With Every Sunset

by Jane Stevie Lake

  Xander

  “I can’t believe I loved you,” I said, with a finality I didn’t feel.

  If I didn’t know better, I could have sworn I saw her heart break right before my eyes. But I knew better…right?

  Gerald, one of the guys on the team, had told me that Charlie and Ron and walked out together, and I knew Ron had been asking questions about me lately. I just didn’t think the girl I loved would be the one to tell him everything that was none of his business.

  But she had. I had arrived just in time to stop her from saying it all. How much damage had she caused? How could she hurt me like this?

  She gave me one last look before walking out of the quad, her friends in tow.

  The moment she turned into the hallway, I seized Ron by the collar. “You! I told you to leave me the fuck alone. Wasn’t that clear enough?”

  He glared at me, not cowering, even though he knew I could beat him to a pulp. “It was, until your slacking started affecting the team. Remember that? The team you’re supposed to captain?”

  “Fuck off!” I raged. “You fucking turned her against me! How many people do you want to take from me?!”

  He looked at me angrily. “Me? I didn’t turn her against you. You did that all on your own.”

  I punched him and he fell to the ground, where I knelt beside him and bashed him repeatedly. For Cole. For Charlie. He shoved me away and his nostrils flared at the sight of blood on his face.

  “Yes, I went to your girl. But I wanted her to tell you to start coming to practice. I might have lost my temper at her, that’s actually what I thought you were mad about when you stormed in here.”

  He wiped his bleeding mouth with his shirtsleeve. “But judging by the way you spoke to her, my disrespect is not the main issue here.”

  I looked around me, the haze that I had entered the quad with clearing up. I had yelled at her!

  “Does that explain whatever she was telling you when I got here?” I demanded, holding onto the fragments of justification of my anger.

  “Fucker,” he shoved me. “That was her defending you like her fucking life depended on it. That was her giving me hell for insulting your relationship!”

  No. No…she had to have been in the wrong. I couldn’t have treated her like that for nothing. God!

  Ron looked at me sadly and for a minute, I forgot about the two guys from the team who had led me here. I saw his sympathy at my realization of what I had done. There was no trace of the smug satisfaction I’d expected.

  He righted his shirt. “A year ago, you and I stood in this very place and you told me that I ruined everything I touched. Looks like I’m rubbing off on you.”

  He walked away before I could lunge for him and cause further harm. But honestly, I no longer had the energy for anything. Let alone finishing a fight I wasn’t even supposed to start.

  Charlie. My beautiful, sad Charlie.

  What had I fucking done?

  I tried to call her, the happy tone of her voicemail overshadowed in my mind by the crushed look in her eyes when she had left me. I felt worthless, exactly the way I’d felt the day we met. The day she intrigued me, and also scared the hell out of me. She had found me undeserving of love and happiness and she had made me believe in both. And I had paid that back by robbing her of love and happiness.

  The last time I had gone to fetch Mel from cheerleading after basketball practice, she had basically told me that she loved me, but I should go to hell. Cat and Lea had told me to take my apology and shove it up my ass. So I was back to square one, grovelling to Mel for the hundredth time.

  “Hmm, a smoothie,” she hummed. “They crushed the fruits just the way you crushed my sister’s heart.”

  God.

  “Hey, Mel.”

  “What do you want today?” she asked, tilting her head to stare up at me.

  I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to remember that no matter how foul my mood was, I wouldn’t take it out on a high scholar, especially one whose help I needed.

  “Same thing I wanted yesterday…Charlie, alright and happy. Forgiving me,” I said.

  She looked down at her feet, as if trying to figure out something. “You and I should sit down and talk.”

  I sighed, wanting any bit of information from her. I needed to know the extent of my damage, since her parents had told me to give Charlie some space and limit the calls I was making to their landline.

  We walked to a nearby pavilion and sat down, the silence of her impending words hanging between us. This was somehow worse than the sit-down I had with her father when I dropped Charlie off.

