I FELT her.
All the doors in the hall were shut except for the room at the end the one that used to be the grow room. It was open but just a crack. Just enough to see the back of her head poking out of a sleeping bag along the wall beneath the back window. I wanted to see more of her so I’d opened the door slowly and was about to step into the room when she sighed heavily. That’s when I realized she was awake. Slowly I stepped back out of the room until I was in the safety of the kitchen. I pulled myself up on the counter and crawled out the window I’d came.
I was on the porch about to leave when I saw motion in the corner of my eye. That’s when I turned and saw her for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime.
I don’t know what I expected if and when I ever saw her again. But I certainly didn’t expect to feel like all the wind was stolen from my lungs.
She wore a plain white t-shirt just long enough to make me wonder if she was wearing shorts underneath, the hem brushing the tops of her thighs as she walked. Her shiny black hair was pulled into a high ponytail on top of her head. Against the moonlight it looked so dark it appeared almost blue, like the feathers of a black bird. I’d never seen her wear glasses before but she wore thick dark frames around her dark eyelashes that she pushed up the bridge of her nose as she shuffled into the kitchen.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything but wonder again why the fuck I was even there in the first place and stand there like an asshole, gawking at the most beautiful fucking girl I’d ever seen. Even more beautiful than I remembered. More EVERYTHING than I remembered.
A flash of lightning in the sky caught her attention and that’s when her attention shifted to the door and she spotted me. Our eyes locked. My aching heart pounded against my chest and my every instinct screamed, go to her.
And I was going to. My brain had already sent the message to my leg to move and take that first step and I was about to when a flash of lightening interrupted my thought and instead I turned and darted back the way I came. Over the fence and through the woods when I realized that I couldn’t.
I wanted to. I wanted to with every fiber of my white trash being.
I just fucking COULDN’T.
That’s when my feet moved on their own accord and I found myself perched on top of the world I once conquered, wondering if I’d ever feel normal again when the platform rattled.
My neck snapped to the ladder that shook as if someone were climbing it. A set of feminine hands appeared, reaching up and gripping the handrail. It wasn’t until she was fully up on the platform, dusting herself off. Her dark hair blowing all around her face that she finally spoke. “You know, if you’re looking for a place to jump from, someone once told me that The Causeway has a mostly five-star rating on Yelp for best places in Logan’s Beach to end it all.”
CHAPTER SIX
DRE
“Doc,” Preppy acknowledged. I knew he was there yet nothing could’ve prepared me for the impact of hearing his voice again. It hit me like an unexpected left hook, knocking me off my center of balance. I stumbled, grabbing on to the rusted railing in an attempt to make it look if it were the height causing my unsteadiness.
“Preppy,” I replied, clearing my throat when my voice came out scratchy and high pitched like a prepubescent boy.
There was no mistaking his sharp intake of breath.
“I heard you were dead. They had a funeral for you and everything you know,” I said.
“I was never really a rule follower.”
“You were never a law follower either but I never expected you to not listen to the laws of nature. You know. Life and death and all that. Most people don’t come back from that.”
“I’m not most people.”
“That I know.”
Preppy was sitting on the ledge on the far side, cloaked in the shadow of the tower. I could only make out the outline of his frame. There was a click of a lighter, the glowing flame hidden by his hand as he lit a cigarette and snapped the lighter shut.
“I heard the Causeway is a total tourist trap now,” he said, responding to my earlier statement. “I heard everyone offs themselves there. It’s too trendy. Every hipster from here to Miami is throwing themselves off that thing. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’ve never been much of a crowd follower.”
“I think I might have heard that somewhere,” I replied. I took a step toward him.
“No, Doc. Stay there,” he demanded, the seriousness in his voice froze my foot mid-step. I lowered it back to the platform and was about to ask him why when he plead softly, “Please.”
Not knowing where else to go I stepped over to the railing, stopping at the same spot where things could have turned out so much differently for me. I looked over the railing at the ground below.
“Long way down,” Preppy pointed out.
“Would’ve been,” I agreed, “but I never found out thanks to this guy who didn’t want me haunting his precious tower.” When I lifted my head I felt suddenly dizzy and had to close my eyes and take a deep breath, tilting my chin up to the bright moon and swaying on my feet.
“Steady there, Doc,” Preppy said, his voice smooth, warming over me like a much needed blanket. “I didn’t do shit. I followed the girl who stole from Mirna and by the time I got up here I saw a naked chick and wanted to touch her before she went splat. That’s all that was.” Preppy adjusted his position, his clothes rustling against the tower. “How is Mirna?”
“She passed. Six months ago,” I said. “She held on for a really long time, longer than most hang on with her kind of dementia. Funny thing was that when she died she hadn’t been herself in so long, that in a way I was relieved.”
“Sorry. For an old chick, she was a pretty fucking great one,” Preppy said.
I thought about the way she forgave me after I stole from her. Gave me a place to stay. Gave me the benefit of the doubt when I didn’t deserve it. “Yeah, yeah she was.” I cleared my throat in an attempt to keep the tears at bay. “For never thinking I’d talk to you again; this is...”
“Fucking weird,” Preppy inserted.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I was going to say amazing, but weird works too.” I wrung my hands together and bit the inside of my lip.
“Amazing is just weird’s older more mature sibling,” Preppy pointed out.
I looked to the sky. “I had this list of things in my head. A list of things I would say to you if I ever had the chance again and now...”
“And now?” Preppy asked, like he wanted to know how that sentence ended.
“And right now I can’t think of a single one of those things,” I admitted.
“The weather,” he said, suddenly.