The phone started ringing.
Don’t pick up. Don’t pick up.
“So, you told him,” Millie answers. She never was one for small talk or idle chitchat. Always liked to answer the phone mid-way through the conversation. I usually love that about her.
“Mill—”
“No, don’t be nervous about telling me. I was expecting you to call me once you did it. I’ve been patiently waiting. Who am I trying to kid? I’ve been freaking out over this phone call since you left my house. How did he react? Did he throw things? Did he cry?”
“Mill, I did—”
“Wait, I don’t want to know. Because it makes total sense if he freaked out at first, right? Like I definitely freaked out. So I don’t really want or need to know because then I’ll worry and obsess. And when he eventually calls me to tell me how he feels, I won’t believe him. Or maybe I’ll, like, hold it over his head if it takes him a couple of days before he calls.”
“Mill, wai—”
“But it’s all right. I’ve worked out exactly what I’m going to say when he calls. I’ll start really cool and be like, ‘Hey. Yeah, I’m good.’ Maybe I’ll even make a joke about suing the condom company, yeah? I’ll keep it light before I tell him my first ultrasound is next Friday if he wants to come. I think they let you listen to the baby’s heartbeat. Is that too soon? Parker? Should I leave out the joke? How come you aren’t saying anything? Do you think it’s all a bad idea?”
I can’t tell her. I can’t let her know that he’ll never get to go with her to an ultrasound to hear his baby’s heartbeat. He won’t ever get to laugh with her over the condoms. He won’t see the baby born, see his or her eyes open for the first time. Nate won’t get to chuckle over the silly things their baby will say as he or she learns to talk. He won’t get to see their baby walk, run or ride a bike. He won’t be there for any of it. I don’t want to do this. I don’t have the strength to say this. I hate this.
“What, is the invitation too soon? You think I should wait until the second one, don’t you? I just thought this one is the least scary check-up, but if you think I should wait—”
“Mill. Nate’s been hurt.” Quick. Fast. Rip it off like a Band-Aid.
“Hurt? Is he at the hospital? Do you think I should get on a flight? Was it bad?”
“Mill, he’s not at the hospital—”
“Why the fuck not? Please, tell me he’s not one of those hippies who don’t believe in science and medicine. If he expects me to have this baby at home without drugs, he has another think coming.”
“No, Mill. That’s not it.” Deep breath. Keep going. “Gray and I, we found him, Millie. And it was too late. The doctors… They wouldn’t have been able—” I can’t help the tears.
“No. Stop.”
“Mill—”
“You’re mistaken. It has to be Gray. They look alike and people struggle to tell the difference all the time. It’s not Nate.”
There was hope in her words. It wasn’t just denial or fear. Even though they could be heard in her erratic breaths. It was the hope, which I knew I was crushing with anything I was about to say, that destroyed me.
“Mill, I saw him—” I choke out. “It was definitely Nate.”
That’s when I hear them. At first, they’re soft. Like wind battling against a window. Her breathing changes and her soft crying can be heard. Until she sucks in a breath, and with it the realities of her future. Then her cries turn to wild and fierce.
I stay on the phone. I don’t say anything else. I just listen.
She cries for an hour as I sit silently on the other end.
Letting her know that she wasn’t alone, even if that was all she could feel.
*****
If listening to Millie’s cries was torture, I cannot describe what it’s like to then have to watch the man you love drowning in his grief. I watch him guarding me; constantly afraid he’ll lose me as well.
Every day, I struggle to make him stop fretting, enjoy even a moment with me. Kiss me. Touch me. Laugh with me.
Each time he chuckled during a story I told or smiled at me when I returned from class safely, it felt like a victory.
I finally got to be the one who eased him of his grief occasionally.
And I hated it.
I hated myself for ever wanting to reimburse him and help cheer him up. I wanted him to be himself, quick to smile and laugh. But as quick as each happy moment was, before I could help him, the clouds would begin to appear in his eyes.
