by LJ Evans
“Mama, tell me the part about Jake making me!” I’d demand squirming in my sit, torn between wanting to hear the rest of the story and wanting to be done so that I could go find you. Mama would just smile her knowing smile at me.
“We were really lucky when we went to buy our first houses that there were these two beautiful places sitting right next to each other,” she’d start again.
“Because now Jake and I get to play together in one big yard,” I’d roll my eyes at her again, but she’d just smile. Making me be patient. That’s mama. She never gave in to me. Still doesn’t.
“And it was just the kind of town we wanted to raise our children in. Enough country left to be part of Tennessee, but big enough for your daddies to make a living selling cars.” And I guess we were lucky that they’d put down roots in a place that allowed us to run wild in the country mud and then visit a mall all within the same fifteen minutes.
“As the first child to come along, Jake was a big deal, you know. Marina and Scott named him Jake Carter Phillips with the Carter being after your daddy.”
“Mama!” I’d kick the table leg harder and more incessantly.
“Sweet tea and stories both take time, Camdyn.”
In the home movies from that time, you were the hit of both families. You were this dark-haired beauty with kaleidoscope hazel eyes that were always more green than brown. I know, you’d razz me again for calling you a beauty, but you were. Even then. Like some gift that the gods laid down on Earth to torture us mere mortals with. You wouldn’t disagree with that, would you? You’d called yourself a god more than once in our life. Your mama even punished you once for it… focus, Cam. Save that story for later.
Back to mama’s story… “Jake was a big deal for your daddies because as soon as he started throwing that football of his, it was always straight as an arrow and right on target. It was like some tall tale legend come to life, but Jake was a big deal for me because…”
“--he made me!” I’d interrupt, and mama would laugh.
“I was lying on the couch, that one right over there, sadder than I’d ever been,” she’d go on.
When she first started telling me this story, I’d stop her to ask why she was sad. Later, I knew it was because she’d lost a baby before me, so I didn’t even breathe a word because I didn’t want to hear about her or the lost baby. I wanted to hear about you.
“That dreamy little boy came over, laid his tiny hands on my tummy and said, “Drea. You be happy real soon.’ And he was right. It wasn’t even two weeks later that I found out I was pregnant with you. That Jake, he must have willed you into existence.”
And just like “Mary’s Song” gets stuck in my head, that picture of you gets stuck in my head too because you’d always been like that; able to will things into existence like my mama swears you willed me into being. You were smooth as the lake on a still day even at two. So, how was any young girl ever going to keep from giving you their heart when you grew up into a muscled, dark haired football hero with a sharp wit and a super-sized batch of kindness?
I always asked my mama the same question at this point. I asked, “And how’d you know I was a girl?”
Mama would wink at me and lean in real conspiratorial like, her brown eyes twinkling. “Well, that would be Jake again. One day he felt you kicking in my tummy, and he simply said, ‘That baby girl can’t wait to meet me,’ and so we all knew it was true. You were a girl.”
Swear to God that’s what my mama has always told me you said. My parents didn’t even come up with a boy name. I guess you were waiting for me then just like I had to wait for you later. And three years and two weeks after you were born, I came along. Camdyn Marina Swayne. My middle name, Marina, being after your mama.
From that moment in my mama’s stomach, when you said I was waiting to meet you, I was always waiting to meet you. Always waiting for your mosaic eyes to light upon me. It felt like that was the only time I ever was truly alive... when you were watching me.
Some kids do crazy stunts to get their parent’s attention, but the only person whose attention I ever wanted was yours. Did you realize that? Or did you just tolerate the crazy neighbor kid who couldn’t seem to leave your side? I don’t think you minded. I think we were always meant to be together.
my life as a Country album
(my life as an album series vol. I)
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my life as a rock album
Always
Letter One
“When you say your prayers, try to understand, I’ve made mistakes, I’m just a man.”
-Bon Jovi, Ingram, & Stanfill
DEAR BELLA,
I watched you walk away today. You went through security without looking back. I wanted to bust something. I wanted a drink. I wanted you.
You went away because I’m an asshole. I know you say that isn’t it. But if that wasn’t at least partially true, you’d still be here, or I’d be there with you. Either way, we wouldn’t be a fuckin’ country apart. The reality is, I can’t keep anything good in my life for long.
I almost bought a ticket at the ticket counter and followed you through security. I was in the damn line, had gotten my credit card out, and was called to the counter before your beautiful face flashed through my mind. And it wasn’t your adoring face. It was your pissed off face because I knew that if I followed you now, it would only look like I was trying to possess you again. As if I didn’t trust you to love me and go. As if I didn’t trust you to eventually come home.
And I realized the truth standing there. I don’t trust you’ll come back. But, that’s the messed-up part of me that has been tossed away and crapped on. The piece that was there before you entered my life. The piece that I thought I’d thrown out like the garbage it was.
But, I should know better than anyone how garbage can come back to life. Don’t I weld fragmented pieces together every goddamn day? And this garbage, this jagged, bitter piece inside me needs to be mended together so that when you come back, as you say you will, you’ll find someone soldered together with gold instead of cheap ass glue.
