by Lyla Payne
I didn’t want her to see me that way even if she was asleep. It wasn’t any less embarrassing to face the suits outside the door, but since their job description listed keeping their mouths shut, hopefully news of my hiccupping sniffles wouldn’t make the Internet rounds.
Tucker had a cab waiting outside the hospital’s back door when I came out of the bathroom, feeling less of a mess after taking some deep breaths and splashing freezing water on my face.
I did it. I said goodbye. There was nothing left to do but move on.
This Morning
Toby came to see her, even though she’d almost ruined his life. Gotten him arrested. Complicated his father’s career. Left him. Slept with someone else.
Even after all of that, Kennedy could have woken up again to those sweet brown eyes.
She pretended to sleep, though. Because she loved him more than she ever would have believed she could love anyone. More than she ever expected to love anyone in the aftermath of her life.
His faith had enabled her to push past the curtain in her soul. It mingled with the faith her parents had in her, and eventually, way deep down, she found remnants of faith in herself. Kennedy was ready. To live. To think about ways to do it well, in ways that made her laugh and smile, and maybe even laugh and smile when she thought about her life before the accident. She wanted to do those things with Toby at her side, because he made her want to be better, but she wasn’t better yet.
She’d left because she’d read his screenplay, the one about his brother, and realized that it would kill her all over again if he stopped looking at her the way he did—with so much hope. If she woke up to those eyes after she’d fucked something up again, and saw hurt and disappointment. Saw the idea that she’d done it on purpose, because she hadn’t cared enough, hadn’t loved him enough…it would be too much. She would die again.
Toby wasn’t the only good thing that had happened to her. Kennedy had friends reach out. Ruby. As much as she complained, Blair had gone out of her way to be a friend when she didn’t have to. Audra cared.
But Toby was the thing Kennedy let happen. She’d cracked her soul on purpose, just enough to test the waters, but he’d barged all the way in, broken her wide open.
Weeks ago, the first time he’d brought her to the hospital, she remembered being sure that he would be her downfall. The person that made her feel the things that suffocated her in endless agony, face the memories that would undo her. And he had, but she had found more strength inside than she expected. A well, like he said. Once tapped, love and strength and hope kept bubbling up from somewhere. Grandmother must have been wrong, because those sorts of things didn’t come from the devil.
Kennedy hadn’t meant to be Toby’s downfall in return. She wouldn’t. He needed to make things right, keep on with his life, step away from the mess she helped create. She needed to be a girl worthy of him—a whole girl—before she might ask him to reconsider letting her back in.
It would take time. She might lose him. But for the first time in six years, Kennedy thought that, either way, she would be okay.
Chapter 26
Los Angeles had been, for me, truly a city of angels. They’d come in many forms—in the long hours of work on various sets and in multiple offices, in the apartment I shared with three other people who never stayed quiet enough to allow my thoughts to intrude, and in the form of Laine, a girl who had become the first real friend I’d had since Denton Summers had moved away to Minneapolis in fourth grade.
She’d pulled me out of my head and out on the town when I first arrived, especially on the nights when all I wanted to do was wallow in my misery, in the huge, intense way I missed Kennedy like I would miss oxygen if someone took it away. Together, Laine and I had written some pretty kickass scripts. It was weird, having a friend and writing partner for the first time, but it worked. We clicked.
Much the same way Kennedy had gotten under my skin in a moment, Laine’s and my partnership had sprung to life the first time we traded Jim Carroll quotes. It was like When Harry Met Sally, except I doubted we’d ever be anything more than partners and friends. You never know, I guess, but now that I knew what it felt like to fall for someone, I knew this wasn’t the same thing.
I hadn’t dated anyone seriously since leaving Whitman for the summer. Laine thought it was weird not to rebound, but it didn’t seem strange to me. I’d never met a girl I wanted to spend time with before Kennedy, so why should life after her be any different?
Not to say that it would never happen to me again. But it would probably be a while.
Laine gave me a hug, then handed me a gift bag. “Open it, loser.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a gift, dumbass. Don’t they teach you anything at your fancy school?” She rolled her eyes and toyed with the piercing through her bottom lip.
I pulled the tissue paper out of the bag and found a spare laptop charger and a card with the password to our new Dropbox account so we could keep writing together. My time in L.A. had also taught me that I didn’t want to mess with the financial end of the film industry at all, at least not until I tried and failed at making it as a writer. Kennedy had told me the same thing that night at Harbor House, when she’d latched on right away to the fact that writing wasn’t what I did, it was who I was. Strange to think she had seen it before me, but she had a knack for cutting right to the heart of things.
My change of plans would not be an awesomely fun conversation to have with my dad, but I felt ready. At least I had connections to show off, including compliments on my short film, which had been chosen for next year’s senior project at Whitman. The pilot episodes Laine and I had written had garnered helpful, positive feedback from some execs. The front office producers had given me excellent work reviews, too, and I supposed it wasn’t like I had to decide today.
But I had.
A cheeky dramedy we’d written about snobby college kids had even been taken to an acquisitions meeting over at The CW. It didn’t get a run for the fall season, but they said they would take another look this winter.
