by S. J. West
“Thank you for finding a way to call this one time,” he told me, and I imagined him smiling. “It was good to hear your voice. I needed it.”
I waited a few seconds more before saying, “Goodbye, Aiden.”
“It's not goodbye, Caylin,” he reassured me. “Just a delayed hello.”
I smiled.
“Ok,” I said, feeling a little better. “I guess I'll see you in three years.”
“You can count on it.”
I ended the call and just sat there staring down at my phone.
Three years minus two weeks.
Any way you looked at it, I was going to have a very long three year wait.
But Aiden made sure to mark each Valentine's Day and my next two birthdays in special ways.
That first Valentine's Day he left a white rose on my outside window sill. I immediately searched the internet to see if the color white meant anything special. Apparently, white stood for purity and innocence. I assumed that was the way Aiden saw me, pure and innocent. And I suppose that's the way I was supposed to be at fifteen.
On my sixteenth birthday, I found another blue box tied with white ribbon waiting for me outside my window that morning. This time I found a crystal swan inside. It was a subtle gift reminding me I was maturing on my sweet sixteenth. My Uncle Malcolm wasn’t as subtle with his gift to me. Though, when had Uncle Malcolm ever been subtle about anything?
All the same people who attended my fifteenth birthday party were present again to wish me a happy sixteenth. Jess and Mason had essentially become a part of our family during the past year, and Leah now attended the same school as me in Lakewood. Mason dropped her off every morning, and either I or my mom took her home in the afternoons. Since I attended a private school, we didn't have to worry about school jurisdictions because Leah still lived in Tunica. The other vessels came to visit on holidays and special occasions like my brother Will and my sister Mae’s birthdays. It seemed important to my folks to have them all be a part of our life. I didn’t know why, and I never asked because it didn’t really matter. I had grown to love them all and considered them a part of my unconventional family.
Just like my last birthday, Jess was pregnant again. This time she was only a couple of months along though. You could barely tell she had a bump. Their son, Max, was the center of attention at the party, at least until Uncle Malcolm pulled up into the driveway with my gift.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I heard my Aunt Tara say when she saw the car.
How did I know the car was my gift and not just Uncle Malcolm’s newest toy? Well, the big red bow on the hood with a white sash that read ‘Sweet 16’ was a dead giveaway.
“Lilly, has he completely lost what brain cells he has left?” Aunt Tara asked.
My mom giggled. “It's just a car, Tara.”
“It's a little red boy magnet!” Aunt Tara eyed the brand new candy apple red Corvette Sting Ray coupe with undisguised suspicion.
“You talk like Caylin's some normal teenager,” my mom said. “I think we both know normal boys won’t be a problem.”
“I guess I should’ve known that man was up to somethin’,” Aunt Tara said with a nod of her head. “Is that why he's been singin’ Little Red Corvette the past few months?”
“Good guess,” my mom answered with a smile. “But, I think Malcolm's been planning this day since Caylin was born.”
“So… I can have it?” I asked my mom before letting myself get too excited.
She smiled at me, and I knew I had my answer.
I ran over to my Uncle Malcolm before my mom could change her mind. Uncle Malcolm was leaning against the driver side door with a big grin on his face when I made it to him.
“Mine?” I asked, just to confirm the obvious.
He held the keys out to me. Just as I was about to grab them out of his hand, he pulled them back.
“I need one promise from you first,” he said. “I need you to promise me that you won't let anyone else drive it.”
“You have my solemn oath,” I vowed, holding one hand over my heart. “No one but me will ever drive this car.”
Uncle Malcolm held the keys back out to me. I snatched them out of his hand just as the front door of the house opened and my dad stepped out. He raised an eyebrow at the car but didn't say anything until he came to stand beside us.
“I assume you did what we discussed?” My dad asked Uncle Malcolm.
“Of course I did, Brand,” my uncle replied with a roll of his eyes at my father, as if the question shouldn’t have even been asked.
My father nodded. “Good.”
“Am I allowed to know what the two of you are talking about, or do I have to wait until I'm eighteen to find out?”
My subtle reminder wasn't lost on either of them.
I hadn't actually talked about Aiden to my family, mostly because I didn't want to get into a fight and cause a lot of bad feelings between us. For the most part, I had the perfect life. But, I guess everyone wishes they had more. The more I wanted just happened to be the man I would most likely spend the rest of my life with. All I had to do was make it two more years without seeing him. Uncle Malcolm’s gift seemed to be just what I needed to help me make it through the long days ahead.
Uncle Malcolm cleared his throat to break the tension.
“Why don't you hop in and take your dad for a spin?” He suggested, choosing to completely ignore my question.
I didn’t need any more prodding than that.
I hopped into the black leather driver’s seat and started the engine as my dad slid into the passenger seat beside me. Everyone at the party waved at us as I drove off. I waved back and noticed Aunt Tara laughing hysterically at something Uncle Malcolm was telling her. It didn’t take me long to figure out what was so funny.
As I was cruising down the highway, I noticed I couldn’t seem to get up to the legal speed limit of 65mph.
