Four Three Two One

by Courtney Stevens

He whispered, “Chandler and Golden versus the world.”

  “Chan, do you really think we have to be a couple for that to be true?”

  “I guess I did. I wanted to be perfect.”

  “Jesus Christ, Chan. You don’t have to be anything but honest.” His hand was sweaty when I took it.

  Something intangible passed across the room, a calm exhale. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Rudy gauging my response. I let him know that my guts felt like they’d reached the end of a marathon, everything knotted and tired, but accomplished. I noted Becky was also inching her fingers toward Caroline’s bare knee, offering comfort where she thought comfort was needed. Chan stared at me, still waiting, waiting, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “We’re the same,” I told him.

  “No,” Chan started to argue.

  “You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.”

  He replied, “It doesn’t matter. I started this.”

  I trailed my hands along his arms and gripped his shoulders. “Caroline says it was her fault because she dated him. Rudy thought he set off Simon when he tackled Caroline. And now, you think it’s yours for telling Simon something I told you. I’ve always, always known we would never have been on Bus Twenty-One if I hadn’t been trying to get back at you that morning. Can’t you see? This belongs to all of us.”

  “Go, he only gave us a head start off the bus because I told him. What does that make me? A coward and a monster—”

  “Someone who wanted to survive,” I supplied.

  “You weren’t a coward though. You wouldn’t have left those people if I hadn’t made you.”

  “Thank God you did, Chan. I’m not brave because I was frozen. And you’re not a coward for wanting to live.”

  “But we’re liars. He made us make those promises and we weren’t even together. We didn’t deserve—”

  “Chan, Simon Westwood was a lunatic. So crazy we blocked out facts.”

  “We can’t block out the effect. I can’t swallow it whole. I choke on Simon Westwood. I choke on the moment I told him what Caroline did. I choke on Accelerant Orange. I choke on people supporting us. I choke on college funds and futures. I choke on watching Rudy roll through life when I know he was an athlete. He was going somewhere—”

  “I’m still an athlete,” Rudy said, hand raised like he was answering a question in class. “And I’m still going where I want to go. You should too, man.”

  Chan finally looked at Rudy with a true Chan expression instead of jealousy. “I’m glad you’re great. I really am. But I can’t stomach this . . . I can’t stomach knowing . . .” The color drained completely from his face. “Caroline, you can’t kill yourself. I can’t be responsible for another death. I just can’t.”

  Without warning, Becky, who had been mostly silent, stood in the middle of the room and locked her arms against the ceiling. “HELL NO!” she roared in a primal way, in a way that stopped all other emotions. She was the lioness of Hazzard. “Every one of you hookers look at me now.”

  I’d never been called a hooker, but I looked at Becky Cable, and the others did too. Even Chan.

  “NONE OF YOU DID THIS. So good God, stop lobbying for who gets to wear the Blame Me More badge.”

  “But—” Chan protested.

  “Chandler. You. Did. Not. Do. This. Nod if you understand.”

  Chan didn’t nod.

  “Caroline. You. Did. Not. Do. This. Do I need to say your names too?” she asked Rudy and me.

  No one nodded because deep down we thought we were right. Becky was outside of this. She didn’t know. How could she know?

  Becky spun a full three-sixty. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Raise your hand if you brought a bomb on Bus Twenty-One. Look around; no hands. You know how you become a runner? You run. Runners run. Singers sing. Players play. And bombers bomb. None of you bombed anything.”

  My heart thudded, abusing my chest.

  I wanted Becky’s words to be true. To put my head against a pillow and dream of hayfields and beautiful photos and kisses on silo floors. Instead, I was steel wool attached to a coat hanger; and last June I caught fire and started spinning, and everything burned.

  “It’s not that simple,” Rudy said, trying not to patronize her.

  Becky sank to the houseboat floor, her convictions framed in the set of her jaw. “It is. The parts that you’ve accused yourselves of playing in this tragedy are nominal. If this were a fucking movie, they’d be unnamed credits. Bathroom Girl Number One. Bathroom Girl Number Two—”

  Caroline interrupted. “My role will always be Bomber’s Girlfriend.”

