We had a snowstorm of decent size, and as a result, school was closed.
And I hadn’t been able to get him off of my mind.
“What are you sitting around here moping for?” Gram asked, her omnipresence in my room feeling extra claustrophobic with the unavoidable incentive to stay indoors provided by the snow.
In years past, Blane would have been here, dragging me out in the snow for fun and snowball fights, or my favorite, midnight walks down the utterly quiet streets of snow-covered suburbia.
The silence was often deafening, the stars seemed brighter, and a general sense of peace settled deep in my chest.
But not this year. So far, there’d been three whole days of school, two days of the weekend, and one incredibly long, snow-filled day without even a peep from my best friend.
I shrugged, as per usual, not really wanting to get into the whole conversation with my grandmother.
“NeeNee,” she prompted.
Unwilling to fight, I grunted my response. “Blane and I always spend snow days together.”
Something worked behind her eyes for several seconds before she asked, “Since when do you need a man to do anything?”
My answer was simple. “I don’t need a man. I need Blane.”
Hers was even simpler, her brown eyes frank. “So go get the bastard.”
So I did. At least, I tried. But when I got to his house, after walking a long two and a half miles through the quiet snow-filled streets of our town, he only said a total of six words to me.
When he opened the door, I led with what I thought was best. “Happy Birthday.”
His smile was wry, almost ugly when he said a far too simple, “Yeah.” It was laced with sarcasm, and I could tell it was meant to spit in the face of the idea that this birthday was anything resembling happy. I knew the feeling, but I didn't push the subject.
“You wanna take a walk with me?”
His answer was only slightly less derisive. “No. Thanks.”
I looked to my snow boots, willing the tears to stay locked away inside.
It was one thing to cry because I needed to, because the release was necessary for survival. It was entirely another to do it in front of Blane now.
When I looked back up, his face was hard, the muscle in his jaw jumping with tension.
“I’m sorry, Whit,” he whispered, his blue eyes softening, but not giving in.
Not giving in at all.
The door clicked shut gently in front of me, Blane’s retreating back visible through the glass.
April 2002
APRIL SHOWERS MAY BRING MAY flowers, but they also brought a crap-ton of emotional shit.
Maybe that’s why the flowers grew so well. All that fertile compost.
On what would have been Franny’s eighteenth birthday, April thirtieth, two thousand and two, I decided to visit her grave—something I hadn’t done since we’d buried her.
And apparently, I wasn’t the only one.
I rounded the bend in the cemetery, flowers in hand and a package of Mentos (Franny’s favorite) in my pocket, crested the hill, and saw someone already there, on his knees in front of her headstone.
I slowed my pace, unable to tell who it was and not wanting to intrude.
Of course, when I got closer, the long hair made it painfully obvious.
My step slowed to a crawl, my ankle twisting and turning to decide if I should turn and leave or keep walking on my current course.
Blane hadn’t talked to me since his birthday in January.
And this time, I meant zero words.
His head stayed down in the halls, and he may as well not have been in class. I didn’t know what his grades were like, but as far as participation went, he had a big, fat goose egg.
Torn, I chose anyway, keeping my path, steeling my nerves, locking my spine, and headed directly towards him.
He was the one avoiding me. If it was really that important to him, he was going to have to do a better damn job of it.
Franny was important to me too, and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to visit her grave when I wanted to whether he was there already or not.
When I was ten feet away, he turned, having heard my footsteps against the blacktop path.
He closed his eyes tight, reaching out to touch her headstone and whispering a tortured, “Goddamnit.”
I bit my tongue to keep from saying something snarky in return and clutched the flowers tighter to my chest.
Birds chirped a contrasting happy melody, the rhythm of their tweets reminding me of a chime.
I cleared my throat several times around the nasty words I wanted to spew until I managed to control them.
“I’m sorry for interrupting.”
He nodded without turning around, his hand still stretched out against the chilly stone in front of him, the etched word ‘Franny’ directly under his fingers.
As per usual, I had to grit my teeth against the sudden rush of tears.
Instead, I watched as Blane got to his feet slowly, a long-sleeve thermal, jeans, and his motorcycle boots the only things on his body.
There were fresh flowers already on the base of her headstone. I assumed they were from him, but they could have been from anyone. I would have guessed that several people would have come to visit her on her birthday.
Blane turned around slowly, and I expected him to brush past me, rush down the path without a word.
My old friend wouldn’t have done that, but this was a guy I didn’t know anymore.
But he didn’t. He gave me his eyes when he turned, and there were tears in them.
Instinct made me step forward and reach for him before I realized it wasn’t my place. I forced myself to stop and drop my arms, but before I was even fully still again, something flashed in his eyes, and he was on me. His long arms wrapped around me. His stubbly chin tucked into my hair at my throat.
Warm air tickled the shell of my ear as he spoke softly directly into it. “I’m sorry. But it’s not because you interrupted.”
