“Hey,” Andy said. “Hey, get up Rose. It’s getting late.”
She opened her eyes slowly, and looked up. The first thing she noticed was that it wasn’t cold anymore. The second, was that she was lying on grass and she had a headache. It was a warm summer evening and the stars were out, winking at her from a black velvet universe. She could smell the jasmine and honeysuckle and knew she was somehow back in Brandenville. She lifted her head and gazed around. She was in Andy’s backyard she recognized immediately. His parent’s two-story white farmhouse, the tall Elm with the tire swing. The brick barbeque Andy’s father had built one summer that always leaned to one side, all too familiar. She had spent far too many nights in this yard to ever forget it. Andy held her hand as he squatted down next to her.
“You passed out, you better get up now. My folks’ll be waking up for work soon. C’mon.”
She didn't want to move; for fear that it would break the enchantment she must be under. “What happened?” she managed. Her head felt as if someone stuffed it with cotton right before they dropped an anvil on it.
“You came over and woke me up a few hours ago, then told me how you planned on leaving for Los Angles with Richy Bryant tomorrow. Don’t you remember? Then you passed out on the grass. I fell asleep too. It’s close to dawn and pops will definitely be up soon.”
He smiled his homely smile at her, his glasses creeping down his nose and even in the pale light offered by the moon, she was able to see him clearly. She laid her head back on the ground and sighed in frustration. “Andy, you’re not real. This isn’t happening. You aren’t here. I’m not here. I think I died, or am about to. I’m in some type of limbo or something.”
“Christ, how much drugs do you guys do when you go out?”
“Stop, just stop,” she said, though whether to Andy or to her own inner-self, she wasn’t sure. “This isn’t real. I’m on top of the apartment building in Chicago. This is just a dream, or an illusion or something. I’m losing my mind and summoned all this bullshit from my past. You’re not here. This isn’t real, so stop talking to me.”
He didn’t say anything, just watched her thoughtfully as she ranted on. The wind whispered over her and she could smell rain on the breeze. It would storm soon. As if in answer, the sky lit up far to the left of where they sat, a low resonating boom coming moments after the flash. Would she be able to smell things in a dream? Would she be able to feel a breeze or hear the thunder? She didn’t know, but dared not to wish it true. She looked at Andy as he held her hand, his plain face looking down at her, concern written on his brow. She reached her free hand out to him, placing her fingers on his cheek. He moved his head towards her hand, catching it between his cheek and shoulder. “I jumped didn’t I? I am lying in the alley, and my mind summoned you because you were the only person who ever truly cared about me. Is that it? Is that why you’re here? Because this can’t be real.”
“It’s real Rosey,” he whispered. “Count on it.”
She closed her eyes, wanting to believe, enjoying the feeling of peace she had. She tightened her grip on his hand and he returned the gesture.
“Andy,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Am I a bad person?”
He smiled, and his face lit up the dark. “Nah, but you sure do some dumb things.”
“Yeah, I guess I do at that.”
She closed her eyes, listening to the night breeze as it whispered over the grass. She felt peaceful here. She could lay here, with Andy holding her hand and sleep. That’s what she needed most of all was just some sleep.
“I was happy here Andy, why didn't I see it then? Why did I want to leave so badly? Things were simple, and my grandparents loved me didn't they? I often thought they didn’t. That they couldn’t because of their age, but I guess they did. Why couldn’t I see how important the simple things in life were? Why didn’t I just accept what I was? Why did I have to leave?”
He didn’t answer right away. He looked off into the sky and shrugged his shoulders, “Because that’s what you needed to do Rosey. You needed to go out somewhere and get a comparison to be able appreciate your home that much more.” He turned back to look at her intensely. “But you’re here now and you can stay here if that’s what you want. You can stay right here in Brandenville and start over, just like it all never happened. Just start over again. Your grandparent’s are here, and they do love you Rosey. They've always loved you, and so have I. You just have to love yourself. Forget this nonsense about going to California and just stay here. Even if you don’t want to be with me, just stay.”
She tried to make sense of what he was saying. He spoke about things that happened in her adult life, and things that had not yet happened in her young life as it they were both interchangeable. As if everything in the world happened simultaneously, future, past and present.
She shook her head. “How can I start over Andy? There’s no starting life over. I wish there were. I’m not even here. You’re not here. I am back at the building dying in the alley. This is all some type of dream.”
“No, you’re not dead, and this is no dream. Life is full of second chances, all you have to do is look around you and see it. Accept it. You think all those people you see all the time that are happy, were always happy? Not a chance. Happiness is something you have to work on, it just doesn’t come to you.”
He smiled and ran his hand through her hair. She raised herself up on her elbows and looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. He was the same Andy he had always been, and yet he was more. Something in his eyes, a certain glint of moonlight, made him seem older, wiser.
“I don’t even have any friends Andy. I have no one. No one to even leave a note to.”
“You have me Rosey. You’ve always had me. I thought you knew that. I told you, my spirit ceased that day you left. It was frozen in time; waiting and hoping that some day you’d come back home. Somehow, all this also was frozen in time,” he said as he swept his hand out indicating everything around them. “And here now, in this place, you haven’t left yet. Here, in this moment that still exists for me, I've waited. And though you went on, this part of me, the part that didn’t want you to leave, held on to this night. This one night. This very special night, where all that was important to me stopped. I held on to it in hopes that one day, you'd come back. And now you have.”
“But am I really here? How can I be? Things like this don’t happen Andy, they just don’t.”
He shrugged his shoulders, “Maybe the love I have for you stopped time. I don’t know. All I know is I have been waiting a long time for this night. And I believe it, even if you don’t. Life is full of second chances.”
She looked away; wanting to believe it, yet her rational mind told her it couldn’t be true. She again smelled the grass, heard the creaking of the elm as it swayed in the light breeze and told herself that this was more than a dream. She glanced down and noticed for the first time that she wasn’t in the same clothes she had been earlier. She was dressed in faded jeans and Richy’s high school jacket. She was eighteen again, and back home in Andy’s backyard. And maybe, just maybe, this was all true.
“Life is full of second chances,” she said in little more than a whisper.
Andy nodded and leaned back on the grass watching her. She thought of her life as an adult, and of her teenage life and how it had been when she was in Brandenville. All the opportunities she missed, all the things she hadn’t known. How nice it would be to start over. But could she? Was it possible? She should have stayed with Andy. She should have stayed here in Brandenville with her grandparents. She should have never left for Los Angeles. She should have done a lot of things differently. She began to weep softly and lay back down on the grass, throwing an arm across her eyes.
“No need to cry Rosey, no need for tears. You got nothing to be sorry about. We all make mistakes; I've sure made plenty. Just start over is all. Come back home now. Come home where you belong. I’ve waited for so long. You’ll see,
everything’s going to be fine now. Just take my hand and come home.”
She looked at him as he smiled at her. He had a smile you could hang your heart on. Why had she never noticed that before? She wanted to believe it was possible, that all you needed to do was have the desire to start over. She would like nothing more than to do that very thing.
“Life is full of second chances Andy,” she said as she sat up and wriggled out of Richy’s high school jacket and tossed it on the ground behind her.
Andy jumped to his feet. “You bet it is,” he said as he bent down, grabbed her hand and pulled her up from the ground.
Second Chance Rose Page 5
