Perchance

by Lila Felix

  I went to Josie’s house and she came out of the back door while I gawked at the fact that someone had removed my ladder that took me to my stalking place.

  “Aunt Brenda called me and told me that if I loved you I wouldn’t let you do it anymore.”

  She turned around and went back into the house without another word.

  I started to walk back home and let myself look at his place. My heart stilled as I saw what he was doing. He was putting the Cuda in the garage. He usually kept her in the garage so that wasn’t out of the norm. But this time he came out and shut the garage. He reached for something in his pocket and when he walked away from the garage I could see that he had put a padlock on the garage. Eric walked out about that time and I could see Cooper handing him the keys to the Cuda with the keychain that I bought him still attached. Eric stood there while Cooper walked away from him, up the stairs and slammed the door. Eric turned to me like he knew that I was there the whole time and just stared at me like he was waiting for me to do something.

  After a few moments he turned and went into his house and turned off all of the lights.

  I was ruining everyone around me. It had to stop.

  Cooper

  I knew she was there across the street. Even the marrow within my bones felt her presence. I saw her there in my peripheral watching me from Josie’s front yard. And if she thought that I didn’t know that she sat on top of Josie’s roof night after night watching my apartment with her binoculars then she was delusional. But I wanted her to watch me. Wanted her to see how miserable I felt and looked. I knew she was there when I locked up that car.

  It wasn’t even a cool car anymore. She used to tell me that when it started up she could feel it in her chest.

  It was a reminder that I had ruined everything. I moved too fast. The first time it worked out for me because she already did love me back. But the second time I took it for granted and it blew up in my face. I regretted every single second of that night.

  Everyone tried to convince me that it was going to be ok but it wasn’t.

  She was the beat of my heart. The rush of blood in my veins. The oxygen to my lungs. The water for my thirst. The calm to my fears. The morphine to my pain. The stitches to my wounds. And I had lost her all because of a three hundred dollar ring and a bastard’s dream.

  Remi

  I went home and packed up my bags. I was hurting everyone around me and I refused to do it anymore. I asked Aunt Brenda to give me a ride to the bus station the next day. She begged me to stay. She cried and asked me if I was sure.

  “No, I’m not sure. But I’m hurting everyone here. I just want to go back to Mom. I’ll get my GED and start community college there. I’ll come back and visit after school is over. He’ll probably be long gone by then and he can move on with his life without me.”

  “You just don’t get it do you Remi?” she said.

  She left my room without another word.

  Aunt Brenda let me use her car. The next morning I went to visit Edith. I hadn’t seen her since Christmas and I regretted it. She asked me to reconsider leaving but I told him that I couldn’t hurt him anymore. I told her that it was all my fault. I spent most of the day there and left about two after a long and teary goodbye. Next I went to the school and dropped out. It made me feel like a failure. But I already knew that to be true.

  They made me get Aunt Brenda to sign the paperwork so I went and knocked on her classroom door. It was her last period and I forgot that Cooper was in that class. The students were reading silently and so I brought the paperwork straight to her desk.

  “They say you have to sign it too even though I’m eighteen.”

  “I’m not signing it Remi.”

  The whole class looked up at that point. Cooper was already watching, but now they all were.

  “Fine. Then I’ll just walk.”

  “Do what you need to honey.”

  I dumped them in the garbage and walked out of the front door.

  Cooper

  I didn’t care who was listening when I asked her from my desk.

  “What is she doing?”

  “Come out in the hallway Cooper.”

  We got out and closed the classroom door.

  “She’s dropping out of school and going back to Texas to live with her Mom. She plans on getting her GED and going to some community college there.”

  “Why?” I couldn’t imagine that she would do this to herself because of me.

  “She feels like she’s making everyone miserable, especially you. So she’s leaving.”

  “I would rather leave so she can finish high school here. I will leave.”

  “You’re not going to change her mind Cooper, I’ve tried.”

  “I can try.”

  I went back into the classroom, grabbed my bag and walked home. I took the money I had left and got in the Cuda for the last time.

  I parked it on her driveway. Her aunt was already home and as I opened the driver’s side door, the front door opened. Remi was holding two suitcases, one in each hand. I went to help her and she whispered a ‘thanks’ to me. Her aunt came out with a purse and her backpack. They went towards her aunt’s car and I stopped them.

  “No, put your stuff in the Cuda.” I said.

  They both turned around, shocked and Remi said, “It’s ok Cooper, Aunt Brenda can take me.”

  “Well, I don’t want you riding the bus. You can take the Cuda.”

  “No Cooper, how would I get it back to you? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “It’s not mine anymore. I put it in your name this afternoon. I paid for a year’s worth of insurance too.”

  “What?” She yelled at me and her aunt said she was going back into the house.

  “I put it in your name. It’s yours now. I can’t drive it anyway. Take the damned car Remi.”

  “Why not?” She was still yelling.