“I think something’s wrong with the car,” I told my dad as I stared at the unmoving speedometer. “It’s not going above 55 miles per hour.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the car,” my dad said.
“Are you sure? That just doesn’t seem right to me.”
“Malcolm put a governor on the speed limit.”
I briefly glanced over at my dad. “What’s a governor?”
“It’s a device to keep the car from going over a set speed.”
“So I can’t drive it any faster than this? Ever?”
“Not until you’re older.”
“Why? Don’t you trust me?” I asked, unable to keep my tone from sounding scathing.
“Of course we trust you, Caylin,” my dad said obviously not liking my tone of voice with him. “But, you’re young and sometimes people do stupid things when they’re young. Malcolm thought you would at least enjoy the car even if it didn’t go very fast. It was either this or continue to ride to school with him. We thought you would prefer to drive yourself.”
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” I said, feeling my anger simmer to the surface. “You think I’m too young to be around Aiden. So, obviously I’m too young to be trusted to go the speed limit. I guess I should feel lucky you even let me out of the house much less have a car of my own.”
My father was silent for a while. It was the first time I said Aiden’s name out loud to any member of my family. He was like a ghostly presence always hovering in the corner of our home but never mentioned by name in fear it would make him all too real.
“We’re just trying to keep you safe,” my dad said, not trying to apologize for the restrictions they placed on my life but trying to make me understand where they stood with his simple statement. “We love you and there are things beyond our control that we can’t keep you safe from but these two things we can.”
“What’s beyond your control?” I asked. “Does it have anything to do with why mom got so upset on my last birthday? Is it about what Mason and Jess told you then? Is that why Uncle Malcolm started teaching at my
school?”
My dad didn’t answer right away. He just sat there.
Finally he said, “It has everything to do with what they told us. And before you even ask, no, I don’t intend to tell you what was said, at least not until I have to.”
“Is it that bad?” I asked, knowing it must have been to make my mother cry like she did.
“Potentially life changing,” my dad answered, looking over at me with worry. “And we want to keep our family life the way it is for as long as we can. When it becomes impossible to do that, we’ll tell you what we know but even that isn’t very much. Just remember that every decision we make is meant to keep our family safe. We’re not trying to punish you in any way. We’re just doing our best to protect you for as long as we can. I hope you can understand that.”
Inwardly, I sighed and immediately felt bad for my outburst. But, since I’d opened up the topic I decided to ask a question I’d been dying to ask for a year and a half now.
“Is there any way you would let me see Aiden?”
“Not yet.”
“Could I call him or at least write to him?”
“You’ve already called him once.”
I glanced over at my dad shocked to hear that he knew about my one and only attempt to contact Aiden.
“How do you know about that?” I asked.
“Aiden told us.”
“Why?”
“Because he didn’t want us finding out any other way. He wasn’t sure you would tell us on your own, and he didn’t want us to think that he was trying to keep it a secret. He did the right thing. It was something you should have done.”
Guilt. It’s a powerful tool a parent can use against you.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I went behind your back and did that. But, I just wanted to hear his voice.”
My dad sighed. “I understand that, Caylin. I really do. But, I hope you listened to what Aiden said to you. Neither of you are ready for one another. I know you think you’re mature enough for an adult relationship but the simple fact of the matter is you’re not. You’re only sixteen. You have so much to learn about life and Aiden understands that. Plus, he needs time to get ready for you too. You’ll have your whole lives together, if that’s what the two of you choose. Don’t rush it. Enjoy the small moments between now and then because you’ll never get them back.”
I listened to what my dad said to me that day, like I always did, and tried my best during the next year to live each day to the fullest. But, my thoughts often drifted to Aiden, and I think my parents knew that. I would catch my mom looking at me with sympathy on my bad days. Those were the days when all I felt like doing was curling up underneath the covers on my bed and not emerging again until the pain subsided.
And those were the days when my family helped me the most.
Sometimes my mom would call Jess and the three of us would go on a shopping spree in some foreign country I hadn't visited yet. Since the places I can phase to are restricted by the places I have physically been, I knew this was my mom's way of providing me with a little more freedom. Uncle Malcolm seemed worried about me knowing how to phase to so many locations around the world, but he never said anything out loud about it, at least not to me. More often than not, he would accompany us but stay in the background, just keeping an ever watchful eye over our safety. Uncle Malcolm had always been protective of my family, but after my fifteenth birthday, he seemed even more so of me.
A week after my fifteenth birthday Uncle Malcolm became the English Literature teacher at my school. The teacher who had been in that position for over ten years won a multi-million dollar jackpot at Uncle Malcolm's casino on the coast the day after my birthday. Coincidence? I seriously doubted it.
Pretty much every female who was past the age of puberty at my school thought they were in love with Uncle Malcolm. I couldn't really say I blamed them, but I suppose growing up with so many handsome men around me all my life made his physical beauty just seem normal to me. Uncle Malcolm was polite to those who made passes at him, but didn't give anyone false hope he was even remotely romantically interested in them. No, my Uncle Malcolm's heart belonged to someone else, someone he could never have.
