Better Late Than Never

by Ghiselle St. James

  Amateur…

  Yet I can’t move an inch. Now I know what the word stunning truly means.

  “Are you gonna get outta my way, kid?” a voice grumbles behind me.

  I fumble with an answer, all my PR training out the window with one look at my best friend. Smooth. Turning to see who is behind me, I find an older man with a hot, younger-than-his-old-ass woman on his arm. Her eyes bugle when she sees me and recognition strikes.

  She and I dated for a brief, brief moment. And when I say brief, I mean I banged her brains out for a few days one wild weekend last year. I would tell Grandpa Moneybags to protect his pockets, but he could do with a little “philanthropy”.

  Gold digger alert!

  Graciously, I step out of their way, not feeling one bit of bad that she is about to suck him dry, literally and figuratively…emphasis on the figure.

  “Kyle!” her voice jolts my entire being.

  Like a remembered song of my past, her voice calls to me; singing so sweet its melody. Savannah waves me over to where she is seated and, like a moth to flame, my feet carry me to her.

  God, her voice hasn’t changed at all. It still has the power to render me defenseless. I was not prepared for this meeting emotionally…and apparently, not physically either.

  Down, boy.

  “Miss Carpenter,” I greet her warmly, giving her my outstretched hand.

  I am every bit the professional in my tailored gray and black suit, shiny black shoes, briefcase, and with my hair slicked back. I want to come off as aloof; to make it seem like seeing her after so long away does not affect me in the least bit. This is business, nothing else. Yet as she sits there, I can’t promise that my current thoughts are business-like.

  “Boy, you better…” she laughs and swats my hand away. “You may be paying me huge bucks for this, but rest assured, we’re still friends.”

  She winks at me before standing up and pulling me into one of her warm hugs. I have missed those. She feels every bit of right in my arms like this, as though this is where she belongs and has always belonged. But I can’t get distracted.

  “Huge bucks, you say?” I inquire softly.

  “Colossal,” she concurs.

  “No IOUs?”

  “For a big shot like you? Not a chance.”

  “Hey, what happened to the best friend discount?” I protest.

  “Didn’t you know? Becky took your spot,” she asserts confidently.

  “Never,” I affirm, self-assured.

  Belatedly, I realize that we’re still hugging, but far be it from me to break this moment. Held in a long, familiar embrace that is only doing one thing: making me remember how she felt the last time I had her at my mercy here in North Carolina.

  Memory lane comes crashing into me at full speed and, like a train wreck, I can’t escape it. I can only watch the collision and hope I survive it.

  Kyle – Past

  October 2009

  A shower has me feeling no less calm or worried – though I do feel clean and, according to Claire’s shampoo, berry fresh. Yes, I use my girlfriend’s hair shit. It gives my hair more bounce and body…

  I took another x-ray on my shoulder today and it is still fucked up. I might not be able to play next season and that knowledge alone is a heavy weight on my shoulders. If I can’t play, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Baseball is all I’ve ever known. I wish I could call Savi. She’d know just what to say. Like my shoulder, though, I had to fuck that up, too.

  Walking back into my dorm room, I am just in time to see Claire hanging my phone up. She looks a little pissed, but the cloud passes from her face when she looks at me.

  “Is everything okay, babe?” I ask, folding the towel I just used, since Claire hates when I just stuff it in the laundry bin…or wherever it lands when I try to shoot a jump shot with it.

  “Yeah, oh,” she starts, as if jolted from a trance. “It was your mom, she was just sayin’ hi. I talked to Joy as well. That lil’ girl is nuttier than the nutcracker on ice.”

  She chuckles to herself, but it feels forced. Walking over to me, she starts kissing me but somehow her kisses taste of deceit. They’re cold, despite her frenzy.

  “What’s going on, Claire?” Pushing her away, I try to capture her gaze, searching it for truth.

  “What? I told ya,” she says nervously, her eyes looking at me, but not looking at me.

