Trifecta

ACT IV: Chapter Twelve - Sweater Weather (May, 2008)

"I've gotta wrestle it back from Alex first though. She's had it forever already."

Forever being a whole five days.

I laughed in spite of myself and shrugged my shoulders. "She can be a real pain sometimes but...I'm glad I have Alex around. Sometimes I feel like she's the only person left that understands me."

Memories of the last few months that I had spent with Alex flooded through my brain, causing the ghost of a smile to tug at my lips. It had been awkward and bumbling at first but we got into a groove with each other eventually. We played around and joked with each other and most of the time, I could look at her without remembering the night we had shared after Lilah's funeral. Most of the time it was good. And most of the time, I was even happy.

"Do you really believe everything you used to say about Alex and me? That we were good for each other?"

I waited for an answer from Lilah that I knew was never going to come, while simultaneously waiting for the guilt to flood me like it always did on the rare occasion that Alex crossed my mind in such a way. Neither one happened though and I was left to sit and ponder my feelings with furrowed brows and a thoughtful hum.

"Sometimes I think we need each other. Like, maybe neither of us are supposed to do this life thing without the other," I muttered before lifting my shoulders in a lame shrug. "'Cause whenever we separate it's like we're just drifting. We're not doing anything and life...I don't know, it's like life stops making sense when she's not there."

I thought about when I was younger and Alex and I had been forced apart. How hard I became to the people in my life. How focused and determined I was to make something of myself, just to keep the thoughts of her away. How I had somehow become a shell of myself by the time I was twenty-six, when I met a pretty little blonde named Lilah who turned my whole life upside down.

But that was also the time that Alex came back into your life. And even if it wasn't the same, she was still right there. Living in your heart. Just as she had always been.

I frowned at the thoughts and touched my chest, right over my thumping heartbeat. And when Lilah died, whose arms did you run into? Whose arms have you been thinking of running into lately?

For the first time in weeks, I heard the memory of Lilah whispering in my ear. This wasn't a happy memory like the last ones had been though. In fact, it was one of the only times that Lilah had been truly angry with me.

It's always Alex with you, isn't it? Her eyes had been so stony and cold as she stared me down that night. And it's always going to be. Isn't it?

"Yeah. It is." A deep, remorseful sigh heaved out of me as I looked up at Lilah's stone to shrug helplessly. "Can you forgive me for that too?"

The breeze ruffled up my hair, and I reached back to touch the spot where I felt Lilah on the skin of my neck. I closed my eyes and stood up with a deep breath, like I was letting go of a heavy weight I had carried for a very long time.

"I would love to sit with you all day, but I really should get going before this storm rolls in," I said with a quick look up at the darkening sky before I smiled down on Lilah softly. "I'll bring flowers next time, okay? Yellow carnations, just like you like."

My fingertips lingered on her stone and then I turned and made my way back down the hill. There was always a pain in leaving Lilah behind, but it was nothing like what I used to feel. This was more of a momentary sorrow of leaving behind a good old friend. I felt it and just as quickly sighed it away because I knew I would be back soon enough.