Proof

by Craze, Chelle C.

  Really, I had no clue what my brother was thinking most of the time, because I forgot to ask. He was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. I just had to give him a chance to prove it, which was a very large feat when we were younger. We didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye on anything, apart from hating one another.

  “Well, neither is this double stuffed crust.” He laughed and turned quickly on his feet, twirling his body and the pizza away from me as I tried to snatch a pinch of the edge as he pulled it out of the microwave and left the door open.

  “Touché,” I answered and closed the door with my left hand and stole a piece of pepperoni with my right, cussing and flinging it off my fingers as soon as it touched my skin.

  “Shit!” I cussed out of pain from the burn and sucked on my fingers.

  “Told you this wasn’t your business,” he pointed out and puckered his lips before blowing onto his first bite to cool it.

  “That you did,” I called as I passed him and smacked him on the back of the head playfully. “Asshole.”

  “Asshole,” he repeated and flipped me off with his free hand.

  * * *

  It was a stupid thought to think she’d come back here after I unarmed her and then bit her lip. She didn’t even know who I was Who in their right mind would come back? Well, other than me. I wasn’t the one being analyzed at the moment.

  Passing the headstones, I always took a moment for Dad and my sister. Each time my fingers caressed Dad’s pocket watch I prayed the world would forget I existed or help me fully awaken. For years I’d been sleepwalking throughout life, and most of the memories made had been trivial. I didn’t really miss Dad, but the idea of him. As crazy as that was, it was true. I didn’t consider him to be a great man or even a good one, just a regular man with a little fandom who made a lot of mistakes. A lot of unforgiveable mistakes. Perhaps that’s why his watch gave me comfort. It was a reminder that no matter how many times I messed up, someone somewhere was always a bigger fuck up than I was. As cynical as that was, I knew it was true.

  Stuffing the watch farther into my pocket and releasing it, I shook my head and the malignancy of the thoughts that were my dad. Even if he wasn’t a good man, I still paid him respect, because that’s what you were supposed to do. Right?

  My eyes scanned the graveyard for her, and I wasn’t surprised in the least when I didn’t see her. It was a cemetery, of course. It was a fluke that she’d been here before when I was. Maybe she had drunk a lot more than she’d let on, and in her drunken stupor had stumbled into the graveyard, mistaking it for somewhere a little more normal, like a park bench. Not that lying on a bench anywhere was the epitome of normalcy in the middle of the night, but being in a park was more predictable than one found in a graveyard.

  With a huff, I accepted defeat and plopped down onto Derek Sutter’s bench and bent down to get her bottle. She might not be here, but this bottle of whiskey was, and tonight it would be the reason the secrets and lies from my past found peace. Tomorrow, who knew? The only thing I was certain of was I was a complete idiot for seeking her out and wouldn’t make the mistake again. She was better off without me. It was obvious. A fact she clearly noticed before I did, given she didn’t come back to meet me tonight.

  As aggravation simmered into my thoughts and I let it get the best of me, I tipped the bottle and watched the bubbles form in the liquor as I swallowed my fix for the night.

  Twelve

  Jaci

  Every run, on the beginning of the second mile, I always stopped to sit on the bridge railing and take in the beautiful view. I’d always made sure to run early enough to beat the traffic and people. It’s funny, I wanted to go to school to be around people, but I didn’t really interact with others very well. It took a certain je ne sais quoi that I’d never had. Maybe I would have, if I’d ever really been around anyone more than Mom and Mar.

  This was the best place to be in dawn, in my opinion. It was perfect to see the sun’s first light peeking over the little mountain in the distance and then reflect off the water. I ran as fast as I was capable of to get here to catch it, trying to make up the time I’d lost loading the dishwasher. The mist danced along the water’s edge, and the sunrays broke through its foggy cloud, glistening off the water. I smiled. I wasn’t a religious person in the sense that I attended church regularly, but seeing this, there was no denying God was real. No person who walked this earth could paint this beauty.

