Lover of the Light

by Sydney Taylor

  It wasn't.

  Actions aren't more powerful; we need words to make things work.

  I could've told her that I love her. I could've told her that I'll be there for her no matter what she chooses to do. I could've told her that we have options and that I will never judge her, because my girl cares too much about what people think.

  She cares too much about what I think. Maybe that's love, though. Or something like it.

  I'm still struggling with knowing what I could have said and what I should have done.

  So, I tell Benjamin what I know.

  "I love Audrey. She doesn't know it yet, but I do. And I think I'm afraid I might say something to make her run away, but I sort of did that anyway without even trying. I fucked up..."

  I stop talking and look out the window to watch the trees blur past.

  I couldn't tell you what it is about these people, but they keep me honest.

  But, Benjamin is just like his sister.

  Yeah, he kicked my ass earlier, but he's over it.

  Beneath the shade and the rough exterior, he is kind.

  "Yeah," he says, as if I didn't just blurt out an entire speech. "I can see that. I know you're scared, but you don't have anything to worry about. I mean …" He laughs. "Life is crazy, and we're all gonna fuck it up at some point. You're thinking too much and saying too little. My sister understands. She's can have her moments, but she knows. I don't know much about you or your family, man, but you're not alone. Even the chief made sure of that when he let Audrey stay the night at your place."

  I groan, hating myself even more. "Fantastic."

  He laughs again. "Don't be afraid to talk to people. Ask for help. No one expects you to know all the answers."

  I stare at my driver, the escape artist, and I know he's right.

  "Yeah," I whisper.

  He begins to sing a song about asking for help, and I laugh. It's almost like Brightside's here in the car with me.

  Benjamin is driving me all the way to Chicago, even though I didn't do anything to deserve it. I have a messed up face, a pregnant girlfriend who may be on a train somewhere without any money, and I have her cell phone in my back pocket.

  My anxiety is high, my heart is slamming against my ribcage, and I have no idea what I'm doing.

  But I'm seventeen.

  I need help, and I'm not alone.

  I'm going to get her, and we're going to figure this out. Together.

  I don't know how yet.

  And that's okay.

  4:56 p.m.

  "So, there's this new girl in town... I call her Brightside, sometimes. Chase likes her, but he says she smells like trees. I think she smells good, like lavender.”

  I suck at this. I don't even know what I'm trying to do, but Benjamin seems to think this will help me.

  I don't know.

  Maybe it will.

  "Anyway, I think she's going to have my baby."

  I stare at the headstone like I'm waiting to gauge its reaction.

  Three rows ahead, Benjamin sits on Emily Lancaster's grave, chowing down on a seven-layer burrito. He's got his phone to his ear, talking to his mother and reassuring her that we are riding with our seatbelts on. Some cheese falls on his shirt. He cranes his neck to lick it off.

  I have only spent a few hours with him, but I've decided that he's one of the most cringe-worthy people I've ever met. He’s also one of the funniest and, like Audrey, he’s filled with life.

  "I don't really know though yet. I don't even know if I want that. I have"—I check my watch—"twelve hours to figure that out."

  A bird flies overhead and lands in a nearby willow tree. I find myself watching it as it navigates its way through the shrub.

  "Uh… yeah… I haven't known her for long, but I think you'd love her. She's the coolest chick in the world. Life doesn't suck so much, you know?" I purse my lips. "Of course, you don't, you're dead. Life doesn't get any shittier than death."

  I roll my eyes.

  "I don't think I'm ready to have a kid, I don't even know if that's what Audrey wants. I wasn't even really ready for a relationship either, but that just happened."

  This isn't helping me.

  But I go on, anyway.

  "This is all kind of messed up. We get three options, we get to make a choice, and still, they all suck. I don't know what I can do to make this any easier, but I'm going to try. I don't want to lose Audrey. I don't want to lose what we have, or what we could."

  I stare at the headstone a little longer.

  I nod, convinced that helped. "Good talk, Dad."

  I feel my phone buzz in my pocket, and I slide my hand in to retrieve it.

  Reason number three-thousand to be grateful for Audrey Sawyer: she convinced me to get this fucking phone, and I don't know what I'd do without it.

  I look at the screen, and my heart stops for a millisecond before it picks up to a speed twice what it was before.

  I'm not panicking. This is a different kind of anxiety.

  It's an unknown number.

  I slide the answer bar over and put the phone to my ear.

  "Hello?"

  For a moment, it's so silent that I think the caller has hung up. And then I can hear everything at once; a whoosh of muffled voices, a cry, someone sneezing, a laugh, and, lastly, a familiar soft sigh.

  "Blake."

  Chapter 17

  May 12th, 2012

  5:00 p.m.

  What do you do when your girlfriend is crying hysterically on the phone and you can't get her to calm down? What do you do when she tells you that she can't have an abortion, so she panicked and left in the middle of the night? What do you do when she begs for you to take her back, even though you never let her go in the first place?

  The answer: "I know. You're okay. We're okay. Everything is going to be fine."

  And repeat, because she won't hear it the first few times you say it.

