Warrior Blue

by Kelsey Kingsley

  And apparently, so did she.

  ***

  The candles were blown out and the cake was eaten. My parents and I laid out a stack of presents in front of my brother and we all gathered around to watch him unwrap Lego sets, clothes, a stack of coloring books, and an arsenal of DVDs he’d never get around to watching because he was always too busy replaying Gremlins. Audrey shocked the hell out of me when she reached into her oversized tote bag and revealed a wrapped gift.

  “Happy birthday, Jake,” she said, placing it in front of him.

  “Audrey got me a present!” He clapped with exuberance before tearing the paper off to reveal a set of Daniel Tiger puzzles. He held up the box, showing it off and ogling the colorful illustrations. “Wow,” he drawled, stunned and impressed.

  “Do you like it?” she asked, struggling to quell the amusement that crinkled at her eyes.

  “You betcha!”

  Freddy leaned over to point at the packaging. “I have these, too.”

  “You can help me if they get real hard,” Jake offered, nodding and staring, still transfixed on Daniel and all his friends.

  “They’re easy,” Freddy insisted. “I’ll show you. Can I—”

  “Uh, hey, pal,” Audrey cut in regrettably. “It’s getting pretty late and you need a bath. I think maybe you should play with puzzles another day.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, Jake. You have to wake up early tomorrow, too.”

  And at that, my parents stood and announced it was time for them and Jake to head home. I helped them carry Jake’s gifts to the car while Jake continued to marvel over the box of puzzles. Then, we all stood in the living room as it was time to say our goodbyes.

  “It was lovely meeting you, Audrey,” my father said, smiling genuinely and bending to give her a warm hug. “You have a great kid.”

  Seemingly taken aback, but by what, I didn’t know, Audrey faltered in her smile and returned the hug. “Thank you so much. And it was very nice meeting you.” Then, as she stood back, she added, “And you have a couple of pretty great kids, too.”

  Dad seemed startled, looking from Audrey to flit his gaze between Jake and me. Something shifted in his gaze as he barely bobbed his head. “Yeah. I guess I do,” he replied quietly, still nodding and looking at us both.

  Mom’s departure was a little chillier but just as genuine, with a gentle grasp of Audrey’s hand and a tight smile. “We’ll see you this weekend,” she said, before lifting her other hand in a slight wave as she added, “See you soon, Freddy.”

  Jake and I hugged tightly and I told him that I’d see him in the morning. Then, it was just Audrey, Freddy, and me, in a house that, to me, instantly felt more relaxed and airier. But when I turned to face Audrey, to say all the things I’d been holding in since dinner, I found an annoyance I couldn’t previously have envisioned her displaying. But seeing it now, it left me disconcerted and eager to fix whatever the hell it was that was bothering her, just to make her smile again. Her face was made to smile.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, searching her eyes for clues.

  My expectations were set on her not replying or skirting around the issue, the way so many women do. Cee had once spent an entire work day in a pissed off silence, and it was only the next day that she’d told me it was because I had unwittingly used the last roll of paper towels. So, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Audrey had taken this opportunity to shut down and make her exit, but she wasn’t like other women, was she?

  “I thought you were kidding when you said you don’t celebrate your birthday.” Her voice was strangled by her disappointment and despair, and to make her feel better, I shook my head and replied, “I told you, I don’t like to acknowledge it.”

  That wasn’t good enough for her, though. “But your parents should want to,” she said, practically whispering against the emotion building a barricade in her throat. “I don’t care if you don’t want to; they should insist on it.”

  She stood up with an impressive control, taking the cake plate from the table and carrying it to the counter. Then, with her back to me, she continued to say, “I can’t believe they didn’t even wish you a happy birthday.”

  I glanced at Freddy, who was sitting at the kitchen table with a book from Jake’s room, and took the chance to approach Audrey at the counter. It was just over a week since I had stood at this counter and contemplated my next move, before rushing at her with an aggressive kiss. Now, the very thought of kissing her made me crazy with nerves and anxiety, but it still wasn’t too far from my mind as I stood next to her, hands on the counter and eyes on the cabinet in front of me.

