I touch the blood matting down Arrow’s fur. I pick the gravel stuck there and hold a piece in my palm, wondering, for a moment, if I fell asleep after all. I have to wake up.
I feel air scrape its way down my throat when his chest rises.
“He’s breathing,” I hear myself tell them, and then the three of us are moving, synced without a word. We lift Arrow into their backseat. I put his head on my lap and nod at their apologies, the explanation, the tears.
Somewhere during the drive, it occurs to me that Arrow can hear. That he might be scared.
“You’ll be okay, bud,” I whisper, and it’s only then that I feel the tears on my face. It’s only then my heartbeat, wild and broken inside my chest, starts to hurt.
28
“You can’t leave yet.”
I look over my shoulder. The hallway looks empty, exactly the way it was when I left Tim’s office a few minutes ago. For a long time, I lingered and looked at the photos on the walls. Caitlin-Anne’s school photos, Jeannie and Tim’s wedding.
A weird peace came with it: instead of seeing these things and thinking, This should have been me, this should have been my mother—this should have been our family, I simply accepted them for what they were. Snapshots of Tim’s life, and the family he’d planned.
I didn’t belong in these photos. Did I deserve to have some on these walls? Did I deserve the same navy blue school uniform as Caitlin-Anne, or the exotic vacations, the insane Christmases? Maybe.
But suddenly, I didn’t want them.
Now, as I stare down the empty hallway, I hear music. It’s coming from the theater room.
“There he is,” Cohen says, and immediately passes me a drink when I walk inside. “Saw you heading out. You’re not leaving already, are you?”
“Uh...no, I guess not. Knox is my ride, anyway.”
“We’re playing beer pong.” Caitlin-Anne hands me a ball and nods at the two folding card tables they’ve set up in front of the couch pit, where Levi’s girlfriend and Cohen’s wife are lounging, half-asleep with the little girl between them.
“Beer pong? Really?” I let Cohen and Levi steer me to the table. Knox pours, of all things, bottled sparkling water into the last cup and sets it down. “I thought you guys were in the dining room.” I pause, swallowing. “Waiting for the announcement.”
“Tim and Jeannie just want to impress those old farts,” Levi chuckles. “Come on, this is way more fun. Play hooky for a while, let them do the boring shit.”
“Levi’s right. He knows old farts better than anyone,” Cohen adds, “because until a few weeks ago, he was one.”
The brothers pretend to square off while Knox and I play a round. He’s distracted, glancing at Caitlin-Anne while she chats with the women, so I win all too easily.
“Who’s next?” I catch the ball behind my back with fake arrogance. “I guess I should ask, who needs a drink.”
“Kid’s brand-new and already talking shit,” Cohen stage-whispers to the others. “Somebody go teach him a lesson.”
“Why don’t you?” his wife challenges, yawning into her elbow as he twists open another beer.
“I would love to. Unfortunately, my aim is compromised right now.”
“I’ll do it.”
Everyone shuts up when Caitlin-Anne stands in the pit and makes her way to the table.
“Ooh, brother versus sister.” Cohen plunks down into the cushions. “The age-old battle.”
I look at Caitlin-Anne and raise my eyebrow. “You sure?”
She pulls a hair-tie off her wrist, daintily pulls her hair back from her face, and nods at the Ping-Pong ball in my hand. “Ladies first.”
The game moves quickly. And I very quickly lose.
“By the way,” Levi tells me, when I’m down five cups and she has all six, “Cait is pretty much unstoppable at drinking games.”
“You don’t say.” I set my drink aside and take my shot. It goes in. Caitlin-Anne gives me the finger and a faint smile as she sips her drink.
We play until everyone’s exhausted, either from the evening itself or their alcohol; I have no idea how long they’ve been here, drinking and hiding from old farts. I grab a second beer and sit near the edge. Soon the cushion pit is full, all of us talking at once.
“I used to think I wanted a home theater,” Levi slurs. His girlfriend yawns and props her feet in his lap. “Now it’s like...what would we even use it for? Cait—does this room ever get used?”
