“Don’t tell me what you know, or what I should do and don’t you dare bring my grandmother into this. You think you know my mother now that she’s turned her life around? Well good for her for finally giving up the pills and booze, and I’m glad she apologized for being a royal bitch to you back then. Forgiving her for how she treated you, that’s your choice, but don’t for one second try to convince me she’s done all this for me, or that I owe her any forgiveness.”
“You don’t. You don’t owe her anything. She’s even admitted that she doesn’t expect your forgiveness. She just wants a chance to show you that she’s better now, that she can be better now.” And if I was honest, so did I. I think that’s what this boiled down to. I knew if Shae could find it in her to forgive her mother, there was still hope for me.
“No, she just wants a chance to clear her own conscience and ease her guilt.”
“I don’t think so.” Renee Bradford had spent the last five years tearing herself up for destroying her relationship with her daughter. I knew she just wanted the opportunity to begin to undo some of that damage. I also knew that Shae loved her mom. That love was buried deep under layers of hurt and anger and bitterness, all of which had turned into this giant, gaping wound, and the only way it would begin to heal was if she found a way to let go of some of that anger and the things that were cutting her up from the inside.
“Well you’re wrong,” she spit.
“What makes you so sure? You haven’t really talked to her in years.”
“I still know enough. Like, I bet that first meeting five years ago was in February, wasn’t it?”
My first meeting was January thirty-first, so that was right and clearly it held some significance. “Yeah, it would have been around then.”
She just nodded her head. “Like I said, she’s trying to ease her guilty conscience.”
“For what? What the hell happened?” I was growing frustrated with this conversation and I let it leak out. “What is so damn awful that you can’t get past it?”
“February tenth five years ago I followed her example and tried to check out with a bottle of pills, only I was looking for a permanent way out.” Almost as soon as her confession was out, I could see she regretted it, but then something hard came down over her eyes. I was still reeling from the words that smacked me square in the chest, knocking the breath from my lungs. She tried to kill herself?
“What the fuck?’ It slipped accidentally from my mouth before I could stop it.
“You weren’t the only one that had a bad year, Kellen.” Her eyes were withdrawn, she was trying to detach herself, but I could see it was a defense. She finally opened up about something and now she was trying to shut down on me, but I wasn’t having it.
I stepped toward her in the sand, wanting to reach out for her, but knowing that would be too much and she’d bolt. “Just help me understand,” I pleaded.
She sucked in a deep breath and blew it back out with a slight tremble. “I’m not going to stand here and tell you it’s her fault that I tried to take my own life. I know I’m responsible for my choices. There were so many things that led to that moment, and it’s taken me this long to realize that the fault for those events doesn’t fall on any one person, but the things that happened, they shouldn’t have happened Kell. The things that pushed me there, to that point where I just wanted out, could have been stopped.” She was on the verge of tears, and the pain in her voice was like a knife to my insides.
“There was a point when I needed help, God, I really needed help. I had no one and nothing. I’d already burdened Didi with too much after my mother disowned me. Still, when I needed her to be my mom, I went to her and I asked her for help, but she didn’t want to be my mom then.” She turned her head, looking out over the water, hiding her eyes from me while she pulled herself together. They were harder and closed down again when she swung her gaze back to me. “Now she wants to, when it’s convenient for her? So she doesn’t have to feel so bad about abandoning me back then? No. She doesn’t get to do that.” As hard as she was fighting to seem emotionless, the tears were brimming in her eyes again.
Last week, I’d thrown words at her, ones intended to inflict pain, because I was angry and I wanted to see if I could still make her feel something, even if it was hurt. I called her an ice cold bitch, something I knew would sting. It was easier to let myself believe she was cold and detached when she was anything but. The girl in front of me was the same gentle, expressive girl I’d know at seventeen, the same one who felt too much rather than too little. She’d just put up more walls to protect herself.
I didn’t have the words to take her tears away. I wished I did. I’d always hated seeing them. Even worse, I hated when I knew I was the cause, and there was no doubt that some of this pain ripping through her was from me. I knew any second she would bolt before she’d let me see her fall apart. She was on the brink, so I did the only thing I could do, risking that she might bolt anyway. I closed the last little bit of space between us and nervously put my arms around her.
Her body stiffened, but she didn’t pull away instantly. That was a good sign so I pulled her a little closer and rested my chin on top of her head. I could feel her breaths propelling her chest against mine and the tiny tremors rolling through her.
It was so damn awkward, like holding a board. I was about to let go, because it was hard enough to have her in my arms again. Knowing she didn’t want to be there, that she’d probably rather be anywhere else, with anyone else, was too much to take, but she relaxed. Only slightly, but it was enough that it changed everything. Her head leaned forward and rested against my chest and one hand slid up, fingers curling as she clenched my shirt.
I pressed my cheek to her head and dipped my mouth just above her ear. “I’m so sorry, Shae. I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t know what happened and I shouldn’t have pressured you about your mom. There are so many things I shouldn’t have done, now and back then. If I could take it back and change things, I would.”
