Knotted Roots

Chapter TWELVE



The next morning I crawled out of bed slowly. I hadn’t slept very well as thoughts of Katy kept me from resting peacefully. I had tried to call her parents last night, once Grandma went to bed, but they refused to tell me anything. Evidently Dan had told them some crazy story that it was my fault that Katy had been hurt. I tried to tell them what really happened, but they hung up before I could even complete a sentence.

I could care less what others thought of me most of the time, but these were Katy’s parents. Katy and I were friends, right? It was normal to care what your friend’s parents thought about you. At least, I thought it was normal.

I threw on some clean clothes and pulled my hair into a messy knot. The last thing on my mind was my appearance as I rushed downstairs. I flew into the kitchen and found Grandma sitting at the table, coffee in hand, while she read the Sunday paper. When she heard me come in she lowered the paper and smiled.

“Good morning baby. Breakfast is on the stove. Hope ya like biscuits and gravy,” she said before she took a big gulp of her coffee.

“Um...never had it, but thanks.” I pulled a plate out of the cabinet and piled some food on it. I sat down across from her at the table and began to eat. It was like heaven in my mouth. The little chunks of sausage mixed in with the gravy were the perfect complement to the warm, flaky biscuits. I felt no shame as a groan escaped from my lips.

“Should I come back later? Do ya need a moment alone?” Grandma laughed and I scowled at her. But I couldn’t hold it for very long. I swallowed my food and wiped my mouth.

“I’m going to be nice and plump when I go home,” I replied. The light in her eyes dimmed slightly.

“Speaking of home, your mother called this morning. Your father moved out of the condo this morning,” she spoke without making eye contact.

“Really? That was fast,” I replied. I stabbed at a piece of biscuit and shoved it in my mouth. I finished chewing and looked up at her. The pinched look on her face told me she was hiding something. “What else?”

“You should call your mother,” she said as she stood up and walked to the sink. I was about to question her more, but a loud knock at the front door grabbed our attention. She walked out to find out who was here. A few minutes later she returned, followed closely by Chase and Brian.

“Did you get the parts on the list I left for you?” asked Brian as he helped himself to breakfast. He sat down beside me and started shoveling food into his mouth.

“Yeah, they’re all out back. Hopefully I got everything right this time,” replied Grandma as she sat down to put her work boots on.

Chase stood by the door, not making a sound, almost as if he was trying to disappear into the wood. I smiled at him and he tried to return the gesture, but it appeared forced. I stood up from the table and walked over to him. His gaze flickered between me and Grandma, finally settling on me after a moment’s hesitation.

“I’m guessing you’re here to talk,” I said, and he nodded his head slowly. “Let me grab my shoes and we can get out of here.”

Five minutes later we were walking towards the woods at the back of the house. The silence hung between us, taunting me. I looked over at Chase as we walked and my heart sputtered. The sun caught the highlights in his hair perfectly, causing a halo to form around his head. He must have felt me staring, but his smile told me he didn’t mind all that much. Or at all.

“Are you going to start talking?” I asked as we kept walking.

“I don’t honestly know where to start. This isn’t something I normally talk about with...anyone,” he replied, his shoulders sagging.

“Start at the beginning,” I said as I gently smiled at him, hoping to put him at ease.

He blew the hair out of his eyes and stared ahead. “It happened almost a year ago. Next week will make it a year. Brian was invited to one of Max’s field parties for the first time, ever. We had both been dying to go, but if you aren’t invited, you don’t go.”

I nodded, urging him to continue. “Well, the party was epic. Better than what I had imagined it would be. There was this girl, Amanda that I had been crushing on for months, she was there too. We spent the entire party together. We danced and drank a little bit, just enjoying each other’s company. We even kissed.” The look of awe was plastered on his face, as if he couldn’t believe he had kissed her.

I stopped walking and looked at him. “Was that your first kiss?” I tried to keep the shock out of my voice, but considering how absolutely gorgeous he was, I found it hard to believe.

“Don’t look so shocked,” he chuckled before continuing. “Yes, that was my first kiss. And let me just say, it definitely lived up to my expectations. We spent the night just enjoying each other, making out, dancing. By the time the party died down we were all pretty drunk. Brian included. He knew he couldn’t drive us home, but Amanda insisted that she was fine to drive. I shouldn’t have listened to her. She ended up wrapping her car around a tree that night.”