Caitlin-Anne, back from checking on her son in his bedroom, inspects a box of Mike and Ikes from the snack bar before chewing a handful. “Your nephew watches those silly video game walkthroughs in here,” she answers, sucking the candy from her molars, “but otherwise, not really.”
“Waste of space,” Cohen laments.
“Waste of money,” Caitlin-Anne corrects. “Daddy pisses away so much on stuff like this, but then gets mad at me if I get a new purse.”
“It is his money,” Levi reminds her. I hold my breath, bracing for the fallout.
But, to my shock, Caitlin-Anne just scoffs and throws a candy at him. He digs it out of the cushions and throws it back.
In fact, everything about tonight has me in a bit of shock. My cousins—and the fact I even have cousins, out of the blue—being so much like me, and a sudden game of beer pong in a mansion’s home theater. Knox and Caitlin-Anne flirting across an entire room, with little more than eye contact.
The words that left my mouth in Tim’s office, so different from what I’d rehearsed.
And now, as my phone buzzes and I pull it from my pocket, this: a text from Camille. “I miss you, too.”
“Hey,” I whisper to Knox, barely interrupting whatever’s going on between him and Caitlin-Anne, “you think you’d be okay heading out soon?”
“What’s the rush? Nothing going on in Hillford tonight, that’s for damn sure.”
“I know, it’s just....” My sigh gets directed at the foam-tiled ceiling and surround sound. There’s no use telling him I want to go make up with Camille. To Knox, him talking to a girl who’s actually here ranks higher than me finding one who isn’t. Guess I can’t blame him.
“Here,” he says suddenly. When I look back at him, I realize he was reading my texts over my shoulder. Before I can get defensive, he’s dropped his car keys into my palm.
“You sure?”
“Are you kidding?” he smirks. “I’ve got the perfect excuse to wait around here until you come back.” His eyes slide to Caitlin-Anne again, who I’m pretty sure doesn’t need to bend over the way she does, right in front of him, to get the candy she just dropped. “Even if everyone else leaves.”
“Isn’t it against some bro code to try and bang your friend’s sister?” I whisper, fumbling my way out of the pit.
“You didn’t grow up together,” he counters. I can’t exactly argue with his logic, but I still pull a face.
He taps my wrist before I can get out. “Seriously, though—is it okay? If I ask her out, I mean.”
“You think you can get a Fairfield daughter to be your girlfriend?”
“Why not? Got a Fairfield son to slum it with me over an ice cream shop.”
I punch his shoulder and suppress a smile. “Knock yourself out, man.”
After my goodbyes, everyone pleading with me to stay just a little longer, I make my way to the foyer. A uniformed man hands me my coat; I thank him and wave his help away when he reaches for the door handle. “I’ve got it. Thanks.”
It’s snowing. I pause on the steps and watch the way each flake clings to the stone, overlapping and joining. Forming something whole, one tiny piece at a time.
Knox’s car headlights flicker when I hit the pothole in Camille’s neighborhood, dead-on. I curse and straighten the wheel in time to avoid the RV sticking a few feet out of the driveway.
Thankfully, I don’t trigger the floodlight when I creep around to the side of the house and knock on Camille’s window. It’s dark; she must be asleep. W
hen I call her phone, though, it rings without an answer, and I don’t hear anything from inside.
The living room is completely empty, lit only by a little bit of moonlight. I curse under my breath and slap the siding.
“She moved out.”
I curse again, much louder, and clutch my chest when Camille’s dad lays his hand on my shoulder. In his other hand is a huge Maglite—probably meant to bash my head in, had he not recognized me. I should have known better than to snoop around an ex-cop’s house.
“Sorry,” I manage, with my heart still halfway in my throat. “I was just.... She moved?”
“Into Brynn’s house, over on South Trail.” He studies me closely, like he wonders if I’m drunk. I can’t blame him: skulking around in the middle of the night, snow soaking through my coat while I call to my ex-girlfriend in her empty bedroom? Doesn’t bode well for me.
