Forever Love

by Chelsea Landon

  My stomach grumbles threatening to throw up the little bit of coffee I had this morning. I lift my hand up to adjust my hat and pull it a little lower. Alexa steps closer to me. She’s standing right in front of me breathing hard.

  She reaches up and it catches me off guard at first when she pushes me backwards. My back is up against the kitchen sink. Jackie stands ready to put her mom hat on and break us apart. Macy slides out of the way just a bit and places a hand on her stomach. Alexa then starts beating on my chest with her fist.

  “Just because you’re fucked up,” Alexa motions to Madison who moved next to Macy, “or she’s fucked, doesn’t mean we’re not, you selfish bastard. I’m tired of seeing you two like this. It doesn’t mean that Cash and Macy aren’t dying inside either. We’re all fucked up forever.”

  The room goes quiet and Alexa’s hands fall away from my chest.

  I’m barely holding it in right now. If I thought losing my scholarship was bad this is so much worse. Hearing it come from Alexa cuts deeper than anything anyone could throw at me. She’s right we all are fucked up and I am being selfish and dealing with it in my own ways. My ways are fucked up, I know this, but I can’t find that slither of hope anymore.

  I don’t know what to say to her that will make any of this better. I’ve got to just get out of here. I look up and see Cash and that puts the icing on the cake.

  I leave Jackie’s without a word to anyone. No one deserves another apology before Steven and that’s exactly where I’m going.

  When I pull up to the cemetery not far from Jackie’s I rest my head back against the headrest giving myself a pep talk. “You can do this, Land. He’s your best friend.” I take a deep breath then reach for the door handle and climb out of my truck. It’s freezing and I welcome the bitterness.

  I take a few steps then turn around. I forget something that I brought for Steven. I find it on the passenger seat and toss it on my shoulder.

  I find Steven’s final resting place.

  Steven Daniel Griffin

  October 10, 1992 - December 5, 2010

  Your memory will always live on within the souls you touched.

  I bow my head and will the tears away. I take a seat on the cold hard ground and rest my back against the tombstone. Bringing my knees up to my chest I rest my arms on them and let my head fall forward.

  What do I say? I think to myself. I shake my head because now I’m asking and answering my own questions. So, here goes nothing.

  “Hey, buddy,” this feels so wrong but so right too. “I’m sorry it’s been three years before I finally came back for a visit. I figure you had enough time to cool off by now.” I laugh to myself.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I’m sorry. I never apologized.” I take a shuttering breath, “I’m sorry for causing you to crash. Everyone says it was just an accident and to not blame myself but I don’t see it like that. I shouldn’t have been drinking, smoking and carrying on in the car. I should have had my ass in a seatbelt and carried on with the partying when we made it to Cannon Beach. I’m sorry.” I scrub my face with my hands. I feel the knot in my stomach. “I fucked everything up, man.”

  I can’t hold the tears back anymore. And I don’t even try to stop them at this point. I cry for I don’t know how long…until my throat is killing me and my eyes are burning.

  “I’m sorry for not looking out for Alexa. You’d probably be trying to beat my ass up for not looking after her better but to be honest I can’t even look after myself.” I take deep breath. “If it weren’t for Macy hanging on to me I would have self-destructed by now and somebody would be visiting me out here as well. She’s the glue holding me together right now.”

  I look around and see an older gentleman lying flowers down on a newly covered grave.

  “I’m going to be better if not for myself, then for you. For Macy.” I roll my neck and some of the tension releases. It feels good to get this all out. “She might be pregnant, man.” I shake my head in disbelief. “Shitty timing but isn’t everything in life anymore?”

  “Macy’s that perfect ball that lands right in my hands leading me to score the touchdown. She’s my touchdown. I’ve spent so much time treating her like a defensive lineman trying to side step her and run my play.” It’s so easy comparing Macy to football for Steven, he’d understand exactly what I was saying. “She’s been trying to tackle me every day. Trying to slow me down or change my course but I know her moves even before she does. I beat her every time.” I shrug knowing that’s a lie. More like beat myself.

