There was a knock on the door and she looked up from her spot on the bed. She’d just managed to finally get dressed even though it was close to noon. “Come in.”
The door opened and her best friend Taylor stood there, her dark brown hair piled on her head in a messy bun, a black t-shirt hanging loose over her blue jeans. “Hey, Blake said I could come up.”
She nodded. “It’s fine, I was just gonna check my messages.” She waved her cell phone around. “Says voicemail is full…” She sighed softly as Taylor walked in and took a careful seat beside her. She’d noticed that over an hour ago, when she’d forced herself to check her emails, something that at the very least seemed semi productive, until she was faced with half an inbox full of condolences from half her fellow teachers at her school. With school out, she was supposed to have almost two months off before her extended maternity leave began, something that had been Josh’s idea. She’d thought it silly, she could at least work a little while, but he’d been adamant she take that extra time off. Had he known somehow? Did he have an inkling that something wasn’t right, that everything was going to change?
“How are you holding up?” Taylor asked, casting a nervous glance at her, her blue eyes showing her concern. She had bags under her eyes as if she too hadn’t been sleeping. She knew Taylor had been part of her babysitters the last few days, she just hadn’t been awake long enough to see her.
“I’m breathing.” That was the best Avery could manage at that point.
Taylor wrapped her arm around her and squeezed her tight. “You know, you need anything, anything at all, Aves, and you’ve got it.”
“Thanks.” Her phone beeped and she looked down at her messages. Another one from Linda. A sigh escaped her as she pulled her legs up, crossed them on the bed, and reread the message again, a lump starting to form in her throat as she realized what her words meant.
Taylor sat on the edge of the bed, her own cell phone in hand.
Avery put her phone down on the nightstand, glancing at the photo of him on her screen one more time. Could she really have taken that photo only two weeks ago when they’d taken the boat out for a day? He’d kept teasing her about her driving skills, saying she needed more work on her turns. She’d laughed and swiped his captain’s hat. He’d pulled her in his arms, spun her around and she’d taken the photo.
She blinked back the rush of tears and got to her feet. Taylor looked up at her in concern. She tried to put on a smile or at least look like she wasn’t ready to go down at any moment. “Just have a couple things to do for Linda,” she explained.
Taylor nodded, understanding in her eyes. “Do you want me to?”
Avery shook her head. “No. I’m good,” she lied. Evidently there’d been plenty of conversation she hadn’t been around for. Maybe that was why Taylor had suddenly come upstairs, to be there for her when Linda arrived.
Avery stood in front of the racks of Josh’s clothes in the small walk-in closet, her hand resting on the small of her back. The rows of his shirts hung haphazardly beside hers. Half had been pulled out, then stuck back in anywhere he’d found room. It was a mess. An adorable mess. She reached out, her fingers wrapping around one of the sleeves of his rarely worn button down shirts. The fabric was cool and soft against her skin. If she closed her eyes she could see him slipping it on, laughing as he did up the buttons about how he suddenly looked like an official adult in a suit and wasn’t that crazy?
How could she do this?
The closet door behind her squeaked open, announcing Taylor’s arrival. Apparently she’d been alone too long and her friend’s worry radar had gone off. Avery didn’t look away from the shirt sleeve in front of her. “I need to find him something to wear.” At least she sounded stronger than she’d anticipated. No quivering.
“You don’t have to.” Taylor’s voice was soft, but there was still a hoarseness to it from her own crying. “Josh’s mom said she’d do it for you.”
Right. They just expected her to let everyone in, to let them take his things away. Taylor pulled her close in a hug and the shirt sleeve fell from Avery’s fingertips as she let go to hug her tight. She could feel the shaking in Taylor’s shoulders that echoed her own. “I know.” She suddenly felt the need to pull back, and she moved away from her friend’s embrace. She took a deep breath and moved a few hangers around, flipping past his collection of football jerseys and tshirts from his favorite teams. She stopped on a hideous Hawaiian shirt, the glaring colors of bright orange, reds and yellows almost making her eyes hurt looking at it. “Remember when he bought this?” She pulled the shirt half out, almost smiling at the look of amusement that crossed Taylor’s face.
