by Jane Lark
I pulled the door shut, anxious and nervous, and stared ahead, avoiding looking at him.
“You okay? Do you want me to drive somewhere?”
“No.”
“Do you want to talk?”
Yeah. So much. Tears gathered in the back of my throat, hurting.
I didn’t look at him. I’d cry.
My hands were in my lap. He leaned over and gripped one of them. “Lindy, I’m here.”
Oh Lord, the tears tumbled, rolling down my cheeks, and I was sobbing as his grip on my hand pulled me over, and he moved forward. Then his arms came around me, holding me tight.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t realize how bad you felt. I wish… God, I wish I’d handled things better. I let you down.”
I shook my head and looked at him. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. It’s nothing to do with you.” I had a lot of people to apologize to. Surviving had made me see two things; I had to change and I was meant to accept things and just get on with it––like Mom did. But doing that wasn’t easy.
“I don’t know what to say.” His dark-blue eyes were warm and deep with feeling.
I sighed. I didn’t know what to say either. All I knew was that I hurt too much, and I didn’t know how to escape it.
“Do you want to get away?”
“What?”
“I could drive you out to the coast somewhere, once I’ve had time to book something, and you’ve had time to pack…”
I wanted to hug him back like he’d just hugged me––hard and tight––with gratitude and relief.
“We could run away together for a couple of weeks and not tell anyone where we’re going. No Jason. No baby. And no expectations from me, I swear. We’ll just be friends. I want you to be happy.”
I took a breath. I didn’t know what to say. What about Mom? And then there was my psychiatrist. And… “I don’t know.”
His hand gripped mine hard; the emotion in his eyes shining bright. “Lindy, let me make this up to you. I’ve been a shit friend for the last six months, and you need a friend––”
I did… “But you were with Jason.” My pitch came out as an accusation; any thought of Jason still raised a bitter taste in my mouth.
“You remember?” Guilt passed over his face.
“Why were you with him?”
His skin reddened, like he was going to confess something awful. “He’d called me that day. The day Rach had the baby.”
The day I’d overdosed.
“He asked me to wet the baby’s head with him and put everything behind us…” Billy’s eyes looked into mine as if he tried to judge my thoughts. “We’ve made up, Lind… and then we saw you and I knew I could never move on until you did too.”
All the pain trapped inside me raced to the surface. I couldn’t. That wasn’t a choice I had.
Tears rolled down my cheeks.
I wish…
Billy leaned over and his arms came around me. I rested my head on his shoulder, my arms about his neck. I needed someone to hug.
Billy’s arms and shoulders were really muscular. His body mass was double the size of Jason’s. He’d played football at school and college, and he’d studied sports and become a personal trainer. All that strength and solidity was reassuring.
But that’s what had got me into all the bullshit I’d fallen into back in the fall.
But I didn’t want to think of that. I just let him hold me while I reveled in the comfort and security.
Billy gave good hugs.
This was worth so much more than any conversation on a psychiatrist’s couch, or medication. Relief bloomed inside me, aching.
I’d needed to be held by someone outside my family.
His fingers combed through my hair. “Did you mean to end it, or were you crying out for help?”
I didn’t lift my head and didn’t answer. The ache of comfort was gone and instead the forest fire of guilt flared. I wouldn’t admit the truth; the truth was too awful. I didn’t have a good reason to give in.
The psychiatrist had told me, “Everyone has burdens to carry, and you shouldn’t feel guilty.” She’d said, “It’s stopped being about choice, the chemicals in your body are all muddled up so you can’t think straight.” I was on happy pills, and counseling now, and she’d promised me I’d feel better and I’d get out the other side.
I didn’t want to.
“Why did you go to Jason’s store…?” Billy’s fingers ran through my hair. I felt like a kid being comforted. It took me back years; to the years I’d been happy.
Why? I didn’t answer. He probably thought it was for revenge. It wasn’t. My life had been there, I’d worked there for years, been Jason’s second half for years.
