Under a Different Sky

by Iler, Lindsey

  Luckily, he didn’t dig too deep. She winces a bit, which only makes me grin, remembering when she’d done this exact thing for me. I clean off the small amount of dried blood.

  “Why are you smiling like that, Nick?” She reaches up, running her finger over my lips.

  “You bandaged me up, and now, I’m doing the same for you. It only seems fair.”

  She leans her head on my shoulder, and I kiss her hair.

  “What the fuck are you two doing?” Kellan yells.

  Hannah’s spine stiffens. Shit. We aren’t alone.

  “Listen, man, we wanted to tell you.” I stand, putting myself between Hannah and him. She doesn’t need my protection from Kellan, but this isn’t going to be easy.

  “Wanted to tell me that you two have been hooking up, or that you moved on from my dead sister to her best friend?” He shoves me in the chest, and I allow it, taking whatever pain he needs to inflict on me.

  “It’s not that simple.” I lift my hands, silently telling him I’m not looking for a fight. “We didn’t mean for it to happen.”

  “But it did happen, and that’s all I need to know. You’re a worthless piece of shit.” Kellan leans around me to spit at Hannah. “And you’re nothing but a—”

  I shove him back a step. Not a chance in hell I’m going to let him say another damn word.

  An earth-shattering whimper escapes Hannah. She knows what he was going to say. This is our worst fears come to life.

  I force my arm into his neck and push him into the lockers, holding him in place. He’s looking at me all scared, like I’ll actually hurt him. If he tries to call her that again, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

  “Are you done?”

  “I didn’t want any of this,” she cries, standing from the bench.

  “Hannah, don’t apologize to him. We did nothing wrong.” I step towards her and reach for her hand, but she pulls it away. The sting from her rejection is tamped down by her apologetic, saddened expression. I understand why she’s distant, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

  “You know what?” Kellan comes dangerously close to my face, glaring back at Hannah. “You two deserve each other.”

  “Okay, enough of this.” Coach Barnes steps between us. “Hannah, sweetheart, why don’t you wait outside? As for the rest of us, shower and get out of my locker room, since you’ve already fucked up this game for us.”

  Hannah walks past, and I stop her, stepping in her path. “Wait for me. I’ll give you a ride home.”

  “I can’t, Nick. I just can’t right now,” she whispers.

  To see her head hung so low is a special kind of torture. Everything inside me is saying to argue with her, to give her no other choice, but I don’t. I let her leave, watching her slink out like she’s broken everything around her.

  I turn to see my entire team watching me.

  “What are you looking at? You heard Coach. Go shower, and get the hell out of his locker room!” I shout, slamming my locker and slumping on the bench.

  This isn’t how this was supposed to go down. We’ve never had a plan. We’ve been living one day at a time. For a while, it’s worked, but I should’ve known it would catch up to us.

  The world moves around me. Lockers slam, and jerseys land in the bin next to me. It’s once the silence appears that I let everything settle down on top of me. The secrets. The lies. Mostly, the loss.

  My head lifts, and the rest of the locker room is dark. I’m not sure if I’m ready to move just yet. Once I leave, there’s a whole world waiting for me, with expectations and preconceived ideas of what I should do and say.

  I lock up, not being told I need to do so. I felt Coach’s hand on my shoulder as he passed. Out in the parking lot, I find it empty, except for Kellan leaning against my truck.

  “I don’t have the energy, man. You can hate me tomorrow, but tonight, I need to go,” I say, dropping my bag in the bed of my truck.

  When I round the corner, his fist careens into my face. I stumble, catching myself on the bumper before falling to the damp cement. The cool air hits the new blood on my face, and I let it stay there. I deserve it. Hannah and I should have never stayed a secret. This could have been avoided. At least, I like to think it could have been. Hell, if we had told anyone early on, this might still have been the punishment.

  “She’s Mia’s best friend, Nick. You were an asshole when she passed, but this is low even for that version of you.” He kicks the side of my truck right beside my head and leaves.

