NEVER GOODBYE (An Albany Boys Novel) (13 page)

             
‘Turn your wounds into wisdom. Oprah Winfrey.’
This makes me smile because I totally understand it and can imagine her grabbing her box during an episode of Oprah. Her writing is cursive and swift, like it was important not to forget and get it down so she could learn from it. It feels like I’m getting a glimpse into Blue’s soul and mine is craving to console it.

              She’s watching me. I feel her eyes studying me as though I might react. I begin to read the next one which is in the nicest writing, like my mom’s when she used to write letters to her great aunt in England.

             
‘I’m not single & I’m not taken. I’m simply on reserve for the one who deserves my heart because they say good things come to those who wait. Unknown.’
I look at her now, truly look at her and see the vulnerability below her brave exterior she wants all to see and I hold up the piece of paper. “This one. This one I’m holding onto for you because I think you’ve waited long enough.”

              “Okay.”

              I fold it, pull my wallet from my back pocket and stash it in one of the billfolds. I want to read them all, read her heart and soul. I want to ask her a ton of questions. I want to kiss her so damn badly, I push the rest of my thoughts away. I reach for her and pull her face to mine and kiss her.

              Christ almighty, I love to kiss her. If this is all I get to do with her for the rest of my life, I’d be content. We’ve shared four of them and each one is better than the one before. She tastes of coffee and something sweet and my heart is crazy for her, which is so damn crazy in itself.

              I would have kept kissing her if my heart didn’t stop beating when I heard Ben call out ‘Dad’s home.’ I’m off the bed and across the room before Blue realizes what’s happened.

              “What?” she asks, as though it’s fracking natural to make out with a boy when her father is home.

“Dating 101: respect the fathers personal bubble rule with his daughter in his house, especially when he’s home. Sure, you can blur the first part; we all do, but the second? Hell, the frack, no.” I put my hands up in protest, shaking my head at her mischievous grin. “I like my balls where they are, thank you very much.”

Blue rises from the bed and she saunters toward me. I’m shitting bricks as I eye the door. “Any second it’s going to swing open and he’s gonna come for my manhood. Do you want a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend?”

She’s giggling.
Giggling,
for Christ’s sake. Then, just when I think my heart is going to fail me, her breasts are against me and her lips are near my ear. I think I’m about to pass out when she whispers, “He won’t come in here. He won’t say anything because he won’t care.” Then she reaches over my shoulder and sticks the small piece of paper to the corner of her Shakespeare poster of quotes. She returns to her shoebox of soulful quotes and is fingering through them, not looking my way.

Glancing over my shoulder I see the SpongeBob quote. Her writing is smooth and feminine. “Do you put them all up?” I say, eyeing the door despite her assurance because it just ain’t natural for a father to not care if his daughter has a boy in her room with the door closed.

“No, not all of them. Well, at some point they all make it to the wall, but when they stop being relevant to me then I pull them and they go in here.”

“Are there any from the move you want to put up?” I ask, sitting by the box and her again.

She stays silent for a moment and I can almost see the cogs in her brain turning when she slowly places the lid back on the box and looks at me, our eyes meeting.

“No. As of last night, my life has turned a significant corner and I don’t think anything in here holds relevance right now.” Then she smiles, strokes the lid and puts it back in the closet. I grab the box of posters and begin to add to the collage of interests that is Blue Bird’s.

We talk and talk as we work together, unpacking the very few boxes in her room. Four to be exact. Except for the wall of posters and quotes the room is pretty minimal, unlike most girls who keep every trinket they’ve ever been given. It’s as though Blue has done a major cull before moving here. Either that or she doesn’t like impractical things, which kinda suits her. It’s like she’s really picky about what she wants and I feel good that she’s chosen me.

If I was a stranger who came into her room I would instantly feel like I know her. Dancing. Music. Book and television series junky, with quotes and art. No teddies, frills, and, what surprises me the most, no photos. There are no photos of her friends or family; other than the one on her bedside drawers. There’s nothing. I must admit though, I’m glad she didn’t have photos of her and past boyfriends. I don’t think I would do well with that at all.