The raging despair was often only matched by the growing anger he had for his father.
I’m so grateful he has his writing. He often goes off to write each day. His stories are beautiful. The other day, he turned my story of chasing him into the woods—well, I guess our story—into a picture book. I feel like he escapes into his writings. He runs away, like I used to, so he doesn’t feel the loss of Nate. I was just ready and waiting for when he couldn’t run any longer.
GRAYSON
I’ve got a game today. It has only been three days since Marissa called me panicked. Only three days of knowing that I would never get a chance to make up for lost time with Nate ever again. We plan to bury him tomorrow after a small family service.
How the fuck do I play a game then bury my brother as if it were business as usual?
I’ve got my pads and uniform on, moments away from being called on to pump up the team and smile for the media. And it all seems so pointless. Selfish.
I shouldn’t be here, but the team needs me. The season is nearly over. We win this game, we go to the Cotton Bowl. The National Championship was in sight. Coach is depending on me to get my shit together and play.
But I can’t move. I just sit in the locker room while the team waits in the tunnel. Giving me time. Like time can change how I feel, or help me work out how to get my head out of a crime scene and on to a football field.
I’ve had plenty of time over the last three days to sort my head out, but no matter what I do I can’t escape the sight of Nate’s lifeless body and the nagging notion that I’m letting him down. Betraying his memory by going on with my life. As if I’ve forgotten that his killers are walking around less than a mile away, yet to experience the consequences of their actions.
As if their actions are exempt from those consequences.
Except I never forget. Never stop thinking what it is I could have done, what it is I need to do.
Although in this moment, for me to do what’s right for the team, I’ll finally need to stop thinking about the future. About Nate. I’ll need to focus. On the game. On a fucking ball.
It felt impossible.
It was too big of a task.
After a couple of minutes, Parker comes in and sits beside me. She must have noticed I hadn’t joined everyone in the tunnel. Seeing that I had a new watchdog, Coach Hardy decides he can stop pretending to find a pen and join the team. As he walks past Parker and me, Coach pauses, turns toward us and quietly lets me know, “We’ll be outside waiting, son. You and your girl come out whenever you’re ready.”
Parker laces our fingers together.
I asked her to hang in the tunnel today. Then as close to the field as I could get her.
I don’t think I would have been able to do this at all if she wasn’t in sight. Another thing for me to feel guilty about, that I couldn’t work out if she was safer away or closer to me.
“How did you handle it? How did you go to school after losing your mom? Take pop quizzes and attend pep rallies knowing that life is so short and so damn unfair?” I grill Parker abruptly.
“How?” she repeats. She then takes a deep breath, looks into my turbulent eyes and says softly, “One day at a time. You take one day at a time and find the joy in that day. You can’t expect the whole twenty-four hours to be wonderful. You can’t be greedy. Not in love, money or how you live life after losing someone. If you can appreciate the moments, live joyfully in one or two hours each day, then it becomes easier. The pain becomes bearable
. It never goes away. But everyone knows that it’s the hours of distraction, or happiness, that will help you survive the rest. Sometimes, those twenty-two other hours will go quickly and sometimes they’ll move slower than a turtle, but as long as you focus on the one or two that make you smile, it won’t seem so painful. No one will be upset at you for letting go of your grief and living in two hours. You get a game; I had a superhero. Just take it hour by hour.”
“I can’t imagine letting it go for two hours,” I say gruffly.
“Try for one then. But know that no one on this team or in these stands will think any less of you if you can’t play the whole game. They want a championship. They want their champion. They do not want you hurt or injured because you couldn’t keep your head in the game and run the correct play,” she tells me strongly.
“When did you learn that I could get hurt if I don’t keep my head in the game and run the correct play?” I ask her, a small grin tugging at my lips.
“Okay, so Andy told me to say that. But you know it’s true. Gray, everyone loves you. They just want you to be happy again.”
“Two hours?”
“Two hours.”
