Lily of the Valley (Flowering, #1.5)

by Sarah Daltry

  “Thanks, but they won’t,” I say.

  “You never know.”

  I nod. “I do. But she gave me a glimpse of something. And who knows? Maybe someday I can be even a small part of what I was with her. Because it was good with her. I was good with her.”

  “It sounds to me like you have something worth hanging onto if the chance comes up. Anyone who can make you love yourself, even a little, is worth fighting for.”

  I have nothing to say to that. Lily walked away from me last night. I would fight for her, but she doesn’t want me. I just need to be thankful that she was even in my life for the breath of an instant.

  Chapter 22

  I force myself to get through each day that follows. I throw myself into school and into practice. We got another gig for the weekend after Thanksgiving and this time we headline. It’s a big fucking deal and the band really helps me to drown all the thoughts.

  At first, I look for Lily everywhere. I think I see her a few times, but each time, I feel pieces of me shatter again, and soon I stop looking because it hurts too much.

  I have a huge programming project coming up for my design class and I work on that for days, barely sleeping, and it makes me feel more human again. It isn’t a replacement for anything, but it’s a distraction and I probably put together the best project I have in my entire academic career.

  Sober and celibate, I don’t have a fucking clue how to be alive. But some stupid voice in my head continues to tell me that someday, maybe she’ll come back. And I want to show her that I’m worth it. I know it’s delusion, but it gets me from day to day.

  Alana comes up to visit a few days before Thanksgiving. She’s been trying to give me my space, which after a week of her constant attention, I demanded. When she arrives, I have to fight my own damn body. As always, she looks fucking fantastic and she’s wearing a short ass skirt. My mind may still be living in a dream world where Lily is present, but my cock is happy to take what it can get. I don’t move to touch her though and she sits on my bed, crossing her legs.

  “I have no intention of fucking you,” she says and her eyes go to my ridiculous erection. Girls have no idea how much it sucks to be a guy sometimes. I’m still heartbroken but my body is totally ready to move on.

  “My body’s dumb. I can’t stop thinking about her. But yet, your legs look fucking great in that skirt.”

  She smiles. “Well, I’m happy at least part of you is ready to rejoin the living. But control it. I have some big news.”

  “Yeah?”

  She nods and takes out her cell. She passes it over to me and I look at the text she has open.

  We miss you. When are you coming home?

  I miss you, too. I’m actually getting a short leave for the holidays. I have to spend most of it with my family, but maybe…

  It’s a date.

  She signed off with a smiley face. I don’t understand. He hasn’t spoken to us in years.

  “But how?” I ask.

  “I got his number from his mom. You know, neither of us asked. For two years. We just dwelled on the fact that he left us. I wonder how many times he came back for leave, and how many times we could’ve gone back. Made it right again.”

  “It’ll never be the same, Alana. You can’t make it the same,” I argue.

  “Maybe not, but I can fucking make it something. Which is more than you’re doing, I might add.”

  “Not cool. She doesn’t want me.”

  “We thought Dave didn’t want us either. Maybe you need to try.”

  “It’s been almost a month.”

  She shrugs and holds up her phone. “It’s been two fucking years.”

  “Let’s just drop it,” I say, because it’s different with Lily. She’s not in some country across the globe; she’s down the hall. If she wants to come back into my life, she knows where I am. “Anyway, you coming over for our big Thanksgiving feast?” I ask.

  “Wild Turkey and Smirnoff Cranberry?”

  I sigh. It’s been our Thanksgiving tradition for nearly five years now. Since the first time, when Alana broke into her stepdad’s liquor cabinet and snuck over after he passed out. For a few years, Dave was also a part of it.

  I’ve been trying to behave, trying to be the kind of person Lily would want, but Alana’s my friend. It might be a stupid and self-destructive tradition, but it’s still a tradition. “Yeah,” I reply.

  “Awesome. I’ll be there as soon as my mom’s new boyfriend stops trying to pretend we’re a family.”

  She gets up and goes to my Xbox and grabs one of the controllers, tossing the other one to me. We spend the rest of the night shooting zombies and I almost forget.

