The Hemlock Girl

by C. L. Heckman

  Jason plays guitar behind me, inviting me to join. “Stop sulking and get over here!” he demands. I brush my hands off on my pants, and meander toward him. Keith hands me his son, Matthew, to hold while he throws a football around with the guys. His little green eyes stare into my soul and tiny red fuzz on his head blows in the breeze. The scent of baby is jump-starting my ovaries, but I yell at them to calm down because babysitting is all I can handle right now. I rest his butt on my hip and bounce it to the music. His adorable little face lights up.

  “He loves his Aunt Karissa,” Keith yells from the background. “Time for you to find a man and have one of your own.”

  I turn and stick out my tongue. “You’re lucky you found Erin, or you wouldn’t have one either!”

  Erin chimes in from over by the fire. “Yeah, he is pretty darn lucky!” she winks.

  Keith jogs over and bends down for a kiss before returning to the guys. Jason begins to play, and the song is familiar.

  “I think I know this song?”

  Jason smiles at me. “It was from Jasper’s favorite band. I’m sorry, Riss. I can play something else if you want.”

  I shake my head. “No, it’s fine.”

  Kota sneaks up behind me, kissing Matthew on the forehead. “So, have you talked to him?” she asks.

  “Not since going to see him at the facility all those years ago. Keith tells me things here and there. I know he joined the navy as soon as he turned 18. I know he was stationed in Hawaii for a while. I know he was still serving because he was afraid of what would happen if he left. He was dating some girl named Stacy for a couple years, and he proposed. I don’t know what ring he gave her since ours probably fell into the lake by now. Must’ve bought her a big fancy one. They are probably married, with babies and a house and all that.”

  Jealousy rears its ugly head while I talk about him. Dakota pulls Matthew from my arms and bounces him on her hip. “Jeanette still owns the house, you know,” she says. “I know where the hide-a-key is. If you ever need closure or something and want to go in, just let me know.”

  “No,” I respond. “I don’t need closure. I was over Jasper many years ago. It’s been almost a decade. I’ve had other relationships since then. Remember Steve?” I ask.

  Dakota nods her head. “Yes, Riss, I remember Steve. Five years in a relationship with someone that could never measure up to Jasper. Steve was a great guy, but not your soulmate.”

  “Jasper wasn’t my soulmate!” I scold with obvious anger. “Soulmates don’t exist.”

  Dakota walks Matthew over to Erin and I kick at the sand, digging a hole with my foot.

  “Girl, we love you, but you need to find a way to move on with your life. You’ve been trapped in the same spot for over nine years and it’s not healthy. You deserve so much more than this and I’m pissed as hell that he broke you. I’m also pissed that you let him. I thought you were stronger than that – letting a man determine your life.”

  I bite the corner of my lip, frustrated with her lack of understanding. “He promised he wouldn’t destroy me, Kota, and that’s exactly what he did.”

  “No, he didn’t,” she explains. “He saved himself, and you were too self-involved to realize that. Jasper needed to leave you to heal. He needed a safe space with no distractions. Having you in his life was terrifying. He knew that if anything happened between you two, he wouldn’t be able to handle the pain. He knew keeping you in his life was playing with fire. The only way that he could truly save himself from himself, was to let go of the one thing he absolute loved --You.”

  I fall to the sand, and sit in silence. With short, hurried breaths, I begin to realize that the hurt and anger I felt was all miscalculated. It was never about Jasper not loving me, or giving up on us, it was about healing. I failed him when he actually needed me to understand. Instead of walking away and giving him his space, I pushed too hard and he was forced to cut me loose.

  “Where is the hide-a-key?” I ask, hoping Dakota is still willing to offer the information.

