Twist Into Me

by Devon Ashley

  I picked up one of the orange peonies and twirled it beneath my nose. For some reason I tried not to smile, even though I was pretty sure I was close to talking myself into obliging his request.

  I think I spent the entire day smiling. Through breakfast and well past lunch. Nana probably thought it was because of the flowers. Little did she know about the sweet words hidden inside that tiny envelope.

  Stay.

  That word made me sigh every time I thought it, which was set to repeat every five minutes, reminding me of what was to come the moment I said yes. My smile grew larger when Brady’s text came in asking me if I found my surprise. What surprise? I answered the first time, followed shortly after with, Sorry, haven’t seen anything.

  Liar, he wrote. Louise said you got it.

  Dang it! I totally forgot she was probably in on it. Of course he’d ask her if I’d found it yet. I sent an emoji of a hand smacking the character’s forehead.

  He called me after that, but I let it go the full six rings before voice mail would pick up. “Tease,” he immediately said. I chuckled and replied, “Sadly, not a very good one. Nana seems to be cramping my style.”

  “She keeps you honest.”

  “That she does.” I could hear the wind whipping in the background, like he was driving with the windows down in his truck. “Classes done for the day?”

  “Yup. Now I’ve got to go whip my brother on the bike trail.”

  “Are you two still all competitive? Weren’t you supposed to grow out of that?”

  “Never. So did you get my note?”

  “I did,” I replied, letting the silence drag out between us.

  “And?” he finally prompted.

  “And…you’ll have to wait until tonight to hear my answer.”

  He laughed loudly, but replied, “All right. Fair enough. Pick you up at eight?”

  “Sounds good. So what are we doing?”

  “Guess you’ll have to wait until I pick you up to find out, sweetheart.” He hung up on me before I could get another word in.

  Sweetheart… I could definitely get used to hearing that.

  It was Wednesday, so that meant Rose and Helen spent a good chunk of their afternoon at the bistro set inside the store, sipping tea with some extra special spice to liven it up. Nana had gone by the bakery in the morning and purchased a box of various pastries for their afternoon. Tortes, macarons, tiny cakes. Just a smorgasbord of sugary sweets that had them yippin’ in a pitch so high even a dog would’ve had a hard time deciphering what they were saying.

  I just kind of giggled from afar, sweeping in here and there to catch a phrase or two of their outrageously inappropriate banter…and to snatch the occasional sweet. They asked me several times to join them, but I wasn’t going to intrude on Nana’s girl time, so I occasionally hit the speed dial on my cell to call the shop’s number for an easy way out.

  Karma decided I needed to pay for my dishonesty, because at three-thirty, I had already been on the phone for twenty minutes dealing with a long-winded customer who, one, didn’t know what she wanted to order for the party she was throwing for her best friend’s thirty-fifth birthday, and two, wasn’t capable of finishing one coherent thought before another came along to distract her. I had been given the beginning of four very different stories already and left hanging for every single ending. It was like someone telling you the beginning of a joke and completely forgetting the punchline.

  Not surprisingly, I was beginning to tune her out. Twice already I had to send another caller to voice mail, because I was determined to let Nana enjoy her afternoon off.

  “And then she said she couldn’t do it. And then I said–”

  “Ma’am?” I interrupted, about ready to stab my pen in my ear, “what about a mix of fall flowers? We could put some hydrangeas in there, some asters, sunflowers–”

  “My goodness no! Sunflowers are a no-no with Samantha…”

  The woman continued on, beginning yet another pointless story when brakes squealed somewhere on Main Street. My eyes immediately searched, expecting the sound of a crash to follow, maybe even some screams if it involved a jaywalking pedestrian. An old blue RAV4 came to a screeching halt right in front of our store. I recognized it as Sarah’s just as she bolted from the driver’s side and began running our way, leaving her car blocking the east bound lane.

