NEVER GOODBYE (An Albany Boys Novel) (11 page)

              “Right,” he threatens, rising from his chair and I from mine, still laughing. The more I try to stop the worse it gets. I keep picturing him with one eyebrow and my restraint dive-bombs. He reaches in his pocket for his wallet, pulls out some bills and puts it on the table before he locks his gaze with mine and my laughter stifles a little. His eyes are full of challenge and amusement. You wouldn’t know he just shared a wretched story with me less than ten minutes ago.

This is the Vaun I like. This is the Vaun I should stay clear of because he makes me feel things I have no right feeling.

Giggling like I haven’t a care in the world, I run out of that café and almost get bowled over by a group of kids I fleetingly recognize from school. I apologize and two are fine with my apology, one very large guy just smiles and one girl tells me to watch where I’m going and is about to let me know how unpleased she is until Vaun places his hand on the base of my spine.

“Hey Sarah,” he nods and then smiles at the group. “What’s up?”

It’s almost comical that all of their eyes are pinned on Vaun’s arm wrapping around my waist. It’s as though they’ve never seen him cuddle up to a girl before. Considering his apparent history, I would dismiss that one straight away. I can feel the heat in his hand against my skin through the material of my tee, though I try not to. All too aware of the feelings he is evoking inside me with his mere touch, I pull away only to have him squeeze my hip and lean into my ear. Holy shit, his breath against my neck is way worse than his hand.

“I can make a scene if you want,” he whispers and I believe him.

I shake my head quickly and try to keep my smile as the group look at us quizzically, like a lab experiment.

“Introduce us?” a boy in the white
Green Bay Packers
tee asks.

Vaun tugs me to him and grins. It’s cute and all too scary because I’m afraid of what he’s going to introduce me as. I don’t know why because, really, what would it matter if he said we were more than friends? He knows I’m not looking for a relationship. All the same, I’m scared.

“This is my new best friend, Blu ― Harper. Harper, this is Matt,” he says indicating the
Packers
fan. “This is Sarah, Benji, Grant and this big fella is Footy.”

I frown, putting a story together from last week at school. I thought Footy was a party not a person who had a party. “Footy is a guy?” Instantly I feel terrible and embarrassed. Heat rises to my cheeks and I’m fumbling over my apology.

“Don’t apologize. It’s an easy mistake.” Footy says, stepping forward and putting his big hand out for me to take. When his fingers wrap around mine, they’re swallowed. He is really big. Footy raises my hand to his smiling lips, but before he can kiss it Vaun reaches across and gives him a friendly shove. He then takes my hand back as though I might catch a deadly disease. What a joke.

“Back off, Bro.”

Footy laughs, his big belly bouncing jollily and for a moment I think of him as a young Santa with muscles. Quite obviously they call him Footy because of his shape. From head to toe, he has the contour of a football. I wonder if he plays, too.

“Sorry, Vaun. I didn’t know you were together.” He appraises us again with a new appreciation and even though it shouldn’t, it feels good to be known as the girl Vaun has chosen to declare his, despite the lack of title.

Vaun questions me with his eyes, and I believe that if he was to declare us as a couple I would have gone along with it. But as he looks at me with those eyes that are flourishing with hope, I know I have to burn it before it has time to grow and there’s no turning back.

“Vaun is my new best friend and very protective of me, so you’ll have to forgive him.”

I turn back to Vaun who’s no longer looking my way but back at his group of friends grinning and for a second I believe that grin. For a second only, before I see the tight tick in his jaw. Yep, I’m a bitch and he should know it before he invests any more time or emotions. If the lines were blurred before, I just drew a fresh one with a fat marker.

He didn’t move his hand from my hip, but his muscles were no longer relaxed and I couldn’t keep my mind and body from striving to feel his thoughts through his skin against my own. I was lost in thought for I don’t know how long before I felt a tug and I’m pulled against his side.

“Hey, you alright?” Vaun asks, concern etched in his throat.

I glanced at the group who eyes me with almost equal concern and curiosity. “What?”

