You're It

by Shari J. Ryan

  Or maybe it’s just the guilt.

  For the first time in my life, I’m claustrophobic. Mom and Dad downsized their house after Blake and I moved out. They bought a one-bedroom condo, which seems smaller than the living room in our last house. I guess this works for them, but it’s not exactly the best size for dozens of our closest friends and family, which is why I’ve been standing by the front door for the past two hours keeping the exit close by.

  Most people haven’t had the balls to ask me what happened. They probably don’t want the details, and I don’t blame them. The ones who have said something have given their “don’t blame yourself” spiel.

  My vision glazes over as I watch the dark-clothed crowd chat in whispers. Are they talking about me? Telling each other I killed Blake? Pairs of eyes take turns, looking at me every few seconds. I feel like I did in grade school, sitting at a cafeteria table alone while everyone talks about my freckles, my underdeveloped body, and my nose always being in a book. I’m not that girl any more; part of me wants to climb on the table and announce that Blake’s death is, in fact, my fault. I just left him there to burn. I was so preoccupied with my own life that I didn’t even know he was home. Maybe that would make the chatter stop.

  These people are relatives, and Mom and Dad’s friends, and they’ve always admired me—a young woman with her head on straight, striving for a big career at a young age. It felt like I’d had the word “success” tattooed on my forehead from the time I received a culinary scholarship during my senior year of high school. I won a bunch of young chef awards, which secured me a spot at the Culinary Institute of America in New York. After spending most of my formative years as a hermit, I’ve silently enjoyed every second of the attention. I was my parents’ pride and joy.

  It’s amazing how quickly things change.

  God. I need to get out of here. I’ve spent the last hour planning my escape. The thought of finding a quiet place to sneak a cigarette weighs on my mind, something Blake would chastise me for if he were alive, especially after having been hospitalized for smoke inhalation just last week. But he’s not here now, which means no one is going to give me a dirty look or lecture me on how my one cigarette a day habit will kill me. Blake is dead. Gone. And I’m pretty much dead inside.

  Screw this.

  I push through the screen door and stalk down the front three steps as I suck in the sweet April air. I used to love the after-rain scent, but now it just reminds me of tears.

  “So sorry I’m late, Felicity.” Aspen, my sous chef from Sur Le Feu and my closest friend, steps out of her polished black Explorer, hopping on one foot as she slides her sling-back on the other. “Honey.” She reaches out for me, tears in her eyes, waiting for a hug.

  Another hug will make me cry again. I wrap my arms around my body and nod. She ignores my rejection and loops her arms around me anyway. She smells like lemon and cooking oil, another scent that used to bring me happiness.

  “Did you think about what I said last night?” Her hands close around my arms as she leans back to look me in the eyes. “You can’t sleep on your parents’ couch forever. And we both know you shouldn’t live alone right now. Come stay with me.” A thin smile stretches across her peach-tinted lips. “You need a friend. And I’m here for you.”

  She wouldn’t be calling me her friend right now if she knew what I had to tell her. What I should have told her last week. She’d probably hate me so much she wouldn’t be at my brother’s wake right now.

  I’ve been thinking about moving since she brought it up last night. She’s right; I can’t sleep on my parents’ love seat any longer. It’s been so hard listening to Mom cry herself to sleep every night.

  “Okay, but I should tell you something first.” Something that will likely make you retract your offer.

  “I know; you snore. It’s fine. We can worry about that later.” She pulls me in again for a tight hug before releasing me. “What’s important is you said ‘okay,’ which means we’re roomies now. Which also means we will get through this together.”

  Now is obviously not the time to tell her.

  “Thanks.” God, I hate the thought of losing more control over my life. I’ve always been the one to help a friend. I don’t like to take. It’s not me. But until I hear back from the insurance company, I can’t afford to make any decisions.