  ****

  On Thanksgiving, Alana does come over, but she’s pissed when she arrives. And she’s sans alcohol. I’m a little relieved, because my pointless oath to Lily will be upheld now, but I’m also sad, because Alana and I don’t come from homes with traditions. Even if it was a stupid, fucked up one, it was still ours.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her.

  “My mother’s new boyfriend. He’s fucking intolerable,” she complains and throws herself onto my bed. I sit on the end next to her.

  “He didn’t try any shit, did he?”

  She rolls her eyes. “No. Not Owen. Fucking goddamn Donna Reed shit. He cooked an entire fucking Thanksgiving dinner. With stuffing. The homemade shit. Not even that stuff in a bag.”

  I laugh. “And?”

  “And then he wanted us to fucking talk about being thankful. He even thought I was going to stay in tonight. He brought board games, Jack. Fucking board games.”

  I shrug. “I like board games.”

  She rolls over and kicks me. “I’m twenty fucking years old. The only guys in my life have been assholes, drunks, pedophiles, or fucking train wrecks.”

  “And me,” I remind her.

  “You’re included in train wrecks, my friend. Right at the top of the fucking list.”

  “Nice. At least I’m good at something,” I say.

  “Jack, you need to save me. He wants us to go out tomorrow, all three of us, to buy a Christmas tree. And to decorate it. The last time I think I saw a fucking Christmas ornament was when my stepdad threw one across the room at my mom because she bought the wrong eggnog. We don’t do Christmas.”

  “Maybe you should,” I say and it’s said before I even realize it. I say it like it’s obvious, as if I wouldn’t be packing my shit and getting the fuck out were the situations reversed. I relent. “You can stay here for the weekend if you need to. I didn’t even see my grandmother today. She spent all day at the prison helping with the meal.”

  “That sucks. Weren’t you invited?”

  “Yeah. Have I ever gone?”

  She sits up. “I don’t know. I thought you were all about being normal now or something.”

  “That seems to be your current dilemma,” I tease. “But seriously, if you need a place to stay…”

  She shakes her head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll go buy a tree. But if the word caroling even leaves his mouth, I swear to God…”

  “Alana, it’s the 21 century. No one carols anymore. They send singing ecards.”

  “Yeah, you tell Owen that. I bet he fucking carols.”

  She’s complaining, but I know a part of her loves it. Because as much as it’s easier to hate everything and everyone, Alana isn’t all that different from me. And we both still have an inherent need to belong to someone. Her mother has always been so worried about her boyfriends that Alana learned a long time ago to be alone. But I can tell that she secretly loves the idea of buying a tree with a family, even if it is a dysfunctional one.

  I don’t even remember the last time we had a tree. Or Christmas for that matter. Usually my grandmother buys me a couple things and we have something to eat, before she takes off to see my dad – and I go see my mom. But it isn’t Christmas. Other than the fact that I get up at the ass crack of dawn, it could be any other day. Last year, my presen
ts were wrapped in baby shower paper. I teased my grandmother that she was going senile and she played along, but later, I saw the receipt and realized it was half off – and Christmas paper was too expensive. There’s something really sad about knowing that you’re so poor you can’t buy wrapping paper. Meanwhile, I’m off at school, living off a scholarship. These are the things that motivate me to do well in classes.

  “I didn’t get any booze,” I tell Alana, changing the subject and feeling a little empty.

  She shrugs. “It’s okay. I probably shouldn’t be hung-over tomorrow. Owen mentioned pancakes. Do people eat pancakes after noon?”

  I lie down next to her and hold her hand.

  “Are you all right?” She rolls onto her side and looks at me.

  “I’m fine. It hurts a tiny bit less every day.”

  “You know, Jack, if it’s meant to be…”

  “No, don’t give me that shit. Because I know what is ‘meant to be,’ and Lily and me? We’re not it. But I like thinking maybe that’s a stupid cliché and there is no meant to be.”

  “Come with us tomorrow?” Alana asks. “Buy the tree. Have some cider or whatever shit you drink when you have a tree. Hang that silver shit with me.”

  “It’s called tinsel.”

