I deflate like a balloon, dropping back down onto the couch. I stare at a spot on the wall, barely hearing the rest of Kit’s words. My mother answers, hovering around me and pushing the sandwich onto my lap.
I ignore it.
In jail?
My heart splinters, twisting and breaking inside my chest. Every bone in my body aches. My head thumps.
Finn’s in jail.
He jumped off a bridge, and the police caught him.
My eyes flick to Kit, who looks angry and heartbroken, and I wonder if maybe he’s right. Maybe Finn is too reckless, even for me. He won’t balance me out—he’ll drag me down. If he’s destined to be in jail or dead, is that really the type of person I want to be with?
I stare at the sandwich in my lap. My mom must have bought some fancy multi-grain bread specifically for this sandwich, because Kit sure as hell didn’t. I pick up half of the sandwich, staring at it.
It looks exactly like the other thousand sandwiches my mother has made for me over the years.
Boring. Safe. Normal.
But if I have to pick between ‘boring’ and ‘my boyfriend is in jail,’ shouldn’t I choose boring?
A tear slides down my cheek, and no one notices. My mother is too busy being outraged at the news of Finn’s arrest, and Kit is too busy unpacking his duffel bag. I recognize a lot of his stuff that had been in the office and the airfield, and my eyebrows jump up.
“Did you quit?” I ask him.
“Of course I quit,” Kit replies. “After what Finn did to you, not to mention getting locked up, I’d be an idiot to stay.”
I’d be an idiot to stay.
His words rattle around my skull, making the fears inside me laugh.
Isn’t he right? Isn’t that true?
Staying is madness. Finn’s life is bedlam, and I need stability. I’m not as strong, as tough, as mean as I think. Sure, Finn makes me feel good—but that’s useless if he’s going to wind up in trouble at every turn.
I let my family wrap me up in a blanket and lead me to the car. They load me into the passenger seat, and then I watch as Kit lifts my suitcase into the trunk—just like he did a couple of months ago, when the summer was new and exciting.
Except this time, his face is dark. He walks over to me, leaning against the passenger door opening.
“You okay?”
I shrug. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
Kit doesn’t ruffle my hat. His hand drops to my shoulder and he gives it a squeeze.
“What are you going to do?” I ask, not ready to say goodbye.
Kit shrugs. “I can do charter flights, and I’ve been meaning get my commercial pilot’s license. Might be time to get a real job. I don’t know yet. I have to go back down to California for the funeral, anyway.”
The light in my brother’s face is gone. My heart clenches. “Your mom?”
“Died last night.” His face is stone still. He swallows, and I resist the urge to cry.
“I’m so sorry, Kit. I’m sorry I made you miss that.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault. I’m just glad you’re okay. If I had to choose between you and her, I’d choose you every time.” He gives me a tired smile, and then he does reach over to ruffle my hat. I don’t even have the energy to pull away.
Kit lets out a sigh, gives me a small wave, then closes the car door. I watch him trudge back to his house as my mother clicks her seatbelt beside me.
“Let’s get you home,” she says, turning the key in the ignition.
The noise makes my whole body turn cold. My thoughts slowly drown and I crumple down on myself, staring out the window. I can’t cry. I can’t stop her. I can’t protest.
She’s right. Kit’s right. The doctors are right. Everyone is right in telling me to go back to Seattle. Everyone is logical and safe and normal.
But my heart is locked away in jail with Finn, and I already know he’s the only one who has the key.
32
Finn
“Gallagher!” The guard presses a button to unlock the holding cell. I stand up as he comes into view. He’s got a mustache that would make Burt Reynolds jealous, and I’m pretty sure he takes a sick pleasure out of seeing me locked up.
“You made bail.”
I let out a breath, waiting for the cell to slide open. My heart thumps. Kit didn’t answer my call when I tried him, so I don’t know who came to pick me up.
With every step that I take behind the guard, hope flutters in my chest.
Maybe it was Esme. When I step into the police station’s lobby, maybe she’ll be waiting there, all attitude and black eyeliner. Maybe she’ll throw her arms around me and kiss me hard.
That would be worth it. I’d sit in a dirty jail cell for a year if it meant I could taste her lips once more.
We turn a corner, and a door looms in the distance. The lobby is just on the other side of it.
Maybe it’s Kit who bailed me out. He could have come around and understood that I care about his sister, love her more than anything, and he’s here to extend an olive branch. Maybe, just maybe, things will work out. Kit will keep working with me, Esme will stay, and everything will be okay.
The problem with hope is that it opens you up to disappointment. It builds you up so high that the crash when you fall back down might as well kill you.
When I see Racer on the other side of the door, my heart turns black in an instant.
Esme’s gone, and Kit quit. The only person here for me is fucking Racer and his fucking stupid smirk.
I should be grateful. Of course I should be. Racer is bailing me out of jail, and I’ll be able to sleep in my own bed tonight. I should be happy, but all I feel is bitterness. My jaw is clenched so tightly that my entire head aches. The pain pulses down my spine and rests in the middle of my chest.
Racer flashes a smile at me as the officer leads me to a desk. I sign for my things, then turn to look at Racer.