Taylor reached for it, her fingers doing what Avery’s had to the other shirt for a brief moment before she pulled her hand away. A small laugh escaped her. “Yeah, and as soon as he found out you said it made him look like a pumpkin, he wore it every weekend all summer just to tease you.”
Avery laughed, thinking back. That shirt was everywhere that summer. Barbecues, the boat, the beach. There were probably a couple dozen photos of him in it somewhere, all with that goofy grin because it was one of their inside jokes. “Yeah.” She ran her fingers over the soft fabric before pushing the shirt back in amongst the others, forcing it between a group of black tees as if to hide it and all the memories it had suddenly brought back. The hanger caught on the fabric of one of the shirts, and she wrestled to get it free. Every move seemed to just make it worse. “Come on, damn it!”
Taylor stepped in and put her hand over Avery’s, pulling it gently away from the hanger. The shirt hung there, half sticking out as if it was somehow suspended in midair.
Avery shook her head. “I can’t do this…I just…I can’t.”
Taylor pulled her into a tight hug, rubbing Avery’s back in a comforting motion. Avery shut her eyes, not wanting to see his clothes all still there. Suddenly it felt like the walls were closing in on her. Every breath was being sucked out of her lungs. All she wanted was to hear his voice. To see him stick his head in the door and laugh at how silly she and Taylor were being, that they’d bought into his best prank yet…
“It’s too much, too soon,” Taylor said softly. “You go downstairs for awhile.”
She pulled away from the hug and wiped her teary eyes. She was getting so tired of all this crying. She wasn’t going to have any tears left soon. She opened her mouth to say something when she heard footsteps in the bedroom and knew that somehow Taylor had summoned help, that she was being pushed out of the process of looking after Josh one last time. She stepped back and noticed the cell phone barely tucked in the pocket of Taylor’s jeans. She must have sent out an SOS text when Avery hadn’t been looking. “I don’t want to go downstairs.” She could handle this, even if she looked and acted like she couldn’t. She needed to do it. For Josh. He’d want her to.
“I think you need some air. When was the last time you ate?”
She ran a hand over her hair, glancing toward the shelves on the wall, anywhere but her best friend’s gaze. “I don’t know, this morning sometime.” She had vague memories of a couple bites of toast.
Blake peeked in the partially open door. “Hey there, someone mention food?”
Taylor smiled at him, hooking her arm through Avery’s and starting to pull her towards the door. “She needs some air, and she needs to eat.”
“Well then, good thing I came up to check on two of my favorite girls. I was just thinking about going out and picking up some lunch. What do you say, Avery?” His blue eyes met hers and she was struck by how different they were from Josh’s. His had always seemed such a vibrant blue while Blake’s were the calmest, softest of blues. Even though they were brothers, there wasn’t any resemblance there.
She had a feeling she’d be going along on this little outing whether she wanted to or not. She sighed softly, looking between her two babysitters. They each had a solemn expression on their face, worry clouded their eyes. “Sounds good,” she lied
. “Just let me change…” She pulled her nightshirt away from her body. Was it just her or was it suddenly looser than it had been a week ago? That couldn’t be right.
“Meet you downstairs in ten.” Blake leaned over and kissed her forehead. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered in her ear. “Promise.”
***
Josh sat in the uncomfortable contemporary style chair halfway down from the panel’s meeting room. The hallway was endless, all crisp white walls around him. No one had passed by since he’d been sitting there. None of the doors that dotted the never ending hall opened. Just he and Gabriel, waiting.
Josh stretched his long legs out ahead of him. Gabriel took the seat beside him, strangely content as always. “How long till I make my case?” Josh tried not to fidget, but the wait was killing him. Any patience he’d had had quickly been erased since this whole thing had started.