“Okay, let’s give it a shot then,” I murmur, squeezing her hand and standing up.
When we join the team in the tunnel, all the boys tap the black armband they’re wearing today honoring Nate.
Nate might have been my only brother by blood. But these guys were family. When a family member is hurting, we band together. They would play harder today for Nate.
It was respect. It was love. It was exactly what I needed to see.
I needed to know that even if I wasn’t thinking of Nate for one or two hours today, one of my other brothers would.
He would be remembered.
He would be in thoughts if not in presence.
He would not be gone.
PARKER
The funeral is simple. Less than thirty people fill the tiny parlor. I wish I could say it was beautiful. A gorgeous service that best represented the beautiful person Nate had been and the life he led. But it wasn’t. What it was, was cheap.
The venue smelled of wet mold and looked like no one had touched the decor since the early seventies. Light brown carpet greeted guests from the entryway and continued until it reached the shiny black casket. The stained wooden panel walls made the room feel smaller than it was, and the rows of chairs with mustard velvet cushions weren’t enticing anyone to sit down. Everything was ugly. It was old and dull and stifling. It wasn’t what Nate deserved. The only thing in the room that made me smile was the music that played softly in the background. His mother had picked a popular nineties boy band song. It was about love. It was about loss. It was horrifically sappy, evoked images of synchronized dance moves, and was the furthest thing from Nate’s taste in music that it made me struggle not to laugh out loud thinking of what his reaction would be in this moment.
I slowly walk over to the casket to leave the bouquet of white lilies I brought at the base, pausing to stare at the small table of photographs that had been set up to encapsulate his growth from boy to man. His always-sparkling green eyes shining from each photograph bring tears to mine. However, I quickly wipe them away before anyone, namely Grayson, notices and starts hovering. With Gray’s anguish in mind, I turn to track his movements around the room with my eyes.
Ever since we arrived, he’s been restless like a pacing tiger. He kept getting me, and everyone he cared about, drinks. Food. A chair. He wouldn’t sit. Wouldn’t stand with his mother or Nate’s for longer than a minute. Not for fear of talking with Nate’s mother or other guests, reminiscing about the times they shared with Nate, but for fear of the emotions he was pushing down bubbling to the surface if he remained still for too long. Fear of breaking down in this small, unsightly space from the overwhelming pain that I knew was intermittently causing tears to cloud his vision.
I was about to talk him into taking a stroll with me, escaping momentarily before the speeches to take in some air and maybe even lean on each other in order to let go of the emotions we were choking on, when I see Millie tentatively step through the parlor doors. She tries to hide, even from me. Hell, watching her eyes go to the floor and the subtle ways she weaves through the tiny crowd to stand in the darkest corner was like looking into my past. I knew all the tricks, having hidden in what felt like every dark corner in the universe, which was also how I knew that in such a small crowd she wouldn’t remain hidden for long. Not to mention, even dressed in her most conservative black dress, her naturally dark and vibrant red hair would always make her stand out.
I watch as Tahnee Waters notices her in the corner and carefully approaches as if Millie was a shy rabbit easily spooked. Gray told his mother about Millie’s pregnancy, who, with great care and compassion, sat down with Nate’s mother Tahnee to let her know that in approximately nine months she would be a grandmother. For Tahnee, the baby was a beacon; a ray of pure golden light on the edge of a cliff, helping her escape her despair. For Millie, Tahnee knowing about the pregnancy was more pressure. More fear than what she was already dealing with. Nineteen and a mother, with another mother’s last hope stitched into her future, was a lot to handle. But I already knew Tahnee and everyone in this family were ready to support Millie and help her handle all the adversities that were coming her way. Gray let it slip that this venue was chosen with the future Waters baby in mind. Tahnee knew how expensive it was going to be for Millie to be a single mother, so she was already starting a baby fund. Already demonstrating how she planned to help in any way she could. When I see them finally embrace and observe Tahnee leading Millie to sit with her at the front of the room, I can’t help the tears that stream down my face.