  “They texted me this morning. It’s fine.”

  “Texting you isn’t the same as giving their son a hug and wishing him a happy birthday.”

  My fingers moved busily against the countertop. “I don’t know why this is bugging you so much. It doesn’t matter to me, seriously. I don’t care.”

  With the turn of her head, her golden hair left her shoulder, cascading over her back and exposing the length of pristine skin along her neck. A swarm of attacking bees filled my gut at the thought of leaning in to press my lips there. They stabbed, warned, and reminded me that we were sober, and that she might not want me in that way, not right now.

  “It is so sad that you don’t care,” she whispered, and I replied in a matched tone, “I said it doesn’t matter.”

  “But it does,” she replied in a voice so harsh it surprised me. “Do you know how much my parents would love to wish my sister a happy birthday, to her face, just one more time? Do you understand what they would give to have that chance?”

  I shook my head. “No. I can’t pretend to know or understand what that’s like for them.”

  Her nod was slow as an unknown understanding sunk beneath her skin. “And I’m telling you that it’s horrible for your parents to have allowed you to feel like this.”

  I scoffed, feeling attacked and criticized. “Feel like what?” I spat defensively.

  Audrey lifted the cake back into its bakery box and closed it before facing me with one word: “Unworthy.”

  Leaving me stupefied at the counter, she put the cake in the refrigerator and left the room, as I slipped into a contemplative void.

  Unworthy? It honestly wasn’t far from the truth. I certainly didn’t feel worthy of celebration or praise, everybody knew that and Dr. Travetti reminded me of it on a regular basis. In fact, as I spiraled through shards of memory, the good doctor’s scrawled message zigzagged across my mind, “Why won’t he give himself a chance?” None of it was a lie, but I’d never once wondered from where this poisonous mindset had come from. Never once had I thought to become a cliché and blame my parents for drilling it into my brain that I was a monster. Not until Audrey said something, and now I wondered, did she see something I’d been blind to for years?

  Her footsteps sounded behind me, I’d know them anywhere by now, and she came to stand beside me once again. In her hands was a present, and at the sight of the colorful paper and spiraled ribbon, a wave of nausea and anticipation struck my gut.

  “You might not care, but I do.”

  “You have no obligation to care,” I stated, so emotionless, it irked me. “You barely even know me, Audrey. There is no reason whatsoever for you to waste any of your time caring about m—"

  “Please shut up,” she said, and so I did. “I don’t know my mailman at all, Blake, and I wish him a merry Christmas and a happy birthday, because every life, every day, should be celebrated. It’s all precious and sacred.”

  With a sordid scoff, I shook my head, despite hearing her and wanting so much to wrap myself in her words and believe in them. To believe in something. To believe I wasn’t a monster, but just a guy who caused a horrific accident over twenty years ago. “Yeah, I bet everybody thought Jeffrey Dahmer was precious and something to celebrate, too.”

  “Jeffrey Dahmer was still someone’s son, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she celebrated him eve
ry day,” she retorted with more warmth than such a sentence deserved. “You don’t have to condone the actions of your children to maintain that unconditional love.”

  “Is that what the Bible taught you?”

  She was silent and when my eyes met hers, I found a glare that knocked me down to the level of a snake, slithering on its dirt-covered belly. She shook her head and opened her mouth, that gorgeous, terrifying mouth, to speak. “You can try and push me away with that garbage all you want, Blake. You can even try to make me hate you as much as you hate yourself. But I am telling you right now, it’s not going to work.”

  “You’ll give up eventually,” I challenged her.

  “You’d have to do something really horrible to me, to make me give up on you. And the garbage you say when you’re angry isn’t gonna cut it.”

  “Why the hell not?” I asked, unsure there had ever been someone alive more frustratingly gorgeous than her in that moment.