  She threw all her weight at the door, slamming it open without mercy, knocking the wind chime clean off. Nana must’ve rushed over, because suddenly she was beside me, her hand moving silently over her heart. Mine was kind of jumping around too.

  “Why the hell aren’t you answering your phone?” Sarah shouted angrily.

  “It was dying. I plugged it in upstairs during break and forgot about it. What the he–”

  Her hands cut through the air as she shook her head. She seemed out of breath even though she hadn’t been running. “There’s been an accident. On the trails. I think it’s Brady and Owen.”

  Nana’s eyes widened just as much as mine. The muscles strained and stung so much they ached. “Go,” she ordered, taking the phone I didn’t even realize I was passing. The woman’s voice was still going, completely oblivious to our plight. I slung myself around the counter and ran out the door after Sarah.

  I didn’t have my bag, my purse, keys, nothing. All comprehension was abandoned in that moment. We both dove into her vehicle. The angry drivers lined up behind her were outside their cars shouting obscene phrases at her for stopping traffic. She slammed the gas, throwing our bodies back into the cloth seats.

  “Okay, what the heck is going on?”

  “I don’t know. Matt and I were making an early dinner when he got a call from a friend. Said he was out running and saw an accident on the trail. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought they were friends of Matt.”

  “They were going cycling,” I said numbly. “Is anyone hurt?”

  Sarah shrugged, taking a right turn so hard and fast her tires squealed. My fingertips dug into the seat for support. “I don’t know. All he said was EMS was being called. I dropped Matt off at his truck before I came to get you.” She reached down for her phone and glanced between it and the traffic she was speeding through. “Now my damn phone is dying,” she muttered, slamming it back into the cup holder. “Grab the charger out of the glove box?”

  I rummaged through the endless supply of various napkins and pens with the pub’s logo printed on it. Once I found it I connected it for her, not wanting to need an ambulance for ourselves.

  “He didn’t tell you why EMS needed to be called?”

  “Sorry, no. And we tried both their cells but no one’s answering.”

  I sighed, temporarily burying my eyes in my hands. My heart felt strained. It hurt to breathe. Worry coursed through my veins like the line leading to a stick of dynamite, sparking the entire way until an explosion near my gut practically floored me. It’ll be okay, I told myself repeatedly. It may not even be them.

  The afternoon sun was blinding me without my sunglasses, which were tucked away in the bag I didn’t bring. “I’ve never been on the trails they use. What are they like?”

  “The trails themselves aren’t that bad, but there are some off-road paths that hikers and bikers like to use. Unpaved. Really rocky and steep at places.”

  I groaned inwardly. That sounded exactly like the type of path two competitive brothers would take. Please be okay. I imagined Brady slipping and skidding down a steep incline and flying off his bike, the unforgiving ground beneath him scraping at his skin so badly it sloughed off.

  Sarah’s phone chimed, temporarily cutting off that horrible imagery. I jumped over the unexpected jingle piercing my ears. She held the phone between her face and the windshield, eyes moving back and forth between the two. When she didn’t say anything, I fearfully asked, “What?”

  “Matt’s just telling me where he found the ambulance so we don’t drive around like he did.” She put the phone down again and cut across two lanes of traffi
c to turn left. “We’re almost there.”

  Almost there ended up being the longest ninety seconds of my life, and more than enough time for my mind to screw me over. It wasn’t sure if it wanted to show me awful predictions of what happened to Brady or sweet nothings between us to come. We were supposed to have dinner tonight. It was supposed to be a sweet moment, me agreeing to stay in Campbellsville a little longer to see if this was what we both really wanted.

  And I did. Want this. Nothing like a little scare with death to make you figure out what you really wanted lickety-split. And I was going to hit him for that later. For making me freak out like this. For making me worry.

  The ambulance lights were easy to spot. As were the two police cars illegally parked around it.

  Oh, shit. Not good.

  Either a lot of people were out using the trails today or the multiple emergency vehicles caught the attention of enough gawkers to fill the small lot at this entry point. “Go,” Sarah ordered. “I’ll find a spot and meet you.”

