“I’m fine. It’s not like I haven’t been punched before. Just maybe not by someone abnormally huge like your brother.” My shoulders stiffen as I turn to face her. “Besides, I deserved one of those hits. Just maybe not the one you’re thinking of.”
Red floods her cheeks, likely because she knows exactly what I’m talking about and exactly how it felt with my hands all over her. I rake my eyes up and down her body, driving home the words.
With the pad of her thumb, she wipes a drop of blood from my upper lip then eases a step back to put enough space between us so I can’t feel the heat radiating off her body. “I’m sorry for the way my brother acted. And I’m sorry he had to trick your dad’s girlfriend into giving him your address. I’m even sorry I ran away, putting my mom on that train in the first place. But that’s all I’m sorry for. The rest is on you.”
“You lied about being a virgin.” She said it herself that day in Tattaway’s office: You want me to regret being with other guys. You want me to wish I hadn’t whored myself out…
“Not my fault,” she says, a slight shake of her head, “that you assumed I’d let just anyone inside me.” The sharp tone on that word—anyone—stings like hot coals, and I know it’s meant to.
“One more chance,” I say. “Please, Cambria, don’t walk away from this. From us.”
She shakes her head, but lays her palm on my chest. “I will never forget what you’ve done for me, how you showed me what living is really like and helped me get past my mom’s death, but I can’t trust you. And I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to.” She turns away and runs down the pathway to where her brother is waiting in his truck.
I shall make dust of history. Dust to dust.
Krister, no. He’s all I have.
Shit.
“Hold up,” I call after her. She needs to know just how unhealthy of a place her brother’s in. “You might want to keep a close eye on your brother. One of his messages was about turning history into dust.” I shift uncomfortably on my feet. “I think he meant suicide.”
She spins, an unexpected barely-there smile stretching across her face. “I shall make dust of history…,” she says under her breath and then with another step back and slight tilt of her head: “That song is about moving on, Krister.”
Once in the truck with her seat belt fastened, she closes her eyes and mouths the word go.
Moving on…right. Something none of us seem to be doing.
Chapter Twenty-One
I stare at the box of colored, glass rods in front of me. My eyes automatically avoid the pink—too much the color of Cambria’s lips. Purple? If I were making this bead for Cambria then absolutely; purple is her favorite color. Yellow is too sunny and too much the color of the shorts she wore the last night we spent together. Alessi doesn’t have shit brown, which is a shame considering that’s about how I feel. I pick up a black and dark blue—the colors of a bruise. Close enough.
Three whole weeks without hearing Cambria’s voice and I’ve turned into a complete rock ballad-listening sap. Crazy thing about it is—I don’t even care. Every waking moment of the day, she’s all I think about. Not being honest with her from the start was a mistake. A gigantic one. The more and more I think about it…the more I realize I believe what she said: she wouldn’t have treated me any differently. Cambria’s just not like that.
I melt the rods together until I have a small gather glowing orange in the center of the flame then pull it out to cool, stretching to make a stringer for the design on the base bead. I’m thinking black for that, too, when a Burn Me Up Inside song comes on the radio, and suddenly a flood of Cambria memories hit me.
Her eyes staring into mine.
Her hands on me.
The complete look of devastation as she stood on Wrenn’s doorstep and whispered the word “good-bye”.
I’ve heard it a few times now—this song—but it isn’t until now, with the lead singer’s voice echoing through my tiny workroom that I pay attention to the last line of the chorus.
The little known fact, once these words are out, I accept your death, I accept you gone.
The rod clinks against the counter, the thought clicking into place. That’s the problem: I refuse to accept her as gone.
I throw the stringer down and, as it’s hardening, find my phone. Cambria’s number, untouched for weeks, stares back at me. Whether or not she wants to hear me explain my side of the story, it’s time she does.
