by Riley Jean
I sat under a tree. It was as good a place as any. The whole cemetery was quiet. Still. Somber. Strangely peaceful. It made me wonder if maybe he was still here with me. I knew he wasn’t literally here, but I could almost feel him in spirit. At least, I wanted to believe it. Just for a little while.
“Remember when we had to do that presentation for freshmen health class?”
A small breeze blew my way.
“Everyone partnered up and did some lame speech or skit. We blew them out of the water with our rap… Drug free, that’s how I’m gonna be, won’t see me wasting my life, I’ll be living my dreams… Wow. We got a lot better at writing lyrics, I think.”
I smiled softly at the memory.
“I was so nervous to get up in front of everyone, I almost forgot all the words. But you reminded me about that time Lexi got us kicked off the Pinocchio ride. And we couldn’t stop laughing! I still think of that day sometimes when I get nervous. It works every time. You were always so quick to put me at ease…”
My eyes grew watery.
“I have never, ever been angry with you, Phoenix. But I’m so mad at you today. I’m so mad for all these people you left behind like this. Don’t you realize how loved you are? Don’t you see these hordes of people that are here for you? We already lost you once. We were given another chance. You came back to us because you were supposed to live a long, happy life.
“So why did you have to do it? Huh? I want to understand but I don’t. You had everything going for you. You have friends and talent and so many more adventures left. What did that stupid OxyContin give you that you couldn’t get from music? Or something else? Anything else.”
That was one of the hardest parts of accepting death—the what-if’s and the unanswered questions. It’s what keeps us up at night thinking about everything else we could have done, and if it would’ve made a difference.
“Did you think you were invincible?” I accused. “Is that why you didn’t you let anyone help you?”
Don’t get me wrong—I understood the need for escape. There were times that I used alcohol or other unhealthy vices to solve my problems, too. There were times that I refused help because I was too stubborn to let anybody in. But that was different. It didn’t have the same kinds of risks or consequences.
Did it?
Or were we on that very same slippery slope…?
“What were you running from?” I asked quietly. I wondered if anyone knew. It’s funny how people can wear masks without anyone ever knowing it, even the closest of friends. Had anyone even looked at Phoenix and realized there was a problem? That he needed help?
I lightly brushed my hand over the grass around me. The green blades tickled my palm. “I know what that’s like, you know. The need to escape. Last year wasn’t among my proudest moments… But I’m not running anymore. I’m getting better.”
Another breeze swept through the trees, rustling their leaves. My eyes fell closed.
A certain smiling face came to mind. The same one that was always on my mind.
Phoenix had lived a big life, but had he ever fallen in love? Had he told her?
“I looked out at those thousands of people that were here for you today, and it made me realize something about life and what’s truly important… I’ve spent so much time hiding behind walls and worrying about things I can’t change. But if I continue down that path, if I keep wallowing in my regrets, I’ll just end up bitter and alone.” I wiped away a tear. “I don’t want that to be my legacy. I want to have hope, and trust, and love, and make some kind of substantial impact on this world. Like you.
“I got a second chance, too, Phoenix. But I’ve been wasting it.”
I used to think I lost my soul that night. It sent me wandering, lost and confused for a year, unsure of my purpose, or if I had a purpose left. But I look at Phoenix—at how young he was when his time was up—and I realize how much more he could’ve done if he hadn’t succumbed.
Life isn’t perfect. We all face challenges. We all make mistakes. Our character isn’t measured by how fast we can run away, but by how far we can fall and still pick ourselves back up.
I climbed to my feet. In the distance I could see the crowds of people still gathered for his wake. After all this time, I was still that girl standing on the outskirts, alone in her corner.
And maybe sometimes, that was okay. Maybe I didn’t always have to dance to the same beat. Maybe it wasn’t necessary to be liked by everyone, or to be at the center of the social circle at all times.
But for someone lucky enough to have found people in my life that loved me, pushing them away and closing off my heart was the exact opposite of living life to the fullest. Love was a precious gift, one that I had taken for granted.
On that note, there were a few things I needed to do.
“Thank you for being my friend,” I whispered into the air. Once more, the breeze picked up and blew the curls across my face. “You were always my favorite.”
I said goodbye to a good friend that day. And I promised to keep his memory and the things he taught me close to my heart.
* * *
A short walk later, I found him exactly where I thought he’d be—standing in front of a gray headstone on the hill with a lovely view of the city below. This wasn’t the first time either one of us had experienced loss. I still wasn’t sure if that made it easier or harder. I watched him there, away from the crowd, lost in his own memories. His black hair blew lightly in the wind, but he was otherwise motionless.
I never got the chance to meet Violet Storm. Her birth year was the same as mine, but the second date carved into that stone was tragically too close to the first. I wondered how different Ricky’s life would have turned out if he never lost his little sister. I bet he wondered the same thing all the time.
I debated whether or not I should announce my presence. I didn’t want to intrude on his private moment, but I didn’t want him to be alone here, either. Ricky and I certainly had our ups and downs—the worst of it being the last night I saw him. However if Nathan and I could reconcile, surely there was hope for us, too.
