CROSS (A Gentry Boys Novella)

by Cora Brent

  “Conway!” Erin screamed. “Come back!”

  I didn’t come back. I ran, breaking the kitchen door from its hinges as I tore it open to get away. I had to. I had to get away. I ran all the way back to Carson’s garage and promptly vomited into the break room sink.

  Later, much later, when I could stand the thought, I would wonder how different things would have been if I just would have stayed, if I just would have faced them instead of running. I would have screamed in their faces. They would have been full of denial or apology. We all would have cried and maybe wounded one another even more as we shouted and begged and accused and threw things. It would have been the hour of the rawest hurt of my nightmares. Instead I ran because right then I couldn’t bear to do anything else.

  So that’s my crime. That’s my cowardly role in this terrible heartbreak.

  But how could I have known what would happen next?

  No, never once did I imagine how close we stood to a perilous ledge.

  It never occurred to me that we were all about to fall.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ERIN

  Stone looked at me. I looked at him. There was no room for tears, or even words. I knew my face must be a mirror of the grief I saw in Stone’s.

  Conway thought we had betrayed him.

  He thought he’d caught us in the act and who could blame him? The way he’d looked at us…such agony. I’d never seen him so shattered.

  There was noise in the room. It hurt to listen to it. I covered my ears because it was hurting me. It wasn’t until Stone came to my side and pulled my hands away that I realized the noise was a long, wailing moan that came from my own throat.

  Stone scooped my sweatshirt off the floor. “This can be fixed,” he was saying as he draped the sweatshirt gently over my shoulders. “This can be fixed.”

  “How?” I whispered. Right now Conway wouldn’t have any reason to believe a word we said. “We need to find him,” I choked out. “We need to explain, to make this okay somehow.”

  “We will.”

  “We have to find him.”

  “We will!”

  “Now, Stone! We’re just sitting here and Conway’s alone. He can’t be alone out there, running around in that kind of pain and thinking that we…OH GOD! It’s got to be now. Right now. Tomorrow will be too late.”

  I was babbling, rocking back forth. I didn’t know why I was so sure that tomorrow would be too late (too late for what?) but I knew that it was.

  Stone disappeared down the hall. When he returned he was pulling a blue t-shirt over his head. He took his phone out of his back pocket and then threw it down, probably realizing that there was no chance he could get in touch in Con that way since Con had lost his phone in the accident last week.

  “Fuck!” he shouted. He started pacing back and forth and breathing in gasps.

  Somehow the sight of Stone losing it calmed me down a little. I pushed my arms through the sleeves of the sweater and stood up.

  “Where would he go?” I asked calmly.

  Stone stopped pacing. He looked around wildly. “I don’t know.”

  “Back to Carson’s Garage maybe?”

  He shook his head. “Doubt it. He’s probably run off somewhere to be alone. That’s what I’d do, if I were him. I wouldn’t be able to stomach the company of other people.”

  “Well.” I clasped my hands in front of me. My mind was working quickly. “Emblem isn’t that huge. Your mom’s at the pharmacy, right? Any chance she would lend you her car?”

  Stone snorted. “Are you kidding? My mother wouldn’t give me a glass of water at this point.”

  “Wait for me,” I said and walked out the door.

  Stone followed. “Where are you going?”

  “Home. I’ll be back.”

  My house was silent but my father’s car was in the driveway. I was glad my sisters weren’t home because I couldn’t handle explaining anything at the moment.

  I found my father on the couch again, asleep, still in his uniform. He’d probably fallen asleep there a thousand times since the bleak day of my mother’s suicide. I watched him breathe and allowed myself to think about a terrible time I’d been mentally running from since it happened.

  It had been all over by the time I got home from school. A neighbor had walked his dog past our house and smelled gas so he called the fire department. They found her there in the kitchen, the same kitchen where we’d made cookies and laughed through family dinners. The coroner’s report said she’d died around eleven a.m. When I found that out it seemed important to remember where I’d been at the moment she gave up. I’d been in gym, standing out in left field with my softball glove and hoping no one hit a ball out that way. Eleven a.m. I only knew that because I’d heard my father talking to Aunt Bonnie. To us girls he didn’t say much, just trying to make it from day to day the best he could. He called it an ‘accident’. I understood. I never corrected him. The man just wanted to go on with the business of healing and bypass the chore of grief. I couldn’t blame him for that.

  My father snored lightly, looking younger in sleep than he ever did when he was awake. I took the soft afghan from the reclining chair and covered him gently with it.

  “I love you, Daddy,” I whispered and felt a surge of tenderness and he smiled briefly in his sleep. Then I pocketed the car keys that were sitting on the coffee table.

  Stone waited on his front stoop. He was hunched down with his head bowed. It was the first time in a long time he seemed like a boy. He looked up when he heard me approach.

  I held up the keys. “Let’s go find him.”

  “Whose are those?”

  “My dad’s. Can you drive? I don’t feel well.”

  He nodded and went straight to the silver Camry in my driveway. We didn’t have much to say to each other as we drove through the streets of Emblem. For once we were both united with the same purpose.

  Find Conway. Make him understand the truth.

