by Lacey Dailey
Hot air escapes my chest in a full body shudder. “I’m scared,” I tell him, then I drop my arms and let them hang limply by my sides. My shoulders hunch forward and I’d probably collapse if he wasn’t holding me up. “You asshole. You baited me with that punk ass bitch comment.”
“You’re angry, Rum. You’re devastated and you’re overwhelmed but laying in that bed all day isn’t going to make that shit go away. You have to let it out––scream, cry, talk to your girl, go to counseling, visit Allison’s grave, get a memorial tattoo. Do what you gotta do, man, however you gotta do it. But I am not going to sit here and watch my brother waste away while smelling like last week’s trash.”
“So, what are you trying to do here? Offer yourself up as my human punching bag?”
“If that’s what I gotta be. Yes.”
Christ.
“Josh, I––" I love you.
“I know, man.” He knocks our foreheads together. “Me too.”
I wrap my arms around his shoulders and haul him in for a quick hug, one that won’t require him to wear a hazmat suit. “Thank you for being here, J. Shit. I guess I didn’t realize how badly I needed you until now.”
I always missed Josh when he wasn’t around. Even as kids and he’d have the audacity to go on vacation without me, I missed him every second he was gone. And not in a sappy, let’s have a double wedding and marry sisters so we can live in the same house one day, kind of way. I missed him in a plain, simple way. I missed his existence in my life. I missed the way he was always there. I missed my best friend, and I wasn’t willing to admit how brutal the past few weeks have been only talking to him twice a week.
I can admit it now.
“Thanks for not being royally pissed I ran away without telling you.”
“Oh, I was pissed.” He shoves my shoulder and walks past me, taking up residence on the edge of the bed. “Even more pissed I couldn’t tell my parents but I would’ve been more pissed if you were dead.”
I laugh. I can’t remember the last time it happened, and it feels good. Like a cold shower after a hot day.
“Do your parents know you’re here?”
“Uhm, yes? Dude, they drove me here with a trunk filled with your stuff. They want to see you if you’re up for it.”
“They do?” I sit beside him, knee to knee. “Well, I’m glad I didn’t lose them too.”
“Rum, I know how difficult it is for you to see this right now, so I’ll keep telling you as long as I have to, okay?” He puts a hand on my shoulder, his fingers contracting in steady pulses. “You’ve lost some people, but from what I’ve seen, you’ve gained some too. Alma, man, she––"
“Is gone.”
“Gone? What the hell are you talking about?
Resting my elbows on my knees, I put my face in my hand. “I don’t want to talk about her.”
I can’t even say her name.
“Too bad. Tell me why you think she’s gone. Because of your fight? Dude.”
“Josh, you don’t get it, she—"
“I know what she did, man. She told me.”
“She told you?” I find him over my shoulder. “When?”
“Rumor.” The asshole chuckles. “Who do you think called me?”
“Uhm, Reggie?”
“Uhm, no. Alma. She is the one who called me, gave me an address to get out here, and spent three hours on the phone with me explaining everything. She told me all the details about your fight. She told me what she did.”
“But... why? Why would she call you?”
I screamed at her.
“Man, come on.” Josh thumps me. “Get your head out of your ass. I know you’ve been blinded by grief, and I can’t imagine how that feels but you need to wake up and smell the roses where your girl is concerned. She loves you.”
I don’t allow myself to think about how that last sentence affects me. I’ve been there, done that with false hope.
Flopping backward on the bed, I throw my arms over my face. “If she loves me, then why did she do that, huh?”
A merciless ache followed her confession that night. I burned as though she ripped my heart from my chest and flipped it upside down before putting it back. It beat, and it kept me alive, but I haven’t felt the same since.
“You tell me,” Josh says, poking me in the neck. “You know her better than I do. Why’d she do it? I think deep down you know she didn’t do it with malicious intent.”
Of course not. Alma Underwood isn’t capable of doing anything maliciously. When it comes to kindness, Alma gives more than she takes, and finds fulfillment in loving those who probably don’t deserve it.