He claps me on the back, laughing and leading me to the exit.
“Welcome to the club, buddy,” he says as soon as we’re outside. The sky is grey and overcast. I look up at the thick blanket of clouds, wishing it would dump rain down on my body. Maybe the feeling of cold drops on my skin would awaken something—anything—inside me.
As it is, I feel nothing but darkness.
“I saw the cops at the other end of the bridge and I knew they’d be at the bottom. I figured the least I could do was bail you out.”
“Thanks, Racer.”
“How was it?” He leads me toward his car in the police parking lot.
“How was what?”
The BASE jump? The mountain biking? The night in jail? The knowledge that Esme is gone and my best friend hates me?
“The jump, dude. The jump.” He laughs, and I hate him a little bit more.
Unfair, maybe. But true.
“It was fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yes, Racer. Fine.”
He throws up his hands. “Okay. It was fine. I get it, you’re in a bad mood. The holding cell was that bad, huh.”
“The cell was fine.”
“That was fine, too. Huh.” He walks to the driver’s side door, and my shoulders slump. I know I’m being an asshole. I never asked Racer to bail me out or pick me up. I never asked him to bring me home.
But he’s here.
The last friend I have in the world is the piece of shit who licked his chops every time Esme was in the room. The only guy who gives a fuck about me is a total scumbag.
Figures.
Maybe I should take that as a sign. I close my eyes and lean against the headrest as Racer drives me home. He cranks the radio up, drumming his hands on the steering wheel as he sings off-key. When we pull up outside the shop, Racer flashes a smile at me.
“Good work, Finn. Didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Neither did I.” I try to smile, but my lips just won’t move.
“Don’t worry about the court date. You’ll probably just get a fine. They won’t put you in jail or anything.”
I grunt, nodding. At least a fine is better than prison. What are trust funds for, eh?
Racer jerks his chin at me. “See you in the morning. We have a full day of jumps tomorrow, but Benji and I have got them covered. You look like you need a rest. Or a drink. Or both.” He laughs.
I grimace. “Thanks.”
He gives me a little salute, then drives away.
My apartment is cold and damp. The door closes behind me and my shoulders drop. I’m alone.
Again.
I used to cherish my loneliness. I hated when people clung around me—especially women. I hated having them sleep over at my place, because my apartment was my sanctuary.
Now, it’s about as comforting as the jail cell I slept in last night. There’s half a pizza in the fridge, so I eat a cold slice while I stand over the sink. I wash it down with a terrible-tasting beer.
In the bathroom, Esme’s toothbrush is next to mine. My throat tightens. I can still feel the echoes of her presence in this apartment. Everywhere I look, there’s a memory of her.
I pull open the drawer in the bedroom that I cleared for her, and nearly break down when I see her change of clothes neatly folded inside. I pull a shirt of hers out, bringing it to my face.
It smells like detergent, all traces of her scent washed away.
Underneath the shirt, though, one of her ever-present beanies appears. My eyes mist as I pick up the woven wool hat, feeling the stitches between my fingers. I sit down on the bed, elbows resting on my knees, staring at the hat in my hands.
A few forgotten items are all I have left of her. They’re the only things I have that reminds me that the last two months weren’t just a dream.
She was here. She was mine.
I let her go.
I pushed her too far and I hurt her. She was right to leave.
As my tears start to fall, I know that no BASE jump will ever compare. No skydive will take away the blackness in my heart. No amount of adrenaline can stitch my broken heart back together, because I lost the one thing that truly made me whole.
Esme.
She’s the only one that could see past my recklessness. She could smooth down my sharp edges and make me feel calm. She didn’t hold me back, like most other people do. She just made me feel like I didn’t have to try so hard.
When she was here, there was no void to fill. No hole in my chest. Nothing that needed an injection of excitement to make me feel alive—Esme did that all on her own.
And I lost her.
She’s gone. Her brother, too. All I have left are a string of women who think I’m an asshole and employees I don’t even like.
Sure, I have enough money to pay back my father. He’s giving me the trust fund money. I’ve built the skydiving business into a successful enterprise. We have enough revenue to last through the winter and re-open next year.
All for what?
What does it all mean, if I’m here by myself? No one to share it with. No one to wake up next to.
My body comes apart as I sit there holding her beanie. I wipe my tear-streaked face with the black material, feeling pathetic and weak and alone.
Always alone.
33
Esme
When I open the door to my childhood bedroom, a tiny voice at the base of my skull tries to scream that I’ve made a mistake. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t be here at all.
But the louder voice tells me I’m safer here. It’s warm. Comfortable. Secure.
I let my mother wheel my suitcase into my room and push another sandwich toward me. I sit on the bed, staring at the wall, before curling up into a ball and pulling the blankets up to my chin.
I sleep for thirty hours and wake up more tired than I was before.
My mother feeds me and tells me to rest.
I spend a week in a daze. Kit calls after his mother’s funeral, telling me he’s starting his commercial pilot’s license course in a few weeks. He says he’ll come visit me when he’s back in Woodvale. Another wave of exhaustion washes over me, and I crawl back into bed.
