NEVER GOODBYE (An Albany Boys Novel) (26 page)

              “I don’t need anything. What you did for Benny is more than enough.”

              “Never. Now come on.” I take her past the hunting jackets, leaving Ben to admire himself in the mirror a bit longer. Past the thermal underwear and chaps to the boots where I stop. “Pick a pair.”

              “Cowboy boots?”

              I laugh, “These are gal’s boots, but yeah.”

              “You’re buying me a pair of boots?”

              “You told me you wanted to fit in, right? I think you can wear anything in that closet of yours and look like you were born here if you just throw on a pair of these boots.”

              A grin slowly spreads across her face and she begins to stroke each pair of boots, gazing at them with admiration. She picks up a red pair and bites her lip before returning them and going for a black pair.

              “Why the black?”

              She looks at me and shrugs. They will go with everything. It makes more sense.”

              “Why did you pick up the red then?”

              Her smile returns. “Because they’re hot. It was impulse.”

              I nod and take the black ones from her hand and put them back, grabbing the red ones. “What size?”

              “But―”

              “Sometimes there are moments where common sense should be followed and then there are some that impulse needs to rule. This,” I say, shaking the red boots, “is one of them. What size?”

              “They were my size. I checked.”

              “Sit.”

              She steps back and plops down on a padded chair before removing her gym shoes. She goes to grab the boots from me, but I pull them from her reach and shake my head.

              “Nope. Cinderella never places the boot on her own foot; her prince does.”

              “Vaun, it was a slipper not a boot.”

              “In Albany, the story goes she loses her boot. Slippers are for the city gals. You, Blue, are no longer a city gal. You’re a country gal, my country gal and she wears boots.” I slide the boot onto her foot, up her leg where I purposely brush my fingers. She gets goosebumps and so do I. How can I not?

              The boot fits perfectly. “See, perfect fit. You are the princess I have searched the whole land and time for.”

              She giggles and launches toward me. I don’t have time to prepare for it and I’m on my back with her swiftly kissing my face in between devoting her love and castle, unicorns, and fairy god mother to me. I’m laughing with her and I would have rolled her over if one, we had room and two, Benny didn’t come and alert us to his disgust over our open affection.

              “She’s my sister.”

              “Yeah, bro, I know. She’s also my princess.”

              “Gah! That’s just gross. Can we go now? I want to show my friends my new hat.”

              I laugh even though Blue gets up and scolds him over his manners. I get it though; he’s excited about his new gift and thrown by the fact that someone thinks his sister is freaking hot. Which she is.

              I pay for the items and we are back out heading for the truck. Her red boots against her flesh is like the hottest thing I have ever seen. I’m glad she chose red and at the same time I’m nervous as hell. The guys in town are going to be ogling her in those red boots and I’m gonna get into all sorts of trouble.

              We arrive and she’s nervous, grabbing my hand in hers as Benny runs off toward a crowd of folks with kids. “Don’t be nervous. It’s just most of Albany getting together over some fresh sweet tea and great food.”

              “Most of Albany?” she whispers with a slight squeak and I have to stifle my laugh. I’m a bastard.

              “Yeah, the rest will be here soon enough.”

              A small squeak comes from her sweet lips and I chuckle, bringing her under my arm. “I’m sorry. That was asshat of me. Look, this is a small community with big hearts. They will all love you when they meet you. Everyone at school loves you even though I want to punch some of them for it.”

              This makes her laugh and I kiss her forehead before leading her to our group of friends.

13

Camping in the castle

Harper

‘Some people feel the rain while others just get wet.’

Bob Marley

              It’s a slow trip home and, as much as I don’t want to admit it, I’m exhausted. Though, as exhausted as I feel, I don’t want the day to end. Catch twenty-two.

It has to be one of the best days of my life and it’s all because of my prince. I may not have unicorns, a fairy-god-mother or even a castle, but I have beautiful boots and my prince and that’s all I need.