  My cell chooses that moment to ring. She jumps, fumbling with it before it drops to the floor. We stare at each other for a heartbeat, so much going on in this one moment. The line that has always tethered us together is fraying, has been fraying, and it is about to burst.

  The phone stops ringing but starts again just as soon.

  “Give me my phone, Claire,” I urge her calmly.

  “Kyle –” her voice catches, eyes looking panicked.

  “My phone, Claire,” I bark, causing her to snap into action.

  Shakily, she hands my phone to me, but turns pleading eyes to mine. “Just know I did it for us, Kyle. I love you,” she implores.

  Taking the phone without answering her, I see Grayson’s name flash across the screen. Flipping it open, I put it to my ear, but don’t get a word in.

  “You fucking bastard!” Grayson shouts at me. “You fucking piece of shit!”

  “What the fuck? Grayson, calm down!” I fire back at him. Like, what the fuck did I do?

  “I have half a mind to find your ass and kick it,” he threatens. “But Becky needs me.”

  My heart starts hammering in my chest at hearing Becky’s name. “What? Wha’d’you mean? What’s going on?”

  “Like you care.”

  “Fuck you, Gray, of course I do!”

  “Well, whatever you told your girl to tell Savi doesn’t convey that same message, fucker, and I have a hard time believing that Savi’d lie,” he spits.

  “I told her nothing, Grayson,” I deny, but then dawning smacks me in the face like a brick. Turning venomous eyes to Claire, I ask, “What the fuck did you do?”

  She doesn’t answer, and strangely, she doesn’t even shed a tear knowing she has been caught. She just stubbornly juts her chin out. Has she always been this devious? How did I not see it? Between her cute and beguiling Southern accent and her bedroom tricks, no wonder I was wrangled like a bull in a rodeo.

  “What’d she say, Grayson?”

  “She told Sav that you had a life and that Becky or anyone else in that Podunk town was no longer your problem.” Podunk. Sounds like something my sweet but conniving girlfriend would say.

  “Jesus Christ,” I breathe out, pent up exhaustion knocking the wind out of me.

  “You better ditch that broad quick,” my cousin advises, bless his heart. That isn’t even a question.

  “Already on it,” I answer staring at the woman who single-handedly fucked with my whole world.

  “Becky doesn’t look good, Kyle.”

  The pain in his voice gives me pause. Already I feel my heart cracking. We can’t lose Becky. Not now. We’re not ready.

  “On my way,” I tell him, car keys already in hand, before disconnecting the call.

  I take one last look at Claire, the time we spent together all feeling like a fucking lie.

  “It was always destined to end this way. I was right as rain in a thunderstorm. I knew she’d come between us one way or another,” she jeers, lip curled in malice. “Best friend, my hide. I always knew there was more ’tween you two than you let on. Liar.”

  A mirthless laugh tumbles from my lips. That’s rich, coming from you is what I should say, but I don’t. Instead, I grab my wallet and phone charger and head for the door. Anything else I say will only delay me getting to my friends, to my purple-haired monster…and I have been delayed for months too long.

  “If you leave, we’re over, Kyle,” she tosses that threat so idly.

  That Southern cadence used to make me tight in the crotch, now all it does is piss me the fuck off.

  Without looking bac
k, I tell her, “Leave my keys with Vince. He’ll be expecting ’em.”

  And I open then, as I leave, slam the door on the woman who has had me fooled for months on end. I call Vince and give him a heads up – just in case it hadn’t been clear for her earlier. Now I’m free and have got a lotta ass to kiss.

  I probably should’ve brought my toothpaste and toothbrush for this…

  I arrive at the hospital just in time, having taken the first flight back to NC, which still hadn’t been soon enough for me. I don’t see Savannah, and a sinking feeling has me feeling nauseous. Becky’s family, along with Grayson, Kelly, Lisa, and Monica are in the waiting room. Grayson starts filling me in, and I realize how bad it is with Becky. He calls some medical terms that go over my head, but I get the gist…she is in a bad way.

  Him, being so caught up and interested in Becky and her illness is a shocker to me. I never knew my cousin had the ability to care for anyone, other than himself, so deeply.

