Awakening Foster Kelly

by Cara Rosalie Olsen

  Looking back, I don’t think she was going to tell me. If she had been aware that there was something she could say, something she could do—even something she could feed me that would make this hurt a little less devastating, I don’t think she would have ever told me. My mother has always been as wise as she is beautiful, though, and I believe this is the only reason she let the next three words slip, resigned and reluctant through her lips.

  “Dominic is here.”

  The numbness dissipated; it was like someone had dumped a bucket of ice on my head. A noise of strangled distress forced its way through my taut lips, like air puncturing a sealed bag. My eyes pushed forward, my atrophic limbs began tingle and burn, and my heart . . . my heart pumped so quick and hard, I struggled to breathe.

  ~

  I found that what they said was true: the first steps were both literally and figuratively the hardest. I couldn’t know for certain, but I thought it was likely well over an hour since my mother had left my bedroom, and I had tried to stifle the sound of my sobs with pillow upon pillow.

  The time spent expending what little energy I had left me spent. My body was weak; the simple act of getting out of bed had me spurting labored breaths through parted lips, panting on the side of my bed until I could summon enough energy to rise to my feet. Eventually I made it to the bathroom, forgoing light of any kind, and then to the bedroom doorway, where I lingered anywhere from fifteen seconds to fifteen minutes. A soft tremble moving throughout my body, I took off down the corridor at a pace just shy of stagnant, using the walls to brace myself when my legs threatened to give out beneath me. A few pictures fell from their hooks.

  As I picked them up and righted them, I was glad that Dominic and I had never walked these halls together. The chateaux’s second story was comprised of bedrooms; other than a visit in which I wasn’t conscious to remember, I had no memories of him or us here. If possible, my steps slowed as I approached the corner; the corner that would lead me to the landing, the opening to the staircase, the staircase where a dozen or more memories of Dominic would assault me, taking me prisoner in a colorful display of some of my happiest moments; the morning after the House of Hope, when he had surprised me with a cappuccino, and a request to drive him to school; the night of our date, when with equal alacrity he watched me descend the steps, and I thought only of how much I loved him.

  I looked down to see my hand on my chest, rubbing back and forth in slow slashes over my heart. The final act of heartbreak was looking down to see my sweet dog, loping despondently at my side. She raised her dark head, chocolate eyes confused and bereft with her owner’s grief. There, just before the landing, we cuddled, and she let me pretend that it was I who held her.

  After assuring my mother I needed no shoes or sweater, or hat or scarf, she stepped back with quiet eyes and let me do what I had come downstairs to do. I might have lingered at the front door longer if she hadn’t been standing there, waiting for me to open it. I still had no idea what I was doing or what to expect. Had he come to officially end things with me? To tell me how sorry he was for not being able to love me anymore? How would I manage seeing him? What would I say? Would I be able to look at him and not cry?

  I knew none of these answers as I stepped onto the cold cement of my porch. I tried not to see Dominic leaning against the wall, that hooking smile as he looked at his watch and joked about his punctuality. I tried not to see us holding each other on the steps, candlelight dancing on his face as he traced my lips with his fingers. And passing through the gate, I tried not to come aware of his hand slipping into mine, leading me down the driveway where his car had waited to take us to school. I tried.

  Stepping around the corner, the first jolt surfaced the instant his car came into a view; the engine was off, the windows were rolled down, and the sun glinted off the dark hood in a thousand dazzling rainbows. My eyes squinted against the sun, but still I saw him immediately, slouched but sitting up, sleeping in the front seat of his car. My chest tightened with what I thought were impending tears, but I realized it was only all the air in my lungs leaving in one sharp exhale.

  My heart squeezed. “Dominic.”

  It was less than a whisper; there wasn’t any way he could have heard me, and he didn’t. His eyes remained closed, dark head tilted slightly forward. This was when I understood I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t have a conversation with him. He wasn’t even moving; those loud eyes weren’t even on me, and yet I felt incapacitated. How much worse it would be when he finally looked at me with all the guilt and shame and sorrow of a boy who was in love with someone else, and was so very sorry about it.

