Song of the Fireflies (24 page)

She shakes her head. “My mom has visited several times. I think she feels guilty. My dad… well, he’s visited me, but it feels like it always has, like he’s only here out of obligation. But I forgive him. I don’t want to feel angry or hurt by anyone anymore. I just want to be free. To
feel
free. In my heart, y’know?” She tilts her head to one side and her eyebrows draw inward thoughtfully.

Maybe I do know what she means, but then again, I feel like there’s something much more to it than that. Something about what she said fills me with an uncomfortable feeling. I can’t place it, but it worries me.

Having nothing more to go on, I simply nod and say, “Yeah, I know. I understand that need.” And then I ask, “What about Rian?”

Bray’s smile brightens a little again.

“She’s visited several times, usually in the first half of the day.” I was glad for that, because I wanted my time with Bray to be mine and not to have to share it with someone else. Like right now, I always visit in the late afternoon hours, after I get off work. “But she’s been writing me a lot.”

“How do you feel about that?”

She shrugs. “I’m not sure. I mean, I’m glad she’s making an effort, but I just have a hard time trusting her motives.”

I completely understand that.

Bray, as usual, is distant. I want to reach across the small table and pull her into my arms. It depresses me that I can’t, that I can’t hold her, kiss her, be myself with her and make her smile. I feel completely fucking helpless.

Bray’s eyes keep straying. To the wall behind me, toward the door she was walked through minutes ago, toward the guard sitting at the long, rectangular-shaped particleboard table next to the white wall. Everything but me.

I look over my shoulder to see that the guard is reading a newspaper, so I scoot my chair over a little closer to her. Finally, her eyes fall on mine again. I smile at her, revealing my teeth. It feels kind of goofy, and apparently it is judging by that weird, amused look she’s giving me in return. Then I grin impishly and get the blushing reaction out of Bray that I was shooting for.

I enclose her left hand underneath both of mine.

“When you get out of here,” I say in a low voice, “We’re gonna have a lot of sex to make up for lost time.”

She lowers her eyes again, but this time it’s only because of the hot blush overshadowing her features. I stroke the very center of the palm of her hand softly with the tip of my pinky finger, gazing into her eyes with a mischievous quality. And then I whisper, “I’d say, at least a full week straight of nothing but sex. Everywhere. In every way. In every part of you.” I faintly lick the dryness from my lips, taking my time about letting my tongue hide away back inside my mouth, all the while still stroking the center of her palm with my finger.

Her eyes flutter.

While it was my intention only to make her feel better, give her a sense of normalcy, just talking about it, thinking about it, and touching her hand in such a suggestive way, it’s made me so hard that I have no doubt about what I’ll be doing first thing when I get home.

Bray’s blushing face turns softer and she says, “I really do miss you.”

I smile softly back at her and kiss her knuckles once before letting go of her hand. “I miss you, too. But it won’t be long and you’ll be home, where you belong, with me. There’s so much that I want to say to you and show you. I feel like even though we’ve known each other all our lives and that we’ve been through so much, once you get out of here it’ll be a new beginning. A do-over. This time we’ll get it all right.”

Bray’s face warms with a smile, softening her eyes, making her appear loving and… strangely sympathetic.

Thirty minutes is over before we know it, and she’s standing up.

“Bray, I love you,” I say, as she starts to walk away. “More than anything.”

She turns at the last second, the last one in a line of orange jumpsuits, and smiles back at me with a look of pure devotion.

“I love you too, Elias,” she says sincerely, yet the tone of her voice is lifeless.

She follows the line out the door, and I can’t help but feel that it’s the last time I’ll ever see her.

Rian called me an hour ago and invited me over to discuss something “important.” Before I agreed, I made her promise me that nothing had happened to Bray. Like I said, it’s always my worst fear when I get a call from Bray’s sister. Since we’re not married, if something were to happen to her while in jail, they would likely call her blood relatives before they’d call me, even though Bray put me at the top of her emergency contact list.

Rian said that it was not about anything like that. Thank God.

“I want my sister to come home with me when she’s released,” Rian says as she sits across from me at the kitchen table. Her long, dark hair, much like Bray’s, is draped over both shoulders; her almond-shaped green eyes, not at all like Bray’s, are scrutinizing me. She and Bray look very much alike, but Rian has always appeared more stern and intimidating. Just like their father. I think it’s one reason I never liked her much: she is too much like Mr. Bates, whom I pretty much despise. A mug of hot coffee covers the bottom half of her face as she takes a slow sip. Then she sets the mug down in front of her, her manicured fingernails tapping the ceramic.