And then he was gone, walking down the path with his hands in his pockets, the sight of his retreating back making it hard for me to breathe.
June 2002
GRADUATION DAY.
A time for celebration. A time for jubilation.
For everyone but me.
I’d worked hard to get here, keeping my grades up and finally pointing myself in an actual direction. I knew people skills were normally a good thing for counselors to have, but I’d made up my mind, and I was willing to take the gamble.
Unfortunately, graduation, for me, was about more than that.
It was the end of a not all together awesome era, and the turning of an irreversible page.
I was scared that once I didn’t meet Blane in the halls on a daily basis that he’d disappear on me completely, and I didn’t know how to prevent it.
Since that day in the cemetery it had been better. God, compared to the months leading up to that it been amazing.
Blane acknowledged my presence and even smiled in my direction. But we were still miles from being friends, and once again, time had run out.
I watched him throughout the ceremony from his place in front of me, and I even cheered when he walked across the stage. His eyes met mine, his head whipping around at the sound of my catcall, and he smiled.
My heart flipped over in my chest.
After I took my turn on the stage, the cheers from my parents and Gram nearly ear-drum-damaging, I shifted nervously waiting for the end. My knees jittered, and my fingers rubbed at the material of my gown nervously.
I had decided that morning, that no matter what, I wouldn’t let him leave without talking to him. If I had to chase him, if I had to scream, if I had to slash his fucking tires, I would do it.
But when the ceremony ended and our caps had been thrown, he found me.
I couldn’t help but bitch. “Well, there goes my chance to slit someone’s tires.”
His eyes widened co
mically, and another smile settled all the way into his eyes. “I don’t think I want to know.”
“Trust me,” I agreed, “You don’t.”
My heart jumped and screamed in my chest, but my vocal chords refused to follow suit. I couldn’t seem to find the words. I couldn’t seem to describe what I was feeling.
All we’d had. All we’d lost. And all I hoped like hell we’d be able to find again.
He stood and stared too, a couple of mutes, fully transformed from their previously chatty selves.
The air felt empty without our banter filling it.
My fingernails dug into my palms, the anger at not being able to speak overwhelming me to the point of shaking. He looked down to his boots and then up again, and then reached out and pulled me into his arms, slowly, like he was reeling me in.
He tucked my head under his chin, wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me tighter than he’d ever held me before.
I felt his chin leave the top of my head, and the soft silk of his lips replaced it. They lingered there, at the top of my forehead for what felt like forever. And at the same time, it felt like no time had passed at all.
He stepped back, took one look at my face, and then pulled me back in again, placing one last kiss on the soft skin of my jaw.
And then he was gone. Weaving his way through the crowd, his blue gown blending in with all the others as it went.
Damn, but I hated the sight of him walking away from me.
August 2002
“BLANE!” I YELLED AS I moved towards the departing soldiers at a run.
When I had finally found the balls to go over to his house that morning, two whole months after he’d walked away from me at graduation, the last thing I expected to find was his distraught mother telling me he was gone. She said he told her his “country was one of very few things he had left worth fighting for.”
It didn’t take me long to figure out why she was blubbering, and it took even less time for me to join her.
He was leaving.
To go to war.
And he hadn’t said one goddamn word.
“Blane!” I screamed again, searching for him in the crowd of uniformed clones and coming up empty.
Of course, then I’d had to come up with a plan. It’s not like it was easy to get onto the military base.
They didn’t let any old schmo who sobbed about their broken heart waltz around unaccompanied.
So I’d thought fast. There was only one person I knew, and when I said knew, I didn’t mean well.
Blane and I had attended high school with Heather, but if I’d spoken five words to her, that was a lot. But I’d heard through the grape vine of gossip (my mom told Gram, and Gram told me), that Heather had married an Army soldier, and they were stationed right there on Blane’s base.
According to Blane’s mom, all I needed was a person on base to sponsor me for the day so that I could get on to find him before he left.
Easy, right?
Yeah. Right.
Once Heather put me on the list, after a couple of phone calls and a lot of fast talking in order to convince her, I had to get to the base, wait in line to get a paper pass, then get back in the line of cars to get searched at the gate. After that, I was free to drive around, but not really do anything without my escort.
And getting close to the soldiers themselves was like trying to get Santa to grant my Christmas wish.
When I couldn’t think of anything else to do, I went straight to Heather’s house and begged her husband to get me as close as he could.
Sexual favors were offered (by me), murders were almost committed (by Heather), and a couple of tears were shed (by Heather’s husband Eric when I accidentally kneed him in the balls in the middle of my hysterics).
Half an hour later, here I was.
Of course, there was still a fence between us and a sea of people that I had no idea if Blane was actually amidst.
Pulling the air from the very bottom of my lungs, I shouted his name one more time, hoping that by some miracle he would hear me.
“Blane!”
Several heads turned my direction, surely thinking I had completely lost my mind.
