Beautiful Souls (27 page)

    
              The only thing that kept me somewhat functioning was the thought of spending each morning in the McMyllin’s barn, surrounded by familiar smells and memories of my childhood and the times we spent together. A faint hope spread through my body. Maybe, just maybe, the same familiarity would send sparks of life back into Leo’s heart and mind. Maybe, over time, he would make his way back to me. All I had to do was be patient and wait.
Maybe, just maybe,
I thought. And for the first time in days, since Leo’s mother died, I felt a tinge of hopefulness.

December 2012

             
Dear Diary,

 
                               -Leo showed up zero times for school.

    
                            -My family showed up at the cottage four times for                                           Sunday night dinner with Leo and his dad.

    
                            -Leo said “hi” and “bye” one time each during Sunday                                           night dinners.

    
                            -There was no other contact.

January 2013

             
Dear Diary,

                            -Leo showed up zero times for school.

             
              -My family showed up four times at the cottage for                                           Sunday night dinner with Leo and his dad.

             
              -Leo said “hi” and “bye” one time each during Sunday                                           night dinners.

             
              -There was no other contact.

February 2013

             
Dear Diary,

                            -Leo showed up one time for school but left before lunch.

             
              -My family showed up at the cottage four times for                                           Sunday night dinner with Leo and his dad.

             
              -Leo said “hi” and “bye” one time each during Sunday                                           night dinners. He smiled at me one time.

             
              -There was no other contact.

March 2013

             
Dear Diary,

                            -Leo showed up five times for school.

             
              -My family showed up at the cottage four times for                                           Sunday night dinner with Leo and his dad.

             
              -Leo said “hi” and “bye” one time each during Sunday                                           night dinners. He smiled at me one time during each                                           dinner, and reached for my hand one time as he told me

             
              goodbye.

             
              -There was no other contact.

Chapter 12.

His Return…& Hers

re-turn

/ri’tern/

Verb

Come or go back to.

Noun

An act of coming or going back to something.

    
              Thankfully, most of Indiana had been granted a mild winter. Only two snow days to speak of, and neither had been cumulative. The past few months had remained uneventful; supernaturally speaking the world was calm, as was every other aspect of my life. Sad but true.

    
              Now that the early signs of spring had begun to appear, a contractor had wiped away any signs of the fire and cleared the remaining rubble that used to be Leo’s home. The charred landscape no longer existed and in its place sat the foundation of Leo’s, and his father’s, new home.

    
              I escaped my house as quickly as manageable every morning after I scarfed down my breakfast, loaded my school bag into my car, and drove across the road as promised to care for the McMyllin’s two horses. I had kept my word to feed and water them each morning before school, and I savored that time. I spent the earliest part of my days since the funeral feeding, exercising, and brushing Sabastian and Cleo.

    
              Cleo --- short for Cleopatra --- had been named aptly for her gorgeous slick and shiny black coat. She was finicky --- but so was I --- and incredibly sweet. Sabastian was a beautiful chestnut color, huge and muscular. He was a good old boy that fell into his morning routine of feed, exercise, and brushing without much lead from me.

     
              I had just released the two horses from the walk inside the corral. I had a tight grip on their leads, one in each hand, as I headed back toward the barn to begin their brushing. That’s when I saw him.
Him.
The sight took my breath away, and I stood frozen in a pool of morning light, staring at what I thought had to be a figment of my imagination.

    
              Leo was bathed in a ray of golden light, eyes shining. I wondered if I had conjured his image out of pure wishful thinking. He stood casually, leaning against the barn door, clad in faded jeans, a plaid unbuttoned shirt with the sleeved rolled to his elbows, and a tight-fitting white t-shirt clung to his skin and gleamed from between the buttons. He was wearing his worn baseball cap dipped low over those deep, ocean eyes which almost appeared to be aqua as they sparkled in the glow of morning sun.

    
              No one spoke. We both stood frozen, staring at each other for seconds that felt like minutes, until I was forced to regain Sabastian’s lead as he stomped his front hooves instigated by Cleo’s whinny.

    
              “Hey,” he broke our silence first, one hand in the front pocket of his jeans while the other raised to adjust his baseball cap.

    
              “Hi.”

    
              “How’ve you been?”

    
              “I’ve been better,” I answered simply and honestly.

    
              He nodded in understanding. “Me too.”

    
              “I know.” I completely understood. I really did. I thought I did.                    What I couldn’t grasp hold of was the understanding of how he could just leave me high and dry for months after everything we had been through together, without even as much as an explanation or goodbye.

