Fading (13 page)

Thirty One

“So what have you been doing?”

I turn to look at Lexi and grin. We didn’t get to choose the movie, Matt and Jason did so naturally it’s something we couldn’t be less interested in watching. We’ve spent that last forty minutes pointing out the lack of a plot and how unrealistic the events are. The guys keep shushing us and one – we’re not sure which – even threw some popcorn at us. That’s when we decided to keep the noise down and talk among ourselves as quietly as possible.

“He has me painting my father’s bedroom.” I roll my eyes. “It’s so damn tedious.”

“Getting antsy, huh?” She smirks.

I poke her arm. “Not funny. I actually considered sneaking out of my own bedroom window the other night. Like I’m some teenager who’s been grounded or something.”

“So why won’t he let you out of the house anyway?”

“He thinks that I’ve been pretending that no one has died. He doesn’t want me to go out and go back to that, so instead he’s trying to get me accept death.” I shrug. It makes more sense when Jason explains it. “We’ve got this whole system thing going, it’s working.”

“I thought you hated each other.”

I sigh. I hate keeping secrets from Lexi, she’s my best friend and we mostly tell each other everything but even though I’ve only known her a few years less than I have everyone else, she doesn’t know much of anything about my life. I can’t tell her about the pills, but maybe I can tell her something. “Come with me,” I gesture towards the kitchen with my head and when she follows me out of the room, I just hope the guys will give us a few minutes alone.

“So what’s up?”

“Okay, so you remember at that party when you said that Matt told you some stuff about the two of us?”

“Yeah.. so?”

“What did he tell you?” I grab two glasses of juice and offering her one, I sit at the opposite end of the table.

“Umm… just that you both used to be friends but then one day it was like you went out your way to piss each other off.”

“Sounds about right.” I mutter. “No. We were very close, I guess his and his mum’s speeches at my dad’s funeral clued you into that. But we were really close. He was my best friend, I used to tell him everything, I never went anywhere without him and … and I fell in love with him.”

“You loved him… wait, we’re you two together?”

“No. It wasn’t like that with us. I loved him but I don’t think he ever felt the same way and one night, I told him how I felt, I just needed it to be out there, you know? Anyway, I told him and after arguing and talking it through, we had sex.”

“You slept with him?” Her eyes bug out so far, it’s a wonder they don’t roll onto the table.

“We did it on the floor of his mum’s living room.” I tell her dryly. “After that, things were never the same between us. As soon as it happened, I got the feeling that he regretted it and when he sent me home… well, like I said, things never went back to how they were and we acted like we hated each other.”

“He slept with you and then kicked you out?” He she asks slowly and I can see the anger building up inside her.

“We were young,” I shrug. “Probably too young, but I don’t regret it. It happened and I can’t change that.”

“I don’t care how young you are, that’s a dick thing to do.”

“Of course it is, but that’s just Jason. Anyway, we spent the next two years doing everything we could to piss each other off. It didn’t calm down until Gavin and I got together, Jason mostly stayed out of my way after that.”

“Did Gavin know about the two of you?”

“I never told him, but he knew something happened. I think Cal knows too, but I’m not sure how, he hinted at it a few weeks ago though. Told me I need to forgive him.”

“He said you needed to forgive Jason?”

“Not in those exact words, but that was the gist of it. He’s not very good at being subtle.”

“So, have you forgiven him?”

“I don’t know,” I shrug and take a long drink of juice. “Part of me understands that it happened a long time ago and we’re not the same people anymore, but there’s also a part of me who looks back and remembers what it felt like to have the one person you trusted most in the whole world to discard you like yesterday’s left overs.”

And with that excellent imagery in our heads, we sit in the kitchen, at opposite ends of the table in complete silence until the movie in the next room has ended and the guys finally notice that we’re no longer sitting there with them.

Damn it. I totally could have used the movie as a distraction to sneak out.

Two hours after Lexi and Matt have left, I find myself standing outside the room Jason is using as a bedroom like a stalker. I’m not sure what I’m doing out here. I don’t know what I think is going to happen if I go in there.

I’m not going in there.

Am I?

No, definitely not.

A squeak. That’s the embarrassing noise that comes out of me when the door swings open to reveal Jason in all him almost-naked glory.

He’s wearing grey boxer shorts.

“Hi.” I say lamely.

“Are you just going to stand outside my door all night?” He quirks an eyebrow at me, making me frown.

“How did you know I was here?”

“Because you’ve been sighing every few minutes for the last half an hour.”

“Oh.”

“Well?”

“Can I come in?” I ask, surprising both of us.

What am I doing?

“Sure,” He turns around and gets back into bed and I stand in the doorway watching like an idiot.

I take only a few seconds to weigh my decision and before I can change my mind or he kicks me out, I close the door and climb into bed next to him.