  Stone thought there was a chance Con was at the old bridge but he wasn’t. When we stopped by the pool we saw a few kids from school and asked if they’d seen him but they all shook their heads.

  “Think he’d climb the butte?” I asked. The butte was a tiny mountain that sat right outside town. There was crypt at the top in the shape of a pyramid. It was a place people went to hang out, or drink, or fuck, or just ponder the miserable state of the world.

  Stone considered. “Maybe. I’ll turn around when we get to the end of Main Street and we can swing by there.”

  “Okay,” I said. I was tired, so tired. But there wouldn’t be any rest until we’d found Conway. I wouldn’t sleep until I’d extinguished that agonized look in his eyes.

  Just last year the town installed a new park just west of Main Street. It was little more than a wilting patch of grass with a few lonely swings. As we passed by it was empty. The only movement came from the sprinklers, which simultaneously rose from the ground and sprayed the grass with a fine mist of water. The harsh sunlight was softening. It would disappear soon. But the lingering rays dallied in the Main Street park, playing in the gentle spray of water. Together they formed small rainbows.

  Stone glanced at me curiously when I opened the window and extended my hand. Silly though it was, I reached for those rainbows. I unbuckled my seat belt so that I could reach further. Roe had told me that if I ever had a chance to catch a rainbow then I should. As my hand closed I imagined I succeeded and a feeling of utter peace washed over me as I shut my eyes.

  “Ah, shit,” Stone cursed as he sped up.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Can’t shake this fucker.” He pointed to the old Chevy that surged beside us.

  Benny Cortez’s goofy face was behind the wheel. He was a year younger than us, the brother of Tony Cortez. “C’mon Gentry,” he shouted cheerfully. “Let’s race.”

  “Fuck off!” Stone yelled.

  “First one to the light ain’t a chicken shit!”

  “Not
tonight, man.”

  Benny didn’t hear or wasn’t listening. He gunned the engine and sped up, cutting us off. Stone cursed and slammed on the brakes, narrowly avoiding slamming into the Chevy. Benny switched lanes, fell back beside us. He laughed as Stone shouted a slew of curses and cut the wheel sharply to the right.

  Looking down, I noticed my hand was still closed in a fist. I slowly opened my fingers, staring. A light, a brilliant light, came from the center of my open palm and it gave me such joy because I had done the impossible. I had captured a rainbow. I couldn’t wait to tell Roe.

  Then there was a terrible sound, unnatural, like a tree screaming.

  Then a voice, Stone’s voice, saying my name again and again.

  Then…nothing.

  FOUR MONTHS LATER….

  EPILOGUE

  CONWAY

  If love looked anything like smoke then I would have easily choked to death in this wall to wall parade of the shit.

  As soon as the thought crossed my mind I scolded myself for such nasty feelings. Feelings like that had no place here. There was love everywhere at Chase and Stephanie’s wedding reception. Cord was standing on one side with his wife Saylor and their two little daughters. Creed was on the other side with his wife Truly and their newly adopted baby son. Chase couldn’t stop kissing his pregnant bride. And then Deck and his girl Jenny danced in each other’s arms even though there was no music that I could hear.

  I sat alone. Chase had offered a spot for the date of my choice but I didn’t want to clog up his wedding guest list with some dumb girl I didn’t give a shit about. Deck had made me transfer to the local high school since I was living with him and his fiancé. I didn’t put up a fight because I would have been an ungrateful ass not to act like I was doing at least the bare minimum when they were good enough to take me in. But my heart wasn’t in it. Funny thing about school though; the more I tried to make myself invisible the more girls draped themselves across me like static cling. Mostly I gave them what they wanted and earned a few minutes of ecstasy that blotted out the pain. But when it was over I could barely look at whatever girl I’d just fucked. Whoever she was, she didn’t matter to me.

  The only girl who’d ever mattered was underneath some dirt in the Emblem Memorial Cemetery.

  I didn’t go to Erin’s funeral. I never visited her grave. It seemed there was less and less of her every day as I rejected all memories, good and bad. I didn’t hold her responsible. But I had no place to put all the love that was attached to her so I let it die.

  Cord’s little daughters - my nieces, though no one knew it - ran past with shrieks and flowers. The sight of their linked hands made me smile. Two joyful little spirits, born to be best friends. My smile fell away. I hoped to god that life wouldn’t take them from each other.

  Deck was watching me. He did that a lot. He hovered, like a dad, like he knew that was what I needed even though I usually brushed him off. I gave him a slight wave with my index finger to let him know I was all right. He nodded but still looked anxious. Pretty soon he and Jenny would probably come back to the table and urge me to eat, try to get me to smile. I loved them for that, for trying. I’d do my best to cooperate, even if was just for show. I owed the whole Gentry family at least that much.

  Usually I managed to avoid reflecting on the terrible events that had brought me to where I was. But tonight, in the middle of all this agonizing family tenderness, I couldn’t help but think about it.

  The triplets had been the ones to find me on Main Street the night of the accident. They said I’d been screaming. They said I’d punched a light pole. I knew it was true because I’d worn a cast on my hand for six weeks and it still hurt to make a fist.

  That was the night that took Erin from me forever.