  No. I couldn’t do this. Not now. Not ever. I could forgive him, and I could perhaps be happy for him one day when it hurt a little less, but I could not bear his sympathy.

  Pivoting very slowly, I took one step, then another, cringing when my foot connected with a very dry brown leaf. Immobilized, I listened to the tranquility of the silent afternoon decimated, the leaf crunching like a ceramic dish thrown to the ground.

  The next sound was of a car door opening, then slamming shut. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Foster.”

  I recoiled at my name, wishing that the voice speaking it were brutal and savage, remote and unfeeling—anything but the gentle relief of someone happy to see me.

  “Thank you,” he said, “for coming out to see me.”

  “I don’t have very long,” I replied calmly, my back to him.

  He was silent for a moment and I imagined he was nodding, knowing this was the truth. “Do you want to go somewhere we can sit?”

  I shook my head and looked straight ahead at the small bee burrowing inside a white flower. “Here’s fine.”

  Again, he said nothing, and this made me nervous. I could hear his steps drawing closer. When he spoke, it was from no more than a foot behind me. “Will you turn around and look at me, please?”

  My stomach lurched. I couldn’t see him, but knowing he was so close, close enough to reach out and touch me . . . I began to sway. His hand did reach for me then, grazing my shoulder. I made a small wounded noise and clasped a hand around a bar on the gate.

  “I won’t touch you,” he said, and it was meant to be a reassurance, “but please, I need to see your face.”

  There was a part of me that wondered why; why he needed to see my face. The other part of me had hoped we could have this conversation without looking at one another. It would be much easier to hear him say goodbye to me if I didn’t actually have to see him say it. I stared at my bare feet for the longest time, dread and fear tantamount at the betiding moment. Lifting my head an inch at a time, I paused when reaching his chin, and again at his nose. Already I could feel my breathing accelerate. When there was no other place for me to stall, only then did I meet his eyes. I held my breath, shying away and bracing myself for the shards of guilt and sympathy to dig deeper into my already fatal wounds. I found not at all what I expected.

  Dominic appeared no more rested than I; he had fine lines webbing away from the corners of his eyes, and his skin had lost some of its burnt rose in the cheeks, now the color of a ripe banana. And yet . . . he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

  To some degree, though, I had expected him to carry a heaviness in his face; some strain. While I understood that a couple days ago had yielded the most wonderful day of his life—it had also yielded one of the worst, I thought. Dominic didn’t want to hurt me. Though much of what we had was counterfeit, he didn’t want to have to say that he loved another, anymore than I wanted to hear it. There was no strain, however, no heaviness either. It was the opposite. Tired yes, but only from lack of sleep, not the kind of un-sleep that robs your spirit of its joy. Looking closer than I dare, I thought he appeared lighter, the least encumbered I had ever seen him; as if a great weight had recently been lifted from him; perhaps it was the weight of a person.

  “I don’t have very long,” I repeated, my voice strangled and husky, which made the
words sound as ominous as they felt.

  He blinked as if jarred, and then his brows furrowed together. He nodded once and widened his stance, and in a gesture he was not at all aware of, ran both hands back and forth through his hair. The tree growing from inside the enclosed patio leaned over the gate, dappling Dominic and me in striped flecks of sun and shade. Still I used the sun as an excuse to look elsewhere.

  “Before I say anything else,” he began, “I want you to know how sorry I am—not for the reasons you might think,” he added quickly, and I knew he must’ve caught the wince tear across my face. “I should have handled things differently from the start. I had every opportunity to tell you everything, but I thought I was being selfless keeping the truth from you. After sitting in the car for the last two days—just thinking . . . about everything, I’ve since come to realize that of all the scenarios, of all the ways that I could have told you—” He paused and this is when, without thinking, I raised my chin and found his eyes steady on mine. “The most selfish thing I could have done was make you wait. The only person that benefited was me,” he finished in incriminating tones.

