In This Moment

by Autumn Doughton

  “Do you know how many times I’ve played the what if game with myself?” The words are fizzing in the air before I can register the lines on her face. “What if we hadn’t gone that night? What if we’d gotten a ride with Brian?” My voice breaks and tears begin to roll down my cheeks. I can barely make myself look at her but I keep going. I came here to talk to Jillian’s mother and that’s what I’m going to do. “What if I had known about the pills? How could I have not known, right? She was my best friend and I thought that was the kind of thing that we told each other. Maybe she’d gotten good at pretending… I-I don’t understand any of it and still, I wake up every morning and think: What if I could go back to that night and choose all over again? What if?”

  Mrs. Kearns takes a step forward then stops. “But you can’t.”

  “Right. I can’t.” I think of Jillian, taking my hand, jumping into the void. And I think of her taking my keys out of my hand, laughter creasing her eyes. I’m fine.

  “Aimee…”

  “I’m sorry. I just… God! I miss her so much that it hurts. And sometimes it hurts so much that I’m convinced she’s trapped inside of me trying to beat and claw her way out of my chest.” I pound my fist against my breastbone. “And I don’t even know if that’s what I want… because, because… if she gets out—if the memories stop haunting me—I’ll be alone. Really and truly alone.”

  “Oh, Aimee,” she says and her voice holds more sadness than anger. “It’s me that wants to go back. What if I had been stricter? What if I’d gotten her into ballet instead of swimming? What if I were the type of mother to search her daughter’s room? Would I have found the pills then? What if I could go back and live an entirely different life? Would one single choice make a difference?” She closes her tear-soaked eyes. “And, honey, I’m the one who should be telling you that I’m sorry. You were just a kid—a kid that I loved and then turned my back on for one mistake and all the other things that you couldn’t control. Do you know what Jillian would do if she were here right now?”

  Unable to look her in the eye, I give my head a little shake.

  “She’d slam a door in my face and not talk to me for over a week.” Mrs. Kearns finds my hand, winds her fingers into mine. Her skin is warm and smooth. “You aren’t to blame for Jillian’s death. You never were.”

  I’m so overwhelmed that I can’t lift my voice above a whisper. “I didn’t know about the pills. I didn’t know.”

  She doesn’t respond, but she nods her head like she believes me, and she pulls me into her arms and squeezes me hard against her body. “Come inside,” she says against my hair. “Please.”

  So I do.

  ***

  One thing I know from watching all those movies with Cole is that real life doesn’t work out the way that it does onscreen. In real life, you rarely know the right thing to say and the best parts aren’t condensed down to a manageable script that wraps up at the two-hour mark. The director never calls cut. There isn’t a period at the end of the last sentence. There’s a question mark.

  If my life were a movie, fresh from seeing Mrs. Kearns, I would go to the tabernacle of Jillian’s grave and I would sprawl out on a pallet of lush green grass under a sunlit blue sky. I’d talk out loud for hours, telling her all of the things that she’s missed. The breeze would pick up along with a stirring musical score. A white bird of some sort might take flight from a nearby tree and I would just know, in some secret place inside of me, that Jilly and I are okay.

  Real life doesn’t work quite like that, does it? It’s jumbled up and it’s messy and there are too many thoughts, too many feelings curling around inside of you. You can’t unwind them and say for certain, “this is this, and that is that.”

  It’s not like that.

  It’s like this: grass, scorched and brittle under my sneakered feet and sweat pooling in the butt of my bathing suit from the bike ride over here. Real life is me slapping occasionally at the no-see-ums circling my ankles as I silently stare at the stone tablet that marks the spot where my best friend’s ashes are buried. Real life is me searching for answers but winding up feeling more lost than ever.

  Looking around, the only thing that I know for sure is that she’s not here. Not in this place. There’s no way Jillian Kearns would stick it out for eternity in a humdrum Florida cemetery full of browns and greys and a bunch of decaying old farts. Not a chance. She’d go where the action is.

