“At least read the letter,” Edna suggested. “Maybe that will help you decide.” She pulled out the envelope that had arrived a few months earlier with no return address, just a stamp from the Logan’s Beach Post Office. “It’s time,” she said, handing it to me.
“Can you open it?” I asked. Edna shook her head.
“No, that’s for you to do, but I’ll give you a minute alone,” Edna said, patting me on the shoulder and stepping out of the room.
I tore open the envelope quickly, thinking that if I did it fast like a Band-Aid it wouldn’t hurt as much.
I was wrong.
Doc,
There’s this place where light and dark meet in the sky when the sun’s setting where it’s not quite day and not quite night. A grayish mist among the black and yellow.
I like to think of it as a place where right and wrong, black and white, life and death aren’t finite.
I call that place ‘the in-between’ and to me that’s where you and I will always exist.
Together.
It’s where we can’t be hurt. Where our pasts don’t haunt our present. Where there’s no such thing as lies. Where pain isn’t even a thing.
We couldn’t be together in this life. Maybe not even in the next. Who knows. My luck is pretty shit these days. But now when I think of you, which is still every fucking day, and when I can’t catch my breath wondering what could’ve been, I drag my ass outside, I sit in the yard, and I wait for it. That brief glimpse of the changing of the guard in the sky. And every day, even though the pain cuts just as deep as the day you left, even though I know the truth is that I’ll never see you again, I smile.
Because you and I are there.
And we’ll always have the in-between.
LOVE,
Samuel Clearwater
Preppy, BAD-ASS MOFO
PS- If you are receiving this I’m dead so I think it’s safe to tell you that you are by far my biggest regret. The light amongst all my dark.
I’m so sorry.
CHAPTER FOURTY-ONE
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER…
DRE
With Brandon sitting by my side on the plane to Florida, I was finally ready to go and seek the closure that my dad, counselor, and my sponsor were always so adamant about.
As we flew over the still waters of the Caloosahatchee River, I tightened my grip on Brandon’s hand. He offered me a reassuring smile and gave me a thumbs up, covering my hand with his own. He probably thought it was the flight that had me freaking out. And although flying wasn’t my favorite activity in the world, it wasn’t the fear of plummeting to the ground below that had my windpipe tightening like a guitar string as the plane descended. No. It was the water tower. The one that stuck out on the flatland, towering above the earth like a redneck statue of liberty, reaching up toward the plane. Its huge black spray painted dick was in full frontal view as the landing gear clattered and screeched, locking into place.
I wanted to both laugh and cry at the sight of it.
Suddenly, it was all too real.
I was going back. Back to where it all started. Back to where it all ended.
Back to where it would only just begin.
CHAPTER FOURTY-TWO
DRE
I raised my trembling hand to the door and knocked. The sound of squealing children playing in the back yard echoing over the house.
I was about to change my mind and turn around when a blond girl with the lightest-blue eyes I’d ever seen opened the door. “Can I help you?” she asked with a small but friendly smile.
“Um.. Hi, I’m Andrea Capulet, but I go by Dre,” I said, holding out my hand. She shook it tentatively. “I’m a friend or, I was a friend of Samuel’s. Preppy’s.” My chest tightened as his name crossed my lips. It had been years, and although I expected that feeling to die off, it never had. If anything, it had only gotten worse.
The girl remained silent, looking me over several times like she was trying to place me. “I’m Ray,” she finally offered. “What can I do for you?”
“Ray, Hi. I just wondered, ” I trailed off, looking down to my feet.
“Do I know you?”
“She was going to be a BBB once,” Bear said, coming to stand behind her. “You ain’t here to drop off any kids with uncanny resemblance to people who may or may not be here, are you?” he asked, and I couldn’t quite tell if it was a joke. Shit, I was surprised he remembered me, but obviously he didn’t remember everything because last time I checked you couldn’t get pregnant through anal. My cheeks grew red at my own thoughts.