“Why would you want her to come here?” I ask. “She should be with me.”

“And she will be,” Rian says. “But she went through a lot with you—”

I slap the palm of my hand down on the table, and stare her down. “All the more reason for her to come home with me where she belongs.”

“No, Elias, you don’t understand.” Her head falls gently to one side and dark bangs fall around her eyes. “I want my sister to know that you’re not the only person in this world who cares about her.”

I laugh drily. “Really? And I’m assuming you’re talking about yourself and your parents?”

“Look,” she says, staring at me with an unwavering gaze, “I know you think I don’t care about her because our parents were hard on her growing up, but I love my sister. I tried to have a relationship with her, but she always pushed me away. I didn’t understand her destructive personality, so I gave her the space she seemed to want. But I always loved her.”

I sigh and shake my head. She’s fucking unbelievable.

“You
let
her push you away, Rian. Instead of standing by her and
trying
to understand her, you opted for the easy way out. And don’t even get me started on your parents.” I throw my hands up in front of me and then lean back in the chair. There are many more things I want to say to her, but I hold back.

“I agree with you about our parents,” Rian says. “Even I could see that they were just tired of dealing with Brayelle. But I’m only three years older than my sister. You treat me as if I’m just like they are, that I am just as guilty as they are—but you have to understand, I didn’t know any better for most of our lives. I mean… I knew what my sister was going through, but I didn’t know how to help her. I was young.”

I can’t look at her. Not because I don’t agree with what she said, but because I don’t want her to be right. I want to blame her because Bray’s parents aren’t sitting in front of me to blame.

“What will bringing her here do?” I ask icily.

“I just want some time alone with her. I want to make things up to her and make her understand that aside from you, she also has me and that I’ll never shut her out again.”

“Have you asked Bray if that’s what
she
wants?” I want to smirk because I already know the answer. I know there’s no way Bray wouldn’t want to come straight home to me when she’s released. But I keep my cool and wait for her answer, ready to be an adult about it and not gloat like a kid.

“Yes,” Rian says. “I talked to Brayelle about it the last time I went to visit her. She said she would come home with me.”

My mouth figuratively falls on the floor. “What?”

Don’t smirk or smile at me or I’ll lose my shit on you, Rian.
Coming here, I completely expected something like this from her, for her father’s genes to shine through and make her intolerant about Bray’s well-being. Although Rian rarely interfered in Bray’s life and her illness, the few times she did, she always made it worse.

But she doesn’t smirk or smile. In fact, she appears soft and sympathetic toward my feelings, which only makes me feel like an asshole.

“She said that? Why would she say that?” My heart is hurting.

Rian pushes the ceramic mug to the side and folds her ring-decorated hands on top of the table. She looks across at me with nothing but sincerity in her eyes.

“Elias,” she says gently, “my sister loves you very much—
too
much, in my opinion—”

“
Too
much?” I narrow both eyes at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I push myself to my feet, causing the chair to skid across the linoleum behind me a few inches. I’ve never been this way before, so difficult and offensive. I realize it as I stand here glaring down at Bray’s sister with so much animosity. But I just can’t bring myself to accept that Bray would do this without me knowing, would agree to come home with a sister who was never there for her, her whole life. I can’t accept that Bray wouldn’t tell me. I can’t accept that she wouldn’t want to come home with me first thing.

It doesn’t make any sense!

I’m starting to see what my last letter from Bray and the last visit with her was all about.

I try to compose myself, sucking in a deep, concentrated breath. I shut my eyes and let what little calm I harbor settle over me.

“It’s too much when a person’s life revolves around another person,” Rian says. “I know that Brayelle feels like she’s nothing without you, that she can’t
live
without you, Elias. No one should ever live that way. It’s unhealthy. You have to know that.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snap. “What makes you say that?”

“Because that’s what she told me.”

I throw my head back and laugh. I lean forward, pressing the palms of my hands against the wood grain table, peering down at Rian with a look of disbelief and disappointment twisting my features.

“You really have no idea what’s going on with your sister,” I accuse. “It’s unbelievable to me that after all that’s happened, after everything Bray has gone through, the suicide attempt in South Carolina, the shit she went through with you and your parents, constantly shoved to the side by your father while your mother looked the other way.” I feel lines deepen around my nose as I glare angrily down into Rian’s calm and unemotional face. “I was the only person who ever gave a shit about her.
Of course
she’s going to say she can’t live without me. She’s going to even believe that at times, but you want to know the truth? Let me enlighten you, Rian.” I stand upright again, letting my hands slide away from the table. “You’re not seeing the bigger picture here. All you see is what you
want
to see. You sit there and listen to the things your sister says, and instead of trying to understand what’s really going on with her, why she is the way she is, you blame
me
and ignore the fact that underneath it all, you and your parents are more to blame than I am.”