  “Because” was all I could get out and she looked like it wasn’t good enough. So I mentally reached into my chest, ripped out my heart and threw it on the concrete in between us.

  “Because it smells like you no matter how many of those stupid trees I hang on the mirror. And your lip gloss is in the ash tray but I can’t bring myself to take it out. And every time I get in it I think of how you smell and how beautiful you are. I think about holding your hand across the middle of the seat and how your hair blew in the wind when we let the windows down. I think about when you looked at me and told me you loved me while I was driving and I think about steaming up the windows with the girl that I love. I think about planning out the worst night of my life. I think about how you looked at me when I took out that stupid ring and how long I kept it in that glove box. And I think about the Christmas present in the trunk that I’ve never had the balls to open.”

  She stood there with tears in her eyes and I had stopped wiping mine away long ago.

  “Just take the damned thing. At least you’ll have a way to get back and forth to school and…and… you’ll have a piece of me. And if by chance one day you realize that I love you with every fiber of my being and you want me back, just put her into drive and she’ll bring you home. She’ll bring you back to me.”

  I threw the keys onto the driver’s side seat and put all of her bags into the back seat and walked away from her.

  In my mind I had talked so much smoother. She would hear how awful I felt and how much I loved her and she would forget leaving and run to me and I would kiss her until she said ‘what ring?’ But that didn’t happen. I ended up yelling at her about all of the things I missed about her and she gawked at me. This was really the end.

  Remi

  Though I was in his car, I was running away. I had skipped a goodbye to Aunt Brenda, got in his car and floored it. I didn’t look back. I even left my phone on her counter without telling her.

  I pulled over at the welcome center just to breathe. There was a box left in the passenger seat, but I hadn’t looked in it yet. I took the top off and pulled
out things from my love one by one. My laptop was in there, I could see that first. His iPod. All of his CDs including the one he had made for me after he had me listen to Journey. Two of his t shirts, one was Foreigner and the other was Van Halen. There was a picture of us at the Myrtles Plantation that Troy took but now it was in a frame. There was the blanket that he wrapped around me when we went swimming at night.

  I nearly turned around. I did.

  But I kept driving.

  I got to my Mom’s house at about one in the morning and she wasn’t even home. I went in and hugged a much taller set of twins and their babysitter left saying she would come back tomorrow to get paid.

  I called Aunt Brenda and she was still up. I had to apologize about eighty times for leaving without a phone and not calling her until now. She said Cooper had been there since seven o’clock waiting for me to call to say that I was ok. He had refused to leave the porch and she was going now to tell him.

  I heard her open the door and then the screen door.

  “Cooper honey, it’s Remi. She’s ok. She’s made it to her Mom’s house.”

  “Ok.”

  I heard muffling like she had put her hand over the phone but I could still hear her.

  “Cooper look at me. Sitting here is not going to bring her back. Go home.”

  He must’ve left because she came back on the phone.

  “What did your Mom say Rem?”

  “She’s not here. Scout and Sable were with a babysitter. Sable said she’s on a date.”

  “I miss you already. I gotta go Remi.”

  “Ok, bye.”

  Cooper

  I had talked myself into thinking that when I went back to the house she would still be there. But the driveway was empty save for her aunt’s car.

  I knocked on the door and asked her aunt to call her cell phone to see where she was and if she was all right. But she had left it in the kitchen, on purpose or not we didn’t know. So I sat on the porch and waited. Her aunt invited me to sit inside but this porch was where I wanted to be.

  She called about one in the morning and Brenda, she told me to call her, told me to go home after we found out she was ok.

  I walked home to that hell hole of an apartment and passed out cold.

  I skipped school the next day and no one dared say a word to me about it. My grades were good and I didn’t miss any tests so I didn’t care.

  I called my Mom after I thought she had woken up. We talked for two hours and she said she wanted me to come home. But I couldn’t. I had to stay right here. I would be here when she decided to come back to me. One day she would.

  But then I sat up straight in the chair, her chair, and came to a decision. When she did come back I didn’t want to be lazed around doing nothing while she was going out to make herself even more amazing. No…I was going to be ready for her.

  The next day I signed up for an SAT prep class that met every day after school. I didn’t have anything else to do so I was going to bust my ace getting the best score that I could. Eric and I went to one of those huge chain bookstores and bought four SAT prep books so I could study. I applied for early admission to BRCC and was going to start two weeks after graduation. I had signed up for an accelerated plan so that I could get two years worth of work done in one year and two summers.

  Remi

  Mom came home that next day and apparently was not happy about me being home.

  I told her that I would work and pay rent and so she agreed to let me stay. Her entire demeanor had changed and she was not the Mom I remembered. I went to the local school board and got the instructions and study materials to get my GED. It didn’t look too hard and there was a testing opening that Saturday so I signed up and paid my money.