I shook my head. “Hi, Bear,” I said with a small nervous wave. I pushed my glasses up my nose. Bear looked me over and as if he’d decided I wasn’t a threat, he’d turned around and went back inside the house.
Ray seemed to agree. “Well come on in,” she said, stepping aside.
Another large and equally beautiful man was sitting in the living room. He lifted his head and glanced at me briefly before Bear sat back down and they both leaned over the coffee table, speaking softly, instantly deep in what seemed like an important conversation.
Ray waved in their direction. “Don’t mind King and Bear, they’ve been a little crazy this past week with all that’s gone down,” she told me, as she led me through a neat and newly updated living space that smelled of fresh paint and cleaning products, down a narrow hallway. My heels clacked against the shining hardwood. She stopped in front of a closed door.
Preppy’s door.
Or, what used to be Preppy’s door.
My heart stilled.
I was suddenly mad at everyone who insisted that I come here and get closure by talking to his friends. It was too much. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t breathe. My memories flooded with his face. His sent.
HIM.
“No, I mean, I don’t need to go in there…” I started backing away from the door.
Ray sighed, “I know what you mean. It’s hard to see at first. The prognoses shifts around a bit from doctor to doctor, but he’s a fighter. We have hope and we have time.”
“Huh?” I asked, confused as to what she was talking about when she pushed open the door and stepped aside. Tentatively, I entered the room, taking a deep sigh of relief when I noticed the room wasn’t at all like it used to be. Preppy’s things were no longer there. The relief was followed by deep disappointment and a sick feeling. A longing for what once was.
For who once was.
The walls, once a deep blue, were now a bubble gum pink with stenciled daisies and clouds surrounding the window. A Cinderella lamp sat upon a small white nightstand next to the bed.
Of course his things weren’t there you idiot, because he’s…
I paused. My ears picked up a steady beeping sound, my eyes followed the sound across the room to the IV stand in the corner, set up next to a rollaway hospital bed. Lines raced across the screen that was mounted below the IV, little green mountains peaked and fell, followed by a chirp of the machine in even two second increments.
“I don’t understand,” I said, not allowing my eyes to travel to the bed. I wasn’t sure if I was afraid of what I would see or what I wouldn’t see. WHO I wouldn’t see. I turned back around to face Ray. “Who…who is that?” I asked, dread and hope fighting a battle in the pit of my stomach…and my heart. I pointed to the mound of blankets rising and falling in rhythm.
“Wait, you don’t know do you?” Ray breathed, “I thought everyone in Logan’s Beach knew by now.”
I shook my head. “I’m not from here.” Not able to take another minute of my rapidly beating heart fighting its way out of my chest, I spun around and small step by small step I made my way over to the bed where a shell of a man lay unconscious with tubes running through his nose and mouth. His eyes and cheeks sunken in. His hands resting above the clean navy comforter. I didn’t even need to see the tattoos running across his knuckles to know it was him, but there they were, in all their familiar glory.
I let out a
strangled cry, that startled even myself, as hot tears fell down my face. Elation and an overwhelming feeling of confusion smashed into me, like I was finally run over by that train. I leaned over him, careful not to disturb any of the tubes, I pressed the side of my face against his chest, I needed to hear it for myself and sure enough, it was there. The thump thump. The most beautiful sound in the world. His heart.
Beating.
Heavy footsteps entered the room. King, Bear, and a girl with pinkish-red hair stood around the doorway, gaping at me as if I were the one risen from the dead. “How?” I asked, without moving my head from his chest. My hand covered one of his own and squeezed as I breathed deeply, inhaling this new life, inhaling him.
“You really didn’t know?” King asked skeptically, pulling Ray into his chest. “Thought everyone knew.”
“No,” I said, although no sound came out so I just mouthed the word. “I didn’t know anything.”
“What’s going on?” the pink haired girl asked. Bear wrapped his arms protectively over her waist, which was when I noticed her rounded belly. Bear leaned down and whispered in her ear. She nodded in some sort of understanding, but continued to stare me down like she was unsure of me at best.