“Ricky?”
My voiced carried over on the breeze. I knew he heard me, yet he didn’t even glance in my direction.
“Ricky… please don’t shut me out,” I said when he refused to acknowledge me.
We hadn’t spoken since the night of my farewell party, when he was being dragged away to the sounds of my screams. Although I hadn’t forgotten what had happened that night, and things would never go back to the way they were, I’d forgiven him. I couldn’t stand to have bad air between us. Today we had to bury our friend. He wouldn’t want us harboring animosity at his funeral.
“She loved you, Ricky. Just like Phoenix did. Just like I do, too.”
“Damn it, Scar,” Ricky said, an edge of warning in his voice. Still he refused to face me. “Just walk away.” His body was frozen like a beautiful, tragic statue, shoulders hunched, head tilted down, black hair hanging lower than normal to shield his face, every muscle visibly taut.
“We both messed up. But you have to forgive me. And you have to let me forgive you, too,” I told him, a truth I had grown to know. “Anger isn’t your strength, Ricky… it’s your chains.”
He sniffed. Then more of the silent treatment.
Desperation clawed at me, bringing my emotions to the surface. We both made mistakes, but that didn’t erase the countless years he had been my protector, my comforter, my brother, and my friend. I couldn’t let go of those memories. I couldn’t lose him, too.
“Please Ricky,” I pleaded, my voice shaky. “I don’t know what you want me to say, I… I’m sorry.”
He laughed a single dark, humorless laugh and tilted his head towards me. I finally caught sight of his profile. Holy ravioli—he had a beard.
“You’re sorry? You’re sorry I let you down? That I let him down?” His voice was rough and frighteningly void of all emotion, his expression deadly stoic. “I was
supposed to protect him. Just like I was supposed to protect her.”
He turned towards the grave again. I bit my cheek and had to look away. I couldn’t handle seeing this side of him. There was an absence of strength in him, weighed down by his demons. It was so unlike the powerful and confident Ricky I knew… the Ricky I thought I knew.
In my eyes, this man had always been capable of fighting monsters. Beneath his tough exterior was just a sorry kid who wanted another chance to do it right.
Because sometimes bad things happened to good people. Sometimes you looked away for three seconds, and a little girl wandered into the street.
Life wasn’t fair.
This was one of those times I wished it was.
Ricky never stopped being a brother. He looked after Phoenix, just like he looked after me. But Phoenix wasn’t like me. He was wild and adventurous and did whatever he wanted. Maybe Ricky had felt protective of us both, but that didn’t make him responsible for the actions of two grown adults. I knew better than anyone he didn’t need any additional guilt tugging at his conscious.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said.
“Why are you here, Scar? Tired of your perfect little life again, back to slum it with me? Give me a fucking break,” he said, in a manner that left no room for discussion. Still he wouldn’t fully turn to face me. “I don’t need your misery anymore. Walk away.”
I flinched back from his tone. “That’s not fair.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? That’s why you only come around at your lowest, to remind yourself that someone else out there has it worse than you.”
My anger flared at the insinuation. How dare he belittle our friendship in such a way! I shoved my palm into my chest and shouted with conviction, “I have never judged you!”
“It’s time we stopped pretending, Scar.”
“What are you—”
“I will never be James.” The heavy silence that followed was thick with finality. “And you,” he said, his voice quieter, sullen. “You will never be Violet.”
My heart lurched painfully at his words. I didn’t mean to replace her. I just wanted someone to call my family. And I thought he wanted the same.
Things went wrong for our relationship a long time ago. Codependency. Jealousy. Anger. What was once so simple had grown until it imploded in on itself. But why? It was about as clear as mud.
I sniffled. “I don’t understand what happened to us.”
“I know you don’t.” He said with a sigh, and bent to the grave. “That’s the problem.”
When he straightened, the headstone came back into view. I didn’t understand what he was trying to say until I looked down. There they were, laid neatly in the grass, tragically breathtaking…
Black roses.
In a moment of clarity, my eyes shot back to his unclouded gray ones. In them I saw something I’d never seen before. Ricky rarely digressed from his stoic demeanor. In the past, when he did show emotion, it was either violent anger, or with me, fond and familial.
This wasn’t either of those things. Ricky Storm… was vulnerable.
That look terrified me. Because deep down, I think I already knew.
“Can a man and a woman, both single and unattached, ever just be friends?” Vance had said. “No, they can’t… Every time, eventually, one of them begins to fall.”
A small part of me had been curious a time or two. Sometimes a particular look or a comment hinted at more, but there were also plenty of hints that suggested otherwise. I’d been wrong about men’s intentions in the past—enough to make me doubt. Something told me when it came to women, Ricky Storm was a man of action. Yet the only action he’d taken with me was one drunken kiss. I’d come a long way in accepting that I was not an unlovable woman. But the man practically had fan girls, for goodness sake. How could I possibly be the one he wanted?
I looked up at him anxiously and shook my head side to side in denial.
He nodded his head, so slowly, to counteract the movement of mine, and took the last remaining steps forward until he was standing right in front of me.