  I will if you will.

  I tilt my face to the sky and something that Mrs. Kearns told me earlier comes back to me.

  “When you girls were about ten or eleven, I was driving the kids to school and I asked them who they would be if they could be anybody. I don’t remember Daniel’s answer. I’m sure that he said he’d like to be the President or some famous athlete with a massive endorsement deal.” She pushed my hair back from my face and sought out my eyes. “Do you know what Jillian said?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’ll never forget it because it was such an odd thing to say. She told me that she’d be you. You, Aimee.” She cupped her hand to the place where my heart beat under my skin. “Maybe you aren’t wrong. Maybe she is inside of you. But I don’t think she’s making a racket because she’s trying to get out. I think she just wants to make sure you know that she’s there.”

  Cole

  I can’t explain what’s happening inside my head. It’s like trying to describe in one concise sentence how and why Terminator Salvation went so very wrong. It’s more like, where do I begin?

  If I had to bottom line it? Then I’d say that I’m fucking sick and tired of getting in the way of myself.

  I’m not sure exactly what I’m supposed to do next, but I’m pretty sure that I have to do something or I’ll just get swallowed into the bottomless vacuum of dead space that’s been carved out where my heart should be.

  So, on Wednesday night, I dial the numbers one at a time and then I bring the phone up to my ear.

  When she answers and I hear her voice—live and unscripted—for the first time in three years, I make myself take a breath and I say, all casual like, “So, there’s this girl…”

  My mom, to her credit, doesn’t miss a beat. She doesn’t get gooey on me. She doesn’t breathe heavily into the mouthpiece, or start to cry, or heave the phone across the room.

  Nope.

  Like she doesn’t have a terminal brain tumor, like we talked yesterday, like there isn’t a giant elephant sitting on top of her, she says, “There always is. What’s her name?”

  Aimee

  “I, for one, think that you should just call him.”

  I look up from my book and see Mara staring at me anxiously. She slides onto the stool next to me and props her elbows on the dark grey granite counter.

  “Call who?” Mom tosses two halves of a cracked eggshell into the garbage can. She’s making a batch of pumpkin-zucchini muffins for the morning.

  “Cole,” Mara answers. “I think that she should call him and tell him that she misses him.”

  Mom nods thoughtfully. “He was a very attractive young man.”

  I put my hands up and duck my head to the counter. “Ugh. I’m not—I can’t even have this conversation with you guys. Honestly.”

  Dad walks in the kitchen. “What are we not talking about?”

  “No.” I adamantly glare at my mother and my sister. “Definitely not.”

  Ignoring me, Mom says: “Cole. Mara thinks that Aimee should reach out to the boy and settle things.”

  “Mmm...” Dad nods his head once and sits down at the kitchen table.

  “Ugh!” I moan. “We’re not doing this.”

  Mom points a wooden spoon at me. “Remember that Dr. Bernstein told us that communication is key.”

  “Then let’s communicate. Let’s talk about something else… anything else!”

  Dad pipes up. “I read an article in Men’s Health about kayaking and—”

  Mara cuts him off. “I saw Daniel on campus the other d
ay and we talked about the situation.”

  That whips my head around. “You what?”

  “Daniel Kearns?” Mom asks as she measures out a half-cup of vegetable oil.

  “Yep. If you remember correctly, we do know each other from high school.” Mara clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “Anyway, Daniel agrees with me. And the two of us have decided that if you and Cole don’t talk soon, we’re going to have to pull a parent trap number and force you together.”

  “You’re not my parent, Mara,” I say, twisting my hair over my finger.

  Mara flares her eyelids. “You know what I mean. Daniel told me that Cole is still completely heartbroken.”

  Mom’s forehead creases and she frowns. “Poor thing.”

  “Mom, it’s not—” A loud noise interrupts me.