  “Yeah, tinsel. Come over tomorrow. Please?”

  I wonder if I can. I wonder if being at her house with her mother and Owen acting like normal people, doing normal things, will hurt too much. I can’t even picture these things. As far as I knew, they only happen in movies. But I don’t have to work and my grandmother will probably be tired from spending the day serving Thanksgiving dinner at the prison. What the fuck else am I going to do?

  “Sure. I’ll come over and buy a tree,” I say.

  ****

  Owen’s a nice guy. Like a genuinely nice guy. He talks to me like we’ve known each other for years, showing real interest in my major and telling me about his friend who works for a game studio. It’s surreal. I knew theoretically that people like Owen existed – people who are optimistic because they have a reason to be, people life has been easy for but who feel apologetic that it has. But I’ve never met one. I know nice people at the café, but most have been through their own shitty stories. Owen’s an only child, his parents are still alive and married, and he has always had good things happen to him. And yet, he is so excited to share with Alana, her mom, and me. As if he doesn’t see how far out of our realm of experience his whole life is.

  They’d already had the infamous pancakes by the time I got there and now we’re out looking for a tree. I have no memory of ever buying a tree. Does one just go out into the woods with an axe? I know that’s not the case because I’ve seen parking lots full of sad trees leaning on poles, but who gets these trees? Are they carried in a big fucking tree truck? I imagine it’s not worth it to ask, so I stay silent as Owen drives the four of us around town looking for “the right lot.” It’s grown dark by the time we find it.

  The right one is on the edge of town and it looks like no one comes here. A guy dressed in a Metallica t-shirt and jeans is the only person around and he glances at us once while we make our way through the trees. However, as soon as I walk into the aisles between the rows of trees, I get it. I’m overwhelmed by the smell of pine, the crisp coolness in the air, and the undeniable sensation that this is both normal and important. People do this. People are happy here. The trees are just trees, but because they’re here, they change everything.

  I keep to myself while the three of them pick out their tree. Although I was invited, I’m still an outsider. Instead, I walk the rows and I think of Lily. Is she buying a tree tonight? Is Derek with her? Do her parents bring him with them when they have holidays? I picture being here with her. Just us, me holding her hand, and smelling strawberries mixing with pine as she gushes about ornaments and presents and Christmas and things that remain alien to me.

  My heart is so fucking full of her and this fantasy, until I realize she will never be here with me. I’ll never be a part of that with her. I look up between the tilting treetops and, even with the clip-on lights in my eyes, I can see a smattering of stars. How can a person be so crushed by misery and yet be able to dream of something so beautiful?

  Alana comes to find me where I’m still standing and breathing in starlight.

  “We’re heading home now,” she says.

  I breathe deep one more time and follow her. As soon as I make it back out of the trees, the ghost of Lily fades and it hurts all over again. It’s been a month. How fucking long is it going to take?

  Chapter 23

  I spend the night on Alana’s couch after we decorate her tree. I suppose decorate is not the right word, since her mom owns three things that can pass as ornaments. Right now, there are a couple of lights and some tinsel Owen brought, the three ornaments, and one of Alana’s old teddy bears as a tree topper. It’s the most pathetic Christmas tree on Earth, but when we turned down the lights and sat by the colorful, albeit dim, illumination of the tree and ate Oreos her mom bought, it felt far more like a fucking family than anything else I’ve ever known.

  Now, everyone’s sleeping, but I have to work, so I leave a note and head home to shower and change before leaving for the café. My grandmother’s asleep as well, but I trip over a plastic bag from Wal-Mart as I try to get into my room. There’s a Post-It on the bag.

  Bought you a few things for school during the big sales on my way home. Missed you, Jack. So did your dad.

  I crumple the Post-It. I feel simultaneously guilty for spending no time with my grandmother and angry at her for mentioning my father. He’s never going to cease to come between us.

  I dump the contents of the bag on my bed. She bought me another set of sheets, which I shove in my closet behind a bunch of junk, where there are already four sheet sets. She seems to think I go through a fuckload of sheets, because she buys me sheets at least once every couple of months. I don’t tell her, which I suppose I should since she spends the money for nothing, but it would crush her. The thing is, though, the washing machine on my floor isn’t complicated. So I keep the sheets and every so often, I bring a set back to school, when the one set I have is starting to look old. I just can’t keep up because, well, no one needs this many sheets.