“What are you doing?” He whispers and a part of me thinks it’s because he doesn’t want to scare me away.

“I have no fucking clue.” I all I can reply.

Thirty Two

I slept with Jason.

We didn’t have sex or anything. We actually just
slept
. It was… nice.

It might have been a little too nice though. It brought back a lot of memories and most surprisingly of all, it didn’t feel weird. In fact, when we were just lying there, in the dark not talking or touching, it was the most I’ve felt like myself in years.

Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m not cured or anything. But it helped.

I also know that I can’t use Jason as my anchor and I need to talk to him because my feelings are everywhere and I think that everything he has done for me lately, the least he deserves is complete honesty from me.

What better time than the present?

I watch as he finishes dishing out breakfast and wait until he’s placed both of our plates on the table before I talk.

“So… I need to talk to you.”

“Yeah? Shoot,” He says before he scoops up a forkful of eggs and shovels them into his mouth.

Guess he’s fuelling up for another day of DIY-ing.

“I don’t really know where to start, it’s all become so confusing and I don’t really know where I am right now. I guess I’ll just start by saying that I think I finally understand everything you’ve done for me over the last few weeks and you should know I’m eternally grateful for you and I don’t even know how to begin paying you back.”

“You don’t need to do anything, Lily. I like to think that if it was me in that position, you’d be the one to pull me out of it.”

“Maybe.” I take a bite of toast before continuing. “We’ve been spending a lot of time together and all this thinking of the past has brought back a lot for me… I’m not mad about what happened that night anymore. I’m not saying I’m over it. But I forgive it. Kind of even understand. And I want you back in my life.”

“I am in your life.”

“I know. I know you’re here now, but I don’t want things to be like they were before when we avoided each other all the time. We were friends once and I think we could be again.”

“We probably could,” He nods.

“If I wasn’t falling for you again.” I blurt.

I have to give him credit for not spitting orange juice all over me. Instead it kind of just dribbles out of this mouth.

Why I do always declare my love right after he’s taken a drink?

“You’re what?” He croaks and then clears his throat. “You’re falling for me?”

“Again.”

“Again?”

“Why do you keep repeating what I say?” I frown at him. This already isn’t going anything like I thought it would.

“I’m just trying to process it. This isn’t one of those cases when you think you love the person who saved you is it?”

“No.”

“How do you know?” He challenges and I roll my eyes.

“I just know. I know that I love you. I have loved you since I was about four years old and nothing you ever did to me changed that. I might have tried forgetting that I didn’t, pretended that I never and I’m pretty sure I spent a couple of years in denial, but I’ll probably always loved you because you were a huge part of my childhood.”

“How can you be falling for me if you already love me?”

“Because, even though a part of me deep down inside loves you, I’m not in love with you. What I’m trying to say is that having you back in my life these last few weeks has been amazing. It reminds me of everything I loved about you, you’ve reminded me of the boy I used to be in love with. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I want you back in my life but you should know up front that if you stick around, I’m probably going to end up being in love with you again, so if that’s something that you don’t want, I need you to tell me now.”

“Lily…” He puts his knife and fork down and turns in his seat to give me his full attention.

My stomach drops and a feeling of dread comes over me. “What?”

“Total honesty, right? I want you. I want you the way that you want me, but there is something you need to know.”

“What did you do, Jason?”

Weirdly, he closes his eyes before he speaks again. “I killed Gavin. I was the one he was taking home. I’d had too much to drink and couldn’t drive so he drove me home.”

My stomach twists again. “That… that doesn’t mean it’s your fault. It was an accident, Jason.”

“No it wasn’t.” Now he looks me dead in the eye as he continues. “I was drunk and we got into a fight. I pulled his hand off the steering wheel and I turned it. It was my fault we crashed. I was the one who did it. I’m the reason he’s dead.”

“I hate you.” It flies out of my mouth before I get a chance to think about what I’m saying.

“I know.” He sighs and stands from the table. “I knew you would.”

“Get out.”

When he’s left and I hear the sound of the door clicking closed, I cry.

I cry because of how unfair my life is.

I cry because of how unfair my life has been.

Then there’s anger.

He’s been lying to me!

Hasn’t he?

We never talked about it though.

But that’s something he should have mentioned before I trusted him with life again.

In a rage like I have never felt before, I storm through the house up to the room Jason was using and I tear it apart.

I rip clothes of hangers and throw them across the room. I swipe shelves off with one arm and watch as his belongings scatter throughout the place and I pull out the drawers of his bedside table.

I use all my strength to flip the mattress off the bed and fall to my knees and the screams become sobs.

Why does this always happen to me?

Why is it that as soon as I start to feel a tiny piece of happiness that something comes along and rips it away from me?

I fall to my side to curl into a ball when I feel something digging into my hip. Pulling it out with every intention of throwing whatever it is at the wall, I stop short when what I’m holding finally registers.