  “So…what’s this ensemble you’ve put together today?” she asks, her lips pinched to one side. “I think we’re going to need to go shopping later. I know you lost everything.” Her eyes scan over my face, examining me like I’m an exhibit in a museum. “You need cosmetics, too.” Only Aspen could get away with saying this to me right now. She knows I’m not one to leave the house with a hair out of place or without the right amount of make-up—just enough to appear as if I’m not wearing any at all. I iron my jeans. Sometimes, I even iron my underwear. I have to have things a certain way, or else I feel out of sorts.

  But everything is out of sorts right now.

  I glance down. The black slacks are my mom’s—tapered at the ankle and baggy in the thighs. My blouse has ruffles. And I’m sure my hair must look like it lost a battle with a high-powered hair dryer. None of it matters, though. “Maybe we should just leave now.”

  She shakes her head and gives a disapproving grimace. “Honey, you probably shouldn’t leave. It’s Blake’s wake.” Aspen isn’t normally the voice of reason. She’s the one always sneaking out of work twenty minutes early, snatching food off of people’s plates, and dating the kitchen staff. We’re nothing alike.

  “I guess.” We walk back into the house, reclaiming my spot against the wall.

  Aspen scoots up beside me, nudging her shoulder into mine while scanning the room with a bit of a snarl. “This is so awful.” The words hitch in her throat. “I can’t believe he’s gone. It’s not fair.”

  She’s right. It isn’t.

  Being next to the front door, I’ve seen every person come and go, which means I’m front and center when Tanner Holt walks in. “Liss.” His arms pull me against him as if no time has passed. He offers a warmth I’ve tried to forget over the past year. “I’ve called you like twenty times. Why didn’t you answer?”

  “Oh,” Aspen interrupts, pointing a finger at him. “She hasn’t been answering anyone’s calls. I finally tracked her down last night. Don’t feel bad.” Aspen doesn’t know Tanner, mostly because Aspen and I only met about ten months ago when she started working at the restaurant—shortly after Tanner and I broke up—so mentioning him was never necessary.

  “My phone was in the fire.” I look between both of them. “It’s why I haven’t returned your calls.” Even if I had a working phone, I’m not sure I would have answered anyone’s call.

  Tanner’s arm is still around my shoulders, his hand squeezing tighter as the seconds pass. I glance up to gauge his reaction to the crowd. This was all a little surreal before the wake. I knew what happened—I said good-bye to Blake seconds before he died. I heard the heart monitor cry out that piercing steady sound. I saw his chest expand and collapse for the last time. But it all felt like a bad dream. Until today.

  Tears are forming in Tanner’s eyes. Tanner and Blake had been best friends since kindergarten, which makes it twenty years now. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” he mutters. I wrap my free hand around his waist, letting him rest his chin over my head. His whole body convulses, racked with a pain I’ve come to know all too well. “It’s all my fault,” he says. “If I hadn’t canceled our plans last weekend…there was a game I didn’t want to miss. Such a shitty reason to bail on him.”

  I guess I’m not the only one feeling guilty.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” I say to him. I should be saying this to myself, too. Tanner releases me from his grip and seeks out Mom and Dad. They fall apart in his arms.

  “Your parents like Tanner, huh?” Aspen asks, observing the heart-wrenching scene.

  “He’s like another son to them. His parents are workaholics and were
never home for him.”

  “So you spent a lot of time with him growing up, then?” Aspen says, resting her head on my shoulder and slipping her arm around my waist.

  “Yeah…he spent most afternoons at our house. Mom usually fed him dinner after school, and he’d sleep over most weekends too.” Tanner offers his condolences to a few other familiar faces around the room, then joins me and Aspen against the wall. “Your parents told me to take you ladies out for dinner. They want you to eat something, Liss. They’re worried.”

  Free at last. I grab Aspen’s arm and pull her out the front door with me. Tanner follows us to her car.

  “Who are you staying with tonight?” he asks.

  “Aspen.”

  “Okay. Why don’t you two meet me at Escada?”

  We all agree, and I climb into Aspen’s SUV, not giving a crap about my car, which has been sitting in front of Mom and Dad’s house for the past week. Dad drove it here while I was in the hospital, I guess. I can’t get myself to drive it yet since Blake was always in my car. He didn’t have his own, and his stuff is in there, and it probably smells like him.

