My eyes burned at his words. “I wish I could give that to you.”
We both knew it wasn’t possible.
We’d never have a child. It wasn’t in the cards for us. A dream that died before it could ever be realized.
“You can, Imi,” he said. “We can adopt. We can give a child with as shitty an upbringing as we had a real chance in life. A chance I never had.” I kissed his chin, loving his heart. His kind, perfect heart.
“I want that with you. But—” he paused.
Then in a flurry of movement he rolled me onto my back and leaned over me, his hair falling into his eyes. “But if I can’t have that dream with you, will you live it anyway?” he asked.
“What are you saying, Yoss?” Tears slid from the corners of my eyes, dripping into my hair.
He leaned down and kissed the salty trails. Drinking my tears. One at a time. “I’m saying that you deserve a family. I want you to have a full, happy life. Even if I’m not sharing it with you. It’s what I wanted for you that day under the bridge and it’s what I want for you now.” He kissed the side of my neck. “Only this time, no broken promises.” He laid his ear against my chest, listening for the beating that was only for him. “Can you give that to me? A promise to go on? Not just half living, but living to the fullest.”
The sweat had cooled. Yoss was weak. So weak. I heard it in the cadence of his tone. The heaviness of his limbs.
I was sleepy, but I wouldn’t close my eyes. I didn’t want to miss a single moment with him.
“I can promise to live the life we are supposed to have,” I fought. I argued.
Yoss lifted his head long enough to place a soft, sweet kiss over my heart. “Even if I’m not here,” he urged.
I wouldn’t cry. I couldn’t do that to him. I didn’t want to smother him in my tears when he needed my strength. I held him tight. So tight.
“Even if you’re not here,” I said.
I promised.
I hoped that it was one I’d never have to keep.
Fifteen Years Ago
I went back to the bridge.
I wasn’t sure why I still waited for him.
After what I saw.
After the lie.
“I’d give you whatever you asked for. I want to remember what it feels like not to be ashamed. Not to feel sick inside. To be able to love without guilt and regret.”
I loved him.
I had told him it was without condition. So I wouldn’t leave. Even if my soul was in shambles. My trust in tatters.
Our love would have to sustain me.
So I waited.
In the rain.
In the cold.
For the boy who had promised me a future.
I learned that day that to love someone was to hurt.
And I was tired of the pain.
Present
I woke up the next morning and I knew something was wrong. I rolled onto my side and put my hand on Yoss’s bare chest.
I waited for the rise and fall.
Up. Down. Up. Down.
I watched his face. He seemed to be asleep. His arm still wrapped around me. Holding me tight. Holding me close.
I couldn’t look away. Even though I had to get ready for work. I was scared to leave him.
Something isn’t right.
Once again a thin line of blood slowly dripped from his nose. It slid down his cheek and landed on the pillow beneath his head.
His color was worse this morning. The yellowish hue more pronounced.
“Yoss,” I said quietly, shaking his arm.
He was still. Too still.
But for the rise and fall of his chest.
Up. Down. Up. Down.
The blood didn’t have a chance to dry on his face. It continued to flow.
“Yoss,” I said a little louder.
I knew.
I knew.
“Yoss!”
The scream tore from somewhere deep inside of me. From the part of me that had only just come out of the dark.
No.
He didn’t open his eyes.
I knew.
I called nine-one-one. Yoss was rushed to the hospital. Again.
“He has cerebral edema. He’s in a coma from the intracranial pressure. He needs a transplant and needs one fast,” Dr. Howell told me.
“Will he get one?” I asked, not caring how panicked I sounded. Hysterical. I was going to lose it.
“He’s been pushed up on the list. We’re waiting to see if one becomes available. For now we wait. We keep him here. And if you’re the praying sort, do that too,” Dr. Howell said kindly, clasping my shoulder.
Wait…
I was used to waiting for Yoss.
In the rain. Beside his hospital bed.
Waiting for our happily ever after.
A life together that seemed destined to be cut short.
“I heard you were here,” Lee said, finding me in the hallway of the ICU trying to get a cup of coffee from the vending machine.
“You found me,” I muttered, banging the side when my coffee didn’t come quick enough.
Lee put his hands over mine, pulling me into a hug. He held me while trembled. I couldn’t stop.
“I should have known we’d never last,” I said, staring at the wall. Seeing nothing.
“Don’t give up too soon, Im. You’ve waited fifteen years, you can hang in there a little while longer,” Lee chided me.
“It hurts,” I sobbed, clutching Lee’s shirt as the tears fell.
“It’s supposed to, babe. Loving someone isn’t easy. This is you remember how to feel,” Lee murmured as he stroked my hair.
I drove down to the Seventh Street Bridge at sunset.