I was running along the line of the fence, screaming like a banshee, and if I were to make a guess about my appearance, I’d wager that it was as disheveled as my ragged emotions.
The crowd of soldiers parted and from between them came a man I didn’t know. His hair was shorn close to his scalp and the set of his face snubbed even the thought of a smile.
But his blue eyes were the same. At least, they were the dead version I’d come to know over the past several months. They didn’t dance like they used to, but they pointed to something familiar. The once loving boy I knew. The boy who smiled at me the first time I saw him even though I scowled.
He made his way to me slowly, exiting the cordoned off area and ending up on the same side of the fence with me.
When the toes of his boots touched mine, I didn’t stop myself from reaching out and grabbing a handful of the camouflage covering his chest.
“You’re leaving,” I accused, completely at a loss for how to put what I was thinking into the so few words I had time for.
I needed at least a week, maybe a year, to tell him what I was thinking and feeling—what I’d been thinking and feeling for quite some time.
His hand moved slowly and settled over mine at his chest. It didn’t feel real—his grip wasn’t firm enough—but I knew it had to be. I could see it with my own eyes, and the rapid beat of my heart told me it felt it just fine.
“I have to, Whit,” he whispered, the Adam’s apple in his throat bobbing noticeably. “It’s inside me, eating me up every day. And I can’t just do something, I have to do everything I can.”
“You can’t do this. Tragedy seems to follow you everywhere,” I accused.
A grin pulled at the left corner of his mouth. “My dad always said the only way to stop something from following you, was to chase it.”
The telltale tingle hit my nose, and I knew I was only moments away from drowning both of us with my ever-present tears.
Turning my hand over, I laced my fingers with his, and after considering it for only a moment, finally did what I should have done a long time ago.
All of my weight shifted to my toes as I stretched to cover his lips with my own.
Aside from the spasm of his hand in mine, he froze, but I pushed forward, massaging the plush pink of his lips with mine. Asking—begging—for his permission and participation, I eased the tip of my tongue into the crease of his lips and lifted my free hand to cradle his freshly shaved head.
I hadn’t ever gotten close enough to run my fingers through his hair, but I so easily associated it with him that I missed the feel of it. Missed the reminder that it was him I was kissing as my heart spilled all around us.
Finally, when I was about to give up, his tongue met mine, and it didn’t do it slowly.
He tilted his head to go deeper and drank from me like he’d been doing it for years. He was precise and passionate, and he knew my mouth in a way that suggested he had a blueprint of it hanging in his room.
Electricity surged into my body and all I could do was hold on. His right hand gripped my hip hard, digging in his fingertips and leaving behind the marks to prove it, while his left dove straight into the long brownish-blond locks of my hair.
His moves dictated mine, moving so fast that all I could hope to do was follow, meeting the strokes of his tongue with my own and pressing my body as close to his as I could get it.
A haze clouded my mind and erased the knowledge of our location and audience. For me, in that moment, the only two people on the planet were Whitney and Blane, and for as close as we were we might as well have been one.
A sob left my throat as his mouth left mine. He twisted his hand free from my grip and stepped back, but left a hand in the tangled tussles of my hair.
“I’ve always loved this hair,” he reflecte
d to himself. Trust me, I was there, but he wasn’t talking to me.
As his hand left, it brushed the apple of my cheek, but it didn’t stay long.
And neither did he.
Without another word, he turned on his boot and headed for the rest of his unit at a jog.
Just like that, my heart shattered and fell into jagged pieces at my feet.
I hated that he was such a good kisser.
And I hated that that was the last time I saw him.
But most of all, I hated that I loved Blane Hunt. And he would never love me.
“WHATCHA GOT THERE?” GRAM QUIZZED as I put the last packet of Chiclets Tiny Size into the cardboard box for the fifteenth time.
Accompanying the gum were several sleeves of Chips-A-Hoy chewy chocolate chip cookies, Cool Ranch Doritos, and a cool, unused leather-bound journal I’d found in a thrift store.
He loved Fierce Grape gatorade too, but I’d have to go to another store for that. Target had run out.
I know. Blasphemy.
Why was I looking for all of this stuff?
I’d been asking myself the same question for the last several days.
For some reason, I hadn’t been able to let go of the idea of Blane, out there alone, or at least without the comforts of home, and putting together this care package had soothed my ragged nerves.
Sort of.
Unfortunately, I really hadn’t decided whether to actually send it or not, and Gram catching me in the act was really putting a snafu in my plans to keep it on the down low.
“Nothing,” I lied easily in an attempt to play it off. Those snacks could have been for me. Stored in a cardboard box instead of in the pantry for no reason.
Maybe she wouldn’t notice. She was getting older every day.
A girl could hope.
“Okay,” she acquiesced. “If you don’t want to talk about that, let’s talk about the other item that has my attention.” Shoving past me, she walked into my bathroom and picked up the box of home hair dye that had been sitting on my vanity counter for the last five days.
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