Who was I now? What was there to do?
“I’m sorry, Lindy. If you let me help, I’ll make everything up to you.”
He had nothing to make up, not really, everything that had gone wrong between him and me was my fault.
“Do you want to get away for a while? Just for a couple of weeks even? I swear to God, there’ll be nothing in it. No expectation on my part at all.”
I needed help. I needed to escape. Just until I could get back on track. “Yeah.”
His hands gripped my shoulders and moved me back. He looked like he didn’t believe what I’d said. “Yeah?” His voice questioned.
“Yeah.” I nodded, my vision clouding with tears. I needed to go somewhere and pretend my life wasn’t what it was––for a short vacation. “I’ll have to speak to the psychiatrist, though. When do you want to go?”
He smiled. Billy was so nice, his heart shone right out of his eyes along with his smile. He hurt for me. We’d been close, before everything went wrong. This was him trying to put it right again. But nothing could ever be right.
Tears rolled onto my cheeks as the flames of guilt flickered.
Mom…
Billy held me against his chest. His big, solid arms fencing me in and holding the world out.
I felt better, like I had in the fall… And look where that had got us.
I pulled away, looking at the house. Mom must be at the window. This wasn’t her fault.
“What about Saturday, two weeks’ time?” Billy’s voice came out husky. “I’ll cancel my client appointments. You get everything agreed with the hospital and your Mom and Dad, and we’ll just get out of here for a bit, so you can escape all this shit?”
“Thank you, Billy. You’re a good guy, you know that?”
He gave me an apologetic smile. “We both know that’s not true. But I will be now. I swear, Lind, just friends…”
“I better go back in.” I wiped my face on my sleeve, trying to wipe off the tracks of tears so Mom wouldn’t see them, but it wiped my foundation off too. I hoped my mascara hadn’t run. “Text me.”
“I’ll let you know what time I’ll pick you up.”
“Okay.” I tried to smile, then turned away, opened the door and slipped out of his SUV. I didn’t look back as I crossed the road and ran up to the house.
When I let myself in, Mom stood by the window. I knew she’d been watching.
“You okay?” she asked.
I nodded, “Yeah.” But I didn’t stay in the living room. I walked on to my room, threw myself face-down on the bed and sobbed some more.
I was so messed-up and selfish.
Billy didn’t need the burden of a broken girl, I shouldn’t have said yes. He’d been ready to move on.
The forest fire of guilt flared and consumed everything else.
Billy
I slipped the SUV into drive and pulled away, my heart a boulder in my chest.
What that girl did to me! If Jason knew half the things I’d imagined over the last five years he wouldn’t have called me to meet up and wet his kid’s head.
Fuck.
Jason and I had messed her up.
This was a pile of shit.
When I walked in the door back home a lot later than I’d usually come in, m
y kid sister, Eva, called, “Hey, Billy!”
“Hey, Eva.” I lifted a hand.
“Where have you been?” Mom asked as I walked through the living room.
“At the gym.”
“You work out all day. You can’t have spent that long at the gym. You’re hiding something! I bet you’ve got a girl!” Eva’s passion in life was teasing me. But underneath it she loved having a much older brother to flaunt before her friends, and catch rides off of. She always gloated when I drove her to her friends’ parties. But she wasn’t a kid anymore, she was fifteen. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally given up on winning Lindy?”
I made a face at her. My family knew my trouble. In a bad moment I’d said something to Dad a couple of years ago and from then on my whole family had been a part of my secret Lindy addiction. “Nope, I saw her today.”
“Billy! I thought you’d stopped that.”
“I’m taking her away for a couple of weeks.”
“OMG!” Eva screamed.
“Is that a good thing?” Mom stood up.
“When you and that girl get together, it always ends badly, Billy.” Dad threw in his cent without moving from his armchair.
“Thanks for the enthusiasm.” I shrugged and turned away, but Eva grabbed my arm and then hugged me.