  Audrey is choking on her own sobs. I'm trying to piece together what she's trying to say to me, but it comes out in short but frenzied apologetic phrases.

  "Please don't hate me."

  "Please don't leave me."

  "Please don't let me go."

  I decide not to tell her that her brother kicked my ass.

  "I don't hate you." I try to sound strong, soft and soothing. "I could never hate you."

  You can only say so much when someone you care about is upset. Sometimes you just must let her cry.

  Sometimes you just have to say what you can, and hope she'll listen. Repeat what you know until she finally understands.

  "I could never hate you."

  "I would never leave you."

  "I can't let you go."

  I try to make Brightside find her light again by saying things like, "I know you can't do it. I don't want you to do it."

  And: "everything will be okay."

  And: "we'll figure it out together."

  Then: "I'm on my way. Just breathe."

  Eventually, Audrey's sobs reduce to small whimpers, her choking transforms into hiccupping, and her pleas grow silent.

  I listen to the sound of her breaths slowing and softening.

  "I'm scared, Blake."

  "I know," I tell her, because I do.

  I'm terrified. Audrey's fears were and are mine, too. I don't want her to hate me, leave me, and let me go.

  We're two kids without a clue what to do, and we're holding onto each other.

  She's my greatest mistake, and I'm hers. She doesn't want me to hurt her with my silent treatments and my heart failing to open itself up to her. She doesn't want to do something that I'm going to resent her for, and that's why she's on a train, crying into a stranger's phone.

  She's running away from heartbreak, and I'm chasing after it.

  But her phone call reminds me of why I can't get this girl out of my head. She knows what her heart can handle, she wears it on her sleeve. And that doesn't include ridding of the life that she and I created.
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br />   We are two kids who don't know what to do, but we know what not to do.

  And, honestly, with Audrey, I feel like we can figure it out. This girl could help me figure out rocket science. She helped me understand how car engines work.

  I have faith.

  Standing up from my spot in the grass, against my father's headstone, I keep the phone to my ear and head back to the car while Benjamin revs the engine a couple of times.

  "Just breathe, Audrey. Wait for me."

  I hear her take a deep breath and exhale. "I will."

  Chapter 18

  May 12th, 2012

  Time

  I don't have all the answers.

  Heck, I don't have any of the answers.

  I think my grade point average alone is enough to attest to this fact.

  I don't know much, but I do know that you can get from my home in Harrison, Texas to Chicago, Illinois in less than two days. If time really means that much to you, you can drive these thousand-something miles in sixteen hours and fifty-two minutes; this I figured out on a Taco Bell napkin.

  You could speed down the highway, break the law, and force yourself to stay awake just to get all the driving out of the way.

  Or… you could take your time.

  Of course, I'd rather go with the latter, but my escape artist would disagree.

  "We'll get there before she does," Benjamin informs me as we drive the I-97 North. "We have time."

  Time flies before it crawls. I glance at the clock and it's five. A few moments later, it's seven. Hours later, it's still seven.

  Forty-eight hours ago, if someone told me I'd be making a new friend, I would've laughed in their face.

  I would've said: "I don't need a friend, I need a miracle."

  I would've been wrong.

  Benjamin makes conversation by asking me about my hobbies, my drawings, and my favorite music. He never gets too deep by asking personal questions about my mother, or inquiring about my father's death, but I almost feel compelled to tell him about it anyway.

  I don't know much about friendships because I don’t have many of them, but I think that they can manifest in even the most unexpected places.

  We discuss baseball, and other things we’ve grown out of. We share our excitement over art. I like to sketch, but he’s into painting. We talk about his sister and her addiction to pre-packaged cakes and Sunny D, and I try not to laugh when he tells me how bad it really is.

  "It has always been a problem," he tells me as I drive down a highway that I have no idea how to navigate. We’re passing Missouri, and it’s colder. Winds drift in through the cracked windows of the car and graze through the hairs at the back of my neck as I jerk my head from Benjamin to the road.

  "Audrey would go through sugar withdrawals in Chicago. She'd steal change off my dad's dresser and sneak down to the nearest store, so she could pig out. My mom would find out later and she'd give her a lecture on GMOs before she'd make her drink baking soda and water to put her body in homeostasis. Crazy, right?"

  Crazy doesn't even begin to cover it.

  He laughs. "I know it seems unorthodox, but it's one of those crazy things moms do to show that they care, you know? She tried the best she could, but we still make mistakes. We still drink and smoke and eat crap."

  Sadly, I do.

  "Moms are crazy," I agree.

  Benjamin is an easygoing conversationalist, but he has his moments. Just like Brightside, he gets excited about things he's passionate about. Animatedly, he speaks with his hands and his facial features. Just like her, he tells a story within a story and eventually gets so distracted to the point where he just gives up.

  He comes back to his original story minutes later.

  He talks about his favorite movies, and I pretend to know what he's talking about.

  He tells me about the girl who stole his heart, and how these few months without her have been hell. This time, I do understand. I feel like I've been living in hell too, until I met Brightside. She put me through hell once or twice, and maybe I'd still be stuck in it if it weren't for Benjamin.

  He informs me that Hannah and Audrey have been best friends since birth and that he's surprised they were able to keep apart this long.