“Come in for a second, get some coffee,” he says. He must be taking pity on me. “Kerry and I have been living in the RV since the garage sale, just to see how we like it. It’s a lot more comfortable than I expected.”
“Thank you, but....” I think of Camille’s last message to my phone. “I miss you too.” “I just need to talk to her, as soon as possible. You said she lives on…?”
“South Trail.” His pause holds a lot of judgment, wondering whether or not to tell me, I’m guessing. Either I look pathetic, or he’s just good at reading faces for honesty, because he adds, “402. It’s a yellow rancher, chain-link fence around the back—pretty tiny. White mailbox.”
I thank him and hold out my hand. He shakes it.
“And congratulations. On selling the house.”
His eyes scan the home, slippers crunching the frost gathered on the grass as he turns. “Yeah,” he sighs, “we’re gonna miss it. I worked my ass off for this place. We all did. American dream, all that.” He shrugs the tinge of sadness off. “But dreams change.”
We say goodbye, and he hurries back into the RV. Kerry waves at me from the window. I wave back.
South Trail is livelier than expected, this time of night. I have to honk at two girls stumbling too far off the sidewalk at a house party before I reach 402. Yellow house, tiny. White mailbox.
“Silas?” Brynn stumbles back from the door and waves me in, still rubbing her eyes as I step past. “What are you doing here?”
“I needed to talk to Camille.”
“At…God, what is it…two in the morning? Okay.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You wouldn’t have, normally. Camille sleeps way lighter than me, and right here on the couch—I thought she was answering it.”
We look at the sofa, empty. A pillow and the folded quilt from Camille’s old room are on the armrest.
“I’ll check the bathroom, hold on.” While Brynn goes down the hall, I click my tongue for Arrow. No response.
“She’s not in there.” Brynn returns, brow furrowed, looking much more awake than before. “Let me check the backyard, maybe she let Arrow out or something.”
Again I wait, unsure of how to help. I look around the living room and notice signs that Camille does, in fact, live here: her alphabetized DVD collection by the television, Arrow’s stuffed giraffe with a mangled neck, and a rolling suitcase, open and neatly packed by the armchair.
“Okay,” Brynn says, when she comes back inside. I look up, but realize she’s on her phone, not talking to me. “Of course, of course. No, it’s—” Her eyes snap to mine, but seem to look through me. “I’ll get there. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.”
Before I can ask what’s going on, she grabs her coat and keys, pulls on some rain boots from the porch, and waves me out with her.
“I need a ride somewhere,” she says, and starts for my car without an answer. “Let’s go.”
“I know it’s not an easy decision.”
I stare at the tiled floor and let the vet’s words hit me like the bullets they really are, no matter how sweetly he tries to phrase them.
Spinal injury. Broken leg. Dislocated hip. His good hip, ironically enough.
“But now,” he’s saying, “with the cancer...I understand the difficulty....”
Difficulty. God, he has no idea.
“If I pay for the breaks,” I manage, my voice sounding like melting plastic in my ears, “and the hip and back surgery, but we skip the chemo...” Somehow, I force my eyes upward. Not to his, but at least to his chin. “...how long...?”
He hesitates. “Two months.”
I feel the sob dislodge in my chest. I don’t know what answer I was hoping for. I’ve been in this kind of situation enough to know it’s never good when doctors, of any kind, want to speak to you in private.
“We could try and treat the lymphoma, if you want to. It might get him another year or two. But with the damage to his spine, I just don’t see him—”
“Dr. Mays?” A voice fills the room from an intercom, soft and crystallized like honey. “Ms. Ballard has two...guests, here at the front desk.”
“Your parents?” he asks me.
“Um...no, it—it should just be my best friend. My parents didn’t answer.”
“Should I send them in?”
I hesitate, then nod. He relays this to the intercom, gives me a smile so full of pity I can’t take it, and leaves.