  “My sister wouldn’t just break down because you didn’t trust her,” she started. “That wouldn’t be a reflection of her if everyone else didn’t see her in the same light. If she didn’t see herself in the same light. Then, it would just be your inability to trust her.”

  I nodded, wondering where this was going. “But that’s the thing, deep down, I do trust her.”

  “Well that’s not good enough if you can’t tap into the feelings of trust deep down fast enough when you get angry,” she said, matter-of-factly.

  I was being chastised by a sixteen-year-old. And I deserved it. Had Cole been fine, I would’ve also been chastised by a nine-year-old, because clearly, I was an idiot.

  “I know,” I said, pulling at the distressed denim fragments on my knee. “And I hate myself for not trusting her and her feelings for me.”

  “Not to mention her loyalty and commitment to your relationship,” she quipped vindictively.

  I winced, as I did each time I was reminded of how much I’d hurt her and what I could stand to lose if she walked away.

  “You have to know-she has to know-that this is high up there on my list of regrets. And if I can just talk to her, just once, I’ll try to make it right.”

  She sighed, and I could see her sympathy for me warring with her loyalty to her sister. “Let me ask you a question: What would hurt more, having your arm broken in one game, then your leg in the next, or having the same leg broken-at the same spot-just after you’ve recovered from the last injury.”

  I didn’t have to consider it. “Definitely having one leg suffer the same trauma twice. It weakens the leg and prolongs recovery time. Sometimes, players don’t even come back from it.”

  Having no idea why my basketball knowledge was relevant, I had gone into expert mode. But I didn’t need to think about that, I needed my girlfriend back.

  Mel frowned before taking deep breath. “Good thing you see it that way.”

  I raised my head in confusion and stared into eyes the same beautiful shade of brown as Charlie’s. Charlie whose beautiful brown eyes had looked so hurt and broken because of me.

  “Why?” I finally asked.

  “Because for Charlie, this is history repeating itself. It’s not her first rodeo,” she said flatly, taking the smoothie I’d bought her from my hand before getting up to leave.

  Xander

  This is history repeating itself…it’s not her first rodeo.

  The words repeated themselves inside my head, each round bringing an aching that went far deeper than the physical.

  What had I done to her? Was I no better than Oscar, or whatever her stupid ex boyfriend was called? I had ordered her to forget him, but my actions had likely just taken her back to his.

  I had run after Mel and insisted on driving her home, just to make sure that I didn’t endanger anything else Charlie treasured. I had made her promise that she would convince Charlie to pick up my calls. I had also sent flowers to her, for the second day in a row, yet I knew it was inadequate.

  I dialled Charlie’s number, and almost as I was about to lose hope, she picked it up. Only it wasn’t her.

  “What do you want?” a male voice demanded.

  It didn’t sound like her father, and I felt gutted. “Who are you, and why did you pick up her phone?”

  “Because you’ve been calling non-stop and she hasn’t wanted to ta
lk to you,” the simple response came.

  I seethed, “So, she sent you to talk to me? Listen here, stay the hell away from my girlfriend.”

  The laughter on the other end of the line was cold and angry. “And you stay the hell away from my little sister.”

  He dropped the call, leaving me shocked. David, that was his name. Charlie had mentioned having a brother in Australia. So much for mending fences. I had completely blew it, and now she wouldn’t listen to me at all.

  Wait, she would. I had to believe she would. If she didn’t, I would grovel and wait until she did. I would prove to her that I loved her more than anything, and I was beyond sorry for my actions. Her angry brother, protective parents and even her pissed-off friends were not going to stop me. I had to get my girlfriend back, she was the love of my life.

  It took one argument with Charlie for me to feel like my whole life was in shambles, and I hated myself for depending on her for my peace of mind. Without her, all those calming reassurances she whispered in my ear faded into the darkness, paving way for my darker thoughts. But I would prove to her that I better than my worst behaviour. Even if it took me forever.