Hey. I start typing. I don’t expect you to have a conversation with me, but could you please hear me out? I hit send and watch the screen. A few seconds pass and then “…” appears. She’s reading my message, and the sudden awareness that this is the closest I’ve been to her since April clenches at my now-racing heart.
Then my fingers start to fly without a care that I’m about to sound ten times sappier than Ditty with Sam.
You know the story, and I’m not going to make excuses for keeping my name from you—that was wrong and deceitful, but I think it’s time to tell you everything. So here it goes…
This past year has sucked ass. Dad in jail, living in a shithole apartment under the guidance of my dad’s twenty-four-year-old girlfriend, failing my classes, and constantly arguing with my best friend about my obsession with the crash. Basically, I was a complete mess.
Until I met you.
After I learned who you were, I convinced myself that I could help you through your mom’s death, but the truth is I was spending time with you because I was addicted to your smile and craved your touch, and for the first time in a very long time my mind wasn’t on anything Metro related. I was falling in love with you, and while I thought about coming clean about my dad on several occasions, I was scared to hell to lose you.
Selfishly, I wanted more. Of you.
So you can hate me all you want, but I regret NOTHING of our time together.
I hit send, my fingers shaking, and watch as the “…” lingers on the screen for well over a minute. And it’s at this moment, as the door opens behind me and Cambria closes my text without responding, that I understand it’s going to take a lot more than a text to win her back.
“Doing coils or rakes?” a deep voice booms from over my shoulder. Quickly I resume, lowering one side of the stringer into the flame to sever it from the rod then look to Alessi, the bulk of his body filling the entire doorway to my workroom.
“Both,” I say. Because then it’ll look like hundreds of hearts, and right now I’m getting off on torturing myself with anything that reminds me of the girl who left me.
“You remember how to do both?” he says teasingly with a hearty chuckle. “Shocker!”
“Har har.” Alessi’s been whacking my ass with comments like this since I walked through the shop’s door—knowing my life was going to continue on this downward spiral unless I found something that brought even one percent of the happiness Cambria did—and asked for my internship back. Instead he gave me a job. And it’s like I never left.
The air in the room wafts as he toddles closer and slaps an envelope on the worktable beside me. “Your check.”
“Thanks, boss.”
He lifts the last bead I designed off the graphite paddle, turns it over in his hand a few times then sets it down without a word. His way of saying he approves. “There’s something else in there, too.”
Rods out of the flame, I lower them to the table and snatch up the check. It’s no thicker than a normal paycheck, so I have no idea what else is in there. I rip open the envelope and slip out my check for the last two weeks. Behind it is another for two thousand dollars.
What the hell? I look up at him, the hiss of the flame the only sound between us. “What did you do, and what do you want me to cover up?”
He laughs, his whole body bouncing like Santa Claus. “Consider this a bribe to stick around this time.”
“Is that legal?”
“Donkey’s ass if I care. It’s my shop.” Alessi heads back to the door, but stops a foot
shy and turns to me. “Listen, Krister, your dad and I have been talking, and we want you to get your own place. He doesn’t have the money right now and, well, I do. This is a loan, and you’ll need to work it off, but there’s enough there for a deposit and the first couple months of rent. And with this new apartment, I expect you to start living your life.” He spins and leaves, not even giving me the chance for rebuttal.
After work, I meet Ditty and the gang—meaning him and Jess and their now other halves, Sam and Shawn—at Krispy’s. Things between my best friend and me aren’t as smooth as they’ve been in the past, but we’re trying.
So now we sit at the corner table—Ditty next to Sam and Jess beside Shawn with me in a chair at the end like the spare tire to four intact. It’s weird hanging out with them, especially since both of them are in the annoying, go-gaga-over-each-other stage of their relationships and have no problem with PDA. Jess is happy with Shawn, and I guess I’m glad she is.
“What’re you doing tonight?” she dips a fry into ranch and says to me. She tucks her hair behind her ear. It’s gotten longer, or maybe it’s just she’s stopped worrying about me so much. Either way, she looks different now. “We’re all going to the movies. You should come.”
