Leo: A More Than Series Spin-Off

by McLean, Jay

  “Would you want to do it again?” I ask incredulously.

  Brent doesn’t answer. Instead, he releases my hand, gets out of the truck, and I wait for him to open my door. He helps me out, his hand around mine, and he keeps it that way all the way to the front door. The porch light is on, which isn’t a surprise. Papa always leaves it on when he’s waiting for me to return. Standing in front of the door, I turn to Brent. “I’ll call you,” he says, linking our fingers together. He reaches up, shifts a strand of hair behind my ear. His hand stays there, his palm on my jaw as he moves in, his eyes drifting shut, and his mouth coming closer and closer—“Good date?” Leo says from his spot on the porch swing.

  I gasp at the same time Brent groans, his head lowered in defeat as he looks over at Leo. “Hey, man.”

  “I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow?” That was me, my voice barely audible. Why do I feel like… like I’ve cheated somehow?

  Because I have.

  Even if no one else knows it, my heart does.

  Leo shrugs, but he doesn’t verbally respond, just looks at where Brent’s hand connects with mine.

  With a heavy sigh, Brent leans in and kisses my forehead. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says, but I haven’t taken my eyes off Leo. It’s as if it physically pains him to see what he’s seeing.

  “Okay,” I say to Brent and squeeze his hand once before letting go. I watch until he’s in his truck and the truck is out of the driveway before sitting down on the porch swing next to Leo. “You came back early.”

  “Yep.” His feet are planted to the floor, so there’s no swing in the seat. His back is hunched, head between his shoulders, as he stares at his hands. His hands are big, bigger than Brent’s, and I mentally compared them the first time Brent took mine in his. I liked Leo’s hand more. The way it fit. The way it felt. “How was it?” Leo asks, turning his head slightly. He won’t meet my eyes, and it’s… it’s terrifying.

  “It, uh…” I blow out a breath. “It wasn’t what I was expecting.”

  Leo’s eyes widen when they lock on mine. “Did that fucker do—”

  “No,” I cut in, wincing at his curse. “I just… I wanted…” A million thoughts run through my mind, but I’m having a Leo moment. I know what I want to say, but I can’t seem to verbalize it. “Wait here, okay?”

  Eyebrows arched, he nods once. When I get in the house, Papa’s on the couch, half-asleep. “Papa,” I say from behind the couch, my hand on his shoulder as I lean over, kiss his cheek. “I’m home. You can go to bed now.”

  He pats my hand. “Okay, baba. Goodnight.”

  Up in my bedroom, I unpin the photograph from the corkboard and run back down to the porch. Leo is precisely where I left him, how I left him. I hand him the picture before sitting down. “This,” I tell him, bringing my legs underneath me as I sit sideways to face him. “I wanted to feel this.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Leo

  I’m staring at a picture of the water tower back home. It’s taken from the ground, just as it comes into view when you walk toward it from the hole in the fence—something Mia and I had done too many times to count. I haven’t seen it in years. Not since the last time we were there. It didn’t feel right to me—to be there without her.

  “I wanted to feel this,” Mia says.

  The breath I release is like loosening a valve: slowly, slowly, slowly.

  “The way I felt with you up there, the nerves and the butterflies and the constant waiting for the next moment of the same nerves and the same butterflies… that’s what I wanted to feel tonight, and I didn’t.”

  My eyes drift shut at her words, like an accusation, a poison-tipped arrow aimed right at my heart.

  “And it scares me, Leo. I worry that I won’t ever be able to feel that way with anyone ever again. And I hate it. I hate that the person I feel that way about is you. Because I won’t ever be able to shake how it never even began before it all ended, and I’ll never forget how it ended.”

  My eyes snap open, but I can’t stand to look at her, to see the pain and devastation in her eyes—eyes that lead to a false nirvana. “Do you have a pen?”

  “What?”

  “Do you have a pen?” I repeat, louder, clearer.

  She reaches into her purse and pulls out a pen, handing it to me. I flip the picture over, put pen to paper, but no words come to mind. Or maybe too many do. “When I was little…” I start, pushing through the sharp ache in my chest. “I had problems expressing my feelings. I let my emotions take control, but I’d never do anything about it until it was too late. I’d have these… outbursts.” Mia’s breathing becomes shallow, but she doesn’t say a word. There’s nothing to say. So she listens. “My mom, when she was alive—” My voice cracks, and I clear it, still unable to look at her. “She’d give me these photographs. Most of them were of my family, some were just random, and she… she asked me to write three words on the back of them; adjectives, emotions. Whatever it was to describe how I felt looking at those pictures.” I lick the dryness off my lips. “One of the first days you were at the house, I took a picture of you sitting on our porch steps.”

  Her breath catches, the seat shifting as she moves closer.

  “I kept it with me, in my wallet, for years, and for years, it was blank. It still is. Because I don’t think I could ever describe in words what I feel when I look at you, which is why I can’t even look at you now.” Heat pricks behind my eyes, and I blink back the pain. “That picture of you was the last one I ever took for the purpose of writing on the back. I’d never even spoken to you at that point, not really, but I had your picture and—” I laugh because it’s so fucking pathetic, I wish I could take back every sentence I’ve just spewed. “I talked to your picture, in my head. I’d tell you everything I felt, everything I was going through. The second summer, you returned, and I was sitting on the porch with Dad reading a book, and you came over, and I finally found the courage to speak to you.”