When the door opens again a moment later, Brynn rushes inside like a storm, sweeping me up into a hug that hurts every nerve. It isn’t her: every touch, from my own hands cracking my knuckles, to the steel exam table behind me I keep bumping against when my legs feel weak, is excruciating.
“I’m so sorry, Cam. What was it? A hit-and-run? Because the guy across the street has a security camera, maybe he caught something. I’ll get the footage and we can—”
“It’s okay,” I tell her. It’s the strangest sentence to leave my mouth all day. “The couple was really apologetic, and it was...it was hard to see, with the snow. They gave me their number, in case I need to get in touch.”
“In case you need to sue. I’m serious, I wouldn’t let this go. Make them pay for all of this, every last dime.”
“Brynn.” I put my hands on her shoulders and hold her at arm’s length. “It was an accident. And they can’t afford the surgeries, any more than I can.”
“I’ll pay.”
We turn. In the doorway, like snow out of a clear sky, Silas steps inside.
My mouth forms the question, but instead of asking, I look at Brynn.
“He was looking for you,” she whispers. “He was at the house when you called, and I needed a ride.”
“Camille,” he starts, moving closer before both of us remember, at the same time, that we aren’t alone.
“I’ll be in the hall,” Brynn says quickly, and slinks out before I can stop her. When the door shuts behind her, the silence thickens, packed into the room like gauze.
Silas clears his throat. He leans on the counter across from me, the distance between us only a few feet, but feeling like so much more.
“I’ll pay,” he says again, finally. “Whatever it is, just—just let me do this.”
“It’s thousands,” I tell him, half-snapping. I don’t mean to, but I feel that old resentment bubbling back at the thought of money. Maybe it is envy, after all: that he can now drop a pile of bills on any problem, on my problem, and I can’t. No matter how hard I work, I’ll never be as lucky as a Fairfield.
No. Don’t do this again.
He isn’t flashing cash or bragging. He never was.
“Thank you,” I add, softer now, “but...but it’s too much. At most, he’d only live another year, and—”
I don’t get to finish this sentence, because “another year” is the final bullet, shot from my own mouth. It breaks my chest in half.
Silas is across the room in under a second. He doesn’t have time to pull me into him; I fold. Fully, instantly. Finally.
“Then that’s another year you’d have with him,” he whispers.
29
“I can’t let you do this. All that money, when he won’t even....” Camille pushes her face back into my chest.
“I want to.” After I’ve given her a minute to level her breathing, I pull back a little and hook her chin in my fingers. “Let me help, Camille. Let someone help you, for once.”
She shakes her head again, but can’t actually say the word: no.
It isn’t something she’s used to saying, to anyone but herself. It’s easy to tell herself no, she can’t have this, or no, don’t do that. For Camille, there have always been more important things.
But I know Arrow has been one of the most important things in her life from the day she got him.
“Every time you tried giving your mom money,” I tell her quietly, “what did she do?”
“She’d shove it back,” she sniffs, laughing just the slightest bit. “And I’d tell her, ‘Let me....’” The smile and her voice fades as it all clicks, and her eyes rise back to mine. “‘Let me do this.’ I—I said that every time.”
“Because you needed her to take it,” I say, “just as much as she needed to accept it. Right?”
Reluctantly, Camille nods.
“But,” she adds, “it’s so much money. This isn’t an electric bill or a house payment, it’s—”
“Way, way more important,” I finish. She falls silent again.
I lift her chin back up and kiss her. The tears have dried on her mouth, the salt stinging when I pull back.
“Can I see him?” I whisper.
The room beside this one is much smaller. Darker.
They have him wrapped in blankets on a table. I tell Camille not to feel obligated to come in with me, but she takes a breath and follows, anyway. “I have to see him, sometime. One way or another,” she says, shivering.
He looks like he’s sleeping. I scratch behind his ears the way he likes, but have to stop. It’s too strange not to feel his head push back against my palm.
Baby, Be My Last: The Fairfields | Book Three Page 22