“It’s so we can keep writing even though you’re living in the third world for the next six weeks or something.”
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Switzerland is the opposite of the third world. And I still say you should come visit.”
“I doubt I would fit in with your family.”
Laine was more alternative than any friend I’d ever had. Even the outsiders at Whitman were born-and-bred preps—Laine’s tattoos weren’t tasteful and she had so many holes in her body I asked her once how water didn’t spill out when she drank it. But she was real. I dug it.
“My family isn’t any more judgmental than I am, Laine. Think about it. I’d love to get that short in shape before I have to go back to school.”
“Fine. But in the meantime, you’ve got enough power to write on the flight and then you can Dropbox me when you land.”
I pulled her into another hug and kissed the side of her head before shouldering my bag. It sucked to leave L.A. This place made me feel one hundred percent sure this was where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do, and being surrounded by all of these people my age or younger who were doing it—not going to school, but already paying their dues—made me feel as though Whitman was wasting my time.
I didn’t really believe that, though, and one more year was nothing. A degree meant everything to my parents, and it would feel good to have that accomplishment under my belt.
“Don’t look back. Not at your brother, not at Kennedy. Use the remnants of the feelings, but your writing isn’t your life, Toby. Remember that.”
“Okay, Yoda.”
She whacked me in the side of the head and we laughed, the serious moment lasting about as long as all of our serious moments. I’d told her everything about Trent and Kennedy after she’d read my short, and Laine had told me about growing up in the foster system. We talked about how the strength of the experiences colored the stories we
wanted to tell—how many of my characters dealt with some kind of physical or metaphorical addiction, while Laine’s writing oozed a fear of abandonment and followed journeys that led to the discovery of inner strength. It made us great partners, and the intimacy of our talks made us instant friends.
“I’ll miss you, Laine.”
“You, too. You rich asshole.”
I left the apartment with a smile and hailed a cab, tossing my two duffel bags into the trunk. My phone had no messages except one from Finn, letting me know that the Owls had made it to the College World Series. That made me smile. Ruby had texted once, about a week after I’d gotten to L.A., telling me that Kennedy was fine but she didn’t want to hear from me.
It hurt like a bitch. Part of me had hoped she would read the screenplay—or just miss me as much as I missed her—and change her mind. She hadn’t, though. Keeping busy had helped me not fall into a depression, and meeting Laine had given me something other than strawberry red hair to think about when I climbed into bed at night, but nothing had come close to sealing up the empty hole in my chest. If anything, it gaped wider than it had a month ago.
The flight to Switzerland took forever from Los Angeles. I wrote for a while so Laine wouldn’t be pissed, then decided to sleep. Prescription drugs were a beautiful thing, and I felt as rested as possible when I stepped off my dad’s private jet in Bern. My parents weren’t at the airport—it was too early for my mom and Dad liked to work before breakfast—but a driver waited on the tarmac.
I felt like a nap when I walked in the house, and figured I’d stick my head in my dad’s office to say hello, then head to bed and get up in time for lunch with my mom. My bags hit the floor in the foyer, knots bunched in my shoulders, but the sound of voices coming from the sunroom piqued my curiosity. Had my parents suddenly become breakfast people?
The sight in the sunroom made me feel as though the drugs I’d taken to sleep on the plane hadn’t worn off. It was like walking into fucking Wonderland.
Kennedy sat with her back to me, strawberry blond hair brushing the back of the cherry-rimmed loveseat. My parents sat across from her, their faces not only polite, but rapt. Cups of coffee steamed in their hands and early morning sun bathed the scene in a surrealistic glow.
My mother saw me first, her face lighting up with a smile. Kennedy fell silent, sensing the shift in everyone’s attention, and after what might have been a deep breath, she turned.
Our eyes met. Hers were bright green in the light, and filled with a frankness that crushed the air from my body. They reflected other things I’d never glimpsed in her face—hope, mostly, with a sprinkle of trepidation.
“Honey, come and sit down. Your friend Kennedy arrived last night—she didn’t know you weren’t coming in until this morning. We were just talking about your brother.”
That statement confused me further and I walked toward them without thinking, taking a cup of coffee from the housekeeper and sitting in the empty chair to the left of the loveseat. I wanted to sit beside Kennedy. I wanted to touch her and smell her, crush her against me and make sure she was real, taste the sweetness of her mouth, but I didn’t want to do any of that until I knew why she was here.
My heart was too fragile to handle the rejection.
“What are you doing here?” It came out rougher than I meant it, but it felt as though my insides had melted.
“Honey. That’s no way to speak to a guest.”
“No, it’s okay. I should have warned him, probably.” Her eyes sought mine, asking a question I didn’t have the answer to yet. “I’ve spent the last twenty-eight days in a rehab facility in New Orleans. In-patient, but Ruby’s parents came and visited me pretty often. They’ve been great.”
Tentative hope tried to push through my terror. I still didn’t know whether to stomp on it or cradle it in my palm. “That’s good.”
She nodded. “It’s been great, actually. Your parents and I were talking about Trent. Not really about how things were when they got bad, but how he was before the drugs. It’s been nice getting to know baby Toby through their eyes.”