“You spaced out on us for a moment,” Vaun says and then threads a piece of my hair off my face, his thumb grazing my cheek, making it burn even more.

“I’m fine. Probably tired.” It wasn’t a total lie, but he sees it for what it is and his lips tighten.

“We were asking if you want to come to the pond tomorrow.” Vaun looks hopeful and still concerned. I hate that I did that.

“What’s the pond? Well, what I mean is where is the pond since quite obviously a pond is a pond and … never mind.” God damn it! Now my face is on fire and someone in the group is snickering while Vaun smirks. Well, at least he looks less worried.

“The pond is at Footy’s,” he responds.

“We can use the canoes,” Sarah drops enthusiastically. “We swim and have fun. Please, will you come?” she asks and for the first time I noticed her hand linked with Matt’s.

“I think I told my cousin I would hang with her tomorrow.” I say in all honesty and again I feel that squeeze on my hip that’s driving me nuts.

“If I go, Carter will go, and if Carter’s going I’m sure April will be there,” Vaun says, smiling again.

What could I possibly say other than to smile with them and nod, “Sure.”

“Great,” Sarah says. “Vaun will bring you along, I’m sure. We are shopping for supplies now. Just bring something to contribute and your own booze.”

“Thanks,” I say, knowing that ‘booze’ and I don’t make good bed fellows and with treatment just around the corner … Yeah.

“Don’t worry, Sarah. I’ll make sure she makes it,” Vaun says with too much enthusiasm.

“Uh-huh.” Sarah smirks with the rest of them and it’s not just my face on fire anymore. “I’m sure you will. See you tomorrow,” she says as they walk past us toward the main grocer.

As soon as they’re gone I turn to Vaun and smack him in the chest, hard. He coughs and laughs while holding his chest.

              “
Really
?”

              “
What?
”

              “You’re embarrassing me on purpose.”

He chuckles deeper and, oh my God, it’s a gorgeous sound. “Boyfriends are not allowed to embarrass their girlfriends, but friends, especially best friends,
they’re
allowed to.”

“Is it punishment for not accepting your devilishly good looks and charm as boyfriend material?”

He takes my hand and I look at his fingers as they entangle with mine. “Nope. Just stating the facts, baby.” He takes the space between us and his mouth is so close, my eyes involuntarily flutter before closing in anticipation. Instead of feeling his lips against my lips, I feel them just below my ear, it makes me jump a little and my lips part. I’m not disappointed, far from it, I wanted more. “Now,” he whispers in my ear, his hot breath dancing across the fine hairs on my skin and whatever the hell it is in my belly that keeps doing summersaults “come on, we better go get your brother.”

I take a steadying breath before opening my eyes to look directly into his. I know without a doubt that friends don’t long kiss each other like I want, and they most certainly don’t look at each other like they’re going to burst into flames.

In one movement, Vaun once again smudged my line.

6

Layers

Harper

‘Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.’

Jonathan Swift

I have to admit that despite the lack of title in our relationship we are feeling way more than friends should. I can’t bring myself to do the right thing. Knowledge is one thing, action is another.

I know damn well I should let Vaun go. I scoff at that. No, I should push him away because ‘letting’ him go really wouldn’t work. I could be a complete bitch and place my interest in another guy, but that’s not me and for the life of me, I couldn’t ever do that to him.

Not being able to be in an actual relationship with Vaun is one thing. To deny my feelings exist at all is a complete other kettle of fish and utterly insane.

On the way home Benny and Vaun talk about Jet Li’s latest movie. While I couldn’t care less about how different he is to Bruce Lee, or how awesome his own work is, I can’t help the cheek-aching grin it brings to me when I see Benny like this.

Benny has been dealt the worst deck of cards I could imagine. Losing a mother who hangs on to an echo breath of her life, but knows nothing of it, to then lose a father at the same time to guilt and heart break. Really, it’s like they both died that night in the car accident. I miss them both so much the thought makes me ache. Now, the one constant in his life is failing him in the worst kind of way. I’m helpless to it and he is left like an orphan until I recover. Or I don’t. Both aren’t good.

