Kellan

by Sienna Valentine

I nodded, withdrawing just enough to feel safe again. I’d meant every word I said to Evelyn, but this mushy stuff was starting to wear on me. “If you don’t mind too much, I’d like another moment alone here with my mom. I just wanted to tell her goodbye.”

  “Of course,” Evelyn said, gently squeezing my shoulder before turning back toward Iris and my dad. I watched her go, waiting until she was out of earshot to look back down at my mother’s grave.

  “I guess she isn’t as bad as I kept saying, huh?” I murmured, my gaze drawn once more to my mother’s engraved name. “She seems like a really nice person, Mom. Someone who has been making Dad really happy ever since you died. And I think, because of her, I have someone who’s going to make me happy. I suppose that I’d never have known Iris if her mom didn’t like Dad so much.

  “I’m not planning on going back out of town—except maybe to grab my things and cancel my lease. I’m going to be moving back home, right where I belong. So you can expect to see a lot more of me from now on…”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the others, noting their eyes were fixed on me as I spoke to my mother’s spirit—or at least, what I’d hoped was her spirit. Maybe this grave was more like a representative of my conscience, my very own Jiminy Cricket. That was what mothers were, after all—our conscience, guiding us through life, trying to help us make the right choices.

  “I miss you so much, Mom… more than you can possibly imagine. There isn’t be a day that goes by that I don’t wish that you were here, comforting me and telling me whether I was going down the right path, doing the right thing. But I have to do it by myself now, and that thought is so terrifying.”

  I glanced over my shoulder again, smiling as I spotted Iris looking over at me. I felt that familiar warmth growing in my chest as I turned back to my mother’s grave.

  “I think you’d really like Iris, Mom,” I said, my voice soft. “She’s a lot like you—tough, strong, pretty… and she’s so smart. I only wish that you could have met her. I think you two would really have gotten along.”

  “Talking about me?” I heard Iris’ voice carry over the wind, the grass crunching beneath her feet as she came closer. “Good things, I hope.”

  “The best,” I said, turning toward her with a smile. “I was just about to say goodbye.”

  Iris slid her arm around my waist as I turned back to my mother’s grave. I hated the thought of leaving, of having to wait until some other time to come and see her. But I knew that my family was waiting for me, and I couldn’t keep them waiting for long.

  “Goodbye, Mom,” I said to her gravestone, glinting in the dying light beneath the boughs of that old oak tree. “I love you.”

  ~ EPILOGUE ~

  Iris

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  “Come on, Kellan. This is a big deal. I think a little celebration is in order, huh?”

  Kellan sighed, rolling his eyes like ninety full days of sobriety after rehab was no big deal. He ran a hand through his freshly cut hair, still grumbling about how the stylist took off too much length, and squinted at the banner I’d made for him and strung up across my apartment door.

  “This is silly,” he said. “I made it a whole three months without fuckin’ up, and you want to throw me some kind of party.” I shrugged and he narrowed his eyes at me, running his tongue over his teeth. “Well, shit. Did you at least get me a piñata?”

  “That can be arranged,” I told him, hugging him around his shoulders. “What should we put in it, do you think? Candy? Cupcakes? Tiny little strippers?”

  Kellan snorted a gruff laugh. “How ‘bout some pills and clean needles? Can never have too many of those.” He saw my sharp look and flashed me a sheepish grin. “I’m joking, sis. Really. C’mon, you gotta let me have my gallows humor.” He turned to me and put his hands on my arms. “Sometimes, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. And I really, really don’t feel like crying today. So just go with it and put up with my shit for a couple hours. Okay?”

  Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Fine. But keep the relapse jokes to a minimum. You scare me half to death with those things.”

  “Scout’s honor,” my brother said, holding up his hand in a mock salute. “I’m doing the best I can, Iris. Takin’ it one day at a time. I don’t want to let you down again.”

  “And you’re not going to,” I told him, “because I was serious about what I said back at the hospital. You so much as look wrong at a pill or a needle again, Kellan Walker, and I will—”

  “End me,” Kellan finished on my behalf. “I got it, trust me. Who needs to OD when you’ve got a family like ours, huh?”