So that you can have someone who deserves you.
I can’t let you go completely though, Bella. I won’t. So, instead of crossing the line you told me not to cross and flying across this God forsaken country, or beating your family into a pulp trying to get your new phone number from them, I’m just going to write to you. I don’t know if you’ll even read the letters. And if you do, I can’t promise they’ll be pretty. I’m not a fuckin’ writer. But hopefully my words will be good enough for you to understand something important which is that where I belong is next to you and where you belong is next to me, and that’s all that matters. None of the other shit that you worry about is important. Just us.
You played that song by Bon Jovi all the time, but you still don’t believe it. So, I’ll just keep saying it, “I will love you forever and always.” And, hopefully, when you think of our memories, both the loving ones you cherish as well as the ones that made you want to say goodbye, you’ll be able to forgive me for making the mistakes I’ve made as the man I am becomes the man you deserve.
I’ll just leave you with one more thought. It’s something I wrote a long time ago. When I was a fucked-up kid, and it shows the fuck-up piece of me from a fucked-up life. But, it’s that dumbass kid who keeps kicking me in the ribs, so maybe you’ll understand that when I did finally obtain something, you, that it wasn’t something I was willing to walk away from. Not without a restraining order and a fuckin’ army.
I ache,
I can’t cry.
I hurt,
I can’t let go.
I wish,
I can’t obtain.
- Seth Carmen
Bed of Roses
Letter Two
“I want to lay you down on a bed of roses. For tonight I
’ll sleep on a bed of nails.”
-Bon Jovi
DEAR BELLA,
I tried to start this letter a couple thousand times now. There’s a damn room full of balled up paper to prove it. But the truth was, I just didn’t know where to start. In the end, I’ve decided to start at the beginning.
I can see you with your hands on your hips telling me that starting here is just my way of justifying my actions, but it’s not that. Well, not completely. I do want to explain what the hell goes on in this thick skull of mine. But, I will remind you that sometimes my actions, or rather my reactions, were justified. That asshole Michael… that stupid, shitty car… Crap, I’m off track already.
What I’m trying to say, badly, is that my past is the reason I respond the way I do. Why I think the way I do. But, it’s also why I love you the way I do. And so, I can’t believe it’s all bad.
When I met you, I was still sleeping on a bed of nails. A bed of my own making. Even though I thought I was living in the now and making my life into something my abuela would have been proud of, I really still had a whole band of voices in my head telling me what I did and didn’t deserve.
Now that I’ve met you, and touched you, and been inside you, all I want to believe in is the truth of you and me. The truth where we only need each other. That I can lay you down on a bed of roses and be by your side. But that’s now. It wasn’t then.
The first time I saw you, I thought you were her. That’s the reality. I understand you hate that. But, I can’t stop it from being true. I did a double take and my heart stopped, forgetting to pump blood, forgetting to send air through my veins while I locked my gaze on a mess of chestnut curls.
Locke and a client he’d brought to the gallery were talking. A fuckin’ droning in my ear like a toy plane which had gotten stuck on drive. But, once I’d seen her… you… I couldn’t shake my body out of its frozen position to listen or care. I was stuck in a sudden flight to Tennessee and spring air thinking, How the hell is she here?
I know Locke is the only manager who will put up with my crappy attitude, but even he narrowed his eyes on me when I didn’t respond to whatever the stupid conversation had been about. For one second, I thought he might snap his fingers in my face, and you know that would have ended in me without a manager and him in the hospital for reconstruction.
I stepped around Locke to try to see her again, you again. But, she was gone, and my brain went into panic mode. My breath was aching to get out of me, and yet I still couldn’t fuckin’ exhale. Sea turtles breathe every couple of hours. Humans aren’t built that way. I wasn’t built that way.
And then, I caught a glimpse of a purple dress once more. Cam had always liked purple. I turned my icy blue eyes to Locke and tossed out, “Whatever you think is fine. Text me.”
Before he could even try to stop me, I strode away with a single-minded purpose. Find her. Find Cam.
When I turned the corner around the waterfall mountain I’d created when I’d been nothing more than a shit-for-brains kid in Tennessee, I caught her staring up at the peacock at the top. It was a bird in flight, and I’d always imagined her as a bird because you couldn’t keep Cam down.
My breath finally returned in sharp, jagged movements as if my heart had been removed and then fucking shoved back into my chest. There was that tumble of brown hair with those chestnut highlights I’d once loved to tangle my calloused hands in and it caught me all over again. Silk on stone.
I was imagining the surprise that would be in her gray eyes when I eased up next to her. I was sure that it would be followed quickly by her shit-eating grin.
“Ms. Swayne?” I said hoping I sounded as suave and bad ass as she used to believe I was. But I was really that chicken of a teenager all over again because I couldn’t look down yet. I was worried I might still see the pity that was in her eyes the last time I’d seen her with a tanned, muscled arm that didn’t belong to me protectively around her waist.
