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Authors: Jasinda Wilder

After Forever (10 page)

BOOK: After Forever
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Never
to visit Ever
.
 

After class one Monday, I decided to get a job. Something exhausting. Something that I’d not be able to think while doing. I spent two weeks filling out applications and going to interviews before I found something that filled my criteria: unloading in a UPS warehouse. It was perfect. It fit my limited hours, being from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday, and it paid enough to be worth the time I spent there. And it was hard work, nonstop motion for three hours straight. I’d clock in at five exactly, hit the first truck in line, step into the diamond-plate interior and grab boxes, throw them down the moveable chute, one after another. Empty the truck, push the chute to the next truck, empty it. Repeat at top speed until there were no more trucks left.
 

While I was unloading, I was able to turn off my brain, lock out my heart, and simply
move
. My arm and my leg always ached at the end of the shift, but I’d gotten clearance from my doctor before taking the job. No one talked to me while I was unloading, except for the occasional checkup from Rick, the supervisor, or a quick hello from the driver. I worked in silence, in solitude.
 

I took to visiting Ever after my shift, which was a good thing, since it meant I’d be able to visit her on my own, as Eden had class until nine every day this semester. I was actively avoiding her at this point. I didn’t want to be rude about it, but it was simply necessary. After the episode in my living room, it was just too weird, too strained to see her very often. We still had dinner together on Sundays after a joint visit to the Home, but that was it, and I never let those dinners stray out of the restaurant itself, never let conversation go anywhere serious.
 

There was something dangerous about Eden, about the way we were together when we let our guards down.
 

This became the new norm. Life settled into a pattern, which was its own comfort in a way. Fall semester progressed, and I completed some new pieces for my portfolio. After the accident, after I got the use of my right hand back, my style as an artist shifted. Before, I’d done largely still-lifes, nature scenes, hands, eyes. I’d even started experimenting with hyperrealism, the kind of pieces you see online, like,
this is a drawing, not a photograph
kind of thing. Now, simply due to the shift in my muscles and the need to basically relearn how to use my hand, I found my style and subject matter changing.
 

I drew a grinning white skull, snakes curling through the eye sockets, the background black but writhing with shadowy shapes not quite visible. A rosebush, floating in a stormy sky. A tornado, held in a palm. Dark imagery, distorted viewpoints and twisted perspective.
 

Thanksgiving was a non-affair. I bought a small precooked rotisserie chicken from Costco, ate it alone. Eden came by, and we watched the Lions game, ate some of the pumpkin pie she’d brought with her. Avoided discussing the pathetic nature of our holiday.
 

Eden’s dad called her phone while she was over, and she ignored it. I glanced at her, watched her check the screen of her phone, sigh, and hit the “ignore” button, stuff it back in her purse. It rang twice more, and she deleted the voicemails without listening to them.

I should have said something. I knew I should. He was her father. But I remembered the fight Ever and I had gotten in about this very subject, and Ever was far more even-tempered than Eden.
 

“Say it already,” Eden said, dipping a tortilla chip into the salsa. “I can feel you stewing over there.”

“I’m not stewing.”

“Yes, you are. And I know why. I’m not gonna answer. I don’t want to see him.”

I held up my hands. “I didn’t say anything.”

“But you were thinking it.”

I blew out a frustrated breath. “Yeah. He’s your dad. He’s all you have.” Before she could say anything, I continued. “Look, I know there’s history there. The worst argument Ever and I got into was about this, and I learned my lesson. It’s your business. But…family is important.”

She nodded and shrugged simultaneously. “Yeah. True. But I don’t really have him, do I? He made a tiny little effort after the accident happened. He visited me at school once, visited Ever a couple of times. Then he vanished again. He’s a coward, Cade. He can’t handle grief. I haven’t seen him in months. He hasn’t visited Ever at the Home once. Not once. She’s his
daughter
, and he doesn’t visit her. I know it’s hard. Obviously I do, but he
owes
it to her, to me. If he made an effort, I’d be there. I’d forgive him, best I can. But he’s not, okay? He’s not trying. So I don’t want to talk to him, I’m not going to his house. Not now, not for Christmas, not at all. Not until he proves he’s willing to try.” She set the salsa on the coffee table and brushed her hands together, stood up. “And he’s not gonna do that, so…fuck it. Fuck it, and fuck him.”

