This wasn’t the first time we’d been down this path, but it was always Law’s idea, and I always lagged behind.
I didn’t mind. I’d take just about anything to spend time with Law. Besides, the trail end was close. The buzz of the busy highway replaced the sound of insects, so I knew I was almost there.
“Wait for me!” I wheezed as I sucked in giant gulps of air. Standing on the pedals, I leaned forward and gave myself one last push. I would make it. Getting off and walking wasn’t an option unless I wanted him to tease me for the rest of the summer.
Just as the bike picked up speed, the trail opened. Law stood off next to his bike, grinning at me like a jerk because he was faster and stronger, like always, and he couldn’t wait to rub it in.
“Thought you’d never get here,” he taunted, resting back against his bike and crossing his arms over his chest.
“Yeah well you–”. The words floated away on the wind when a giant rock emerged from a patch of mud. The front tire hit it dead on. The bike flipped, sending me soaring over the handlebars. Law’s shout mixed with my scream, but I couldn’t make out the words. The sound of the highway and the wind roaring passed my ears clouded everything else.
I rolled and tumbled down an incline. Every couple of turns the dark gray sky flashed above me before the brown and green earth replaced it. My body stopped moving on its own when inertia gave me up and left me disoriented.
Law slid down the hill on his hip. I couldn’t see him, but the friction of his jacket on the grass was audible. “Cami! Are you okay?”
“You put that rock there, didn’t you?” I gasped, out of breath.
His deepened laugh was full of relief, disclosing his fear for me. “I wanted to stop you from passing me. Here, let me help you up.”
His cool, damp palm slid against mine, and the other arm circled my back. With a strength most fourteen-year-old boys couldn’t possess, he pulled me into a sitting position. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I shrugged. Now that the world stopped spinning, embarrassment gripped me full force. “Yeah. My hands sting, but nothing is broken. Tell your mom thanks, again, for buying me this helmet. Without it, I would have been toast.”
“More like a vegetable.”
I gave him my best scowl. “That’s not even a funny joke.”
He had it in him to look sheepish. “I know. I’ll tell her, even though you’ve already told her about fifty times.”
My fingers sifted through the damp grass, finding a handful and pulling it. “If my mom took care of me, yours wouldn’t have to.”
“Cami, stop. Don’t go down this road again.”
A cool breeze aided a cleansing breath. Instead of a reply, I smiled at him. “Will you help me up? We should get back before the rain picks up.”
Law stared at me for a minute, and his eyes studied my face. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to continue the conversation or hang out a little longer. It could’ve been anything with him.
“Yeah, sure.” He jumped to his feet and held out his hand for mine again.
Our fingers wrapped around one another’s, and he yanked me to standing. Before I could pull away, he used our connection to tug me against his warm torso.
Into him.
Comfort was there, as was warmth. The hug brought me the usual serenity it did when he’d decide girls didn’t have cooties and wanted to touch me. But this time it also felt different. Law buried his nose in the windblown hair at the side of my neck, and it was then I felt him trembling.
“Law?”
So slowly it seemed like minutes drifted by, he pulled his face from my neck. “I’d like to kiss you.”
All the breath I’d ever breathed sucked out of my lungs with his words. “What?”
Law was playful. He was teasing and funny and wild. Rarely did I see him without a grin on his face. But, in that moment, he looked so serious. His brows were two angry slashes and his mouth turned down at the sides. He looked older, too. “You’re my best friend, Cami. And even though I don’t like you like that, I still want my first one to be with you.”
Scratch that. He was the same wise guy as always.
I shoved at his shoulders until he let me go. My stomach ached in the center, the feeling reminding me of that time I fell out of a tree and all the air knocked out of my lungs. It burned, and the longer I stood there, the worse the ache got.
“Unlike you, I’d very much like the person kissing me to like me like that.” I stomped over to my bike and kept going. “Anyway, you’re too late. I’ve already kissed someone, and he sure wasn’t you.”
“Cami!”
“Leave me alone, Lawrence Briggs.” Victory scored inside me at that direct hit. I knew more than anyone how much he hated his full name.
I dipped and reached for my handlebars that had twisted around during my fall. Before I could pick my bike up off the ground, though, Law’s fingers wrapped around my bicep, and he turned me into his arms.
“You’re lying.” His grin was fake. A second hit scored with my lie. He cared that I kissed someone else before him.
I shrugged. “Guess you’ll never know. Let me go. I need to get home.”
Indecision transformed his face. His eyes traced their way from my forehead to my chin and back again, and I froze under his stare. He pulled me closer and lowered his head an inch so our lips were closer.
“I do like you, okay? And I guess I’ll settle for second.”
That’s all he said before he tentatively pressed his mouth to mine.
Every good feeling I’d ever felt in my life compiled into a spinning vortex that gripped me all the way to my toes. Without thinking, I clung to his biceps and Law wrapped his arms around my back. My eyes drifted closed while I reveled in the feeling of his soft lips pressed lightly against mine.
The rest of it came naturally. I’m not sure who opened their mouth first, but our tongues met somewhere in the middle. The tips gently stroked and prodded until he pushed them both into my mouth. He tasted good—warm and sweet—and I wanted him to never stop. My hands drifted upward, clutching his shoulders and holding on while we explored.