  What Kellan doesn’t know is that, no matter what he says to me, no matter how low the blows hit, it will never hurt as much as my own words in my head. Hannah’s scared grimace as she sat in the locker room says it all.

  We did something no one will ever understand. We may never recover from this.

  As his tail lights dim in the distance, I struggle to my feet. Everything in my life pushes me to stay down. Months of hiding a secret affair. Not truly knowing who I am without Mia. It burrows deep into my veins, becoming a part of me.

  I pull into the driveway. My parents are home. Where else would they be after the outburst and scene I made in the middle of an important hockey game? When I walk in the door, I’d bet my left nut my dad will be waiting to lecture me about how I’m screwing up my future. My mom will most likely stare over his shoulder, her sympathetic frown silently telling me it’s all going to be okay.

  She’d be wrong, though. It’s not all going to be okay. It seems I’m in the same place I found myself back in June.

  Lost, alone, and uncertain.

  A brush of wind sweeps against my back, and the door slams behind me. The scene is exactly how I imagined it would be. The sight of my dad with his hands on his hips and the flat expression on his face is enough to get my blood boiling. He’d have to be brain dead not to realize I understand what I’ve done.

  “Sweetie.” My mom reaches out, but I jerk my arm away.

  “Leave me alone right now.” I push past them, ignoring the way my dad’s mouth opens to speak. I give him no chance to say what I’m sure he’s been mapping out in his head since the first punch was thrown.

  Never in my life have I felt so useless and trapped, unsure of the person I’ve become. It is easy when Hannah is directly in front of me. The worries of what we are, and how everyone we love will react goes away, because it is just her and me. Now, fresh out of the shadows, it’s not so simple. This is what Hannah has warned me about. She’s always known no one would understand, but my affection for her would never allow either of us to walk away.

  Angry at myself for everything, I open my closet and catapult my hockey bag through the door. Clothes fly to the floor. Like I’m held hostage in my own mind, I watch as the bag hits the portrait of Mia I’ve kept hidden in the back, the one I stole from her funeral.

  It lands face down on the floor, among my tennis shoes and jeans, looking completely foreign and out of place in its gold-leafed frame. Its pull on me is strong. I take small steps until I’m standing over it. When I flip it over, a flood of emotions I’m not ready for hit me.

  Would she be proud of me, or ashamed? Would she understand the way I feel about her best friend, or hate the very idea? I’ve kept the photo hidden away like a secret, too afraid of how I’ll feel when I see it.

  Her beautiful brown hair with flecks of gold. The perfect tilt to her smile. Those blue eyes that could ignite a war in any man’s heart. She’s the picture of perfection. She was my everything. My best friend.

  God, I miss her.

  Everyone loved Mia. Her loss is still fresh in our minds because of the person she was. Everyone believes I’ve disrespected her in some way. I’d never do that, but maybe I haven’t realized how my actions seem to those around me. Her brother thinks I’ve used Hannah as some sort of sexual punching bag, a way to dig out from under the pain, like I did after Mia’s death. He’s wrong, though, and even if I were to explain our relationship, I’m not certain it would dull the pain and anger he
feels.

  “What have I done?” I whisper, like Mia is beside me. She was the one I went to for advice, or to get the thoughts out of my head.

  My mind races through my life from the first time I saw Mia until today. Every moment, significant or not, plays like a movie in fast forward.

  Angry with myself, I bang my head against the drywall, softly at first, but as it builds in my mind, I put a little more pressure behind the hits. One good slam, and the shelf above me rattles. Mia’s pink box falls at my feet, hitting the toe of my shoe, and splitting open. Folded notes scatter over her portrait.

  Now, I don’t believe in signs—hell, I’m not even sure if I believe in a higher power—but something has me reaching out to see the small trinkets of our relationship. These notes are the things that scare me the most.