  “Wha—”

  You would think, with the way the members of my family react to the sound of the doorbell, that we’re Colonials and this is the eve of the British invasion.

  Mara yelps. Mom drops the wooden spoon she’s holding.

  “What the?” That’s dad, checking the digital clock above the stove, furrowing his brow.

  Mom titters, moves the mixing bowl back to the center island opposite the sink. “Don’t answer it, Carl.”

  “Why?” I interject, stepping off the barstool more out of instinct than curiosity.

  Mom runs the wooden spoon under the tap, wipes it on the bottom of her apron and shrugs delicately. “Could be burglars.”

  “Burglars ringing the doorbell?”

  “You never know…”

  Dad ignores her and strides to the foyer with me on his heels. The doorbell sounds again.

  “Coming!” He bellows, flipping the lock with his left hand.

  “Shhhh!” Mara is pushing herself into my back.

  “Shhh, what? I don’t understand why we’re all so jumpy.” I glance over my shoulder and see Mara and Mom both creeping up behind me, back-to-back, shoulders curved forward like quotation marks.

  “Oh.” Mom’s changing expression is my first warning. Mara’s gasp is my second.

  Nerves escalating, pit in my stomach gaping open, chills prickling over my skin, I swivel my neck around and look.

  One. Two. Three. Breathe.

  It’s Cole.

  I can’t quite believe it, but of course it’s Cole.

  He really is standing here—just this side of my front door with his blond hair looking blonder and his green eyes looking greener and his muscly body looking more muscular than ever.

  I’m hyperaware of every single breath, every flutter of air that passes in the space between us. Cole moves his mouth slightly and I feel an answering tingle nip below my navel.

  My mom is the first to break the magical spell and speak. “Cole, how nice to see you.” She comes forward, tugging on my hand as she passes by.

  Her words seem to spur the rest of the Spencer clan into motion. Dad starts in about his new kayak (what is with him and the kayak?), Mara blathers something about midterms. Mom nods appropriately and does a lot of smoothing of her clothes.

  This is surreal. I’m almost afraid to blink my eyes, but I do, and my faith is rewarded by the fact that he doesn’t just… evaporate. He’s still standing here in my house, with his weight on one leg, hands tucked deep into his pockets, talking to my family like a normal human, all while keeping his eyes on me.

  An awful thought hits me and my hand snaps to the rat’s nest that is my unwashed hair and my eyes dart down to the old camp shirt that I found and slipped over my head after I got home from the pool.

  Nice.

  “Um.”

  Everyone turns and looks at me expectantly. I try again. “D-do you guys, um, mind if Cole and I go outside for a second?”

  Cole

  The longer we just stand here staring on her front porch with a frail wind kicking up around our feet and the stars flickering above, the more the pressure builds.

  “How’d you…” Her voice trickles away.

  “Daniel. He gave me your address.” I can tell that she’s about to ask another question but I don’t give her the chance. I drove down here because I have something to say and I’m going to say it. “I want to ask you a question, but first, can I just talk for a minute?”

  Aimee nods her head like she’s on autopilot. She’s got her eyebrows pulled together and her mouth pursed into a pucker and I can see that her whole body is practically shaking. I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad sign.

  I draw in a breath and let it out. “I called my mother earlier.”

  “Oh.” She pulls her arms around her body. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “We’re not alright but… we’ll see. It was actually her that told me to come here to see you. She pointed out that girls are big into the romantic gesture thing. I told her that you weren’t like most girls, which is true. But then I started to think that maybe she had a point.” I remember our first official date. Aimee said that she liked flowers and I realize that I probably should have brought her flowers or chocolates or bacon covered donuts or something. Ah, fuck it. All I’ve got is me and I’m going to keep talking even if it kills me. “But before I get into the whole romantic gesture, I need to tell you that you were being an idiot when you ended things.”

  She makes a sound and her eyes change.