              I’m glad that Benny’s friend asked him to stay at the campout with him; I’m a little afraid about how his stomach is coping after so much food and ice cream. We have never seen anything like what Albany had put on today. There were ice cream machines everywhere; so much meat and pitchers of sweet tea. Never did I think that I would like tea, cold or hot, yet I must have drank at least three glasses of it today.

Benny has taken a real liking to the Albany life. You’d never think he was born in Seattle or had never seen a real cow before. He seems to have slipped right into the life of a country boy and everyone loves him.  After speaking to his friend’s mother and Vaun assuring me the family weren’t psychos, I was happy to leave him there to have the freedom and fun that a ten year old boy should have. We would meet up again in the morning for the morning tea, which is apparently famous in these parts, with pie and more sweet tea. I feel like I’m going to slip into a food coma already. The idea of more food, even if it’s in the new day, almost makes me ill.

              The headlights light up my front lawn as we pull in and Vaun kills the engine, but keeps the lights on. I look at him and smile as he gazes down at me with those warm, chocolate eyes that always seem to do something to my insides. “I love you,” I say softly.

“I know. You can’t help it, it’s an addiction.”

I laugh and smack him in the chest, instantly wishing I didn’t because now we aren’t holding hands anymore. “I wish we could have done the camp out. I’m sorry you had to miss out on account of me.”

“Are ya kidding? Don’t you remember I said we would have our own camp out?”

“Really?”

He laughs. “Yeah really, Benny.” He laughs some more and I can’t help but laugh too, since I just quoted my little brother in excitement. 

“I don’t own a tent, Vaun. And it’s a little late for setting one up in the yard anyway.”

“That’s why I had Travis set his up for us after we left.”

“You did?” I jump closer to him, ready to hug him so damn hard he might just break.

“If you say ‘really’, I’ll kiss you right here and we may never get to the tent.”

He’s serious, I see it in his eyes and feel it in the electricity surging in the cab and I swallow hard. I want him to kiss me. I want it bad, like, really bad. But I want to camp. I’ve never camped in my life and I want another first with him, even if it’s camping in the backyard like a lame kid afraid of the real woods.

Vaun is out of the truck and there’s no way I’m waiting for him to come get me. I’m not that kind of princess. Dates are one thing, but I don’t want him to think he has to do it for the rest of our lives. He shakes his head, but smiles and squats with his back to me.

“Giddy up.”

Some girls may hesitate, concerned over their weight and stuff like that, not me though. No way. If I get to not only be closer to him and have fun too, I’m in. So I jump on his back giggling like a moron as he walks without strain toward the backyard. We make it, but not before seeing Dad’s bedroom curtain move followed by his lamp going out. There is only one more wish I would have living or dying, and that is for my dad to learn to live again. To know it’s okay and that Mom would want him to enjoy the life he has with his kids. I wonder whether he will stay married to her for the rest of his or her life. I know if I was no longer me, no longer there where it counted, I would want Vaun to divorce me and try to be happy. Then again,…

“Hey there.” Vaun jolts me in his arms, trying to see my face over his shoulder. “What’s up?”

“Vaun?”

He stops and lets me slide from his back and I see the tent set up and I really can’t wait. Yet something else is clawing at me.

He stokes my cheek and I look back at him to see his concern and I smile.

“No half smiles, remember? Tell me what’s wrong. If you don’t want to camp, if you’re tired, just say.”

I shake my head and cup his neck, feeling his thumping pulse beneath my fingertips. “No. I want to. Desperately. But I just realized I need to do something first that can’t wait. Can you hold on for me?”

His smile slowly spreads, though I can see he’s still concerned. “Sure. I’ll grab my bag and shower. You can always join me after.”

I laugh. “How about we just meet up in the tent with some hot coco?”

He pouts, all playful and cute, and kisses me on the forehead. “I like my idea better, but if that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get.”

I stretch onto my tippy toes and kiss his cheek because I don’t want to start anything I won’t be able to stop. “Next time, we’ll do what you want.”

He chuckles, “Be careful, you might regret those words.”