“You have to wait for an opening, Josh. Patience is a virtue.”
So Gabriel was a mind reader now, Josh mused. He shifted uneasily in his seat.
“My patience goes away very quickly when I have to watch my pregnant girlfriend cry herself to sleep. When I have to watch my brother, my best friend, Blake, break down when he’s trying to stay strong for everyone else. When I have to hear Avery talk to her best friend and tell her everything she’s lost, so excuse me if I don’t have the right amount of patience right now.”
The corner of Gabriel’s mouth twitched up into a partial smile, but it quickly disappeared. “I get your reasoning, but you have to remember, here you’re not judged on what’s going on down there. At the moment, the only thing they care about is you.”
Josh picked at his thumbnail. He had to make them care about what was happening without him. That was the only thing that mattered, period. Nothing to do with him, but everything to do with everyone he loved.
Gabriel stayed silent and Josh was grateful he didn’t try to talk, to try and coach him somehow on his argument. He had an idea what he wanted to say, to tell them. He just hoped he’d have the chance to plead his case the way he wanted. He put his thumbnail to his mouth, his teeth scraping the edge of the nail as he heard a sound in the distance.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Gabriel start to rise.
“Josh, we’re ready for you now.”
Chapter 4
The panel looked at him expectantly as he walked in. Josh wondered what they were waiting for, what they expected to see. For him to have suddenly accepted everything wasn’t going to happen.
“We’re glad to see you, Josh. We understand the shock of what happened can take a while to sink in.”
Josh nodded solemnly. Gabriel stood at his side, hands clasped calmly in front of him. Josh couldn’t resist shooting him a look. How could he be so calm and collected? Of course it wasn’t his life on the line. He’d probably been up here for who knew how long. He’d probably forgotten all about what it was like to actually be alive.
Did they really know him well enough to make an informed decision? They needed to know him. Know Avery. If they’d see her, see her pain, then they could understand just what a mistake this all truly was. It wasn’t his time. He had a life ahead of him. One he had planned out perfectly. He mirrored Gabriel’s stance, waiting, for what he didn’t know. The silence was getting to him, heck, the silence of the whole place unnerved him really. He hated the waiting. The waiting for answers. The waiting for something to break the silence. Even the papers they were shuffling through were silent. How was that even possible?
The woman on the panel hit a small switch on the table and suddenly the room dimmed. Josh frowned and turned to ask Gabriel what was going on, but the quiet was broken by the sound of a baby’s cry.
Startled, Josh turned the other way and found the wall had turned into a huge projection screen. Scenes from his life were flashing past. He stood still as it seemed his entire life flashed by. Things he never remembered played in vivid color. It was like being there, observing everything again in 3D. His first baseball game as a kid. When he’d fallen out of the tree in the backyard and broken his arm. Learning to drive. He was mesmerized, moment after moment flickering by in what seemed like real time. So close he could reach out and touch it. Touch her. He smiled at the first time he saw her, her back to him as she talked to the class she was on a field trip with, her first field trip as an official second grade teacher. She’d been so cute, her hair pulled back in a ponytail as she tried to keep the wind from whipping it in her face. The way he could see two of the little boys had crushes on her, sticking as close to her as possible. She’d been oblivious. Same way she’d been oblivious that he’d been in love with her until he’d said those three little magic words I love you two months and a dozen dates later during the seventh inning stretch at a baseball game.
The scene faded with Josh’s last memory. Immediately the anxiousness returned to him, that feeling of panic that he was losing control of the vehicle. If only he’d known, he would have tried harder to do something, to change it somehow.
There was a silence in the room as the wall returned to its original glaring white and Gabriel looked at him, understanding in his eyes as if he knew what Josh had just been thinking.
“So you see…” Josh started, hoping to hear what he wanted most.