She went into the kitchen, rummaged in my fridge. More for an excuse to get away from me, to hide her emotions than anything, I think. She came back with two beers and hurt, angry eyes.
 

“Fair enough,” I said, taking one. “Happy Thanksgiving, huh?”

“Yeah. Happy fucking Thanksgiving.” She held out her bottle, and we clinked.
 

We finished the game, ate more chicken. Watched
Skyfall
. Drank more beer. I’d picked up a case of Harp lager on the way home from work the day before Thanksgiving, which, in hindsight, was probably a mistake. I’d intended to make it last for a few weeks, one or two every once in a while, when I had a hard time getting to sleep. Just a couple of beers to take the edge off.
 

Only now we were each three beers in, and I was putting on my dad’s aged DVD copy of
Dr. No.
That led to two more beers each, and
From Russia With Love
. There was little conversation, as was typical with Eden and me during movies. It was strange for me. Ever had been chatty during movies. She liked to cuddle close to me and talk throughout the whole thing, a constant chatter about the movie, about the actor or actress, about school or her latest piece or whatever was on her mind. I’d learned to listen to her with half an ear, her running commentary simply part of watching a movie with Ever.
 

Eden, she sat on the opposite side of the couch, leaning against the arm with her knees tucked underneath her to one side, beer in her left hand, dipping into a bag of veggie sticks with the other. She kept her mouth shut, watched the movie, and that was that. It was odd. We were there together, but it wasn’t really like two friends watching movies together, nor like boyfriend-girlfriend.
 

As she’d said that night she got naked-wasted, we were something that didn’t fit into any easy category, something I didn’t have a word for.
 

After
From Russia With Love
ended, I made my way to the bathroom, breaking the seal after seven beers. I was tipsy. Maybe more than tipsy. Time to eat something. I put together leftover turkey sandwiches while Eden did something on her phone. I turned on
Goldfinger
. We washed the sandwiches down with…yes, more beer. This was a bad idea. I knew it but didn’t care. It felt good to be loose, to let myself go a little. I kept myself under tight rein most of the time. Kept my emotions locked up, kept to my routine and never altered. Keeping the routine was how I kept going, day after day, without Ever.
 

But sometimes you had to cut loose. And it was just more fun, more satisfying to cut loose with someone else than it was by yourself. Getting drunk alone was shitty. I’d learned that the hard way.

Ever got up, visited the bathroom, and when she came back and sat down, it wasn’t on the opposite end of the couch. She sat next to me, space between us, but closer than normal.
 

I got up, got more beer, sat down, and the space between us shrank again. The food had reduced the intensity of my buzz, but now it was coming back. I should slow down, I tried to tell myself. But I didn’t.
 

It was past midnight, and we’d been watching movies since three in the afternoon. There was no school the next morning for either of us, so I put in
Thunderball
and got two more beers. I was definitely drunk at that point, having to focus on each step, each motion. I sat down carefully, and as my weight hit the couch, Eden fell sideways into me. I didn’t push her away, and she didn’t sit up.
 

I closed one eye after a while, and decided I was done. I finished the beer, realized I’d lost count. I knew there were only, like, four beers left—or was it two?—which meant I had to have had eight? Ten? Too many. I felt great. Dizzy, loose, emotionally numb.
 

A little heavy, though, and a little tired. I stuffed a throw pillow behind me and slid down, laying my head on the armrest. Somehow, Eden went with me, and now she was between me and the back of the couch. There was something odd about that, about the fact that she had her head on my chest. I couldn’t quite remember what it was that was so odd about this position, though. It was comfortable. Comforting. It had been far, far too long since I’d felt this kind of physical comfort.
 

My left arm was going numb, squished by Eden, so I wiggled it free and draped it over her shoulders.
 

