Dedicated to the above because she is always so lovely and her comments bring such smiles to my face (:
_____________________________________
Sixteen
As much as I want to run inside the restaurant and cry to my dad about lying and meeting with somebody I told him I saw, I can’t. I don’t want to deal with Cade’s mother right now, or in fact, ever. I haven’t seen her since the funeral. She and her husband tried to contact me multiple times but I never answered the phone or the doors. She tried to visit me after what happened the night of the funeral, but I made sure everyone kept her and Cade’s father away. I don’t want them in my life anymore.
Without a backwards glance I whip to the left, causing my hair to fly around me in the breeze. I start running, heading towards home even though it’s the last place I want to be. I pump my arms as hard as I can and push myself faster, wanting to get away as far as I can from my father and the woman he’s with.
Eventually I end up at my home, unsure of whether or not to go inside. My face feels hot and when I touch my palm to my cheek, it comes off wet. At first I think it’s sweat but when I see how blurry my vision is, I realize I’m crying.
Why do I keep crying all the time?
“Bam?” Mom opens the door and looks at me with such shock and worry that I don’t have the power to brush past her into the house. “Bam, sweetie, what’s wrong?”
She has an arm around me and is leading me into the cottage as sobs begin to rock me. I want to stop but they just keep coming, out of my control. It’s like I’m a bottle that’s starting to explode.
Mom sits me on the back deck in one of the chairs and she takes another across from me. I lift my knees up to my chest and hug them tightly to my body. Deep breathes leave my mouth as I desperately try to calm myself down. I do not want to cry, but the tears are coming without any sign of stopping.
“Where’s your father?” Mom asks. “What happened? Did he leave you again? Did you see Mr. Lee? Did he threaten you, Bam? I swear to God if he said something-“
“Stop,” I choke out. Her mothering-ness is going into overdrive and I can’t handle it. I just want her to sit in front of me and not say anything. I don’t want to hear her speak at all. I want to sit in silence and nothing more, but with my mother, the opportunity never comes. If I don’t tell her why I’m upset – something unusual for me, hence why she’s so concerned – she’s going to call my father. And I don’t want to be here when she does. “Dad got a call on his cell phone,” I say. The words come out quietly in between breaths of the salty air. “He went into one of the stores so I was going to go to Hadley’s. When I passed the place he was in, he was with…He was with Cade’s mother.”
Mom’s expression is so blank that it scares me. She doesn’t pale, doesn’t go wide-eyed, she just sits there without speaking.
“It was her,” I repeat. “You have to believe me, Mom. It was her.”
Slowly, Mom rises to her feet. “I’m calling your father.” Despite being very plain with her words, her expression looks cold. She’s mad.
“Please, don’t say anything to him right now,” I beg. I jump into standing and grab her arm, bringing her a step back towards me. “I don’t want her to know I’m upset and she will if you call Dad right now.”
Mom sighs, slowly turning to me with her arms folded across her chest. Her right hand is resting against her mouth. It’s her thinking pose; one I only usually see when she’s creating a complicated plot in one of her books.
“Fine, okay, Bama.” She frowns and wraps me in her arms without warning. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers into my hair. Her voice is so quiet that I don’t think the words are meant for me to hear. “I’m so, so sorry you have to go through this.”
In my lighthouse room I put on the sweater Evan let me borrow that I still haven’t returned. It’s perfectly dry and smells like a mix between rain and his house. I don’t exactly want to give it back just yet, and even though I’m still upset with him, I don’t want to waste the time I have it not wearing it.
I lie on my back on the balcony, blaring the tape deck yet again. Dad had found me a cord and helped me rig the stereo to allow my iPod to play on it, so as I lay sprawled out with my eyes glued on the sky, a remix of Lana Del Rey’s Video Games is playing through the speakers. The bass pounds on my back and for such an old radio, one that probably would be labeled as garbage, the crackling sounds make everything sound a little better.
“Bama!”
Mom’s voice breaks through the melody and I turn down the radio and sit up. “Yeah?” I call back.
“Phone!”
I slowly rise onto my feet, grab my iPod and walk through the screen door into my room. I take the steps down the spiral staircase slowly, not sure if I want to answer the phone or not. I should have asked Mom who it is, but now it’s too late. The person on the other end will hear me, and if I say to tell them I’m busy, they will know I’m lying.
