Finally, Forever Read online

  “Okay,” Gray says with a nod. “I’ve listened to enough Tenacious D to agree with his musical talent.”

  “And his acting?” I ask.

  “I’ve seen High Fidelity,” Gray says. “And Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny. Point made.”

  “Well, I was thinking of Nacho Libre and School of Rock, but whatever,” I say. “So, starting in middle school, if I was upset or insecure about something, or having a bad day, I wrote down my problem on a piece of paper, folded it up and put it in my Jack Black box. Then I latched the box closed and stopped thinking about it. Problem solved. Jack took care of it for me.”

  “Do you still have it?” Gray asks.

  I nod. “I wouldn’t let my mom throw it away. That one was a keeper.”

  The rain picks up outside. It hits and slams against the window, but I think it sounds like music—a light mix of tambourine and cymbals. The wind sounds like a guitar, all low, melancholy notes. Thunder takes the drums. I’m quiet as I listen to the song.

  “Posters?” he asks.

  “None.”

  “Really? I took you for a poster kind of girl.”

  I shake my head. “No, I was more into clothes pins.”

  “What?” he asks and waits for more.

  “Clothes pins,” I say, like it’s a normal decorating feature. “I had strings strung along all four walls of my room and I used clothes pins to hang stuff. Magazine cut outs, drawings, photographs. One fall I had an entire room full of leaves. That one got messy. I had to promise my mom never to hang organic material again.” I look over at Gray and he’s suddenly too close. He’s dangerously entering my KZ— his face and lips are close enough to reach out and touch. He must be trying to torture me. I try to focus on the conversation. “One wall was dedicated to missing pieces. Just random things I found—torn paper, ripped notes, receipts, bags.”

  “You mean garbage? You hung garbage on your walls?”

  “They weren’t garbage,” I argue. “They were the lost remnants of a larger story.” I throw up my hands. “I’m not saying interior decorating was ever my calling, Gray.”

  He smiles and I smile. I could step inside his smile and live there because it’s one of the most familiar places I know. I could easily lean forward into him. I’m starting to, I feel our faces inching closer when suddenly the door knocks open. Gray and I turn to see Sue Anne walk inside. When she sees us sitting on the bed, her face brightens.

  “Are you two cozy in here?”

  “Very cozy, thanks, Sue Anne,” I say.

  “This is my daughter’s old room,” she says and looks around with nostalgia. “She loved pink. I haven’t had the heart to redecorate.”

  “It’s perfect,” I say.

  “Well, alright. Sweet dreams. And if you hear any sirens, you can head down to the basement if you want. It’s the last door at the end of the hall.” She closes the door and I hear it click shut.

  Gray stands up and suddenly it’s easier to breath. He stretches his arms over his head. “I’m going to grab my bag from the car,” he says. “You need anything?” I shake my head. I have a toothbrush in my backpack, and a t-shirt and shorts.

  When Gray leaves, I open my backpack and take out The Giving Tree, a book that he gave me when we first met. It’s the book I didn’t want him to see. I’ve been writing in it since he gave it to me, using it as a type of journal. It’s where I keep my un-want list.

  I try to un-want things. It’s my latest challenge. And I’m continually broke, so it works out. Every day people make lists of the things they want, or the things they need. Shopping lists, to-do lists, grocery lists. I make it a challenge to un-want things. To see what I can do without. I un-want new shoes and make do with my dirty, worn out ones. I glue the soles together and sew holes. I un-want a new backpack and sew a patch on the one I have. Casting something away it easy, but just because it frays, just because it shows signs of age doesn’t mean it’s worthless. It’s amazing how well things hold up if you give them extra love.

  I un-wanted getting a haircut and let it grow wild until I cut it myself. I un-want makeup and let my freckles stand out. And strangely, in all the unneeding, I seem to gain more.

  I look up at the door Gray just walked out of. No matter how hard I try, I can’t un-want you. I can’t un-need you. Sometimes we don’t know what we need until we’re shown what we need. Up until then, we’re only making blind guesses. Sometimes, even when we think we’re roaming, we’re just traveling in a long circle that eventually leads us home.

