I nodded. “I…he saved my life.” Immediately the words felt wrong. “I think I…no, I KNOW that I LOVED him,” I corrected. “And I just don’t see him when I sleep. I hear him, too. In my head, chatting away and making jokes and being ridiculous…” I trailed off, biting back tears.
Edna smiled and reached across the coffee table to give me a reassuring pat on my knee. I watched her hand but didn’t jump away, her smile grew brighter. “Dre, when you love someone it’s very common to carry that person around with you until you’re ready to let go. You hear their voice, you think you see them on the street, you dream about them at night. It’s all very normal and a very healthy part of grief. It will fade with time. But only when you’re ready.”
I bit my lip. “I don’t want him to leave,” I said, surprising myself when the tears welled up in my eyes. Edna side stepped the coffee table and sat down next to me, pulling me in and holding me tight against her ample breasts. Everything about her was comforting, and in a way she reminded me of a younger version of Mirna.
“He saved your life. It’s natural that you feel something toward him, along with a sense of guilt because you lived and he didn’t.” Edna paused, gathering her thoughts before she continued. “You know, kid, it sounds to me like you still need that closure we’ve been talking about.”
“Closure?” I squeaked. The idea of it sounded ridiculous. “I’m not sure about that. How can you close something that never really opened?” I felt myself starting to tear up and immediately felt embarrassed.
Awe shucks, Doc.
She nodded and handed me a tissue. “From what you’ve told me, you’ve never gotten a chance to really grieve, to close that chapter in your life and move on.”
“But I don’t know how to get it.” Or if I even wanted it. I’ll never forget the day my dad and I went down to Sarasota together to help transport Mirna to a facility closer to our house. I was debating taking a solo ride down to Logan’s Beach when one of the nurse’s mentioned his name and wondering why he stopped visiting. The other explained to her why he couldn’t visit. He was dead.
Right then and there I couldn’t breath. My heart stopped. A piece of me died right there along with him.
Edna held me tighter and rocked me back and forth like Mirna used to. She pulled me back and looked down to my hands where I was now staring. She snapped her fingers and smiled brightly. “When you’re ready, and ONLY when you’re ready, I think you should seek out those who cared about him. His friends, family. Have a conversation. Talk about his life. I truly think it will help you find what you need.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, and I did. The only “interaction” I ever had with his friends was that one encounter from Bear.
“At least read the letter,” Edna suggested. “Maybe that will help you decide.” She pulled out the envelope that had arrived a few months earlier with no return address, just a stamp from the Logan’s Beach Post Office. “It’s time,” she said, handing it to me.
“Can you open it?” I asked. Edna shook her head.
“No, that’s for you to do, but I’ll give you a minute alone,” Edna said, patting me on the shoulder and stepping out of the room.
I tore open the envelope quickly, thinking that if I did it fast like a Band-Aid it wouldn’t hurt as much.
I was wrong.
Doc,
There’s this place where light and dark meet in the sky when the sun’s setting where it’s not quite day and not quite night. A grayish mist among the black and yellow.
I like to think of it as a place where right and wrong, black and white, life and death aren’t finite.
I call that place ‘the in-between’ and to me that’s where you and I will always exist.
Together.
It’s where we can’t be hurt. Where our pasts don’t haunt our present. Where there’s no such thing as lies. Where pain isn’t even a thing.
We couldn’t be together in this life. Maybe not even in the next. Who knows. My luck is pretty shit these days. But now when I think of you, which is still every fucking day, and when I can’t catch my breath wondering what could’ve been, I drag my ass outside, I sit in the yard, and I wait for it. That brief glimpse of the changing of the guard in the sky. And every day, even though the pain cuts just as deep as the day you left, even though I know the truth is that I’ll never see you again, I smile.
Because you and I are there.
And we’ll always have the in-between.
LOVE,
Samuel Clearwater
Preppy, BAD-ASS MOFO
PS – If you are receiving this I’m dead so I think it’s safe to tell you that you are by far my biggest regret. The light amongst all my dark.
I’m so sorry.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
DRE
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER…
With Brandon sitting by my side on the plane to Florida, I was finally ready to go and seek the closure that my dad, counselor, and my sponsor were always so adamant about.
As we flew over the still waters of the Caloosahatchee River, I tightened my grip on Brandon’s hand. He offered me a reassuring smile and gave me a thumbs up, covering my hand with his own. He probably thought it was the flight that had me freaking out. And although flying wasn’t my favorite activity in the world, it wasn’t the fear of plummeting to the ground below that had my windpipe tightening like a guitar string as the plane descended. No. It was the water tower. The one that stuck out on the flatland, towering above the earth like a redneck statue of liberty, reaching up toward the plane. Its huge black spray painted dick was in full frontal view as the landing gear clattered and screeched, locking into place.
I wanted to both laugh and cry at the sight of it.
Suddenly, it was all too real.
I was going back. Back to where it all started. Back to where it all ended.
Back to where it would only just begin.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
DRE
I raised my trembling hand to the door and knocked. The sound of squealing children playing in the back yard echoing over the house.
I was about to change my mind and turn around when a blond girl with the lightest-blue eyes I’d ever seen opened the door. “Can I help you?” she asked with a small but friendly smile.
“Um…Hi, I’m Andrea Capulet, but I go by Dre,” I said, holding out my hand. She shook it tentatively. “I’m a friend or, I was a friend of Samuel’s. Preppy’s.” My chest tightened as his name crossed my lips. It had been years, and although I expected that feeling to die off, it never had. If anything, it had only gotten worse.
The girl remained silent, looking me over several times like she was trying to place me. “I’m Ray,” she finally offered. “What can I do for you?”
“Ray, Hi. I just wondered,” I trailed off, looking down to my feet.