  My hand gripped the rails, and I closed my eyes, breathing in the masterpiece before me.

  “Don’t do it,” a guy’s scruffy voice huffed, the franticness clear in his tone. Before I could reply, his arms wrapped around my stomach and we flew backward. His body hit the ground first, and I landed on top of him.

  “Do what, exactly?” I asked, instantly pissed, and did my best to untangle myself from his arms, scooting to the curb to get out of the road. I smoothed my hair down out of instinct and tilted my head to the side, not sure what he would do next.

  My eyes traveled from the pavement to him, and I no longer wished to watch the rising sun. His sandy-blond hair was just the right length to fall into his eyes, so he blew it out of his vision with his full lips. His blue eyes were too full of bewilderment and awareness as we sat staring at one another. My eyes skidded down his tall body in an abrupt stop-and-go manner from his pecs to his abs. From looking at his face, he was my age, twenty at the oldest. His muscles, however, appeared to belong to someone much older and experienced. They were very well-defined and glistened as the sun peeked in the sky.

  “Were you about to?” he spoke again after a beat, using his finger as if he was slitting his throat open wide, and then let his tongue lag out of the side of his mouth as he moved to sit beside me.

  “Kill myself?” I questioned him as my eyebrows pulled together and one eventually rose above the other. “Absolutely not. Are you crazy?” It was my turn to move. I put a couple of feet between us and then added one more just to be safe. Anyone that would tackle a stranger and pull them to the ground, assuming they were about to end their life and never think to consider the person was simply enjoying the view, couldn’t be trusted. They were too erratic.

  “You were the one on the edge of the bridge. Not me,” he pointed out, brushing his hair back with his hand, and pushed my backpack within my reach, inching closer to me. As the distance between us decreased, my old trusty heart rushed with excitement.

  “Think what you will.” I tried brushing him off and denying the smile creeping onto my lips. He was quite possibly the hottest guy I’d ever seen in real life. Typically, I wasn’t the type of girl who would be overcome with hormones and sit on the side of the road staring at a shirtless guy. This was his fault. If he’d not jumped to conclusions and left me alone, jogging past in silence, instead of pulling me to the ground, I wouldn’t be doing this. I hated him a little for it, but loved the rush it’d all given me.

  “I will. Things like this are serious and should be taken as such.” He cupped his hand over his mouth and attempted to mask the smirk transforming into a grin.

  “Okay,” I dismissed him and willed myself to calm down, waving my hands in the air and pushing my lips outward, and reached into my backpack for a water after unzipping it.

  “Water?” I offered him one of the two drinks I had packed, along with a couple cereal bars in case I got hungry.

  “Sure, but don’t think this gets you off the hook.” He smiled, taking the water, and my pulse quickened again. He didn’t know how true the statement stood in this moment, and I wasn’t going to let him figure it out either. He didn’t know me. We were strangers. There was no hook to get off in this situation. That statement was something you said to someone you knew. Not someone you’d rudely pulled off a bridge.

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  “I told you.” He uncapped the bottle and took a drink, recapping it before setting it on the ground to tighten his shoelaces. “I take these things seriously, so where are we going next?” he
asked, ripping the label off the bottle and tossing it and his bottle into my open backpack.

  “We?”

  “Yes, I’m going with you. Wherever it is you’re going, I’m going, too.” He smiled and pushed his hair backward. I should have told him no and gave him his water and sent him on his way. I didn’t. Being homeschooled for the majority of my life meant I did have time to do things like run. Technically, Mom and I had figuratively been running almost as long as I’d been breathing, so I was kind of an expert in this field.

  Without another word, I zipped my backpack and tossed it onto my back, knowing I’d regret not taking the time to get a drink, but he had basically dared me. I was never one to back down from a good dare, and I especially wasn’t backing down from him. After getting to my feet, I wiggled my eyebrows and held my hand out to help him up from the concrete berm.