    
              Leo rarely showed up for school anymore, and only his dad had shown up on their farm to take care of the horses in the evenings and to also check on the progress of the new house. The only times I had even laid eyes on Leo in the past months were when my mom had taken it upon herself to cook and deliver Sunday dinners to the cottage. My dad and I always rode along, and the five of us would sit mostly in silence and eat. My mom thought it would do everyone good to have a sense of routine and regular interaction after such a devastating loss, but nothing remained the same in the aftermath of that fateful day.

    
              “Here, let me take him,” Leo reached for Sabastian’s lead and led him into the barn. I followed closely behind with Cleo.

    
              Lullabelle, Leo’s yellow Labrador, leapt from the back corner of the barn where she always slept on a big, worn-out horse blanket, and she bounded through the straw-filled stalls with Leo in her sights. She lunged, pressing her muddy paws against Leo’s legs. Her tongue hung lazily and dripped with overflowing happiness as her tail wagged the speed of a helicopter propeller, only a golden blur of fur to be seen.

    
              “Hey, girl. How’ve you been?” Leo patted Lullabelle’s head and stroked her back as she let out a cheerful yelp.

    
              This moment felt like old times again. Leo and I hanging out in the barn, Lullabelle running circles around our legs, Leo’s easiness and crooked grin enticing feelings of security, coziness, and home. This is what I’d been longing for, what I needed, what had been missing from my life for the past several months. I actually found myself becoming jealous of the attention he was paying Lullabelle, as crazy as that sounds.

    
              I wanted nothing more than to turn back the clock and have that flawless, innocent relationship with Leo back again. It wasn’t that long ago, but we were both different now. Life was different now. Leo had been forever changed by his mother’s death, and the seclusion he and his father imposed on themselves left me slightly bitter and less trusting as a result.

    
              “Looks like someone’s happy to see you.”

    
              “Only her?” Leo asked, those beloved eyes gazing directly into mine from beneath his dark lashes and baseball cap.

    
              I stalled, not sure if I should answer the question truthfully or lie in order to save face. I chose the former, deciding that Leo had been through enough and I didn’t need punishment from me added to his troubled heart.

    
              “Not just her,” I answered.

    
              “Hmm,  that’s good to hear.” I thought I saw the beginning of a crooked grin form across his lips.

    
              “It’s nice to see you outside of the cottage. You know…back here, I mean. It’s kinda like old times again.”

    
              He looked around the barn and then back toward me. “It is nice.”

    
              “So, I’m really happy to see you…but why are you here?”

    
              “I wanted to talk to you, Bec.”

    
             
Oh, he called me Bec.

    
              “I wanted to explain,” he added.

    
              “Okay.”

    
              “I don’t really know where to start,” Leo shook his head looking confused, almost tired.

    
              “Is something wrong, Leo?”

    
              “Not wrong, exactly. Its just…I don’t know, strange maybe.”

    
              “Well, what?”

    
              “You know, with everything we can do, with all our powers combined…it still didn’t make a difference. She died. I tried to save her, but she still died.”

    
              My heart broke in two. I didn’t know what to say. For all the pain, loneliness, and despair I’d felt these last few miserable months, I knew it had been a hundred times worse for Leo.

     
              I stepped closer to him. I wanted so badly to touch him, to feel his familiar warmth against my skin.  I hesitated, then decided to go for it. I laid the palm of my free hand against his soft, white-cotton t-shirt and felt his heart rate speed up behind his firm muscular chest.

    
              “I know. I’m so sorry. I know that’s not enough, but I don’t know what else to say. Nothing will make this better or bring her back, and I’m just so sorry. I can’t even imagine if it had been my mom.”

    
              “It is enough, Becca. Believe me, this helps. Having some kind of normalcy after all the strangeness and sadness…it helps.” He laid his strong callused hand over mine, still resting on his chest.

    
              “I’m glad I can do something at least…anything.”

    
              “I miss this,” he said. “I miss us.”

    
              “Me too.”

    
              “I don’t know how to get it back though. So much has happened.”

    
              “I know.”

    
              “No, Becca, you don’t.” He dropped his hand and turned toward Sabastian, stroking his nose as my hand fell from his chest and slipped down to my side.

    
              “Leo, what’s going on?” I asked delicately.

    
              His back was toward me, “I don’t know. I think I may have really screwed up.”

    
              “Why? What’d you do?” I couldn’t fathom Leo messing something up so badly that he’d be this bothered.

    
              “I cast a spell,” he turned and locked eyes with me.