When you’re sad, she’s sad.
When you cry, she cries.
And it isn’t because she’s fragile. No. It’s because she’s made of steel and will carry your burdens on top of her tiny shoulders if it means you get to take a breath. And even just a smile in return means success for her.
“She was giving me the chance to breathe,” I tell Josh. “That’s what she was doing. Living the life of an insomniac while she thought up the best way to tell me without completely killing me. She was letting me breathe, Josh. It’s all she’s been doing since she met me, and I told her she was mean.”
I push my fingers into my eye sockets. “I told her she was mean. I called her cruel and told her I needed her out of my life. I let her leave, Josh! I watched the door shut behind her, and she hasn’t been back.”
Please come back...
“Hasn’t been back? Bro.” He shoves my arms from my face. “Alma has been here every night, sitting on Reggie’s couch and staring at the wall while he watches dated soap operas. Just in case you come downstairs and decide you need her.”
Hope, that bitch, warms my chest.
“She doesn’t hate me?”
“No, man. Not at all. You aren’t your grief. You aren’t your reactions to heartbreak, and she gets that. She’s ready for you when you are.”
The urge to jump to my feet and run the four miles to her house is fierce. But I don’t because— “Can I love her like this?”
“Like what? A little broken? Sometimes moody? Rumor, love isn’t just for the happy times. This girl fell in love with you while you were homeless. She knows it’s not going to be peaches and crème but she wants it anyway.” He lies down beside me. “Real talk? I think this is going to suck for a while. You lost one important person after another, and I can’t imagine how hard it is for you to breathe sometimes but you aren’t alone in a gas station bathroom anymore. You’ve got me, your girl, a new grandfather, two dorky friends, and the modern-day Brady Bunch to help you through this.”
I grin. “You met her family?”
“Each and every last one of them. They’re good people.”
“Yeah, they are.”
His fingers wrap around my wrist. “Some days are going to try to kill you, man. Some days, you’ll probably stay in bed until there’s a lint monster in your belly button, but we’ll all love you in spite of your lack of personal hygiene.”
I flip him off.
Then I think about my girl.
“She’s been healing me since I got here, Josh. I felt it in those tiny violins and the way the earth shook each time she smiled at me. She was healing me, and I shoved her away when I couldn’t feel that anymore.”
He throws his foot into mine. “So, go get her back.”
“Is she here?”
“No, she’s at her house.”
I jump to my feet and move to my bag on auto-pilot, digging for a pair of pants. “I need to go get her.”
“Uhm, dude? Maybe take that shower first.”
I drop my pants. “Right.” Moving past him, purpose in my strides, I tear open the door.
And then I stop.
“How long are you staying?” I ask the door.
Please. Stay.
“Few days,” he says. “We’re on fall break.”
“And then what?”
“Then I g
o back to Chicago, and you stay here. You enjoy being in love, take time to get to know your grandfather, make memories with your new friends. You have a plan, Rumor. Simon’s Space? That’s a good ass plan. You’re just scared because you don’t have your dad here to guide you. But I’ll guide you, okay? We got this.”
I look over my shoulder. “I am not calling you daddy.”
He swoops a sock off the floor and chucks it at me. “Go. Shower and make things right with your girl. When you come back, you’re gonna tell me all about your mama.”
“And after that?”
“You heal.”
29
On One Condition
Alma
The way I found him was serendipitous. But the way I’ve come to love him is more than just a cheery mishap.
My love for him is a treasure that can’t be put in a tub with the lid sealed tight. It’s the kind of thing that deserves to be felt, that yearns to be experienced.
And I think maybe I’ve had it wrong this whole time. Rumor himself isn’t the treasure but rather the way he makes me feel. The butterfly kisses and soft touches. The private laughs and exclusive smiles. The times he would look at me, and I’d melt all over his feet. Those were the real gifts, and the vastness of those things wouldn’t fit beside drumsticks, Polaroid cameras, costume jewelry, or a macaroni hat. It merits its own space to breathe, and a box shoved under my bed just isn’t good enough. So, I tucked it in its own place, something unshared and personal— my heart.