That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because all of the sudden she stiffened again and tore herself from my arms. “But you can’t.” She started wiping furiously at her eyes. “We can’t change anything.”
“I know.” I let her pull away. “And you were right that I don’t understand everything. I hate what you told me. I hate knowing it. I hate that you were alone, and it kills me that there really isn’t a damn thing I can do to make any of that better, because a world without you in it, that’s just not an option. No matter what we are to each other, you need to know that’s just not a fucking option and I’m glad God saw fit to agree with me. Now you’re standing here and whatever hell you were in, you got out, Shae.”
She shook her head. “Some days I’m still right back there.”
“I know it can feel that way. Believe me, I do, but tell me right now, what you did back then, what you attempted,” I swallowed thickly just thinking about it again, “do you still want to?”
My question hung in the air between us. Her eyes darted away, and her arms wrapped around her middle, but eventually she looked at me again, and gave a gentle shake of her head. I felt relief, because I meant what I said. Her not living in this world, making it brighter and better, was not an option.
“The bad shit, it stays with us. It’s always there to try and drag us back, and it can if we let it, or we can just let it be memories. Let it remind us what we’ve come through, what we’ve survived. Own it, use it to find your strength, or let it own you. It’s a choice. One that you have to make every single day, and some days it’s a harder choice than others, but you just keep making it.”
Her eyes blinked a couple times and we just hung there, suspended in that moment. I kept waiting for her to turn and walk away, but she didn’t. She turned to face the ocean and even walked forward. Just a couple steps at first, letting the water brush up over the tops of her feet, but then she kept going until she was in up to her calves.
“How is it?
” I called.
She glanced back over her shoulder. “It’s the Atlantic Ocean. What do you think? It’s cold.”
I chuckled and she faced forward again, watching the waves build and then crash into her legs, splashing up to her thighs. I watched some of the tension melt out of her shoulders as she stood in the water, dropping her arms to let them dangle at her sides so she could dip her fingers in the spray as the waves broke against her. She waded out a little farther until the water was at her knees, the waves coming in almost at her hips, soaking the bottom of her yellow sundress, and then she went out a little farther still.
“Be careful, I don’t want to have to come in after you if you get sucked out to sea.”
When she turned this time to face me fully, a slight smile actually quirked her lips. “If you’re so worried, then just come out here.”
“Right, so my body can be the one that washes out to sea,” I teased and her grin grew wider.
“I wouldn’t let you drown.”
My own grin spread, not because the heaviness of a few minutes ago seemed to be passing, or that seeing her smile was about a million times better than seeing her cry, or even that playful Shae had always made me smile. I grinned, because while she was watching me, she wasn’t watching the ocean, and turning your back on something wild and unpredictable was never smart. “Right, like I believe that. I come out there, you’ll knock me over the head, let the waves carry me off and you’ll be telling my sister you have no idea what happened, you didn’t see me down on the beach.”
A soft chuckle fell from her lips and a small wave crashed against the backs of her thighs, but she still didn’t turn to see what was building, and it was hard for me not to give it away with the look on my face.
“I never knew you to be afraid of a tiny girl.”
“Right, I seem to remember you breaking my nose when you got to town. How stupid do you think I am?” I shouted back, keeping her distracted.
She shrugged, grinning. I laughed again and now that it was too late, I called back, “If I’m the stupid one, how come you’re the one with your back to the ocean, sweetheart?”
My meaning sunk in just a second too late. Before she could even fully turn, the wave that had been building crashed into her, hitting her in the waist and knocking her off her feet and cresting over her head. When she popped back up, she struggled to rise to her feet as a few smaller waves rocked into her, but she made it up, brushing wet hair out of her face and spitting salt water.
I tipped my head back and laughed, earning me an even nastier glare when my gaze returned to angry Shae trudging her way through the water back to the beach.
“Jerk,” she mumbled as she stomped by me.
I laughed again and then followed after her wet trail in the sand back toward the party. I remained a few steps behind, and I’d be lying if I denied that my eyes were glued to the way her thin, wet dress clung to her nicely sculpted backside. I could even see the dark polka dots of what I guessed were bikini bottoms through the pale fabric. Where the trail sloped up toward the back of Luke’s house, she started to slip in her wet flip flops. I sprang forward and caught the back of her arm, keeping her from going down face first in the sand.
The only thanks I got was another annoyed glare, but it was different than the hateful looks she’d been giving me that made me think she was trying to burn me alive from the inside, or make my head explode. Something had shifted down on the beach, and while she might be holding a grudge because I didn’t warn her about the wave, she wasn’t truly angry at me anymore. Or at least not as angry, and she let me help her the rest of the way up the trail until we reached the top.
