Charlotte's Story

Not That Big of a Deal

Ryder's POV:

I had to get out of the small office with her in it, I wanted to do so many things, and none of them were appropriate.

She had used my brothers and sister to help her blog along. But she was just a freshman in college; had she really known it was going to take off like it did? Probably not...

But she could have told me about the blog instead of using her fake name to write about all of us.

"It is not that big of a deal," Luke said, two months after we had all found out the truth.

"How are you not upset with her?" we all asked, stunned, looking at him, dumbfounded.

"Because I figured she did something with writing for her job. I didn't know it was about all of us, and it's not like what she wrote wasn't the truth." No, but who she said she wasn't the truth either. "She wasn't trying to be deceitful. Just read the damn blog."

That was the last time we all talked about Ren. I assumed that she and Luke no longer spoke, and it made me mad, furious at her. It deepened what I thought was hate at the time for her. I thought she had taken her special relationship with Luke and just left it behind. I had no clue that she had stayed in his life the past two years.

There were so many times I wanted to cave and drive over and see her.

But I never did, and now just seeing her, being near her, I have no clue why I hadn't read the blog sooner, why I waited two dreadful years, to admit that I was in the wrong for letting her go so quickly, and not giving her a chance.

If I was her, I wouldn't take me back. I would say I have moved on with my life, and I am better for it. She was in the better, not having me in her life. She was going to publish a book, and live next to the ocean, her dream.

"What is a dream of yours?" Luke had asked, sitting in our apartment looking up from his schoolwork; he had yet to make any friends at school. He was at our apartment all the time, and if Ren care to have a middle schooler bugging her, she didn't seem like it.

"Have you gone crazy?" I laugh at him.

Instead of just shrugging it off like I did, Ren picks up the TV and mutes it. "A dream of mine?" she had put her finger on her chin, acting like she was pondering this deep and methodical question. "A dream of mine... would be to live by the ocean."

"The ocean?" Luke asks her with his deadpan face on; he had been practicing it a lot.

"Yes. The ocean, I want to be able to wake up and have the ocean be the first thing I see" one of her goofy grins popped up on her face, and I could tell she was sitting on the couch, already imagining her house on the ocean. "What is your dream?" she asks Luke.

His eyes flicker over to me and then back to Ren, "For my parents to come back." My hands clench the armrest, hearing his small voice talk about our dead parents. I had yet talked to Ren about this issue, but I could tell from the look on her face she had already known this history. I wondered if Josh had filled her in while they cooked lunch together most Sundays.

They died too soon, and it was all because of me. It was my fault; they were on the road that night. My fault that they were trying to come see me lead the team in points. I broke my school's history-making the most basketball points in one season, and we were only halfway through the season. While they laid on the road dying, I was playing a stupid game of basketball... It was all my fault that Luke would never have his dream come true.

Ren walks over, sitting next to Luke on the couch, and pulls him in under her arm. "It will seem tough for a while," she says, sounding like she is speaking from experience. She shakes her head, a small tear forming in her eye. "You know what? How about we visit them."

"Visit them?" Luke tilts his head, looking up at her.

"We can bring flowers to their graves, and we can sit there and talk to them for as long as you want."

"I can do that?" he asked.

Ren nods slowly; she looks at me, her eyes are wondering if she has stepped over a line or not. "Do you want to go today?"

He sits his notebook and pencil down, walking over to the door. "I'm ready," Luke says, his handle on the front doorknob.

I drive them.

After the funeral, we had never gone back to visit them, I had never even asked if this would be something Luke would want to do, and within a few minutes of talking to him, Ren knew precisely what he needed.

We pulled up to the spot my parents had been buried three years before. Three years had gone by since I had talked to my parents or hugged them. I shudder thinking of what I would have done if Luke would have died along with them that night.

Luke waits while Ren and I get out of the car. His knees had been bouncing the whole way over, and I could tell he was nervous. His hand ran along with the window, starting from the front and trailing to the back. Usually, I would have told him to knock it out, that he was getting my windows printed up, but I didn't care that he was doing it; it was a coping mechanism, and I wondered if I would ever get after him for doing it again.

"Can I come out?" he asked Ren opening the front door.

"Of course," she held out her hand to him; he shut the door, grabbing onto her hand; Ren and Luke follow me until we are standing right next to my parent's tombstone.

There was a tree a few feet away, and I walk back to it and watch. Ren sits down on the grass. She pats the side next to her, and Luke sits down; he puts the bouquet we had picked out on the ground.

Neither of them talks for ten minutes or so. And then Ren starts too.

"Mrs. Constanso and Mr. Constanso, I just want to say that I have had the privilege of meeting all three of your wonderful children. I want you to know that they make Sunday lunch together every week, and since knowing them for the last eight months, not once have they missed a Sunday lunch together. It's an interesting group of kids. And then there is Luke, who is the most interesting little boy I have ever met" Luke looked up at her when she said the word "little" and smacks her on the leg. "He has an amazing humor that I completely understand, and he is willing to let me watch any movies I want to..." She kept going until Luke was ready to say what he needed to.

"Mom... Dad... I miss you, and I love you. I think about you all the time, and I just needed to tell you that...." He and Ren sat out on the grass, talking to their tombstone for hours, Luke would start to tell school stories and the kids he went to school with. Ren would act surprise and ask him questions about it to keep it going. Luke looked as peaceful as anyone could sitting out in the cemetery talking to one's dead parents. 

Two days later, Josh received a phone call from the school's counselor. He called me to tell me the news.

"Ryder, are you sitting down?" I could hear the smile in Josh's voice.

"Um.. Sure," I said while I was standing in the kitchen making a sandwich for myself.

"He talked today."

"Who did?" I was thinking my brother was having a meltdown.

"Luke, talked in class today. And at recess, he socialized with some other kids, even played tither ball with them."

"He did?" I was dumbfounded.

"Do you know what could have changed?" Josh asked; it hit me exactly what had happened.

I clicked off the phone with Josh saying my name, wondering where I was; I throw my phone on the couch as I walk to her door.

She was sitting at her desk, typing, her back to me. I walked forward as fast as I could and picked her up out of her seat, and spun her around in the air.

"Ryder!" she laughed, kicking her feet out in front of her; she had no clue what she had done, what she had accomplished; she had broken down Luke's barrier.

She was the most amazing person I knew.