Tell Kellen you love him.
That’s what I’d wanted to do, wasn’t it? And he’d said it to me. He’d just told me again that he loved me and he didn’t have any problem doing it.
So why can’t you say it back?
Because he didn’t mean it. How could he mean it? There was no way I could ever be worth Kellen’s love. And that made me angry.
At me for being so unloveable?
At him for insisting I wasn’t?
At my father for showing me how to be this way?
At the world for making Julian Reynolds my father?
I didn’t know who I was mad at, but it didn’t even really matter where the anger was directed. All that mattered was that it was there, consuming me in a violent inferno.
Kellen kicked the front of my dresser. Guess I wasn’t the only one getting sucked into the flames.
“God, Carson, you’re so frustrating,” he said. “You keep your heart locked in some kind of padded room where you think it’ll be safe, but alone isn’t safe, Carson.”
I pictured my heart bouncing around a box with cushy white walls, fumbling around in a straitjacket.
“I don’t need you to analyze me. I have a therapist for that,” I said coldly. “And don’t act like I’m the only one here that’s screwed up. Or have the drugs fried your brain so bad that you forgot you go to the same crazy train station?”
Kellen didn’t say anything. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t scream at me or throw a chair through the window.
He just left.
And I watched him go.
Chapter 41
Regret
I play the fictional conversations over and over in my head
Everything I want to say
Everything I want you to say
In the end it’s all I have
Because in the end there is only silence
I felt the weight of my words as soon as I heard the front door slam shut, the sound traveling upstairs and snapping me out of the cloud of anger I was lost in.
I couldn’t believe I just said that.
My words weren’t a slap in the face or a punch to the gut. No, they were ripping someone’s heart out with your bare hands or stabbing someone in the back 43 times with a rusty knife. They were on a whole other level that even I didn’t know I was capable of reaching.
It was something my father would have said and I hated myself for it. I wanted to take the words back, shove them right back down my throat and choke myself with them.
How did this happen? How did I let myself get so out of control that I’d hurt the one person on my side. What’s worse is he’d just told me he loved me and my response was to take his deepest and darkest pain and smash him in the face with it.
I was a despicable human being.
Kellen was right. I’d lashed out at him when the person I was really mad at was my father. But my father wasn’t there for me to use as a punching bag and so I’d abused Kellen instead. He didn’t deserve that, but I’d just kept pushing him. I’d thought he was lying when he said he loved me. Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. It was kind of irrelevant now since there was no way he still loved me after that.
I ran downstairs, grabbed my cell phone off the table, and headed out the door. I felt my mom’s gaze follow me but I didn’t say anything. I was halfway down the street when I stopped. I couldn’t go after him. What would I do when I got to him? What could I possibly do that would be able to fix the damage I’d already done?
Nothing.
Besides, I needed to give Kellen time to cool off. I was the last person he wanted to be around right now and I needed to respect that. I owed Kellen that much. I owed Kellen so much more, but I could start there.
So I’d go and sleep the rest of the day away and then tomorrow I’d get up and go to his house. I’d apologize and everything would be okay.
I looked down the street and bit my lip. Before I knew it I was dialing Kellen’s number and putting my phone to my ear. I didn’t know what I’d say, but I couldn’t just leave things the way they were. Kellen fought for me and now it was my turn to fight for him.
The phone rang and rang. I wasn’t surprised, I didn’t blame him for not wanting to answer my call. I wouldn’t have answered my call.
Hey, it’s Kellen. I’m probably out saving the world, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you.
Beeeeeeeep.
“Kellen, it’s Carson,” I started. I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. I – ” I started to say I love you, but decided against it. I’d save that for when I saw him in person. “I’m sorry.”
I didn’t sleep at all that night. Half of me expected Kellen to call me back. The other half of me told that half that it was crazy. Apparently the first half was crazy because Kellen never called. When I finally got out of bed I checked my phone again, just in case I’d dozed off without realizing, but there were no messages. He must have been really upset.
I threw on some clothes and was about to leave when I saw Kellen’s hat sitting on the floor – the one he threw across the room. I put it on my head backwards, hoping it would serve as a peace offering, and left. My mom’s car was still in the driveway and I considered taking it so I could get to Kellen’s house faster, but I thought better of it and opted for my bike instead. If my mom woke up and her car was missing she’d for sure call the cops and the last thing I needed was to get busted for grand theft auto and thrown in jail before my mom could pick me up and explain that I wasn’t a criminal, just a disobedient daughter.
Plus, I wanted to do this right.
So I biked towards Kellen’s house. I decided to stop at the donut shop Kellen liked, partially because I hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours and was feeling a little light-headed, but mostly because I was stalling. Reconciliation wasn’t my specialty. Cutting people off was my specialty. I’d never actually tried to get anyone back after cutting them off, so I was feeling nervous and jittery and unsure.
