Ten Seconds of Crazy

by Randileigh Kennedy

  “Reid told me you’re heading back with your mom,” she said warmly.

  I nodded, afraid that if I spoke my voice would crack.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” she continued. “Will you do me a favor?”

  I smiled back at her, nodding again. I barely knew her, but yet I felt close to her at the same time. I would’ve done anything she asked of me.

  “I don’t really know what’s going on between you and Reid, and you don’t have to say a word about it. But will you keep in touch with me? Even just a phone call when you get to wherever you’re going, just so I know you’re doing okay?” She had such sincerity in her voice as she said it, and I really believed it had little to do with Reid. She seemed genuinely concerned to know I would be all right after leaving.

  “Of course,” I replied, reaching for my phone off of the table next to my hospital bed. I put in her number. “What exactly did he say?” I asked curiously, unsure I really wanted to know the truth on that.

  “Not much,” she said hesitantly. “Just that you would be heading back west with your mom.”

  I wondered if he was really so vague.

  “He did ask me one thing though,” she added, piquing my curiosity.

  “What’s that?” I replied, still trying to keep my tone light.

  “He asked what he should do to make you stay,” she stated bluntly.

  “I’m not sure I want to know your response,” I said lightheartedly.

  “I don’t think it was what he wanted me to say,” she admitted, “but it was my honest opinion. I told him you were a smart girl and I would trust you to make the right decision for yourself. And if leaving is right for you then, well, maybe he just needs to let you go.”

  A small tear slid down my cheek and I grew frustrated with how emotional I’d been over the past twenty-four hours. I had moments where I felt strong, like maybe I was finally getting my life together by making responsible choices. Then I turned into complete mush.

  I thanked Darla and told her how truly grateful I was to have met her. We hugged again and I promised to call her as soon as I got to Arizona, just so she would know I made it okay. I finally regained my composure - until Uncle Buck walked in. For some reason, I completely lost it. Tears flowed out everywhere.

  “So I hear you’re leaving us. You’re going to turn me into a weeper,” Uncle Buck said jovially, embracing me into his side. His hug hurt immensely, but I strangely didn’t mind it. The pain of it felt comforting in some odd way, like the physical reminder of it matched my emotional state.

  “I will forever be grateful that your face was the first thing I saw after the accident,” I said through gentle sobs. I meant that whole heartedly.

  “You weren’t afraid for a minute that this is what all the angels in heaven looked like?” he teased.

  “That would make it my kind of place,” I joked back. I gently squeezed him one more time. “I really hope to see you again,” I said softly.

  “My doors are forever open to you darling,” he said warmly. “Just promise me you’re leaving for the right reasons. Not because you feel guilty over any of this.”

  I hated the way he could read my mind. I did feel guilty about it. Immensely guilty. It was eating me up.

  “I hope I’m leaving for the right reasons,” I said, trying to sound confident. I was sure he could see through my words though.

  My mom walked in at that moment and she and Darla politely nodded at one another. I introduced her to Uncle Buck, somewhat surprised they hadn’t met already at the hospital earlier. Uncle Buck kissed my mom’s hand as I introduced them, and I swear I saw my mom blush.

  “No, Mom,” I said awkwardly separating them. “No, no, no.”

  My mom laughed flirtatiously and I felt my eyes starting to roll. Uncle Buck smirked at me and I led him and Darla out the door.

  “That’s Reid’s uncle?” my mom said curiously once we were alone again in the room.

  “We are not talking about it,” I replied, shutting her down. “You’ve changed, remember? We can’t even get out of this state before you’re ogling the first single guy you’ve come in contact with.”

  “He was kind of cute, in a round teddy bearish sort of way,” she continued.

  “Not happening,” I reiterated, changing the subject. “What does the bus schedule look like?”

  “There’s a bus that leaves in about an hour, that’s our best bet,” she said, handing me a glossy brochure. “Puts us into Phoenix tomorrow afternoon. Otherwise the next bus doesn’t leave for eight hours.”

  I stared at the brochure. One hour. Not a lot of time before leaving town. If we waited for the red-eye bus later though, I was afraid I’d lose my nerve. At least the shortest time constraint would force me into a quick goodbye with Reid on my way out.

  “I’ll sign out,” I answered with a nod. My mom grabbed my small bag and her luggage and I told her I would meet her down in the hospital lobby in twenty minutes.

  I made my way towards Reid’s hospital wing, my mind racing with a thousand thoughts. Part of me wished he would be sleeping so I could just write him a note to leave by his bed. I knew that was the cowards way out - but I didn’t feel much better than that at the moment. The other part of me wished he would talk me into staying - but I wasn’t convinced that could make me into the person I needed to be to deserve him.

  I gently tapped on his door.

  “Yeah,” he said on the other end, probably assuming I was just another interrupting nurse.

  I slowly opened the door. He sat on the edge of his hospital bed dressed in loose jeans and a light grey shirt, flipping something around repeatedly in his hands. He stopped as soon as he looked up and saw me.

  “I was so scared you weren’t going to stop by before leaving,” he said, slowly standing up from the bed. His voice sounded so relieved.