  I reach for a leaf on the ground and hold it up in the air and let the wind take it away. “I should be treating her like she’s the game ball that Coach gives me after the game. I was so caught up in myself that I barely paid her any attention. And she still wants me, like nothing has ever changed when everything has.”

  I pick up another leaf and let the wind take it away again. “She told me she thinks she is pregnant and you want to know what I said?” I shake my head. “I asked if it was mine. I was a fucking tool and I didn’t care. I lost my ride to school, to football, Macy told me she might be pregnant and you want to know what I was worried about? When was I going to get high again?” I laugh bitterly at myself. “What an asshole I am.”

  The freezing winter winds pick up and the clouds are turning grey. I stand and brush my jeans off. I take the jersey that I brought for Steven and lay it over the tombstone. It’s a Ducks jersey with Steven’s last name Griffin and his number, now mine, on it. “This is yours, man. Not a day goes by when I’m on that field that I’m not playing for you.”

  I stand there just staring at it before walking away. I don’t feel like going back to my parent’s house so I wander around town and end up where I always do.

  Canby High School’s football field.

  Going over to the bleachers I find Cash sitting there staring at the field. I should turn around and leave but I don’t. I need to do this too. It’s another step in the right direction.

  I climb the stairs and sit a few rows behind Cash. I wait for him to tell me to leave and if he did, I’d leave. It gets darker outside and a few snowflakes start to fall.

  “I’m sorry.” There I’ve said it. I don’t feel any better about it but it’s out there hanging in the air between us. The hardest two fucking words to say and it’s taken three years to utter the simplest phrase that means so much.

  Cash doesn’t respond or even acknowledge that he heard me. Okay, I deserve this. He turns his body and looks up at me. “I want you to tell me why? Why did you fuck my girl when you had your own?”

  I hang my head, “I didn’t fuck her.”

  “Did you want to?” he raises an eyebrow. “Don’t bullshit me either. Tell me the fucking truth.”

  “Honestly…at that moment, yes. I did.” He asked for the truth.

  “What else did you do with her?”

  “We made out freshman year while we were studying. We were sober and wanted to see if there were any feelings there. There weren’t.” I wait for him to say something, anything, but he doesn’t. So I ask, because it’s only fair, “Did you sleep with Macy?”

  He shakes his head, “No. I never touched Macy like that. Never even thought about it.”

  “So you didn’t do anything?”

  He smirks, cocky asshole. “I bit her fucking neck once trying to prove to her that there was nothing between us.”

  I wait to see if he blinks, it’s his tell. When he blinks he’s lying. It never comes.

  Kicking my feet up on the bench in front of me I stretch out. I think we’re done but we’re not, probably not even close.

  “You had no right to call Madison a whore.” That wasn’t what I was expecting him to say but now I know he’s talked to Macy and I’m not surprised she told him that.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry for that too.” And I am and I’ll apologize to Madison at some point too.

  “Why couldn’t you see that it wasn’t just you hurting?” />
  “I’m sorry that I don’t want to feel. Forgive me for being selfish.” Landon says bitterly. “What I can’t understand is that people can’t see that I’m not doing this for them. I don’t do it to feel this way. I do it to not feel.”

  Cash looks at me, really looks at me for the first since the accident. He sees that things will never be the same for any of us, especially for me. He sees the blame I’m holding on my shoulders. “It’s never gonna be the same, man.” I say then bring the beer to my lips.

  “I know.”

  Does he really know? Will he ever? I don’t think he’ll ever see it from my point of view. I have Steven’s death on my hands. “Do you?”

  I see Cash’s face getting redder. He’s pissed that I’m challenging him. “You have so much goddamn God-given talent but you waste it! You fucking waste it because you’re depressed. Yeah, I get it, I was there too. But the eighty percent you play at is better than most who give one hundred percent. If you put forth the effort you do into forgetting, you could go pro and probably be a number one draft pick.”