  “It’s taped to the bottom of the bird feeder. Good luck, Hun. I hope you find what you need there. “

  I slip away while everyone is watching Jason try to shove as many marshmallows in his mouth as possible. Sliding behind the overgrown ivy, I begin my journey up the rock stairway. Tiny green leaves brush across my face and I allow them to slide between my fingers and along my skin. Pushing a few branches out of my way, the stairway opens to the stone patio where the hammock still hangs. Many strings are broken or dry-rotted, and the one end has begun to unravel from the tree. Memories slide through my mind like a flip book – memories I can still see so clearly of us, lying in that hammock, staring at the stars.

  I push myself forward even though I’m unsure I want to continue. The garage door windows are covered with paper from the inside. I stare at the front door, waiting for Roxy to come barreling through at any moment. She always put a smile on my face with her slobbery mouth rubbing all over my legs and her baseball-bat like tail whacking me in the butt. I’m sad that I never got to see her again, and I’m sure that she has grown old and grey on the beaches in Santa Cruz chasing seagulls on the beach and swimming in the ocean.

  The birdfeeder hangs, gently blowing in the summer air, void of any seed. I reach underneath, and feel for the cold metal. Finding it with ease, I pull it loose and take a few steps to the front door. Something about this feels weird. I don’t deserve to enter this house. If Jeanette was here, would she even invite me in? I blamed her for so many things, but perhaps she blamed me, too? I take a few steps to the right and glance into the dining room through the bay window. A small wooden table is the only piece of furniture visible. I decide to bite the bullet and stick the key in the lock. The screen door slams behind me as I slowly step inside; through a time machine back ten years.

  The plants that used to line the windows are long gone. The house that used to feel so warm and inviting is now cold and empty. The kitchen that once boasted black and white cow decorations filling its counters is left with only a single teapot sitting on the stove. The refrigerator door had magnets that Jasper and Josh had made as kids. Pictures of their family were stuck to it for every visitor to glance at while Jeanette made them a cup of coffee. Sadness overtakes me when I realize those things will never return to this house again.

  I force myself to continue on even though every part of me wants to retreat. “You need closure, Karissa,” I whisper to myself.

  The living room still has the same wall-sized mirror hanging to my left. I stare in it, and notice the new crow’s feet that are developing around the corners of my eyes. Where did all the years go? And, why did I waste so many of them on something I never had the ability to change?

  Turning on my heels, I head to the back door and out onto the deck. The trees and bushes have grown so much that the view of the lake has decreased to only a tiny sliver. The porch railing is bent outward, and the concrete beneath my feet has begun to crumble away. I hurry back inside before it breaks and I tumble into the poison sumac below.

  Jasper’s room is now straight ahead. There’s no ignoring it; no running away or pretending it doesn’t exist. With a deep breath, I take a step toward it. My body halts, unwilling to continue. “You have to do this, Karissa,” I remind myself.

  Leaning forward, I can almost see into his room. Curiosity gets the best of me, and I finally enter. Shelves that used to be lined with trophies and surfing knick-knacks are now empty. A set of bunk-beds gawk at me from where his stereo used to sit, erasing any memory of what this ten-by-ten space used to be. Disappointed, I exit his room and the house. Without a second thought, I lock the door, and our past, behind me.

  Taping the key back under the bird feeder, I begin to head to the beach. Wiping tears from my cheeks, I’m startled by a rustle in the bushes.

  “Keith?” I wonder.

  No one answers. I pull my knife from my pocket and open it, hoping it’s just one of the guys playing a trick on me.
My voice quivers, “Jason?”

  Heading toward the stairway, I contemplate calling for help. “Come out right now, or I’m going to scream,” I threaten.

  “I don’t want you to scream unless it’s a good scream,” the voice states as he steps out of the ivy.

  His blue eyes hit me before anything else. They are soft and somber. Blonde strands of hair stick out from under a gray hoodie, and my heart begins to flutter.

  “Jasper?” I ask. “What are you doing here?”

  I begin to back away, expecting him to scold me for being in his house.

  “The time capsule,” he states.

  I nod my head. “Oh, yeah. Well, we already opened it. Didn’t expect you to come.”