  By the time I nodded my head I was already closing the door. I hurried down the dirt and gravel path, running faster than some of the people in workout wear. I had no idea where I was going, so I just kept running. It wasn’t until I came across a piece of yellow caution tape tied to a tree that sat beside an off-road trail that I became confident I was going the right way. I still had a ways to go, on a path that wasn’t meant to be run on. I didn’t slow down until I found the crowd.

  I was heaving in and out, my hand pressed against my right hip, trying to combat the sting of pain radiating outward. My heart burned. My lungs stung with each gulp of air.

  My mind was only able to take snapshots of the scene before me. Two bikes thrown to the ground, one more scuffed than the other, like it had a rough landing… Two paramedics and an officer leaning over a body before a tree with a really thick trunk… All I could see of the guy on the ground were his legs, facing downward, and a helmet stained red on the inside laid carefully behind the closest paramedic.

  I didn’t know who it was. It could’ve been anyone, not just one of the two I feared.

  That was until I turned my head to the right, and saw an officer standing beside a guy crouched on the ground, rocking back and forth, his hands in danger of ripping all his hair out. Streams crashed over his cheeks like a waterfall. There was no way Owen could see me standing there. Matt was even farther to the right, his face contorted in a miserable way, eyes pinched shut, his head rocking side to side without stopping.

  Sweetheart.

  I could hear it in the wind, like him whispering it in my ear, and a tear shot straight to the ground.

  I don’t know what happened next. Or in the days that followed. But in that moment I knew. I just knew. And as quickly as an invisible force staked my heart with the intensity of a fiery explosion of fire and ice, something inside me completely snapped.

  This was wrong, wrong, wrong. The flowers, the day, the bird in my way, the hard chair that was cutting into my thighs. I couldn’t keep still, couldn’t stop rocking, and the chair wouldn’t rock with me. I was cold – so cold even in the sweltering heat of the summer day – and I was hugging myself but the sky was blue. The sky was blue but Brady was dead and Brady was lying in a coffin on a blue day with no clouds and there should’ve been clouds. So many clouds and rain and thunder and no singing birds. Why were they singing? They shouldn’t be singing.

  People were whispering, talking about Brady, talking about me, looking at me but I didn’t care because no one should’ve been here on a blue day anyway. It should’ve been gloomy and sad because that was how I felt and how they should’ve felt. Tears were falling but I didn’t stop them. They were blurring my vision, blurring out the blue sky and the whispering people but not the bird on the hat on the woman in the second row who blocked my view of Brady’s coffin, whose dead body lay inside. Who died but whose brother lived and was sitting somewhere on the right near the front but who I couldn’t see because the tears blurred out everything but the damn gray bird that blocked Brady’s coffin.

  Fly away little birdy, fly away.

  Brady was gone, gone, gone and everything was wrong. The sky was blue and the flowers had white lilies and pink stargazers but Brady hated white lilies. I should’ve said something. Nana probably made them and I didn’t say that Brady hated white lilies and now there were white lilies all around us. The sky was wrong, the flowers were wrong, the chairs were wrong. Brady and his broken neck were wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Nana’s arm looped over my shoulder and pressed down but I wanted to rock, rock, rock. And now some man in black was talking but my eyes were too blurry to see but I knew he stood before a blue sky when it should’ve been gray. Gray like that bird that wouldn’t fly away.

  Shoo bird, shoo. Fly away and tell the others to shut up.

  And now the world was in motion but I rocked, rocked, rocked. My hands were clammy and slippery against my bare arms. My vision was like a blurry kaleidoscope, with so many colors bending with the light, so much movement, dizzying my head. I closed my eyes and rocked, trying not to think about the blue sky and the white lilies and the man with the nasally voice who spoke for way too long.

  Brady was gone, gone, gone, but he was just right here, here kissing my lips. Sweetheart. I could still feel his lips on the slope of my neck. He was just right here but now he was gone, gone, gone; just right here telling me he didn’t like white lilies and making my lips smile against his.