  “Your role will always be . . . the role you tell yourself. So, please, dear God, tell yourself a better story, Caroline. All of you.”

  “Even if it’s not true?” Caroline asked, and it sounded as if she was asking rather than arguing.

  “This is a truth factory, sweetheart. You make tomorrow’s truth on today’s decision. I mean, look at Go over there. She’s been telling herself one hell of a story since last June.” Becky paused. “You guys, this will always be hard until you forgive yourselves.”

  I didn’t know how to forgive myself. People said that expression—Forgive yourself!—as if it was a choice no harder than choosing bacon or sausage. A task that could be checked off a list. Do my homework. Buy fresh cream for Gran. Upload a photo. Forgive myself.

  When I thought about the people I’d forgiven—Mom, Dad, Chan, even Gran for silly things—forgiveness was frequently my solution for loneliness. And that didn’t feel applicable when I was the one I needed to forgive. With others, I faced the fact that someone I loved hurt me and lived with it or I dealt with the incredible displeasure of doing life apart from them. I never had the patience to wait very long before I was “It’s no big deal,” and “I still love you,” all over the place. With myself, I’d compartmentalized.

  “I think,” I whispered, “I’ve been telling the wrong story for a long time.”

  Becky got in my face, placed a wayward curl behind my ear. “Jennings, tell me the right one.”

  “I don’t know what it is.”

  “You do.”

  She wasn’t yelling the way Simon had. She was love in a voice.

  “I don’t.”

  “You do.”

  I sighed. “I can’t.”

  “There’s the lie.” Becky tapped the lobe of her ear. “Whisper it to me.”

  I leaned back on my heels and searched Becky’s face. She was a skyscraper. Strong and gleaming. My inner voice said, Tell her, and my warring inner voice said, Telling will change everything. And that was usually when I shoved the voices into my toes. I had so many voices shoved in my toes—Tell your mom you love her; Gran will love you without the photo; tell Chan you want to leave the Hive—they didn’t fit inside me anymore. I placed my cheek against Becky’s and my lips to her ears. “I’m tired of being strong.”

  She put her hand around the back of my head, wove her fingers into my hair, and pressed me to her chest like I was a child. “Say more.”

  “If I fall apart, no one will be okay.”

  “I’ll be okay,” she said. Her heart was steady. “I’ve got room for your sloppy hurt.”

  “You do?”

  “I’ve got mansions of rooms. Jennings, you’re so strong everyone says, ‘She’s Luke fucking Skystalker,’ and then you hand-select the people and places where you choose to fall apart. That’s the secret. You get to be both strong and weak with the right people.”

  You can be vain about the way you look on the outside. I’d been vain about the way I looked on the inside. I didn’t know if there was a term for that. Pride? Arrogance? Whatever it was, I needed somewhere my naked broken heart was worthy without dressing it in pretty bobbles and fancy clothes.

  “I choose here,” I said.

  And for the first time since the explosion, I started to cry. Hard. I didn’t hide my face. I didn’t act like this was a passing event in my life. I let myself hurt
everywhere.

  It was an ugly, ugly hurt.

  And I let them all see me.

  60. IT’S THE DECISION BEFORE THE DECISION.

  $99,000.00

  I was a puddle on the galley floor. Everyone had moved closer. I grabbed pant legs and ankles as I cried. They bent over me, their auras like a dome. I felt selfish for being in the middle, for having this moment when I was worried about Caroline and Chan, but it was magical too. Like I’d taken a cold shower after mowing the yard all day.

  When I was upright and less of a fountain, Rudy asked me a question. “Were you able to forgive yourself?”

  “I don’t know. I was able to just be me in this moment. Is that the same thing?”

  No one had an answer. Rudy said, “I think we should forgive each other—that would go a long way to helping us all face tomorrow’s story. If you guys can’t, that’s okay. But, you know, I think I need to say the words.” He straightened his back and took a deep breath. “Chandler, I don’t think you did this, and I forgive you for telling Simon. And Caroline,” he said, “I forgive you and I love you. I wish I had a million legs so you could see me lose them over and over again to save you. That’s how much you’re worth. That and so much more. I need you to never pick up a gun again.”