  Mia didn’t just write me love letters. She used me as her own personal diary, telling me her fears and insights on the world around her. There was never a moment when she didn’t examine and take every side of a situation into consideration. It’s how she looked at the world. Every time when she handed a letter to me, she’d ask for it back later that day. She never believed I’d care for them as much as she did.

  There has to be something in this pile of memories that can remind me of who I am, because right now, I feel fucking lost. It’s like the world is continuing on without me, not allowing me to figure my own shit out. That’s the beauty of Hannah. She’s allowed me to live again, even when it hurts.

  I pick up a blue paper and take my time to unfold the page. I quickly skim the words and a rushed heat covers my body. When did she write this?

  Do you know what I don’t understand, Nick? How someone can be so careless with their children. I wanted to have kids one day. We both know that will never happen. It’s one of my greatest regrets. Why couldn’t I have been taken later in life, after I got to know what it meant to love unconditionally like our parents do. I would have hoped they’d know how loved they are, unafraid of who they are at the core of their being. What a world it would be to live in, if all of us lived a little more freely and carelessly. We’d all take these leaps of faith so strong, because we knew we’d be all right at the bottom.

  I don’t know why I’m writing this, but I needed you to know I’ve learned this from watching you. You’re unapologetically you, and I love you for that.

  Love,

  Mia

  “What the fuck!” I whisper-yell, letting the paper float to the floor. Tears scald my eyes, clawing their way out of my body, like if they stay inside, they’ll kill me.

  Her writing was messy, like it took too much energy, but she still found enough strength to finish. Why, of all things, did she need to write those words to me?

  Because pain is sometimes intentional, I read one letter after another. None of them teach me anything, except how strong our love was. Why didn’t she give me any of these? Did she hope I’d find them after she was gone?

  This isn’t helping me like I thought it would. Seeing her words, right in front of me, makes me angrier. I hate knowing how much she loved me. Until her last breath, that girl loved me with everything she had, and I loved her the same way.

  I’m guilty of loving someone who isn’t here. I’m guilty of falling for someone I never should have given a second glance. That’s what everyone is going to say. That’s what they’ll see when they look at Hannah and me.

  Did I dismiss my love for Mia in order to be with Hannah? Absolutely not. Every day has been a fight to dig myself out of this dark hole that I believed had captured me for good. Hannah has been a bright light. How can anyone fault us?

  I brush my fingertips across the ridges of Mia’s face. Like a volcano, everything inside of me boils. It’s quick, and it’s painful. And just like a volcano, only so much pressure can build before it explodes.

  Pushing off the floor, I stand, snatching my hockey stick as I rise. I pick up the box of letters, tossing them out of the closet. Like snow, they flutter to the carpet and across my bed. Her words blanket the same floor I tackled Mia on every time she walked into my room. It was like I hadn’t seen her just hours before at school. Her words cover the bed where I slept with Hannah for the first time.

  My mind is completely fucked, unable to tell what’s real and what’s not.

  Out of the corner of my eye, a piece of paper, folded in half, catches my eye. It’s not Mia’s handwriting. I could pick hers out of a line-up. This letter is written in black ink, where Mia always wrote hers in blue, saying it seemed like a happier color.

  Eager to see whose it is, I snatch it from the bed, unfolding it.

  My eyes frantically scan the words. Unsure I’m reading what I think I am, I pinch my eyes shut and take a long, deep breath before opening them to read it again.

  What the hell is this? This can’t be happening. None of this can be true. What kind of person keeps something this big a secret?

  I reread the few paragraphs several more times. Each time, the words hit my heart with another strike, until my knees buckle under the weight of my body.

  Did she do this on purpose? The helping me? The showing up when I refused to accept it? Was it part of a plan?

  Betrayal is the only way to express how I feel, like I’ve been a game all along.

  “AHHH!” I yell as loud as I can, tossing the paper onto the bed and grabbing my hockey stick.

  The stick whacks against the shelves around me. Trophies and photos crash to the floor. Bringing my anger into a physical form is satisfying. It’s like being on the ice, the stick in my hand, skating up and down like a shark in the water, ready to attack.

