Unveiling The Sky (2 page)

Eight months later…

The moans and grunts were getting louder. I pulled my pillow over my head and burrowed between it and the mattress, but it proved useless. Naomi and Caleb had been having sex all night and my roommate was an unabashed screamer. It was on her fourth or fifth plea to God that I finally threw the covers off, quickly slipping a bra on under my shirt and changing into running shorts. I had just reached the door and shoved my feet in my shoes when I heard the distinct sound of an ass slap.
 

Grimacing, I slammed the door as hard as I could before taking off toward our apartment complex’s tiny gym. Thankfully no one was there, and when I glanced at the clock I realized why. 5:30 a.m. On a Sunday. On the second to last weekend before school started. I was going to kill Naomi.

Caleb had been gone all summer, and I thought about how disgruntled she’d been up until ten hours ago when he showed up at our door. I was comparing the pros and cons of a sex-deprived Naomi and a sex-crazed Naomi as I climbed on the treadmill closest to the window. Both sucked, one figuratively, and sadly, I knew the other was quite literally. Caleb was an atheist, but whenever Naomi’s mouth was on him, he conveniently forgot that fact. Loudly. At least he had the decency to blush in the morning.

I only had enough energy to work out for forty-five minutes.
That’s what only four hours of sleep gets you
. Climbing off the elliptical, I stretched my sore legs and wiped the sweat from my brow before making my way back toward our (hopefully silent) apartment. I sent up a quick prayer as my hand closed around the doorknob, and I pushed it open. Smiling, I took in the silence and made my way into the kitchen to fill up my water bottle.

“God, I missed sex.”

I jumped and whirled around at the sound of her voice. Naomi stood in her neon-green sports bra and black boxers as a grin spread across her face.

“Yeah, I figured that out.”

“Were we loud?” She wore an expression of mock innocence and barely contained her laughter as she reached forward to swipe my now filled bottle.

“No,
you
were loud.”

She shrugged and jumped on the counter, swinging her legs. “So what are you up to today? Caleb and I were thinking of catching a movie.”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You know you can’t have sex there, right?”

She frowned and took a sip before tossing my bottle back to me. “Hmm… well, we can at least do some hand stuff.” I chuckled and shook my head at her serious tone before walking by her and toward my room. “So that’s a no?” she hollered as I crossed the threshold.

“That’s a hell no,” I yelled back before closing the door on her laughter. I smiled as I walked into my adjoining bathroom and started the shower. After quickly throwing off my sweat-soaked clothes, I stepped under the cool stream and let out a content sigh.

My arms were tender as I lifted them above my head and washed my hair, slowly moving the suds in circles. I made quick work of conditioning my ends before grabbing my favorite coconut lime body scrub and rubbing it down my legs and arms. When I reached my left wrist, I paused before reverently tracing the slightly raised scar that ran from the center of my palm to the heel of my hand. The night I’d gotten that was the worst of my life, but it could have been so much worse if it weren’t for Naomi.
 

Even though we’d been friends since the second grade, we’d never thought about living together in college. We had heard the horror stories about rooming with friends, and we didn’t want to do anything to rock the boat. Unfortunately, the boat was rocked anyway.

My depression had never been worse than it was at the end of last year. I was living by myself, and the numbness crept in so slowly I didn’t even notice it until Naomi barged in one afternoon, yelling at me for blowing her off again. She told me she felt like I didn’t care about our friendship anymore. She cried. I hadn’t seen her cry in years. But there she was, crying in my living room while I lay on the couch I’d barely moved from in three days.
 

I think that was the first time I realized my depression affected more than just me. But it was just so easy to lose myself in it. I felt so worthless and unloved that I honestly believed she’d be relieved all those times I canceled on her. But she wasn’t. She was hurt and confused, and that was on me. So yeah, the boat was rocked. That bitch was practically waterlogged.

We moved in together shortly after, and in those first few months, I slowly realized our fears of living together were completely unfounded. Because even though most friendships were surely tested by it, I forgot Naomi wasn’t like most friends. She wasn’t perfect. She left her clothes in the dryer for days, never took out the garbage, and her crap was constantly cluttering the common area. And let’s not forget the loud sex. But that didn’t matter because she was still my best friend and the best person I knew. So if she wanted to have loud, crazy sex and leave her stuff everywhere, she could go right ahead. I’d take the bad, because in the end, it paled in comparison to the good.
 

But as I continued tracing the scar and the water ran cold, I couldn’t help but think one day she would wake up and realize my good could never outweigh my bad.

…

Naomi and Caleb had successfully removed themselves from bed an hour ago to go to the movies. I’d just slipped into jeans and a T-shirt when I remembered my niece’s party was supposed to be at the park this year. If I didn’t know how hard it was to say no to Megan, I’d hate my sister for agreeing to this. Living in Arizona meant I typically limited my outside excursions to the months of October through April; anything else was a sure death sentence. Like right now, in the middle of freaking August.
 

Quickly removing my clothes, I settled on a knee-length mint-green dress instead, even though it would only make a minimal difference in the triple-digit heat, but anything would be better than jeans. I grabbed her present off my desk before rushing out the door and to my car. The party didn’t start for an hour, but my sister had put me in charge of watching Megan while she set up everything. I pulled in just as Jackie was slumping down on the bench.

“AUNTIE ARA!” Megan screamed as she came running toward me. I bent down, taking care to keep my dress tucked under my knees, and waited for her to launch herself into my arms. She barely slowed down as she plowed into me, and I rocked back with the force of it.

