Remember When 2 (23 page)

   I had no idea what he was talking about. “
What
was supposed to be here?”

   He smirked and looped his arms around my waist as if it were the most natural thing to do in the world. “I guess not, then. Don’t worry. You’ll know when it gets here.”

   He knew it was my birthday in a few days, and God only knew what ridiculousness that boy had planned. I tried unsuccessfully to disentangle myself from his grasp and said, “If you sent a freaking singing telegram or something, you’re dead meat, Wilmington.”

   The first birthday I’d spent at NYU, he’d had an electric-guitar-playing clown show up at my dorm, singing Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen”. It was scary on a lot of levels.

   I’d paid him back the following March, however, when I mailed him a video of Stephen King’s
It
for his nineteenth birthday. He still hasn’t forgiven me.

   Our exchanges became much tamer over the years, but being back in touch with Trip around the time of my birthday got me thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have let my guard down.

   He dropped his hands from my waist and dug around in his jacket pocket, procuring a rainbow of Sharpie markers in his cast hand. “Hey. This thing is coming off in a couple weeks, but it’s starting to look kinda nasty. You want to pretty it up for me?”

   I laughed and invited him to sit on the couch, so he took off his jacket and made himself at home.

   On my futon.

   I threw some music on the stereo before joining him on the couch, then uncapped the black marker and started doodling a unicorn on his left arm, which was propped up on a pillow between us.

   “A
unicorn
?” he questioned, shaking his head at the emasculation. But then he only watched in fascination for a few minutes before asking, “Hey. You remember that card you sent for my birthday? The one with all the confetti shaped like dicks?”

   I cracked up, thinking about the leftover decorations from Lisa’s bachelorette party that I had stuffed in his birthday card that year. “Yes.”

   Only Trip wasn’t laughing. “How come that was the last one I got?”

   “What?”

   “Was it because of what I wrote back? Did that scare you?”

   I didn’t remember anything he’d written in some letter all those years ago that would have scared me, but I was sure shaking in my boots
right then
by what he’d just said. I was pretty sure I couldn’t handle the details. And the fact was,
I
wrote the last letter, not him. His timeline must’ve been skewed.

   “Trip? I only remember
one
scary letter.” He looked at me then, confusion on his face. I colored in some grass so I wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. “The first one. The day I left for school.”

   “That scared you?”

   “Well, sort of. It… it killed me. Seriously, it tore me up.”

   We never discussed this. In all the letters and cards since, we never discussed that very first one. The one where he said he was in love with me.

   This was dangerous ground, and we were both treading lightly. One wrong move and it could set off a chain of events that we’d be powerless to stop. But it had been nine years at that point. The statute of limitations had to have run out by then, right? Surely, we were able to talk about a mildly dicey subject from our very distant past after nine whole years.

   He took a moment to compose himself, almost certainly trying to figure out the right way to answer. “I’m sorry, I just thought, you know, you’d want to know.”

   “No, I did. I just… We just always have bad timing, you and I.”

   I meant to say
had
. We
had
bad timing. Crap.

   He let that hang in the air between us for a minute as I drew a kraken rising from the sea on the inside of his wrist. It was easier to have this discussion when I didn’t have to look at him.

   His voice was soft. “I did, you know. I did love you.”

   The shock of hearing him say those words after so many years was overwhelming, and my hands started to shake as I said quietly, “I know. You did it well.”

   I told myself it was fine.
Just keep everything in past tense and it will be fine
.

   “You didn’t say it back.”

  
Ouch
. My heart cracked at his words, at the hurt I registered in his voice. He was right. I never said it back, and I kind of always regretted it since. But the truth was, I
did
say it. In fact, I said it
first
.

   The memory of our beach weekend brought a smile to my face, enough that I was able to lighten the tone in the air and sort of laugh out, “Well, maybe not
that
day, but I did say it. Remember?”

   He started to smile, too, so I added, “I told you… you know, what I told you… in the bathroom at the beach. How I felt. And you just
laughed
, you big jerk! I could have died.”

   That gave us both a giggle and pulled us out of our seriousness. Out of the line of fire.

   He was still chuckling as he responded, “Lay, give me a break. You were too good to be true. I didn’t really think you had feelings for me. A girl like you? C’mon.”

  
Say what now?

   “What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

   “Lay, come on. You can’t tell me you were oblivious to the attention you’d get from guys. You were—you
are
—a beautiful girl. You’re smart and you’re funny. Surely you were aware of that back then.”

   I couldn’t believe it. “Trip, are you trying to say you thought
I
was out of
your
league? Are you insane?”

   “Guess I just didn’t think it was possible.”

   “But I
told
you!”

   “Well, I guess I didn’t really believe it until… you know… The Tent.” His voice had turned serious again, and there was a moment of silence in remembrance of our fallen soldier Private
Hymen before Trip swiped a hand through his hair and said something that completely knocked me out. “That night, the way you looked at me. God, Lay, nobody’s ever…”

   He stopped himself mid-sentence and just shook his head, sinking lower to rest it on the back of the futon, staring at the ceiling.

   “Do you have any idea what my life is like these days?” He let out a breath that was half-laughter, half-growl. “I go to parties and every woman there is stuffing phone numbers in my hand. I can’t walk through a hotel lobby without room keys being shoved into my pockets.”