  “Because you’re wrong, Blake. I do know you. And I know that you aren’t the crap you say.”

  My defenses eased as I relented with a sag of my shoulders. “Yeah? And how the hell do you know that?”

  “Because while you think you stole everything from your brother, he gave you a heart. And I can see how good and beautiful it is. It’s in your art, and in your devotion to him. And those are the most honest things about you.”

  My lips curled between my teeth, battling the urgency to grab one of the liquor bottles on the shelf within reach. “Even Jeffrey Dahmer had a heart,” I pushed out through a startling clot of emotion.

  “Yeah,” she replied with a somber nod, “but it wasn’t Jake’s, and there isn’t anything impure about that.” And that was a point I couldn’t argue.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “YOU DON’T HAVE TO open it now,” she had said before leaving, “and it’s not a big deal. Just a little thing.” The present had been left on the counter as she stood on her toes to kiss my cheek. “Happy birthday, Blake.”

  I could still hear her voice now, hours later. I could still feel the soft touch of her lips against my skin. I stared at the present, still lying on the counter where she’d left it. The last time she had left something at my house, it had felt like a curse, but this gift felt like a shred of hope I wasn’t yet sure I deserved. I wanted to feel worthy, though. I wanted to race toward it with open arms, but dammit, I was too old. There’d been too many years of having something beaten into my head, and a couple years of therapy and one good woman wasn’t enough to wipe the slate clean. Not so soon.

  Now alone, I had the freedom to mull it over. I paced the kitchen and eyed the gift with lingering glances. “You’re being fucking stupid,” I muttered aloud, shaking my head with disgust and embarrassment over my own hesitation. “Just open the fucking thing,” and with that last bit of encouragement, I rushed toward it and tore the paper off before I had the chance to talk myself out of it.

  In my hand, I held a notebook. Not a cheap spiral-bound thing or a composition book, like I’d had in school. This was nice, with sturdy binding and thick paper. The kind you might buy at a bookstore. A lifelike skull was emblazoned on the front cover, white on black, and beneath the skull was a quote, scrawled in metallic silver:

  To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary. – Edgar Allan Poe

  With the book in my hands, I had forgotten my breath, that I needed it to survive, and when I finally had no choice but to breathe, I shuddered distressingly with emotion. I don’t know what I’d expected to find inside all that paper, but it wasn’t this. This was thoughtful and chosen specifically for me, with my tastes in mind, and fuck if it didn’t feel like the most precious thing I’d ever held.

  When my bearings had been collected and my heart had settled to a reasonable rate, I flipped the cover open and there, in a bubbly, girly scrawl, was a poem:

  What’s written here,

  Is meant to keep.

  When you’ve crawled,

  Into your shadows deep,

  When the time you have,

  Seems like too much,

  When you shudder at,

  A lover’s touch.

  Don’t be scared,

  To let pain drown,

  Just always remember,

  To write it down.

  And one day,

  When that pain is done,

  Open this book,

  To see how far you’ve come.

  —a.w.

  I swallowed at the unrelenting emotional clot in my throat, blinking my eyes and chewing at the inside of my lip, as I stared at the thick, black ink. All of the dots above her I’s, all of the T’s she crossed. And I knew, without so much as a splinter of doubt, that this was undoubtedly the most precious gift I’d ever received.

  ***

  Me: You shouldn’t have gotten me anything.

  Audrey: Did you open it?

  Me: I did.

  Audrey: Do you hate it? I really hope you don’t hate it.

  Me: Have you been worrying about this all night?

  Audrey: Ugh. That question is loaded, and I don’t like it.

  Me: How do you figure?

  Audrey: If I say yes, I sound like one of those clingy, annoying girls. But if I say no, I sound like I don’t care, and I definitely do.

  Me: I’d say clingy but not too annoying.

  Audrey: Oh, gee. That makes me feel SO much better, thanks.

  Audrey: So … do you hate it?

  Me: No.

  Audrey: Are you just saying that?

  Me: No.