  “You were trying to do what you believed was right,” I countered, surprised to hear myself speak and with such certainty.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said shortly. “I should have been honest with you from day one.”

  I angled my head when a branch, moved by a passing breeze, spilt the sun into my eyes. “I can’t imagine you were thinking too clearly on day one.” And thinking back, I wondered how he hadn’t fainted at the sight of me. “That was an awful shock,” I said softly.

  “That’s true, but regardless, I had time to process—plenty of time to come to you with the truth.”

  “A lot happened from there,” I continued, “There was Emily and the Senior Piece and . . . everything that happened with Vanya.”

  He sighed and straightened his back. “The fact is, I should have and could have told you a hundred different times, but I didn’t. Because I lack patience and make impulsive decisions, I convinced myself the noble thing to do was take my time and wait until I could be sure it was the perfect moment. All it ever was, though, was my fear, my insecurity, and self-righteousness. It’s taken me this long to see that—to understand I was so wrong—about everything,” he said regretfully. “And that . . . that is what I am sorry for, Foster.”

  I saw his hand flinch at his side form a tight fist, then loosen one finger at a time.

  “You couldn’t have known things would turn out this way,” I said.

  He nodded. “That’s true,” he agreed with me again, nodding. “And because I didn’t give you the chance, now I will never know if you could have forgiven me.”

  The air seemed to stick to the sides of my lungs, refused to circulate properly. “Maybe it’s better that I didn’t have a chance.”

  “What?” He exhaled strongly through his nose. “How can you say that?”

  I swallowed thickly. My time was just about up. “If I had . . . if you had told me everything that night, and we had continued to . . . date—then what? What would have happened?” My voice was growing thinner and thinner. “Summer still would have come back into your life. We would still be where we’re at right now.”

  “And where is that, Foster?” he asked, his voice quiet, his implication roaring.

  “What?”

  He took a step forward, close enough now that I could smell him, make out the tiny scar on his lip.

  His eyes moved back and forth, intent and unyielding. “Where are we?” I was shaking my head, trying to speak, but no words were coming out. He reached for my hand and I recoiled.

  “There’s nothing left for us, Dominic,” I declared roughly and shut my eyes tight. “I understand that. I don’t blame you for what’s happened. I don’t,” I said firmly, before I had no strength left to speak. “There is a part of me that’s happy. For you and Summer. She should never have been taken from you. But you have to let me try and heal. I can’t be—”

  “There is no me and Summer,” he broke in softly.

  My eyes flew wide. I stumbled back and almost fell. “What? What do you mean?”

  “Summer flew back to Virginia with her family the day before yesterday.”

  “Why?”

  “For many reasons,” he replied. “For one, that’s where her life is. The life she had before the plane crash. She’s not the type of person to stop living because something bad happened to her.”

  I swallowed and nodded. “Will you be going home, too?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He held my gaze firm. “Before I decide anything I needed to talk to you, to explain what’s taken me days—really weeks to understand.”

  At this he smiled, and I couldn’t prevent my whole heart from loving him.

  “It’s you, Foster.” His voice was choked, and I saw that the whites of his eyes were gradually becoming a very light shade of pink. “I didn’t always know it, but I do now. The night I told you I loved you, was the most certain I ever was about us; but even then there was a voice that echoed in the back of my mind, challenging and questioning me—constantly.

  “I won’t lie,” he said in earnest. “At first being around you did make it a little easier. I would look at you and see a resemblance to Summer, and the pain morphed into something bearable. In many ways, though, it also made it much harder. Besides the obvious—that you two looked almost identical, I could never trust myself with you. I never knew whether it was you, or if it was her. Until now.” He moved to take my hand, and so engrossed with his words, I didn’t have the possession of thought to flinch away.

