“Why didn’t you just wait for me?” I shrugged my shoulders.
“Because I figured I could do it myself. It was just a couple of boxes. I would have been fine if you hadn’t opened the door.” He blew out an annoyed breath.
“I’m glad I opened the door. What if you had fallen and no one knew about it? You might still be down there and then this could have been worse. You could have gotten blood poisoning, and then they might have had to amputate or something.” I stared at him blankly for a few seconds before finally I just burst into laughter. He looked over at me with his brows raised. Then slowly, a smile crept onto his face and he started laughing too.
“And to think I thought Katie was the dramatic one in the family,” I teased.
“Funny. I meant it though Len, you could have been really hurt.”
“I am really hurt,” I told him with conviction. He shot me a frown and refocused on where he was going. The only hospital that was close was a good hour and a half drive outside of town. Honestly, we were lucky it was even that close. Plus, it wasn’t actually a hospital so much as three doctors and a handful of nurses. They couldn’t really perform any kind of brain operation, but I felt confident that they could set a bone. At least, I hoped they could.
Four hours later, I was sitting in a bed with the bottom half of my leg propped up and in a hot pink cast. I didn’t see how it was necessary since they had in fact confirmed it was just a sprain, but the doctor said it would help it heal faster if it was in a temporary cast. I wasn’t sure why it had to be pink, but he had insisted on that too. Like I was some kind of five year old. West snickered the whole time they were putting it on and a little bit after. I guess since he knew I was past the point of amputation, he wasn’t nervous anymore.
“Do you want me to sign it?” He asked with that dimpled grin on full display. I glared at him.
“Have you called my parents yet?” I asked.
“I called Katie and gave her an update. Your parents called me about fifteen minutes ago and asked how you were doing. I told them we were waiting on the doctor to release you and then we would go and get your pain meds before I took you back home.”
“They aren’t coming?”
“They figured since you were out of the woods and I had a handle on things, they weren’t really needed.” I rolled my eyes and fell back onto my pillow. I was feeling a lot more agitated since they had given me some pain killers to ebb away the pain. West was having a kick out of that too. Something about not seeing me so in control was just making his day.
“So, I’m stuck with you?”
“For the next couple of hours Princess.” He’d taken to calling me that since I’d been adorned with the fluorescent cast. I hated it, which was why he continued to use it. I glared at him and his smile widened.
“Don’t you have things to do? It’s your last night in town. Shouldn’t be you partying with Sebastian or leaving a trail of broken hearts behind?” I ignored the pang in my chest at the thought of him with other girls. We had already established there wouldn’t be an ‘us’ so no point in pretending he wouldn’t be with someone else. The sooner I came to that reality, the sooner I could move on.
He pulled the chair up to the edge of my bed and sat down. “I want to be here for you Len. I’d like to think that in some way you and I are friends. Can’t I be here for you as a friend?” I looked away from him because with the way his brows were dipped into the perfect puppy dog look, I might have told him that was perfectly fine. It wasn’t though. I knew I didn’t want to be friends with West. I just wasn’t programmed to only care for him that way.
“When can I get out of here?” I groaned.
“Let me go check with the nurse.” I didn’t look at him, but I heard him get up from the chair and walk out.
It only took another fifteen minutes before I had signed all my discharge papers and West wheeled me out to his truck. At first, we didn’t say anything to each other. I think I might have hurt his feelings when I didn’t tell him we could be friends, and now that the drugs were wearing off, I was starting to feel bad for hurting him. I didn’t want to do that to him. He was right. As much as I might not have liked it, we were friends in a way.
“I’m sorry for how I was before,” I said. He glanced over at me.
“It’s fine. I knew a lot of it was the drugs talking. Though, I can’t say I’ve ever really seen anyone take to it quite like you did. Usually, they make me really mellow. You kind of went the other direction.” I smiled.
“We are friends, West.” That made him look my way again. “And I’m glad that I had you there with me. It would have sucked to do it alone.”
“Of course.”
“I’m also sorry about ruining your last night in town.”
“You didn’t ruin anything.” He looked straight at me with the most serious expression I’d ever seen on his face. “I was exactly where I wanted to be.”
“You can’t do that.” He quirked a brow in confusion.
“Do what?”
“You can’t say stuff like that. It confuses things. You can’t tell me you like me, but we can’t be together and then turn around and say stuff like ‘being with me in a hospital room is exactly where you wanted to be’. It confuses things.”
“Okay,” he said simply. “But it’s the truth.”
“Truth or not, just don’t say it. I’m trying to accept that this…” I said as I motioned between us. “…isn’t happening. I can’t do that when you say sweet things that make me think you do want it to happen.”
“I never said I didn’t want it. I just said it couldn’t happen. There’s a difference.”
“Still, just please don’t say things like that anymore.” He gave a short nod of his head.
“Okay, I won’t say stuff like that anymore.”
