read them aloud?” She blushed.
“Yeah.” I stole a quick look at her. “We were all devastated when you stopped writing. Why did you stop, Lexi?”
“I was falling for you, even more than I had before. And I was scared.’
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t think I would ever have a chance with you.” Her voice was soft and I smiled.
“Well, now you now you were wrong.”
“Yeah. Now I know.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence and I wasn’t sure what to talk about. It seemed to me that I had gotten off easy. I hadn’t expected her to be so understanding about Eddie. I was wondering if she was still in shock.
“Wait, isn’t that the graveyard?” she called out to me.
“Yeah. It is.”
“Shall we go?”
“Why?”
“I figured maybe you would want to speak to Eddie?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think you still have something to say to him.”
“What are you talking about?” I looked at her with narrowed eyes. “What do you know?”
“Nothing, Bryce. Whoa.” She looked at me with a hurt expression. “I just thought, after our conversation today, you might want to go and say a proper goodbye.”
“Okay.” I sighed. I could feel my palms clamming up and my forehead starting to burn up. I needed to get out of the car. I turned around and drove into the parking lot and we walked to Eddie’s grave. I was surprised to see two fresh bouquets of flowers at his grave.
“I guess his mom was here recently, huh?”
“Yeah.” But who else was here? Maybe Anna? She had had a crush on him in high school. But she didn’t have a car. How would she have gotten here?
“Maybe we could go to a store if you wanted to get some flowers?”
“Maybe next time.” I looked around at all the graves and felt my heart beating fast. Death was all around me. It made me uncomfortable. I didn’t want to think about all the people I knew who had died. Sometimes I thought that it should have been me. That was something Anna and I had in common. I was worried about her. I realized that now. She was exhibiting signs of need. She needed someone to pay attention to her. I felt guilty. I was keeping Lexi away from her for my own selfish reasons.
“Do you want to be alone?”
“No.” Yes. I wanted her to walk away. I needed to be alone in this moment. I needed to talk to Eddie, honestly. I needed to cry. I needed to scream and shout. I missed the hell out of him. I wanted to apologize. I wanted him to know that I didn’t think he was sick. I hadn’t told Lexi everything; I hadn’t been able to tell her the real reason why we had stopped speaking. I was ashamed of myself. And I wanted to say sorry. I wanted to go back and change my reaction.
“He was a nice guy,” she mumbled. “Before that night, I thought he was okay. You know. That’s why I went with him. He was always such a sincere guy, even though he was one of you.”
“He was really special.” I looked past her and stared at the trees surrounding the gravesite. Eddie would have liked this place. He loved nature. His ghost was most probably climbing one of the trees right now.
“We should have a mini-service.”
“What?”
“I read about it once in a book. We can have our own mini-service.”
“Are you sure?” I looked at her in surprise. “Won’t that be hard for you?”
“No.” She let out a breath. “Actually no. Someone wise once told me, the people with the biggest scars are most probably the ones that you don’t see. Something had to be bothering him. Even that night, when everything happened he seemed like he was on something.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. His eyes seemed manic.” She looked away. “He didn’t even seem to want me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I can’t really explain it.”
“Let’s have a service for him, then.” I got down on my knees and traced my hands over his name.
“I guess I’ll play reverend.” She rubbed my shoulder. “Shall we start with the Lord’s Prayer?”
“If you think we should.”
“Or maybe we’ll start with a song.”
“Whatever you think.”
“All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small...” She began singing sweetly and I stood up and watched her as she sang. I joined her in the chorus and we held hands as we sang.
“He’s got the whole world in his hands, he’s got the whole wide world in his hands...” I continued with the next song and Lexi sang along with me.
We stood there for a few moments after the song and I cleared my throat. I realized that I was no longer anxious. Lexi had distracted me from my panic and I felt my heart swell with love for her. It seemed that there was nothing Lexi couldn’t make right in my life.
“God, I want to know that Eddie is okay.” I started slowly and I looked up at the sky. It was a clear day and the open expanse of blue made me feel like he was right up there, looking down on me and listening. “I want Eddie to get this message, please. I want him to know that I miss him. More than he ever would have guessed. Tell him that he got me good. I told him to never contact me again, but now all I hope for is to see him turn up at my door or to call me with some new kooky idea. I never had a friend like Eddie before, God. I never had someone who had my back no matter what, who knew all of me and loved me. I never had anyone love me like Eddie, God. I want you to tell him that I loved him, too. Not in the way that he wanted, but I loved him too. God, please forgive me. There’s a saying I heard, I don’t know if it’s from the bible or a book, but it says forgive them for they don’t know what they do.”
“Jesus said that.” Lexi smiled at me, gently, and I tried to smile back at her, but I was too overcome with emotion.
“God, I didn’t know what I was doing, what I was saying. Please tell Eddie tha
t. I regret the words I used. I would never say that to anyone again. I should have been there for him. God, I’m sorry.” I fell to my knees again, with tears streaming down my face. “I fucked up. I fucked up!” I shouted into the air and I felt Lexi jump as my voice grew louder. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me, Eddie. Please forgive me, man. I love you. And you are my brother. I was in a bad place, man. I miss you.” I fell forward and cried into the dirt.
Lexi stepped towards me and rubbed my shoulder. “Eddie, if you’re out there I want you to know that I forgive you. Bryce told me about the plan you guys had. I can’t say that I fully understand, but I forgive you. I always thought you were a nice guy. And I know what it’s like to have dark days.”
My breath caught as Lexi spoke. How could one person be soo wonderful? It wasn’t possible for someone to be so angelic. I didn’t really believe in God and in heaven and in Jesus. I mean, who could live in the world and see so much lying and treachery and heartache and believe? But I wanted to. And when I met people like Lexi I believed. I truly believed.
“Eddie. I’m soo sorry that you were hurting so much that you thought this was the only way. I hope you are watching over Bryce. I know you are watching over him. Thank you for keeping him safe.”
I stood up and grabbed her hand and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks, Lexi. Thanks.” We stood there in silence for a few moments and a Goldfinch landed on the top of his grave and whistled. I stared at the bird and felt an overwhelming calmness center in me.
“Let’s go.” I felt light as we walked through the cemetery and I picked Lexi up and swung her around in the parking lot. “I love you, Lexi Lord. I love you soo much.”
She laughed as I put her down and she clung to me. “I’m dizzy,” she hiccupped, and I laughed as I kissed her.
“You are the cutest, most precious girl I’ve ever had the fortune to meet.”
“I’m a woman, Mr. Evans,” she pouted.
“You’ll always be my special girl,” I laughed as she hit me on the shoulder. I took a deep breath and realized that, for the first time in a long time, I felt happy and alive and like nothing could ever ruin my mood.
“Well I guess I kinda like that.”
“What do you want to do now?”