  The world around me goes dark, closing in on me. Nothing is safe in my wake. I’ll take every last thing in this room, and smash it until it’s unrecognizable, if it alleviates an ounce of my anger and pain her words brought on.

  “Nick!” My mom’s quivering voice breaks me out of the spell.

  With my hockey stick clutched to my chest, I scan the room. Nothing is untouched by my fury. Trophies from my childhood are broken into small pieces; glass covers the carpet; and papers are strewn over every surface. It looks like pure chaos, which is exactly what it is.

  Reading the letter, I know I was never meant to see, makes me feel murderous.

  Blind rage will do that to a person. I force my lungs to take deeper breaths, to control myself, as my mom steps into my room.

  “Nick,” she whispers. Her eyes inspect the destruction. Her arms are held out in front of her, like I’m some scared animal she’ll spook if she moves too quickly.

  “Everything went to hell, Mom. I don’t even know what’s going on right now. My mind is completely fucking torn apart.” I toss the stick to the side, hitting the window.

  The glass shatters in many directions, and I can’t calm down long enough to make any sense of it.

  “Does this have something to do with what happened tonight at the game, because...” Her words escape her, leaving me to interpret what she’s trying to say.

  “I don’t know who I was fighting for.” I shrug, defeat so heavy it’s hard to stand. “That girl I kissed before the game, she isn’t who I thought she was.”

  “What do you mean?” she asks, sitting on the edge of my mattress.

  When I pick the letter up and drop it in her lap, the paper feels foreign.

  “I need to get out of here. I’m sorry for this.” I motion to the mess I’ve made. “Promise to clean it all up when I get home.” To ease some of her worry, I lean down and kiss her cheek.

  “Where are you going, Nicholas?” She stands, worry heavy in her tone as I race out of the room.

  “Any place but here.” I grind my teeth together, escaping the room that’s littered with everything that is wrong with my life right now.

  Digging through old memories has only brought me more hurt. Losing Mia is an unfortunate and unnecessary lesson in life. It hurts to think about her not being in this world. I became someone I didn’t recognize in those months
following her death. Words were spoken out of anger. My actions proved I wasn’t okay. It wasn’t until Hannah dug me out that I felt whole again.

  It only seems fair that she’s the person who kicks me back into the hole she found me in.

  Not too long ago, I told Hannah I could love her. It was the truth. Damn, it was the truth. She’s all I can feel right now. Even knowing what I know now, the way she reaches out to me, like I could fix the wounds hidden beneath her skin, is the greatest feeling in the world. How she always knows what to say when I need to hear it, is why we became so close in the first place. The simple way she never makes me feel guilty for missing Mia is something I’ll always appreciate.

  But none of those feelings matter anymore.

  Who knew a could’ve kind of love could be taken away so easily?

  There’s a feeling stronger than love I’m now learning exists.

  Hate.

  And I know that feeling all too well.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hannah

  I thought my heart could never feel as broken as it did the day Mia passed away. I remember being in bed, and my mom walking into the room. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and tears started to fall the moment I sat up to see what was the matter. I already knew though. No words were needed.

  I had lost my best friend. She no longer breathed or existed in this life. That’s a lot to understand at seventeen. Hell, at any age, loss is unbearable, and still, I managed to get up, pull myself together, and go over to Mia’s house.

  When I walked in, without bothering to knock, Mr. and Mrs. James were sitting on the couch, surrounded by everyone they loved. In the corner, Nick sat alone by the fireplace. His eyes were focused so hard on the front window, it was like he was waiting to see Mia walk up the porch steps one last time.

  I sat down at his side and reached for his hand. He didn’t back away, but he didn’t acknowledge someone was there for him, that he needed someone.

  I’d made a promise to my best friend. Two promises, actually. One, I kept. The other, I broke into a million pieces like it never existed, for my own happiness.