The woman nodded. “Clearly, it wasn’t your time.”
Josh went still, the words sinking in. “What do you mean, it wasn’t my time?” Josh tried to keep his voice level, but it was hard. With all the half answers, unspoken words from the panel and from Gabriel it felt like he was being given the runaround.
“It wasn’t your planned date,” she explained. There was a hint of emotion, annoyance, in her eyes. The first sign of life he’d seen since he’d started his argument.
Josh pressed his lips together. Did that mean something good? Was he about ready to be sent back? Wake up in the SUV or maybe an ambulance?
“However…” her voice cut in, as if reading his thoughts and stopping him before he got his hopes up. “Things will right themselves.”
“Excuse me?” The words flew out of his mouth before he could stop them, the anger he’d been holding inside instantly unleashed. Part of him didn’t care he was interrupting her, didn’t care she was glaring at him, her icy blue eyes turning glacial.
“While it’s true that it’s…”
Gabriel moved closer, probably thinking Josh was about to lunge clear across the table. The man wasn’t wrong. He was tempted, sorely tempted. But he was also numb and somehow rooted to the spot.
They didn’t care.
He watched her mouth move, every word perfectly formed, her gaze locked on him, but he didn’t hear a sound. Silence enveloped him. A cold, dark, painful silence like someone had hit the mute button. He blinked, his mind not comprehending anything. This felt more like death to him than anything else had. Focus, Josh, focus, something inside his mind instructed and he blinked again, trying to read her lips. They were moving still and he forced himself to focus until the silence faded and her voice filled the room, her message crystal clear. He had visitation rights and that was that. He needed to learn to adapt to his newfound situation. That was why he had Gabriel.
***
Once again Josh was back in their bedroom. He hadn’t wanted to be away from her for too long, and enough pressure on Gabriel had caused him to give in and escort Josh there. He sat in the chair beside the bed, watching her restless sleep. He had forgotten he couldn’t touch her and had reached out to her before he sat down. He broke down when his hand went right through her. It was torture, cruel and heartbreaking to be so close to her but never have her know he was actually there.
“I’m going to come back. I promise you that.” He put his head in his hands, staring down at the black and white square pattern of the carpet. Moonlight filtered in through the partially closed curtains on the far wall. There was still the murmur of the television from downstairs. All of those who had decided to spend the night were keeping themsel
ves occupied.
He was grateful for his friends and family never leaving her alone for too long. For trying to distract her from the obvious. He lifted his head as she rolled over in bed, and he moved to kneel on the carpet. “You’re not going to do this alone. I don’t want you to, and there’s no reason for you to. I wasn’t supposed to die.”
Gabriel put his hand on Josh’s shoulder. His new charge was a bit of a peculiar case. So in touch with his family, with his girlfriend, he could pick up their emotions just by being there. Even when he wasn’t around them, when he was far away, Josh knew what was going on with Avery.
It wasn’t normal.
And in the long run, it wouldn’t be good for Josh’s psyche. He needed him to see the truth. That for now, things were the way they were and unfortunately weren’t about to change. As much as it hurt seeing them hurt this way, Josh was truly helpless to do anything about it.
Josh didn’t react to his touch, just stayed kneeling there, staring up at his girlfriend, silent tears falling down his face.
Gabriel didn’t want to push. He knew it was a precarious situation. It was still so fresh for Josh, for all of them. He was there to guide Josh, to let him vent, to help him understand things. Yet it seemed that Josh didn’t want his help, didn’t want to speak much, he just wanted him to take him to his family, to Avery and let him be, simply let him observe.
“She’s so emotional. I don’t think this can be good for the baby,” Josh said as he finally stood. He never took his eyes off Avery, even for an instant.
Gabriel wished there was a way to help the young man see that things would be okay. That what he was seeing now was not the way things would stay. “The baby’s fine. The child knows its mother is grieving.”
If Tomorrow Never Comes Page 5