But that didn’t matter. SHE didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered.
Overwhelming joy consumed my entire being. How he was alive didn’t matter just then, all that mattered was that he was alive.
My Preppy.
My Samuel.
“Who exactly are you, again?” Ray asked, staring at me as I practically laid across Preppy’s body.
Reluctantly, I lifted my head from his chest, although I kept my hand over his. I sniffled and wiped the tears streaming down my face. I took a deep breath to steady myself and when I spoke, I made sure I was looking at each and every one of Preppy’s friends. I was about to speak when I was interrupted by a scratchy voice. I spun around and was met with bloodshot amber eyes that were locked on to mine when he spoke.
“She’s my wife.”
The End (for now)
PART TWO
Every man dies. Not every man really lives. -William Wallace
Prologue
PREPPY
There’s this light in the distance. It’s bright, burning, and blinding as fucking hell. It’s just out of my grasp. A whisper away. I can talk about it. I can think about it, but it’s almost like it’s not real. Like it’s not really fucking there, and it drives me insane because all I can think about is reaching for it.
Reaching for you.
Because as my letter said, YOU are my light when I’m surrounded by nothing but dark.
I try to ignore it, the echoes of my name being called between time and space, because FUCK death.
Fuck anything that tries to keep me from finding my way back to you. If and when I'm liberated from the shackles that keep me tethered to the gates of hell, have no doubt, I’m coming for you, Doc.
Because YOU are what has kept me alive all these months.
Kept me WANTING to be alive.
Which is fucking hard sometimes because when death calls out to me, he sounds like an old friend offering comforts that would be so fucking easy to take. But you know me, probably better than anyone, and I’ve never been a man to take the easy route. Maybe that’s why I’ve chosen instead to take the road back to you.
To US.
The Reaper came for me, and he demanded that I take his hand and he told me he was my friend, my companion in death.
I couldn’t help myself when I laughed in that fuckers face and told him his sister gives good head. Luckily he sent me right back across the river on my merry fucking way.
Back to LIFE.
Back to POSSIBILITY.
A long time ago, when I was just a skinny little nothing being beaten up by a bully in the schoolyard, I met someone who defended me when no one else would. We made a plan to be our own bosses that very day. It didn’t matter that we were just kids because we meant it then, and I mean it just as much right fucking now.
Which is why, when faced with the fucking end of my life, I spit in the Reaper’s face.
Because my name is Samuel Clearwater, and I take orders from no one.
Not even death
1
DRE
“What does he mean by that?” Ray asked, coming over to stand next to me at Preppy’s bedside. After his sudden outburst he’d passed back out, leaving me more disoriented than when I walked in the door to find him ALIVE. “Why did he call you his wife?”
I shook my head. “I…I’m not really sure,” I answered, not able to focus on her question, still consumed with the fact that Preppy was alive. Battered and looking nothing like his former self.
But ALIVE.
“It was probably just nonsense,” Bear said from the doorway. “He’s been muttering a bit over the past few days. One of the doctors thinks it’s a sign that his body’s healed enough to start fighting his way out of the coma. He said it might still be a few weeks, but it’s a decent sign.”
“Yeah, but those other two quacks think it could be just reflexes, and it don’t mean shit,” King added, looking every bit skeptical.
“How…how is this…how is this even possible?” I asked, covering my open mouth with my hand. I leaned over his body like I was checking to see if he was real or if my teary eyes were deceiving me. His chest rose and fell, and it sounded like the most beautiful music I’d ever heard.
Ray paused as she was about to answer like she was considering my presence with a new kind of skepticism. She stared hard at where my hand was touching Preppy. Apparently, she was the only one who questioned my intentions, because the other three that were with her had disappeared from the doorway, leaving the two of us in the room alone.
NOT alone.
With PREPPY.
I squeezed his hand and let out a sigh of relief, sending out a few thank you’s into the universe along with a few choked sobs.