  Most of the time I was a jerk, but he’d give up long before I would, so helping him up was my way of thanking him for his good deed. Even if he was absurdly wrong, he had thought he was saving me from jumping to my death. When in reality, if I’d jumped, which I wasn’t going to, I’d only broken a few bones. It wasn’t like we were hundreds of feet over the Mississippi River or anything. The bridge arched over a creek—and an exceptionally small one at that. Now, if a good storm had passed through within the past two weeks, I might have plummeted to my death as he’d thought, but that would have been more than likely from a swift current.

  “Hope you like to run,” I said the first thing that came to my mind and took off, as he did the same, easily keeping in stride with me. Of course, this aggravated me. I wasn’t truly pushing myself or running as fast as I could, but my pace was no speed walk.

  “That all you have?” he smugly asked, turning around and running beside me backward.

  In response, I squinted my eyes and increased my speed, sure he’d tire soon. We passed the point where I normally turned around and went home and he flipped around to run normally. The houses became fewer and fewer, until eventually there were none left in sight.

  We were alone now. I was used to being alone. Being by myself was something I was good at doing. In fact, I liked it. If you were a loner, even if you had friends, or in my case a friend, often you continued to feel alone around others. It was just part of who you were.

  I wasn’t used to having someone run with me, and I didn’t know if I liked or hated it, so I forced my feet to move quicker. The sooner he gave up and I ditched him, the sooner I could head back home. Mom would be getting up any time now, if she wasn’t already up, and be worried if I didn’t walk through the door.

  A path of sweat beaded down my face from my temples and my lungs protested the speed we were running, but I loved the feeling. Forcing my body’s limits to be tested reminded me that I was still vertical and above the ground, versus the opposite. I’d forgotten why I began running to begin with. It was the first thing I’d found in a long time that let me breathe. The first time I ran I inhaled the world around me and actually felt the pressure of my surroundings lessen a little. It was as if I’d unintentionally severed the invisible restraints holding me at a standstill. I experienced something I didn’t think possible. When I ran, I was free. Your body was forced into overdrive when you ran, and all of your senses climbed to their highest apex.

  “Tired?” he tried to leisurely ask, his smile growing, even though I’d thought it had already reached its limits.

  “No,” I puffed out as my chest heaved.

  “Good. Me neither.” He winked, tugging at my backpack. “You look thirsty, though,” he breathlessly said in between pants and pushed himself to run faster than me, but it was obvious he was putting on a little for my benefit. Without much effort, he could take off and leave me in his dust. Even if I would deny that fact out loud, his muscular body affirmed every ounce of denial I wanted to bask in with each flex of his calf muscles as his feet met the pavement. I told myself I could easily outrun him. I couldn’t. I was glad he wasn’t a complete jerk and at least pretended running at my speed was draining him, just a little. At least I thought he was pretending. That was the thing about judging strangers. You never knew if you were right or abundantly wrong.

  I licked my lips, and my tongue all but stuck to them as I was dying for a drink of anything. Water was the preferable choice, but at this point, I didn’t care as long as it was wet. He was right. We both knew it, but for some reason, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right. Even though my legs ached, and I couldn’t be certain I wasn’t on the verge of throwing up, I forced my feet to move quicker than his, barely edging in front of him a few inches. Actually, I was sure if we kept running at this exhausting speed I was going to vomit. It wasn’t a question anymore.

  “I’m not giving up.”

  “Good. Neither am I, but I’m thirsty,” he yelled and motioned to a gravel road to the right, slowing his pace and veering onto its path. I wasn’t sure why I followed him or let my feet match the speed of his, but I did. Maybe it was my way of calling a truce without verbally acknowledging it. Perhaps it was simply my body’s way of making me meet its needs. I needed water, and to continue running was completely out of the picture.

  We slowed to a comfortable brisk walk and he got behind me to pull out the waters, reaching me one. Eventually, the silence between us became annoying, so as soon as I was able to speak without making it undeniable that our run had almost murdered me…I was a teenager. Being dramatic came with the territory. The first thing that came to my mind was what I chose to break through the deafening silence settling between us.