  “I could never leave you without saying goodbye,” I replied softly.

  He was holding an envelope in his hands as he walked up to me, sliding his arm around my waist, touching my face with his free hand.

  He kissed me, soft, sweet, and then he lingered for a moment, just a whisper away from me. “I’m not saying goodbye to you,” he said quietly. He kissed me again. “I’ll let you walk away, if that’s what you really want, but I’m not saying goodbye,” he said again between kisses.

  The way his lips grazed mine took be back to our first kiss in the rain in our fancy clothes - dancing out by the old barn surrounded by fireflies - wrapped up in white sheets without a care in the world as to what the next day would bring us.

  “I’m just trying to do the right thing,” I replied, trying as hard as I could to hold back my tears.

  “I don’t understand that, what’s the right thing? How does leaving feel right at all?” he questioned, genuinely sounding hurt.

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “But sometimes our lives… intersect with someone else. You said that yourself the other day. Whether it’s chance, or fate, or coincidence, whatever. And when that happens, we learn something from those people. And we become changed from that experience - from that random crossroad when our paths collide with someone else. I know I’m better for having experienced this adventure with you. Even the way this has ended.”

  His soft hand wiped away a tear that escaped my eye.

  “But your path keeps going, right?” I continued. “And I don’t know how to figure me out if I’m only following you. I think you made me finally realize that I can do this - something… anything. My whole life I’ve felt pity - from my teachers, from my mom’s friends, from strangers who felt sorry for me. But you don’t. You don’t pity me at all. You push me. And that matters. So I’m going to make a plan, and figure out my life, and I’m going to do something.”

  “I understand all that,” he said empathetically. “I just wish you would do all of that with me.”

  “I’m terrified that if I stay, that’s all I’ll ever be. Following someone else’s idea of the
perfect life without living my own.”

  He ran his hand gently through my hair, resting his head on top of mine. The scent of his shirt was sweet and familiar, and his arm around me told me there would be no easy way out of this.

  “You know if I don’t leave now, this gets way more complicated,” I said honestly.

  “How do I change your mind?” he asked, kissing me one more time.

  I shook my head. “You don’t,” I replied, as a few more tears escaped. “You just let me go because you trust that it’s the best thing for me. For both of us.”

  He released my waist from his grip, cupping my face.

  He gave me one last, slow, lingering kiss.

  “As you wish,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER 22

  Tears poured down as Reid handed me an envelope as I walked away from him. The silence between us echoed through my head with each step I took in the opposite direction. My whole body ached, and I couldn’t think clearly. Walking away from him probably took less than ten seconds, but it felt infinite at the same time.

  I pressed the elevator button and more tears poured out. When I finally made it to the lobby, I knew my face was a mess, but I didn’t care. My mom hailed us a cab and it took us to the bus station just a few miles away.

  “What’s that?” my mom asked, pointing to the envelope from Reid I was still clutching onto as we waited in the bus terminal.

  “Probably a mushy hand-written letter,” I replied with a smirk, turning the envelope over several times in my hand. It felt thicker than just a piece of paper.

  “Are you going to open it?” she asked inquisitively. To her it probably looked like a fancily wrapped present on Christmas morning. It was torture just to stare at it, but I felt too petrified to open it. I felt like I needed to be at least a state away before being reminded of the potentially horrible decision I’d just made. “Are you okay?” she asked, trying to read my face.

  “I will be,” I replied, trying to sell her with a reassuring smile. After all, every twenty-year-old girl got over her broken heart at some point. Surely someone would convince me Reid Carson wasn’t the last boy I was ever going to love. I had to get over all of this someday.

  “That’s us,” my mom said as she stood, gathering our bags. A voice on the overhead speaker was directing us to door five.

  Once we were situated on the bus, as comfortably as one can be on non-reclining striped grey velour seats, I leaned my head against the window.

  I eventually re-opened my eyes, surprised to see four hours had passed. The skies had darkened quite a bit as the sun dipped down below the edge of the earth. The bus was fairly dark. I looked down at the envelope still sitting in my lap.

  I pushed the overhead lamp button, disappointed it wasn’t a bit brighter. My mom sat across from me, chatting with another female traveler. I turned the envelope over in my hand again, finally deciding to open it. Inside was a letter and two photographs.

  The first picture was of me sitting on that green couch thrown to the side of the highway. I smiled, remembering back to our first day driving. It seemed ridiculous to stop for such a thing - for a picture on a couch alongside the highway. But the look on my face was happy - a huge grin, like this was some special find on an extraordinary day.

  The second picture was of Reid and me standing in front of the old wooden barn. He was leaning down kissing me, as if he was completely oblivious to the fact that there was a camera capturing the moment. His arm was wrapped around me and the dusk sky revealed a beautiful summer night. One of the best I’d ever had.

  I slowly opened up the letter.