  The cold doesn’t last long, because Missouri can’t decide which season it’s in.

  "It's not a surprise to me," he says as we pass the state line. "Hannah has always been Audrey's security blanket, in a way. When she'd panic or get into fights, she'd run to her to sort out her problems. She felt safe with Hannah."

  We don't run out of things to talk about. We ask questions, we talk about the trivial things; about things that don't really matter.

  And we talk about things that do.

  I end up telling Benjamin why my dad was buried so far from my hometown, and he doesn't pass any judgments. He just listens.

  Times flies.

  May 13th, 2012

  4:45 a.m.

  "I'm sorry."

  "Tell me about the train," I say instead.

  I'm sitting on the curb outside of a Motel 6 with one of Benjamin's cigarettes between my thumb and forefinger and my iPhone wedged between my shoulder and left ear. Benjamin is inside the motel room recharging while I talk to Audrey. He told me that I need to sleep too, but I can't.

  Apparently, neither can Brightside.

  "It's empty, for the most part." I hear her sigh. "There's this woman named Emily. She keeps coming over and talking to me. Her husband is here, too. He smells like Aqua Velva. He bought me a bottle of Yoo-Hoo."

  I groan into my hands.

  "Don't talk to anybody, baby."

  "They're harmless."

  I am freaking the fuck out.

  "You don't know that." My volume increases with my anxiety. "You're sixteen. They could kidnap you."

  "They're in their seventies, Blake. Emily is letting me use her phone."

  I feel better.

  "How are you getting along with Benjamin?"

  I still haven't told her that her brother kicked my ass.

  "Good," I tell her honestly. "Your brother really likes graffiti art. He swears he met Banksy."

  She laughs lightly. It's the best sound in the world. "Uh huh."

  My lips curve up just enough to form a smile. "Yeah, I figured."

  There's this peaceful moment of silence between us when all I can hear is the steady sound of uncorrupted breathing. We aren't talking about being scared and clueless, and we aren't apologizing to each other for the mistakes we've made.

  "Blake …"

  I toss my cigarette to the road, deciding in this moment to never to smoke again. It's gross.

  I push a hand through my hair, sighing away from the phone. "I'm here."

  Time crawls.

  "Thank you."

  I don't know what kind of girl thanks the guy who got her knocked up, but I know she's not grateful for that.

  We just missed prom, and we're going to miss a few days of school because of this. She just hopped on a train to Chicago, and I'm okay with driving one five hundred of the thousand between us to meet her there. I’d drive all of them.

  "Don't thank me," I whisper, rubbing my hands over my eyes. "Just tell me you won't run away from me again."

  I know she won't. I hope not.

  There's a second of silence, a sigh, and a sniffle. “I won't. I promise."

  *

  I don't rush to Chicago.

  I do what Benjamin tells me I should do, and I take my time, because I've learned how important it is to be patient.

  We leave Missouri before dawn breaks.

  I have enough time to make a couple of stops along the way. I call my mother and pretend that I'm hiking through the woods when I'm hiding out in a truck stop bathroom a thousand-plus miles from home.

  I have enough time to get Taco Bell and McDonald's, and all the shitty foods of America to give me gas. I have time to have a burping contest with someone who makes me cringe and laugh at the same time.<
br />
  I even have time to let my mind reel while I drive with the radio off and the windows rolled down, and I don't feel like I'm freaking out. I think about all the things that I've done, and I have panic attacks every time I hit traffic, because although I have patience, I only have a little.

  It's enough time to figure out how I feel.

  *

  Benjamin and I get from my small town in Harrison, Texas to Chicago Union Station in one day, fifteen hours, and forty-five minutes.

  Waiting for us there is a girl. Two girls, actually. One I came here for, and another who sees my newest friend over a bustling crowd of people waiting at by the help desk. One girl smiles and breaks off into a full jog headed toward us.

  This girl is Brightside's best friend, and she practically mauls Benjamin at the train station.

  I tear my eyes away from this intimate display between two people who've proved to be of a strange significance to me and scan my eyes around the large building.

  Inside, I'm still nervous.

  I can't help it.

  All of this started with a smile—a hopeful smile. I didn't know why I welcomed her into my life, but her smile was only the beginning. When I'm around her, I don't even have to think, which could be the worst or the best thing ever. It led to us creating a life.

  Not knowing what else we're capable of together makes me nervous.

  Brightside was right. Together, we are one and the same.

  I still don't have all the answers.

  I'm in trouble.

  A lot of trouble.

  Basically, I'm screwed. And I'm nervous because we only have so much time to figure out something that will affect us for the rest of our lives.

  The girl I drove halfway across the country to find answers with is leaning against the help desk wearing a somber expression and my favorite hoodie. She doesn't realize I'm here yet, but her face shows that she's waiting for me. Her brown eyes are tired and unfocused, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip and her eyebrows are furrowed with concentration.

  She's too deep in thought to notice that her friend has left her side; too gone to notice that I'm here.

  I take one step in her direction, and her head finally snaps upward. Her eyes find mine in an instant, and the hopelessness vanishes.