The Space In Between
Read The Space In Between Online
Authors: Brittainy Cherry
By Brittainy
C. Cherry
* * *
*
The
Space in Between
Copyright
© 2013 by Brittainy C. Cherry
Edited
By: Mickey Reed
Cover
Design By: Kevin R. Kimmons
Formatting
by
JT Formatting
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rights reserved.
Without
limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of
the author of this book.
This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents
are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various
products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without
permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized,
associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
To
Mom.
For
seeing me when I felt invisible.
THREE DAYS, FIVE hours, and
twenty-two minutes.
Mom kept crying. Her puffy eyes hadn’t stopped swelling for
a few hours now and she could hardly breathe. I told her it was all right, but
she kept hugging me, rubbing my hands in hers. She said that she would never
understand why these kinds of things would happen to people, but God was always
in control. I felt like that was just something people said. When they couldn’t
figure out the words, it was always, "In God’s hands."
Daddy sat in the corner of the room with his thick-framed
glasses brushing against his pepper gray-haired sideburns. He was a calm man by
nature. Grams said when he was born there was only a whisper to show he was
alive. But when she held him in her arms for the first time, he smiled to her.
And he hadn’t stopped smiling since. Until today. Today, he sat there in the
corner. Looking my way. Not pressuring me to get better. Not pushing me to
express anything.
I turned away from Mom as I lay in the hospital bed and
looked outside to the sky. I couldn’t grasp what was happening. It was a
complex world. How could the sun shine so brightly and look so welcoming in the
wake of such an event? The birds sang and danced past the window and the kids
laughed down on Jefferson Street as they went to the county’s fair. The dogs
barked and Ms. Jacobson gossiped. Outside the world of Albany, Wisconsin, was
completely normal. Happy. But inside this cold, darkened room, I sat in a
hospital bed. My left leg in a sling and my body bruised on the outside, but
the internal damage of my soul was the worst.
Mom tried her best to silence her muffled tears by covering
her mouth, as if she didn’t want me to hear her—to avoid my suffering. But I
didn’t mind. It was better to hear her than the laughter. She worried for my
safety. My calm demeanor scared her the most. But it appeared she was breaking
down enough for all of us.
My eyes moved towards the closed seafoam-colored curtain,
which blocked the entrance to my hospital room. I looked down and saw two pairs
of shoes—an old brown scuffed up pair and high heels (you know, the fancy kind
with the red bottoms, that scream, ‘We’re expensive!’). I knew it was Eric and
Michelle, and I watched Dad pull back the curtain to let them in.
They both were silent. Michelle stood tall in a beautifully
tight white floral dress featuring a red sweater over it. And there, her
boyfriend, my brother, Eric was, wearing his UW-Madison sweatshirt, a pair of
slacks, and his scuffed up brown shoes.
I followed after my brother to UW-Madison, where I met some
of my best friends. Unlike Eric, I hadn’t become a teacher, but I followed with
a cool degree in dance. I’m a fantastic dancer.
As my eyes landed on my leg, my heart skipped a beat. I
was
a fantastic dancer.
Say something.
I wished they would talk. The staring
at me with sad eyes was growing to be too much. So I opened my mouth to speak
and was graced with a mouthful of air and emptied words. I tried again, and
sounds came out. But the actual words were what slapped me and made my eyes
follow after my mom. A never-ending flow of tears poured from me as I smiled to
my calm, loving father. “Did someone cancel the rehearsal dinner?”
In three days, five hours, and twenty-two minutes, I would
have been walking down the aisle in my white dress inside the beautiful St.
Peter’s Church. I would have been beaming with a type of joy that can’t be
expressed in words, but only in a feeling. It would have been a warm feeling of
knowing that, once I reached the end of the aisle, Derrick would be there.
I would have been marrying my middle school sweetheart and
starting a new chapter. We would move out to New York— him to pursue his
singing career and I would be pursuing dance. I would go for my Master’s degree
if I were lucky, or I would waitress tables (something I have done at Mr.
Fred’s Diner off Brady Street since I was sixteen). Derrick would probably be
discovered before me because he was talented beyond his years, and I would
gladly become his trophy wife and the backup dancer in his music videos.
Classy!
But I made a mistake.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Mom said over and over again. But I
knew better.
At the end of the school year, I was always overjoyed when
Derrick picked me up. I was saying goodbye to my best friend, Ladasha, who was
pretty much the best dancer I’d ever seen. Madison had been the third college
she had tried out in the past three years. I don’t know why but the first day I
met her we clicked. The Caucasian small town girl in me was so amused by the
African-American city girl in her. She would make me laugh at the stupidest
things in the world, but some days she’d glance at herself in a mirror and
burst out crying. I never knew why. I never asked…I just hugged her.
It was tough saying goodbye because she was on her way to
New York City. “To make my dreams come true,” she smirked. Stating how there
was something in her heart calling out to her. So before she could finish her
degree, she had to follow the voice. I had no clue what the heck she was
talking about, but I hugged her tight and promised to stay in touch.