  “Summer and I,” he continued, “we spent all night talking, and most of the following day. It was amazing and wonderful; everything I had been praying for since the day I thought she died. Having her in there, right in front of me, alive . . . my heart felt completely full.”

  I pleaded, “Please,” and turned away, trying to reclaim my hand; but he refused me, and instead taking both of his, pressed my palm flat against his heart. I felt the warmth of him, the knocking of his heartbeat.

  “Foster.” He spoke my name with feeling and forced me to look at him. His eyes swam with tears, and with one slow blink they spilled over, cascading in thin, clear streams down his face. “I need you to know that there isn’t one single part of me that isn’t thanking God she’s alive. Summer is my best friend. I care about her as much as I do any of my sisters. I will love her always.” My own fraudulent fortitude gave way then, and in an instant my cheeks were wet and warm.

  “But Foster, I am in love with you. And only you.” Dominic’s face exploded into such joy that nearly all the color returned to his cheeks. “And it has absolutely nothing to do with your face. Everything about you that I love . . . I can’t see with my eyes.” He came closer, gently taking my face in his hands. His touch sent chills coursing up my spine, eyes like blue fire melting all my defenses, tearing down the rebuilt walls one by one.

  In one quick movement his hands were around me, crushing my body to his. Shaking and mewling, I held him back and pressed my cheek to his shoulder.

  “I love you,” he murmured into my neck, and began kissing me. Over and over he repeated these words, each time following the ardent whisper with a kiss. On my throat. Just below my ear. My shoulder. He kissed me everywhere. Kissing away the hurt.

  And when his lips took mine, nothing unsure or tentative about the kiss, my body shook with longing. I pressed him to me, unable to be close enough. My hands squeezed around him, ached to have more of him. I grabbed fistfuls of the back of his shirt and pulled him forward and down to me. His hands traveled; massaging at my lower back, running up and down my spine, got lost inside my hair. His mouth continued to circle hungrily over mine, slow drenching kisses that gave instead of took, revived and replenished. I felt the darkness of the last three days slink away, the holes, scrapes, and gashes close and heal one at time.

  It was then, as if someone pushed play, our love
story unfolded in scenes before my closed eyes. Every moment taking us up until this point: colliding on the steps of Shorecliffs; Dominic standing in the street on a rainy day; inside the greenhouse, talking on the bridge; dinner with my parents; singing the Star Spangled Banner; watching fireworks explode over Harper’s roof; dinner at The Sandcastle; kissing at the beach house. It was all there, every moment, big and small—even the ones I had only dreamt.

  And then I arrived at our most recent memory, the one happening in real time. Only, as I looked closer, I noticed that while everything from the recumbent tree and the afternoon sun, to how Dominic’s fingers cupped the back of my neck looked right to me, something about the picture felt very wrong. And then I moved, just an inch, and caught sight of my eyes. But they were clearly not my eyes; they were darker, brighter, and more real somehow. It wasn’t me who was wrapped inside Dominic’s arms. And those were not my lips he savored and soothed. He did not whisper my name with love and devotion, but hers.

  “The Pain” flooded through me, and I gasped, breaking the hold we had on one another. My heart felt clawed straight through to the other side as I wobbled backward and gripped the gate.

  Frozen, Dominic stared at me, clearly alarmed. “Foster, what? What is it?”

  I continued to look at Dominic until I could bear it no longer, and turned to the side, breathing loudly through my nose, my eyes secured to the ground. For the first time in my life I was angry. Very angry. Not at Dominic, however. The anger I felt was directed entirely and comprehensively at myself; for being naïve and foolish enough to think that he would actually want me over Summer. It was impossible.

  I felt gutted. Something fetid crept into my nostrils, though I was apparently the only one who smelled it.

  “You need to leave now,” I said to him.

  “Leave? Why?” Even without looking at him, I could hear in his voice the confusion, and just a bit of fear. “I don’t understand. What just happened?”