Crossing the Barrier (35 page)

When she arrived at her classroom, it was mercifully empty. Lily took her usual seat and took her notebook to begin reviewing in the hopes concentrating on school would make it easier on her.

She had been reading for a few minutes when she felt Malakai. She immediately knew something was wrong.

They had spoken on the phone the previous night, and he sounded like something was bothering him, but they hadn’t spoken about it, and Lily let him have his privacy. But now she felt the full force of his unease.

She was already looking toward the door when he walked in. He went to the desk behind her and took his seat, dropping his bag on the floor.

“Hi,” he said quietly.

“Hi.”

He unzipped his backpack and tried to get his books out, but they got stuck. He was shaking the bag trying to free them when Lily reached out to help him. The flare of anger the gesture provoked stopped her. Feeling like someone had just slapped her, she turned around, letting him deal with it on his own.

The anger pouring out of him was like hot lava in Lily’s mind, and she struggled to keep her composure. She didn’t understand what was going on, and all she needed was for him to be there for her.

But he wasn’t there. He was far, far away in this land of guilt and anger, and she just didn’t understand why.

“I…I’m sorry,” he said, once he was done struggling with his bag. “I…”

He didn’t continue. Waves and waves of shame rolled out of him, enough to almost drown Lily, who already had such a hard time keeping it together.

“’S okay,” she said without turning around, her voice choked by her repressed tears.

She didn’t want him to see how dejected she really was. Because it was not okay.

She wanted to talk to him about what she was going through, all the decisions she had to make, and she wanted him to give her his opinion about it all, to shed some perspective she certainly no longer had.

She wanted his advice. She needed his advice. But Malakai was emotionally confused and unavailable.

“I…” he began again but couldn’t finish.

Lily felt a pull on her hair; Malakai was holding on to a strand like he had done so many times before. She closed her eyes, trying, for the first time, to block him out of her mind. She didn’t want to feel like he wasn’t there for her.

“I want to be there for you,” he said as another wave of guilt slammed into her. “I really…Can we have lunch?” he finally asked. “I mean just you and me, somewhere where we can be alone, where we can talk?” he continued, hope pouring out of him.

“Yes.”

From him, relief.

“Malakai, what’s wrong?” she asked, finally turning to him.

“I…I abandoned you,” he said, looking everywhere but at her.

“Is that what you believe?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get out of here, now,” she said, grabbing her books and standing.

Malakai looked at her for a moment before standing also. He retrieved his bag from the floor, put it over his shoulder, then grabbed his books. They both made their way out of the classroom and were walking to the parking lot when the first bell rang. They made it to Malakai’s jeep since it was closer, and Lily grabbed his keys from his jacket pocket despite his annoyance. She unlocked the door.

A moment later, Malakai was driving them away from school, and to one of the nearby city parks. He parked the jeep, and they both remained there, silent, looking out the front windshield, guilt pouring from Malakai again.

“You didn’t abandon me,” she finally said quietly, looking at the ducks floating on the pond.

“I wasn’t there for you!” Malakai said, hitting the steering wheel with his good fist to punctuate every word. “I wasn’t there when you needed me.” He turned to her, breathing hard.

The anger, confusion, and guilt washing out of him were choking her, and she didn’t try to hide her tears this time.

“Then be there for me now!” she screamed at him.

“Oh Lily,” he said, pulling her to him.

Lily unbuckled her seat belt and climbed into his lap, squeezing herself between his chest and the steering wheel. The position was uncomfortable but she needed him, and his arms around her felt like heaven.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his cheek against her head.

Lily sobbed against his shoulder, feeling like her world was falling apart all over again, and he was the only thing keeping her together.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I don’t have a home anymore, and now I need you to be there for me. I need you to stop feeling angry and guilty, and just be there for me like you were before all this happened.”

Malakai just held her. His anger was replaced by concern and love, but underneath it, the guilt and insecurity still remained.

“Charlie’s telling me I should sell the house,” she continued. “Malakai, it’s my home.”

Malakai didn’t have to say he didn’t agree with her; she knew already.

“I’m going to be there whatever you decide,” he said instead.

“But you think I should sell it, too.”

“If I tell you what I think, will you get angry at me?”

“No. I want to know what you think. I want to know what you see because I don’t see anything anymore.”

“I think your house, even if you own it on paper, hasn’t been your home for a long, long time,” he said gently, caressing her hair. “I think you’re more at home at Sandra’s, and you’re happier when you’re anywhere but at your house.”

Lily remained silent. What he said did hurt, and she felt a flash of anger toward him, but she had told him she wanted the truth. Malakai wasn’t telling her this out of spite or cruelty. He said it because she asked, and he cared for her.

“I don’t understand why you want to keep it so badly. Will you try and explain it to me?”

“I…It’s the last place I saw my father. It’s the place we were happy.”

“But what about your memories? Aren’t they as equally important if not more?”

“Yes,” she answered. “But I feel like I shouldn’t let go of it…I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you want to keep on living there with your mother?”

No, she didn’t. The mere idea of it made her choke. She didn’t want anything to do with Beatrice anymore. She wanted to stay as far away from her venom as she could. The woman was toxic, and Lily was afraid if she remained with her, even for a few more days, she would eventually lose her mind.

“Do you want to live with Charlie?” Malakai asked after a few moments of silence.

