My Heart for Yours (13 page)

Happiness, I guess.

Being needed.

Belonging.

“
I’ll help you get her home.”

THERE ONCE WAS A GIRL

There once was a girl with two faces.

Two hearts

Two lives

But the more she lived in the pretend life

The more it became her real one

And the less she thought about her real life

The more it became her pretend one

Her heels towered her to the sky,

and her bare feet anchored her to the ground.

The problem is that she didn’t know where she actually lived
–
in the clouds, or on the earth

Reality had escaped with the space between the two girls.

Thirteen

Tobin

I guess I should stop drinking. The last thing my parents need is me showing up to Eamon’s funeral drunk. I take one last long pull from the bottle and then toss it into the pile along the tracks with the rest of them.

This was our spot, me and D. I check my watch. By now, she’s probably snuggled in with the boyfriend. Bet they take off for home tomorrow. The look on that douche bag boyfriend’s face told me he didn’t show up here to leave empty handed. I run my finger along the smooth velvet of that stupid black box. Almost a smaller version of what my brother is lying in right now. Both containing lifeless, cold things.

My heart strains with the enormous feeling of loss. The box croaks as I open it and stare at that pathetic looking row of diamonds. Every time I look at the ring, I’m forced to remember what I
thought
my future would look like. No more. I’ve got to forget this girl. I snap it shut once last time and toss it as hard as I can into the darkness. Just how Eamon taught me to throw a baseball when I was a kid.
Keep your elbow above your shoulder. Don’t smother the ball. Throw in a low arc, Tobin
.

It’s done.

When Delia and I were together, we used take the back road into the woods and I’d park my truck near the tracks. We’d lie in the bed of the truck and watch the trains. Now I’m sitting on the tailgate alone and all I see is Eamon. The tracks start to vibrate and I close my eyes. The rumble reverberates from one end of the track to the other. How the hell could he not hear it? It’s close now. I can feel the vibration within me. The train lets out a loud whistle and the wind kicks up.

My truck shakes as it finally passes and then, just like that, it’s quiet again. The only noise is the faint sound of the radio on in the cab of my truck. Zydeco. My lips curl into an involuntary smile. I let myself give into the memory. It’s better than sitting here wondering where each part of my brother ended up. With each scrape of the rubboard, I’m closer and closer to that night.

***

“
Come on, Delia,” I whispered as loudly as the silent night would allow.

Delia hovered half-in, half-out of her bedroom window. She surveyed the ground for the fiftieth time.

“
What if I get caught?” she asked. She bit her bottom lip and checked the ground again.

“
You sure as shit will if we spend any more time hanging outside like this. I’ve got you baby, trust me,” I said.

She finally relented and slipped out the window. It wasn’t that far of a drop, but for Delia Gentry, who had never broken her daddy’s curfew before, it probably felt like leaping off the top of the town water tower.

I caught her, just like I promised her I would.

“
You ready?” I asked, clutching her hand.

“
I’m a little nervous,” she said. She tugged on the tips of her bangs.

“
Don’t be, they’ll love you,” I assured her. I didn’t dare tell her how completely over-dressed she was for a crawfish boil. But she looked freaking gorgeous and I couldn’t wait to dance with her.

“
Well, no shit!” Eamon yelled from across the old farm. “I thought you were lying when you said you were bringing Miss Priss!”

Delia’s eyes widened, and her cheeks went red.

“
He means that in the nicest way possible.” I leaned in and whispered in her ear. She didn’t relax, and her grip on my bicep stayed tight. Eamon was already lit, but was chugging a plastic cup of beer.

“
You want a drink, darlin’?” He offered Delia his cup. She gave a sharp, quick shake of her head.

“
Come on, I’ll get you something,” I said, leading her away. Maybe it was a mistake bringing her here.

“
Are you hungry?” I asked. I motioned to the piles of crawfish that filled an entire pirot.

Delia whispered something that at first, I didn’t hear. And then when I finally realized what she said, I couldn’t believe.

“
I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” I asked incredulously.

“
I said, I’ve actually never had crawfish.” Her eyes darted to each end of the room and back.

It was like something in a movie where the city guy comes into the bar and the music stops. Half the place stopped dancing and turned around to stare. If she wasn’t embarrassed before, she sure as shit was now. I felt terrible.