The sky was bleeding and the air was starting to take on the warmth of approaching summer.
The fires had been lit and people milled about the crumbling concrete and colorful graffiti.
I stood there watching it all. Remembering a time long ago when it had seemed like the scariest place in the world.
And then it wasn’t.
Because of green eyes and a smile that changed my entire world.
“You okay?”
I walked along the river. It looked the same. But different. Harsher somehow.
“What kind of name is Yoss?”
He laughed and it was real and true and I felt it absolutely everywhere.
Laughter rang in my ears. A lifetime of memories created in a temporary moment.
“Imogen, I’d give you the world if I could.” He brushed the hair back from my face. “But I don’t have the world to give you.”
I had left my heart here all those years ago. I was here to take it back. It was the only thing I could do.
I had to learn to stay whole.
“Promise?”
Promise.”
An excited scream reached my ears. I glanced towards the noise and saw a young man lifting a girl that looked about sixteen into his arms. Their smiles told me everything. They were in old clothes. The girl’s hair was straggly and perhaps too long. But when he leaned down and kissed her, I knew, in my heart, that none of that mattered.
“Is that our plan? To live our story? Go to the beach and walk on the sand?” I asked him, barely able to contain the gleeful anticipation that bubbled up inside me.
“That’s our plan,” Yoss agreed.
I stayed there for some time. Watching the fires blazing in the trashcans. Listening to the constant drone of traffic overhead. Feeling the crunch of gravel beneath my feet as I walked along the familiar banks of the lazy river.
“I lost you. And I felt as if I deserved that. That you were always a dream. One that I was lucky enough to hold onto for a little while.” His gaze moved to the window. “Then you became a memory. The kind that warms during dark nights and lonely days. You were my happy life. Even when you were living your own.”
In my mind, I watched the shadows of a girl with long brown hair and a boy with bright, green eyes. Th
ey laughed with a tough looking girl with a shaved head. A blond boy with a crooked nose and a pocketful of lighters.
We had lost so much.
How much more could we lose?
With my arms wrapped around my body I headed back to my car.
Towards the end.
“It’s okay, Imi.” My mother stroked my hair back from my face. I hadn’t expected her to come.
She still had the power to surprise me.
She looked in at Yoss, struggling, barely holding on, a thoughtful look on her face. “I remember him now. It had been bothering me. How I knew him. Then it hit me this morning on my way here.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
We were still waiting.
Time was always ticking.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
“He came by to see you. After you had moved back home. You had gone inside and this handsome young man approached me.” Mom looked at me, her eyes full. “I knew then that he loved you. I didn’t know who he was, but I could tell. It’s impossible to hide that kind of love. You wear it like a sign for everyone to see. I saw it on him then and I see it on you now.”
The tears came too easily now. I didn’t try to stop them.
My mom took my hand and held it while I stood strong. For Yoss.
Refusing to fall apart.
And we waited.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Once upon a time there was a girl who loved a boy.
He found her in blood and tears.
She stayed with him through darkness and fire.
He promised forever.
She believed him.
But he never stayed.
She spent the next fifteen years trying to live when she was only half alive. With half a heart. Always waiting for him to come back to her.
And he did.
When she least expected him.
Her heart was whole once again.
She remembered to smile. To laugh.
To love.
A happy story doesn’t always have a happy ending.
She had learned to be grateful for the temporary moments.
Because in the end, that’s all either of them had.
Fifteen Years Ago onward
Yoss
She looked miserable. Her hair was wet and hung down her back. She appeared incredibly young. And small.
And sad.
That was because of me.
I had never hated myself more.
The loudest parts of me screamed to go to her. I wanted to more than anything.
She was my survival.
My hope.
But I couldn’t be hers.
I knew from the moment I had met her that she deserved more than anything I could ever offer. She didn’t belong in the gritty life where I had found my home.
But I let myself be selfish with her.
I had allowed the delusions of a future together to color everything.
Until I was reminded, once again, of all I’d ever be.
I had promised her we’d leave. That I would take her away. She was looking to escape. I wanted nothing more than to be with her.
Where could we go? We had no money. Hardly anything to our name. What sort of life could we possibly have?
But when I woke up this morning, her body pressed against me, every inch of my skin smelling like her I truly wanted to try. I would go to hell to give her the world.
We needed money.
We wouldn’t get far without it. I wanted to start this new life with her. Bug’s death wouldn’t be in vain.
I left her with a promise to meet her later.
Underneath the Seventh Street Bridge.
I meant to keep it. Then.
I went to get the things I thought we’d need. I left her to tell the others our plans. I didn’t want to disappear without letting them know where we were going. Not after losing Bug.
I wasn’t gone long.
But long enough for Manny to find me.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he grinned and then gave me an offer. One last job. More money than I had ever seen before.
