Perchance (26 page)

             
“Please don’t be angry with me Aunt Brenda. Please.”

             
“I’m not angry Rem. I’m not.  But you always claimed that it was going to be the relationship or the distraction that was going to ruin you.  But from where I stand, you trashed the one thing that was keeping you grounded and focused.  And what’s worse, you’ve left him to think it’s his fault.”

             
She walked off quietly and went into her bedroom.  She didn’t come out for hours.  I decided to get up and go inflict some punishment on myself in the form of sitting on Josie’s roof staring at his apartment, hoping to get a glimpse of him. 

             
I went to Josie’s house and she came out of the back door while I gawked at the fact that someone had removed my ladder that took me to my stalking place. 

             
“Aunt Brenda called me and told me that if I loved you I wouldn’t let you do it anymore.”

             
She turned around and went back into the house without another word.

             
I started to walk back home and let myself look at his p
lace. My heart stilled
as I saw what he was doing.  He was putting the Cuda in the garage.  He usually kept her in the garage so that wasn’t out of the norm.  But this time he came out and shut the garage.  He reached for something in his pocket and when he walked away from the garage I could see that he had put a padlock on the garage.  Eric walked out about that time and I could see Cooper handing him the keys to the Cuda with the keychain that I bought him still attached.  Eric stood there while Cooper walked away from him, up the stairs and slammed the door.  Eric turned to me like he knew that I was there the whole time and just stared at me like he was waiting for me to do something. 

             
After a few moments he turned and went into his house and turned off all of the lights.

             
I was ruining everyone around me.  It had to stop.

             
I knew she was there across the street.  Even the marrow within my bones felt her presence.  I saw her there in my peripheral watching me from Josie’s front yard.  And if she thought that I didn’t know that she sat on top of Josie’s roof night after night watching my apartment with her binoculars then she was delusional.  But I wanted her to watch me.  Wanted her to see how miserable I felt and looked. 
I knew she was there when I locked up that car. 

             
It wasn’t even a cool car anymore.  She used to tell me that when it started up she could feel it in her chest. 

             
It was a reminder that I had ruined everything.  I moved too fast.  The first time it worked out for me because she already did love me back.  But the second time I took it for granted and it blew up in my face.  I regretted every single second of that night.

             
Everyone tried to convince me that it was going to be ok but it wasn’t.

             
She was the beat of my heart. The rush of blood in my veins. The oxygen to my lungs. The water for my thirst.  The calm to my fears.  The morphine to my pain.  The stitches to my wounds.  And I had lost her all because of a three hundred dollar ring and a bastard’s dream.

             
I went home and packed up my bags.  I was hurting everyone around me and I refused to do it anymore.  I asked Aunt Brenda to give me a ride to the bus station the next day.  She beg
ged me to stay. She cried and asked me if I was sure. 

             
“No, I’m not sure. But I’m hurting everyone here.  I just want to go back to Mom.  I’ll get my GED and start community college there.  I’ll come back and visit after school is over.  He’ll probably be long gone by then and he can move on with his life without me.”

             
“You just don’t get it do you Remi?” she said.

             
She left my room without another word.

             
Aunt Brenda
let me use her car. The next morning I went to visit Edith.  I hadn’t seen her since Christmas and I regretted it.  She asked me to reconsider leaving but I told him that I couldn’t hurt him anymore.  I told her that it was all my fault.  I spent most of the day there and left about two after a long and teary goodbye.  Next I went to the school and dropped out.  It made me feel like a failure. But I already knew that to be true.

             
They made me get Aunt Brenda to sign the paperwork so I went and knocked on her classroom door.  It was her last period and I forgot that Cooper was in that class.  The students were reading silently and so I brought the paperwork straight to her desk. 

             
“They say you have to sign it too even though I’m eighteen.”

             
“I’m not signing it Remi.”

             
The whole class looked up at that point.  Cooper was already watching, but now they all were. 

             
“Fine. Then I’ll just walk.”

             
“Do what you need to honey.”

             
I dumped them in the garbage and walked out of the front door. 

             
I didn’t care who was listening when I asked her from my desk.

             
“What is she doing?”

             
“Come out in the hallway Cooper.”

             
We got out and closed the classroom door.