It was always a treat when I’d see him pulling up to my
building in his green pick-up truck. Derrick wouldn’t complain once as he
helped me load my past year’s dorm items into the truck. When it was all loaded
up each year, I would make the drive back home. As a ‘thank you’ for him
helping me. It was around four-thirty in the afternoon when we got to the
freeway and blasted the newest CD he had recorded.
I hadn’t even seen the car’s tire explode in front of me
before it was too late to hit my brakes. I didn’t even remember crying out in
pain as my body slammed against the steering wheel. I didn’t know the truck had
flipped and was slammed from behind with three other cars piling up. I didn’t
have time to fully grasp what had happened.
But I had tasted it—the salty sweet mix of my blood dripping
into my mouth as I sat in the car. It’d taken a moment for me to realize I was
upside down. I tasted the coppery sensation that infested my tongue with its
disgusting flavors. My eyes were filled with tears mixing with the deep red
liquids as I screamed out in angst. My left leg was abusively tucked in between
the door and driver’s seat.
None of that mattered the moment my eyes shifted to
Derrick’s seat. His hazelnut eyes shot open and pierced my soul by saying the
last word he would ever say to me— or anyone for that matter.
“Andie…”
In three days, I would be pushed down the aisle in a wheel
chair, in my black dress, inside the beautiful St. Peter’s Church. I would be
suffocating from a misery that can’t be expressed in words, but only in a
feeling. It would be a cold feeling of knowing that, once I reached the end of
the aisle, Derrick would be there.
In three days I would be saying goodbye to the only love I
have ever known. Three days, five hours, and twenty-two minutes.
But who’s counting?
SITTING IN A metal chair that my dad
pushed me around in was annoying. My family and I waited outside the church as
all of the townspeople gathered around to say they were sorry. I heard some of
the gossiping old ladies whisper there might have been alcohol involved. I didn’t
even have the strength to roll my eyes. Michelle’s best friend, Rachel McLean,
approached me. Her eyes were heavy with tears as she shook her head back and
forth. We were never really close, but she looked as if she were as broken as I
was.
“Andrea…” she whispered. I waited for her to get her thought
out, but she kept crying, saying she was so sorry, over and over again. My
brother came over and walked Rachel away. I was thankful for that. I couldn’t
watch anyone else fall apart.
Everyone disappeared, traveling in a single-file car line in
the direction of the graveyard. I couldn’t stop tugging on my black lace dress.
My leg itched so much in that damn cast, but I didn’t complain. Mom didn’t
complain either when she dressed me. It was a new chore for her, but she never
let it appear that way. I was thankful for that, too.
I stared at the church. My wedding church. Mom looked at me
with the gentlest eyes and bent down so she was closer, seeing how I was so
low. “Andrea, we should get going. It’s been a long day. And if you don’t want
to stop by the graveyard, we should still stop by Derrick’s parent’s house…”
I could feel Daddy’s hand on my shoulder. I wasn’t sure how
long it had been there, but I wasn’t in a hurry to have it removed. Eric was
there too with Michelle, who looked awful. She never really felt comfortable in
uneasy situations. Who could blame her? The smile always plastered upon her was
erased that day. As I looked around, I realized everyone’s smiles were gone.
Eric didn’t know what to say to me. What could he say? There
were no words that could make any of this better. Stupid tears kept falling.
There were so many times I didn’t even know I was crying. Eric bent down and
wiped my eyes.
“It’s all right, Andie.”
“Don’t call me that,” I whispered as I smiled brightly
towards them all, “Listen. Really. You can all stop looking at me as if I’m
broken. I’m not. People die.” I couldn’t stop giggling.
“Grammy Tammy died and you guys didn’t throw a fit. So why
should we be freaked out now that my twenty-two year old fiancé is being buried
into a deep hole in the ground as we speak? You know what’s shitty?” I watched
as my mother’s eyes widened. I never cursed in front of my parents, and I could
tell it was a surprise to her ears. Especially in front of the church. “Sorry,
Mom…you know what’s crappy? Derrick didn’t even like cemeteries. He hated them.
He wanted to donate his organs and be cremated.”
The way everyone remained silent as they watched the first
of my many breakdowns was pretty amusing. I continued. “And I mean, how did you
all not know that? He wrote a song about it. ‘
Windy Sunday
’. I’m sure
you didn’t listen to it though. But he talked about how cemeteries were a waste
of perfectly good space and how he wanted to float away into the winds. Why
didn’t anyone say, ‘Hey, Andrea, do you know how Derrick wanted to be handled
after you killed him?’ Why didn’t anyone ask me, Daddy?”
I looked at my dad, whose eyes were filling with emotion.
“Why didn’t anyone ask? Because I wasn’t his wife? Because I had no say in how
to bury my dead fiancé’s body?”
I couldn’t speak anymore. I sobbed into my brother’s arms. I
was surrounded by love, but I’d never felt so alone.
