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His fingers combed through my hair. “Did you mean to end it, or were you crying out for help?”
I didn’t lift my head and didn’t answer. The ache of comfort was gone and instead the forest fire of guilt flared. I wouldn’t admit the truth; the truth was too awful. I didn’t have a good reason to give in.
The psychiatrist had told me, “Everyone has burdens to carry, and you shouldn’t feel guilty.” She’d said, “It’s stopped being about choice, the chemicals in your body are all muddled up so you can’t think straight.” I was on happy pills, and counseling now, and she’d promised me I’d feel better and I’d get out the other side.
I didn’t want to.
“Why did you go to Jason’s store…?” Billy’s fingers ran through my hair. I felt like a kid being comforted. It took me back years; to the years I’d been happy.
Why? I didn’t answer. He probably thought it was for revenge. It wasn’t. My life had been there, I’d worked there for years, been Jason’s second half for years.
Who was I now? What was there to do?
“I’m sorry, Lindy. If you let me help, I’ll make everything up to you.”
He had nothing to make up, not really, everything that had gone wrong between him and me was my fault.
“Do you want to get away for a while? Just for a couple of weeks even? I swear to God, there’ll be nothing in it. No expectation on my part at all.”
I needed help. I needed to escape. Just until I could get back on track. “Yeah.”
His hands gripped my shoulders and moved me back. He looked like he didn’t believe what I’d said. “Yeah?” His voice questioned.
“Yeah.” I nodded, my vision clouding with tears. I needed to go somewhere and pretend my life wasn’t what it was––for a short vacation. “I’ll have to speak to the psychiatrist, though. When do you want to go?”
He smiled. Billy was so nice, his heart shone right out of his eyes along with his smile. He hurt for me. We’d been close, before everything went wrong. This was him trying to put it right again. But nothing could ever be right.
Tears rolled onto my cheeks as the flames of guilt flickered.
Mom…
Billy held me against his chest. His big, solid arms fencing me in and holding the world out.
I felt better, like I had in the fall… And look where that had got us.
I pulled away, looking at the house. Mom must be at the window. This wasn’t her fault.
“What about Saturday, two weeks’ time?” Billy’s voice came out husky. “I’ll cancel my client appointments. You get everything agreed with the hospital and your Mom and Dad, and we’ll just get out of here for a bit, so you can escape all this shit?”
“Thank you, Billy. You’re a good guy, you know that?”
He gave me an apologetic smile. “We both know that’s not true. But I will be now. I swear, Lind, just friends…”
“I better go back in.” I wiped my face on my sleeve, trying to wipe off the tracks of tears so Mom wouldn’t see them, but it wiped my foundation off too. I hoped my mascara hadn’t run. “Text me.”
“I’ll let you know what time I’ll pick you up.”
“Okay.” I tried to smile, then turned away, opened the door and slipped out of his SUV. I didn’t look back as I crossed the road and ran up to the house.
When I let myself in, Mom stood by the window. I knew she’d been watching.
“You okay?” she asked.
I nodded, “Yeah.” But I didn’t stay in the living room. I walked on to my room, threw myself face-down on the bed and sobbed some more.
I was so messed-up and selfish.
Billy didn’t need the burden of a broken girl, I shouldn’t have said yes. He’d been ready to move on.
The forest fire of guilt flared and consumed everything else.
Billy
I slipped the SUV into drive and pulled away, my heart a boulder in my chest.
What that girl did to me! If Jason knew half the things I’d imagined over the last five years he wouldn’t have called me to meet up and wet his kid’s head.
Fuck.
Jason and I had messed her up.
This was a pile of shit.
When I walked in the door back home a lot later than I’d usually come in, my kid sister, Eva, called, “Hey, Billy!”
“Hey, Eva.” I lifted a hand.
“Where have you been?” Mom asked as I walked through the living room.
“At the gym.”
“You work out all day. You can’t have spent that long at the gym. You’re hiding something! I bet you’ve got a girl!” Eva’s passion in life was teasing me. But underneath it she loved having a much older brother to flaunt before her friends, and catch rides off of. She always gloated when I drove her to her friends’ parties. But she wasn’t a kid anymore, she was fifteen. “Don’t tell me you’ve finally given up on winning Lindy?”
I made a face at her. My family knew my trouble. In a bad moment I’d said something to Dad a couple of years ago and from then on my whole family had been a part of my secret Lindy addiction. “Nope, I saw her today.”