             
“She’s dropping out of school and going back to Texas to live with her Mom.  She plans on getting her GED and going to some community college there.”

             
“Why?” I couldn’t imagine that she would do this to herself because of me.

             
“
She feels like she’s making everyone miserable, especially you.  So she’s leaving.”

             
“I would rather leave so she can finish high school here. I will leave.”

             
“You’re not going to change her mind Cooper, I’ve tried.”

             
“I can try.”

             
I went back into the classroom, grabbed my bag and walked home.  I took the money I had left and got in the Cuda for the last time. 

             
I p
arked it
on her driveway.  Her aunt was already home and as I opened the driver’s side door, the front door opened.  Remi was holding two suitcases, one in each hand.  I went to help her and she whispered a ‘thanks’ to me.  Her aunt came out with a purse and her backpack
. They went towards her aunt’s car and I stopped them.

             
“N
o, put your stuff in the Cuda
.” I said.

             
They both turned around, shocked and Remi said, “It’s ok Cooper, Aunt Brenda can take me.”

             
“Well, I don’t want you riding the bus.  You can take the Cuda.”

             
“No Cooper, how would I get it back to you? Don’t be ridiculous.”

             
“It’s not mine anymore. I put it in your name this afternoon. I paid for a year’s worth of insurance too.”

             
“What?” She yelled at me and her aunt said she was going back into the house.

             
“I put it in your name.  It’s yours now.  I can’t drive it anyway.
Take the damned car Remi.
”

             
“Why not?” She was still yelling.

             
“Because” was all I could get out and she looked like it wasn’t good enough. So I mentally reached into my chest, ripped out my heart and threw it on the concrete in between us.
             

             
“Because it smells like you no matter how many of those stupid trees I hang on the mirror.  And your lip gloss is
in the ash tray but I can’t bring
myself to take it out. And every time I get in it I think of how you smell and how beautiful you are. I think about holding your hand across the middle of the seat and how your hair blew in the wind when we let the windows down.  I think about when you looked at me and told me you loved me while I was driving and I think about steaming up the windows with the girl that I love. I think about planning out the worst night of my life.  I think about how you looked at me when I took out that stupid ring and how long I kept it in that glove box.  And I think about the Christmas present in the trunk that I’ve never had the balls to open.”

             
She stood there with tears in her eyes and I had stopped wiping mine away long ago.

             
“Just take the damned thing.  At least you’ll have a way to get back and forth to school and…and… you’ll have a piece of me.  And if by chance one day you realize that I love you with every fiber of my being and you want me back, just put her into drive and she’ll bring you home. She’ll bring you back to me.”

             
I threw the keys onto the driver’s side seat and put all of her bags into the back seat and walked away from her.

             
In my mind I had talked so much smoother. She would hear how awful I felt and how much I loved her and she would forget leaving and run to me and I would kiss her until she said ‘what ring?’  But that didn’t happen.  I ended up yelling at her about all of the things I missed about her and she gawked at me. This was really the end.

             
Though I was in his car, I was running away.  I had skipped a goodbye to Aunt Brenda, got in his car and floored it.  I didn’t look back.  I even left my phone on her counter without telling her. 

             
I pulled over at the welcome center just to breathe.  There was a box left in the passenger seat, but I hadn’t looked in it yet. I took the top off and pulled out things from my love one by one.  My laptop was in there, I could see that first.  His iPod. All of his CDs including the one he had made for me after he had me listen to Journey.  Two of his t shirts, one was Foreigner and the other was Van Halen. 
There was a picture of us at the Myrtles Plantation that Troy took but now it was in a frame.  There was the blanket that he wrapped around me when we went swimming at night.

             
I nearly turned around.  I did. 

             
But I kept driving. 

             
I got to my Mom’s house at about one in the morning and she wasn’t even home. 
I went in and hugged a much taller set of twins and their babysitter left saying she would come back tomorrow to get paid. 

             
I called Aunt Brenda and she was still up.  I had to apologize about eighty times for leaving without a phone and not calling her until now.  She said Cooper had been there since seven o’clock waiting for me to call to say that I was ok. He had refused to leave the
porch and she was going now to tell him.

             
I heard her open the door and then the screen door. 

             
“Cooper honey, it’s Remi.  She’s ok.  She’s made it to her Mom’s house.”

             
“Ok.”