by K. S. Thomas
Only I can’t.
Because Gunnar had all the closets built without doors when he remodeled this place three years ago.
Chapter Eight
Gun
7 Years Earlier
“You can stop staring a hole in my shoulder,” I mutter, “I know it was you, Ed.”
I can hear the shuffle of books and his backpack stop behind me. “He asked. I didn’t know what to do, man.”
I zip up my own pack and turn around, grinning at him. “Because you’re the worst fucking liar in the history of liars? Yeah, dude. I know.” I slide the strap of my backpack over my shoulder and start walking out of the room. It’s time for school. I still have the same bitch for first period, but today I can’t wait to get there. Thanks to Mr. B, we’re getting a new girl in school. Cooper.
I stop when I’m shoulder to shoulder with Ed and give him a solid pat on his. “We’re cool.”
“We are?”
I nod and start moving toward the door again. “Yeah. Now let’s go. I smell eggs and bacon and I don’t want to miss out.”
Cooper was right. Living in a house where people care enough to cook you breakfast is a pretty big fucking deal.
Reed
Present Day
“So...she’s your fiancée?” Sam can barely get the words out. I don’t blame her. If she had told me ten days ago she was already engaged to someone else before she met me, I would have lost it. “I don’t understand. How is any of this even possible? How do you remember her when you remember nothing else?” The questions pile up one after the other and I can still see more building in her eyes. She’s scared and confused, and hurt. And I can’t undo it.
“I don’t know, Sam. Maybe because she was the last person I was with before the damage? I don’t understand it any more than you do. But now that I know she’s real, that she’s not just some strange figment of my imagination,” I pause, hesitant to finish. I don’t know where the line is between being honest and giving her answers and going too far, hurting her with words she doesn’t need to hear. I sigh, taking both her hands in mine and fighting back my own hurt before I quietly deliver what is ultimately the death sentence to our future together. “I can’t pretend I don’t remember.”
“You still love her,” she whispers, tears glistening her beautiful eyes and making her thick dark lashes shimmer in the light. When I don’t answer, she nods, confirming it for herself. Her gaze breaks away from me, she clears her throat loudly several times and I can completely relate. There’s a sizeable lump in my throat right now as well. But I don’t fight it. I just let it be, because painful as all of this is, it’s the most genuine, most true experience I’ve had in the years since the accident. Pain can kill you I suppose, but it can also startle you back to life.
“Why now?” Her tone is more controlled this time around. Sam’s always been strong, as long as I’ve known her. She’s the kind of woman who can watch the whole world combust before her eyes, take a deep breath, slick on a new coat of lipstick and march right back out there to catch the next explosion. It’s one of the ways she’s helped me over the years. One of the ways in which being with her made starting over so much easier. It didn’t matter how angry or frustrated I got, she’d brush it off, insist I get back up and keep us both moving.
“Because I saw you.” I drop my gaze to the floor. I can’t face her for this. Can’t face anyone. I knew she’d ask, why now, and I’ve dreaded the moment I’d have to answer her. “It was an accident, but I walked in and the door to the bedroom was cracked...and there you were, in your wedding dress. And then...suddenly, it wasn’t you I was seeing. It was her.” Cooper. Her copper colored hair spilling down just past her shoulders in soft curls. White flowers tucked all around her head like a tiara. Her bright blue eyes so vibrant and full of life, they almost look violet. And her smile. Nothing in the world could ever compare to it.
I feel the sting of her hand across my face before I can comprehend it’s happening. As soon as it’s over, regret washes over her face and the same hand she used seconds prior to slap me, now clasps her own mouth.
“I’m sorry.” Her wide, tear streaked eyes search mine. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Yes, you did,” I say quietly. “It’s okay, Sam. I know this is horrible. I’m doing this terrible, painful thing to you, the last person on earth I ever wanted to hurt.”
She lowers her hand slowly, her fingertips catching on her chin and resting there thoughtfully. “What about her? Seven years is a long time. Are you saying she never moved on? Never got over you?”
“It’s complicated.”
She laughs derisively. “No shit.”
“More...complicated. They were friends before. After the accident...it became more. But he knows about us. He knows she never would have fallen into this thing with him if I had been there all along.” I know how I sound. Like I’m trying to convince myself he hasn’t really ever filled my spot. Like she was settling. Maybe she was. Selfishly, I’d like to think that, but I can’t. No matter what it does to me to think of her being capable of sharing what we had with someone other than me, it would hurt more knowing she went all this time without love. Feeling it. Being consumed by it. And most importantly, having it returned.
“And that’s it. Just like that? Their relationship goes back to just friends?” She frowns, clearly having her doubts about it.
I take a moment before I answer her, letting everything we’re saying settle. We’re not just talking about Cooper and Gun. We’re talking about us. “They can’t be friends now, Sam. It’s just...over.”
And so are we.
Cooper
It’s dark out already. I have no clue where this day went. It seems like an eternity ago now that I was sitting here at my kitchen table watching Gun drink his coffee and read the paper, yet it was only this morning.