  “Where’s Savannah?” I ask, finally voicing the fact that I don’t see her. “Isn’t she here?”

  Grayson lays a hand on my shoulder and is about to answer, when a doctor wearing a white lab coat over jeans and a plaid grey button down comes into the room. Everyone looks expectantly at him and, of course, I am lost.

  “They’re both prepped and ready,” the doctor informs the group of us. “We counseled with Miss Carpenter to make sure she was certain about her decision.”

  “Wait…” I halt. “Miss Carpenter? W-what is she doing? What’s going on?”

  “Calm down, Kyle,” Grayson hushes.

  “Don’t tell me to calm down, Grayson! Where is she?” I demand.

  “She has volunteered to be the donor for Miss Gunterson’s red blood cell transfusion,” the doctor answers.

  I want to fight it; to tell everyone to go fuck themselves; to demand to know why Becky’s fucking parents didn’t volunteer. But I know my best friend. She probably chose to do this before anyone else could say they would. Her heart is too damn big for her chest.

  And this is why I love her.

  “We tried to give, but I’m hypertensive. Ted smokes and Aimee is too young,” Becky’s mom, Sarah, answers my silent question. “Grayson smokes, too, and the girls got here late from college, so Savannah thankfully stepped up without question, and we’re so grateful.”

  Yeah, that sounds like my girl. Heart as big as the love she gives.

  The doctor allows us to see Savannah, but I hang back. I don’t know what to say to her just yet, so I take the time to call her parents who were already on their way from a business trip Mr. Carpenter had in Connecticut. Ending the call, I turn to find Grayson watching me.

  “I don’t know why, but she wants to see you,” he says before walking out of the waiting room.

  Taking a deep breath, I go face my Waterloo. I screwed the pooch, but at least I’m here. I hope that makes up for all the bullshit. I hope she knows that whatever happens between us, I will come running to save her or, at the very least, hold her hand.

  Stepping into the sterile room, the sight of Savannah in a hospital bed takes me back a few months to when she was in one of these beds for a different, scarier reason. She looks so fragile, so small. That purple hair stands out against the stark white sheet and, somehow, she lights the room up.

  “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see you before I do this,” she whispers, but she might as well have shouted it. “Hell, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see you after it.”

  “I’d deserve that,” I agree, stepping closer to her. “I’ve been lost for a good, long time, Sav.”

  “Yeah, you have. But you’re here now.”

  She reaches her hand out to me, as if extending an olive branch. I grab on to her, my larger hand enveloping hers. The heat of our skin collide when our palms meet, and tingles run through my arm. She feels it too; by the way she pulls her hand back in shock.

  “Jeez, dude, you been mutton bustin’ with the Southern belle?” she teases, trying to deny the electricity between us. “Your hand is rough!”

  “You’re just jealous because my hand is softer than yours,” I joke. “Don’t worry. I’ll loan you my moisturizer, Crazy Hair.”

  “Jizz is not a moisturizer, Kyle,” she deadpans.

  “Hey, tell that to Health Weekly and Chicks Digest,” I defend. “Apparently, jizz makes the skin supple. Go figure!”

  We laugh, and with more comfortable banter, the Kyle and Savi Show is back on.

  Goddamn, it took us long enough.

  The transfusion takes four long hours, thankfully without complications. They had wielded Becky into another room afterwards to ensure that the platelet replacement worked. Now, she is in the same room as Savi, surprisingly recovered, though not fully out of the woods.

  Becky’s parents had taken her sister, Aimee, home with a promise to come back to check on her. The Carpenters had left along with them after looking me up and down and determining she was in good hands. Mr. Carpenter had lingered, however, pulling me away from everyone to give me a stern warning.

  “Do not get her pregnant,” he had threatened with his index finger between my eyes.

  “Wha-? Sir, it’s not like that between us,” I’d sputtered, putting an image in my head that probably won’t ever get out: Savannah pregnant with my kid.

  He stared at me then threw a look over my shoulder, most likely through the glass window toward his daughter, before turning unconvinced eyes back to me and snorting derisively.