I drew in a sharp breath and watched as Chase’s eyes shone with moisture. His voice was straining as he struggled to push the words out. It broke my heart that he was reliving memories that were so painful.

I reached over and grasped his hand, hoping to reassure him. He smiled at me and continued his story. “But Brian and I didn’t drive home. We called our dad. We told him that we couldn’t drive and needed him to come get us. He was madder than hell, but he said he would come get us. We waited for three hours, but he never showed up.” Chase’s eyes glazed over, his focus on a distant memory as it played through his mind. “I called his cell phone dozens of times, thinking he might have fallen back asleep. Mom finally answered the phone. She had no idea that Dad had left, and after I told her what was going on, she began to panic.

“She made it there, to us, in less than 10 minutes. After all, we didn’t live that far away, and she was known for taking a short cut through the neighbor’s fields.” I giggled at that moment as the image of his mother driving like the Dukes of Hazard raced through my head. “All done?” he asked.

“Sorry, please continue.” How stupid could I be? He was here, telling me something so serious and life changing, and all I could do was giggle at a stupid mental image. I wanted to crawl under a rock.

He let a small smile spread across his lips and started talking again. “She yelled at us until her voice grew hoarse, then tried to yell some more. Finally, she was too tired to do anymore and she allowed us to get in the car with her. Of course, by this time we were almost completely sober. It had been four hours since we had called Dad. I asked her if she had heard from him, but she hadn’t, which made us all worry even more. I should have known something was terribly wrong. I told Mom to take the right way home this time, just in case. She didn’t want to, but after a lot of pleading, she relented.

“We were about a mile from our house when we found his car. It was upside down, in a ditch, on the side of the road. The entire top of the car was flattened and every bit of glass had shattered.” He paused, wiping a small tear from his cheek. I squeezed his hand encouragingly, letting him know that I was there. “We called 911 and waited for what felt like an eternity. When they finally got there I began to feel a little bit better. I just knew that they would help him. They wouldn’t leave him like that. I knew they would give me back my father.”

I could hear the pain in his voice as he struggled to contain his emotions. This had to be the hardest subject in the world for him to talk about, and yet he spoke as if he had told the story a thousand times before.

“Ten minutes later they were pronouncing him dead. Just like that, he was gone. He wouldn’t be going to the hospital to get checked out. He wouldn’t heal around the most capable doctors in town. He would never be able to yell at me and Brian for being so stupid. He would never come home. He was gone. And it was all my fault.”

I had no idea what to say. What do you say when someone tells you that they believe they were responsible for the death of their father? Grandma had told him that no one blamed him for his father’s death, but this was something that was eating him from the inside out. It wouldn’t matter how many times people told him that he wasn’t to blame. He would continue to believe that if he hadn’t gone to that party then his father would still be alive.

“I’m not going to lecture you about why you should stop blaming yourself. I’m sure you’ve heard that too many times already,” I said as I squeezed his hand. “But I have to ask something. After everything that happened, why did you go to Max’s party last night?”

He stopped and looked around. His eyes locked on something behind me, causing me to glance behind me. A large tree had fallen, creating a natural bench for us to sit down on. He led me to it and we sat down, our bodies nearly touching. This time I had no urge to move away from him.

“I knew you would be there. Katy told me that she had convinced you to go and I needed to talk to you. To apologize,” he replied as he gazed into my eyes.

“You couldn’t just call?” I asked playfully, giving him a gentle push.

“Would you have answered?” he asked with a small smile.

“Probably not.”

“Well, there ya go.”

I laughed and leaned closer to him. I could smell the scent rising from his body. There was a hint of something familiar, mixing with the overwhelming scent of vanilla. It was strong and enticing, stirring memories of my old life. My father had used cologne that smelled almost like it, but not quite the same. I felt a pang of sadness at the thought of my father and the reminder that he had moved out of our home this morning.

“You smell like my father,” I said suddenly, immediately wishing I could take back the words.

“That’s what every guy wants to hear,” he replied with a laugh.