Why would he keep these?

I shake the clear zip-lock bag and watch the pulls move around.

With no regrets, no second thoughts and not a single care in the world, I take the bag into the bathroom and my mind is completely blank as I fill a glass with water and do the only thing I know I’m really, truly good at.

Epilogue

There are a lot of theories about death. Some people think it’s sudden; maybe everything just goes black and then that’s it. That’s the end. Some think that your whole life flashes before your eyes and you relive everything you’ve ever done and when it ends, that’s it, it’s over. And some people think that life slowly slips out of you, maybe everything slowly fades to white and then it’s over.

It wasn’t like that for me.

My experience was like a hard slap across the face.

I didn’t see a slideshow of all my happiest memories, I didn’t even get to relive my biggest and deepest regrets. No, it was much, much crueller than that.

I got to see everything that I missed, all the things I never really paid attention to. The small things that I dismissed as unimportant. They all involved Jason. Every. Single. One.

They started off as small things, which explains how I missed them, such as, the way he used to look at me when we were younger. I’d turn and catch him watching me laugh, which seems completely innocent, except is expression was full of wonder and love. Then to how worried he’d be if I got hurt. There was one from when we were teenagers when I tripped and cut my hand. He rushed to my side, his face was pale and he completely freaked out. At first I thought it was because of the blood, but now I see that it was from worry, from fear.

One of the bigger ones was from the first night we made love. The night he took my virginity. Now, I like to think that I remembered that night well, that I could name everything that happened, not missing a single detail. But now I see how close he held me afterward and then once again, the fear in his eyes and as he walked out on me, when he looked back at me over his shoulder, it wasn’t disgust or regret that I once thought I could see so clearly in his eyes, now I see what he was really feeling, what he was probably hoping that I’d be able to see from the start. An apology. But also grief so strong that you’d think he’d just watched someone he cared deeply for die.

The details speed up a little now as they pass over the years that we drifted through, the years we spent avoiding each other. There’d be glimpses of him watching me. Surprisingly though, to me at least, I could see him at Gavin’s funeral. He was upset, obviously, but his attention was all on me. Nothing else. It was the same at my mother’s funeral. While I was swamped in the suffering of my own loss, it’s quite clear now that while I didn’t see him, he only saw me.

And then every look, every touch, and every point of contact we had since my father died. Everything was just more. I can see how helpless he felt when he realised how deep I was into my addiction, the fear and suffering he felt as I was fighting the withdrawals and the complete unadulterated pride he felt when I finally came through it, which grew with every day that I was sober.

It’s fitting really, that it’s only now when it’s too late that I’d understand how much Jason truly loved me.

Our story wasn’t a great one.

It wasn’t even a good one.

I fell in love with him, he broke my heart, I hated him, avoided him, I began to trust him, I’d fight against him when he tried to help me and then just when I started falling in love with him again, he trusted me with one of his deepest secrets and I threw it back at him. I went back to hating him.

But if I had known everything then that I know now, I would have done things differently.

I can see now that I can’t blame him for anything, I can’t even blame him for blaming himself. Considering the way I’ve treated him, there’s no surprise he feels that everything is his fault.

I should have trusted him as much as he trusted me. I should have believed in myself as he believed in me.

I should have loved him as completely as he loved me.

I understand that now. I’m there now.

Jason Rowlands is the man I love.

He’s the man I’m supposed to be with.

He’s the only man I want and need.

Is this how our not great, not even good story ends?

I spend my whole life oblivious to how happy I could be if I had just made a few different choices only to become another statistic because I couldn’t handle the truth?

If I could have one more chance, just one more. I wouldn’t take the pills, I wouldn’t hide behind the numbness they offer me so freely. I’d face the pain and the suffering and maybe even harder, I’d face the love that was given to me so openly. If I could go back though, there’s only one thing I would change and that’s when I found out the truth, Jason’s truth, I wouldn’t kick him out. I wouldn’t turn him away and I certainly wouldn’t take all the remaining pills that were in the last bottle. I wouldn’t do the one thing that put me here. I wouldn’t do it because now I will never have that chance to go back.

I didn’t want to die, I don’t think. A small part of me did, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. But I know there’s a bigger part of me that if I had just waited a little longer, would have spent some time thinking about it and I would have accepted everything that happened. I would have accepted what he did and why.

Maybe I would have even forgiven him.

It’s too late to change anything now though, it’s too late to speculate because it’s time for me to go.

I can hear my name being called, beckoning me toward a light so bright, it burns from behind my eyelids.

I don’t even try to fight it.

I answer with a smile.

It’s Jason’s voice.

He’s telling me to open my eyes.

He sounds happy.

Maybe this is my heaven. Maybe this is how it was supposed to be. Maybe now we can be together.

I might have screwed up my life.

But I open my eyes anyway because I don’t want to miss another detail ever again.

The End.