  I looked into the local community colleges and the one closest to my Mom’s house started in three weeks. I signed up for financial aid and my Mom remarked that I could sell ‘that guy’s’ car and make seventy five grand easy. But that car was priceless and I would never ever consider selling it. I didn’t tell her that it was my lifeline to him. It was like an artery to me and if it was cut from me I would bleed out.

  That Saturday I took my GED test and I thought I surely passed it. The community college accepted me with the stipulation that I passed my GED test.

  I spent my days keeping busy looking for work and my nights thinking about Cooper. I was sure he had moved on even though Aunt Brenda said he hadn’t. I called Edith once a week and she let me cry to her about him and told me everything he would say about me.

  I spent my nights sleeping in one of his shirts and wrapped up in the comforter I had bought for him for Christmas.

  Cooper

  I was sitting at the table in the cafeteria reading my latest English assignment. It was a book of poetry Pablo Neruda and it was not helping my heart at all. Remi’s aunt probably knew that and did it to me on purpose.

  I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

  To think I don’t have her. To feel that I’ve lost her.

  To hear the immense night, more immense without her.

  And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

  What does it matter that my love couldn’t keep her.

  The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

  That’s all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.

  My soul is lost without her.

  As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.

  My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

  A shrill voice brought me out of my poetry induced loathing.

  The table jerked a little when she sat on the other side of me.

  “So, Coooooooper. I was wondering what your plans were for prom.”

  “My plan is to not go.”

  Troy and Josie were sitting at the table with me and they snickered. They had been sitting with me since she left. We didn’t talk about her and if we did it was like they were afraid to say her name so they said her or she. It was weird.

  “What a waste. I think we could have a lot of fun together now that Jemi is gone.”

  I removed her hand from my thigh and huffed a breath out through my teeth.

  “Look, just because Remi is gone doesn’t mean there’s an opening. Got it?”

  “Well, the offer still stands if you change your mind.”

  She got up and left and the three of us laughed about it. As if I could even imagine dating someone else. It was simply out of the question.

  I got a 1720 on my SAT and was told by the college counselor that it was an excellent score and it made me eligible to skip all of the pre-testing that colleges usually did.

  We graduated in three weeks. I spent prom night at Gram’s apartment looking at pictures of Remi and letting her entertain me. I started BRCC in six weeks and I was ready. But I felt more alone than ever moving into a new stage in my life without my Pistol.

  Remi

  College, even this tiny community college, was different than high school. Teachers didn’t tell you what to do every day. You just got handed a syllabus and that’s it. I could handle it, no problem. But it was just different. I also worked a full time job to pay my Mom rent and handle gas and other expenses. That made it really tough.

  Mom was dating this guy named Ronald. He had a moustache that creeped me out. But the twins liked him and I guess he was treating my mom well. I had heard him tell her that once they got married, she could stop working. Isn’t that the kind of thing she always warned me about? I heard it again over dinner one night and asked her about it later after he had left.

  “Mom, you always told me not to rely on men. That they get what they want and then leave. But that’s what you’re doing.”

  She put her hand on her hip and waved her hand in the air.

  “Oh Remi, don’t be silly honey. I just didn’t want you to get knocked up in high school. I can’t believe you took those things so seriously. Good grief girl, lighten up.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me
! How could you say those things to me and not mean them?”

  “Good grief girl, you’re so dramatic. Don’t be stupid.”

  I thought about it all night through the dawn of the next morning. As the sun rose I laughed in realization of how dumb I was and what I had thrown away. It was a mix between unbelief and mental instability.

  How could she do that? Things she whispered in my ear as a child and drilled into me as a teenager that I had based almost my entire life on was just as important as a wave of the hand to her? How could I have been so stupid? I had left him because of some neon lighted sign philosophy that she had spouted to me with no regard other than I not get pregnant.

  The decision that I made at that moment crawled through my body like electricity. I knew what needed to be done and I had a little under three weeks to do it.

  That day I gave my boss my two week notice. I had two and a half weeks until finals. This community college had six week semesters so I already almost had one under my belt. After finals I could get there in time. I could get there just in time.

  Cooper

  Everyone told me that she wasn’t every going to come back. But I didn’t believe them. I couldn’t. They had no idea what they were talking about. I knew that once she did what she needed to do. However long that took, she was going to come back to me. I loved her too much to think otherwise.

  I had somehow managed to get straight A’s this semester. My GPA combined with my SAT score had qualified me for several grants. I bought my cap and gown and skipped the ring because I had a general aversion to rings since last Christmas day. I studied long and hard for those finals to make sure my grades stayed up.

  Today was my last final before graduation and I sat down at the desk armed and ready to give it hell. And I did.

  Troy gave me a ride home. He had gotten a truck for his birthday and had been chauffeuring me around when I needed it. He still called me stupid for giving Remi my car. But I think it was one of the smartest things I had ever done. That way she had a way to get to me again.