The whole thing about treasures is that they have to be found, and Rumor was never on a quest to be found. His journey was to find. Perhaps that was my problem. I found a treasure that wasn’t supposed to be found.
I wrote a story for someone who wanted to write their own.
Though sometimes I wish I could take it back, I wouldn’t dare erase our story. Because doing that would mean expunging all the real treasures from the space in my heart, and though the space feels hollow now, I could never give it up.
My room feels different now that he’s gone. The pizza slice is still beside my bed but it’s deflated, shriveled up and miserable looking. I feel dejected just looking at it but apparently, I like to suffer because I can’t bring myself to get rid of it. Nor can I get rid of the blanket he wrapped himself in and the pillow he laid his head on. They remind me of him and the nights I slept with my arm hanging off the edge of my bed so I wouldn’t have to let go of his hand.
I sleep with them now, usually in my arms like a makeshift cuddle buddy. It nowhere near compares to holding his hand but it’s the closest thing to a connection I can make. And, yeah, maybe sometimes I like to smell him on the fleece.
Sue me.
Lenox says I’m suffering from a broken heart, and Jackson has diagnosed with me stress-induced cardiomyopathy. Both come with a surge of intense chest pain that knocks the breath right from my lungs.
I don’t wish to be suffering from either of them but the soundless tears I shed right before I drift off to sleep at night are proof of my condition.
Broken heart.
Unfortunately for me, the best way to remedy a broken heart is with love, and my love kicked me out of his life.
The staircase outside my door groans as it harbors somebody’s weight. Each creak of the wood has me flinching until I roll over and push my face into my pillow. The clouds below my face mock me. I can hear their evil little cackles, see them pointing their creepy cloud fingers at me. I used to fly beside those traitorous clouds. Now, I’m eating dirt.
Stupid clouds.
Heavy footsteps stop outside my door and I sit up, pinching my cheeks to put a little color in them. Folding my hands in my lap, my legs swing back and forth while I wait for one of my family members. It could be any of them. They seem to come in shifts but I can’t figure out their rotation.
Since it’s a weekend, my money is on Shepherd.
My spine straightens when the doorknob starts to turn. I make quick work of running my fingers through my bangs so he’s less likely to guess I’ve been in bed with my head buried in a blanket Rumor used to breathe on. Fraudulent or not, I struggle to paint a smile on my lips. By the time the door swings open, I’ve settled for what I think is a look of indifference.
Then he steps through the doorway, and my jaw meets my palms.
“You’re not Shepherd.”
“Well, that’s a damn relief because if I was, it would make what I came to do really awkward.”
Did I wake up this morning?
I get a good grip of forearm skin between my thumb and forefinger and squeeze with as much muscle as I can muster.
It hurts, and I smile.
“Are you pinching yourself?” Kicking the door shut, he saunters across my bedroom. I count four steps before he’s right in front of me, batting at the fingers giving my arm a watermelon-sized bruise. “Stop it, Ace.”
Ace. He called me Ace.
Confusion is a ring around my mind when he starts to lower, bringing himself to a squat directly in front of me. Uncertain eyes watch his movements, and when he reaches for my arm, I give it to him. The tips of his hair whisper across my thigh, provoking goosebumps to form against my skin. Sudden, fiery tears burn the corners of my eyes when his lips, soft and gentle, press against my newly bruised skin.
What is happening right now?
His kisses continue, trailing down my arm in a pattern I think is deliberate. When he reaches my hand, he gifts me with a feather-light kiss in the center of my palm. The hand in question quivers as he takes my fingers, one by one, and curls them into a fist as though he’s urging me to hold onto the kiss.
I hiccup.