“I hope things work out. I’ll be glad for you if they do.” I gave her a squeeze then let her slip away.
“As will I,” Mom said, smiling at me.
My gaze shifted around them all. “Except this isn’t like that. It’s just as friends…”
Eva rolled her eyes. “Lindy is so blind.”
Mom kept smiling.
I turned away and headed for my room.
I scanned through my calendar and called clients to tell them something personal had come up; the stretched and worn leather band on my wrist sliding up and down.
I always wondered what the hell I’d do if it broke. It was my talisman.
The fingers of my other hand span it around my wrist a couple of times as I waited while a call rang.
I knew where I was gonna take her. To the place I’d run to every summer for years. It had started the summer we’d left high school.
There was no answer. I ended the call, but then my cell vibrated.
”Lindy’s back home.“ The message was from Jason.
”I know, I went ‘round to see her.”
”She okay?”
”Nope, quiet and crying.“
”Tell her sorry. And tell her Rach and me are thinking of her. We didn’t want her to get hurt.”
”She said to tell you sorry too. She’s sorry we saw her like that. She said she felt guilty about getting us caught up in it.”
He didn’t answer for a minute, but then came back and said. ”Tell her it’s okay. I get it. I know I messed her around. But tell her I hope she can be happy.”
I sighed. So did I. ”I’ll tell her. Do you still want to go out for a drink again next week?”
”Shit, yeah, I need another night out to get over that one. When?”
”Thursday?”
”Okay.”
The place I was gonna take Lindy to was beautiful. You could stay right on the beach in an apartment, listen the ocean and watch the waves roll up on the sand. It was the sort of escapism Lindy needed to put her vibes right.
I looked at my cell, and my thumb instinctively slid up Lindy’s image. ”Hey. I’m gonna take you to a place I know on the coast. It’s perfect for chilling out. You’ll get caught up in the awesomeness of the universe and forget about yourself.”
While I waited for a reply I booked the accommodation. I’d cancel the rest of my appointments later. I booked adjacent apartments.
”That sounds amazing.”
”Cool.”
“:-) Shall I transfer my share of the money to you?’
”Lind you’re not paying. I asked you. I owe you.”
”You don’t owe me anything. But thanks if you’ll pay. I’m not earning.”
‘I know. Maybe when we’re out there we can start working on what new job you feel like doing.”
“:/ When I feel better, Billy.”
“Yeah. Sorry I’m pushing. Too much. Too soon. One step, Lind. By the way, Jason said he’s sorry too, and that he and Rachel wish you well. He wants you to be happy. That’s what we all want.”
”Thanks.“
The thanks seemed final and I didn’t know what to say next.
My fingers tapped the desk, beating out a rhythm.
I wanted to call. I had a feeling she was crying. I shouldn’t have mentioned Jason. I didn’t call though ‘cause I’d grown a coward’s streak since the fall. I didn’t want to hear her tell me how she missed him and how much she still loved him.
Guilt curled up in a hard ball in my belly.
Why the fuck was she speaking to me? She shouldn’t be.
Why the frick was she going away with me?
The girl was crazy.
This could be the stupidest idea, I’d ever had.
Chapter Two
Billy
“You’re sure everything is squared off with the hospital, Lind. You’ve got your meds…”
She nodded, but she was scaring me, her hands trembled as I took her case and put it in the back of the SUV, next to my surfboard.
Her dad stood on their porch, in his uniform; it meant he’d ducked off work to come back and say goodbye to her. He watched us, like he didn’t want her to go.
He certainly wouldn’t want her to go if he knew the truth. But he didn’t. No one did except me and Lindy.
I hadn’t seen her Mom. That was weird because she didn’t work. I’d have thought she’d have come outside to say a final goodbye to Lindy.
“Is that everything?” I asked. Lindy nodded, her blue eyes glittering with tears.
