Lengths (24 page)

“Yeah. But you didn’t want to. You didn’t let it go freely. In your evil  heart, you wanted that lightening bug’s soul.” His grin was goofy. Brotherly. Annoying. Something I didn’t realize I’d never see again after that night.

“But I
did
let it go,” I argued, pinching his shoulder. “You act like I’m some evil queen stealing the forest creatures’ essence to use in my demented potions.”

“I don’t think you’re truly happy for that little guy. You gotta try to be, though. Try to be happy it gets to be free. Free to live its life. Free to have wild fucking sex with other lightening bugs. Maybe it will be in a lightening bug orgy. Or maybe it will get smashed in someone’s screen door. But that’s life, you know? You gotta let it live, Whit, whatever hand it’s dealt.” The goofy smile faded, and I watched it disappear. But I didn’t savor it the way I should have. I didn’t know.

That night, I’d been thinking he was talking about himself. About the fun he’d never have if he got killed. It chilled me right to my marrow, and I just didn’t let myself think about it. But now, today, after talking to Eric, I think Wake was talking about me. About how I wanted things to go according to some stupid plan. Always. The reason he was going overseas was because I had a plan in my head I just couldn’t deviate from. And I thought I was leaving that plan by coming here when Wakefield died, but I was only adopting a new plan. Just as rigid. Just as self-centered.

He was right. I was always letting go in the shallowest way possible.

All this time I was driving fast and determined to a goal I never had any intention of sinking into. I was racing like a fiend from one thing to the next, skimming over all my feelings because I was too afraid to sink in and commit to anything. Isn’t that exactly what Eric said he’d do for his guys? He said he’d ‘sink’ for any one of them.

Not race. Not swim. Not float.

Sink.

The scariest thing.

To stay in one place. To throw all your weight at something and let go.

I’ve never been good at it. Sinking. Even the word terrifies me.

And, I realize, sinking is the only thing that can possibly free me from my endless attempt to tread water.  

“Sonofabitch,” I say, as soon as Eric has hugged us both goodbye and left the shop.
              “What?” Rocko doesn’t even bother to pretend to look guilty. “I just thought you might be able to use some perspective.”
              “That was a set up,” I accuse, but my words don’t have any malice. I’m just stating the facts.
              Rocko’s gaze is soft, hopeful, exhausted. He’s worn out with worry. Over me. I was too busy fighting every single person who attempted to help me to even realize just how much I was wearing out the people I love the most. “No, it really wasn’t. Eric is an old friend. Used to live next door to me until he got shipped off. He’s back in town and wanted to get some ink before he went back to base in some god-awful Southern state. He told me the story behind the tat, and, well, I just thought it might help...”
              And it did.
              Me spending my life miserable, torturing myself with the guilt that is eating me alive, isn’t going to bring Wake back. No matter what I do, nothing will.
              I’m holding on to something, even though I keep telling myself I let it go the day they buried my brother’s empty coffin.
              But what I’m doing is selfish. It’s a waste of my life, and it’s a waste of my memories of Wake and the courageous way he lived right up to the part where he didn’t live anymore. I refuse to tread in the shallows of my own grief and guilt. It’s made me so exhausted, I can hardly think straight. It’s time to take a deep breath and sink into the love and goodness that scares the ever-living hell out of me. I have to make my life count for something, or I’ll be treading through this pain like a coward until I drop.
              “Rocko, you don’t have another client until noon. You have time for one more?” I know exactly what I want.
              Rocko raises his eyebrows and I plop into his chair.
 

-Nineteen-

Deo

“So go find her.” Cohen brings out the Everclear, and he clips two shot glasses on the custom coffee table that used to be some kind of architect’s file cabinet. Whit would love it. I got it for a decent price because I agreed to let the guy who designed it decorate and do a shoot at my place.               He took most of the crap back with him, but he let me buy the table for cost, plus he painted the entire interior. Which is cool, though I never really thought I’d be into a fire-engine red living room.

It’s growing on me. Along with home ownership. And business ownership. I’m a fully-minted adult.

Who’s about to throw back a shot from a glass that reads: “Mean People Suck: Nice People Swallow.”

I push that shot glass towards Cohen and turn the other one toward me. It has a vintage picture of a girl on it with the words: “I can never remember which is better: Safe? Or Sorry?” It reminds me of Whit, and my throat suddenly burns for that damn drink.