On the Valentine's Day after my sweet sixteen, I found a lavender rose waiting for me on my windowsill. According to the internet, lavender meant love at first sight. I'm pretty sure I wore a smile all day long after reading that and counted the days until my next birthday and my next present from Aiden.
The night before my seventeenth birthday I decided to try something. I sat a chair in front of my window filled with determination to stay awake all night long just to get a glimpse of Aiden when he left my gift on the windowsill. Unfortunately, I only made it to 3am that morning before my eyelids felt so heavy I just couldn't keep them open any longer.
When I woke up the next morning, I did something I almost never do. I cursed. Sitting out on the windowsill was a blue box with white ribbon wrapped around it. A small, white folded note was tucked underneath the ribbon. It read:
Nice Try
Aiden had obviously seen me sleeping in the chair waiting for him. I felt completely mortified. I just hoped I didn't have drool sliding out of the corner of my mouth when he saw me.
Inside the box was a small wooden model of a house, which looked like it had been expertly carved by skilled hands. The roof of the house was detachable. When I lifted the top, I found an old-fashioned brass key inside. I stared at it for a while feeling completely at a loss. What did it mean? What did it unlock? I had no way of knowing and felt sure I wouldn't find out until after my next birthday.
Leah and Joshua came to my house with Mason and Jess a little earlier than everyone else that day. They immediately made some lame excuse about a new music playlist they made for my party and dragged me back up to my room.
“What's going on?” I immediately asked as Joshua closed my bedroom door.
Leah smiled at me. “We have a present for you.”
Leah looked like the proverbial cat that ate the canary.
“Should I be scared?”
Leah rolled her eyes at me and waved Joshua over. Joshua pulled out his cell phone from his pocket and typed something in on the screen before handing it to me.
There, in full color, was Aiden lying in a white rope hammock with only a pair of black square cut swim trunks on. His eyes were closed and his curly, black hair tousled. I instantly knew it wasn't just a picture because the hammock was swaying.
“Is this live video?” I asked, my heart racing at the implications of such a miracle.
“Yep,” Joshua said with a devilish grin, “I hijacked one of the agency's satellites for you.”
As I stared at the screen, I suddenly realized exactly where Aiden was because I had spent a lot of time there with Jess and her kids.
“Is he at Jess and Mason's beach house in the Bahamas?” I asked just to make sure I was right.
“Yeah,” Leah said. “Apparently he goes there when he just wants to be alone for a while, at least that's what I heard Jess say to Mason.”
I watched as Aiden suddenly opened his eyes and stared straight up at the sky as if he knew I was watching him. He sat up on the hammock and ran his fingers through his wet hair before standing up and walking towards the ocean.
I handed the phone back to Joshua. My heart continued to hammer excitedly inside my chest because I was filled with a new determination.
“Cover for me,” I told them.
Before either of them could protest and potentially change my mind, I phased.
Over the years, Leah and Joshua would sneak me pictures they were able to take of Aiden on their cell phones. I even got small video clips every once in a while when they were able to make it seem like they weren’t actually recording him. But, for my seventeenth birthday, I wanted more. I needed more.
I phased in right behind one of the palm trees the hammock was tied up between. Cautiously, I peeked out from behind the tree towards
the shoreline. Aiden stood there with his hands on his hips looking out at the ocean like something laid heavily on his mind. I secretly hoped that something was me.
It was the first time since our first meeting that I got to fully take in the beauty of the man who had stolen my heart two and a half years earlier. All my life I had been surrounded by gorgeous men, but Aiden was more than that to me. Yes, he was everything a girl could want physically with his glossy, curly black hair, blue-green eyes, tanned skin, and muscular form. Physically, he was perfect. And in my heart I knew he was just as perfect on the inside.
I yearned to go to him. I desperately wanted to touch him even if it was just to hold his hand. But, I knew I couldn't let him see me. I didn't want him to get mad at me. It wasn't the way I imagined our next meeting happening. Before I lost the ability to control my urges, I phased back to my room.
“And where have you been?” I heard a familiar voice say behind me.
I turned to see my dad leaned up against the doorframe to my room with his arms crossed over his chest. Leah and Joshua were nowhere to be seen.
“Or do I even have to ask?” My dad said, as I stood there in complete silence, unable to fully meet his scrutinizing gaze. “Come on, Caylin. You have guests waiting to wish you a happy birthday.”
I followed my dad out of the house, knowing I had just been busted big time.
After everyone left my birthday party later that afternoon, my father took me into his study. I braced myself for what I knew would be an interrogation about where I phased to earlier, but as soon as we entered the room, I could sense a nervousness in my dad that had never been there before.
As we sat together on the brown leather sofa in his private sanctuary, I noticed him tapping his fingers across his thigh anxiously.
“Is everything ok?” I asked him, wondering if this was the moment I would finally be told what Jess and Mason told my parents two birthdays ago. What else could make him look so troubled?
“Everything’s fine,” my dad said, a strained smile on his face as he glanced in my direction. “Considering what happened earlier today, I realized it was time we had a little talk is all.”