The earth halted that day and started spinning on a new axis. I stood on that grassy hill, while busy cars carrying our neighbors flew passed us under a cloudy sky, and all I could think about was how I didn’t want to kiss anyone else for the rest of my life.
Call it puberty or teenage hormones, but that was the day I fell in love with Law.
He pulled away softly. A quiet wow slipped from his deep pink lips. “You lied. If that wasn’t your first kiss, your face wouldn’t look like that.”
I choked on my breath. “What? Look like what?”
“All dreamy. Like you love me.”
“I don’t love you.”
“I think you do.” He smiled. “That’s okay, because I love you, too.”
Words failed me. Law rendered me speechless with his admission. So, I did the only thing I could do; I pulled away. “I have to go home.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
I tried not to run. I tried to appear calm as I moved back to my bike, but inside I was a tornado of feelings.
“Yeah, see ya,” I muttered back and mounted my bike. I pedaled away when he called to me.
“Hey Cami!”
I steadied the bike with my feet in the grass, but I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. If I did, I might’ve tried to kiss him again.
“You might want to lie about it, but I’m glad you were my first.”
My stomach flipped, and my heart beat wildly in my chest.
“Me, too,” I whispered, too quietly for him to hear.
I dropped my bike in our small front yard and ran up the gravel driveway to the ramp leading to our house. Rocks skittered beneath my shoes, and I almost slipped twice. When I hit the ramp, I slowed to a walk. Rain and snow weathered the wood. The planks sat a little crooked and wobbled if there was too much weight on the left. Ritchie built it by himse
lf. I was proud of him for doing something that dad would have done had he been here.
I bypassed the kitchen, hurrying into the hall so I could change out of my damp and dirty clothes, but she still yelled at me. “Stop!”
I sighed. A million excuses raced through my mind, reasons I shouldn’t—couldn’t—listen. Reaching out a finger, I traced the peeling yellow wallpaper in front of my face. The daisies once depicted there looked like Black-Eyed Susan’s. Wanting to ignore her but knowing I couldn’t, I stuck my head into the living room.
“Yeah?”
“Where you been?” She asked the television more than me, since she didn’t even look my way. She might’ve been a paraplegic, but her neck still worked just fine.
“I was riding my bike.”
“It’s raining.”
“It wasn’t when I left. Only caught me on the way back.”
She maneuvered her chair to face me. Her wrinkled blue eyes narrowed and her forehead lined. “What’s with the stupid grin? Are you on drugs?”
At her words, I realized I’d been smiling like I had the entire ride home. My face burned with embarrassment and more than a little dislike for my mother. It wasn’t her, exactly. More her ability to point out anybody’s happiness as if it were a bad thing.
“No, I’m not on drugs. I was out with… a boy.”
Her glare narrowed further. “I don’t like you going out with boys and coming home looking like that.”
I rolled my eyes and moved back into the hall. The conversation took a turn we wouldn’t come back from without a fight. “You don’t much like me anyway, so I don’t see the problem.”
“What’d you say?”
“I said I’m going to get changed!”
“What’re you two yelling about?”
I smiled genuinely at my brother, who appeared at his bedroom door. “Hey, Witchy Ritchie. Mom’s just being her usual happy self.”
He sighed and leaned against the door to the linen closet. “Give her a break, Cam.”
“Yeah, I know. Save the lecture.”
“Really, though, what was that about? Mom thinks you’re on drugs?”
I pushed into my bedroom, tired of standing around in wet clothes. My brother didn’t take the hint I wanted to be alone and followed me in.
“Who cares what she thinks? I’m not. I came home happy. Since she can’t stand to see that, the accusations started.”
Now Ritchie’s eyes narrowed as he studied me. “Why did you come home so happy?”
My mouth snapped shut, and I spun away from him. I busied myself by gathering clean, dry clothes to put on from my dresser. “No reason. Can’t I just be happy?”
“Yeah, you can. Happiness looks good on you.”
The sad note of his tone had me turning around again. I clutched my pile of clothes to my chest, momentarily forgetting the soaked ones I wore. I tilted my head to the left and took in my older brother. “Speaking of, are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine. Just tired.” He waved me off with a swish of his hand.
Tired wasn’t the half of it. Deep purple ringed around his eyes, but we both looked that way. Mom spent half the night awake and yelling through her nightmares of the accident that stole our dad and her ability to walk at the same time. But the paleness of his skin was new. He looked ill, and it concerned me.
“Why don’t you go take a nap? I’m here now. I’ll just get changed and make mom some lunch.”
Ritchie walked toward me, wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and kissed the side of my head. “Thanks. I think I’ll do that.”
Then he left.
After I got changed, I did what I proposed. I also called our pediatrician and made an appointment for him for the next day. He didn’t look good, and I knew he wouldn’t do it himself.
He’d have done the same for me.
3
“Hey, Witchy Ritchie.”
I lower myself onto the bright green grass and caress the long blades with my fingertips. The morning dew clings to my jeans, making my backside instantly wet, but I don’t care. Nothing else exists when I visit my brother.
