"Just look for a yellow Roman shade," I"d said.
And he"d laughed. "Yeah. Something like that."
I got out of the car, leaving it running. My entire body seemed to be trembling. I walked toward his apartment, feeling as if the asphalt might as well be mola.s.ses, the way I was trudging forward. When I got to his door, I lifted my hand to knock, half expecting that he wouldn"t bother answering.
But he did. And he was in a wheelchair.
I stared at him even though I knew it was the last thing I should be doing, the last thing he"d want me to do. I bit the inside of my lip, hard, so I wouldn"t cry. My chest felt concave, like an earthquake had decimated it and the contents inside. The chair, he"d called it. As if it were the worst possible thing that could happen to him. When was the last time he"d walked? Did he remember the last step he"d ever taken?
"Saylor." His blue eyes were hard, remote. I"d never seen them like that.
"I..." My voice was husky, barely a whisper. I cleared my throat and tried again, shivering a little in spite of the warm spring air. "The yellow Roman shade. You"re leaving."
A flash of something like sorrow, of loss, shone in his eyes, just a fleeting moment. Then the cold hardness was back. "Yeah. In a couple of hours, in fact."
I looked behind him at the sliver of living room I could see. The bookshelves filled with CDs were gone. The movers must"ve already taken all his stuff away. I nodded for a few seconds, trying to get control of my voice. "Where?"
He looked at me for a long time. I wondered if I imagined the softening of his mouth, the way his eyebrows dipped the slightest bit in concern or sadness. As if, even now, maybe he didn"t like seeing me come so close to just losing it. Softly, he said, "I told you. I don"t want to leave a forwarding address."
I stepped forward a bit, not caring when my eyes filled and tears spilled down my cheeks, giving me away. "I"m so sorry." My voice broke. "Please... please don"t leave."
His throat spasmed compulsively, and his eyes were bright. "Don"t." His voice was a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "Don"t make this harder than it already is."
"I didn"t mean to hurt you." I could barely get the words out, a sob breaking the sentence in half. "I love you, Andrew Dean."
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were full, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with unshed tears. "And I love you. I always will. But it doesn"t change anything."
I nodded, swiping furiously at my cheeks with my fists. But the tears wouldn"t stop. "O-okay. Then, here. Take this." I handed him the envelope with the USB stick in it. "I had it made for you."
And then I turned and ran back to the car, my tears threatening to wash the world away.
Six months later.
I smiled at Ramona, the student who worked at the service desk in my residence hall. She and I had developed a pa.s.sing friendship, since Mum sent me enough packages to single-handedly employ Ramona and her boss.
"Hey. I got a call that I had another package?"
She grinned. "Yep. But not from your mom this time."
"Oh?" I frowned. "My dad?" He hadn"t sent me anything yet, but I supposed stranger things had happened.
She riffled under the desk and came up with a slim cardboard box. Tilting her head, she read out the name. "Nope, this one"s from an... Andrew Dean." She held the box out to me.
Surprise and fear and relief and curiosity all washed over me in a gigantic tsunami. Part of me was terrified that this was bad news, that Drew had slipped away and the place where he"d gone was mailing me to tell me. But another part of me thought they wouldn"t send the package as if it were from him, would they?
I hurried upstairs to my room with it tucked under my arm, refusing to look at the address on the return label, adamant that if Drew wanted to stay hidden, I"d grant him that. My heart beat loud enough to drown out all the other students in the stairway.
I"d thought of him, of nothing but him, the first few weeks I"d been here. I"d barely been able to drag myself out of bed. Every sunny day had felt intensely, profoundly wrong. But slowly, I found I could function. That I could cloak the pain, mask the despair.
I tried new restaurants, I made tentative friendships, I watched plays and went to concerts. I did all the things people expected me to do, all the things Dr. Stone, in his occasional emails, promised would help me get my life back on track. If I put one foot in front of the other. But Drew often bubbled to the surface of my thoughts. It was like sometimes I could hear an echo of his voice in the way someone laughed or catch a hint of his scent on the breeze. I tried to bury the hurt and the pain of losing him. But if there was one thing I"d learned in this past year, it was that secrets and lies didn"t stay hidden for very long before they came tearing through the wall you"d built, all sound and fury and destruction.
I found my dorm room empty, thankfully; my roommate must still be in cla.s.s.
Sitting on the bed, I opened the box, my hands trembling and stiff, fingers unable or unwilling to maneuver. But finally, it was open. And right there, on an envelope in handwriting so shaky I could barely read it, it said: SAYLOR.
Drew"s hand had touched this paper I was now holding. I imagined him hunched over, a pen in his weakened hand, as he painstakingly scrawled my name. I inhaled deeply, desperate to see if any of his scent had attached itself to the envelope. It was there-faint, but there. Driftwood fires on the beach and that unquantifiable Drew smell. My eyes stung. Blinking furiously, I pulled out the letter. It didn"t start with any sort of salutation, as if he was continuing a conversation we"d already started.
Life is funny. It"s only when it dwindles away that you realize what"s truly important.
For me, Grayson, that"s you. It"s always been you.
Here"s what I"ve come to realize these past months: We are not the sum of your Munchausen syndrome. Our love isn"t defined by what you did, by the lies you told-that you felt you had to tell.
It"s defined by that first date over deep-fried Chinese doughnuts. It"s defined by a Boggle game in the snow-laden cabin by Icarus Lake. It"s defined by the girl with the curly hair and secrets in her eyes, the one who always had something about her, the one I fell for over and over and over again this winter.
I"m sorry it"s taken me so long to realize this. I"m sorry I didn"t take you in my arms that day when you came to apologize. I"m sorry I didn"t wipe away your tears and tell you none of it mattered. That the only thing I care about is you and me together, masks off.
I want to ask you to visit me, but I don"t know if I have the right anymore. But just in case, in case you have a little bit of fight left in you, Grayson, the address is on the label.
Before you decide, you have to know I"m not the man you last saw. I can barely sit up anymore. I haven"t been able to sing in a long time; my hands can"t hold a guitar. h.e.l.l, I"m not completely sure you can read this letter it took me a week to write.
But before this, before I got so much weaker, I wrote a song for you. I"m sending it along with this letter. I hope you"ll listen to it, even if you decide not to visit.
If you don"t want to come, if you"ve moved on, I won"t hold it against you. I"ve had the happiest times in my life with you. And for that, I will always be grateful.
Be well, Grayson. That"s all I ever want for you.
I was up and out of the bed before I finished reading, tears streaming down my face, my chest hitching painfully. I scrambled for the box, flipped it over with shaking hands to see the address. He was in Virginia. Just a few hours away. This whole time, he"d been so close.
I grabbed the CD from the box along with my keys and wallet and rushed out the door to the parking lot below, not caring that people were staring and pointing. Because I was on my way. I was on my way to thaw out that pond of memories, to bring Drew back, to love him for as long as we had left.
As I raced to him, I listened to his golden voice serenade me with one last song.
About the Author.
IPPY Awardwinning author S. K. Falls believes a degree in psychology qualifies her to emotionally torture her characters in an authentic fashion. When she isn"t writing her twisted love stories, she can be found gallivanting around Charleston, South Carolina, with her family.
Learn more at:.
SKFalls.com.
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