  “Leo…” she breathes out, and I feel her touch on my shoulder collide with every moment, every heartbreak, every piece of regret that’s ever stormed through my mind, bullets blazing, creating holes in my memories.

  “Before that night, you were just someone I made up, like a fictional character in a make-believe world. You were a fantasy, Mia, and I was afraid you wouldn’t live up to this delusion I’d created. But you did. You fucking surpassed everything I thought and hoped you would be.”

  She’s crying, the uncontrollable breathing type sobbing, and so I finally face her, because she deserves this much.

  But it hurts.

  To see her like this.

  “That day you were coming back for good, I threw out all my fears, and I messaged you. Do you remember that?”

  Mia nods while letting another tear fall.

  “I asked you to be mine, and…” I reach up, swipe my thumbs across her cheeks, expose my flesh to her liquid agony. My eyes search hers, and I wish I could sink in her tears until there was nothing but her pain in my lungs. I would drown in her heartache. “I know you saw the message, and you didn’t respond. And it’s not an excuse,” I rush out. “I was just so deep in that thought, in the fear that I’d ruined everything between us, and I… I was so fucking scared of losing you, that I didn’t want to share you with anyone else—especially my brothers.” My hands drop to my lap, and I focus on the picture of the water tower. Shame builds a shelter inside me, but it’s no match for my thoughts, my emotions. My admission is a grenade, just waiting to explode. “Mia, I heard what they said that night at the lake. I heard the names they called you, the things they said about you. I heard it all.”

  “Stop it, Leo. Please, stop!” She’s begging, tugging on my arm, but I don’t stop. I can’t.

  “I know I should’ve said something, and I regret it every fucking day that I didn’t. Seeing you afterward, knowing that you heard it all, too… it broke me. Obliterated me. I wanted to kill them, but it wouldn’t chang
e anything. It wasn’t them who disappointed you; it was me. I let you down in the worst possible way, and I couldn’t even… For so long, I tried to blame you because you wouldn’t let me speak, but the truth is, I couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t verbalize it, not then. It was two fucking words. All I wanted was to tell you that I was sorry and that…” My eyes snap to hers. Because of everything that I’ve said, everything I’ve spilled, this is the part she needs to believe the most. And I want her to see me, to look into my eyes when I tell her the truth, and the only prayer I’ll ever live by. “You have to believe me when I say this, Mia. I never, not for a single second, saw you the way they did.” I hold her face in my hands. “You’ve always been beautiful to me.” And then my mouth is on hers, and it’s like the first breath, the first inhale after years and years of drowning. I’m kissing her. All the versions of her I’d fallen in love with for the past four years. From the girl in that first photograph, to the one sitting beside me, giving me this gift, and suddenly, I’m no longer kissing her because she’s kissing me. Her mouth parts against mine, her tongue swiping, searching, and I give her what she wants, what she seems to need. I’d give her all the things and all of me and I’d give her the world as she sees it, because anything less wouldn’t be worthy of her. Her tears soak into my flesh, into my heart, and then there’s a whimper, just one, before her movements slow, and I know what this is. I sensed it even before she stepped foot on this porch tonight. I felt it, deep in my bones, in my soul, and even though she’s still here and she’s still kissing me, and I’m kissing her back…

  I know what this is.

  What this means.

  And it’s the reason I avoid them.

  I fucking hate goodbyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Leo

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  “Yep,” Holden replies.

  “And... how is she?”

  “She’s the same today as she was yesterday and all the days before when you asked me the same damn question.”

  My grip on the shovel tightens. “You realize I have a deadly weapon in my hand, right?”

  He laughs. “You just keep digging those holes, bro.” He’s sitting on the loose gravel of the driveway, his legs out in front of him, arms outstretched as he leans back, watching me dig holes for all the plants he’s just delivered. He says, crosses his legs at the ankles, “Dude, if there’s a question you want to ask me, just ask.”

  Resigned, I heave out a sigh and remove my cap, wipe the sweat off my brow with the back of my hand. I lock eyes with his cocky ass. “Has she mentioned me?”

  His smirk is stupid, and I wish I could punch it right off his face. Unfortunately, I’ve kind of grown to like the guy. “Not once.”

  The day after I poured my bleeding heart out to Mia, she went back to New York. There was no dramatic farewell or overemotional goodbye. She simply came downstairs with all her bags and said, “I’m off. Have a good rest of the summer!” Holden was already in his truck waiting to give her a ride to the airport.

  That was two weeks ago, and for the past two weeks, Holden’s stopped by almost daily. He never offers to help. But he sits, and we talk—or, more specifically, he talks, and I listen—and when John’s around, they talk a lot. My favorite is when they share stories about Mia. They don’t do it for my listening pleasure. They just do it because it’s the thing they have in common, the thing they both love in their different ways.