  I try to walk past him and head down the steps back to the beach, but Jasper grabs my hand. His fingers wrap tightly around mine, clutching it so intensely that I can’t pull away even though I try. I’ve waited over nine years for him to hold my hand again, and yet all I can think about is how to get away. I wriggle my fingers, hoping to break loose.

  “Stop it!” he scolds.

  “Let me go!” I yell.

  “No!” he responds. “You’re not going to just run away like you did last time. You owe me, Karissa. Now, stop pulling and I’ll let you go.”

  Jasper was always beautiful, but never very smart. If he lets me go, I’m going to be out of here so fast that only a cloud of dust will be left where I’m standing. I stop pulling but his hand doesn’t release its grasp.

  “You said you would let go,” I whine.

  “Eh, I changed my mind.”

  “What do you want?” I ask, annoyed.

  “I want to open the time capsule,” he says.

  “You’re too late, Jasper. We already opened it. You didn’t have a paper in there anyway, so why do you care? You didn’t care enough to put one in there ten years ago, so why bother showing up today to read it?”

  Jasper pulls his wallet out of his back pocket without lessening the grip he has on me. “Just because I didn’t put it in the capsule, doesn’t mean I didn’t write it, Riss.”

  The way he calls me ‘Riss’ sends chills through my body. Just when I thought I was over him, I fall right back under his spell.

  He stares in my eyes. “If I let you go, do you promise to wait five seconds before you run away?” he asks.

  His grip turns soft and he rubs his finger along the back of my hand. Part of me wants to get as far away from him as possible, but the rest of me wants to fall into his arms and stay there forever. “Fine,” I respond. “Five seconds, then I’m out of here.”

  He studies my face before letting go of my hand. I take off jogging toward the stairs. I turn back to see Jasper pull a yellow piece of paper from his wallet. “I thought you might want to hear my prediction before you run off to the beach?” he yells from behind me.

  I stop dead in my tracks. “I thought you didn’t write one?”

  “There’s a lot of stuff you don’t know about me, Karissa,” he explains. “Like, how losing you was the absolute hardest thing that I ever had to go through. That there wasn’t a single day in these past nine years that I haven’t thought about you. That the only place I ever wanted to be was in your arms.”

  I keep my back to him. “What does it say?” I ask.

  “Why don’t you come and see for yourself,” he says.

  Battling the inner turmoil between my heart and my head, I hesitate turning around. Jasper destroyed me once, and he could be setting me up to do it again. Turning around, walking over there, and reading that prediction, all make me vulnerable. But, my curiosity is eating me alive. With my eyes on the stone patio, I slowly stroll toward him. I reach out my hand, waiting for the piece of paper to fall into it. Instead, a single dried petal of a rose hits my palm first.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  “It’s a petal,” he responds.

  “It’s a dead petal,” I retort.

  “No, it’s a dried petal,” he quips. “It’s a dried petal from the rose I sat right over there on the hammock for you the night before I left for California. It’s the petal I gave you before I carved that heart with our names in it on that oak tree down by the lake.”

  I can’t hold them back anymore. The tears begin to fall down my cheeks and onto my forearms. The perfectly preserved petal lies in my open palm, glaring at me. “Why did you keep this?” I wonder.

  “In ten years, I will stand on this beach, and I will marry Karissa. We are soulmates, and forever means forever.”

  Jasper drops the yellow paper into my hands, and I read the same words he just said aloud.

  “It’s always been you, Karissa. It will always be you.”

  Before I can digest everything that’s happening, Jasper leans in and kisses me. I float up on my tip-toes to reach him, as he has blossomed into a man, as opposed to the boy I once knew. I melt into the kiss my lips have been longing for for almost a decade. A kiss I never thought I would ever feel again. Pure bliss slides up my body. Finally, after all this time, Jasper has come back to me.

  Closing my eyes, I wrap my arms around his neck and push his hoodie off his head. A long ponytail of hair hits the top of my knuckles. I lean back. “You grew your hair out again?”

  He nods his head. “After I got out of the navy, I let it grow. You always liked it long.”