  I shook my head, taking my little brother in for a moment. God, he’d come such a long way in such a short time, and sometimes, his progress kind of scared me. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Kellan to go back on his word and disappear from our lives again, only this time, maybe Slade and I wouldn’t find him in time to stop something bad from happening to him. I read somewhere that addicts have the highest chance of ODing after they’d gotten clean—their tolerance drops, and they tend to forget that when they’re frantically trying to scratch that evil little itch. But so far, so good with Kellan. He was really putting in the effort, and I couldn’t have been more proud of him.

  “Slade’s the only one here so far,” I told him, opening the door. “Dad and Mom won’t be here for a little while, and I invited a few of my friends. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “That depends,” Kellan said, stepping into my apartment and hanging his coat from the rack near the door, “are they hot?”

  “Too hot for you, little brother,” I answered, closing the door behind us and leading Kellan into my kitchen. “But hey, at least you’ll get some cake.”

  I expected some lip, but Kellan just made a beeline for the store-bought icing monstrosity set up on my kitchen table. “Ooh, cake…”

  “Hey, Kellan,” Slade said, stepping out of the bedroom where he’d just finished cleaning up. God, did my stepbrother look great when he got all gussied up for company. He was wearing a maroon, long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up—I wasn’t sure what it was about that look that got to me, but goddamn, it was hot. Like he was ready to get down to business, get his hands dirty. I was definitely up for some of that later, but right now, his hotness made it difficult to concentrate.

  “What’s up, bro?” Kellan said, sucking icing off his fingers as he pulled Slade in for a bro hug. “How’s married life, huh?”

  “We’re not married, Kellan,” I told him with an exasperated sigh. “We’re just living together. God, I forgot how annoying you are.”

  “So you’re… what, his live-in girlfriend?” Kellan asked, eyebrows raised. “Damn, sis. No wonder you’re cranky.”

  Slade chuckled. He was way more amused by Kellan’s shit than I was. Seeing the look on my face, he put his arm around me and drew me in close. “Your sister and I are taking things slow,” he said, then winked at me. “For now.”

  A blush crept into my cheeks. I both loved and hated when he talked like that. It flustered me like nothing else.

  It was so good to have everything back to… well, back to whatever passed for normal around here. Our family was back together. Kellan was safe. And even my non-conventional relationship with Slade had stopped being a topic of conversation months ago. My mom had accepted it more easily than Dad had. He still thought it was weird. But he’d stopped making faces whenever we kissed or held hands, and that was pretty good progress, all things considered.

  And Slade, for his part, was fitting in just fine. True to his word, he’d moved back home as soon as he could and took a position with the metro hospital. Not only was he instrumental to Kellan’s recovery, partly overseeing his therapy and making arrangements for a stellar outpatient program, but he was also patenting a device he hoped would become commonplace for drug addicts around the world. It was an epi pen-like delivery system containing naloxone, the drug Slade had used to save Kellan’s life. Sinc
e it was so fast-acting, it could be revolutionary in preventing drug-related deaths. The most rigorous of the medical trials it would have to pass to make it to market were coming up soon, but Slade didn’t even seem worried. I guessed that was an advantage of being a cocky bastard—you never bet against yourself.

  Which meant the only sleepless nights Slade had around here were the ones he spent with me, making up for lost time. Even after six months, the sex with him was hot. He never ran out of ways to amaze me. I had the sneaking suspicion that he had some kind of manual stashed away somewhere.

  “So, you set any long-term goals for yourself, Kellan?” I asked my younger brother. “I mean, since you’re so curious about what Slade and I are doing, I’m sure there’s something you want to share.”

  “One day at a time, sis,” he said again, going back for seconds on the icing he’d stolen. “One day at a time.”

  Come to think of it, that wasn’t a bad motto. It was a great way to look at life—like each day was an accomplishment in and of itself. Like the happiness you had right now was way more important than the past, or even the future. You had to cherish things while they were still around. You couldn’t take them for granted. Having suffered so much loss throughout my life, I was very well aware of what forgetting all that could do.

  I looked up at Slade again and saw that mischievous spark in his eyes, the one I’d first seen seven years ago when he’d decided to set his sights on me. Even after all this time, it hadn’t faded. He was still into me, still in love, still looking for ways to one-up me. God, I hoped he never stopped.

  “Yeah,” I said, slipping my arms around him and watching as Kellan sat on our couch, safe and sound. “One day at a time.”

  The End.