When I'm Gone

by Jaxson Kidman

  The swell inside my chest crested and I lost it.

  I scooped up the letters and threw them into the air. I flipped the coffee table so hard that it flew into the couch and bounced back, smashing against my leg.

  “Fuck!” I screamed and charged toward the wall.

  I made a fist and punched, cracking the drywall, but not putting a hole in the wall thanks to my knuckles smashing against a stud.

  I brought my fist back again and then someone was holding it.

  Mack mustered up enough balls and strength to turn me around, knowing the risk of me knocking his ass out.

  “Stay here, man,” Mack yelled in my face. “She’s going to be okay.”

  Another feeling washed over me.

  Grief.

  Instead of punching Mack, I put my arms around him. He was suddenly holding me, my face against his shoulder as I started to cry. Years of that shit waiting to come out. My grandfather. My father. My mother. That fucking house. The house next door. Andy. Washing money off in the sink because it had puke on it or dripped with piss from my father. Trying to find a sense of normal. Meeting Sienna in a way that had a flirty and fun notion to it, only to have it ripped away and thrust into a world of sadness that matched everything I knew.

  “I’ve got you, man,” Mack said. He made fists and hit my back as he hugged me. “I’ve fucking got you.”

  I quickly cleared my throat and broke away from him. I shook my head. I kept a hand on his shoulder and looked at him.

  “You’re my brother,” I said. “I’ve never said it before to you. But you’re my fucking brother, man. I love you, Mack. I can’t lose her. I can’t think about this… my life without…”

  “Then don’t think it,” he said.

  I turned my head again and hurried to wipe my eyes.

  “If you love her, make that love stronger than anything that wants to drag you both down,” Mack said.

  I saw something on the couch and an idea came to me.

  “Let that lift you…”

  “Hey, Mack?” I asked, turning my head.

  “Yeah?”

  “Shut up.”

  He smiled. “Right.”

  I found the notebook on the couch and knew what I had to do.

  I had to save Sienna one more time.

  “The clouds are changing, dancing, their candy edges drip but never touch the ground. The airplanes fly through them, the sweetness of their hearts know no true bound. Like lollipop smiles and helicopter kisses, dropping droplets of everything I miss. The casual we said was real, the colors we don’t see but feel…”

  I stopped reading and looked at the next page and the scribbled drawings of an airplane in the sky, a helicopter upside down, clouds that were different colors. The bottom of the page had a drawing of a person on their back, eyes and mouth open, watching the scene above.

  I had read everything in the book three times now. Most of the time it was to myself because Sienna didn’t like it when I read out loud when she was awake.

  She was asleep, taking deep and full breaths. Breath that proved that she was alive. She was well. Or at least well enough. The damage to her heart may never repair itself, but I would do anything to give her the life she deserved to have. It seemed like a sick and twisted sense of irony that after years of getting your heart beaten up, it could actually become messed up for good. It made me wish that I could go back in time and find her when she was young. The young Kace and the young Sienna, holding hands together in our cheap and dirty clothes, looking at peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as the greatest meal of all time, playing in a sandbox at the corner park where everyone dealt drugs and smoked, but it would have been our world. And we could have just started walking and left it all behind before anything truly bad happened to us.

  I flipped the page.

  “Oh, this is a good one,” I said. “The one about the pig that mails a letter. I swear, darlin’, you must have had the most beautiful imagination ever as a kid.”

  “Don’t read it.”

  I looked up and Sienna had half a smile on her face.

  “You’re awake.”

  I quickly shut the book and put it next to me.

  She turned her head and looked at me. “I’m awake. Yeah.”

  “I was really looking forward to the pig with the stamp that stuck to his foot.”

  “Stop it,” she said. “I should have never told you about that book.”

  “Too late, darlin’,” I said. I stood and leaned over the bed and kissed her. “Too late for everything.”

  Sienna touched my hand. “Hey. Serious talk for a second?”

  “Yeah. What’s up? Are you hungry? I can call…”

  “Kace. You should probably leave soon.”

  “Leave? It’s not even dark out yet. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Kace. Not that kind of leave. I’m talking… leave.”

  “Leave?”

  “You saved me,” she said with a weak smile. “So many times now. And someone out there deserves you more than I do. What if this is the rest of my life?”

  “It’s not, darlin’,” I said. “You heard the doctor. He thinks you got through the worst.”

  “So I went from hours to live to this?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “You want this more than the alternative. Your body fought. You fought.”

  “I’m not out of the clear and never will be.”

  “I can look into your beautiful eyes and see your beautiful face, Sienna. That’s all I need.”

  “For now. I’ll grow on you. I’ll be a burden. You don’t have to be here anymore, Kace.”

  I rubbed my jaw. “Right. So that’s how you want it? I just walk out and you go along with your life? That’s not going to happen here. It’s you or nothing.”

  “What if I had died? What if I die next week?”

  I gently touched her face. “And what if you don’t?”

  She blinked fast, fighting back tears.

  I let a few seconds pass.