So, when the voice that returned mine was a breathless volley, it shattered all my hopes into a million pieces like I’d once shattered a gilded cage with a glass bird inside it which was supposed to be her.
“Pardon me?”
It was your voice. And even at the time, in the middle of my tortured disappointment, I registered how sweet it was. It was light and melodic but it wasn’t the gravely, energetic one I heard in my dreams.
I looked down at you with what my abuela called my devil eyes. I know it. You know it. And when I did, I still caught some Cam in you. You weren’t a doppelgänger, but something like a wavy reflection in the water. Your eyes stopped me. They weren’t gray but instead shimmered with a hint of silvery mica that meant they would change colors with what you wore. That they’d change like the sky changes at sunset.
And I realized then, as I hadn’t from the brief glimpse of you, that there wasn’t any way in hell that you were tall enough to be Cam. Cam almost met me eye to eye when we were together, and even though I’d continued to grow once I’d left her, you were way too small. You barely reached my shoulder. At least a foot shorter than my six-two.
You’ve always accused me of being frustratingly vague. It’s so I won’t be brutally cruel instead. I don’t know another way. And, I couldn’t help the disappointment radiating off of me because you weren’t what I had lost and thought I needed. I’m sorry now that I hurt you. But then, I didn’t give a shit as I cursed at you and stormed away.
It took me all of five strides to be staring down at the liquor table. I could feel the thirst. Before that day, it had been a long time since I’d actively had to stop myself from pouring a drink. It had been five and a half years since I’d stopped. And there’d only been one time I’d slipped since then. Only one before you. But seeing you and not her… that fuckin’ letdown… it was enough to make me thirstier than I’d been since my mom died.
When you tapped my arm, I just continued to be the asshole I’d always been and ignored you because I was battling for control. Battling to come back from the edge of that loss of Cam all over again.
“Look, jackass, you mind telling me what the hell all that was about,” and that combination of your melodious voice and your harsh words dragged my attention away from the alcohol and my loss.
And in those few seconds, you changed my life.
I looked down at you and was caught in a whole different way. I could tell you were close to my age, but looked way more innocent. Like life hadn’t squashed you yet. I know that’s not completely true now, but at the time, that first impression was of angelic goodness.
Yet, even under that sweetness, I could sense you holding yourself together with something stronger. Like you were more steel than sugar. You were so many contradictions rolled into one that I couldn’t keep my eyes from devouring you.
Your face was all fine bones and heart shapes, but your body seemed all lean muscle. Your huge anime eyes were flashing at me with a bit of lightning instead of halos while your thick, curly hair seemed to have a life of its own that you couldn’t be bothered to control even though everything else about you screamed self-control. There had been hints of Cam in you, it was what had drawn me, but from that moment on, I swear to my abuela’s God, Bella, you never reminded me of her again.
As my eyes continued to take you in, you seemed to get more and more pissed. And, that’s what did it. I couldn’t help but smile at you then. My very best smile. The smile I reserved for getting what I wanted. A smile I hadn’t used in so long it almost tore my cheeks apart to use it. But, it got the reaction I needed because the lightning in those enormous eyes swallowed by dark lashes faded just a little.
I wanted to smooth out those ruffles of you just a hint more, so I drawled in my Southern accent that I’d never fully acquired in my short stay in Tennessee, “Sorry, darlin’, thought you were someone else.”
But you, this tiny, fairy like creature in front of me, were not taking my apology or my sexy smile. You put your hand on your hip daring me to try again.
And you continued to flip my entire world as you cast your spell. I’m not sure what you used. Pixie dust. Magic. You name it, but I was gone.
So, I continued to smile at you and continued to take you in from your dark lashes down to your pink ballet slippers that Cam wouldn’t have been caught dead in. The purple chiffon of your dress swung around mid-thigh, accenting your gorgeously toned legs.
“I heard you were an arrogant S.O.B. and that you were more likely to try to get my dress off than talk to me, but that can be a story too, right?”
Your fiery boldness made me chuckle. Your outraged tone and the sassy jut of your hip as if you were trying to give me a dress down were still full of those contradictions that continued to make my head spin and swell with brand new images of jewels and stone and ceramic.
You didn’t seem to appreciate my laughter. I tried to tame it as you turned to flounce away, but I couldn’t let you. Not yet, so I took two steps and caught your arm.
“Wait,” I said trying hard not to grin which made you even angrier or perhaps it was my hand on your elbow. Your face turned as pink as your shoes as you jerked your arm from me.
“Mr. Carmen, I’d advise you to stop while you’re ahead.”
“Shit. If this is ahead, I might as well as go all in.” And I reached over, pulled you to me, and kissed your full lips. The moment our mouths touched, desire hit me like a wave onto a rock.
You stiffened with shock before you relaxed into me, and you astonished me yet again by darting a tongue that tasted like bubblegum against my lips. I graciously responded by opening my mouth and engaging in some tongue tangling of my own. Just as you’d hit me in the pit of my belly with a craving no one else could quench, you shoved me and backed away with a strength that continued to rock my world with the paradoxes that were you.