“Billy! I thought you’d stopped that.”
“I’m taking her away for a couple of weeks.”
“OMG!” Eva screamed.
“Is that a good thing?” Mom stood up.
“When you and that girl get together, it always ends badly, Billy.” Dad threw in his cent without moving from his armchair.
“Thanks for the enthusiasm.” I shrugged and turned away, but Eva grabbed my arm and then hugged me.
“I hope things work out. I’ll be glad for you if they do.” I gave her a squeeze then let her slip away.
“As will I,” Mom said, smiling at me.
My gaze shifted around them all. “Except this isn’t like that. It’s just as friends…”
Eva rolled her eyes. “Lindy is so blind.”
Mom kept smiling.
I turned away and headed for my room.
I scanned through my calendar and called clients to tell them something personal had come up; the stretched and worn leather band on my wrist sliding up and down.
I always wondered what the hell I’d do if it broke. It was my talisman.
The fingers of my other hand span it around my wrist a couple of times as I waited while a call rang.
I knew where I was gonna take her. To the place I’d run to every summer for years. It had started the summer we’d left high school.
There was no answer. I ended the call, but then my cell vibrated.
”Lindy’s back home.“ The message was from Jason.
”I know, I went ‘round to see her.”
”She okay?”
”Nope, quiet and crying.“
”Tell her sorry. And tell her Rach and me are thinking of her. We didn’t want her to get hurt.”
”She said to tell you sorry too. She’s sorry we saw her like that. She said she felt guilty about getting us caught up in it.”
He didn’t answer for a minute, but then came back and said. ”Tell her it’s okay. I get it. I know I messed her around. But tell her I hope she can be happy.”
I sighed. So did I. ”I’ll tell her. Do you still want to go out for a drink again next week?”
”Shit, yeah, I need another night out to get over that one. When?”
”Thursday?”
”Okay.”
The place I was gonna take Lindy to was beautiful. You could stay right on the beach in an apartment, listen the ocean and watch the waves roll up on the sand. It was the sort of escapism Lindy needed to put her vibes right.
I looked at my cell, and my thumb instinctively slid up Lindy’s image. ”Hey. I’m gonna take you to a place I know on the coast. It’s perfect for chilling out. You’ll get caught up in the awesomeness of the universe and forget about yourself.”
While I waited for a reply I booked the accommodation. I’d cancel the rest of my appointments later. I booked adjacent apartments.
”That sounds amazing.”
”Cool.”
“:-) Shall I transfer my share of the money to you?’
”Lind you’re not paying. I asked you. I owe you.”
”You don’t owe me anything. But thanks if you’ll pay. I’m not earning.”
‘I know. Maybe when we’re out there we can start working on what new job you feel like doing.”
“:/ When I feel better, Billy.”
“Yeah. Sorry I’m pushing. Too much. Too soon. One step, Lind. By the way, Jason said he’s sorry too, and that he and Rachel wish you well. He wants you to be happy. That’s what we all want.”
”Thanks.“
The thanks seemed final and I didn’t know what to say next.
My fingers tapped the desk, beating out a rhythm.
I wanted to call. I had a feeling she was crying. I shouldn’t have mentioned Jason. I didn’t call though ‘cause I’d grown a coward’s streak since the fall. I didn’t want to hear her tell me how she missed him and how much she still loved him.
Guilt curled up in a hard ball in my belly.
Why the fuck was she speaking to me? She shouldn’t be.
Why the frick was she going away with me?
The girl was crazy.
This could be the stupidest idea, I’d ever had.
Chapter Two (#u668257bf-2c1e-55cf-b75f-7d080e3b33cf)
Billy
“You’re sure everything is squared off with the hospital, Lind. You’ve got your meds…”
She nodded, but she was scaring me, her hands trembled as I took her case and put it in the back of the SUV, next to my surfboard.
Her dad stood on their porch, in his uniform; it meant he’d ducked off work to come back and say goodbye to her. He watched us, like he didn’t want her to go.
He certainly wouldn’t want her to go if he knew the truth. But he didn’t. No one did except me and Lindy.
I hadn’t seen her Mom. That was weird because she didn’t work. I’d have thought she’d have come outside to say a final goodbye to Lindy.
“Is that everything?” I asked. Lindy nodded, her blue eyes glittering with tears.
“No, I forgot my purse.” She turned away and ran back up the path into the house.