  Tears spilled down Caroline’s cheeks. “Will you forgive me for staying with Simon?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  Caroline squeezed Becky’s hand. “I’m sorry I scared you. I know I need help.”

  “You’ll get it,” said Becky, as she kissed the top of Caroline’s head and then Rudy’s.

  It felt like my turn. “Chan, I forgive you for telling Simon. Will you forgive me for accepting Rudy’s invitation to see the city? For treating our relationship without reverence? For not telling you my real thoughts because I didn’t think you were strong enough to hear them?”

  Chan wrapped his arms around me. The blood in his heart rushed against my temple. He squeezed me tighter than he had in months. And only then could I tell the gap between us had been filled with our hidden shame.

  “You’re my best friend. I should have told you everything,” he said. “And Caroline, your relationship was your business. I had no right to interfere. Rudy, man, I’ve been a dick because the girl I love loves you, but what you did, what Caroline said you did, makes you a hero.”

  Rudy held his fist out to Chan. They bumped knuckles.

  I snatched the closest hands—Becky’s and Chan’s—which felt warm and safe. Sacred even. I remembered Gran telling me once, “Go, sometimes it’s not the decision itself that changes you. It’s the decision before the decision. The scaffolding you assemble to build the building.” Maybe forgiveness was the scaffolding of wholeness, and from here, we’d build something real.

  Most photographers took photos of runners at the end of marathons. We all wanted to capture the grit of the finish, the sweat of true accomplishment, the collapse of a body pushed to the edge, the medal hung around the neck that has strained against odds. But that philosophy lacked vision.

  The beginning, the decision to train, was the mettle and steel of a soul who finished a race.

  And there, on that houseboat, we began.

  CAROLINE

  I carry my shaving kit into the tiny houseboat bathroom. I plug the razor in the outlet as Becky turns the door handle and slips inside. Her arms come around my waist; her chin rests on my shoulder. I watch us in the mirror. There are three loves in the room when there should be four. I love Becky and Becky loves me, and Becky also loves herself. I don’t hate myself today the way I hated myself yesterday, but I lift the razor closer to my widow’s peak and turn the dial that controls the speed.

  She holds my wrist so gently. “Why do you do that?”

  “You know why,” I say.

  “I know why it was done to you. I don’t know why you do it to yourself.”

  “It’s a reminder of who I am.”

  “You don’t know who you are yet.”

  I turn off the razor. The absence of sound makes the room hollow. We have to be on the road very soon, but Becky seems unconcerned with time.

  “Tell me what you wish you could have more than anything in the world,” she says.

  There is no pause. I say, “I want to feel”—and then the pause comes and I fill it with a single word—“clean.”

  Becky turns on the shower and I protest. But when the water is warm, Becky steps over the lip in her socks and clothes and perfectly shaped eyeliner and ultra-long mascara that makes her eyes big as a giraffe’s. She says, “This is your chance.” The water pounds and splashes off her back and rolls onto her arm and into my hand because she is touching me. “Come on. All of life is one step at a time.”

  We are in the shower. I cry and we drink the shower when we kiss. Her mouth is warm, like Aunt Linda’s sunroom in the early morning. In that kiss, I smell the orange groves coming alive in April and feel the slow rolling of the earth toward another day. In that kiss, I imagine throwing a piece of freshly popped popcorn into the air and Becky Cable catching it on her tongue. And for the first time, I am living a day I want to live.

  “Can I ask you something?” I say, when we are drenched to the roots and all kissed out.

  “Anything.”

  “No matter what. Don’t let go of my hand on Ellis Island.”

  61. THIS DOESN’T HAVE A TITLE YET.

  $99,321.00

  There were only four hours between falling asleep and our alarms. I heard Rudy and Chan scribbling—one words, one images—long after I turned out the light.

  I probably would have busted my ass in the shower if not for Becky. She was peeing on the other side of the curtain, and said, “You almost done in there?” That’s when I realized I was napping on my feet with a bar of soap in my hand.