“He was…” Ray looked at the floor and shuffled her feet. She crossed her arms over her chest. “He was here the whole time. In Logan’s Beach,” she said, like she still couldn’t believe it herself.
I gasped. “Why? How?”
“We don’t know a lot of the details. Just that he was being held close by and that the guy who was holding him must have had a lot of people in his pocket to make us all believe he was dead.”
“What did the police say?”
It dawned on me how stupid my question must have sounded when Ray cocked her head to the side. “How well did you know Preppy?”
“Well enough to know it was idiotic of me to ask about police involvement.” I flashed her a tight-lipped smile.
Ray nodded as if I answered correctly. “King and Bear are on it. They’re not trusting anyone to look into it but themselves. They’ve been up most nights until the sun comes up going over theories and retracing everyone’s steps to find out who else could be involved.” She pointed to Preppy. “But only he knows what happened down there, and there isn’t any way a single second of it was something good. The only thing we know is that he’s lucky to be alive. We are all so lucky that he’s alive.”
“Yes, yes we are,” I agreed, turning my attention back to Preppy whose eyebrows were pointing in toward the middle of his face in a sharp V as if he were having some nightmare he couldn’t escape.
“You said you were a friend of his?” Ray asked again like she needed more clarification than what I’d given her.
That makes two of us.
“We met a long time ago,” I said, not knowing what the right answer was. I had no clue what we had been, only what we didn’t become. “Preppy saved my life once,” I told her for the sake of giving her something about my connection to Preppy. “More than once.” I laughed and wiped a fallen tear from my cheek.
Preppy suddenly sat up with a startled roar, his arms shot out and before I could swallow down the frightened sob threatening to escape from my mouth his hands were wra
pped tightly around my throat. Squeezing, squeezing, until I saw stars and my windpipe was closing under the power of his relentless hold.
The pressure behind my eyes was building until it felt like they were going to pop from my head. I felt the blood vessels exploding in anger under his relentless hold.
I couldn’t even scream. Preppy pushed me roughly. My shoulder blades stung as I crashed into the wall. A colorful plastic clock fell from its nail and bounced off the top of my head before falling to the floor. An eerie rendition of ‘someday my prince will come’ played slowly from the clock as Preppy stared intensely into my eyes with all the cords in his neck taught and his teeth gnashed together. I searched his eyes for some flash of recognition, but it wasn't there. I knew by the deadened look in his eyes that it wasn't me he saw, to him I wasn't even there. He squeezed my throat tighter. His hips pinned me in place. I grew weaker and weaker by the second. There was no fighting back. There was no way to win.
I was going to die, and if I could've laughed I would've, because my final thought was that at least I got to see Preppy before my death, even if he was the one killing me.
Using his grip around my throat as if his hand were a collar and his arm my leash, he lifted me off the wall and for a second I felt as if he were going to let me go.
Instead, he slammed me back, harder. This time it was a shelf of coloring books that rained down on us. There was shouting, an inaudible legion of voices both male and female, but they started to fade just as quickly as it came.
Suddenly, the pressure around my neck was gone, and I dropped to the floor, gasping for air I couldn’t seem to find. The shallow breaths I did manage hurt like someone set fire to my throat. It was shitty breathing.
But at least I was breathing. My vision slowly returned and the voices that seemed so far away only moments ago were now right in front of me.
King and Bear had Preppy by the shoulders. They hauled him against the opposite wall toward the bed. He screamed, loud and awful. The sound shot right through me. It wasn't until they wrestled him back onto the bed when he spoke actual words. “Motherfuckers, get off me! I can’t. I can’t!” His screams turned into sobs, and I watched as his resistance slowly left his body. His eyes rolled back in his head, and his body went limp. After only a few seconds his chest began to rise and fall steadily, and he became a passed out pile of thin limbs hanging off the mattress.
Preppy, The Life & Death of Samuel Clearwater: A King Series Trilogy Page 22