  The doors close, and it takes one second for Aspen to start talking about Tanner.

  “Well, he’s super-cute. And what a sweetheart.” No matter the occasion, Aspen is always one to note a good-looking guy. I can’t look at him like that any more though. “You said you grew up with him…is that all you did with him?” Her eyes ping back and forth between me and the road.

  I close my eyes instead of responding. It’s taking all my willpower not to reach into my purse and finally light that beautiful cigarette I’ve been dreaming about since I woke up this morning.

  “There’s more. Isn’t there? You’d better tell me right now, Felicity Stone.”

  I glance over at Aspen, who looks like she’s sitting on a bed of nails, her rusty red waves flopping around over her shoulders as her hazel eyes widen with excitement. “We dated for a year,” I tell her. “That’s it. No more to the story.”

  It’s obvious I’ve sparked some kind of excitement within her when she shouts, “I knew it.” Her hands slap the steering wheel. “So what happened? Why on earth would you break up with that?”

  Because of Blake, of course. He was very uncomfortable that we were dating. He was always harping on Tanner’s track record with girls and said he didn’t want me to be another notch on his bedpost. It put a strain on Tanner and me, and in the end, I didn’t want to hurt their friendship, so I reluctantly ended things. Which sucked.

  “Can we not go there right now?”

  “You need a drink,” she says. “Or four.”

  I need a lot more than alcohol right now.

  We park along the side of the road and find Tanner waiting outside the restaurant. “Ladies,” he says, opening the door and ushering us in.

  I know Aspen is dying to hear the rest of our story by the way she looks back and forth between Tanner and me throughout dinner. But tonight is not the night for it. She’s been after me for being single since I met her. While she makes herself happy in less orthodox ways (to her, it seems like men are a box of chocolates without a guide and she needs to take a bite of each one to see which flavor she likes best), I’ve pretty much had no personal life in the past year, which I’m totally okay with. She’s the one who isn’t okay with it; she’s always telling me how happy I’d be if I met someone. Maybe I would be, but it isn’t high on my list of things to do. Especially now.

  We manage to get through dinner without anyone noticing I ate less than five bites, and without Tanner asking if Aspen had something in her eye, considering the amount of times she winked at me. Each of the three times Aspen went to the restroom, Tanner tried to break the ice by mentioning a funny memory of Blake. There’s plenty to remember. Blake and Tanner played off each other with the never-ending jokes. The laughter was constant, and there was never a dry eye at the end of a meal with the two of them. But right now, I want to jump out of my skin.

  “Guys, I need to call it a night,” I pipe in over their chatter about which dessert is better. Thankfully, neither argues with me.

  Once outside, Aspen jumps into the car quickly as I say good-bye to Tanner. Maybe she doesn’t realize I can see her eyes glued on us from the rear-view mirror. But nothing is ever going to happen with us again.

  He leans down to give me a hug good-bye and whispers in my ear, “We’ll make it through this.”

  It pushes me over the edge, and I cry. I sob like I’ve needed to since the night of the fire. Everything within me heaves and trembles. Tears pour from my eyes, and I clench my arms tightly around his back.

  This is the exact reason why I’ve been avoiding hugs.

  “Hey, hey.” He pulls himself from my death grip and looks down at me. “We have to be strong. It’s what Blake would have wanted. You know he’d be laughing at us for crying today.”

  I nod, avoiding the use of words. There are no words.

  “Come on, get in the car. Get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow’s going to be hard enough.” He opens the passenger door, and I slide in as he leans down to place a small kiss on my cheek. “Like I said, we’ll get through this.” Today was only the wake. How am I going to make it through the funeral tomorrow?

  The second Tanner closes the door, Aspen’s hand covers mine. “Felicity, I’m so sorry,” she says. “I was completely out of line tonight, talking about you and Tanner. I was only trying to distract you from—”

  “My dead brother?” That sounded harsher than I intended.