  That was the night my mother washed her hands of her sons for good.

  That was the night Stone was hauled away in a police car because the law said he had to pay for what he’d done.

  I had to take everyone else’s word for the way things had gone down because I didn’t remember much. Everything about those last few weeks in Emblem, the last few weeks of childhood and of happiness, now has a hazy quality. If I squinted I might be able to see a little more clearly but I didn’t want to. The agony was already bad enough as it was.

  The judge who’d sentenced Stone was unusually harsh because he’d lost a niece to a street racing crash. Stone wouldn’t be offered parole for at least four years.

  Deck hadn’t been surprised when I told him that Stone was really his half brother. I only told him because I thought for sure that if he knew he’d go out of his way even more to keep Stone alive down there in that prison. I’d never gotten around to telling Stone about the things our mother said. Knowing about it now wouldn’t do him much good where he was. But if Deck really had the kind of connections that everyone said he did then he also had the power to make sure Stone didn’t get hurt while he was locked up down there with all the murderers and the freaks. I didn’t tell Deck that was the reason. And even though Deck had asked me if there were any other secrets he ought to know about I wouldn’t say a word about Benton. Not to him, not to the triplets who still thought they were just my cousins. I didn’t even react when I heard my real father, Benton Gentry, had died a few weeks ago. Everything I’d ever heard about him told the story of a terrible man I was lucky to never know.

  “Thought you looked like you could use a bite to eat.” The voice was cheerful and very southern.

  I looked up to see two beautiful Gentry women – Truly and Saylor – offering me a plate of cake and sympathetic smiles.

  “Thanks,” I said gratefully and managed to smile back.

  “How are you doing, Con?” Saylor asked as her hand brushed my shoulder in a maternal way.

  “Can’t complain,” I answered breezily but it didn’t fool either of them. Truly and Saylor exchanged a sad look and then grew artificially cheerful as they started talking, mostly to each other, about how I should stay at Saylor and Cord’s house for fall break in a few weeks. I played with my fork and bobbed my head as if I agreed it was a good idea.

  “Cord could show you the ropes in the shop if you want,” Saylor suggested. She was trying to be nice, so even though learning about tattoos at Cord’s shop didn’t interest me at all I pretended it did.

  Truly Gentry, Creed’s wife, was staring at me. Without warning she reached over and gently lifted my chin. “Hold your head up,” she said tenderly. “There’s no telling what beautiful things wait for you tomorrow, sweet boy.”

  Once they were back on the other side of the room with their husbands and their children I reached down to cup my hand over my left pocket ever so briefly. It was still there. Stone’s latest letter. I still hadn’t read it. Of the first seventeen years of my life I’d never spent a day away from my brother. Now it had been four endless months since I’d heard his voice. Chase tried to get me to ride down to Emblem for visits but I just couldn’t. It’s not that I hated Stone. That wasn’t even possible. But I couldn’t forgive him either. Every night before I closed my eyes I thought maybe the next time I opened them I’d have the guts to face my grief. And my brother. But that day hadn’t come yet. Maybe it never would.

  One night when I’d only been living in Deck’s house for about a week, he found me on the back patio, staring up at the moonless sky as a cigarette burned between my lips. I didn’t know what kind of urge had led me to walk to the corner convenience store and buy a pack. I wasn’t a smoker. Stone was the smoker. I hated the taste and the smell.

  Deck was an intimidating sight, even strutting around in boxers at midnight. With all his muscles and tattoos he had the look of a man who was anything but gentle. He just stood at my side and waited while I puffed on the cancer stick without inhaling before giving up and snuffing it out on the concrete. Deck might look scary but he had the kindest voice when he wanted to use it. He used it then. I’d often thought of the words he said to me that night in the dark, even though
I couldn’t quite make sense of them yet.

  “I know,” he’d said earnestly, “I really do. When you lose love you can’t imagine you’ll ever remember how to love again. You don’t even want to. But that will change, Conway. It will. And you’ll find yourself looking for that love even though you may not even realize you’re looking.”

  I couldn’t remember what I said in return. Probably nothing. Deck was a wise man. But he wasn’t able to tell me how to get through all the days in the middle so that I could finally come out on the other side at least halfway healed. Maybe there was no advice for that. In any case I suspected my healing moment was still a very long way off.

  No one else can put me back together. I don’t even know if I can do it. But even in my darkest moments I have to hope that someday I’ll be whole again.

  I have to hope that someday I’ll have the courage to see my brother again.

  I have to hope that someday I can figure out how to love again.

  Because as I sit here at this wedding and watch these people with all their happy perfect imperfections I understand something I’d never realized before. Love and hope are the glue that holds us together, body and soul. We need the people we love as much as we need to breathe. Without them, we just drift. If we’re lucky we don’t drift forever.

  That might have been what Deck was trying to tell me, that I wouldn’t be drifting forever.

  I hoped to hell he was right.

  (NOT) THE END

  BECAUSE….

  THE BOYS WILL BE BACK!!

  WALK: A Gentry Boys Story

  (Coming May 18)

  You know that if you had any honor you wouldn’t take her.

  But honor is something you lost a long time ago….

  1513