The sun had mostly set while we were down on the beach, and two tall lamp posts stood at the top of the trail at the edge of Luke’s property. They’d kicked on as well as lights around the pool, illuminating the party. When Shae stopped at the top, taking her hair in her hands, wringing water from it, her back was exposed to me. With the light now shining down on us, what I hadn’t been able to see was now visible. The pale yellow material of her dress had become see-through, but at that moment I didn’t give a shit about the polka dot bikini held together with just a few strings. My eyes were glued to the tattoo that covered most of her back and peeked above her dress.
She started to drop her hair back down, unaware that what I’m sure she’d hoped to keep hidden was no longer. I caught her hair, shoving it over her shoulder. At my touch, she started to jerk around, but I grabbed her upper arms and held her still so I could finish taking it in.
She froze for just a second while I’m guessing it sank in that her dress no longer covered her secret, and then she tore herself free, spinning around, but before she could open her mouth, words were tumbling from mine.
“What is that?” I was pretty sure I knew, but I needed to hear her say it.
A sad smile painted itself across her face. “That’s my heaven and my hell, because sometimes they’re the same.” With that she walked away and rejoined the party, and I just stood there, staring blankly after her, knowing exactly what she meant. That place, our place, it was my heaven and my hell too, and the reason I paid rent at an apartment while our old house on Pope Martin Road sat empty, because every fucking time I saw that tree and that field full of daisies and dandelions behind the house, I thought of her. The sweetest memories were also the worst and eventually I’d had to stop torturing myself.
Twenty-Three
Shae
October 19
Senior year …
Monday morning came too soon, following a Sunday spent shut in my room, avoiding the world. After waking up to find myself in Kellen’s bed, the events of the night before all rushing back and bringing with them head and heart splitting pain, Kellen kindly drove me home and deposited me on my doorstep after I assured him that even though I probably looked, and certainly felt, like death, I would be alright.
I was greeted inside by my irate mother and a lecture about poor choices and disgracing our family’s respected name and tarnishing our reputation. She went on without once taking a moment out of her tirade to ask about my puffy eyes or why I went to the dance with Jeremy but he wasn’t the one to bring me home. I tuned her out not long after she started in. It wasn’t worry or concern for my well being that had her so angry. It was the driver of the car that did drop me off. When she finished her rant and inflicted my punishment, grounding me for a month, something she wouldn’t even be around to enforce, she left for some committee brunch meeting and I trudged up the steps and flopped down on my bed.
I slept until after noon when Cam showed up with my clutch and cell phone, and to fill me in on the lack of excitement after I left. No fight had broken out and Jeremy passed out after Matt and Josh dragged him back inside. She’d bailed not long after.
She offered to spend the day with me, doing the whole sappy movie and ice cream thing, but I declined, and after she saw herself back out, I continued to mope in bed, leaving my phone off to avoid any unwanted calls or texts from Jeremy and the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t avoid them any longer. I was sitting in my car in the school parking lot, telling myself it wouldn’t be that bad, despite my firm conviction that this day was going to suck.
Cammie knocked on my window, and gave her version of a pep talk, which basically consisted of, “Get out of the car and put on your big girl panties because if people see you hiding in here, it’s just going to make them pounce.” Her intentions were good even if her execution left a little to be desired. I did my best to keep my chin up and walk into the school with Cammie by my side as if the not so subtle stares and murmurs that followed me had no effect.
Nobody was especially cruel or hateful, it wasn’t one of those Mean Girls kinds of things, but it’s hard when every face you see is filled with pity or embarrassment on your behalf, and everyone quickly looks away once they’re caught staring. Some of them were genuinely shocked; they thought we were the perfect couple
and blah blah blah. It was hard to stomach hearing. Worse were the ones who only pretended as if they hadn’t known what was going on behind my back. The worst was when they made no secret of wondering if it was somehow my fault, as if I was a bad girlfriend. Too clingy, too needy, too bitchy, too controlling, too something that drove him into the arms of someone else, or if my suspicions were correct, several someone elses.
There were only a few who flat-out accepted that Jeremy was just an unfaithful, lying, prick, without any need to somehow shift the blame for his cheating onto me. They wanted to commiserate with me and thought that somehow standing around our lockers bashing him and saying what an asshole he was and how he deserved the ass kicking he got, would somehow make me feel better.
I appreciated the sentiment, even though Jeff punching him once in the face hardly constituted in my mind as an ass kicking, but it didn’t make me feel any better. None of it did.
Somehow, I made it through second period without running into Jeremy or Daisy, but in third it was inevitable, which is why when my Calculus class let out, I ducked into a stall in the girls bathroom and seriously considered skipping English. The one-minute warning bell rang out and I was still in there, but I knew if I didn’t go to class, Jeremy and Daisy would know I was avoiding them. Everyone would know I was too scared or too ashamed or embarrassed or whatever to face them, and while I was, I didn’t want everyone knowing it. Somehow that felt like letting Jeremy win, letting him see how much power he had over me, like without him I was a distraught mess. Again, I was a mess, but this was one time I was thankful for my mother’s lessons.
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