It’s ridiculous to think that yesterday I didn’t know this girl, that she wasn’t in my life. Now that she is here, I’m scared to death of the emptiness she will leave in her wake if she ever leaves me.

We’re exhausted. An all-nighter filled with new experiences and new emotions; emotions I never thought existed, consumes me. Blue turns on her stereo and it sounds like a mixture between Jack Johnson and country music. She tells me it’s The Beautiful Girls. I don’t recognize the name and I love that she’s interested in stuff that’s different to other girls from school. If she had put those One Direction guys on I would’ve cracked it. Instead, as she snuggles into my side and I stroke that beautiful hair, she tells me about the band. They’re Australian, she’s fallen in love with them, and she believes the words are like a book of quotes she could read every day. Then she tells me to listen and I do. She’s right and I like them as I listen to almost three songs before exhaustion takes me into an echo of music and poetic words.

I’m hauled from my dark, peaceful sleep by Blue’s voice. The room is dark and my heart is pumping so damn hard my body shakes. Blue speaks again, against my shirt, and I pull my chin into my chest trying to see her face. She’s still sleeping and I begin to relax a little as she mumbles into the night. I forgot she’s a sleep talker.

Straining to hear the words over the soft music that must be on repeat, I hear fragments of a sentence, then there’s nothing before she begins again. I can make out Ben’s name and that she’s sorry, and I wish I knew what she was saying after. I feel like I’m getting to know her from the outside in. She shares, but there’s so much she hides, like the real stuff. She has opened me up like a can of soda and drank everything there is to know about me in. The bad and the good. I thought I would lose her when she asked me about my life after Mom died, but it was as though she understood and let it go. If she told me she was sleeping with guys like I did with the girls, I think I might just hit something. But Blue said it was natural to want to fill a void and as long as I didn’t hurt anyone, then I shouldn’t regret it.

Pfft. Yeah, I regret it and yeah, I hurt girls emotionally, but I was too ashamed to tell her either. Instead I kissed the top of her head and let Blue breeze past answering more of my questions. She didn’t use a pass, though, I didn’t make her either. I could have, but I care too much to do that to her on purpose. She will use them when she needs to and she will let me in when she can. For now, I’ll get to know her however I can, even if it means listening to her in her sleep when I should wake her up and go home.

“Don’t ignore him,” she says tightly. It’s the first time she hasn’t mumbled and I stroke her hair and hush her. “I’m sorry.” She clenches her small fists against me and my shirt and it feels like she’s just starting to cry. It’ll be a cold day in hell before her tears don’t just about kill me.

“Blue.” I stroke her head and wipe her weeping eyes as she makes a whimpering sound that causes a stabbing pain in my chest. “Harper, wake up, baby.”

She digs her face into my chest and I can’t see her anymore, but I can tell she’s waking up. She pulls away to sit up and I follow, stroking her damp cheek while she wipes the other one. She doesn’t look surprised, she looks embarrassed. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but her reaction tells me this happens more often than not.

“Is it a recurring nightmare or different ones?” I ask, and again, she doesn’t look surprised.

“I talked in my sleep again, didn’t I?”

Nodding, I reach for her but she shakes her head and I feel awkward that I want to help her and can’t. I hate that feeling, I hate it so fucking much. I hated not being able help Mom and I hate it now.

“What did I say?” she asks, not looking at me and I realize I hate her aversion more than my own helplessness.

“Don’t do that, okay? If you want to talk to me, to ask me something, don’t hide from me. There is nothing to be embarrassed or upset about. You had a nightmare and you cried. I’ve done it many times. Cried like a fracking baby, I did. So there is nothing wrong with you crying over a nightmare about Ben. I love the way you protect him and take care of him. I don’t get what’s going on with your dad. You guys need him. So it’s natural for you to want to compensate for his lack of parenting.”

“Is that all I said?” She’s frowning and it’s irritating me knowing that she’s fishing to see if she told me her big, dark secret. I roll off the other side of the bed, pace to the stereo and jab the power button, driving us into the silence. The only sound in her room is our tense breathing.

“Goddamn it, Harper. I’m not the one keeping secrets. When I say it’s something about Benny, then that’s what it is. Nothing else. No hidden agendas.”