  “What’s your name?” I asked as our feet slowed down even more and we both found a seat in the meadow where the grass wasn’t as high as it was other places.

  “Dax,” he answered in his raspy voice I was starting to appreciate each time he spoke. At first, I wondered if his tone was brought on by the anxiety he clearly harbored thinking he’d found someone about to attempt suicide. Now, I realized it was his normal voice.

  “Hmm,” I simply replied, taking a swig of my water and crossing my legs. I fell back onto the grass and closed my eyes. At this point, I accepted I wasn’t getting rid of him. The possibility of losing him faded several miles back, and he seemed harmless enough. He was definitely less threatening than the masked man from last night. At least with Dax, I could see his face.

  The grass beside me shifted and his skin brushed my arm as he lay down beside me. “And your name is?” he prodded in an even raspier voice, which I didn’t think was possible. His voice was sexy. It reminded me of Steven Tyler’s, the lead singer of my mom’s favorite band Aerosmith. That man truly knew his calling when he sang. For some, music wasn’t simply words mixed with vibrations and sounds. It was breathing.

  “Jaci.”

  “No way.” His interest was unmistakable, although I wasn’t sure why my name was so intriguing to him. There were only two people on this earth aware of the meaning behind my name, and one of them I hadn’t seen for years. As long as it had been since I had seen him, I’d almost convinced myself he wasn’t real. At times, I questioned my sanity altogether. When you’d lived the life I had and found your dad’s cold, lifeless body lying beside your unconscious mother, and there was so much blood you didn’t know who it belonged to, forgetting details was a small blessing in disguise.

  “Way.” I entertained his excitement, mostly because I wanted to know the reasoning behind it. His closeness startled me as I opened my eyes. By the loudness of his voice, it was clear he wasn’t too far, but seeing him staring at me was a little unnerving. I wouldn’t ever admit it out loud, but I liked the way he looked as he watched me. It was clear by the relaxed, lazy smile resting along his lips, he found comfort with me. The same couldn’t be said on my end of the situation. In fact, he made me more on edge than I normally was. This usually was the time I spent by myself to think, and he wouldn’t take a hint and quit following me. In secret, I was a little happy he didn’t, but only a tiny, a
lmost unnoticeable amount.

  “No shit.” He smiled to himself, and there was no denying it was a rhetorical statement. “Seems fitting. Like the song.”

  “Huh? What song?”

  He rolled onto his side and rested his chin in his palm. “Really? You must truly be clueless, girl.” I’d never considered myself clueless. Actually, I thought of myself as being pretty well-versed for my age and knowledgeable. Again, he aggravated me. Who did he think he was, calling me clueless? To think, I was almost considering liking him, a little. He took that idea and strapped a handful of M-80s to it, blowing it into a bunch of puzzle pieces that would never fit together.

  He laughed and pretended to pick his air guitar and hummed a tune. “Don’t pout, Jaci,” he called me out. Usually I met a person’s insult with one of my own, but for some reason unknown to me, I didn’t this time. His voice wasn’t one you commonly expected to come from someone our age, but when he sang…I was speechless. Even if I would change my mind and decide to say something to argue with him, I wasn’t able to do so in this moment.

  Unapologetically, my mouth fell open, and he used his song to unknowingly promise things I knew he wouldn’t keep, because how could someone live up to the expectations you held for them if they didn’t know they were being held above a certain standard? I’d always been a sucker for someone with the ability to sing. I needed to get away from him. Thinking thoughts I didn’t need to would only get us both into trouble. We’d both tell ourselves lies to seek out momentary happiness, because we’re only human. It was what people did. They wanted to find love. We were predictable creatures who needed to fulfill the exact definition of being human. Despite the gruesome fight some fought their entire life, each year was an uppercut to the face and every breath splattered rust into the air to be inhaled. It didn’t matter the fight really, because each time the provable bell rang, the title was the same. We were all human. That realization gave some freedom, but imprisoned others. It was terrifying to only be human, but it was exhilarating in the same breath.