“Please don’t be Evan, please don’t be Evan,” I whisper as I walk into the kitchen. I take the phone that’s sitting sideways on the top of the receiver and press it to my ear. I cringe. “Hello?”
“Bam, its Hadley.”
I breathe a silent thank God and lean my back against the wall of the kitchen. I don’t know where Mom is so I stare out at the window, watching the sky turn a shade of orange and yellow.
“Hey, Hadley.”
I guess Dad’s not home yet, which I’m thankful for. I told my mother that I don’t want to be downstairs when she confronts him, and I don’t want him to talk about it with me. Honestly, I don’t know what I do want other than for none of this to have ever happened.
“Do you want to meet up before the bonfire tomorrow?” she asks. “I’m not sure if you’ll be able to find it on your own seeing as you’re not exactly great with directions.” She laughs on the other end and I smile.
“Sure, meet me at my place? I have some pictures for you from when we went on the boat.”
“Okay, great! Did they turn out-“
I hear a door open from the front of the cottage and freeze. Fear crawls its way into my stomach and stays there, keeping me frozen.
“Sorry Hadley,” I say as quietly and quickly as I can. “I have to go. Come over whenever, see you tomorrow!” I hang up the phone and make a dash for the back door. I almost run into Mom as she walks out of her bedroom with both arms folded across her chest. She looks unhappy and worried.
“I’ll call you when dinners ready,” she says.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I’ll call you when it’s time to come inside.”
I nod and throw open the sliding door with force. Mom closes it behind me as I take the steps onto the grass twice as fast as normal. By the time as I hit the sandy path I hear my mother say hello and then I’m too far away to hear anything at all.
The walkway to the coast seems more deserted than before and I blame it on the fact I’m alone and everything that’s happened. I find a rock to sit in front of and stretch my legs out in front of me as I lean on it. The waves are calming, but the quiet is too much to bear right now. I click play on my iPod and it picks up near the end of the song just as I set it down on a large rock beside me, as if it’s sitting on an end table.
The music continues to play as I stare absentmindedly out at the ocean. The waves move back forth across the water constantly, never relaxing. The sun begins to set over them but it will be a while before it finally goes down and darkens the sky. I don’t know if I’ll be able to find my way back in the dark with only my iPod for light, so I hope things are resolved at the cottage before then. I really don’t want to go back.
I close my eyes and lean my head back on the rock, listening to the music mix with the sounds of the waves. As memories wash over me I don’t stop them. Thinking about them is beyond my control, it’s like Cade’s mother brought them back to me.
Cade cringed, his face scrunching as he stopped walking abruptly. I turned around on the grass when I realized he was no longer beside me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. I stepped towards him and took his hand from his temple and placed my own around it.
“Migraine,” he said through clenched teeth. “My head is just pounding.”
I looked up at the sky and searched for any sign of impending weather. Everything was fading from the blue sky but everything was clear.
“Is there supposed to be a storm coming? I don’t see anything.”
Cade shook his head and winced at the movement. “I think we need to head back. I’m sorry, Bam, I just need to sit down.”
We headed back hand in hand until we reached his house. He sat down on his bed and stayed completely still, scared to move because it would cause more pain. It was the first migraine he had that came to that extent of pain – all the other ones were minor headaches. For Cade to say he was in pain was a big deal – it must have hurt really badly.
After the third bad one the tests begun. It was too late when they found the brain tumor. It was already too large and too dangerous to remove. They put him on medication that was said to help but once he started forgetting things like where his favorite sweater was – in the closet, hanging like it had always been for over a year – we realized it was too late. He was too far gone.
I open my eyes and draw a heart in the sand with my finger. Staring down at it, I watch it closely as I draw a two letters inside of it.
C+B
Then I think about how this is Evan and I’s secret place, the one we discovered ourselves and haven’t invited anyone else to. Quickly, I smooth over the sand with the side of my palm and push the tears away.
What am I supposed to do about Evan? As much as it hurts to admit, I like him more than a friend. But I love Cade; he was my best friend, my boyfriend, and so much more. And now he’s gone, buried underneath the ground and never coming back. Am I allowed to like Evan? Does it mean I’m over Cade, that I no longer love him? Does it mean I’m moving on?
I brush a tear away and shake my head.
I don’t want to move on.