Reed called a little while ago. Sam had a lot of questions. Sam. His fiancée. I suppose we both are. I hadn’t really thought about it. Technically, we never ended our engagement. I still have the ring, too. It’s buried in the back of my dresser, but I know exactly where it is. I wonder if he’d like me to wear it. I wonder if I’d like to. But I won’t figure it out tonight. Too many feelings are still wreaking havoc on my spirit, swirling about undefined and sucking me dry of all thoughts and energy in their determination to take shape and be understood. I don’t understand. No matter how I twist and turn everything around. Nothing makes sense. My heart is both fuller than it’s ever been and shattered beyond repair at the same time. Maybe that will work in my favor one day. Maybe my heart will be able to hold more while it’s in pieces. Provided nothing else comes along and turns the remaining shards to dust.
I’m not counting on anything anymore. Not after today.
My eyes move for the clock above the window for what’s probably the two hundredth time since I sat down here. Gun always makes fun of it. Says it’s a weird place to hang a clock. I think I’ll move it. Not because he’s right. Because I don’t want to look at it two hundred times in ten minutes when it’s two hundred times I’ll think of Gun.
I tap my fingers on the table nervously. I still don’t know what time it is. I don’t suppose it matters much, except that Reed said he’d be back by eleven and I have no idea if I’m even remotely close to seeing him. I let him take my work van when he took off today, so at least I know he has a way back here which is easier to navigate than the bus system.
When I hear footsteps moving in the stairwell up to my loft, my heart starts to race with anticipation. I immediately get up from my seat and start for the door. Then I stop. I should wait until he knocks. On second thought, it can’t be Reed because I’d have had to buzz him in and I didn’t. So it’s someone with a key. Or someone who doesn’t have a key, in which case I should definitely go to the door. But maybe with Gun’s old baseball bat in one hand and my cell phone all set to dial 911 in the other.
I’m still undecided on how to proceed when the door swings open.
No knock. No nothing.
“Is it true? Is he really back?” It’s Cammie, my neighbor from the apartment below me and the only real chick friend I’ve ever had.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were in Boston until next week.” Cammie makes the most amazing jewelry and spends most of her time on the road selling it at everything from Farmer’s markets to medieval festivals. She’s had plenty of offers to sell in local boutiques, but she refuses them all. She’s destined for a life on the road. Most of the time I think she only keeps the apartment so she has some place to collect her mail.
“Art Walk was canceled. Apparently there was some sort of scheduling conflict with the annual food truck stop,” she explains, rattling off her words a mile a minute. “Never mind me, is it true? Did your prince’s evil amnesia curse really get lifted? Did Reed really show up here looking for you?”
“You really need to lay off of the Renaissance Fairs.”
She flicks her wrist at me, dismissing my comment. “Would you stop making this about me? I want to know about you!”
Me is the last thing I want to talk about right now. “Who told you?”
She shrugs like the answer is obvious. “Ed. Who else?”
I guess it was. He’s her brother and all, I suppose he would have told her. And he’d have known from Gun. “How’s Gun? Did he say?”
She screws up her face, clearly put off by my constant efforts to steer this conversation off her intended course. “No. We’re not talking about Gun. I’m here for the fairy tale, not the Shakespearean tragedy.”
That answers that question.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it, Cammie. It’s been a really, really, fucked up day.”
Her hand moves over mine and squeezes it. “I know, dumbass. That’s why I’m here,” she says quietly. “You can’t just sit here, internalizing it all. You have to let it out. Hear your own thoughts, let them be formulated into sentences. Tell me what you experienced today if for no other reason than to find out yourself.” She smiles and I sigh.
While Ed grew up in the system same as me and Gun, his sister was fortunate enough to have landed with her father after only a ten-month stint in foster care. Hadn’t been easy to track him down, but it’d been worth it. At least for Cammie. Her father had cleaned up his life by then. Gotten married. Had another baby on the way. While Ed’s father remained unknown and their mother spent their childhood incarcerated, Cammie was raised by a youth minister, and his wife, a psychiatrist of all things. Some days, Cammie’s level of insight was helpful. Others it was a pain in the ass.
“What time is it?” Because I’m not diving head first into a therapy session if Reed’s about to show up.
“Nearly ten thirty. Why?” She moseys past me to the coffee maker. Apparently, she’s settling in for a while.
“Reed will be here in half an hour.” That sentence alone has the power to make me smile again. Maybe Cammie’s onto something here.
She fills the filter with enough grounds to make an entire pot and hits brew. When she turns back to face me, she’s beaming. “Go on.”
“I don’t really know what’s going to happen after tonight. We’re just sort of fumbling our way through all of this.”
Cammie pulls out a barstool and nods for me to sit before she slides out the one beside it and has a seat as well. “I don’t think this is the sort of life event anyone plans for, Coop. Fumbling is probably the appropriate response to it.”
“It doesn’t feel like it. As surreal as it all is, I’ve imagined it happening more times than I can count, I should have been better prepared. But never once did I think it through enough to figure out how to maneuver my way around the consequences. Never took the time to see all the ways in which having Reed come back would ripple through my world. Only focused on one thing. Reed. And having a second chance at the sort of carefree happiness I’ve only ever found with him.”