  Gray

  I walk into the bedroom and sit down on the bed. Dylan isn’t here; it gives me a chance for a mental pep talk. I run my hands through my hair. I have to mentally rise above this situation. I can’t let myself remember. I can’t let myself want her. She is the one thing I can never have.

  I look up at the door she’s about to walk through. I gave you up. I wasn’t born to love you. I was born to lose you. You are my sad song. My melancholy mix. You were my past until you suddenly crashed into my present. But you will never be my future.

  I replay that sentence over and over in my head.

  I stare at the edge of the bed where she was sitting, sprawling her legs out like weapons. Her long, slender feet brushed against the hardwood floor like a dessert that I wasn’t allowed to touch, only to see.

  You can feel the energy of sexual tension. It’s like a belt tied around your chest, slowly tightening. It’s as if molecules in the air are lightly stinging your skin. You become aware of every inch of your body, from the back of your neck, to your toes. You are fully awake, fully exposed and bordering on the edge of pain.

  A few minutes later Dylan walks into the room and shuts the door. She’s wearing a dark green t-shirt and a pair of orange shorts that say Tennessee up the side of one leg. It’s the furthest thing from sexy a girl could wear. The t-shirt is so baggy it looks like it hardly touches her skin, just around her throat and chest, and my eyes linger at those spots until I pull them away.

  She hops onto the bed and it creaks beneath her. I look over at her and she doesn’t seem the least bit weirded out, like life is just one long slumber party to her. Does this girl even feel sexual tension?

  I pull the sheets back and we both climb under. I lie down on my back and keep my body as straight as a ruler. Even my toes are pointing forward.

  Over the past year, I figured out a way to stop thinking about Dylan. The trick was not to think at all. As long as I filled my head with constant music and my life with distractions then I was fine. I only thought about her during the narrow cracks of silence, so I filled those cracks, cemented them tight and kept her out. I thought I could turn her invisible, as if she never existed. But all of our memories are my favorites. How do you forget your best times? How do you block out the best version of yourself? I can’t freeze memories that hot. They always thaw out and run wild again.

  Dylan turns off a pink lamp on the bedside table and my eyes start to adjust to the dark room. I can hear thunder grumbling outside. I feel safer in the darkness; it’s like hiding under a protective blanket, blocking Dylan out. Until she speaks and reminds me she’s less than a foot away.

  “Do you still think about Amanda?” she asks.

  I stare up at the ceiling. Rain lightly taps against the window. Distant lightening flashes outside and illuminates the walls with flickering blue light.

  “Yeah, all the time.”

  “Is it getting easier?” she asks.

  No one’s ever asked me this before. I think about her question and nod slowly. “It doesn’t hurt as much,” I say. “I don’t feel sick to my stomach anymore. That was the worst part. It was like my body was filled with acid. My stomach always felt like it was twisting.”

  Dylan laces her fingers together on top of the blanket, over her chest.

  “How do you feel now?” she asks.

  “I’m not angry anymore,” I say. “I used to be so mad. I was mad at my parents for letting Amanda drive tha
t night. I was mad at all of Amanda’s friends for inviting her to that party. I was mad at the doctors because they couldn’t save her. I was mad at God for stealing her, at the road workers for leaving that patch of hidden ice on the highway. I was mad that it was so sunny and beautiful out the day after she died. It’s crazy all the things you find to blame.”

  The rain grazes the window like sand. It’s so soft it’s no longer a storm, just the illusion of a storm. Thunder rumbles a lullaby in the distance.

  “I still miss her like crazy,” I say. “That feeling will never go away. But I don’t want it to. She deserves to have me miss her every day for the rest of my life.”

  I look over at Dylan and I feel the medieval fortress crack and crumble. It’s a worthless pile of debris against her stare. I forgot how well she knows me, how her questions are like keys and she knows just the right ones to use to pick my locks. My feet start to relax, beginning at my toes and loosening up to my ankles. My knees turn outwards, closer to her. My back and shoulders finally sink against the contours of the mattress.