I wink and head for the back door. “You don’t know me at all, Vaun Campbell. I just might surprise you,” I call over my shoulder. I know I’m tempting him to follow me; it’s what he would want to do. But I can’t help it. It feels good to be dangerous.

As soon as I’m over the threshold of the back door I run to my dad’s room and knock. ‘I don’t know when I was last in his room, I think maybe it was back when Mom still slept beside him. After that he spent little time in there. I suppose with a new house and a fresh room void of memories of her he can stomach sleeping there.

“Angel?”

I open his door and his lamp lights up. He’s sliding from his bed and I can see the strain of worry etched in his aged face. “Everything’s fine, Daddy. I just needed to come see you.” I don’t think that sentence eases any of the concern he has and who could blame him? I haven’t sought him out for a chat in a long time.

“What’s wrong?”

I look around and then I see the bed cover my mom made from a fabric we saw in some fancy home décor shop. We couldn’t afford to buy it and I remember feeling sad for her because she liked it so much. That was when she taught me how to sew. She took me to JoAnn’s, found a fabric that was exactly the same for a fraction of the cost and we took it home. I run my finger over the familiar fabric now and a tear hits my arm. I swat the rest away before sitting on the edge of their bed.

“I get it now, Daddy.” He comes and sits by me, but doesn’t touch me. My eyes fade into the stripes of his boxer shorts as I try to form my next words. “I’ve been angry and confused for so long, but I understand now.”

“What is it you understand?”

I drag my gaze from his shorts, up his white tee and to his eyes that look like my own, only older and sadder. “She is your air. It doesn’t matter if Mom doesn’t respond to you, you respond to her. There is no other and will never be.”

His mouth falls open a little and a shudder erupts, breaking my heart just a little more for him. I swipe at my tears as one falls down his cheek so fast it’s as though the tears intimately know their path on his face.

“Angel. I―” his voice breaks and he drops his gaze trying to pull himself together.

This time, for the first time in too long I wrap my arms around my father. “It’s okay to cry, Dad. It’s okay not to be okay. I’m not okay either. What isn’t
okay
, is the absence of a relationship we have now. We need to feel and we need to share or we aren’t going to make it. I need you to feel it, Dad, because the way you keep bottling it up is eating you.”

His shoulders are shaking and he
is
crying, feeling, and so am I. We need this and if Benny were here I would have him crying with us. We have been a broken family for far too long and it doesn’t matter how long Dad works for, that is nothing if when he is here we keep distant.

“I want to be brave for you and Benny. I have to provide and stay strong for you, for Benny and for your mother. You think she can’t hear or feel when I’m there and maybe she can’t, but I won’t risk it. If there is even the slightest chance that she is in there, I want her to know I’m there. She is the love of my life and the mother of my children, Angel.”

“I know.”

“I ... I don’t want to leave her,” he chokes, grabbing hold of me and hugging me so damn tight I splutter a fresh load of tears. I know exactly what he means now and the scariest thing is that I would do the exact same thing. I hate what it is doing to him and everyone around them both, but I get it.

The sad thing is that I will keep my ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ because I never want Vaun or my family to feel this kind of pain over me. I signed up for that not wanting someone to watch over an empty shell with hope, but now it has taken on a whole new meaning and I won’t have it. Yet, I respect every damn second of the hope my dad has and every moment he spends with her because if it were Vaun, it would be me sitting by his side reading and talking like he might wake one day and ask me how my day was.

“I know, Daddy. I know.” I muffle into his chest. “I know.”

***

My hair is still a little damp and now I’m a little more exhausted. I thought after a shower I’d be more awake, but my body seems to have taken option B. I hate my body right now, it’s doing the opposite to everything I want and it sucks.

Dragging my feet out to the tent, Vaun must have heard the back door close. He opens the tent zipper so loudly that it cuts across the night and the insects grow quiet.

“Thought you must have been sucked down the drain or something,” he says, making me smile. Then he changes, just like someone flicked a switch, and he’s on his feet and by my side. “Are you okay? Fuck. That was dumb. I can see you’re not. Let’s go back inside where you can rest properly.”