“No, I forgot my purse.” She turned away and ran back up the path into the house.
This was weird.
I slipped my hands into my pants pockets as Mr. Martin came down.
“If she wants to come home, you’ll bring her back right away?”
“Yeah.” Of course I would.
“Well, you look out for her. She’s my girl, and she’s all I’ve got.”
“Yeah, Mr. Martin.” He knew I’d been hanging around her a lot last fall; he knew we’d been friends for years. I bet he wondered why I’d stopped hanging around and why we hadn’t spoken for months. I was glad he didn’t know.
Lindy came hurrying back out of the house, her purse swinging in her hand.
“Did you say good-bye to Mom?” Her dad asked.
“Yeah.” She hugged him, firmly. He kissed her hair.
The guy had scared the hell out of me when I was kid, but now all his scariness looked hollow. Lindy had hurt him when she’d chosen to press the eject button. He looked in pain. That was a new look for Mr. Martin.
“You’ll call me if anything happens, Dad, won’t you? Don’t wait. I’d hate not to get back…”
What was it with getting back? We hadn’t even gone yet. I suppose her family must be cautious now, though. Maybe they didn’t trust her not to try it again. I’d have to watch her when we were away.
Her dad nodded. Tears shining in his eyes. Hell, I’d never thought I’d see that.
I turned away and got in the SUV. I didn’t think he’d welcome me watching him, but in the side mirror, I saw him give her a kiss on the cheek. Then he walked her to the passenger door, opened it and held it while she climbed in.
He shut it only after she’d settled and pulled her seatbelt over.
I pushed the button so the window went down and they could talk.
My abs gripped tight with nerves and my belly rumbled. I hadn’t eaten this morning. I was too nervous about how this was gonna go down. My forearm rested on the wheel, the leather braid hanging loose on my wrist. That thing was so much a part of who I was.
My fingers started tapping on the dashboard.
“Ready?�
�� she asked.
I looked over at her. Her dad stepped back from the window as she looked at me.
Shit, she probably thought me tapping the dashboard had been telling her dad to hurry up. It wasn’t. It was just a habit.
My other hand gripped the gear shift.
I was ready, though. I wanted to get away from her house. There was a ton of bad energy coming from it. I could feel it everywhere in the air around her.
I smiled and slipped my arm off the wheel. “Yeah. Mr. Martin.”
She looked at him. “I’ll call you when we get there and I’ll call you every night. I promise. Don’t worry about me. You’ll make me feel guilty if you do. And tell Mom I love her… I’m really sorry.”
“Honey…” He came forward again and leaned in through the window to grip her hand. “Your mother understands. She’s not angry, or hurt, or anything. She just wants you to be okay.”
Lindy nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks.
No matter how nervous I was. Or how awkward it felt. This was right. She needed to get out of here for a while.
“I’ll be okay,” she whispered. “But I feel selfish. Good-bye.” She leaned and kissed his cheek. Then her dad stepped back and finally we could go.
My heart started pumping on hyper-drive, as I slid the gear shift down and pulled away, super- cautious not to over rev the engine with her dad watching.
I glanced at her as I drove up the street. “Did you eat or are we stopping for breakfast?”
She looked at me, a broken heart in her eyes, tears tracking down her cheeks. She wiped them away with a sniff. “Sorry, I’m going to try and not be bad company. But I don’t want to eat. I’m not hungry. How long is it gonna take to get there?”
“A couple of hours.” I looked back at the road. “We can settle in, then get lunch.”
She laughed, a low half-choking sound that was almost a sob. “I forgot how hungry you get. You can stop for breakfast if you want…”
I threw her a smile. “Sorry, you’ll have to accommodate my appetite. I don’t eat like a bird like you do, but I can wait ‘til lunch.”
She’d fed me and Jason through most of our college years. In the shared apartment we’d had. The couple and the spare-part best friend––three had definitely been a crowd. But I’d still hung around them. I bet people had thought it weird.