  I nod because what he said is the truth.

  “Earn it. Being like this is a slap in the fucking face to him. He died. You lived. What good did it do that you were saved and you’re living like this? What do you think he’d say about that?”

  Steven would be slapping me upside my head every day for giving into the depression, the guilt. He wouldn’t let me give into it. He’d make me fight; he’d make me see it from his side of it. Cash and I both know this but I want to know what he would do.

  “What would you do if it was you?” I want to know if it was him acting crazy what he would be doing right here, right now.

  “I would do what I do now. Live my life because dwelling on it doesn’t rewrite history. It happened. We can’t take it back.”

  Landon thinks about it for a half a second. “Why do you hold on to the past with Madison then?”

  “I have no idea.” Cash answers. “I guess I do because I want to.” He looks out to the field. “There are parts of our lives we can’t change, Landon. I know that seems like I’m being hypocritical, but second chances don’t happen often. I’m still holding out for my second chance with her. Hell, I still want to finish my first chance. We were robbed of that opportunity, it was stolen from us.”

  “But you’re not together.”

  “I know. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting that chance at forever with her again.”

  Cash and I stand in complete silence but it’s the good silence. The kind that doesn’t need to be filled. Maybe today is the day that Cash and I can start to be friends again. Maybe one more tragedy is what it’s going to take to bring us full circle, back to where we all belong.

  After I finish my beer with Cash I leave him to go Alexa’s house. I know it’s probably bad timing since she told me this morning she hated me but what I have to say can’t wait.

  I knock on Alexa’s door, tuck my hands in my front pockets, and wait. I knock again after a few second and wait. I know she’s there, she’s in her room, the light is on. I wait another second before I turn and start to walk away.

  “Landon?” Alexa says stopping me.

  I turn, her face is blotchy and tear stained. I walk right up to her and wrap my arms around her not caring if she tries to hit me again. She needs this hug just as much as I do.

  “I’m sorry.” I say. I don’t know if she heard me over her sobbing but I’ll say it a million times if I have to.

  “Landon,” She says with a shudder. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to stop this shit that you’re doing. I want you to be my Landon who always makes me laugh, the Landon who always knew how to draw a crowd and make himself look like a fool but yet had every girl after him. I want the Landon who never took anything serious. I just want you back. I need you, Landon. My life is so fucked up and nothing makes me even crack a smile because I know Steven isn’t here to make that happen.” She rests her head on my chest with her arms wrapped around me. “You’re the only other one who makes me forget what happened.”

  “Alexa,” I close my eyes briefly. “I’m sorry for everything. I didn’t mean to cause the accident. If I could change places with Steven I would. I’d do it in a heartbeat. He deserves to be here, not me.”

  Alexa shoves me away. “Landon,” she yells. “Do not say that. You do deserve to be here and so does he but he’s not. You. Are. Start living your life. It’s what he would want.”

  I shake my head, she’s wrong I don’t deserve to be here. “I miss him.”

  She gives me a sad smiles and tears fall from her eyes. “Me too, Landon. Me too.”

  I reach over and wipe the tears from Alexa’s eyes and then cup her face. “I’m sorry to you to for not being there for you. I thought you hated me and thought it was best to just stay away.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t hate you. I could never.”

  I smile. “It’s okay if you do.”

  She gives me that look and I shut up.

  “Fix yourself, Landon. There are a lot of people who need you. People you don’t even realize because you’ve pushed them away.”

  She’s talking about Macy. And herself.

  “It’s not going to be easy.”

  “It never is.”

  And she’s right. Nothing is ever easy in life. You either take it on head first or you’ll never survive and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. I’m barely surviving. I’m walking that last life line.

  December 8, 2013

  I promised Jackie that I would stop over today so that’s where I’m on my way too. It snowed last night but not enough that it would stop me from walking over there. I’m never breaking a promise ever again.