  After spending an hour parked outside Charlie’s house with her father telling me that she still refused to see me, I drove to the hospital. There was a trainee nurse at the front desk, and I walked over to sign myself in.

  “You said your name is Alexander Hastings-Turner, yes?” she asked, biting her lip and smiling shyly.

  “Yes, I’m on the preapproved visitors’ list,” I informed her.

  “Room 34?”

  “Yes,” I said flatly, just wanting this whole conversation to be over and done with.

  She rechecked something on the screen, seemingly confused.

  “Is everything alright?” I asked, dread seeping into my bones.

  Nothing was wrong with Cole, right? What if…

  “Uhh, there must be a mistake of some sort. A Mr. Alexander Hastings-Turner is already in the room with him right now.”

  What? “I might have forgotten to check out,” I lied.

  I rushed from the front desk and ran straight to my brother’s room. Someone was in there pretending to be me, and I had already failed him once, I wasn’t doing it again. I heard a voice just as I got to the door, and I immediately knew who it was. Ron. His words had my hand frozen on the door handle.

  “I guess I was so caught up in being defensive over Alex’s anger to admit the truth to myself,” he sniffed. Was he crying? “You looked up to me, and you’ve always been a younger brother to me. And not only did I fail you, I also didn’t see what I had done for a long time. Not until just yesterday. Alex, that fool, has got a really wonderful girlfriend. She made me realize how much I was at fault. I’m so sorry, Cole.”

  I quietly opened the door and stood at the entrance. “I don’t know whether Alex will ever forgive me, because I fucked up. Bad word, I know. But really, I fucked up then, and I fucked up by ruining Alex’s happiness. I also fucked up by not coming to visit even once, and I know that my fear of guilt isn’t an excuse.”

  He was quiet for a moment, then laughed. “You’d like Charlie, though. She scares me, and I’m pretty sure she scares X sometimes. You’ve always called him that, X. Everyone else calls him Alex, but Charlie, she calls him Xander. If you were awake and well, we’d be teasing him about it-”

  “And I’d whoop both your asses,” I interjected softly.

  He jumped in surprise and turned to look at me. His face was tear-stained, something I hadn’t seen since we were kids. We stood there, staring at each other in silence. We hadn’t stood this close to each other without me wanting to mangle his face in a long while.

  “Alex,” he said, standing up in alarm.

  I went to sit down on the other side of Cole, opposite Ron. “What are you doing here?”

  He sat back down and exhaled, wiping his face on his shirtsleeve. “I don’t know-I…guess I came to apologize.”

  I nodded, unable to escape the awkwardness of the situation. “Why now?”

  He dropped his head into his hands and for a minute, I thought he didn’t have an answer to my question. “Charlie said something to me in the quad…before you arrived. It made me realize that I didn’t just betray you that night. I failed Cole, and I failed both of you afterwards.”

  She had a way of getting people to realize things, my girl. I just hoped it wasn’t too late for me to make her realize how much I regretted my actions.

  Ron cut into my thoughts. “You seen her yet?”

  I shook my head, unsure whether he was the person I wanted to have this talk with. “She doesn’t want to see me.”

  He nodded silently, and for the next couple of minutes, the only sound in the room came from the beeping machines.

  “For the record, I didn’t try to hit on your girl. I respect you too much for that,” he spoke suddenly.

  I snorted. “Like you respected me enough not to let my drink get spiked last year?”

  He winced and rubbed his eyes with his hands. I immediately felt guilt over my words. I opened my mouth to speak and his shoulders started shaking. He heaved, and I realised he was crying. I hadn’t seen Ron cry since we were eleven when Michael Jackson died. I surprised us both when I got up and walked over to where he sat, embracing him in a cautious hug. He froze for a moment, and I realized that since the shooting, the only contact I’d had with him off the court had been violent.