  Audrey: You can tell me if you don’t like it, you know.

  Me: You’re heading dangerously close to annoying territory now.

  Audrey: Sorry. Can’t help it. I try not to be one of those girls, but I’m still a girl, you know?

  Me: I get it.

  Me: Anyway, I just wanted to text you to say thanks.

  Audrey: You’re welcome.

  Me: Not just for the present, but for everything today. You helped to make Jake’s birthday a really good one and I just wanted to tell you I’m really grateful.

  Me: Especially that shit at dinner. I’m particularly grateful for that.

  Me: It’s not easy for me to say this shit in person. Easier to write it out, I guess. So, yeah. There you go.

  Me: Audrey?

  Audrey: Yeah, sorry. I’m here.

  Audrey: You’re welcome, Blake. And you can text me whenever you want.

  Me: Cool. Anyway, I’m going to bed. Night.

  Audrey: Goodnight.

  Audrey: And by the way, next year, Freddy and I are totally singing happy birthday to you. Just so you know.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  AS LUCK WOULD have it, Audrey was a horrible singer. Absolutely horrendous. Yet, she didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the fact she sounded like a dying cat in heat, as she ironically sang along to Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” from the passenger seat of my car. And that’s what I enjoyed the most, how she didn’t care. That even when she couldn’t hit the high notes, she still exuded confidence.

  “I love that song,” she gushed with a sigh.

  “I don’t,” I snorted.

  “Okay,” she drawled. “Then, why don’t you put on something you wanna listen to?”

  “You don’t wanna listen to what I wanna listen to, so don’t worry about it.”

  “You shouldn’t assume something like that. You have no idea what kind of music I like.”

  For a second, I stole my eyes from the road to glare at her. “You won’t like my music.”

  “Try me!”

  Freddy groaned irritably from the backseat and Audrey turned to look at him. “Oh, does the peanut gallery have something to say?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, “pipe down.”

  “Yo,” I said, glancing at him in the rearview mirror, “nobody tells me to pipe down in my car, got it?”

  “Mommy, I want headphones, too.”

  Audrey laughed, taking a q
uick glance at Jake, bopping his head to music none of us could hear. “You have them at home, honey. Remember? Daddy got you some for your birthday.”

  “I want them now.”

  “Well, you don’t have them right—”

  I reached across her lap to the glove compartment, opening it up to reveal a spare set of headphones. “He can use those. Let him use my phone. I have all of Jake’s music uploaded on there, too,” I offered, and she gawked at me. I narrowed my glare on the road. “What?”

  “You’re like, prepared for anything.”

  “Yeah, have you met Jake? I kinda have to be.”

  She nodded, plugging the headphones into my phone and setting it up for Freddy. “I’m just remembering when you told me your parents wanted to, um, put him somewhere, and I’m failing to understand why they don’t think you’re the best option for him. Why wouldn’t they just let him live with you?”

  I grunted a reply as she handed Freddy the phone and headphones, then she asked, “You disagree?”

  “Yes … no,” I shook my head and gripped the wheel tighter, “I don’t know. I don’t know what I think anymore.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”

  “I’m just trying to do the best thing for him while I still can. What else can I do, you know?” And right now, the best thing for him was to see my parents and me getting along. To see me happy and doing what was best for me, while keeping him at the top of my priority list. That’s what I’d been doing all week, by booking more appointments at the shop, letting him sleep over more often, and talking to Audrey on a nearly constant basis. I had even browsed a few realtor websites, pricing a few vacant storefronts in downtown Salem. It wasn’t in the cards just yet, but I knew the possibility would become a reality once my issue of ModInk was delivered to the stands. That was only a month away and it took everything in my power not to gnaw my fingernails down to the cuticle.

  With all of the changes in my life, I was seeing more of a change in Jake, too. He was calmer and a little more settled. He hadn’t had a tantrum in days, a new record for him, and I was beginning to wonder if maybe Audrey really had been right all along. Perhaps my mood really did impact him to such a drastic degree.