  “What if you fucking don’t die? What if I don’t fucking die? What if the world doesn’t fucking end? All we have are the seconds in our hands. I know damn well that every second I have is going to be spent with you, loving you, taking care of you.”

  “It’s crazy though.”

  “What is?”

  “This whole thing. My parents left me with nothing but bad memories and a bad heart…”

  “And I’m going to take care of that heart.”

  Sienna stared forward for a few seconds. “When was the last time you showered?”

  “Do I smell?”

  “A little.”

  I grinned. “I don’t even know what day of the week it is right now, darlin’.”

  “Seriously?” She rolled her eyes at me.

  “Yeah. I’m captivated by this book.”

  “You’re a jerk.”

  “Hey, this is really impressive.”

  “Kace… did you tell my grandmother everything that happened?”

  I swallowed hard. “You don’t need anything in your life but good thoughts right now.”

  “So she really doesn’t give a damn?”

  “I give a damn. Your friends from work do too. They called your phone and I talked to them. Hope you don’t mind. Told them what happened and they want to come and visit.”

  “They can visit me at home,” she said. “I need to get out of here.”

  “Soon,” I said. I ran a hand into her hair. “I promise, darlin’. Really soon.”

  Sienna turned her head and body a little like she wanted to curl off the bed into my arms. It ripped my heart into pieces. I got as close as I could to her, damn near climbing into the hospital bed next to her. She didn’t quite grasp how close she came to leaving me for good. I didn’t get involved with all the medical terms and bullshit, I just went with the reality of it all. Her heart was just a few seconds away from calling it quits for good. But the doctors all felt that she was going to be okay. It
was just one of those things. Born with an issue that nobody ever knew about, not even Sienna. And it mixed with the boulder of everything that had been dumped on her.

  She put her head onto my chest and the position was so damn uncomfortable. My right foot on the floor, my leg starting to fall asleep, feeling like it was on fire. My left arm wrapped around her, my hand tingling from being bent in a weird position. But I wasn’t going to move a fucking inch from her. No way in hell. This was my everything in my arms. I would stay there for the rest of my life if it meant I got to hold her, feel her breathe, talk to her when she was awake, and do everything possible to get a smile and eye roll from her.

  I kissed her head and took a deep breath.

  “You’re not getting away that easily, darlin’,” I whispered.

  “Damn,” she said. “I thought you would’ve taken the hint by now.”

  I laughed.

  I looked around the hospital and swallowed hard. I wanted to keep laughing, even when I felt the tears creeping up on me.

  “I want to go home, Kace,” Sienna whispered. “To our home. The one you worked so hard on for us.”

  “Soon enough,” I said. “Just think about all the shit you want to put in there.”

  “Careful, you might go broke.”

  “As long as I have you, I can never be broke.”

  Sienna lifted her head and looked at me. “That was kind of cheesy.”

  “Yeah, it was,” I said and smiled.

  She touched my face, her middle fingertip near the corner of my eye to catch a tear before it fell.

  I put my fingers under her chin and lifted her head a little more.

  I kissed her.

  I wasn’t sure if our forever was going to last a day or a hundred years. But I knew one thing… there wasn’t going to be a second wasted where I wasn’t going to be trying to kiss her and tell her how beautiful she was…

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Burn Together

  Sienna

  Okay, I got it this time. I swear to you, I got it this time. There is no way anything is going to bring me down again. It’s like I’m standing at the top of the mountain and this time the wind is at my face. Not my back. Not pushing me off. Isn’t that great? The best part of it all is that I’m in complete control of this now. No help. No doctors giving me coping ideas or breathing tricks. No fucking way. Sorry. I shouldn’t use that language. Not around our daughter, you know? I’m going to be a great father. I mean… I think I’ve got this all figured out. I can do the diapers. Wait. Is she still in diapers? I’m trying to figure out how old she is now. I sort of lost time there for a bit. Sometimes I think it’s been a week since I last saw you. Or maybe a hundred years. Depending on if you ask my heart or my mind. Wow. They are so different sometimes, aren’t they? I feel like I can breathe again. Now, I won’t lie to you, Marcy. I will never lie to you. I have medicines I have to take. But these are good ones. These are the ones I need. These are the ones that keep me on the ledge instead of jumping to see what it feels like. These are the ones…

  I folded up the letter and smiled.

  This was the wrong thing to do. The wrong thing. The wrong time. The wrong place.

  But here’s the deal… I wasn’t taking this stuff with me.

  I wasn’t going to do it.

  I’d listened to the doctors preach to me about my heart for hours and days. When I was released from the hospital I was given a regime of aspirin and diet which made me laugh a little because I wasn’t exactly the one not taking care of herself. I had to go through some rehabilitation and constantly get checked to make sure my heart wasn’t stressed. I had Kace next to me every second he had to spare. He had spent the last week moving everything into our new apartment by himself, making me promise him I wouldn’t lift a finger.

  That didn’t mean I couldn’t help though.

  I stuck the corner of the piece of paper into the apple cinnamon candle flame and watched it quickly catch.