  “Don’t look like that. It’s the truth. Pulling away from me was a bad call. I don’t need space to figure things out or get my shit together. I don’t need time or a shrink or a priest. I need you. I need you like I need air. And don’t think that I’m a codependent bastard who wants to smother you because it’s not like that. It’s not. The truth is that we make each other better. You make me better. Aimee, you make me want to be a better man.”

  She looks down, pulls on the bottom of her t-shirt. “Cole, I—”

  “I’m not done yet.” I blurt, pushing my hand back into my hair. “I actually stole that line from a movie but you didn’t know that, did you?”

  She shakes her head and bites her bottom lip. Fuck. That lip.

  “See? I know you, Aimee Spencer. I know you inside and out, and you know me. Shit. You’re crammed so far under my skin that it’s like my feelings can’t even take one step without tripping over a part of you.” I shuffle toward her. As long as I’m still breathing, I’m trying. “I want to be with you. And that might be selfish of me, but I never claimed to be selfless or a good guy. Maybe the circumstances aren’t perfect and maybe we don’t make sense all of the time, but as long as my heart is going and I’m still breathing, I’m going to try for you. I’ve got to fucking try because that first day… Aimee, you weren’t the only one that fell.” I take a long breath, attempting to control the maelstrom of words moving through me. I focus my gaze on her—on that one freckle on her cheek. “Now I have to ask you a question.”

  Her voice is soft and uneven. “Okay.”

  This is it.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Breathe.

  No thoughts.

  No worries.

  “After all of it… the good, the bad, the in-between… If I told you that I love you, what would you say?”

  Aimee

  Love is a choice.

  Cole is standing statue-still looking at me hard. His question reverberates in my ears. If I told you that I love you…

  “I’d say that loving me is a bad idea.” All we’ve got are moments so I don’t make him wait long, maybe just a second or two. “And then I’d tell you that I love you too, and I’d probably throw in a sonnet or something else equally as cheesy.”

  His eyes shift and he gets this look on his face. God, I love that look. “Yeah?”

  My shrug is matter-of-fact like I’m not on the verge of unraveling into a boneless puddle. Cole Everly drove to my parent’s house and has placed his heart in his palm and passed it over to me. I’d say that it’s a feat of nature that I’m still able to keep myself upright. “This
is hypothetical, right?”

  Cole keeps his gaze locked on mine as he takes another step forward. Now he’s so close that I can see my reflection shine on the surface of his eyes and feel the warmth coming off of his body.

  “Definitely hypothetical,” he says, reaching out to touch my hand. One by one, he lays his fingers against mine, telling me with his touch what he feels.

  “Well, then…” I glance down at my bare arm. It’s covered in raised bumps and I’m pretty sure that my entire body is trembling like a Chihuahua. “Yes, I would. Probably Shakespeare. You know, like, ‘shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ or something.”

  “Shakespeare?” His voice is tinged with wonder. He lifts his other hand and cautiously brushes my hair away from my face.

  “Shakespeare,” I confirm, swallowing hard.

  We look at each other for a long time, barely touching, feeling the heartbeats move over us and through us. I think about those lines, the ones that tangle in the space between, winding, stringing us together. I think about the rhythm of Cole’s heart and the predictable whoosh of his hot breath moving over my skin. And I think about Jillian knocking against my ribcage to let me know that she approves. Do you hear that sound?

  “Come here,” he says as he slides his hand to the back of my neck and pulls me into his body.

  “Fina—” I don’t get to finish because Cole is kissing me, searing me, handing over the words with his tongue. I fall into him—well, I guess I fall. I’m certainly not holding myself up anymore. I register Cole’s arm wrapped tightly around my waist and his other hand coasting down the side of my body, pulling my left knee up. Oh God. Oh God. As he continues to greedily shape his lips to the contours of my mouth, I tip backward until my shoulder blades are pressing into the cool wood of the front door.

  “Holy shit.” I don’t even know which one of us mutters it.