“Sorry. That was a mood killer, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t worry about it. I think it actually saved the day,” he responded as he rubbed a lazy circle on the back of the hand that he still clasped in his own.

“How so?” The feel of his rough fingers on my hand was amazing. I could have stayed like that for the rest of my life and been happy.

“Well...for a moment there...I was thinking about kissing you. And that’s not what friends do, right?” he asked with a playful smile. His eyes didn’t reflect the same playfulness though. They questioned me, pulling me towards him again.

“Right,” I squeaked. I cleared my throat and said, “Friends don’t kiss. I mean, they can, but then they aren’t just friends anymore, are they?”

He leaned closer, his breath warming my cheek. I felt his soft lips as they made contact with my cheek. He was so close to my lips. If I just turned my head a fraction of an inch, they would meet. A long sigh escaped my own lips as my eyes fluttered closed. “Do friends kiss on the cheek?” he whispered against my skin.

My eyes opened and I was momentarily breathless as I gazed into his eyes. Their usual twinkle was gone; what I saw reflected in their depths was a passion so hungry I thought it would swallow me whole. “I...I think...that’s acceptable.”

“What about on the nose?” he asked before placing a gentle kiss on the tip of my nose. “Or the side of...your mouth?”

Before he could continue I turned my head, facing him directly. “I think that might, um, lead to something...more,” I said as I reached up to push a stray hair out of my face.

He sighed and leaned back, breaking the moment. “Then it looks like we’ve found the limit, huh?”

My blood was seething, boiling from the inside out. I could still feel his lips on my face, like scorch marks would mark where they had made contact. I had never experienced such fire with such an innocent gesture. I couldn’t drag my eyes away from his lips. They beckoned me to touch them, to taste them. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to throw the friend rule out the window.

“I guess so,” I replied in a hushed voice, still struggling to catch my breath. I looked away from his handsome face, determined to try and compose myself. I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, filling my lungs with the precious oxygen that he had stolen.

“This feels so wrong,” he said as he stood up and paced in front of me. “Do you know how hard this is? Being your friend?”

The sting of his words gave me verbal whiplash. “Chase...don’t...”

“Don’t what?” His voice rushed out on a hiss of breath.

“Just don’t. Don’t say what I think you’re about to say. We’re friends. We can’t be anything more.” I was desperately clinging to my composure. I felt my throat close up as the strangle hold on my heart grew tighter.

“Why not? Tell me why Roxie. Is this about Betty?” He stopped pacing in front of me and glared down at me.

“This has nothing to do with Grandma. This is about me. Leaving. In three months,” I emphasized the words for him, hoping to get the message across clearly. Evidently that part still hadn’t sunk in.

“That doesn’t matter to me.” He stepped closer to me and knelt down on the ground, grasping my hand tightly. “Do you feel anything for me? Other than friendship?”

I stared into his eyes and could see the hope there. If I told him the truth, we would both end up hurt when I left. But if I lied to him, told him that I felt nothing for him, then we could avoid all of the pain. He would get over me quickly, hopefully taking an interest in someone who could be what he needed. Someone who wasn’t afraid of getting too close. Maybe Katy.

“I don’t,” I whispered, as I looked away. “I’m sorry.”

Chase no longer gazed at me with adoration. The longing had been replaced by a blank look, his features tense and tight. He stood up and moved a few steps back, his eyes never leaving my face. “Guess I was wrong. Again.” He turned and walked away, down the path we had followed to get to this spot.

I couldn’t bring myself to call after him. I wanted to, desperately, but what would I say? Sorry for breaking your heart, can we still be friends? I’m sure that would go over real well. In that moment, with his lips so close to mine, I had desired with all of my heart and soul to take it a step further. I wanted to throw all that friendship crap out the window. For what? A fling that would sizzle and burn out within a month or two?

I knew I had made the right choice, but as the ache in my chest continued to grow, I questioned whether or not it had been worth it. There was something between us, that much was obvious. But I didn’t want to be another person who left him. Another that hurt him in the end. I couldn’t be that selfish, not with him. I waited a few minutes, giving him a sufficient head start, and then followed the path back home. I dreaded explaining all of this to Grandma. Damn. I hated when she was right.