  “Thanks for asking about her. You’re the only one who does,” I say.

  “It’s not exactly an easy conversation,” Dylan points out.

  I shake my head. “People avoid it all the time, like they’re afraid I’m going to fall apart and start sobbing. But you were right when we first met, you called it. I needed to talk about Amanda.”

  A quiet minute rolls by. Dylan’s looking up at the ceiling and she sighs.

  “I’m not tired,” she says and turns her head to look at me. Neither am I. Usually when we’re in bed together we’re naked and any talking we do consists of an afterglow sex recap or foreplay sex talk. This is new for us.

  “Tell me one random thing you did this year,” she says. I smile as an idea comes to mind.

  I look over at her. “I called the Humane Society last summer to check in on Boba.”

  Her eyebrows fly up when I mention the dog that we volunteered to take on walks the summer we met. “You did?”

  I nod. “I was going to offer to walk him when I was visiting my parents, if he was still around.”

  “What did they say?” she asks, her voice rising, her eyes widening.

  “They said, ‘“Boba isn’t with us anymore.”’

  Dylan gasps and slaps a hand over her mouth. I pry it away and she squeezes my fingers.

  “No—” she says and I interrupt her before I see tears.

  “He got adopted,” I say and let her hand go.

  “He did?” Dylan exclaims and I nod.

  “An older couple adopted him. They wanted a very mellow dog,” I say.

  “Perfect,” she says.

  “They said Boba really perked up after we took him out. We gave him a second chance.”

  I can see her eyes widen in the darkness. “I can’t think of a more wonderful bedtime story,” Dylan says. “We need to do that again sometime,” she insists and I just look up at the ceiling. I don’t nod, but I don’t disagree.

  Dylan’s quiet and her breathing turns long and repetitive and I know she faded off to sleep. And I’m still nowhere near it. I hear the wooden clock chime and remind me of quarter hours, half hours, full hours slipping by and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m wasting time, lying here. I listen to Dylan breathe between the claps of thunder. Visions of the last three years play in my head, and I’m remembering all the good times, all the reasons why I loved her, why I still love this girl. I want my brain to remember the times that she left me, the times she made me wait, made me doubt, broke my heart. But my mind refuses to acknowledge those memories.

  The clock’s ticking starts to sound angry. It’s an impatient tapping.

  I roll over onto my stomach and rest on my elbows so I can look out the window behind the headboard. I watch the way the early dawn slowly reveals things outside: a roof on a shed, a white clothes line, a chicken coop, a white fence bordering a garden. I’ve gotten used to watching the sun rise and it’s becoming my favorite time of the day. There’s always a sense of starting over. Erasing mistakes. The air is at its calmest in the morning. It’s like even the sky is meditating, staying still, keeping a clear head and focusing on the moment before it’s forced to stretch and wake up. I like to think my mind can be the same way.

  I look over at Dylan and her face is inches away from mine. I openly stare at her, at the angle of her nose, slightly turned up, at the long brown and black lashes feathering her eyes.

  I lay down on the pillow and I can already feel the heat of the morning sun stretching into the sky.

  Dylan

  I walk out to the screened-in porch where Sue Anne set our shoes out to dry. I reach down to grab mine and my arm freezes inches from the wood-beamed floor. The laces of my shoes are tangled together, in the shape of a heart. I crouch down and look at the heart, solid yet so delicate. If I lightly poked the laces, I would distort the whole image. There’s only one way to make it permanent.

  I pull my camera out of my backpack and snap a picture. As my camera clicks, a piece of knowledge slips into place. I look between my shoes and the heart. It took all this traveling, all this time, to understand that my journey has never been about getting to a particular place. It was always a road leading to Gray. The star on my map, in my heart. My greatest tether, always letting me go but pulling me back. I’ve traveled 2,000 miles this summer, but that’s nothing compared to the mileage I’ve made in my head. Thoughts are your heart’s footprints, and mine always lead back to him.

  I put my camera away and stare down at the heart. Wisdom is a strange teacher. She likes to show up after you make a mistake so she can point out where you went wrong, but it’s too late to go back and correct it. Maybe she wants you to screw up so you’re smart enough to start listening. Or, maybe Wisdom is a like a map. She always has a plan if you follow her directions.