I ate a purple donut and picked out a yellow one for Kellen because yellow was a happy color. I even got them to write “I love you” on the top of it in blue icing. That way if I turned into a total coward I at least had the donut as backup.
When I got to Kellen’s and pulled up next to the blue fence in front of his house though, I wasn’t so sure that a happy yellow donut was going to be enough. I took a deep breath and headed towards the door. My legs felt like noodles under the weight of all my guilt. I knocked on the front door and waited, feeling anxious.
What was I going to say?
What was he going to say?
A solid sixty seconds went by with no sign that anyone was coming. All I could hear was Barkley yapping away on the other side and I began to feel even more anxious and stupid. I turned around and headed away from his house, tears forming in my eyes, when I heard the sound of the door open. My heart lifted and I spun back around, but it was just Kellen’s mom.
“Hey, Carson,” she called, a big smile on her face. Kellen must not have told her what happened or else I was sure she would’ve come out to clobber me with a can of ready-made biscuits.
“Hi,” I said, slowly walking back up. “Um, is Kellen here?”
“You just missed him,” Lena said. “He left a few minutes ago to take a walk.”
“Oh,” I said, adding defeated to the list of feelings I was feeling. “Okay.”
I heard the phone ring inside. “Tony, will you get that,” Lena called over her shoulder before turning back to me. “You’re welcome to hang out until he gets back. I don’t think he’ll be gone long.”
“Oh,” I said again. “I’m not sure if I should.”
Lena looked concerned. “Carson, did something happen?” she asked. “Kellen was really upset when he came home yesterday but he said he didn’t want to talk about it. And now you look like you’re going to cry.”
I could’ve lied and said I was fine, that everything was fine, but there was really no point. I was so obviously not fine.
“We had a fight,” I said.
Lena nodded. “Well, you’ll get through it.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“I am,” she said and I was surprised by the amount of conviction in her voice. “Kellen has never loved a girl the way he loves you.”
Love. There was that word again. Why was it that everyone could say it but me?
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because he’s never told me he loved someone before,” she said. “Until you.”
That gave me some hope, if only a little flicker in the distance.
At that moment Tony came running to the door. “It was Kel!” he said to his mom. “He’s coming to get me and then he’s gonna bring me to volunteer with him!”
My heart twisted. Kellen had called. Kellen was coming back over here. Suddenly I wasn’t ready to see him. Waiting for Kellen to walk up his driveway sounded a whole lot scarier than waiting for him to come answer the front door.
“Carson!” Tony said excitedly, pulling me from my anxious thoughts. He must have just noticed I was there.
“Hey Tony,” I said, trying my best to put on a smile for the little boy.
Tony frowned. “What’s wrong, Carson?”
“N-nothing,” I said, working extra hard to keep that smile on. “I’m okay.”
“You have the sad eyes,” he said, shaking his head.
“The sad eyes?” I asked.
“They’re the eyes people have when they’re trying not to cry,” he explained.
Wow, he was a perceptive little guy.
All of a sudden Tony hopped down the steps and threw his arms around me in a hug.
“I –”
“It’s okay,” Tony said. “Crying is okay. It’s how we wash the sad out of our body.”
“Who told you that?” I asked.
“My mom.”
I looked up at Lena and she was smiling down at us. I pulled away from the hug and bent down so that Tony and I were on the same eye level. This time, despite the fact that the sad was still trapped in my body, my smile was much more real.
“Thanks, big guy. I really needed that.”
Tony beamed. “Hugs always make me feel better when I’m sad,” he said before throwing his arms around my neck. “You’re a special person, Carson,” he whispered into my ear.
That little boy never ceased to amaze me.
I stood up and ruffled his hair. “You’re really special too, Tony,” I said.
“I know. Everyone’s special. Even if they don’t know why yet.”
I didn’t have to ask where he heard that one from. Kellen.
“Do you want to come with us to the homeless shelter,” Tony asked me, all excited again.
I thought about it. If we were around Tony then maybe there would be less of a chance that Kellen would storm away from me. Maybe having Tony as a buffer would put him in a good enough mood to hear me out.
I shook my head. “I can’t this time, big guy. But you have fun with your brother, okay?”
I couldn’t use Tony like that and he just looked so excited about his big brother bringing him to volunteer. I didn’t want to ruin Tony’s day with my drama. I’d talk to Kellen when he got home – if he let me.
I held out the bag with the donut to Lena.
“Can you give this to him when he gets home? And ask him to call me when he’s ready?”
“Of course,” Lena said, taking the bag. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay and wait for him?”
“I’m sure,” I said. “I’ll talk to him later.”
Lena nodded. “Hang in there Carson. We all fight with the people we love sometimes, but in the end we fight for the people we love every time.” She smiled. “Things will get better.”
I tried to smile back. I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe that everything would be okay but it was hard, especially when I had this knot growing in my chest, this knot that was telling me that everything would be the exact opposite of okay.
“Bye, Carson!” Tony called to me as I walked back to my bike. “And remember what I told you.”
