Wilson Mooney Eighteen at Last (9 page)

“
Camille!” Nancy
barked.

“
What?” she
answered.

“
I don’t think Wilson
wants to hear about this right now,” Nancy growled clenching her
teeth.

“
No worries,” I piped up.
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and my mouth go dry. Every bit
of moisture in my body rushed to the palms of my hands.

“
It’s not like I am
talking behind anyone’s back. It isn’t like Mallory is
ever
coming back,”
Camille snapped. Her muddy brown eyes emulated her father’s bent
for sarcasm.

“
Well, any information
about Max’s past should be told by him, not you. It’s not your
place.” Nancy grabbed the jar of mayonnaise and twisted the lid
back on it. I saw her eyes narrow as she glowered at
Camille.

“
Fine, I won’t tell her
how she crushed his heart in her vicious claws and almost caused
him to lose everything. I’ll let Max tell her.” Camille tossed a
cheeky grin at Nancy before turning to put away the sandwich
fixings.

“
That’s no way to talk of
her,” Nancy whispered with gritted teeth as she reached up and
pulled down some elegant, black art deco plates.

“
Why? Because she’s dead?”
Camille spat.

Dead? What the
hell?
I felt chills ripple across my skin
at her words.
This Mallory person is
dead?
Maybe I didn’t want to hear what
Camille had to say about Max’s dead ex-girlfriend.

I busied myself with the sandwiches,
making them presentable on the plates before I turned to
Camille.

“
How about I take these
out to the guys?” I offered, holding a plate in either hand,
working to change the subject.

“
That’s a good idea,
Wilson,” Nancy answered, snatching another two off the counter.
Camille huffed before she scooped up the last remaining plate. I
think she got the hint; I wasn’t ready to hear anything about dead
Mallory.

“
Camille,” I heard Nancy
hiss as I turned and pushed through a massive, glossy black
swinging door with my backside.

I wasn’t ready for the
bubbling turmoil I had in my gut when my eyes met Max’s. He was
standing next to the raging fireplace, watching me. His
electric-green eyes raked my body as his flawless lips curled to a
slight smile. His black hair, damp from the weather outside, curved
down perfectly, giving drops of Aspen the ability to tangle with
his eyelashes and glisten against his complexion. He pulled off his
wet jacket and hung it on a wrought iron coat rack next to the
fireplace. His navy blue t-shirt, tight against his muscles,
exemplified how fit he was.
He doesn’t
look broken to me; he’s perfect. But then again, how do I know what
broken looks like? According to half the people at Wesley, we’re
all broken.

Max dragged his hand through his hair,
pushing it back off his face before he sauntered over to
me.

“
Is one of those for me?”
he asked with twinkling eyes. He had no idea that, in the next
couple of minutes, his past was going to haunt him.

“
Yeah, it sure is.” I
pushed a plate out to him.

“
Thanks, sweetheart,” he
said before he lowered to kiss me. I wanted to kiss him so bad—I
wanted to taste his lips, feel his warmth—but I couldn’t; I
couldn’t let him taste my heartache. I turned my head, avoiding his
kiss on my lips.

“
What’s wrong?” he
whispered. I looked over at his family sitting at the table eating,
probably murmuring words of regret to each other.

“
They don’t mind if I kiss
my girlfriend,” he continued before he set his plate down on the
rocky hearth of the fireplace and pressed his hands to either side
of my face. He kissed me, his lips warm, his taste unbelievable. I
wanted to enjoy it; I ached to let go of the ghost haunting my
thoughts, but I couldn’t. Now I worried about being a
replacement.
Who was this Mallory and how
special was she to him?

Max must have felt my distance. He
pulled away, looking deep into my eyes. I watched him searching for
the reason I’d become so cold. His jaw tensed, his lips helpless
without words to speak. He was lost waiting to be found. I didn’t
mean to be so cruel.

“
What’s going on, Wilson?”
he asked. I could feel the words at my trachea, clawing to come
out, while my heart squeezed every last fear from its chambers. I
had to ask, I needed to know. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing
him to a ghost.

“
Mallory?” I whispered.
Her name slashed brutally at the delicate lining of my throat. He
heard it like daggers stabbing his heart. His face lost its warm
hue and his ardent, green eyes became hollow, anemic. He stepped
back from me, widening the gap I created with this haunting from
his past. I could tell he hadn’t expected that name to surface
between us. He turned and looked at his family before he snatched
my hand and dragged me through the kitchen and out to the
garage.

When he pulled open the plain white
garage door, the air chilled my skin. I felt like I was right back
in the morgue that stored my dead grandparents; the chill sliced me
to the bone. He pressed my body against his jet-black BMW Z4. His
hands, on either side of me, rested against the roof of the car.
His head hung, waiting or searching for an explanation I could
understand. He bent closer and his damp hair tickled across my lips
before he pushed away. I could tell he was struggling to find the
right words; I didn’t say anything. I waited to learn what had
caused this girl to create so much pain in his family.

Max paced across the garage before
stopping to answer my one-word question. He couldn’t look at me so
I stared at his back, watching his head sink forward. His hands
dropped to his sides.

“
Mallory was my girlfriend
in college. She died a couple of months before the end of our
sophomore year. Let me guess, Camille told you about her?” He
turned and faced me, his expression stoic as he shook his head back
and forth. His eyes strained to make contact with mine.

“
Max, I didn’t mean to
dredge up your past. But I’m sorry, you have a dead girlfriend that
you didn’t tell me about.” I moved back from him.

“
I wasn’t ready to talk
about Mallory yet; it wasn’t Camille’s place to tell you about
her.”

“
Yeah, but if your sister
didn’t say anything, would you have told me?”