“Can’t,” I tell Cohen. “It’s a big, complicated clusterfuck, and I really need to get pretty damn wasted so I can just forget.” Cohen hesitates, pulling the bottle closer to his chest. “Cohen, it’s this or karaoke. I’m dead fucking serious. And I will sing Culture Club.”

Cohen unscrews the cap, but doesn’t pour. “Culture Club? Isn’t that a little 80s for you, man?”

“I am my mother’s son. Dude, c’mon. Do you really want me to hurt you? Because, so help me God, I will fucking make you cry. In public. And you’ll have to be the designated driver to fucking boot.” My threats finally loosen his rigid reluctance, and he pours a stingy shot.

“Should I be precious and tell you you’re taking a step too far?” He pours himself way more than he should, but the fear of my karaoke makes sensible people do crazy things.

“Nah. I promise, no nudity tonight. No puke, either. The designer guy left those little shaggy rugs on the bathroom floor, and they’d be a bitch to clean up. See me being all adult?” Cohen raises one eyebrow at me like he doubts my adulthood, but he offers me a salute with his glass.

“A toast?” He prompts me to lift glass. “To you, man. For making the most incredible fucking changes to your entire life, but somehow managing to stay the same immature douchebag best friend I’ve known since third grade. Seriously, I’m proud of everything you’ve done, man.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you. You may be my lamer, less handsome, stupider side-kick, but you’re the wind beneath my damn wings.” We clink glasses and let the fierce liquid burn a straight path from our tracheae to our intestines. “One more, brother.”

“As long as you don’t sing any Bette Middler.” He holds the bottle back, and I give him the Boy Scout salute. Or maybe it’s the Girl Scout salute? I’m not very Scouty, but whichever it is, it gets Cohen to tip the bottle one more time, and the singe of his quick alcohol buzz makes him more generous this time around.

“To better days coming.” He pushes his glass my way.

I rub my thumb over the image of the girl on the glass with the witty wit. Like my Whit. Well, not technically mine anymore. But always mine, anyway. “Better and better,” I say with absolutely no conviction.

I convince him that a trilogy of shots is the only way to seal our good luck fate, so three it is, and then he’s collapsed on my microsuede couch that Teddi, my designer, called ‘cowardly middle-class blah,’ but Mrs. Rodriguez called ‘easy as hell to clean.’ Plus that, Teddi wanted me to think about a couch that had no arms and was a blue so painful to look at, neon wasn’t a bright enough word to describe it. Cohen is snuggling my microsuede armrest and drooling, which is all good, ‘cause I got Scotchguard protection, like the responsible adult I now am.

“You gonna puke, man? Because I really do owe you for New Year’s. Why do you always let me talk you into this shit? Three shots was just stupid.” I lean back in my LaZBoy. I can’t even repeat the evil things Teddi said about my comfy-as-hell recliner, because my brain might tell my sperm, who might tell my future children and corrupt them. That’s how hateful his words were. Over what is, arguably, the world’s most comfortable chair. My grandfather, who has a Purple Heart and a mean upper right cut, told me to tell Teddi to fuck himself and the clear plastic chair he wants everyone to sit on. Since Teddi can only grow a millimeter mustache and voluntarily wore a bowtie the entire time he was at my house, Grandpa’s advice wins out, no questions.

Cohen burps and groans. “Because without you, I’m too boring.”

“Is this because I made fun of you for working in the furniture store. Because that was shitty of me, man. I was living with my grandpa like a slob. I had no idea how the hustle worked, okay? So forget all that crap. I bow down before your years of hard labor.” I rock back and forth in my chair and wish I had some pistachios.

Cohen rolls onto his back and puts one foot on the floor. I’m sorry because I know for a fact his entire world is spinning, and it’s my fault for encouraging him to press his luck with that third shot. His voice is slightly slurred already. “No. No. I’m glad you work now. I am. But you’re still you, and what you do is make life livable. You make life real.”

“Life’s real without my bullshit,” I object, wondering if getting up to make a pot of coffee is jumping the gun. I do take a second to be impressed as hell with myself for having a fucking coffee pot. This is all kinds of responsible of me. One the one hand. On the other, I’m getting stumbling drunk on a random Tuesday night. “Whit knows that. Which is why she ran off. I’m fuck-buddy material as far as she’s concerned.”