“Thank you.” That annoying silence settled in again. “Can we listen to the radio or something?” He quickly flipped the switch and the sound of classic rock filled the empty space around us. Occasionally I would sing out a few lyrics and he would sometimes tap his fingers on the steering wheel, but other than that, we remained quiet. I think that was the only way he knew to keep from saying something he shouldn’t.
By the time we pulled up in front of my house after getting my meds, I was exhausted. I could barely even keep my eyes open. West carried me into the house and I nestled against his chest. It was the last time I would probably see him. It was the last time I would probably get to inhale that citrus scent that I would always associate with him. It was the last time I would be with my West, which is how I had come to think of him. After that night, he would go and live his life and I would have to figure out how to live mine knowing it would never include him.
He laid me down on my mattress and adjusted the covers around me. Then he brushed a few strands of hair from my face. I felt him looking at me, but I didn’t bother opening my eyes. This was our goodbye and I was taking the coward’s way out by not saying anything to him, but I didn’t trust that I actually would. I couldn’t say goodbye to West. So, instead, I simply kept my eyes shut and waited until I heard him finally walk out of my room a few minutes later.
The next morning I woke up to find a hand scribbled note sitting on my desk. West’s handwriting was messy and off the lines, but I imagine that had something to do with the fact that he wrote it in pitch blackness.
Lennon-
According to you, I’m not supposed to say this, but by the time you read this, I’ll be gone so you just have to deal with it. I’m gonna miss you, a lot. I meant it when I said you had a light and that just being near you made my bad days, good. I’ve never been all that great at goodbyes, but honestly I don’t really think this is goodbye for us. I’m sure I’ll see you again. So instead, I’ll leave you with ‘until the next time’.
-West
I smiled as I read over his last words to me. I also hoped that he was right. I hoped we would see each other again, and that maybe then things could be
different for us.
Nine
The first few weeks after West left for college, things were bad. I hated that I couldn’t accidentally run into him when I visited Katie anymore. It sucked that when I walked by his bedroom, there wasn’t the familiar melody of classic rock seeping from his door. Just silence.
I let myself wallow for exactly twenty-three days. Then, I decided that I needed to do something more productive with my time. I had once again completed the reading list ahead of schedule, and while I still occasionally checked out a new book from the library, it wasn’t enough of a distraction from the fact that West wasn’t around anymore.
Day twenty-five, I went for a run in the woods behind my house to test out how well my ankle had healed. I ended up loving it. My mind when blank while I was out there and I felt a certain kind of calm settle over me. So, the next day, I ran again. Eventually, I was running every day. By summer’s end, I was running twice a day and could go a mile in what I thought was pretty decent time.
So, when my Junior year began, I decided to join the track team. I met with the coach the first few weeks and his advice to me was to start training for it right away so that by the time qualifiers came around in January, I would be ready and able to join the rest of the team.
So, I worked hard. I spent just about every waking minute that I wasn’t studying for the PSAT’s in those woods trying to get my time low enough to make the team. Then sure enough, January rolled around and I was a shoe in. I had beat out the next closest girl by a full minute. Coach had been impressed and from then on, I had a new passion.
I became so good at it, that Coach was pretty confident I could get a full scholarship my senior year. So, that’s what I started working on the following summer. Texas A&M was my first choice for college, but the tuition was outrageous and I knew my parents would never be able to afford it.
A full scholarship was definitely something to strive for. That’s why two weeks before school started back up; I was out in the woods behind my house running as though my life depended on it.
I felt the sweat as it trickled from my brow down my cheek, but I wasn’t ready to stop yet. “Just a little longer,” I repeated over and over again. I needed to shave at least ten seconds off my time from the previous week and I was nearly there. My feet throbbed and my lungs burned, but still I kept running.
Finally, I slowed to a stop and bent over to catch my breath. When I righted myself again, I checked my watch. I had it. I grinned victoriously. Coach would be thrilled when I told him the good news. I looked up above the trees and noticed the sky had darkened immensely since I had first stepped off my porch.
I frowned. The weather men had been calling for rain all week, but so far they had been wrong. I’d been hoping for that again, but it didn’t look like I was going to make it back to the house without getting a little wet. I was a lot deeper in the woods that day than I normally ran, and it would take me a good ten minutes before I saw even saw my house much less made it inside.
Just as I was contemplating whether to run back and get wet or wait it out, I saw something move against the tree line. I had heard a few people, namely Katie, tell me that there were bears in these woods so naturally that was where my mind jumped too. My heart lurched as I narrowed my eyes in an attempt to see better.
Then he stepped out from behind the tree and we came face to face. My breath caught as I stared back at West for the first time in a year. He hadn’t changed much since the last time I had seen him. His hair was shorter, and he had started to get a little bit of a stubble on his chin. He looked older, and it was obvious from the size of his arms in that tank top that he had been working out a bit more too.
That smile of his though hadn’t changed at all. It still had the ability to send my heart into a frenzy. He took another step toward me before he stopped and put his hands in his pockets.
“Hey,” he said, still grinning. I think my mind was trying to decide if he was real or I’d gone delirious on my run. His eyes roamed over me slowly before finally meeting my gaze again. “You changed your hair.”