It’s hard to describe the weight that rests on my chest. For days, I can’t take a full breath.
I did the right thing by leaving Woodvale. With a serious concussion and a broken arm, I was in no shape to be on my own. Kit had to go back to California for his mother’s funeral, and Finn was in jail. Coming back to my mom’s house was my only option.
Even though I tell myself that countless times, it never really sounds true. It sounds like something you tell yourself when you know you’ve made a mistake.
Isn’t it supposed to feel good when you make the right decision? Aren’t you supposed to get some sort of sign from the universe that you’re on the right track?
The universe gives me two solid weeks of rain and an unshakeable sense of impending doom.
After another week, I pick up a sketchbook. The only thing I can think to draw is Finn. I draw his face a hundred times, filling up an entire sketchbook with memories of him. Then, I close it and stuff it in the back of my closet where I won’t have to look at it anymore.
The third week, I start going for walks. The doctors switched my plaster cast for a smaller fiberglass one. I can move my arm now, but the doctors still warn about my concussion. I can’t do anything more strenuous than short strolls—but at least I’m moving. Breathing. Existing.
I won’t say living. I know what living feels like, now, and this isn’t it.
One morning, as I walk outside and try to ignore my heartbreak, a plane roars across the sky overhead. My stomach clenches. Tears cling to my lashes as I watch the plane carve a line across the sky. I hug my arms around my middle, turn around, and go home.
Not even three short months ago, I was jumping out of a plane. I felt like a new person. Like I could take on the world. I felt afraid, sure, but my fear wasn’t holding me back.
Now, I feel like I’ve taken two steps back. I jump at every loud noise. I wear a beanie all the time—even in bed.
I try to ignore the feeling that I made a terrible, terrible mistake—and it’s too late to do anything about it.
After a month, the memory of Finn still hasn’t faded. The weather is starting to turn colder and the leaves are changing colors. Soon, the summer will fade into autumn. Winter will be long, cold, and dreary—but at least I won’t look weird wearing a hat.
I wake up on a Monday morning, and I can hear my mother singing to herself in the kitchen. I trudge to the bathroom and force myself to take a shower. When I step out again, I look at myself in the mirror for the first time in weeks.
My cheeks are sunken. My eyes are dim and rimmed in red. The skin on my arm above my cast is pale and splotchy, and it looks like I’ve lost a bunch of weight. My ribs are poking through my skin.
I look like shit.
My hair is growing out, at least. It’s an inch-long halo of fuzz around my head that’s starting to curl at the ends. I’ve gone from cancer survivor to Sinead O’Connor impersonator to human poodle. Lovely.
Like a flash, anger slams into my gut. It boils my veins until my whole body feels hot. It overwhelms the complacence and heartbreak and fear that has kept me in bed for the past month. I grip the edges of the vanity, trembling.
Then, I snap.
I wrap a towel around my body and stomp to my parents’ room and through to their master bathroom. Ripping open cupboards and drawers, I finally find my father’s old beard trimmer. My mom has all his toiletries still tucked away at the back of the cupboard, and my heart tugs.
She loved him, just like I love Finn. Sometimes, I walk into her room, and I smell a hint of his cologne. The bottle is right there beside the beard trimmer.
We both lost the men we loved most. But my father died, and Finn’s still alive. He’s still there, a couple of hours’ drive away, living his life. Being his crazy, adrenaline-junkie
self. Burning a hole through my skull—and my heart.
My hands shake when I plug the beard trimmer into the wall socket. I flick it on and it buzzes in my hand. I jump, startled. It’s louder than I expected.
I stare at my sickly face in the mirror and my jaw clenches. I grind my teeth together, meeting my own gaze. Isn’t this who I am? The cancer patient? The sick, weird girl? The fake punk goth who’s too afraid to do anything on her own?
Well, I’m not afraid of this. I’m not afraid of the pity-filled stares anymore. I don’t want normal, boring, long hair. I don’t want to forget everything I’ve been through and pretend I’m okay.
I’m not okay.
My eye twitches. The clippers buzz. I take a deep breath, then I carve out a long strip down the center of my head. Brown, curly hair falls down my back and lands at my heels.
My mother screams from the doorway, clutching her chest. “Esme! What are you doing? Your hair!”
I look at her, relishing the horror on her features.
“I’m shaving my head.” I turn back to the mirror, carving another line from my forehead to my neck. My mother shudders, taking a step toward me.
I ignore her.
When my head is shaved, I turn to look at her, arching an eyebrow. “What?”
Bits of shorn hair fall from my head as I run my fingers over my scalp.
Her eyebrows draw together and the lines on her face soften.
“Oh, Esme,” she sighs. “I’ll get the vacuum.”
After we clean the bathroom, I take another shower to wash the bits of hair off, get dressed, and follow my mother downstairs. She looks at my head with sad eyes, then points to the table.
“I found some colleges near here, Esme,” she says, her back turned to me as she heads for the refrigerator. “I thought you could have a look through. It’s too late to start this year, but you might be able to enroll for January. One of them has a special fine arts program. You could put a portfolio together.”
Can't Have You: A Stand-Alone Brother's Best Friend Romance Page 19