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I bounded up the stairs, pausing on the landing to look at the family photos one by one. Happy images of Taylor Jane and her parents, an only child obviously loved and cherished filled the wall to bursting with pictures. Most were in black and white with a few pops of color photography. I was jealous, but not in a hurtful way, cataloging her childhood from birth to present day in a reverse chronological order as we went up the staircase. I stopped in front of one that showed Taylor Jane about seven with her mother smiling holding a bouquet of bright sunflowers, blond hair, and bright happy blue eyes.
I wished my childhood had been as happy. It wasn’t and that was the hard truth. I might have been miserable, but Taylor Jane didn’t deserve this. If I could have taken the pain for her I would have already knowing I was capable of bearing it. I didn’t know if she could, better still, I didn’t want her too.
“Come on, Hunt.” Damien moved to go ahead of me, but I held him back, my fingers gripping his arm in a bruising clutch.
Turning, I stared at him hard and whispered so no one could hear us. “You’re like a fucking bull in a china shop. Slow down.” I walked ahead, measuring my footsteps to a respectable pace or what I thought sounded respectable in a house full of morning and grief. Somehow I knew running up the steps wouldn’t be welcome. I reached the door to Taylor Jane’s bedroom and stopped short as Damien bumped into me.
“Seriously?” I asked, eying him over my shoulder, and he shrugged. I swore my cousin barely used the executive functioning side of his brain.
Taylor Jane’s room was something to behold. I’d never been in here before. Sure, we’d all sat downstairs in her large family room to watch our favorite movies sitting on separate couches while her mom made us snacks, but a girl’s bedroom was an entirely different sort of thing. It was a sacred thing and every boy knew that a girl’s father would beat the tar out of him for crossing the threshold, which was exactly why I hesitated at the entry.
Standing in the doorway, I watched Kristen sit next to her on the bed, rubbing her back, and felt a funny lump in my throat thinking that maybe I wished it were me there doing that for her. Afraid to cross inside, I saw her room was painted a pale orange color or maybe it was peach? I didn’t know shit about colors, but I did know it felt warm and pretty, something that obviously reflected Taylor Jane’s personality. Everything else was white. White lace curtains covered the windows and white furniture filled her bedroom. As I took everything in I realized Kristen must have stood up and walked over to where Damien and I hovered inside the doorway.
“Thanks for coming.” Both Kristen and I looked back at our friend, who sat silently on her bed, staring out the window. Her hair had been braided a tight weave of flaxen gold hair and I wondered if it hurt looking so tightly wound together. I wanted to pull on the rubber band holding the end and let the hair out so it rested free and waved down her back.
I clenched my fists, pissed that the world would take this sweet girl’s mother. She didn’t deserve to have a loss like that giving her a gaping hole in her heart. I could survive death, I had survived it, but I wondered how she would and remain unchanged by it.
Kristen touched my hand that burned from being held so tightly and whispered again close to me. “She needs us.”
“There’s a casserole downstairs,” Damien interjected, attempting to be helpful.
I gave him credit for trying and to Kristen for not killing him on the spot for his sublime awkwardness. She brushed past us but not before pinching Damien’s side.
“She’s not hungry right now.” Kristen muttered leaving.
“Ow! Geez, Pebbles!” Hissing, he rubbed his waist and followed Kristen down the stairs presumably to the kitchen.
It took me a moment to process everything again and take a deep breath. She didn’t move when I sat down on her bed next to her. The mattress was fluffy and my hulking frame caused me to sink in, forcing her to roll into me unexpectedly. I used my hands to steady her, but she scooted closer and instead rested her head against my chest feather light with the barest hint of pressure.
“Taylor Jane?” My arms were out, unsure of what to do. We didn’t touch like that. We’d never touched like that. I glanced back and saw her bedroom door was wide-open and I thought her father would probably kill me if he came up there.
“He hasn’t touched me since she died.” Her voice was broken, wobbly and I leaned in even closer to hear what she was saying.
“What do you mean?” I heard her swallow and begin again, her hand touching my arm.
“My father. He hasn’t hugged me since my mother died.”
And that right there broke me. I felt my heart shatter into a million jagged fragments ready to slice me open all over again like the windshield of my parents’ crashing car when she said that. I did the only thing I could whether it was right or wrong. I pulled her against me hard and hugged her tightly, enough to squeeze the breath out of her because I wasn’t sure who needed it more. No one had hugged me since my parents’ deaths because I wouldn’t let anyone touch me that way, but Taylor Jane was used to love and affection and to be suddenly denied something out of no fault of her own was wrong on a level I had no words to describe.
Whispering against her hair, I held her like she was my lifeline. “I’ll hug you, Taylor Jane. I’ll do it. Whenever you
need it.”
We clutched onto each other, seeking comfort, and I rubbed her back the way Kristen did and pulled on her hair until I reached that damn rubber band, pulling it out to free her too tight braid. Once I was done letting the locks unravel she cried broken tears and I did what my mother did to me when I cried as a little boy. I rocked her back and forth gently until the tears subsided. It was an exercise in emotional strength because physically I could have held her for hours. It was my heart I couldn’t depend on to keep me going. I didn’t realize how wet my own face had become in surrendering to the feelings. It was raw and it sucked. I didn’t understand what was happening, but my best friend needed me and I needed her. I vowed to hold her together and hug her anytime she needed it even if it killed me.
“Does it, does it ever get better? The hole in your heart when you wonder if they might just walk in the door and this was all a bad dream?”
I wanted to tell her it got better, but I had my own doubts because it hadn’t gotten better for me, not yet anyway. I still had nightmares and woke up choking in my own fear and sweat with blankets twisted on the floor.
“Some days are better than others, but some just knock you down real hard on your ass and you have to fight to get back up.” I let my face rest against her head, smelling her clean hair and feeling her softness.
“I miss her. I just want my mom.”
“I know you do. I’m not going to tell you it gets easier, it doesn’t really, but the pain changes over time, less raw. That much I do know.”
There wasn’t much else I could say. We held each other for a while longer and our hearts seemed to be beating in a staccato rhythm as one. I remembered the damn wood carving digging into my leg through my pocket and shifted on the bed to reach it, hoping it hadn’t snapped. I pulled it out, and Taylor Jane sat up, mostly in my lap now with her legs dangling over the edge of the bed.
“What is this?”