Of course Eamon reappeared.

“
Sweetheart, how have you lived in this fine State your entire life, and you have never had crawfish?” Eamon shook his head. “And your daddy claims to represent us.”

She bit her lip. “I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t know how to eat it.”

Eamon wrapped his arm around her and led her to a table. He scooped three massive mounds of crawfish onto the red plastic table cloth and nodded at Delia to sit down. She looked at me in a way that screamed, “do something,” but in this case, I couldn’t. There was no way I was going to let her go that night without at least trying it.

“
All right, so here’s what you wanna do,” Eamon picked up a large red shell, and Delia reluctantly followed suit. “You gotta hold it on both sides of the tail, twist and snap. Now with your thumbs, peel that shell away from the widest part of the tail just like a shrimp.”

“
I’ve never eaten shrimp,” Delia said.

Eamon dropped the crawfish and stared at me. “You’re killing me, both of you,” he said.

“
Come on, Eamon, move it along,” I said.

“
All right, holding the tail, pull out the meat.” He popped the tiny morsel into his mouth and moved on to the next shell.

Delia wasn’t so impressed. She held the minuscule piece of meat in between her fingers.

“
That’s it?” she asked with a smile. “All that work for this?”

I laughed. Eamon shook his head.

“
You know what the problem is? You need beer,” Eamon said.

That was the first night she met everyone. Traive, Leslie, Nelson, all of them took pride in introducing her to something new, knowing that she was special and wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

Eamon walked away and Delia stood to follow him. I caught her arm just as she passed me and leaned in, my nose buried in her thick hair.

“
Get your sexy ass over here and dance with me.” I growled into her ear.

I don’t think I’ve ever danced so much in my life as I did that night. I’d barely had anything to drink, but I was drunk off the feeling of Delia close to me and the smell of the jasmine oil that she dabbed on her neck and wrists—

***

Jasmine oil.

I swear to God I can smell it in the air right now.

I hop down off of the tailgate and start walking. Now that I’m standing upright, I realize just how much I’ve had to drink. I glance over my shoulder at the pile of empty bottles. Shit. This close to the tracks, I have a hard time keeping Eamon away. Was this what happened? Was he totally shit faced? No, Traive said he’d only had a beer or two.

I’m stumbling, and for once, I feel scared. I don’t want to be here anymore, but there’s no way I’m sober enough to drive home. The weight of the grief finally forces me down. I finally give in and let it. I sit down alongside the same damn tracks that my brother died on and sob like a baby. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to be here till the end. And there it is again, that damn smell. I can’t get either one of them out of my head. I lost Eamon and now I feel like I’m having to lose Delia all over again. I know what he’d tell me to do. Go out and find a new piece of ass and get the fuck over it. I wish it were that simple.

“
Tobin?” her voice is tiny but shoots through me like an electric shock. I pause before looking up from the gravel. Surely that was the beer talking. She isn’t
actually
here.

But when I look up, she
is
standing there. It’s not my imagination.

“
Delia, go away,” I say flatly.

“
Tobin, what are you doing? You shouldn’t be out here,” she says. Her voice is full of pity and it’s the last thing in the world that I want from her right now.

I feel her hand on my shoulder and I jerk away.

“
Come on, Tobin. Let me take you home,” she says.

I can’t do a whole lot of arguing. It’s already early morning, and I’ve got to give my brother’s eulogy in just a few short hours. I run my forearm across my face to wipe away any tears that may be there. I hope I do it quickly enough that she doesn’t notice. What the fuck do I care anyway right now, though?

She wraps her arm around me to help me up.

***

“
Tobin, she was everything to me,” she said.

I wiped the tear from under her hazel eye with my thumb and then stroked her chestnut hair. I wanted to tell her that at least her grandmother was away from Delia’s asshole of a father now, but refrained. He gave her grandma hell for not rolling over and agreeing with him and what he believed. She was a feisty little woman. I know Delia really looked up to her.

“
I know, baby, it’s going to be okay, I’m not going to leave you,” I told her.

I cradled her in my arms and picked her up off of the ground.

Her grandmother died that summer and there was nothing that I could do to make her feel any better. But I stayed by her side for days despite her father’s objections about me being in their house—he was far too busy and important to make the trip back home. He’s such a stereotypical, political ass.