“You produce a lot of body heat,” she mumbled.
 

“I’m kinda drunk.” I wasn’t sure if that was meant to be an admission or an answer to her non sequitur.

“Me, too.”

After a while, the credits rolled.
 

“One more?” I asked.

“Sure.”

Except neither of us moved to get up. My eyes drooped, sagged, closed, and I let them close. I heard the home screen repeating, and cracked an eye open enough to find the “off” button for the TV, then dropped the remote on the floor. Felt myself float away, enjoying the warmth of another body near mine, a head on my chest, hair tickling my nose. A soft body pressed against mine. Somewhere in the back of my head, a tiny voice whispered, but the words were lost in the haze of onrushing sleep. It was something about Eden, about falling asleep like this. Something about
bad idea
.
 

I let myself float, ignoring the voice, unable and unwilling to move. The room spun, my head spun, but Eden kept me rooted to the couch, kept me from spinning away.
 

Sleep hit, sucked me in.

I woke up suddenly, having to pee. The clock on the cable box said 3:10 in red letters. I slid out from beneath Eden, stumbled to the bathroom. I was still really,
really
drunk. Maybe more so than when I fell asleep. I found some aspirin, washed them down with handfuls of water.
 

Eden shuffled into the bathroom while I was slurping water from my palms, and I didn’t think it was strange how she didn’t wait until I’d left the bathroom to pee.
 

“That couch is not very comfortable,” I said. “I’ve never slept there before.”

“No. It’s really not,” Eden agreed as she washed her hands. Water sloshed everywhere, and she fumbled the hand towel, dropped it on the floor.
 

We both bent to reach for it, bumped heads. Laughed, hanging onto each other for balance as we each held our foreheads. I blinked away the dizzy throb and saw that Eden was watching me, rubbing her head idly.

“Do I have to sleep on the couch?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I’m too drunk to care.” I stumbled into my room, leaving Eden in the bathroom.
 

I changed into a pair of gym shorts, no shirt, and slipped into bed. I felt the other side dip, and felt Eden wiggle under the covers.
 

“Is this a bad idea?” she asked.

I felt warm skin brush against my leg briefly, and I wondered if she was wearing pants. “Yeah,” I said. “It probably is.”

“I’ll stay over here,” she said, rolling away from me.

“Me, too,” I said, rolling the other way.

Only it didn’t work that way. I never slept deeply when I was drunk. It was a weird idiosyncrasy of mine, but I always woke up a dozen times. The first time I woke up, Eden was curled up against me, shivering, the blankets on her side tangled and twisted away. I tugged them back over her and slipped back toward sleep, trying subtly to slide away, to give her space. She shifted closer, and I fell asleep with Eden’s hair tickling my chin, her face pressed against my arm. Her hand on my chest. Her thigh brushing mine.

Definitely not wearing pants.
 

Every time I woke up, we were tangled more together, and I was still too drunk and too sleepy to do anything about it.

When I woke up the next morning, sun was streaming through my window, and the clock read 10:52 a.m. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept that late. I didn’t remember the last time I’d slept that
well
. For once, and despite my burgeoning hangover, I felt more rested than I had in months. Eden was draped completely over me, head in the nook of my shoulder, leg over one of mine, arm across my stomach.
 

She snored, just a little.

A bolt of panic shot through me, along with a rush of desperation. I
needed
this. It felt wrong, but right.
 

It was comfort. For the first time since the accident, I didn’t feel so horribly, miserably alone. Nothing had happened but sleep. I knew that. And yet…there was guilt. This was wrong.
 

Eden snorted, stirred, stretched against me. And then, like a cartoon or a movie, her hand touched my skin, my chest, my face. Her leg shifted. She was taking stock, realizing where she was, and then she gasped, realizing with whom.

“Shit.” Her voice was rough, scratchy with sleep.

“Yeah.”
 

Neither of us had moved. My arm was still around her shoulder. Thank god she was wearing a shirt.
 

“You and I should
not
get drunk together,” Eden said.
 

BOOK: After Forever
8.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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