“It’s getting a little cold out here today. I miss summer already.” I tug my sweater tighter around my chest and cross my arms, staring off into the distant row of evergreen trees. “You’ll never guess who I saw the other day.”
He doesn’t answer, but I carry on the conversation, anyway. “I never thought I’d see him again, you know? What is he even doing here? I ran into him at the damn coffee shop of all places, and for a moment, I thought he knew everything. The way he looked at me… I mean, you knew Law. He didn’t miss a thing.”
“Most things,” I amend.
A shiver courses through me, and I return my gaze to the solid marble stone in the ground.
“What am I supposed to do?”
My chest aches and burns with the silence. I need my brother more than ever. More than I needed him when I left home, or when my daughter was born. At this moment, I face the heartbreaking reality that I hurt Law, and the confirmation that he continues to hurt after all these years.
I never expected him to still care. The sound of his voice plays on a loop, the anguished tone not belonging to someone who’s moved on.
He could have easily forgotten me. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn he has a family. A wife who dotes on him and kids. I envision them with his stunning eyes and unruly hair, who run up to him and scream Daddy when he comes home after a long day at work.
That could totally be the case.
Law was always handsome and popular. He’d been a sophomore on the varsity football team, and a starting player since freshman year. His coaches and teachers adored him, the student body worshiped him, and the cheerleaders loved him. Especially Stephanie.
Her name hasn’t graced my mind since before Evelyn was born, and I promised myself to put the past behind me. The pressure to grow up ensnared me as motherhood approached. If I wanted any chance to create a decent life for my daughter, I needed to forget all I’d lost. The choice to have Evelyn was mine alone, and I did nothing half-assed. The only thing in my life left unfinished was my relationship, or lack thereof, with Law.
Popular.
Yeah… that word feels like acid in my brain.
His popularity was the catalyst. The fact he was too popular to be with someone like me started the heartbreak. The doubt.
“He’s left by now, right?”
I stretch my body in the damp grass, lying across the length of his grave, and rest my head against my folded arms. The ground smells like fall, fresh earth, and grass clippings, and it brings me some comfort. I have spent countless hours in this exact spot, inhaling the fresh air and thinking about my brother. To me, the unfiltered outdoors reminds me of home.
“He doesn’t live here. I’ll probably never see him again.”
I lift my eyes to the headstone. The marble is a tinted moss green inscribed with his birth and death date. In the center, near the bottom, rests a carving of a guitar wrapped in angel wings. Ritchie loved music, and I’m sure, wherever he is, he’s hanging out with the musical legends who’ve already passed on.
“Thanks for listening, brother,” I whisper as the wind guides my words away.
I chatter about Evelyn’s birthday this afternoon to end my visit on a lighter note. The longer I sit, the more my neck prickles, as if someone’s presence is with me. With a new sense of paranoia, I glance around, but I’m alone.
Nothing new there.
I’m in a cemetery. With all the spirits roaming around, I’m not as alone as I’d like to think.
With that thought I stand, brush off my damp backside, and touch a hand to the cold headstone. My head bows, and I fight back the tears that always come with goodbye. “Miss you, Witchy Ritchie.”
I turn to walk to my car and nearly smash into a man standing right behind me. My hand clutches at my chest, attempting to regain stolen breath. My eyelids drift closed while I pu
ll myself together. When I reopen them, he stands still as the headstone his gaze fixates on.
“Lawrence. You scared me.”
Ignoring my comment, he provides one of his own. “You still call him that?”
Everything inside me cinches tight. Guilt, pain, fear at what he might have overheard all grip me in a vice so tight I don’t know if I’ll ever breathe fully again. I can’t stop myself from wondering what goes through his mind right this second.
And what the hell he’s still doing in Arrow Creek.
Regardless of my questions, I have a birthday party to throw for my baby girl. Today is not the day to rile me up.
“Of course, I do. I called him witchy from age three when I couldn’t say my r’s properly and never stopped. You knew that.” I look at anything but him.
He again acts like he doesn’t hear me. “Rumor around town was a distant relative bought a plot here when his health deteriorated. I see it’s safe to assume that was bullshit, too, and they brought here him because of you.”
My throat dries like sun-scorched timbers, and I struggle to swallow. I orchestrated that rumor, never expecting it to take root. I couldn’t stand to have my brother buried in a place I knew I’d never visit again.
His statement doesn’t warrant a response, as his deduction is accurate, so I attempt a question of my own. “What are you doing here?”
My tone remains neutral, even though every other part of me trembles as I wait. By the look in his narrow eyes, one would think I just raised the alarm for battle.
Law works over an answer. Whether he’s concocting a lie, I can’t be sure. If he’s anything like the Law I used to know, he’ll give it to me straight.
“I really want to tell you to fuck off, considering it’s none of your business.”
Straight it is. His words pierce my withered heart.
“I’ve been coming here since about six months after he died.”
“You have?” I choke on the words, disbelief and shock like two hands squeezing around my throat. I can’t breathe. I can’t… how is that possible?
Where We Meet Again Page 2