   “Poor baby.”

   “Lay, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that these women… they think they want me. But they don’t. They want
him
. The Movie Star. Even back in school it was like that. The Mysterious New Kid, you know?”

   Of course I knew. His appeal was all-consuming. I thought about how I was just one of many who were drawn like a moth to the flame, as I sketched a dragon on the back of his hand.

   He continued, “Don’t get me wrong. I took advantage of that, no question. They wanted to use me? I used them right back. They’d say or do almost anything to get my attention, and I let them. I allowed it to happen, thinking that that’s all I was ever worthy of. Those girls, and then later, those women… I guess—and I’m sorry for ever thinking this—but for a short time back then, I just figured you were one of them.”

   He rolled his head toward me and added tenderly, “But as it turns out, you were the only girl who ever wanted
me
. I want to thank you for that.”

   This was turning dangerous again, and I focused my attentions on the swirling flames I was shading with abandon, trying to ignore my racing heart. What were we doing? The whole confession thing seemed like a necessity years ago, but at this point, what could we hope to accomplish? After a decade, maybe some things were better left unsaid.

   Wish I knew what those things were.

   My voice didn’t even sound like my own as I returned cautiously, “I really did love you, you know. I just think it’s important that you know that. That you were—
are
—worthy of it.” I stopped coloring and made myself look him in the eye to add, “Thank
you
for
that
.”

   The proud smile he gave me was enough to stop my heart, but then his lips curled into a sarcastic smirk. “So she says ten years later.”

   That made me smile, too. The fact that he didn’t jump my bones at my admission gave me the confidence to continue the line of questioning. “So, is that why you stopped writing to me? Because you thought I didn’t say, you know… you thought I’d never be yours?”

   “No, because… and what the hell are you talking about?
You
stopped writing to
me
.”

   “Uhh, nice try,
movie star
. You went off and got some big life and had no more time for a mere peon like me.” I was laughing as I said it, but it still bothered me.

   He turned sideways on the couch, facing me head-on. “Layla, shut up. You’re so full of it. I wrote you like the last three letters and you never bothered to write back. Who went off and got the big life here?”

   Trip had stopped writing the year after he’d settled in L.A., around the time I’d moved into my apartment senior year.

   “I never got any letters and I know I gave you this address. Even if I hadn’t, you know where my father lives. You could have sent them there.”

   “I never knew you didn’t get the ones I
did
send. I just always figured you got yourself some jealous boyfriend who didn’t want you writing letters to the guy you
used
to fuck.”

   A jolt went through me when he said that, and it took me an extra second to find my bearings. I considered pointing out the fact that we didn’t
used to fuck
. We merely only fucked. Singular. Once.

   “So… what? We lost touch all these years because of postal error?”

   “I guess so.”

   Regret passed between us at that revelation, at yet how another pointless screw-up had managed to keep us apart. Jeez. There were more misunderstandings between us than in an episode of
Three’s Company
.

   But the fact was, we had both gone on with our lives. We’d gotten used to living separately, and I guessed it had to be that way. I mean, how many people still kept in touch with their high school sweethearts a decade after graduation, for godsakes? The things that happened must’ve happened that way for a reason. Would Trip have had any motivation to go off to Hollywood if I was still hanging around Jersey? Would I have gone off to college and found my passion for writing if he had asked me to stay? What if I had followed him out there? Or if he’d stuck around closer to home to be with me?

   We both had our own lives to lead. We were both living the lives that we had chosen.

   It was time to get back to them.

Chapter 23

MEMENTO

   I finished coloring in the sky, capped the marker, and tossed it onto the coffee table with the rest of the Sharpies. I was glad to have been given the chance to talk some of our stuff out, but now that that was done, we both knew it was time for goodbye.

   I stood and held Trip’s jacket out to him. He hauled himself off the futon, took it, and let me lead him to the door, all the while admiring the artwork I had tattooed along his entire cast.

   He stopped and said, “Oh hey. I brought you a present.”

   Rummaging around in his jacket pocket, he came up with a leaf from my tree.

   It was the tree I practically lived in when I was younger, the gazillion-year-old Magnolia that sat on my father’s front lawn. Trip knew that a day never went by without me pulling a leaf off of the darned thing. Living away from home, I wasn’t able to indulge that compulsion on a daily basis any longer, but I still managed to snatch one whenever I was back in town.

   I ran my fingertips over the waxy, football-shaped surface and said, “Ha! Guess what?”

   Leaning past him toward the coat hook next to the door, I grabbed the leather jacket I’d worn to the engagement party the previous Friday, dug around in the pocket, and came up with a twin leaf. I’d been unable to stop myself from nabbing one when I was at my dad’s the other night. Yeesh. Twenty-six years old, and I was still emotionally attached to a tree. I sandwiched them both together and stuck them to my fridge with a magnet, then met Trip back at the door.

   It was good that we got the chance to clear a few things up, say a proper goodbye. And as bad as it sucked, that’s what this was. It was goodbye. Because the next time we saw each other—if at all—we’d be married to other people. The past weeks had been a whirlwind, but I was happy to have had them. Happy to have reconnected with a very dear, old friend.