She’s up, her face contorted as she glares at me. It looks like she’s going to say something and then nothing. Her mouth opens and then it snaps shut.

“Fuck it all, Blue. Just say it.”

Instead she heads to the door, opens it and walks out, leaving me in her dark, still room. I take a shaky breath and head out of her room, down the hall and find her by the front door of her house, holding it open. Again, she’s not looking at me and I’m too mad and too tired to reason with her right now. If we keep going we might say something we regret and I care too much to lose her. So I stop by the door, lift her chin so she has to look at me. Her eyes aren’t angry anymore, but resigned and sad and I want to kiss her so bad. I don’t, though.

“We can talk; all you have to do is say so. All you have to do is close that door and trust me,” I say softly, hoping she will. She chews on her lip, keeping her eyes steadily on mine and I begin to hope. But instead of breaking her silence, she looks out into the night so I walk out to my truck.

I would fight for that girl, I’d fight the whole world for her. Somehow, against all odds in my life, I’ve fallen for her hard but I can’t fight
her
. That’s completely different and completely out of my hands. So even though I want to hold her and beg her like a pussy not to throw me out, I stay strong, get in my truck and I head home with the sickest feeling in my gut.

7

Not one word

Harper

‘Were I like thee, I'd throw away myself.’

William Shakespeare.

              What the hell is wrong with me? A guttural noise escapes from deep in my chest as I clutch my sheets tightly, trying to hold in another sob that just won’t stay back. I never cry. Well, I never used to, but the tears come so easily now and I have no control over it. But yesterday something happened to me. Being with Vaun has flicked a switch in me I can’t turn off when all I want is for it to effing stop. I’m not crying because my mother has no idea I’m alive or that I was ever born for, that matter. I’m not crying because my father’s shut down to anything and anyone who could possibly leave him. I’m not crying because I’ll be leaving a scared little boy to almost fend for himself, although, I have made arrangements for him. As much as I know I should, I’m not crying because the professionals think I’m not going to see my eighteenth birthday. The reason the salty water my body naturally produces is falling like flood rain down my face and onto my sheets is because I just threw out the one good thing in my life.

              I threw Vaun away like a piece of trash. I hurt him and I had the chance not to. Ha! I had many chances not to by that point, and yet, I did anyway because I’m a selfish cow.

              Now, I’m paying the price and it hurts like a bitch. It hurts so bad, I feel sick. If treatment leaves me feeling this way, I’m not sure I want to go through with it after all because, again, I’m a selfish cow.

              I torture myself and cry until my throat burns with exhaustion and I finally drift back to sleep, where reality is vague and my fears take control. Eventually, I will be spat back into the land of truth, where I will have to face what I’ve done all over again in the light of day, where I can’t hide.

              My eyes are so sore although I haven’t opened them yet. I know it’s going to kill when the dreaded sunlight hits them so I put my pillow over my head and lie there. But as I lie in the pit of my misery, my mind betrays me and begins to play out the twenty-four hours of my time with Vaun. When the moment I threw it away the tightening in my throat returns like blades. Before the freaking tears begin again I throw the pillow to the floor and sit up, scrunching my eyes to rid me of the flashes of a head rush.

              The clock says six-o-three and already my room is heating up. I get out of bed to open the window and catch the morning breeze when my feet freeze. I stare at the note taped to the outside of my window. My heart is pounding really slow and that sharp burn in my throat is fully fledged as I make myself move and read the words.

             ‘
No one can change a person but a person can be the reason some one changes.’ SpongeBob Squarepants.

              I’m sorry. I’ll be here at seven to pick you up. Be there or be squarepants.

V.

              It’s my new favorite quote. Of all time.

I rush the last steps to the window, open it and pluck the note from the glass to add it to the other SpongeBob quote. He must have come back sometime through the night. I want to see him, I want to apologize for my brattish, appalling behavior, yet at the same time I want to crawl back into bed and let him go. It would be better this way but, as I said, I’m a selfish cow and I love him. Yes, I love him and I’m crushed on him and I’m so addicted it’s bad for us both and I don’t care. I want him for as long as he will have me or as long as I’m here.