My parents both beamed. It was ridiculous that they looked so happy about discussing something with a stranger that they’d avoided mentioning around their own son. I wanted to be irritated, but Kennedy had done the same thing to me—felt like an instant part of my family.
Like home.
“Yeah?”
“It seems you’ve always been keen on hanging around where you weren’t wanted,” she winked. “But your brother’s friends ended up adopting you as a mascot?”
I remembered how I’d followed Trent everywhere, sneaking out even when my parents had ordered me to stay home. His friends had pretty much made me their slave, but I hadn’t cared. I’d wanted to hang out with my brother, so whatever I had to do to make that happen, I did it.
Eventually, his friends were my friends. And then, as he changed, they were just my friends.
The memory brought a faint smile to my lips. “Klingon.”
“That had a little to do with your unhealthy obsession with Star Wars,” my dad added.
“Star Trek, Dad.”
Kennedy giggled, but the question remained on her face.
“You mean those aren’t the same thing?” My dad winked.
I groaned, because that’s what he expected. My mom sighed, because that was her line. It felt nice, joking with my family over a memory that involved my brother, but it made me wonder how the conversation had started.
As though she’d read my mind, Kennedy spoke up. “They were asking how I felt about my treatment, and what had been the key to my decision to stop using alcohol to forget. I told them that I never used alcohol to forget, I used it to remember. That I’d been happy once. That I was capable of feeling things. That, aside from meeting you, Toby, the thing I needed was to be able to talk about the way things were before the accident.”
Her eyes filled with tears. I wanted to wipe them away, but my parents were watching. Our gazes fused and the temperature in the room raised several degrees. My face felt hot and my body stood at attention, though thankfully not in a literal sense.
“Well, we’ll let the two of you catch up.” My mother’s voice sounded like it came through water. Like when I’d been a kid with my head under the bathwater and she’d come in to tell me it was time to get out and ready for bed.
My brain registered them leaving the room, but only in a peripheral sense.
“Say something,” Kennedy begged, her voice more trembling than steady.
“How are you doing?”
She laughed, a wet one colored by the tears pooling in her eyes. “I’m better. It’s still hard. It hurts and I cry pretty much every time I let myself talk about my parents, but I’m glad it hurts, because sometimes it feels good, too. It means I’m alive, Toby, and for the first time since I woke up alone in that hospital room, I’m glad for that.”
Her words were like some kind of magic. They popped and burst like they were attached to fireworks, each one perfect and painful, but genuine. Like Kennedy.
“I’m happy for you.”
“But you still want to know why I’m here?”
I shrugged, trying and probably failing to act like it was no big deal walking in to see her this morning. In reality, it could be the best thing that had ever happened to me.
She got up and moved closer, pausing in front of me for a moment as though undecided about where to go from there. I almost reached up to pull her onto my lap, but when I didn’t, she dropped to the floor by my knees. There was no way I would ever willingly tear my eyes from her face again.
“I’m here because you’re the reason I went to rehab. And I don’t mean that in some fucked-up way, like you’re the reason I want to live. I want to live for me. I mean that the way you stuck by me, the hope in your eyes when you thought I wasn’t paying attention, the faith you had—those things made me realize there were things about living that I didn’t want to give up. And I read
your revised screenplay. I know you understand. I came here to say thank you, first and foremost. Also, I’m sorry I hurt you.” Tears slipped down her cheeks, resting in the corners of her lips until she licked them away. “I’m so sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me, or want to be with me after what I did, or still care—God knows I’ve fucked up your life enough, and—”
“Strawberry.”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up.”
I pulled her onto my lap in one swift movement, so happy to have her sober and willing to talk to me and share her feelings and work on honoring the horrific past that shaped her that I didn’t care what else she had to say right now. Kennedy and I had problems—every couple did—but so many of ours had been solved by the simple admission that we both had issues.
The weight of her body against me, the fresh scent of outdoors and strawberries, her soft, compliant lips against mine drilled straight through the healing scabs I’d earned over the past four weeks and opened up the well in my soul, the one she’d tapped, and all the love I’d ever felt for her poured through me.
A good part of it went straight to my crotch, which shifted against her ass. Her tongue answered, sliding past my lips and toying with mine as our breathing grew heavy and her hands found my hair.
She smiled against my mouth, still wiping tears as she pulled back. “Well, I know part of you still wants me. Does that mean you can forgive me for getting you arrested and ruining your family’s good name and…everything?”
“You didn’t ruin anything. I made those choices, because I thought you were worth it. And you are. There’s nothing to forgive, strawberry. You getting better is all I ever wanted.”
Her eyes re-filled with tears as her lips whispered against mine. “You aren’t perfect, Golden Boy. Neither am I. But I’m all in.”
Epilogue
We’d spent three of the four weeks I’d planned on with my parents in Bern. Kennedy had at least as many hard days as good ones, but the way her analytical mind worked was an asset to her recovery. Even when she didn’t want to, she forced herself to talk about her past. She cried herself to sleep sometimes, every sob stabbing holes in my chest, but I never left. She clung to me and I held her, and in the morning, she made sure to tell me something that made her happy.