“I’ll try,” I said. “See you later, buddy.”
It was exactly 4:23 p.m. when my phone rang. I’d been lying on the couch since I got back from Kellen’s house that morning. When I glanced over and saw his name flash across the screen, I grabbed my phone and answered without giving it a second thought.
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately. “I’m so so sorry and I didn’t want to fight and I didn’t mean to say those things I just – ”
I stopped in the middle of my word vomit, realizing that the person on the other end of the call was sobbing.
“Kellen?”
The sobs came even harder and I knew it wasn’t Kellen I was talking to.
“Lena?” I asked. “Lena, is that you? What happened?”
My body physically tensed at the sounds coming out of Lena. They were gut-wrenching and the weight of them hung over the airspace so intensely that I felt like I might be crushed beneath it.
“L-Lena,” I whispered, my voice shaking.
“T-there was an a-a-accident,” she said. She stopped and cried out.
Every nerve in my body went on high alert. Time paused and the world stopped spinning as I sat there gripping the phone so tightly I was sure it was going to shatter.
“What happened?” I asked, panic taking hold of my body. “What kind of accident?”
Lena gasped for breath, coughing and sputtering. “Carson,” she said and I could hear another round of sobs right there on the edge of her words. “He’s – he’s dead.”
Chapter 42
Gone
Given
Borrowed
Used
Stolen
My head confused
My body turned cold
My heart lost
Gone
My entire world split in two and I fell straight through the crack.
“No,” I said. My body was shaking as tears streamed down my face. “No he’s not. He was here. He was here yesterday and I talked to him.” My voice was rising. “He’s not dead. Kellen’s not dead!”
“No,” Lena sobbed. “N-not Kellen.”
Not Kellen?
Kellen was alive. I choked on a sob, letting relief wash over me. It only lasted a second though. If Kellen was alive then why was Lena –
“Tony,” I whispered.
That one word was met with a round of violent sobs, confirming what I’d just figured out. There were only two people in the world whose deaths would cause a mother like Lena to break like this, and if one was still here then the other had to be gone.
But that was impossible.
I’d just seen him. I’d just hugged him. He couldn’t be gone.
“How?” That was all I could manage to get out.
Lena’s cries broke my heart. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what I could do.
“W-where are you?” I asked, wiping the tears from my eyes.
“H-h-hopsital,” Lena cried.
“I’m coming to you,” I said.
I ran outside and got on my bike. As I rode all I could think about was how this was the bad feeling I’d had that morning, the knot that had been forming in my chest. It hadn’t just been a knot though, it had been a little cannonball – a little cannonball that was going to shatter all of our hearts into a billion pieces.
And it was all my fault.
I stayed on the phone with Lena during the whole ride to the hospital. We didn’t talk – I rode while she cried. I couldn’t bear to hang up the phone though, especially when she kept saying “Tony is dead, my baby is dead” over and over again.
I just kept my legs pumping, afraid of what would happen if I stopped moving. If I stopped moving then the reality would surely hit me. Despite Lena’s constant reminder, it still didn’t feel real.
When I pulled up to the hospital I tossed my bike down on the sidewalk. “I’m here,”
I said to Lena. “I’m hanging up the phone, but I’m coming in now.”
As soon as I ended the call I realized that I had no way of knowing where Lena actually was. I entered the emergency room and walked up to the lady behind the desk.
“I’m looking for the Jordans,” I said. “Kellan Jordan and… and Tony.”
The woman typed a few things on her keyboard and I saw her face drop. “Anthony Jordan?” she asked solemly.
“Tony,” I said fiercely, my eyes narrowing. “He likes to be called Tony.”
Liked. He liked to be called Tony.
The woman was about to point me in the right direction, but she was interrupted by a nurse that came rushing over.
“Can you page the doctor?” she asked anxiously. “He’s getting hysterical and his records say he’s currently in therapy. I don’t know what to do.”
I was about to snap at the woman and say that, contrary to popular belief, seeing a therapist didn’t actually make you the conductor of the crazy train, but a voice down the hall stopped me in my tracks. It was both familiar and completely foreign to me.
“Let me see him!” the voice screamed. “Let me see my brother!”
The level of agony in his voice was something I had never heard before, not from anyone. Not even from Lena. My instinct immediately kicked in and I bolted down the hall.
“Hey, young lady, come back here!” the receptionist called after me.
I kept running, letting the sound of Kellen’s screams guide me down the hall. He wasn’t hard to find. If his yelling hadn’t given him away, the crowd of medical professionals racing in and out of the room would have. I squeezed in between two nurses who were too preoccupied to notice my scrub-less body enter the room.
Kellen was lying in a hospital bed and the sight of him paralyzed me. I put my hand to my mouth, trying desperately to suppress the sob that was clawing its way up my throat. It was all too much though and a quiet gasp escaped my lips. It went unnoticed though as Kellen cried out again.
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