  When I was more awake and packed, Chan, Rudy, and I left the girls on Hazzard. The still-dark morning of West Virginia greeted us with brisk, northern air. Chan carried Rudy over the gap, and we fixed a camp breakfast on the tailgate. Flynn and his dad, Mr. Grimes, stopped by on their way to church.

  “Y’all make it through the night okay?” Mr. Grimes asked.

  I glanced sideways at the guys. Their eyes were wide. “Yes, sir,” I said, like we’d had the most normal night in the world.

  Mr. Grimes toed the ground. “My apologies if the armory made you uncomfortable. I told Flynn last night we probably should’ve moved ’em for you.”

  “We put a couch in front of the door,” I told him.

  “Your dad told me you could handle yourself. I see he was right.” He and Flynn climbed back into their Jeep. “You’re welcome anytime at Eight Echoes,” he said. Flynn waved goodbye and they drove off.

  “Sometimes weird people are more normal than you’d think,” Rudy said.

  “You can say that again,” Chan said.

  The girls appeared, still wet from a shower, and we offered them Mom’s biscuits. Everyone listened to Miss Hazzard lap gently against the dock.

  “It’s going to be a nice day,” Rudy said, stretching in his chair.

  Whether that was optimism or prediction, I didn’t know, but I smiled. And I hoped.

  Without ceremony, we tossed everything into the back of the truck and rock-paper-scissored for driver. Becky took the wheel, even though paper covered rock and driving technically fell to me. She had the cab toasty and our playlist music cranked and it would have been a fine time if we weren’t so tightly wound.

  Before we’d fallen asleep last night, Becky had taken a vote for Accelerant Orange. Unanimous to attend. That was the only thing on our minds today, and there was very little to say that hadn’t already been said.

  We crossed into Pennsylvania in no time. Sunrise exploded pink and orange along I-81, and I thought of Carter. Was he unloading last-minute artifacts, driving toward the Green-Conwell with the bus in a trailer? Or was everything set up already? Were the Westwoods there somewhere, waiting in a sequestered room for me to arrive?
Hoping no one identified who they were on the way in? Was today the day I disappointed the people who had given nearly a hundred thousand dollars by fainting in front of the bus?

  Around Allentown, Rudy dialed the radio to a hum and asked if he could read what he’d written during the night. There was a chorus of nods. “This doesn’t have a title yet.”

  He cleared his throat and read.

  “Terrorism isn’t a bomb; terrorism is being afraid there will always be a bomb.

  “I know terror.

  “I do not know the white-hot rage of revenge that lines a vest with dynamite and screws and nails. I cannot imagine standing in front of a man, any man, and zipping a death shirt from waist to Adam’s apple like a mother puts a coat on a child in the morning before school. I will never know the explosions that occur in a bomber’s brain before he acts. I cannot fathom pressing a trigger to cause the end of the world.

  “For these things, I am thankful. I would rather die thousands of times than be one who kills senselessly.

  “Pain isn’t a bomb; pain is being afraid no one understands your pain.

  “I know pain. I’m intimately acquainted with the loneliness of believing I am the only one who understands pain like mine.

  “Blame isn’t a bomb; blame is a single arrow I shoot at myself.

  “I know blame.

  “Fear isn’t a bomb; fear is a friend I greet every morning like a spouse on the other side of my bed.

  “I know fear. Fear reminds me that the world takes what it wants, and it probably wants me. Fear whispers, Today could be your last day. Fear is my tattoo, the one on my face, the one strangers see at first glance and think, My God, boy, what happened to you?

  “There were days I wanted to be done with terror, pain, blame, and fear. I planned to kill the bad emotions like they were monsters. But it’s hard to kill the monster that lives inside you.

  “Today, I’m exorcising the monster.

  “There is no way to know in advance if I have the strength. I won’t know until I touch Bus Twenty-One and look at my friends and say, ‘I’m ready.’ I won’t know until I allow them to lift my chair onto the very bus that stole my legs. But if a man can be ready to be ready, I am that man.”