Ditty slurps his soda and says around his chewed-up straw. “Just say no, Ledoux. We’re seeing a lame-ass chick flick.”
At the same time, Sam whacks him on the shoulder and Jess kicks him under the table.
“You weren’t supposed to tell him!” Jess squeals, and Shawn laughs. Ditty was right; the guy is a little weird, but not half bad.
Ditty grins and says to the girls. “What? You want to trick him into seeing some dumb love story? I’m a better friend than that.”
Jess sets down her fry, her smile dissolving into a now worried expression. “Krister, we don’t have to see a romantic comedy. We could see something else?”
“No worries,” I say, crumpling my burger trash. “I’ve got something I need to do anyway.” Like get my shit together.
On the way out, with the door swish-swishing behind me, I spot a familiar face in the parking lot. One I remember seeing at the club that night Cambria escorted me back to her dorm room. The roommate.
Her back is pressed up against another girl, slender girly arms wrapped around her stomach and girly—definitely girly by how glossy they are—lips nibbling/kissing/licking her neck. I take all of two seconds to absorb the hotness of seeing two girls so close, a rusted Ford pickup as their backdrop, then swallow and open my mouth.
“Uh…Leesa?” Long, blond hair—straight as a board—caresses her elbow as she tilts her head to the side and peers up at me, narrowed crystal-blue eyes surrounded with a thick line of black. I step closer, my shoes scuffing the gritty asphalt, hands suddenly twitchy. A real person—someone who knows Cambria. The thought makes me feel too big for my clothes and too small all in one. Think, buddy boy. Think. Why am I here? What do I want? Say something.
I expect the girl to ask who I am. Or to say something about guys being dickwads and to leave her alone, but instead a smile breaks her sun-tanned face, glowing white teeth just like a Barbie, and spouts, “Rewrite!”
Her voice is much deeper than I remember, a bit on the husky side, but none of that matters because: “Huh?”
She giggles, carefully peeling the dainty hands from her white tank top, giving one a gentle I’ll-be-right-back pat, then pads closer to me in her gold, sparkly Toms. “You’re Cam’s guy, right? Or…ex guy, I should say. Rewrite.”
“Um…yeah. Yes. And I have no idea what you mean by ‘rewrite’.” I tug at the bill of my hat, the collar of my shirt— Jesus why can’t I keep my hands still? I shove them into my pockets, glancing momentarily to the girl—girlfriend?—behind Leesa, who has just pulled out her phone. I wonder if she’s friends with Cambria, too. Texting her right now.
Leesa laughs again, louder this time. “Sorry. Yeah. I don’t, like, have Tourett’s or anything. It’s just…that’s what I’ve been referring to you as since Cam rewrote number five on her list.”
A car sputters past then parks in the space beside the Ford pickup. I wait for more from Leesa, but she just licks her lips and smiles like I should know what she’s talking about.
“List?” I prompt because, well, I have no idea what she’s talking about. Cambria never mentioned a list. I hope it’s not anything like my list.
She nods. “Her bucket list? The one she made with her therapist after her mom died? I’m guessing by the what the heck way you’re staring at me she never told you about it.”
Silence. Yeah.
“Number five on the list: Fall in love.” A long, watery pink nail points at my chest. “Which I’m pretty certain she did with you. Crossed off number five with a big, black Sharpie, and then a few weeks ago I noticed it was rewritten. Fall in love. All caps this time—she can be so dramatic sometimes. I also noticed she started going to the train station again. Not a good sign—and I’m no shrink.”
I attempt to not focus on that fact—or the one about Cambria loving me—and make use of my parking lot run-in. Girlfriend beside the truck is growing antsy, and I’m guess my time’s almost up. “What else is on the list?” I try to imagine the things Cambria would want to do on her bucket list. Skydive, laugh until you cry… Those seem too cliché, and Cambria is anything but cliché.