He lifted his hands to my face, thumbs circling softly over my cheeks. His eyes were downcast and his brows drawn together, heavy with thought. And I just watched defenselessly while he crossed that forbidden line.
“This is why it’ll never work for us, Scar. Because I don’t know how to say what I’m feeling, and you don’t know how to listen.”
So he told me with the only method he knew how.
Cradling each side of my face, he bent down and touched his lips to mine. And we shared a kiss, right there in the middle of the graveyard.
I had no idea how to react. I was stunned motionless, shell-shocked by this turn of events. But just like before, I didn’t dare push him away.
He wasn’t forceful with me. It was the kind of comfort two old friends needed on a day like today. I felt the same fond affection I’d attributed to the alcohol during our first encounter in his kitchen. He was just as sweet with me. Not quite how one would kiss a sister or a lover, but somewhere in between. Tender. Careful.
But devoid of any real heat.
The truth of the matter was, I’d loved Ricky all my life—like family. That was how he’d always be to me. I couldn’t wrap my head around it any other way. The subtle stirrings I experienced paled in comparison to my desire for someone else in particular. Compared to him, Ricky never stood a chance. Just as I never stood a chance at not falling in love with the other man.
Long after it ended his eyes were still closed, as if to savor every last sensation. “Was it like that?”
“Yes,” I whispered back.
With a nod, he breathed deeply in and out. “I didn’t want to lose that forever.”
And sometimes, a man of few words canno say the perfect thing.
I placed my palm gently on his cheek, and he covered my hand with his own. It was reminiscent of the night we stood in his kitchen while I iced his eye, and I was grateful for another untainted memory he wouldn’t have to lose.
There we stood, communicating without speaking, letting our silence say everything that needed to be said. As much as I cared for Ricky, he had taken me by surprise today. He never did vulnerable. He never did relationships. And he never did complicated. But it didn’t get any more complicated than this.
I could sense we understood each other without having to say a single word.
That was the one thing Ricky and I had in common—our inability to express ourselves out loud. Just two people hiding away, unwilling to connect to the world. Maybe some people, like my brother James, were born like that. Not Ricky and me. We became this way. That’s what happens when a person experiences great trauma and is unable to properly cope. Life becomes less about building relationships, and more about guarding yourself from them.
As of today, I’d made the decision not to live like this any longer.
I wished the world got to see this side of Ricky Storm. Beneath the smirks and the temper and the tattoos, he had such a yearning in his heart. But there were still so many demons he had yet to face. If my stubbornness was a wall, his was a fortress.
I could feel his hold on me tighten for a few final seconds before he released me. I smiled shyly, and he returned it with the half smile that I loved.
“What now?” I asked.
All my life, Ricky had known me better than anyone. He always knew what I needed and he always, always gave it to me. Too late I realized why he never pursued me when his feelings changed. Because he knew the thing I needed most last year wasn’t another complication. It was a friend.
This time, his answer came in the form of one very final-feeling kiss on the forehead, followed by the retreating back of a black leather jacket.
* * *
[Journal]
Ricky was wrong about one thing—anger isn’t the most powerful emotion. Perhaps it’s stronger than guilt, hurt, or confusion. But there’s something that trumps all that combined.
>
Love.
Gosh, when did I become such a cheeseball?
But seriously.
Maybe emotions weren’t intended as a form of torture, or meant to be suppressed. Maybe we were created as relational beings, designed to experience and fail and feel. We should be able to mourn for the loss of our loved ones. Feel sympathy for those suffering. Feel the outrage of injustice. Feel the mysteries of life’s unknowns. Feel the beauty in the mountains. Feel the triumph of a great success. Feel the movement of a good song. Feel the connection with a friend.
A best friend.
A real love.
Because it’s worth it.
It’s worth it to feel every pain and heartache if it leads to love.
Because the perfect love trumps bitterness, anger, even self-loathing.
The perfect love indeed conquers all.
* * *
I knocked to announce my arrival. One foot bounced nervously. I had every intention of pouring my heart out. Pleading for forgiveness. Groveling.
Also fully aware that I was more than likely about to get the door slammed in my face.
The porch light assaulted me. My knees nearly gave way when the door opened.
The second we saw each other it was all over.
He said nothing, just palmed the back of my head and forced my mouth to his in a brutal and unstoppable kiss. I yielded to him, and was in his arms one second before the front door slammed shut. He kissed me with fierce abandon against the door, then against a wall, then another. Items got knocked over. Something broke. The next thing I knew, we were in his bedroom and I was standing on his bed.
“Vance, I…”
Before I even knew what hit me, he yanked my legs out from under me and I flew backwards. No sooner did my back hit the mattress, he was on me.
He molded his hips to mine, pressing me down into the mattress. I greedily pulled at him with the same fervor. We kissed deeply, feverishly, passionately… making up for our long absence. I lost myself inside his kiss. And even more-so when his hands started to roam.
There was no hesitation this time. He pretty much just ripped my shirt right off, quickly followed by his own. As much as I always appreciated the respect he showed me, seeing him lose control like this was just as thrilling. The way his body was more receptive to me than his mind… The feeling was heady, and addictive.