  Jasper pulls away and I study the note in my hand. “Why didn’t you put it in the time capsule?” I wonder.

  Jasper retrieves the note from my hand, wraps the petal back inside it and carefully puts it back in his wallet. “I couldn’t. You had already left with the capsule that night, and I had never written my prediction. So, I did it myself, put it in my wallet, and kept it there for the last decade.”

  “I can’t believe you kept it in your wallet all this time.”

  “Anytime I was feeling down, or like I couldn’t go on. Anytime I had thoughts of hurting myself or giving up, I looked in my wallet at that piece of paper. Knowing that eventually we would find our way back to each other saved me, Karissa. YOU saved me.”

  I take a seat on the broken hammock, trying to digest everything he’s telling me. “Why wait so long, then, Jasper? Why not come and find me five years ago? Keith said you were engaged to someone else.”

  “I was in the navy for a while. When I got out, Keith told me you were in a pretty serious relationship with some guy. I met another girl and we dated for a while, but she couldn’t hold a candle to you. I wanted you to be happy, so I told Keith I was engaged so you wouldn’t wait around for me or sabotage the relationship you were in. I just wanted happiness for you, even if it was with someone else. When he told me you and Steve broke up, I wanted to give you time to heal before rushing in. I figured now is finally our time to try this again.”

  My phone vibrates and I glance down to check it.

  Everything ok? Dakota asks. You’ve been up there a while.

  I quickly text her back. Yup. I’m fine.

  When I glance back to Jasper, he is down on one knee with a ring in between his fingers.

  “Jasper! What are you doing?” I scream.

  “Well, Karissa, I’m proposing. But, this time I’m going to do it right.”

  I stare at the ring in his fingers, and realize it’s the same one he had given me on his dad’s bed in California. “Where did you get that?” I wonder.

  “I got it from exactly where you put it – on our tree. It’s how I knew you loved me still. You could’ve pawned it; you could’ve sold it; but instead, you tied it to our tree in the hopes that one day you would come back for it.”

  It’s like he knew exactly why I put it there. I was hoping that one day Jasper and I would go back to that tree and get it. Maybe one day he would put it back on my finger and we would spend the rest of our lives together. Finally, that day is here.

  “Yes,” I beam. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  Jasper scoops me into his arms and lifts me above him. I slide down his body, until our lips me
et again. This time, I stare deep into his soul. His eyes are like the ocean, washing over me and sucking me in. I can feel warmth and genuine sincerity in them. My feet touch the stone beneath, and Jasper slides the ring back where it was always meant to be.

  Holding my hand tightly, our fingers intertwined, he leads me through the ivy and back down to the beach. I watch his ponytail bounce on his back as he skips down the steps, glancing at me with a smile. When we finally hit the sand, the whole crew comes rushing over to us.

  “Jasper!? What are you doing here?” Dakota wonders.

  Keith wraps his body around him, squeezing him in and unrelenting bear hug. “Long time no see!”

  Jason offers a high five. “How’s it going, friend?”

  Erin walks over from the fire with Matthew. “Um, what is that?” she asks, pointing to my finger. “Are you guys engaged?” she screams.

  Everyone waits in silence for my response. I look at Jasper and he nods his head. “She said yes!”

  All at once, the gang wraps their arms around us. Jasper lets out a laugh and it sends chills through my body. I have missed that laugh so incredibly much. The gang releases their grip and everyone meanders around the beach mingling and drinking.

  Jasper pulls me aside, “Karissa,” he says, wiping hair from my face.

  “Yeah?” I wonder, hoping that he isn’t following this night with heartbreak yet again.

  “I love you.”

  A sigh of relief sneaks out. “I love you too, Jasper.”

  I follow him to the edge of the beach and into the forest. Leading me, we step over broken branches and trudge through ferns and briars. After a short while, we end up beside the oak tree. Pieces of bark have broken off around it, but the etching is still as visible as the day he carved it. Jasper wraps his arm around my shoulder and rests his chin on my head.