“Sure,” he replied.
“Okay, then we’ll watch a movie.”
______
“Merry Christmas,” Benjamin sang as he placed a box in my hand.
I smiled and handed his gift to him. “Merry Christmas,” I replied in a quiet tone since we were in his parent’s living room. Faith wasn’t in here with us. The fact that Benjamin made me come over here to sit around the tree while we opened our gifts probably killed his mother’s dark soul.
I waited for Benjamin to open his first, but he wouldn’t. “Go on,” he urged me, smiling.
I grinned. “You go first.”
“Emily.”
“Benjamin Helen.”
He visibly shuddered. “Please, don’t. It sucks enough that my last name sounds like a chick’s name.”
I laughed. “Fine. I’ll go first.”
I opened the neatly wrapped box and…frowned. It was a laptop. Why would he get me this? This was too much money.
“Don’t,” he warned me as I looked up at him. “Do you still daydream of monsters and horror?” he asked randomly.
“What?” I was smiling again.
“Remember when we were little, and you were always scaring the shit out of me with your stories. You used to say you’d write something unbelievably scary, and someone would be forced to turn it into a movie.” I saw where he was going and still smiled as he spoke. “You won that writing competition in the eighth grade, and I can remember how proud of yourself you were.”
“So?”
“So, type.” He pointed at the laptop in my lap. “I know it’s easier than writing by hand.”
I gaped. “First, you force me to go to college this semester, now you’re telling me to write?” I squinted my eyes at him. “Who do you think you are?”
“Your caregiver. Now listen to what I say and write.” He shrugged his shoulders like what he was saying wasn’t a big deal, but it was. No one ever encouraged me to do anything unless it was him. No one had faith in me unless it was him.
I was going to cry.
I didn’t even know if I wanted to write.
But, now I thought I might put my daydreaming into words.
All because of this laptop.
All because of him.
“English is the only thing you’re good at, better stick to it.” He tore me out of my thoughts. I blinked and met his eyes. “It’s okay, you can cry. I know I’m the best, ever.”
With the box and laptop still in my lap, I motioned to his present. “Open yours.”
As he opened his, worry gnawed at me. “It’s nothing expensive.”
“You didn’t even have to get me anything,” he muttered, amused.
“Well, I have to because you’re always getting me something every year, so I’d feel bad not doing the same.” That wasn’t true, I didn’t mind getting him anything. He was easy to buy for because I knew him so well. I’d even admit that I looked forward to the one present I’d get every Christmas from him because at least I knew someone was thinking of me.
That sounded so pathetic.
Maybe it was.
I watched as he unwrapped the box and opened it. His grin stretched ear to ear as he pulled out his gift. “You didn’t.” He shook his head.
I smiled. “I did.”
“You got the first seven seasons. How much did you pay for these?” he asked me.
“I got good deals on them where they were pre-owned.” I paused. “Are you disappointed?”
“No!” He laughed. “You know I’m a total fanboy when it comes to One Piece.”
I rolled my eyes. “You have such bad taste in anime.”
“You still going on about Naruto being the best anime?” He looked up from the DVDs.
“Naruto is the best.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“All right.” He stood up. “Let’s go watch them at your house.”
I pretended to be annoyed with that idea and groaned. “Ugh, why did I get you those again?”
We spent the rest of Christmas break watching the anime I got him, all the while he annoyed me about writing something for him to read.
Sadly, break was over.
And my best friend was gone again.
Chapter 4
_______
Emily
2 years and 6 months prior…
“Have you heard from your Mom today?”
I closed the fridge and looked over at Dad as he stepped into the kitchen.
I shook my head. “No.” I thought about his question. She hadn’t been home much, which wasn’t unusual, but I tried to remember if she came home last night. “Is something wrong?”
I caught him off guard with my question because he seemed to think about it. “Nah, nothing’s wrong.” He shook his head. “Can you hand me a beer out of there?”
“Are you sure you want one first thing in the morning? Want me to make you some breakfast before I go to class?”
He frowned. “Why are you offering to cook breakfast? You never cook breakfast.”
“Because you’re getting older, and what if all that drinking catches up with you?”
Because I’m scared. Because I don’t know what’s going on between you and Mom. Because I don’t know what’s going to become of this house next.
“I’m sure it will eventually, if not already,” was all he had to say. “Be careful on your way to classes and call your mom and see where she’s at.”
“Okay.”
______
“I think Mom’s cheating on Dad,” I said to Benjamin a few weeks later over the phone.
He paused. “Are you sure?”
I sighed. “She’s not been coming home…even nights sometimes, and Dad doesn’t even confront her about it. Somehow, I feel like that’s worse.”
“Have you asked her about it?” Benjamin asked.
“I’m too chicken,” I admitted, chewing on my bottom lip. “I know he’s a couch potato and doesn’t do anything but drink… But I look at him and feel sad. Mom and everyone used to talk about how much of a hard worker he was before he hurt his back and turned to drinking.”