“Yeah, your sister thought she would try her hand at cutting hair and I foolishly agreed to be the guinea pig.” He quirked one brow as he stared back at me.
“It doesn’t look bad.”
“This is after I had to spend eighty dollars to get it fixed.” He chuckled at my misfortune, and I couldn’t resist the urge to smile myself.
“You got your braces off too.”
“Yeah around Christmas.” West just kind of nodded his head, but didn’t add anything else. I glanced up and knew that at any moment, the skies above us were going to open up and we would both be drenched. “Well, I should probably get going.”
“Already? I just got here.”
“And it’s about to start raining,” I said as I pointed toward the sky. He looked up briefly before his eyes met mine again.
“You scared of a little rain, Lennon?” He asked with a warm smile.
“No,” I said quickly. “More like everything that comes with it.”
“Like what?”
“Like thunder, and lightening, and tornadoes.” He smirked at my little confession.
“So, if I asked you to stay here with me…you wouldn’t?”
“Why would you want to stay out here?” I asked.
“Why not?” I was confused by his question. Hadn’t we just gone over that?
“Well for one, we could get soaked.” He simply shrugged his shoulders.
“My house has a washer and dryer.”
“We could get sick.”
“Nothing medicine couldn’t take care of.”
“We could get struck by lightning,” I said, sure that he didn’t have anything lined up for that. He just grinned back at me.
“Did you know that the odds of a person being struck by lightning are like one in a million? You have a better chance at winning the lottery.” I narrowed my eyes at him, but that just made his smile stretch even wider. He knew I didn’t have anything else.
“Come on,” he said before he held his hand out for me to take. I hesitated for a second because I really wasn’t all that thrilled about the idea of being caught in the storm. I didn’t let that fear stop me for long though.
West’s fingers wrapped around my own before he turned and started to go back down the trail the same way he had come from earlier.
“Where are we going?” I asked, but he didn’t answer.
“So, heard from any colleges yet?” He asked instead.
“Not yet, but I’m hoping to hear something by Christmas.” He nodded his head as he kept walking, pulling me deeper into the woods. He finally stopped at this spot where the creek dropped off into this little waterfall. He let go of my hand and walked toward the edge of the water.
“This is my favorite place,” he said with his back still toward me. “I found it when I was maybe ten or eleven.” He sat down on this boulder and looked over at me. “When Dad was still living with us. I’d be in my room when he would come home smelling of her perfume. I’d hear Mom yelling and I hated it. So, I’d sneak out and take off through the woods.”
“It’s a nice spot,” I said. All thoughts of the upcoming storm dissipated as I took a seat on the rock closest to him. He stared back at me, and I knew that I was still just as infatuated with him then as I had been the year before. Suddenly, he grinned at me.
“Tell me something.” I raised one brow as I looked back at him.
“What?”
“I’ve been away for a year. Surely, something has happened in this little corner of the world while I’ve been away.” I frowned before I thought about it.
“Uh, Mrs. Clark says we’re getting in a new diner.” West’s smile dipped.
“That’s it?” I shrugged my shoulders.
“It’s a small town. Not a lot happens.”
“I knew that, but I figured something maybe. I mean, I’ve been gone a year.”
“Katie has a new boyfrie
nd,” I blurted. I was pretty sure he already knew that, but that was the only other new thing that I could think of. The way his face turned serious though, let me know real quickly that he hadn’t known that.
“Who?”
“I don’t think you know him. His name is Matt. He’s actually really nice.”
“Would I approve?” I’m not sure why I felt a little rush of joy at the fact that he thought I would know the answer to that. I smiled simply.
“I think you would actually. He seems to really care about her.” West made a noise as he looked back toward the water.
“Let’s go for a swim,” he offered. I looked at him like he was a lunatic.
“No.” He glanced my way again.
“Why not?”
“It’s gonna rain.” He shrugged off my suggestion before standing up from the boulder. Then he reached for the hem of his shirt and lifted it up and over his head. My mouth fell open. He had definitely been working out while he’d been away. While West had always been athletic, now his muscles were more defined. He had a six pack at least and I found the sudden urge to want to trace each line of him with my fingers.
“Lennon,” he called. I quickly snapped my head up so that our eyes met. He chuckled and my whole face heated. “You coming?” Thankfully, he spared me the whole ordeal of taking off his pants too. Instead, he just kicked his shoes off and walked to the edge of the water. I didn’t expect him to actually get wet. He was just trying to get a reaction out of me.
“No.” In the distance thunder rumbled. He gave me a look like he was daring me. I just shook my head in response, causing him to laugh out loud. I’d missed that sound more than I had realized.
“Little Lennon is afraid to get wet,” he taunted. Then he actually stepped into the water. He walked out and stopped when the water was at it’s deepest which thanks to his height was barely his thigh. He grinned again, and I was actually considering joining him.
“I told you, it’s not the getting wet part. It’s everything that comes with it.”
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