There will come a time where I need April to allow me to talk about my illness, for if I don’t make it, I need her to step in. Benny
needs
someone and Aunt June won’t understand him. April is the next best thing to a sister Benny will have and I know in my gut and my very soul, April will protect him to her last, fighting breath. If Benny needed protection, she would go to the death for him. Or prison ― whichever comes first.

My thoughts are broken by that laugh, the one that makes me warm and safe and happy. I’ve got no idea what Benny said to bring Vaun to hysterics and I don’t really care. I just know that a mere laugh from Vaun can bring me out of my thoughts of despair.

I’m going to fight death. Fight that bastard like Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and Jet li put together. I’m going to bitch slap him back to wherever he comes from so he won’t come for me again until I’m old and ready. I’m going to do this for myself, for Benny and for a future with Vaun.

We pull up to the house ― it doesn’t feel like home yet — and I haven’t said a word the whole trip here, but it feels good and free to know Benny’s happy. I try to give him this, I try my hardest to never show I feel the breath of the foreboding shadow that stalks us because I don’t want him to be tainted any more than he has been. He deserves a better life. He deserves to feel the freedom of what childhood has to offer. Vaun is the reason my brother feels free and I know right now it’s going to kill me to say goodbye. I’m falling hard for Vaun. I’m falling faster with every laugh my brother bellows in my ears and to my heart.

The heat has picked up and sweat is beginning to bead down my back as I get out of the truck. Benny sprints across the lawn and flings the front door open when I feel a shadow cast over me from behind and I freeze. His breath is on the back of my neck and I know as the goosebumps spread that I want this feeling. I want it in the most intimate way.

“You were very quiet on the way home.”

My eyes close and I almost step back so I can feel his body against mine, but of course, I won’t. Not just because I’m sweaty, although that’s a major reason, but because I know it will lead to more. It will open up a cavern of feelings and actions I know will change the game. He needs to keep his distance so that if, or when I have to say my final goodbye, he’ll pull through okay.

I’m not trying to sound pessimistic, but when the doctor gives you the time frame of less than months to live, even with treatment, you don’t go around making plans for the future unless it’s for the ones you’re leaving behind.

So I take a step further away even though I really, really don’t want to and I turn to him with the smile that’s been perfected over time. “Benny likes you.”

He smiles and, just like that, my imitation smile is genuine.

“What’s not to like? I’m handsome, charming and kickass.” He makes some karate moves, accompanied by the ridiculous sounds you hear on the over-dubbed midday movies.

I laugh and nod. “Modest and crazy too, I see.”

His laugh mixes with mine as he hugs my shoulders and practically drags me towards the front door, making me stagger and laugh harder. I forgot for a moment his arms are wrapped around my sweaty back.

It’s not until I’ve grabbed two sodas and headed to my room that I realize what I’m doing. It’s the first time I’ve let a boy come in my room. Like, ever. He follows me in, closes the door behind him and looks around. He’s not just looking, he’s studying, and I feel exposed.

My walls are naked and my junk’s covering every other surface. He walks over to my bedside drawers which, apart from my bed, are the only organized furniture in the room. Beside my lamp and alarm is a single picture frame and a book. He picks up the frame which holds a lie inside its fine wood and thin glass. A portrait of a happy family with a future of laughs and togetherness. Sometimes I want to throw it away and then I remember that it was real once, if only for a short time. But that’s my life, I’ve come to realize. A life filled with short promises and heavy feelings.

“Your parents look happy,” he says with a heaviness I recognize. He’s mourning and he is right to feel it. We both lost our mothers. His went to heaven, mine went to the fog. His father is heartless and hateful. Mine is trapped in a misplaced hope, heartbreak and a heavy guilt. After I saw my doctor I went to a lawyer. I just can’t trust him to make the decisions for me where my health is concerned. I think it made that final split between my father and me. He’d lost so much and when I got an order to make my own decisions over my health, I could see the last of the light die.

I know my father, he’s held onto my mother and I’m scared that if there came a time where I was no longer myself and machines were my only anchor to this earth, he would keep me here. I don’t want that. It was probably the most selfish act in my life, but I just can’t allow it.