  Her hand tightens around mine and tears rush from her eyes. “Dammit,” she shouts. “I’m so insensitive. I can’t bear to see you in this much pain. And I don’t know what to say to make you feel better. I intended to cheer you up tonight, but I think I went about it the wrong way. Can you forgive me?”

  Nothing is going to bring Blake back. Nothing is going to make me feel better. “Thanks for trying. Honestly, I appreciate you being here for me.”

  Our five-minute car ride was silent. We hike up the three flights of stairs to her apartment and walk inside. The usual mess is scattered about. Messes cause me panic attacks, and I have to believe she hasn’t noticed the smell from the dirty dishes or the overflowing trash.

  I want to clean so badly right now.

  “Sorry…I didn’t straighten up this morning,” she says nonchalantly. The fact that she isn’t embarrassed makes me wonder what’s wrong with me. I could never leave my house without cleaning it, just in case someone popped in unannounced. I would be mortified if they saw mail everywhere or an empty pizza box on the counter. I suppose it would be easier to not worry so much about living neatly, but it’s always given me a kind of comfort, too.

  “Hang on; let me grab some sheets for you and clear out the spare room real quick.”

  “Anywhere is fine, really. You’re already putting yourself out for me.”

  She shoos me off and dashes into the spare room. I hear a few things crash, and she returns with a crumpled ball of sheets. “Sorry they’re not folded.” She laughs. “I must be the only twenty-four-year-old who doesn’t know how to fold a fitted sheet. They should seriously come with an instruction manual.”

  “They’re tricky.” I join in her laughter, more forced than natural. I miss everything that was me. I feel like I’m living someone else’s life.

  I don’t know how I’m going to survive this.

  I wrap my arms around her neck, pulling her in for a hug. “Thank you for all of this. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Realizing this scares me.

  I still haven’t told her the one thing that will most definitely make her hate me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SLEEP DOESN’T COME. It hasn’t for the past week. I don’t even feel tired, and I don’t have a desire to close my eyes. It’s been an hour since Aspen’s lights went off. I heard her crying for a few minutes, but now it’s silent. I didn’t realize she was taking this so hard. I’m not sure. Either way I hope she does
n’t hear me leave.

  I need air. I snatch her keys from the coffee table and slip out the door, locking it behind me.

  My only focus as I walk is the seductive white stick I pull out of my pocket. With trembling hands, it takes me a second to steady the lighter, but within moments of my first drag, I fall heavily against a nearby tree. My desire for these things has grown exponentially since the fire. In the past, I’ve been able to satisfy my need with one cigarette at the end of each day, but now I find myself daydreaming about them from the time I wake up. Not a great sign.

  My heart rate slows, and I feel almost human again. While debating whether or not I should go back into the apartment, I stomp the butt out and pop a couple pieces of gum into my mouth. I don’t want to go back. Not yet. I keep walking until I end up at a small, unlit park—it’s the perfect place to be alone.

  The muted tones of the night pull me toward a little fountain, situated between a thick group of trees, and I find a bare spot in the grass to lie down.

  I used to lie in the grass at night, watching the stars, remembering what Gran always told me. The sky is a two-way mirror; us on one side, and our loved ones that have passed on the other. They’re in the stars, and they’re able to look down and watch over us. Gran left me when I was only twelve; I’ve made it a habit to watch the stars at night, in search of one that might be her. Now I have to find Blake as well.

  I close my eyes, relishing the cool air. When I open my eyes, I see fire in the sky. The red night overtakes the stars, taking away everything I love.

  Is this how it’ll always be?

  I squeeze my eyes closed once more, hoping when I open them, the sky will return to black. Instead, something wet pushes into my cheek, and my eyes snap open. Panicked, I push myself up on my elbows and come face to face with a dog. I think it’s a lab—not exactly threatening. But why is he alone? His tail wags and he nudges me with his snout. I look around to see if his owner is nearby when a flashlight shines in my face and startles me. I throw my arm over my eyes to block out the light.