And I thought, For Imogen.
Even though I knew she would hate what I was going to do. I wanted to take care of her. I wanted to feed and clothe her.
I would change. After this.
But she saw me.
At my worst.
During my darkest hour.
She ran away from me and I had let her.
I don’t know why I didn’t chase her. I still wanted our life. I’d cling to it with bloody, broken fingers.
Afterwards as I walked towards the bridge, I was sore.
I could still smell the man on my clothes. I could taste him in my mouth.
I felt sick.
I had to stop several times to throw up. Not that I had much in my stomach anyway. The bile had burned my throat and I had a hard time breathing. I felt dirty in ways that water would never be able to clean.
I thought of Imogen waiting for me. Of what she would see when I showed up. The bruises. The blood. I felt so much shame.
I knew of no other way to make a life for her than to do things that she could never forgive. I didn’t know how to be any other way.
Bug’s brother’s words rang in my ears. “If you were really his friends you would have told him to go home.”
I had failed Bug. I thought I was taking care of him. But in the end none of that had mattered because the life we lived killed him. We would always be in danger. Living on the streets. Doing things to make money that put our souls and hearts at risk.
She was vulnerable. I tried to keep her safe, just as I had with Bug, but I knew it would never be enough.
The image of her face only hours before, watching me in that fucking alley, on my goddamned knees would haunt me for the rest of my life.
She looked shocked. Betrayed.
Disgusted.
I disgusted her.
I could never reconcile myself with the man who let the love of his life see him at his lowest. At rock bottom with no hope of climbing back up.
Even if the reasons felt sound at the time. I could justify making the choices that I did so easily. And that is what terrified me.
Imi deserved better than that.
Than justification.
She needed to go home.
“Don’t live a life that will kill you one day. You deserve better than that.”
Bug’s brother was right. Imogen needed much more than I could give her.
She needed to go back and find a life off the streets. Away from me.
I saw her running away from me over and over again in my head. On an endless loop.
I didn’t follow her. Maybe I should have. But I didn’t.
She ran but I knew she’d still wait for me. No matter how horrified she had been, her love held her prisoner. It was up to me to set her free.
Even if it broke my heart to do it, I’d walk away from her.
So I watched her waiting underneath the bridge and I saw the moment when she realized I wasn’t coming. I felt her grief. It washed over me like the rain that fell from the sky.
Our pain was the same.
We shared everything.
Our happiness.
Our hope.
And our gut-wrenching despair.
I followed her as she slowly made her way to a small house with the unkempt yard on the other side of town. I watched her go inside and she didn’t come back out again.
She had gone home.
Just as I had wanted her to.
So why did I feel like screaming?
I stayed there all night. And the night after that. And the night after that.
I became an observer of her life.
I was okay with that. At least I could have something of her that was just mine.
I should have left town. If I thought things were miserable before, it was nothing compared to what it was like after I had lost her.
; But I would never be able to leave as long as Imogen was here.
We were tied together. She was inescapable.
She had no idea that I was there for her high school graduation. I stood in the very back, unobserved. Her mother had been there, I was glad to see that. Imi looked so beautiful as she walked across the stage and accepted her diploma. Even if her eyes had been a little sad, her smile was genuine.
I was there the day she left for college. I had tried to breathe around the lump in my throat as I watched her load up a beat up Toyota with boxes and suitcases. I stood on the sidewalk until she drove from sight.
I could have left then; content in the knowledge that she was out there, living the life I wanted for her.
But I couldn’t leave the last place we had been together. I was a sentimental schmuck.
So I was still there the day she came back and settled.
I saw she and her mother unloading boxes and taking them inside. For just a brief moment I contemplated going to her. Telling her I was still there. That I’d always been there.
She had gone inside her mother’s home and I watched the older woman come back out and head to the car.
I stepped out of the shadows and walked slowly towards the house, not sure what I was going to say.
Her mother stopped and looked at me. “Can I help you?”
“I—” I looked up towards the house, wishing Imogen would come outside. I was desperate to see her. I was tired of staying away.
“Are you looking for Imi?” her mother asked, still watching me.
“How is she?” I asked, choking on a question I had no right to ask.
Her mother’s expression was hesitant. “She’s good. Really good. Just graduated from college. Got a job at the hospital in town.”
I smiled. I felt good again.
She frowned. “Are you a friend of Imi’s? I can go get her—”
“No. We’re not friends. I just remember her from a long time ago.” Lies. Careful and important. “Don’t mention I was here. She won’t remember me anyway.”
“Okay. Well, take care,” her mother said, dismissing me. Already forgetting I was there.
And it was just as well.
I slid back into the shadows of Imi’s life. I had to be content there.
Watching.
One Day Soon Page 35