Cohen’s moan is long and nauseous-sounding. “Call her.”

I shake my head. “No way. You know the sayings, man. If you love her, let her go. Can’t keep a wild thing in a cage. Freedom is as freedom does.”

“You talk out of your ass so much, I don’t know how you can stand yourself. Quit. Being. A. Pussy. Call her.” Cohen clutches his stomach.

I take the large decorative bowl off the fancy coffee table, spill the wax pears out of it, and hold it out to him. “Puke, man.”

“Can’t make it to the bathroom,” he mutters, eyes closed tight.

“I owe you this. Puke right here.” I hold the bamboo bowl next to him and look the other way.

He takes it in his hands and sits up with a grimace. “You’re my best friend. And I love you. Excuse me while I go to your bathroom and attempt not to puke on those weird hairy rugs you have in there. While I’m gone, call that girl. Call her. You’re in fucking love with her. Call her.”

Cohen tries to put the bowl back on the table, but misses by a few inches, and it drops to the floor with a loud thwack that leaves a huge crack down the center. He totters down the hall, knocks a black-and-white print of some random door with graffiti on it off the wall and staggers into the bathroom. I’m not adult enough to resist feeling a burst of evil glee when I imagine Teddi’s fury at all his decorations getting broken by a pair of immature punks.

I slide my phone out of my pocket and flip to the last picture I took of Whit, smiling sleepily at me, her head cushioned on her pillow, her dark eyes heavy-lidded and so sexy, it tugs low in my gut.

I’m kind of bummed, because, if it was all going to end with Whit, I wish I’d at least been able to make my case for why she should give me a real chance. I planned to show her all the cool shit I’d done with my life, all the slow, torturous changes I’d made while kicking and screaming like a stubborn little shit-headed toddler.

Then I realize that I pretty much have to call her, because we’ve come full circle. Here I am, on this big day in my life, drunk off my ass and thinking about her. I’m going to call her this one last time, and tell her good-bye, and then I’m going to erase her contact information from my phone and think of her wistfully.

Like an adult.

Only she never picks up her phone, so it’s pretty anti-climactic. I get up and find Cohen sleeping in my bathroom, the contents of his stomach safely ejected half in my toilet, half on my shaggy little rugs. I get some silk-covered pillow off my couch and this soft-ass blanket made of some kind of fabric Teddi bored me to tears telling me all about, and cover him up like I know his mom would want me to.

I check the locks on my doors, adjust my thermostat, and get into my big, empty bed, where I pretend the sheets still have a Whit-like scent. I go to bed thinking about how much more being responsible would rock if Whit was here to help with the transition. And have wild sex with me. Because, sadly, my biggest goal in getting my own place and this big ass bed was to woo Whit into living with me so I could get her in the sack anytime I wanted.

But it wasn’t just about the sex, though the sex blows my mind. I also wanted to have her around. Her over-loud laugh. Her bearish morning greetings. Her -thrashing/snuggling night-time presence. I miss her. I miss the way she always pushed me, always made me think, always made me work harder. I feel like I hadn’t ever been able to repay her for all that, and just when I was finally in a position to do it, she found the ring box.

Damn my romantic old fucking coot of a grandfather.

I expect the liquor to make me crash for the night. But I only sleep for a few fitful hours. When my eyes crack open, the palest, coolest grey-color is just cracking on the horizon. It’s still more night than day, but I’m wide awake. And there’s a message on my phone from Whit.

“Deo. Call me. Now.”

My hand crushes around my phone. She sent the message almost three hours ago. I’m out of bed and into my shorts in a few quick seconds. I grab my hoodie, yank it over my head, and rush to the front door barefoot, only turning around to make sure Cohen is alright. His snores give me the go-ahead to race to my Jeep, and I’m pulling out when she picks up the phone. “Where are you?” I demand before she can say a word. I’m at the end of my road, not sure which way to turn, so freaked out I almost feel pissed-off.

“Bed,” she mumbles. “Deo? I got your call, and I... Can you meet me at the beach?”

“Are you okay?” Her voice sounds pretty normal, and my heart clicks into a slower pace.