  Jackie is standing at the kitchen table, she’s elbow deep in cookie dough. I waste no time at all, quickly taking my jacket, gloves and shoes off. The shoes are one of Jackie’s pet peeves. If your shoes were wet, you better damn sure leave them at the door. I can still hear her yelling at all of us, including Steven’s brothers, when we would come in from playing out in the snow.

  “Morning, Macy.” She greets me with a smile.

  “Morning,” I shuffle towards the table. “Need some help?”

  She stops kneading the dough for a second and blinks a few times. She nods and I see her swallow a few times. I walk over to the sink and wash my hands. Jackie is well known for making dozens of cookies starting around this time of year and doesn’t stop until after Christmas. She hands them out to all the neighbors, probably the whole town.

  I start on a batch of sugar cookies while Jackie pours in some chocolate chips in hers and starts mixing again. I put the recommended amount of butter in the bowl and then add the sugar and blend it until it’s creamy just like the age-old recipe says.

  I hear someone moaning behind me and I turn to see who it is. Connor is standing in the entryway rubbing his stomach. “You couldn’t have waited until after I was up and back from the gym to start that?”

  Adam pushes him aside so he can walk past him. “No, idiot, you know how it is this time of year.”

  “Boys,” Jackie warns and both of their demeanors change instantly.

  Josh drags his ass into the kitchen looking like a hot mess. His hair is sticking up all over the place, he’s only got on a pair of boxers and he has pillow lines etched across his face. Either he hasn’t put two and two together yet and noticed me or he doesn’t care. I crack a smile, he doesn’t care. Steven was the same way around me, he treated me like I was one of the boys, like his family.

  “Josh,” Jackie looks from him to me and back again.

  He gets this smug smile on his face and goes to stand behind me. Jackie’s watching his every move. “Morning, Mom.”

  “Morning, Josh.” She huffs. “Go get some clothes on.”

  I hear him chuckle behind me and then his brothers chime in. “He’s better with taking them off.” I hear Conner mumble. It’s true. I think I’ve seen Josh naked almost as
much as Landon. He’s also the youngest and swore every day growing up he wanted to be like Steven and Landon but he’s better because they got the whole package in just him.

  Josh puts a hand on my hip, “Morning, Macy.” I bring my elbow up and elbow him in the gut.

  He coughs and I smile. Jackie chuckles under her breath. I can handle myself perfectly fine when it comes to the Griffin boys. Steven’s dad has always turned to putty once his eyes landed on me and Madison. He says if he ever had daughters he wished for them to be just like us.

  “So violent.” Josh says rubbing at his chest.

  I crack open a few eggs to add to the sugar and butter followed by the vanilla. The boys bustle around the kitchen raiding the cabinets for food.

  “I’m outta here.” Connor announces. “If I stay in here any longer there isn’t going to be a point in going to the gym because I’m going to eat my weight in cookies.”

  Adam gives way and follows behind Connor. Josh is sitting at the table eating some cereal. Jackie spoons some dough on cookie sheets and carries them over to the oven. When she isn’t looking I ball up a piece of the dough and throw it at Josh.

  He looks up smiling. God, I’ve missed being home. I thought it would hurt if I came over here to visit but it’s not so bad after all. Josh throws it back at me and it’s a perfect shot landing between my boobs. I look up with my jaw on the floor. He couldn’t do that again if he tried. Little shit.

  He jumps up and yells, “Field gooooaall,” and proceeds to double over in laughter.

  I shoot him a scowl that makes him laugh even harder.

  Once he’s contained his amusement, Josh picks up his bowl and rinses it before putting it in the dishwasher. He kisses his mom’s cheek, “See you around dinner.”

  “Bye, baby.”

  Josh winks, “Eight o’clock, my bed?”

  I start laughing and Jackie drops the cookie sheet on the floor. “Oh dear.” Jackie spins on her son. “Josh.”

  “You wouldn’t know how to handle me.” I toss back at him. It’s probably inappropriate but this is Josh, it hardly ever is.