  Don’t worry, I had the candle on an old cookie tray so when the paper caught fire, I just dropped it and watched it burn. There was a nice collection of black ashy paper from all the other letters I had burned.

  I was not taking this with me. My father was gone before I knew him. My mother was gone before I really got to know her. My grandmother insisted on living alone and suffering through her last days. That was on them. Not me. I would never know the real story of my parents. If they really loved each other or if it was just this intense physical thing that was more of an addiction than a want. There was no fantasy waiting in the background either. Which meant that I had the entire world to myself now. It was open and clear. And every single path led to…

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  I jumped up and hurried toward the smoke detector. I grabbed a yellow towel off the counter and waved it around my head to break up the smoke.

  Last thing I needed was a neighbor to hear it and call the fire department because I was emotionally burning letters from my addict father to my alcoholic mother.

  I waved my arm and felt my chest tighten a little.

  I paused and the smoke detector kept beeping.

  “Dammit,” I growled.

  The door opened and I looked back to see Kace coming inside.

  His eyes surveyed the entire scene and he didn’t say a word. Which made me love him even more. He simply walked by the kitchen counter, raising an eyebrow at the candle and the burning piece of paper. He walked next to me and reached up, twisting the smoke detector off the wall and opening the side to disconnect the battery.

  “Finally,” I said. “That hurts my ears.”

  “I’m not going to ask,” Kace said.

  “I’m burning letters.”

  “I didn’t ask, darlin’.”

  “I’m telling you.” I grinned. “I don’t want to take any of this with me. I want to get rid of it for good. No moving it. No letting anyone else see it.”

  “Right. Makes sense to me. We don’t need that shit, right?”

  “I figure it’s only fair.”

  “Fair?”

  “You lost the house,” I said. “It burned. That was the dream you wanted and knew it would never happen. So this is my dream. You know? Being young and thinking all these amazing things about my father. Refusing the truth. Picturing a day when he’d show up and we’d be a family again. But it never happened.”

  Kace put an arm around me and hugged me. “You’re beautiful, Sienna.” He sniffed the air. “I smell apples and burned paper.”

  “Don’t forget the cinnamon,” I said.”

  “Right. Cinnamon.” He sniffed the air again. “There is it. Yum.”

  “Yum,” I said with a laugh. “You’re so weird sometimes.”

  “I’m weird?” Kace asked. “You’re burning paper with a candle. And you set off the smoke detector. What would you have done if I hadn’t come through that door?”

  “Wasn’t the first time it went off,” I said.

  “Of course not,” he said, shaking his head. “You amaze me more and more each day, darlin’.”

  “Good. Is our new place ready?”

  “Yeah. I think we’re good to go. Just need to finish up here.”

  I looked around the mostly empty apartment. I still had another month on the lease, which I was happy paying for because it meant I didn’t have to rush around. The doctors insisted that I needed to go slowly in life. That meant taking some time off work, which meant that I probably was going to need a new job soon. Which didn’t bother me at all. I got to see Ash, Candice, and Lexi. Maria even came to visit two days ago. She cried her eyes out and apologized for being such a terrible friend. Her dreams of the corporate life wasn’t what she thought and she wanted to move back closer and start over. I hugged her as she cried and then we talked about all the fun times we had in her apartment above the bar. Right up to the night where I stole her boombox and danced on the roof… the night I met Kace.

&nbs
p; My apartment had a random chair in the middle of the floor on an old, chipped coffee table. The cable wire stuck out of the wall like a skinny, black snake. The walls were bare except for the silhouettes of where I had frames.

  “You ready?” Kace asked.

  “Soon,” I said. I looked up at him. “You mad at me?”

  “Hell no, darlin’. You take all the time you need. I’m proud of you.” He touched my face. “You fought for this.”

  “For you, Kace. If it wasn’t for you…”

  “No, Sienna. You fought. For yourself. Because you know how precious life is. And it’s a hard ride. It’s a tough thing to go through.”

  “This all could happen again.”

  “I know that.”

  “I’m like a… a clock counting down.”

  “We all are. Every person we meet is waiting to die. Could be a day. Could be a month. Could be a hundred years.”

  I swallowed hard. “You’ve been so supportive and romantic with this, Kace. But you have to know…”

  “I know that I love you. And if you think for a second that a little heart thing is going to chase me away, you’re out of your mind. I’m here for the long haul. My heart is as damaged as yours, darlin’. That’s what makes us connect.” He moved his hands to my back and pulled me close for a hug. “Together, we make one hell of a heart.”

  I took a deep breath and smiled.

  He kept me calm. He kept me focused.

  A few seconds later, Kace broke away. “Now… last time I remember you had some kind of melon scented candle. Where is it?”

  “I think I left it under the sink,” I said.

  “Perfect.”

  “Why…”

  He moved and got the candle.

  I watched as he lit it and placed it next to the one I had burning.

  He looked at me and nodded. “We doing this?”

  “Doing this… you mean…”

  “You said you’re not taking anything with you,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  “You’re seriously going to stand there and burn letters with me?”