“Oh, you know, the typical falling in love, being true to yourself, helping her brother BS. Honestly, I didn’t think Cam was actually going to follow through with completing it. The list sat untouched for months in our room. And then, I guess it was a few months ago, I noticed one by one the items were being crossed off. And rewritten.” She winks.
“Her brother?” I say quickly to brush off the dig. “What does the list say about her brother?”
She glances to the hazy gray sky for a moment, thinking. “Number eight: Get my brother back. You know, ’cause he’s a little—” She circles an extended finger near her temple. Cuckoo. As if I didn’t know. “It’s crossed out now, though, so I’m guessing maybe he’s on his way to moving on, too. She made him go to therapy.”
I nod.
And then I get an idea.
“Hey, um… Do you think you could get me a copy of this list?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Set foot on a train and not feel like you’re going to throw up.
Lose the big V.
Be true to yourself—AKA remove tattoo.
Make a difference in someone’s life.
Fall in love. FALL IN LOVE!
Be fearless, even if only for a minute.
Tell someone you’re sorry and genuinely mean it.
Get your brother back.
Six months, Cambria Marie Lockwood. Get going.
I stare at the list, at Cambria’s words. Under her therapist’s suggestion, Leesa told me, Cambria had begrudgingly agreed to make a list of things that would help her overcome the loss she’d suffered and start living her life again.
Leesa also decided to help me with my plan—once she was done scoffing at the utter impossibility of it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Over the next month I secure an apartment in downtown Chanton, exactly one-point-two miles from the train station, and throw myself into getting my grades back up. Agudelo—after much convincing and a free blue-glazed, ceramic bowl from Wrenn’s Wheel—decided to let me turn in my missing assignments for half credit. Apparently the guy has a soft spot for hippy-made pottery. It’s not much, the credit he’s giving me, but so far it’s boosted my grade from a D minus to a C minus, which is almost good enough to count toward the state college I’ll be applying for next year.
“Check it out,” my dad says as he enters my apartment. He’s moving with purpose, like a sperm in search of an egg, which is all sorts of wrong to think considering this is my father. “I found one. It’s a little rusted and is missing the engine, but it’s perfect.” He slaps an Auto Trader magazine on the table in front of me. A ’67 Camaro, just l
ike my last one. He smiles wide. “With my new job at the wood mill, Wrenn’s Wheel taking off, and you making more with Alessi, we should be able to pull it off.”
Things with Dad, over the last few weeks, have been slowly getting back to normal. We still argue at times, but that’s because—according to Wrenn—we’re so alike. There was a time when a thought like that would make my blood boil, but it doesn’t anymore. Being like him may not be such a bad thing after all.
Another two weeks pass without a word from Cambria. I think about her every morning, text her “sweet dreams” before bed each night, and wonder day after day if I’ll ever get more than “...” as a response. On the Thursday before my plan is set to fall into place, I settle onto my bed and text her the line I can’t seem to get out of my head.
Explore the forsaken inside. Implore these confines, now, as they penetrate, recreate me.
It’s a line from Burn Me Up Inside, some song called Bruised Blood that I’ve had on repeat since I downloaded it two days ago. I’m starting to understand Cambria’s fascination with this band, how it’s possible for music to get her through a really tough time. It’s sort of been doing the same for me.
I wait for Cambria’s “…” to fade from the screen then close my eyes and try not to think about what sort of reaction she’s going to have in less than twenty-four hours.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I’m standing next to a concession stand when I spot her walk in with Leesa, their arms looped together so they don’t get separated in the crowd of concert goers.
Ditty elbows me. “There she is. In the boots.”
I nod, stepping behind a large, round column to not be seen, watching as Leesa leads Cambria past a Burn Me Up Inside poster and down the stair-cased walkway to the seats I purchased for the two of them. The section has the best view of center stage, right where Lewis will start his walk into the audience at the end.
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