“I know it’s not what you want to hear, Emily, but your dad and mom don’t have much of a relationship. It’d make sense if one of them was cheating; they don’t do anything but live together.”
“Cheating’s still cheating though!”
“I know. I never said it wasn’t.” Benjamin rustled something around while on the phone. “Ask her. Don’t sit and worry about it.”
“Anyway, still got that hot date tonight?” I asked him.
“I see that you’re wanting to change the subject, and I’ll let you. For now. And yeah, I do. Gonna pick her up at six.”
I exhaled in envy. “You’re making me want to try dating again.” Then I started thinking about it for a second and muttered, “But then I remember my mom and dad and change my mind.”
“Dating is full of ups and downs, but I have a feeling you’re not looking for casual.”
“I’ll just live with you and your wife when you get married,” I told him.
He sputtered. “What?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. We can make it a trio. She can do all the wifely duties in and out of the bedroom, and I’ll get to keep my best friend.”
“You’re insane.” He sounded horrified.
Just to aggravate him, I added, “I hope she’s cool with it. Never know, your wife could end up being Katie.”
“Hell no.” He hung up on me.
After he so rudely hung up on me, I opened the laptop he got me and willed my brain to think of words. I wished for an adventure. I wished for horror. I wished for something epic, but nothing.
An hour later, I sat staring at the screen that peacefully slept in sleep mode. I didn’t have anything at all to write. I wasn’t the girl I used to be. I couldn’t remember how I conjured up stories and played make-believe. Life got a little too real growing up, and mayb
e it took the fun out of me.
Still, even though creating stories might not be my calling like Benjamin thought, that didn’t mean I couldn’t make a career out of writing. Maybe I could look into freelance writing…
I sighed. The need not to disappoint him was real.
Chapter 5
_______
Benjamin
2 years 4 months prior…
“Happy Birthday, Ben!”
I smiled as Tammy thrust a cupcake with a single candle in my face with a bright smile. I’d been going steady with Tammy the last couple of months. I liked her a lot. She was refreshing and sweet—the real kind, not the pretend sweetness.
Only her action with the cupcake reminded me of when Emily had done the same thing to me on my sixteenth birthday. Then a week later, I did the same thing to her on hers. Our birthdays were both in April, mine the 7th, hers the 14th. A week apart.
Thinking of her made me want to call her up. She’d been distracted and distant lately. I had a feeling it was because of her parents and their situation. I loved college but when I was worried about her, I was reminded of what I had to leave behind to get a little freedom from my parents.
She was just a friend—my best one. I shouldn’t feel like being away from her was some sort of betrayal to her. Hell, I probably shouldn’t care as much as I did. I sure didn’t call any of my guy friends just to hear their voice.
But, I do care.
I think I always would.
Because my heart would always keep her as something a little more.
“Hey,” Tammy grabbed my chin and pulled it toward her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I tried to smile.
“Just one more year, and you’ll be drinking age.”
We both laughed because we were drinking now. Then I was frowning again because I was drinking with Tammy when I wouldn’t with Emily. And all I could think about was how honest and real Emily was with me—all the time, and when she told me she wanted to get drunk with me because I was safe, I should have.
But I didn’t. It stung a little and felt too fucking good at the same time. A beautiful torture.
So, I couldn’t drink with Emily. It was me being defiant in the safe zone she kept me in, but I knew I didn’t want to leave it. It felt too good to stay.
“You’re frowning again,” Tammy informed me.
I was the biggest ass, thinking of someone else when I was sort of dating her. I knew how to make myself less of one though.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, standing up. “I’ll stop being distracted once I check on a friend.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Yeah, and she normally talks to me but she’s being stubborn lately.”
The idea of her mom cheating must really bother her.
“Emily?” Tammy asked with a disappointed frown.
I kissed her forehead, telling myself that I could do better toward her if I could just stop fixating on Emily tonight. “I’ll be just a sec.”
I stepped outside to call her. She answered after the third ring, “Hello?” I could tell she was at Crash’s.
“Hey.”
“Can I call you back? I’m working, and we’re swamped.”
“Wait, Emily, are you okay?”
She paused. “What? What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m stressing over you, and I can’t enjoy Tammy’s company because of it,” I blurted unexpectedly.
“Oh my god. I’m fine. I’m a big girl.” I could hear the humor in her voice. “You need to stop coddling me.”
I groaned. She always mistook my affection and worry for her as me being brotherly or worse, motherly.
“Did my gift come in yet?” she asked quickly. “Listen, I got to go. Happy Birthday!”
She hung up, and I walked back in.
I felt better though because she sounded okay today.
So, I could go back to my own life. The one without her in it.
Chapter 6
________
Emily
2 years 3 months prior…
The trouble between Mom and Dad were coming to light or just starting, or this was the beginning of the end. Either way, Dad finally started asking questions, questions led to arguing, arguing led to Mom leaving a few hours and coming back when she thought he wouldn’t confront her again.