  Cassidy,

  First, I want to tell you I definitely lied to you. I did use you as something to cross off my list - just not in the way you thought. The second I took that picture of you - laughing on an old ugly couch on the side of the road - I knew I had truly taken a picture of the most beautiful girl I’d ever laid eyes on. The setting is ironic - strange - just plain hideous - but there you are… Smiling like you’re someplace fancier. The laugh lines around your eyes light up the entire picture. When I look at it, that’s exactly like I feel. Your joy is contagious. It’s infectious. And maybe in the beginning I just seemed like a boy who’d found some feeling he thought he’d forever lost. Maybe that was true. But I know that no matter how much time goes by, I will feel that way every time I see that look on your face (despite the hideous couch).

  The second picture I intended to give you was the one of the old couple in front of the barn. You thought it looked sad, but all I saw was beauty and wonder and magic in that photo. Ironically, the photo of us in front of the barn - that’s the picture that makes me feel the most sorrow.

  Just days ago it felt like a summer of infinite dreams. Fireflies and winking eyes and dances under the stars. This picture reminds me now of something expired - it points out days that were numbered - that the summer skies I fell in love under weren’t really infinite. It reminds me that even the fireflies will someday burn out and everything beautiful in this world will eventually just become a memory - like an old photograph.

  I hate that. I much prefer the old black and white picture - decades of time gone by. Repetitive summers, countless simple days… Time. That’s the only thing I know to miss about you. More time. I don’t miss your face - I will forever see it in my mind every time I close my eyes. I don’t miss your laugh or your whispers - I hear you in every second of silence that surrounds me. I don’t miss your spontaneous free spirit - I will jump off another bridge someday, still imaging you right behind me. I can relive our experiences together forever in my head. But I can’t wrap my mind around the feeling that more time together no longer exists for us.

  I don’t know how to put my feelings for you into words. This paper beneath my hands feels too simple to hold the weight of my thoughts. All I know is that my feelings for you are relentless - I can’t stop them. I can’t shut them off just because you walked away from this. I keep wondering why our time together was so short, even though you feel as familiar to me as anyone I’ve ever known. Out time together was merely seconds compared to the infinite ticking clocks that will continue on. But I think I’ve learned that the length of time someone loves another is insignificant - even the briefest of encounters are enough to change everything. Every minute with you made me feel a different kind of life in my soul. It’s a feeling I so badly intend to hold onto.

  People always say ‘I love you’ at the end of a phone call - at the end of a long day - at the end of a movie, or the end of a conversation they feel will be their last. People say it at the end of letters all the time.

  I know with certainty that I love you. But that shouldn’t be my last declaration to you.

  Those words are our beginning. Come back to me.

  Love,

  Reid

  A Michigan address was written at the bottom of the letter. A slow tear slid down my cheek. It was hard for me to comprehend the unconditional forgiveness he offered. I felt like a whirlwind of ruin in his life. I blamed myself for all of my wrongs - not trusting him - wrecking the beautiful, important thing he originally set out to do - leaving him.

  Leaving him. Another wrong I didn’t deserve his forgiveness for. But here he was, pointing out all of the things that together we got right.

  My brain yelled at me, making me believe I didn’t deserve him. But I did deserve a love like that - free, unapologetic, overflowing. Everyone deserved that. Any girl would be right to be loved by Reid Carson.

  I looked back at the letter. Brief encounters can change everything. It resonated with me. My entire life felt like one constant change - every new home, new state - it was always brief, but I never changed. Reid, though, he had changed me in so many ways.

  Before him, I felt like a victim of my circumstances. I lacked the courage to be brave and change my situations. I lacked the confidence in knowing anyone was ever on my side. I lacked spontaneity and a recklessness that now had me jumping off bridges and si
nging loud into the wind along highways I didn’t recognize. Most of all, I never knew I was worth the love of a guy like Reid.

  But I knew that now.

  CHAPTER 23

  I quickly grabbed my phone, dialing Reid’s number with a nervous excitement. I wasn’t all that sure what I wanted to say, but I didn’t want to waste time thinking about it. I felt suffocated by the bus. I so badly wanted to leap off of it and start running east.

  The instant pick up of his automated message told me his phone was off. He was probably sleeping already. I looked over at my mom and she had dozed off as well. I quietly made my way to the front of the bus to talk to the driver.

  “How long until the next station?” I asked politely. The driver’s name tag read ‘Yolanda’ and she didn’t look thrilled to be bothered with questions.

  “We’ve got at least forty miles,” she replied with an insensitive tone. “You’ll have to use the bathroom in the back.”

  “Are there transfer buses at the next stop?” I pried, ignoring her comment. I ultimately just wanted to know how quickly I could get turned around.

  “Do you think you’re on the Polar Express or something honey?” she sneered. “Where do you want to go? Your ticket’s for Arizona. Are you trying to go sightseeing first? Ain’t no buses at the station taking people somewhere pretty. You’re more likely to get urinated on before the next bus stops there at nine a.m. tomorrow morning. I ‘spose you got time for that?”

  I wasn’t even sure what she was getting at, but I knew our conversation was breaking down.

  “I need to get to Michigan. Or maybe back to Iowa, to the hospital I came from,” I tried explaining. My head throbbed and the actual name of the hospital escaped me in that moment.

  She just rolled her eyes at me. “Girl, you’re going the wrong way. And you bought the wrong ticket. It’s always them pretty types who don’t know what the damn states look like,” she muttered.