  Stay… How could he ask that of me when he was the one who was gone, gone, gone?

  I opened my eyes and most of the colors were gone. But the bird was still there, blocking Brady’s coffin, who lay dead inside because the damn tree broke his neck. Owen was still to the right but all alone. All alone without Brady and without his mom and without his dad. All alone except for the ugly gray bird that flew his way.

  Go away bird!

  Owen was all alone. I might as well have been alone. I had a mom and probably a dad but I was still all alone. Even Nana left me behind in this row, in this chair all by myself to rock and rock and rock. My stomach hurt and hurt but I still kept rocking, still kept crying, still kept hating the blue sky and the white lilies and the birds that wouldn’t stop singing and the wood that cut against my thigh. But what I really hated was the gray bird that now made its way down the aisle and left me and left Owen all alone.

  All alone.

  Stay away bird, stay away.

  I tucked myself into a ball and wrapped my arms around me, still trying to rock, rock, rock. I was dizzy and my neck ached but I still kept rocking. Back and forth in bed, back and forth. The sky was blue and the sun was out but the room was dark and easy on my stinging reddened eyes.

  Brady was gone but I was still here, still here but not here.

  Stay… His note lay crumbled in my fist.

  Nana came and went several times, always leaving fresh iced water and crackers on my table but I didn’t eat. I just wanted to sleep and rock, sleep and rock.

  It was daylight again and I could hear the damn birds singing again. My window had been opened, probably to air out the room, and the warm breeze was blowing the curtains. Light flashed against my face in waves, the hot air making me stick to my sheets. I groaned and moaned, but I didn’t want to get up to close it, so I kicked the covers off and rolled to face the other way, but songs continued to fill my ears.

  Go away birds, go away.

  My hand hit something in bed with me. It was Brady’s note. I threw it across the room, tears bursting out of nowhere.

  I groaned the next time my eyes dared to open. It was night, my stomach hurting so much it was burning. I weakly rolled over until my head fell off, my body heaving so many times my intestines felt like they’d relocated as high up as my stomach. I gagged and gagged and gagged but there was nothing coming up.

  When was the last time I ate?

  My head was swimming, rushing like repeating waves of the ocean, making me so dizzy I wan
ted to wretch again. I threw my head on the pillow and begged for my heart to slow and the world to stop spinning. My eyes still closed, I blindly reached for the bedside table, gently probing until I found the plate of saltines. Numbly, I ate one. It took a few minutes to nibble and swallow the stale cracker down, but I did it. And then I waited. My stomach calmed a little but the pounding in my head refused to cease. I rolled onto my side and took a sip of water, sighing as the cool liquid coated my metallic tasting mouth and soothed my parched throat.

  Acid churned inside my stomach. I threw the covers off and stumbled my way awkwardly across the room and into the bathroom, sharp pains radiating behind my eyes. I barely made it to the sink before the cracker rode up on what tiny amount of water I got down.

  I felt better, but I knew it wouldn’t last. So I forced myself to go back for the crackers and water and stumbled back to the bathroom with them. I slid my back down the wall and let my legs spread out on the cold tile. My skin was hot and sticky and I smelled worse than I cared to admit. I nibbled on crackers and sipped small amounts of water, throwing up twice more before what I was eating began to stick. The extra acid now gone and my stomach finally getting some sustenance, my headache began to slowly fade away.

  I ran out of saltines long before I was ready to quit, but I wasn’t quite ready to go in search for more. After sitting there for a few minutes, I drew a luke-warm bath. I stripped the smelly, dingy clothing away from my skin and slipped slowly into the water, sighing as it immediately refreshed my sticky skin. The stream saturated my exposed pores for ten minutes, giving my shampoo extra time to saturate my nasty roots. Feeling a little stronger, I was able to stand up to wash it clean, then drenched my hair in conditioner while the water emptied out.