No, she didn’t want to live with Charlie either. She loved him like a father, but Charlie still saw her as a fourteen-year-old who needed a set of rules appropriate for that age. Living with him would be nice for a while, but eventually, they would collide, and she would suffocate.

“Do you want to live with the Joneses?” Malakai continued after another moment of silence.

She loved Nicole, Sandra, and David, and they had always been more than a family to her. Nicole had even offered to take her in numerous times. But by moving in with them, she would always feel like an outsider, a friend who was there for a visit. She would never be quite at home.

“Have you thought about living by yourself?” That question was accompanied by a flash of fear from Malakai. He was afraid of something, but before Lily asked, he continued. “You know, you’re eighteen now, and it’s something you can pursue.”

Living by herself.

That was not something she had seriously considered, even if Charlie had mentioned it. In her teenage mind, she still saw herself as a minor and had only considered living with others.

Could she create a home on her own?

“The house…” she said.

“Is maybe better in your memories than you owning it,” Malakai said gently. “You can still make good memories elsewhere.”

“Did you move a lot?”

“Yes, quite often.”

“How is it?”

“It’s hard at first, but once you’re at the new place, you make new memories, and after a while, it’s okay.”

The flash of fear came again.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ll be turning eighteen soon, too,” he said. “It worries me. My father’s not home a lot as it is. I’m wondering if he’ll be there at all after my birthday.

“You know, sometimes I’m afraid not only will he completely disappear but that he’ll stop providing for me, too,” he continued after a few moments of silence. “I don’t know what I’d do if he does. I wouldn’t be able to go to college if something were to happen to my scholarship.”

“Malakai, do you honestly think your father would stop providing for you?” Lily remembered the man she had met the night of her birthday dinner. He was an absentee parent, that was true, but she had met a man who was proud of Malakai. “I don’t think your father’s going to cut you off. I think he’ll help you as much as he can for as long as you need him to.”

Malakai didn’t say anything, but the uncertainty still plagued his heart.

They remained silent a little while longer, and Malakai finally sighed. “We shouldn’t miss calculus,” he said. “I could use the revising.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Feeling any better?” he asked as Lily pulled away and looked at him.

“Yeah, I think so. You’re making me reorganize my thoughts. You?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he said with a smile.

He still had his doubts. That, he couldn’t hide from her.

He brought his good hand to her cheek and slowly pulled her toward him. He kissed her long and soft, and Lily sighed in contentment.

A moment later, they were on their way back to school.

Chapter Sixty-Six

LILY

Two days later
, Lily was as confused as when she found out her keys no longer fit in the lock. Charlie had taken care of having her belongings transported to a storage unit where Lily had gone through the few boxes Beatrice had decided were hers. She cried when she couldn’t find her father’s clarinet among her things or any pictures of him.

“Lily, don’t worry,” Charlie had said. “I’ll get them back, I promise.”

Lily only nodded.

On that Friday morning, she was skipping school again. She wanted to talk to Nicole, and if Sandra and David were around, she wouldn’t be able to really talk the way she wanted to.

The run from school to her car after her first class had drenched her through and through. She drove on autopilot, thankfully knowing where she was going in this rain that made everybody drive ten miles below the speed limit. Ten minutes later, she pulled onto her street and drove to the place she knew so well. She parked her car in front of Sandra’s house and looked across the street. Beatrice’s car was gone, and all Lily wanted was to get in the house and go back to the way things were, even if they were far from perfect.

But she didn’t have the keys.

In the next moment, she knew she was lying to herself. She didn’t want to go back to the way things were. She had been miserable, and she was tired of being miserable.

As the rain pounded her car, she just sat there, shivering, staring in the direction of the home that was no longer one and would never be again.

Her house.

Her home.

All in the possession of a woman who never loved her and never would.

“Lily!” Nicole said, opening the car door. “Come. Don’t stay here.”

Numbly, Lily unbuckled her seat belt and let Nicole help her out of the car.

“Come,” she said again, pulling her toward the front door.

They walked inside, and Nicole quickly ran to the couch to grab a blanket.

“Oh, poor girl,” Nicole said, putting it over Lily’s shivering body. “You’re a downright mess.”

“S-s-sorry,” Lily said, her teeth clacking. “I-I w-w-ant-ted t-to t-talk t-to you.”

“Well, let’s get you dry, then I’ll make some hot chocolate and we can talk.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting in Nicole’s sitting room, steaming cups of hot chocolate in hands.

“So, what’s going on?” Nicole asked when Lily wouldn’t begin the conversation.

“Is it irrational that I want to keep the house?” she asked, looking at the older woman.

Nicole sighed and put her cup down on the side table. “I think you know what I’ll say about that, don’t you?” she said, leaning back in her chair.

“You think I should sell it,” Lily said, glancing down at the cup she was still holding.

“Lily, have you ever wondered why you want to keep it so much?”

“Because my father left it to me,” she answered automatically.

“But isn’t there another reason? Something that would make you think wanting to keep it is irrational?”

Taking a sip of her hot chocolate, Lily searched her mind but couldn’t find anything.

“Talk to me about your memories of your father,” Nicole said, retrieving her cup.

As Nicole drank her hot chocolate, Lily began telling her some of her memories, the most powerful ones, the ones she had cherished for so long. She laughed and cried, and she talked and talked until she remembered one memory in particular.