“Hey, sweetheart. What’s going on here today?” I made a big deal of looking around at all the decorations my sister had piled on the table, getting ready to set up.

“It’s my birthday party, Ara. Duhhh… remember when I gived you the pretty pink invitation with all the glitter?”

“Gave,” Jackie corrected from behind her. “You
gave
her the invitation, sweetie.”

Megan nodded, trying to look stern like her mother. “I gave you the invitation, remember?”
 

Jackie chuckled a little while I tried to keep a straight face. I hit myself on the head as if I just remembered. “Of course. What was I thinking? Wait… did I forget your present?” Again, I made a show of looking at the bags around me and frowning.

“You got me a present?” she asked excitedly as she hopped around in front of me, her big brown curls bouncing with her.

“I sure did. Now tell me. What was the one thing you wanted more than anything else?”

“Daddy, I wanted Daddy to come home. That’s the wish I made this morning on my breakfast pancake.” I saw Jackie’s face drain of color as she stood behind Megan and a look of complete torture came over her face.
 

“WAIT!” Megan yelled and grabbed my hand, bringing my eyes back to her now pale face. Her lips trembled and her eyes were wide with tears. “It doesn’t come true if I tell you. Mommy says it’s not gonna come true if I tell you.”

My sister sprang into action, coming around and kneeling with us. She squeezed her daughter’s hand as she reassured her. “That’s only on birthday cakes, sweetie, not pancakes. There are never any rules on pancakes.”

“Really?” We both nodded earnestly until the tears that had sprung up began receding. “Pinky promise.” She pouted, daring us to tell her we were lying, before sticking her pinky in Jackie’s face. After we both locked fingers with her, Megan gave us a wide grin and let out a sigh of relief.

“Why don’t you go play on the swings for a little bit?”

“Okay, Mommy.” Megan turned to run away before pausing and spinning around to face us again. She quickly ran and hugged me once more before whispering in my ear, “I missed you, Auntie Ara.” And with that, she was skipping toward the swing set.

“Hey, Jax,” I said, using her nickname from when we were kids. She smiled and pulled me in for a hug once we were standing again. We stayed that way for several seconds before she reluctantly let go. I’d never been much of a hugger, but lately, every time Jackie hugged me, I held on a little tighter. It was beginning to feel like that was the only thing holding her together. “Have you heard from him?”

She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“He’ll call. He’ll find a way. He loves that little girl more than anything.” I pointed toward Megan as she swung higher and turned to talk to an imaginary friend on the empty swing next to her.

“You’re right.” She paused. “I know you’re right. I just never pictured her fifth birthday being this way. I never imagined I’d be doing all this alone.”

“Mom and Dad—”

“Are busy.” She cut me off. “I can handle this. This is just one of those bad days, Al. You know?” She gave me a pointed look because, yeah, I did know.

Jackie walked away and began setting up the games while I went over and pushed Megan a little higher, feeling guiltier than I had in a long time. I couldn’t even begin to understand the type of stress and pain my sister was going through. And even though she never said it, I knew there was a part of her that wondered how I could be the depressed one when she was the one with so much crap on her plate.
 

Some people couldn’t understand depression without a source; my sister was definitely one of those people, and some days I could feel it—the resentment and disbelief. She never meant to make me feel that way. She was my sister and she loved me fiercely. But at the end of the day, some people just expected more… but sometimes there was no more. Sometimes there was no trauma. No death. No PTSD. Nothing.

Megan’s giggles broke me from my thoughts as she became almost parallel with the ground. I looked over at the setup on the picnic tables and grimaced as my thoughts collided with reality.
 

Sometimes there was no more. Sometimes there were just giggles, balloons, and a happy little girl talking about blowing bubbles, but you were still depressed and you still couldn’t figure out why.

One year. Today marked a full year I’d been without my mother. Three hundred and sixty-five days since I last heard her voice, saw her smile, or felt her touch.

When I left for Europe and told my sister I’d be gone for
a little while,
I honestly hadn’t meant for it to turn into six months. She never said anything negative about me being gone; she even stopped asking when I was coming home around the three-month mark. But I knew it had to be killing her.
 

It had been two weeks since I last spoke to her, and even though I’d already bought my plane ticket, I hadn’t told her I was coming home. I told myself it was because she was preparing for her senior year of high school and I didn’t want her to be concerned with anything but that. But really, I was afraid she was giving our father updates, and I was in no way ready to deal with him. Especially today.

I sat in my car outside my childhood home and looked into my mother’s kitchen, bristling at what I saw. A blonde model, at least fifteen years my father’s junior, was hanging around his neck as he gave her a few absentminded pecks on her lips. It was a horrible thought, but I couldn’t help but wish he were the parent who was six feet under.
 

I swallowed the breakfast that threatened to resurface and moved my eyes toward the driveway. Sam’s car wasn’t there, so I assumed my father and his mistress of the month were the only ones home. Despite my need to see mom’s favorite place, her garden in the backyard, I couldn’t make myself go inside right now. Not with the scene currently taking place, and not with all my thoughts about what happened the last time I was in that kitchen.

Samantha was softly crying as my father and I continued to scream at each other across the kitchen. She was fingering the jewelry around her neck, a simple silver pendant with the phrase “I still believe in 398.2” etched into it. Our mother had given it to her on her thirteenth birthday.

“It’s time you took your life seriously. We all loved your mother”—I scoffed at his lie while he continued like nothing happened—“but her death is no excuse to throw your life away. It’s been six months—”
 

“And while that might be an appropriate amount of time to grieve for a coldhearted bastard like yourself, some of us need a little bit more,” I bit out.