Cammie rests her elbow on the counter, leaning her head into her palm to get a better look at me from the side. “That’s the whole point of a fantasy, Coop. The happy shit. It wouldn’t be a fantasy if you took on all the ways in which it would devastate you and break your heart. That’d be a nightmare. A self-inflicted one at that. And I know you’re particularly fond of self-torture, but even you are entitled to take mental escape routes to happy ever afters you haven’t yet found in real life.”
Everything always makes sense when Cammie says it. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because she’s the least fucked up person I know and her advice is always straightforward and loaded with common sense and sanity. I didn’t used to count this in her favor. When we first met, I wanted nothing to do with her and her perfect life. Of course, this was right after I’d lost the only perfect thing I’d ever had, so I really wasn’t keen on being around people who always had shit work out for them.
But Cammie didn’t care. She was there to reconnect with her brother and her brother was always hanging around with Gun, so we became a foursome of sorts whether I liked it or not. Now I can’t imagine how I would have gotten through the last seven years without her.
I cringe, thinking about what she’s said. “You make me sound like I’m a total martyr.”
She laughs. “Nah. Not a martyr.” Then she gets serious. “Total drama queen though.”
This time I’m the one who bursts out in a giggle. “You’re an ass.”
“Hey, I’m totally willing to take on that part if that’s what it takes to get you to lighten up a bit.” She bumps her shoulder to mine. “This is a good thing, Coop. It’s a beautiful, romantic thing. And no one deserves it more than you.”
“Yeah?” Because it doesn’t feel like it.
“Yeah.” She nods, her warm brown eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiles back at me.
I sigh, almost ready to believe her. “But do I deserve it more than Gun?”
“Yes.” She didn’t even have to think about it. My throat clenches up at hearing the conviction in her tone.
“How can you say that?” I squeeze out in a high pitched wheeze.
She still smiles at me, but her eyes don’t crinkle at the corners anymore. “Because Gun doesn’t deserve something he’s not willing to fight for. And we all know, the only thing Gun will go to war for is the past. Not the future.”
Chapter Nine
Gun
7 Years Earlier
Ed and I find Cooper waiting for us outside the administrator’s office. She’s doing an exceptional job studying her new schedule. Or, maybe she’s just staring at the paper to avoid having to make eye contact with all the other students moving through the hall like unruly herds of cattle.
“Coop,” I call her name to get her attention over the noise.
She lifts her gaze, searching for me, her bright blue eyes land on me almost immediately and she smiles, waving at us. Weaving her way through a new crowd of freshman cruising through, she cuts across to where we’re standing. “Hey.” She’s damn near giddy. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her quite like this.
“What’s up with you?”
She turns her schedule around to show me. “I have the same bitch for first period!”
I grin. “I’m sorry. That really sucks for you.”
She shoves me playfully, doing her best to look stern, but it doesn’t stick. “Don’t you get it? We have a class together! Not only are we actually in the same school at the same time, but we get to start every day hanging out from now until we graduate!”
“You’re only this excited because you think I’m exaggerating what a bitch our teacher is,” I tease as we start to walk. But Cooper won’t be fazed. She just hooks her arm into mine and keeps jabbering on about all the ways this is going to turn out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to us. It’s not the best. It’s the most normal. Which, makes it seem like it’s the best.
“Hold up,” Ed cuts in just as we’re about to walk into class. “You’re not like gonna try and pass us notes and shit, are you
? I know you and Gun are besties and all, and I’m totally down with being pals, but I don’t want all the slumber parties we’ve had together to give you the wrong idea, I’m a dude. Passing notes, giggling and anything that involves hearts and doodles of any kind, are not my department.”
She frowns. “You think I would doodle hearts and shit?”
I wrap my arm around her shoulder and squeeze her close to me, kissing her temple. “That’s my girl. All disgusted with hearts and shit.” Maybe she’s right. Maybe having first period together is the best thing that’s ever happened to us.
By the time we get out of class, Cooper’s ready to transfer schools. That’s how mean our teacher is.
“What happened to her to make her like that?” she asks, still shaking her head in disbelief.
I shrug. “No idea. I mean, there are plenty of stories floating around, but I doubt any of them are remotely close to the truth.”
Ed smirks. “I don’t know. I kinda think that one rumor going around about her being abducted by aliens and returned without a soul may be onto something. You ever watch her when she’s just sitting at her desk? She taps her ring finger on the wood. Over and over and over again. Just that one finger. I think it’s a tick of some sort. A glitch in the alien programming. Just a matter of time before she breaks and we all wind up alien lunch.”
I laugh, but Cooper doesn’t. When I turn to check on her, she’s clearly contemplating Ed’s story.
“I think you may be overanalyzing what he said.”
“Huh?” I’ve never known anyone who could sink so fast. It only takes a second for Coop to completely drown inside her own mind and totally check out. When we were younger it scared me. Now I know she comes back as fast as she goes.