She knew him too well; it seemed. He always raided the fridge for his beer when she left and when she was gone, I saw the utter despair on his face as he glanced at himself, then the beer, then he’d place it to his lips and stopped thinking about it. So, by the time she came home, he was passed out on the couch where she left him all the time.
I made a habit of staying at Katie’s some nights when she wasn’t staying over at her boyfriend’s, then I’d feel guilty and come home bright and early because I feared Mom didn’t come home either.
I didn’t even complain when I drove to college early every morning to finish my last week of the semester because anything was more bearable than staying at home. I slowly felt like Benjamin and I were growing apart. We didn’t talk as much and it made me sad, but at the same time, I couldn’t make myself call him up because he’d baby me. I was beginning to wonder if it was healthy for me to stay attached to him. I’d become so dependent on him helping me with my emotions that I didn’t know how to relax and stop worrying without him.
It wasn’t healthy.
So, I let our distance grow.
But it didn’t mean I didn’t miss his voice in my ear at different times of the day.
Maybe this was growing up. Friends grew apart.
Only Friday evening after work, Mom was waiting for me outside. When she looked up from the old Malibu I got for six hundred bucks last year, her smile was tight and nervous. Now I was nervous too.
I realized this was some sort of confrontation; the end I kept dreading.
“What are you doing here?” I came to a stop once I stood in front of her.
“I know you’ve noticed, Emily,” she started, and I squirmed. “I can’t stay with your father anymore.”
“I know he’s not easy to love…” I studied her face, green eyes and red hair—not orange or flaming, a deep, dark burgundy just like mine. I tried not to see the little improvements in her appearance in the last year like something or someone was giving her a reason to look nice again. Dad had to notice too because she used to not care at all about how she dressed and looked, just like him. “I think if you asked him to quit drinking, he’d stop.”
“It’s not about his drinking.” She smiled sadly, shaking her head. “But, I’ve tried for years to get him to quit, and he doesn’t want to quit. He has to want to, Emily, and I was drowning with him. I couldn’t anymore. I love him, especially the man I fell in love with… But it’s not a good or a happy kind of love. I’d just been staying for the mirage of who he was.”
Taking a deep breath, I didn’t dare blink. “I know.” I understood her. I wish I didn’t, but I did. I wish I wasn’t so understanding, but I was because I lived in the same house. I saw the same things she did. I saw the lack of warmth, love, and affection from the man in the house because I got the same treatment.
And because I understood her so well, I wanted to cry even harder because it felt like the ultimate betrayal against Dad.
“Is there someone else?” My heard pounded. This hurt.
She looked down. “There is.”
“Mom.” That one word was full of emotion. “Why cheat? Why didn’t you just leave sooner? I can’t understand that. I understand why you want to leave, but why not leave before you became unfaithful?”
“Because I wasn’t brave enough then.”
“Have you told Dad yet?”
I was terrified of how he’d react. He was already an alcoholic. For some reason, that made him fragile in my eyes, not wrathful because Dad wasn’t a mean man. He never was. He was just a drunk.
“I am going home to tell him…and to pack my things.”
&nbs
p; My stomach dropped. “Right now?”
“Do you want to move with me?”
Her question surprised me because I never thought I’d hear her ask me that. And the weaker part of me wanted to grasp the opportunity so that I didn’t have to see what Mom’s leaving would do to Dad.
“We both can’t abandon him,” was my answer. I could never do that to him. I was already sweating and jittery about what would happen next.
I just knew I’d stay with him.
Mom had told me to go to Katie’s if I hadn’t wanted to be there when she told him and watch as she packed up and left our home, but I went home anyway. I sat on the porch and cried and as I waited for the yelling to start, I realized twenty was probably too old to be bothered by what was happening.
But I cried anyway. And when Mom loaded up her car and left after giving me a hug, I was still stunned that there was no yelling at all. Once her car faded in the distance, I decided to be brave and stepped inside.
Dad was sitting in his recliner, the same place he was always at. He sipped on a beer and his eyes were focused heavily on the screen… This was worse than not yelling or doing anything. He wasn’t even reacting.
I didn’t even know how to approach him or if I even should at all. I finally took a seat on the couch. “Dad?” I asked.
“You stayed?” he asked, finally looking over at me.
I nodded. “What are we gonna do?” I waited forever for him to reply. “I can help with the bills.”
“My check will cover everything,” he grunted, clearly uncomfortable that I even offered.
“Dad.” He looked at me once again. “Are you okay?”
“I’m an alcoholic who just lost his wife. I’ll be fine after a few more beers.”
I didn’t know how to answer that. “You don’t have to be an alcoholic.”
“I’ve been one this long, I don’t plan on changing. If it kills me, it kills me.”
His attitude rubbed me the wrong way because like always, I was left out and I wasn’t thought of. “You could try to stop,” I snapped. “You could have tried to love harder, you could have tried to have been a better husband and father, but as you are, you’re a shell. Can you blame Mom for leaving?”
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