  There’s also a small saucepan in the bag, which I toss onto my pile of stuff for school. I’ll bring the pan back. My grandmother buys me four things: alcohol when I’m close to losing it, sheets for some imaginary bed that’s always eating them, shoes because she doesn’t know how to buy clothes for me, and pans. I have no fucking clue why she buys me the pans. I live in a dorm. I usually leave the pans in the shared kitchen on my floor, but no one really cooks in there. Because there’s the cafeteria and we’re all required to carry a mean plan. Maybe she thinks I love cooking since I drive so far to work at the café. I could never explain to her that it isn’t because I have a passion for cooking, but because I have a passion for running away.

  I get ready for work and leave a note on the board on the side of the fridge for my grandmother, remembering to thank her for the bag of stuff. It looks like it might snow, so I go back inside and add a PS telling her I borrowed the car. I don’t have a long shift today and she’ll probably be asleep for a while. She has my number if there’s any kind of crisis, but I’m sure she’ll just watch TV.

  As much as I miss the freedom of my bike, the advantage of the car is that I can listen to music. I pull a CD from my bag, just a collection of songs I burned, and I turn it up as loud as it’ll go. Of course, it isn’t all that loud since it’s my grandmother’s car and she drives the kind of car a grandmother drives. Still, it’s the release I need.

  The car is full of the sounds of people as bitter as I am and I sit for a minute. I’m not angry – not really – at the moment, but the music makes me think of Lily. I go back to the last night we were together, running the vibrator along her pussy until she screamed so loud that no music could cover how much she enjoyed it.
I wonder if Derek can make her come like that – and now I’m angry. I’m angry at the fact that I have nothing else to offer. I’m angry that he’s probably fucking her right now and she’s not even thinking about me. And I’m so fucking angry at her for walking away from me. I’ve cried, I’ve agonized, and I’ve longed, but I haven’t raged. Now I’m fucking raging.

  I grip the steering wheel tight and slam my head against it, which triggers the horn. I scream into the noise in the car and back out of the driveway before my grandmother comes outside to try to figure out why I’m honking the horn. It’s a long enough ride on empty roads that I savor the seething fire in my blood. It’s not healthy but it’s better than numbness and it’s better than wanting to die.

  By the time I get to work, the anger has dissipated. I’m left with only the embers of the scorched memory of a girl who could’ve been everything.

  ****

  After the long weekend, it’s back to the chaos of school and projects and practice. I can’t believe I still haven’t seen Lily around campus, but it’s probably better this way. The ache is still there, but I know seeing her will be like ripping a bandage off a seeping wound.

  On Wednesday night, at band practice, when Neil breaks out a bottle of Jameson’s, I take a shot, which makes me hate myself a little. But Lily is never coming back – and the whiskey helps to erase the past. I have no intention of getting drunk, but it’s a concession to the person I am.

  “You guys think this weekend will be something?” Neil asks.

  He loves this band. He loves the music and he loves performing. I, on the other hand, have no long-term plans. Sure, it’d be nice in theory, but I can’t truly imagine the life of a musician. I want to get away and leave no roots, but I don’t know that I want to escape on an endless tour with people I barely know.

  Music soothes me, but performing can suck. It can be a rush, but every show requires willpower I pull from a reserve that’s slowly going dry. Once the initial high wears off, the high that comes from the playing itself, not from the performing, I’m left with something else. All those eyes looking at me, all those people judging me. And to get up there and play something I wrote? Sure, Neil is the voice of my pain, but it’s still my pain on display. It’s still my time in the hospital or watching my father kill my mom that Neil’s singing about – and sometimes it’s even worse, because I can’t explain. I can only play my bass and stare at the faces of the people in the crowd, the empty eyes of people who live in a world where people don’t hang themselves. Nothing makes you feel more like a freak than displaying your suffering for the world – and having them miss the fucking point of it all.