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“Yeah, you know you could probably take a couple of art credits while you’re over at Eastern and transfer over when you’re done – unless you have other art schools in mind.” She holds a placating hand up. I do have some in mind, but I like the idea of moving a small distance from home yet having a friendly face where I end up. I should look into this place. I ignore the fact that it’s in Indiana where Kaleb is from and shake the thought away. That doesn’t have to matter.
I gratefully accept the information Cassidy writes down for me, including her email and phone number.
After giving me a little hug, she gets in her car, and pulls away.
As I stand in the dirt lot, I'm suddenly hit with the finality of this moment. I’m about to leave without knowing how to write to Kaleb. All I know is his basic training is in South Carolina, and he doesn’t know where my dorm is because I haven’t even gotten that information yet.
I glance around the lot, probably looking like a lost child as I hold my pillow and bed linens to my chest with my duffel hanging off me.
We could have that sweet goodbye I dreamed about. We could laugh off last night and put it behind us, and one day it will be just some stupid fight we had once because we were stupid teenagers. Our friendship is too sacred to throw away over that.
My heartbeat elevates as I continue turning and walking aimlessly through the lot, looking for Kaleb or his bike. Neither is to be found anywhere as I walk around, hoping for any little sign, because once I leave… that’s it.
I wait. I watch several people come, get in their vehicles, and leave. I even see a couple of Kaleb’s co-counselors from his cabin, and they say they haven’t seen him at all this morning.
So this really is ending, like Kaleb said last night, only I’d hoped he’d just been drunk and angry. This was always meant to end.
Feeling as if my whole chest has been hollowed out, I finally make tracks to my car, holding my chin up, even though it’s for no one but myself. After getting all my things settled in the back, I open the front door and slide into the driver’s seat. I sit for a moment, shaking my head at myself. Every moment I wait, the stupider I feel. Holding my left hand up, I look at my bare palm and rub my thumb against the empty space where there should be a sweet little drawing.
Dropping my hands, I blow out a breath and turn the engine over. Cranking the radio up so that the music can blast away the sad and dismal thoughts trying to take over my mind right now, as I pull away and onto the road.
* * *
Kaleb
My fingers lace together,grip tight, and then release as I sit on the picnic table, feet on the bench and forearms on my knees. Closing my eyes against the morning sun, I draw in breath of the crisp air, willing it to cleanse my body of the toxins that have infected my spirit.
Little by little, I feel my head start to clear and my heart get heavier when I pick through my argument with Luna. We had some serious firsts last night, and sadly, that was one of them.
I never knew the dark side of her life because she never told me, but just because she didn’t offer it up, didn’t mean I couldn’t ask. I just always assumed she had a charmed life. She’s been open to anything I wanted to know, and maybe some screwed up part of my subconscious didn’t want to know anything other than the bright light she has been in my life. How naive was I to assume she didn’t know what a hard time looked like? No, her biological dad never hit her, but he abandoned her. Her real dad loved her so much that he wanted to make it legal, and that’s the part I always focused on. I never let myself stop and think that she’d been rejected by the one that shares her DNA. And in this moment, I’m facing the fact it’s because I didn’t want to believe that I wasn’t alone in my hardships.
After she stormed off last night, I felt the worst sinking feeling in my gut that I was desperate to escape. I wasn’t too drunk, but did have enough to make my head a little hazy, and all I knew was that I needed to sort this out.
I needed to get on my bike, something that always seems to clear my head. But while I don’t have the good sense to lay off alcohol altogether like Luna does – seeing as how it turns out both our piece of shit sperm donors are addicts – I was smart enough to throw myself back in the lake to sober up, and the walk to my Harley helped finish the job.
When I got on the road, with nothing but me and the single headlight on the asphalt, I went through every possible thing I could or should have done differently… like tell her I’ve never been with a girl that was anything more than a placeholder between those times I’d get to be with her; grabbed her and held her in the water after we made each other feel amazing, fighting away any awkwardness that tried to destroy us.
I reach beside me and grab the paper cup and drain the rest of the black coffee I bought from some little stand about fifteen or so miles down the road from Mystic Hills. The bitter liquid is stone cold, and I grimace as I swallow it down before crushing the cup between my hands and look out over the grassy meadow before me.
Luna said she loved me last night. I always felt that she did, but that was the first time I heard it. And I love her too, so much it hurts.
Over the last eight hours, my very being seems to have split off into several different segments, each one arguing a different point.
She’s too good for me, and she’ll never understand me.
She’s never given a shit about where I’m from, or what I’ve been through, but she loved me anyway. I’d be a fucking imbecile to give that up.
We could call this what it was, be the story each of us tells about the special friend we had at camp that became pen pals until that part of our lives was over and we went our separate ways, to our own next chapters.
Going back there this morning and asking her to be my girl, despite the time and distance we’re facing, would mean letting her see more than camp me, as she described it.
She’d have to know how much Pops and I struggle, and the only options I have laid out before me are taking over his bike shop or joining the military in the hopes of getting some schooling out of it. She’d have to know that my dad came back into my life a changed man. Loving, attentive and responsible. Pops would let him move back in so he could get back on his feet and fix things with me. I’d had my dad back… twice. And twice he broke my heart when someone would offer him a little coke and a lot of alcohol, and he’d leave me; the scary monster from my nightmares appearing in his place. Each of those times hurt worse than any slap or broken arm. All hope I had in the one person that was supposed to care about me was obliterated twice when he tried to change. I wasn’t worth not picking up the glass.
As far as Pops was concerned, that was his third strike. He wouldn’t let him near me after that, hiding me in closets or cupboards whenever the asshole came around. Then coming home with ice cream after he’d dropped him off at a bus station or rehab center.
And here I am, treating Luna in the opposite way she’s come to depend on from me.
Pops provided for me, Luna showed me friendship and love. The girl who never let me down… partly because I never gave her the opportunity.