  “Yeah, until you both show up on my doorstep with a rug rat in tow and a hot cross bun in the oven,” he’d mocked. “Just do me a favor…you might be the son I wished I had but, for the love of God, wait until she at least gets her first job.”

  He did not wait for me to protest; just walked away, leaving me reeling…and thinking of his daughter knocked up with my seed. I had to stay outside for a few minutes while I let that image fade away.

  Walking back toward the room now, I have the sudden urge to beat my chest…

  “What did my Dad say to you?” she asks when I am back at her bedside.

  I’m torn between telling her what he’d said and keeping that particular information to myself. I don’t know why I think I may need it for future references. So, tucking it away in the recesses of my brain, though not too far since the image of her round with our baby could be great spank-bank material – dear, God, I need help – I lie.

  “Well, your Dad just threatened me that if anything happened to you, he’d chop my balls off and give them to his wife as earrings,” I evade easily.

  Becky and Grayson chuckle, but otherwise are in their own world. Curious…

  “Oh, my God,” Savannah groans, hiding her face. I think she’s having a mild freak out until I hear her snort into her hands. “I can’t believe my Dad said that.”

  “Oh, I can,” I confirm. “Sounds like something you would totally say, too.”

  Savannah is a straight shooter with no filter. If she is thinking it, she’ll say it, and she may or may not apologize to you afterwards.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” She’s thoughtful as her laughter dies down. I look around the room, if only to do something with my eyes. I can’t help but stare at her sometimes.

  “Where’s Cam these days?” I ask genuinely…well, not really. I could give two shits about that asshole.

  “I hate when you say his name like that,” she grumbles.

  “Like what?”

  “Like he’s insignificant,” she answers, her eyes on fire, rearing for a fight, and my dick twitches.

  Jesus.

  I would tell her that he is insignificant when it comes to me and her, but I don’t want her to go and try to prove me wrong – because she would. All that will do is push her away, further into his arms, and I am not sure if I want to risk that.

  “I’m sorry, Sav,” I tell her, hoping I don’t sound as insincere as I feel.

  “I have a hard time believing you are,” she challenges, ca
lling me on my bullshit.

  “Jesus, you guys just spent months apart not talking to each other,” Grayson chimes in, annoyed. “What’s wrong with you? Like fighting with each other turns you on or some shit.”

  Well, he’s not wrong…

  “Yeah, you’d think they’d try to kiss and make up instead of finding another excuse to fight,” Becky adds.

  It’s then we turn to see that both of them are holding hands and that Grayson is stroking Becky’s hair. Wait…

  What?

  “Life is short, guys,” Grayson declares, staring at Becky. “Don’t spend it arguing.”

  “Or hiding from your feelings,” Becky slips in, with her eyes solely on my cousin.

  I want to interrogate them both and ask them, in this order: what’s happening, when it happened, and why is it happening. And from the look on Savannah’s face, she wants to do the same. I have never seen Grayson look at someone the way he is staring at Becky – with such tenderness, it makes me jealous. Jealous because Becky is staring at him the same way, the way that I wish…

  Feeling like I’m intruding, I turn away from the intimate scene and my eyes refocus on the woman I call best friend.

  You are way beyond that, brother.

  I’ll deal with my brain later.

  “Truce?” With bated breath, I extend my hand.

  “Why are we always doing this?” she whispers, closing her eyes and leaning her head against the pillow. “This back and forth is giving me whiplash.” She rubs her temple for effect.

  I know what she means.

  “We’re either gonna be best friends, more, or nothing at all, Kyle,” she outlines, spilling the options out on the table.

  My heart starts pounding at the choice of more. Am I ready to be more with Savannah? Can I be more for her? A sudden picture of me failing her pops unbidden in my head. She’s crying. I’ve lost her.

  The image plays out no more than two seconds in my head, but it feels like a lifetime has passed. I weigh my choices: it’s either losing her forever, having her body and her heart and still losing her forever, or having her heart as a friend – and nothing more – forever.