His head snaps up, hair billowing around him like a curtain. Our eyes meet, but I can’t see all that I’d like to with the tears, thick as rain, dripping off my eyelids in a slow sequence.
“Don’t cry.” The pad of his thumb rids me of my tears, and his next words obliterate me. “I’m sorry, Ace. I’m sorry I called you mean. I’m sorry I told you you were cruel, and I’m so damn sorry for telling you I need you out of my life when all you’ve ever done is make it better. Your twinkle lights aren’t dumb, your treasures aren’t stupid, and you have never treated me like an object. I’ve always been someone to you. Not just the homeless guy, the orphan, or the dude with one hand. I’ve just been Rumor, and with you around, I really like who he is.”
“But I… I lied to you.”
“Yeah, and it hurt like hell but I know now why you did it. Hell, baby, I think I understood where your heart was at the moment you confessed. It was my heart I couldn’t find. I hurt so bad, Ace.”
“Of course you did.” With his kiss still in my fist, I use my free hand to run my knuckles down his cheek. The trivial touch sends a warming shiver through me. “I never meant to blindside you. I tried to tell you every day for weeks, Rumor. I didn’t know how to hurt you. And I think I was also kind of angry. You came all this way and you didn’t even find what you were looking for.”
“Yes. I did.”
The skin across my forehead pulls tight.
Stretching his neck, he peppers a string of kisses across the wrinkle and moves to sit next to me on the bed. Grabbing the hand that doesn’t contain his kiss, he brings it to his chest. “I came here to find my family, Ace. Maybe it wasn’t the one I was looking for, but it’s a family nonetheless, and it’s one I’m lucky to be a part of. I’ve struggled to remember that these past few days, and I’m sorry. Josh helped remind me.”
“Josh? You talked to him?”
“I did. Thank you for calling him, Ace. Thank you for knowing how badly I needed him.”
I was a wreck, standing at the phone, stumbling over my words with the tips of my toes tingling, trying to decide if calling Josh would be overstepping. I chewed down all ten of my fingernails and my pupils were the size of saucers before I finally found some nerve.
The second Josh stepped out of his car, I knew I’d made the right choice.
Josh is h
is solace provider, his guardian angel, his teammate, his lifeline. He’s someone who doesn’t have to fill in all the blanks because he’s already privy to the inner details of Rumor’s life. Their connection is the kind that comes with no conditions. It’s honest and it’s ruthless, and it’s not just a friendship. It’s a brotherhood.
Josh is his brother. The same way Lenox is my sister. Blood be damned.
“You’re welcome. I’m glad you finally got to see him.”
“All thanks to you.” The tip of his nose is cold against my hand. “First he was nice to me, then he yelled at me, then he was nice again, then he made me take a shower.”
“Uhm, showering is good.”
He laughs, and it is beautiful.
“Is he here?”
“Who? Josh? Nah, he’s back at Reggie’s with his parents.”
“Did you see them too?”
“Judy and Scott? Yeah. They brought a ton of my stuff. More clothes, my computer, my skateboard.”
“So, you’re staying for a while then?”
I press my fist over my expanding chest, my throat thickening with immediate relief. My lips part and I’m light headed as I stare at him, whispering a low prayer of gratitude.
“This is where the people I love are. Josh is going to visit over Christmas break. He also put me in a choke hold until I promised to get my phone turned back on.”
I grin, and it’s the first one in days. One I wasn’t sure I’d feel on my face again because it’s one I save for him. “I was worried you might have left already.”
“Leaving never crossed my mind. These past few days just kicked my ass. I was crushed and pissed off. At you for lying, my parents for dying, and Reggie for being so damn nice. I’ve just been in bed… surviving.”
I want to thank him for surviving. The act looks good on him. There are some cracks in his lips and dark circles around his eyes but I like the way he’s looking through them right now. Gently. Though he’s walked through flames and crawled across glass, the makings of a smile are prominent on his cheeks.
I know there are scars I can’t see, cuts below the surface that will take longer, if not forever, to heal. But he’s here.