  I slip on my shoes and tie the laces and walk outside. Rays of sunshine spill through thick, gray clouds breaking up across the sky. Everything is shining with the polish of rain. The wet ground gleams in the light. The air smells like earth and wet gravel and wood. I inhale a deep breath and feel a wish taking root in my heart. I wish everything could start new with Gray.

  I walk around the farmyard and I like the emptiness of this place. The puddles on the gravel are as still as mirrors. In the daylight it’s clear the old farmhouse is past its prime. Its light yellow paint is blistered and chipped, and the red barn is missing patches of shingles on the roof. It’s obviously been out of commission for a long time, but I can see why they never left. It must be nice to wake up every day under so much uninterrupted expanse of sky. There is something wonderfully calming about being at the center of nothing. I could live out here. I would spend every day in tank tops and jeans and sunshine. I’d take baths in a water barrel. I’d learn how to bake and garden and can vegetables. I’d sleep on the porch at night.

  “I’m surprised you’re not taking a million pictures right now,” Gray says. I turn around and he’s standing a few feet away from me. He’s wearing black mesh shorts and a blue UNM baseball t-shirt that matches his eyes.

  “It’s perfect,” I agree. “But I don’t think a camera could capture it. It’s more of the feeling you get when you’re standing here. It’s all the smells. And the silence.”

  “What does a rainbow smell like, exactly?” he asks and I turn and follow his gaze. There’s a rainbow arched over the eastern sky. Each color stands out individually and it makes me think of piano notes, starting low and getting higher to match each of the colors. The colors even look like they have texture. Some are more fuzzy, some smoother, some matted, some shiny. The arch combines the blue sky with the dark clouds in one colorful frame.

  I instantly pull my camera out of my backpack. I look through the lens, but I can’t do the picture justice on the ground. I need a higher angle. I climb up on the roof of Gray’s car and he doesn’t stop me—I’ve done it before—and I find a frame clear of the electrical l
ines and trees that were blocking the shot. I sit down on top of his car roof for a few seconds. I look at each solid color and it makes me think about people. If we color-coordinated our feelings, our personality, what would we look like? I would be a lot of yellows, oranges and reds. Gray would be darker on the spectrum, grays and blues and greens. And that is why we are perfect. We complement each other. We complete the spectrum.

  But rainbows never last. They only appear for a few spellbinding minutes, long enough to entrance you with the kind of beauty life is capable of creating, but they are never permanent. They are just a rare phenomenon when all the right elements line up, when light is separated into its most beautiful form—when the timing is absolutely perfect.

  I’m afraid to blink. I don’t want it to disappear.

  Gray climbs up onto the hood of his car. He bends down and grabs my camera and looks through the lens before he hands it back to me.

  “That’s a good shot,” his says and sits down next to me. Our feet dangle over the side of the roof.

  “Too bad they don’t last forever,” I say.

  “You wouldn’t appreciate them if they did,” Gray says.

  I wonder if he’s right.

  “It looks like nature’s Mohawk,” I say.

  Gray smiles. “Maybe nature recently joined a punk band,” he says.

  We’re interrupted when Sue Anne walks out carrying a loaf of corn bread. I wonder if it’s used as bartering currency in this state. We jump down off the roof and she offers me the bread and a hug. She hands me a piece of paper with her email address scribbled on it.

  “Stay in touch, Dylan,” she says and I promise I will. She leans in close and whispers, “Let me know how it turns out. About my theory, I mean.”

  Gray

  We stop for breakfast in Hebron, Nebraska. Coming into town, we pass a billboard that informs us Hebron is famous for having the “World’s Largest Porch Swing.” I wonder if it lures a lot of tourists. Of course, Dylan insists we drive the extra two miles to the city park to see it. We pull over and walk through the thick green grass. The park is empty and the giant bench looms in the center. It looks like four wooden benches have been glued together and attached to a red metal frame. It’s longer than a Greyhound bus.