  “I’m so sorry, man,” he sobbed. “I shouldn’t have let them play that stupid prank on you.”

  This was the first genuine apology I had gotten from him and it gave me comfort I hadn’t anticipated. But my self-blame did not dissolve like I always told myself it would if he admitted that he had, indeed, screwed me over.

  “You’re right, but I shouldn’t have blamed you for everything after. You didn’t shoot Cole. And if I had gone home earlier, I might have died. I might not have met Charlie.”

  “You love her, don’t you?” he asked quietly.

  I sighed, knowing that acknowledging to him that I did would only make me hate myself more for thinking the worst about her. “I don’t deserve to.”

  “Go and apologize, Alex,” he advised.

  “How do I get through her family and her anger?” I asked more to myself than him.

  “You can, you’re just caught between fearing her forgiveness which you think you don’t deserve, and her rejection, which you know you’ve earned.”

  “When did you become smart?” I scoffed.

  “When I realized that my dumb decisions had consequences.”

  We retreated into another moment of silence, this one more comfortable. I was staring at the fan on the ceiling when Ron’s exclamation jolted me to attention.

  “Did you see that?!” he asked with wide eyes.

  “See what?”

  “He-he moved. Just now, I saw it,” he said, his eyes moving between Cole and me.

  I sat upright. “He did? Last week, he held onto my hand, but I don’t think the nurses believed me.”

  “Yes, he definitely moved his hand.”

  I didn’t call Nurse Jill this time, I wouldn’t let anyone steal my joy at this small step in the right direction. Cole would prove them all wrong, I just knew it.

  We spent another half hour in the hospital room, talking about random stuff. We weren’t mended- we were still a bit off -but I knew this was another step forward. It just hurt that the first person I wanted to tell all of this was Charlie, and she wanted nothing to do with me.

  “I’m going to Charlie’s.” I blurted.

  Ron nodded in understanding. “You should.”

  “I don’t care if I have to bulldoze past her entire family,” I added, a new sense of resolve planting itself inside me.

  He stood up to walk out with me, and we were outside the hospital when I decided to ask him something that had always puzzled me.

  “Ron?”

  “Hmm?” he asked, stopping in his tr
acks.

  “Why didn’t you ever fight back? You could have thrown a punch or seven every time I attacked you since the shooting. Why didn’t you?”

  He sighed, hooking his thumbs into his jean pockets. “Because, you needed an outlet for your rage, and I didn’t deserve to fight back.”

  I winced at his response. Ron was strong enough to fight me, but he hadn’t, probably because I had made him feel as bad about himself as I did about myself.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

  “It’s alright.”

  “No, not really,” I argued, for the first time acknowledging that I had also treated him badly.

  We went our separate ways towards opposite parking lots before he called out to me. “Alex”

  “Yeah?”

  “Try not to cause any damage to property or invaluable human beings, she might not feel inclined to forgive you if you land her father in hospital,” he teased solemnly.

  “Haha, funny.”

  Xander

  When I said I would bulldoze past her entire family, I hadn’t banked on her brother being a mountain of a man.

  I had called Charlie about a hundred times that day, and Mel had started answering after every five missed calls. It was safe to say I was certifiable, but it wasn’t easy for me to be away from her. It took me to some very dark places, literally. The only thing that brought me back from that was the fear in her eyes when I had told her what I was doing parked at the edge of a cliff. Finally giving in to my baser nature, I decided that I wouldn’t let her family’s polite dismissals and her ignoring me at her window stop me from seeing my girl and asking for forgiveness.

  “Ah, you must be the infamous Alexander,” her six-foot three brother said.

  I captained a basketball team, I was tall. But this guy was almost as tall as me and built like Dwayne Johnson. In my head, I reminded myself again of how much Charlie meant to me because if it came to it, I would bulldoze past him…or die trying.

  “Yes, hello. Can I talk to Charlie?” I asked.