The family that would be built from Nate’s love would not go unprotected.
Nate would have hated the song playing, but he would have put it on repeat if it made people smile and led to the sight I was witnessing.
And I know his smile would be a mile wide if he could see that his family would be taken care of with the utmost care.
GRAYSON
As everyone makes their way out of the funeral parlor, I loosen my tie and undo the top button of my suit shirt that has been strangling me all morning.
I breathe in the fresh air and let go of any sense of foreboding I had been trying to conceal throughout the service.
Anthony Waters didn’t turn up.
He didn’t ruin his son’s memorial by pretending to care.
Ma and Nate’s mom didn’t have to suffer his presence or his pretense.
I was really fucking relieved and damn grateful.
Through the entire event, I was on edge, afraid he would walk through the doors of the funeral parlor like a pastor, a conquering hero or, worse, a devastated father.
I feared what I might do, felt obligated to do, if he went to talk in front of Nate’s loved ones as if he gave a shit.
When everyone started to make their good-byes, I was finally free of my concern.
I take Parker’s hand and lightly kiss her knuckles for being here today. My rock. So amazing. It was the worst way to meet Ma for the first time as my girlfriend, and yet she made it seem easy. Put everyone at ease with her smiles and her stories of meeting Nate.
I’m just about to suggest we go to home to change, before meeting everyone at Francesca’s for an early dinner, when I see them.
Mr. Simons’s goons standing guard. Behind them a sleek black Lexus with tinted windows exuding superiority and danger.
I had a pretty good guess as to who was sitting in the luxury sedan, but restrained my desire to yell obscenities in order to turn to Parker, kiss her forehead and pretend everything was fine.
“So, I was thinking I might take a walk,” I tell her casually.
“A walk?”
“Yeah. Just feel like clearing my head before we sit down to eat.”
“Did you want me to join you?” she asks, concern seeping into her eyes and her words.
/> “Nah, Stars. Go home. Get into something more comfortable before dinner. No one expects you to stay in heels all day. I’ll meet you at the restaurant after I’ve taken in some air. Just need a little bit of time to myself and my thoughts.”
“Okay, babe, but think some good thoughts as well as some of the sad ones, all right? Nate would hate you beating yourself up today. Especially when there are too many jokes that could be made about all of his past conquests turning up and trying to play the grieving widow.”
I can’t help but grin and let her know, “Tahnee’s reaction to the girl in the skin-tight red sequin dress was my favorite.”
“Even more than the girl who came in yoga gear?” she asks, her eyes laughing up at mine.
“Definitely. She didn’t cry nearly hard enough or demand she was family even if she didn’t know Nate’s last name.”
“You’re right there.” She smiles before her small grin fades and grief sweeps back in to settle across her features. “Okay, babe, you go on your walk. I’ll check in with Millie and go with her to the restaurant,” she tells me quietly, brushing her cheek softly against mine and allowing me to smell the sweet strawberry perfume of her shampoo.
“See you soon,” I murmur.
“Definitely.”
GRAYSON
As soon as my family and friends have disappeared into their cars and started to make their way to the restaurant, I approach the sedan. Goon one takes a step to his left, while goon two opens the back passenger door, gesturing me to enter. I make myself comfortable in the empty leather seat, lock eyes with a man I despise and openly glare at him. If he expected me to bow down to him, he was waiting on the wrong guy.
“Young Mr. Waters, what a pleasure it is to see you again,” Mr. Simons greets as he brings a thick cigar to his mouth then slowly blows smoke out the right side passenger window. His Armani suit and everything in the car reeked of money and the thick stench of illegally imported cigars.
“What do you want?” I demand. I knew who I was dealing with, knew that he had done worse to men for doing less than speaking to him with disrespect, but I couldn’t—or, I guess, wouldn’t—hold back. Not when my brother’s body still lay in a wooden box across the road, within spitting distance.
Stars (Penmore #1) Page 19