  “Wait,” Holden says, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger like a douchebag. “There was one thing.”

  My eyebrows rise. “What thing?”

  “She said she was glad that she had the summer with you because it gave her closure.”

  “Closure?”

  “Yep.” Holden nods, standing. He grabs one of the plants John had picked out for beside the now-completed porch and dumps it in the hole. “She said now neither of you have to hold on to the past.” He thumps my back. Hard. “And you can both move on.”

  “Move on?”

  “Yes. You need to move on, Preston. She will.”

  “She will?” I’m repeating his words right back to him, like a jackass.

  He shrugs. “She has.”

  “She has?”

  I’ve followed his movements from beside me until he’s in his truck, engine roaring. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

  * * *

  “For your hard work,” John says, handing me an envelope. My dad had already told me this was coming, along with the warning to accept whatever payment John would give because he was a proud man, and not doing so would insult him. Dad also mentioned that he’d pre-arranged the money to come from Preston Constructions, rather than John himself, so I had no problems taking it from him. “Is the money actually mine?” I’d asked Dad. “Like, I can do whatever I want with it?”

  It took him a moment to answer, probably assuming I’d spend it on something ridiculous like a stripper pole for the kitchen. “Within reason, Leo.”

  Standing on the porch, I tell John, shaking his hand, “I appreciate it, sir. You really didn’t have to.”

  “Did it help? You coming here?” John asks, eyeing the delicate, intricate Mia-railings. I used a lathe and hand-turned every single one before carving the names and words that meant anything and everything to John. He got teary when he noticed, and then walked away. Holden assured me it was his way of showing just how much it meant to him.

  “Yeah, it did. A lot.” More than he’ll ever know.

  “Good.” He smiles, placing a hand on my shoulder as he looks up at me. “Anytime you want to come back, Boy, you come.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He drops his hand, shoves it in his pocket. “Well… Baba said you don’t like goodbyes, so…” He hands me another envelope. “This one is from her.”

  * * *

  I’d driven the same route to the diner every day, sometimes three times a day, but there’s something different about now, something meaningful.

  Miss Sandra greets me with her usual, “Your booth’s free, baby, go ahead,” and so I make my way over and sit. The book Lucy had lent me at the start of summer sits on the table, the corners of multiple pages folded and unfolded and folded again. The spine is worn with jagged lines of faded ink, entire paragraphs are highlighted, and on the margins are notes upon notes of everything I’ve felt while I was reading it. I didn’t limit myself to just three words because the story, itself, deserved more.

  “Your food won’t be long, hon,” Miss Sandra says, pouring my morning coffee. She leaves to serve another customer and returns only minutes later with my order. “You finally finished reading the book?” she asks, jerking her head toward it.

  I lean back in my seat. “Yeah, last night.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “It’s, uh…” I huff out a breath. “It’s about family and loss and friendship and tragedy and love. Young love.”

  “Sounds good,” she says, that genuine smile of hers reaching her eyes. “I’ll have to read it sometime. Who wrote it?”

  Pride fills my voice, my heart. “My sister.”

  * * *

  I don’t wait to see Miss Sandra’s reaction to the envelope I leave on the table as a tip, because that’s not why I did it. I also don’t tell her that I’m leaving. Because I really, really suck at goodbyes.

  I drive past the “Thank You for Visiting” sign and look in the rearview at the Welcome sign, which now reads: Population 199. I imagine first-time parents, immigrants, having a baby, and loving that child more than anything in the world. I picture the father standing behind his wife and his new baby, looking down at them both and thinking, “This. This is the American dream.” And then I pull over and put the truck in park. I take a breath, and then another, feeling Mia’s letter burning a hole in my pocket.

  I’d pulled it out at the diner, but it didn’t feel right to open it there, where I was open and exposed and had to control my reaction. I felt it though, the thic
k paper with sharp corners. I suspected what it was, and when I tear into the envelope, I smile. It’s the photograph of the water tower from back home: our special place, our solace.

  I flip it over.

  It’s more than three words.

  Three adjectives.

  Three emotions.

  Leo,

  God gave you a voice for a reason.

  Use it.

  Because if you don’t stand for something, then you’ll fall for everything.

  I love you,

  Mia.

  Part Three

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Mia

  It’s his eyes I notice first, and then everything else, all at once.

  Ten minutes ago, the driver of the nationwide car service Dad uses pulled into the driveway of my home. Only it didn’t look like my home, at least not from the outside. Momentarily, I wondered when, or if, I’d ever stop considering this place home. Technically, I lived at the dorms at school, so really, not a home, and I was never at Dad’s apartment in the city, so that didn’t classify, either.

  It took a moment for my eyes to capture all the changes. When I left last summer, the only major work that had been done was on the porch. Gone is the faded, worn siding, replaced with new ones the shade of gray I’d selected myself. Two shades darker are the gutters, and both contrasted well against the bright-colored plants surrounding the house.

  Papa’s truck was parked in its usual spot between the house and the barn, and as I stepped onto the porch, I took note of how beautiful the new railings were. I didn’t spend too much time looking at them. I knew Papa would want to show me all the hard work Leo put into them.