“
There hasn’t been a right
time. And quite frankly, I didn’t want to lose any time with you
talking about an ex-girlfriend of mine who died. But you’re right,
Wilson; I should have shared that part about my life. You should
know everything about me.”

“
No I shouldn’t. Not if it
is going to cause this.” I flipped my hands in his direction
indicating how busted he appeared. He didn’t move. I wanted to
press against him, feel that he was going to be okay, but every
time I stepped toward him he stepped away.

“
It was my sophomore year
at Michigan. Mallory would come to my football games and always
made sure she’d run into me at different places on campus. I always
thought it was a coincidence; but slowly she and I became friends,
and eventually, started dating. We had been together for a couple
of months, maybe three tops, when I noticed she started obsessing
over crazy things—like me spending too much time on homework, or at
football practice.”

Max stared down at the shiny, light
gray cement floor of the garage, accessing the lost memories of him
and Mallory together in his mind. He continued, “One day during
spring break, she came unglued because I hadn’t taken her to meet
my family. She accused me of keeping her away from them because she
thought I was ashamed of her. The more I tried to explain my
situation the more irrational she became. It finally reached a
point where I couldn’t handle it anymore. I told her she needed
help. Maybe it was my fault; I knew there was no way that I was
equipped to help her. So a month before the end of school, I broke
up with her. I thought I was giving her the space she needed to
find help.” He wrung his hands together. His eyebrows crouched low
against his eyes and the deep creases in his forehead revealed how
painful her memory was. I watched as his whole demeanor shifted in
an instant. His ears burned red and his shoulders rounded as
everything about him became heavy. My mouth seared dry trying to
swallow something, anything, to clear the ache.

“
You don’t have to say
anything else. Really, Max, I am so sorry I mentioned her.” I took
a step at him but he didn’t move; so I took another and another
until I was right in front of him, angling my head to make eye
contact with him. His broken spirit and fragmented thoughts
consumed him—entirely.

He looked at me before his eyes became
lost in his story again. “She called me from her dorm room. She
tried to apologize for being so insecure. I didn’t want to hear her
pleas for me to take her back; it was too hard. I thought if she
believed I was done she would find a way to get better. She ended
the call by saying if I didn’t want her—nobody would. Her roommate
found her later that day.” He sighed deeply. Blame for her death
overwhelmed him.

“
You know it wasn’t your
fault. I am so sorry you’ve lived with that,” I whispered. “There
was nothing you could have done,” I continued.

“
I used to tell myself
that every day, Wilson, but it never took away the guilt and pain
of losing someone that way. I couldn’t stop her. I didn’t want to
be bothered.” He looked deep into my eyes. He was hurting and it
was because I’d ripped open his wound.

What should I say? What
could possibly fix the damage I’ve created by mentioning her
name?
I wrapped my arms around him and
pulled him tight against my body. I wished I could’ve taken back
the last half hour; I wouldn’t have mentioned Dead Mallory at
all.

“
Max, I am so sorry,” I
breathed into his chest. I could feel his heart pounding through
his shirt.

“
It has taken me a long
time to get to the place where I am at now. I really am sorry I
didn’t talk to you about her sooner, before my sister decided to
bring her up. Camille’s never met her;
nobody
in my family ever had a
chance to meet her. They judged her on the words and descriptions
I’d given them and how her suicide put me in a very dark place. So,
if they were harsh, it was because of me. They didn’t know her. Not
like I did.” I felt his breath waft across my scalp as his words
tangled in my hair. He teetered on the edge of a guilt that was
unbearable. I couldn’t let him lose his balance.

“
Maybe, in a weird way,
your sister was trying to protect you by telling me about Mallory.
Maybe it was her way of seeing if I was all in; if I was serious
about you and me.” I looked at him, trying to see if he had already
gone to the place where I wouldn’t be able to get him
back.

“
So are you?” he asked
low.

“
Am I what?” I
asked.

“
All in?” he continued. I
knew what he was talking about.

“
I am
totally—completely—into you.” I stood on tip-toe and pushed him
against his car. Our lips met and every remnant of damage dissolved
in the flavor of our kiss.

My butterflies went
spastic with the taste of him and I knew at that point we
were
all
in—both
of us.

It didn’t take long to warm up to a
comfortable heat and we began to defrost the chill that had come
between us while standing in the bitter cold garage; it made for a
perfect fusion of raging hot and subtle cold.

Dragging his hands across my back, Max
pressed me so tightly against his chest I felt our arms create a
cocoon and our bodies melt together. I loved feeling him breathe,
tasting his words, living at home in his thoughts, and feeling the
vibration of his heart as it soothed me.

The spring on the garage door into the
kitchen stretched and hummed a note when Max and I came back into
the house. Nancy must’ve heard it because, before the door closed
behind us, she was in the kitchen.

“
Oh, there you are. I went
into the other room and noticed that your sandwiches were there but
you guys were gone. Everything okay?” she asked as her eyes danced
from Max to me.

“
Yeah, Mom, everything’s
fine,” Max nodded. Nancy’s eyes grew as she cocked her head. That
must have been her nonverbal cue to him not to lie. He widened his
eyes in answer to the look on her face.

“
Mom, really, I’m
fine—
we’re
fine.”
He grabbed my hand and pushed his other between us. Letting go of
me, he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her worries into
oblivion.

She clung to him. The top of her head
fit perfectly under his chin and her delicate hands rubbed circles
across his back.

“
I don’t want Camille’s
thoughtless comment to ruin Wilson’s birthday,” she
said.

“
Little late on
that
one, mom,” Max
snapped as he pulled away.

Nancy held her hands out to me then,
and I meandered over to her. She placed her arms across my
shoulders.