I slash the air in front of me with my hand. “Bray is sick, Rian. She’s
sick
. When it comes down to it, it’s not my fault, it’s not your fault, it’s not even your parents’ fault. We’re only to blame for her not getting the help she needed a long time ago. Even I’m guilty of that. I never should’ve left with her after what happened last year. I contributed to her illness by what we did.” I lean over again, bracing one hand on the table and pointing my finger at her with the other. “But you know what? At least I can say that I didn’t know she needed help until after we ran. I had no idea that she was seeing a shrink when she was a teenager. I had no fucking idea that she tried to commit suicide when she was in South Carolina. I had absolutely no idea that her problems ran deeper than I could imagine. And you want to know
why
I didn’t know?”

I slap the table again. Rian blinks and leans further back in the chair. “Because I loved her for the way she was. I never pushed her away. I accepted her and everything about her, and the only way I saw her differently from anyone else was that I
loved
her, unlike anyone else. But you and your family and her so-called fucking friends shoved her in the corner because she wasn’t like you, because you couldn’t spare the extra effort to really know and understand her.” I point at myself. “She wasn’t sick around me because I was all the therapy she needed, at least until her illness reached its worst.” I pause and take a deep breath and calm myself. “I want to get her the help she needs. If it’s all that I ever do, to help her get through this, I’m fine with that. But she trusts me. She loves me.”

Rian swallows and loses eye contact with me for a long moment. I want to think that what I said will make some kind of sense to her, that it might wake her up enough to understand that she has seriously misjudged the situation. That she’s wrong. I meant every word I said to Bray when I sat in front of her on the floor of the convenience store that day, when she held that gun underneath her chin. I would die for her or with her. That day in the store, tomorrow, a year from now. I will still die for her or with her if it ever comes down to it. Two people can love each other so much that not even death can separate them, but I will never believe that two people can love each other
too
much. Bray may feel like she can’t live without me, and I feel the same way, but when it comes down to it, when a person commits suicide seemingly over another person, it’s never only about that person, about losing them. There’s always a plethora of underlining issues that would cause someone to take their own life. And a single person is never to blame.

I find it sad that I’m the only one in Bray’s life who understands that.

Yes, I will die for her. Yes, I will die
with
her. Still to this day, and every day after it. But it’s different when it’s brought on by love and devotion than when it’s caused by depression and mental illness.

I turn my back to Rian and cross my arms.

“She said she’d come home with me,” Rian says.

I hold back my need to lash out at her. I hate her right now. I hate her for not listening. I feel like all she cares about is what she thinks is best while disregarding anything else.

“If Brayelle says she doesn’t want to, then I’ll bring her to your place myself. All I’m asking is for you to keep your distance and not interfere. This is what she wants, and you should respect that.” I hear her sip her coffee and then place the mug back upon the table.

Finally I turn around to look at her. I start to speak, but the words stick in the back of my throat, and I swallow them down.

The screen door shuts hard behind me as I storm out of the house and down the concrete steps.

*     *     *

“Damn, man, that’s fucked up,” Mitchell says several days later. We’re sitting in the living room of his apartment. I stopped by to visit him after work this evening and told him only the basics, nothing too personal. “I remember when we were all in eighth grade, Rian picked Bray up one afternoon from school.” I nodded, and he went on. “They were fighting about something and I heard Rian tell Bray that she wished she’d just kill herself and get it over with.”

My brows draw inward.

“Never really thought anything of it,” he goes on. “Brothers and sisters say shit like that all the time.”

I nod, agreeing, but it makes me sick to know Rian had ever said something like that to Bray, even if she had no idea what kind of impact saying that might’ve had on her.

“So what are you going to do?” Mitchell asks, pushing his bangs away from his face.

I shake my head and then rest it against the back of the love seat cushion. I look upward at the ceiling fan as it spins around and the little pull string on the light taps against the glass globe. “I’m going to give Bray what she wants. As much as I hate it, I don’t want to come between her and her sister, especially if Rian’s trying to make an effort to be there for her. A lot late, but better late than never, I guess.

“Besides, it’s not like Rian would be able to keep Bray away from me if Bray wanted to see me. She can kick Rian’s ass, so I’m not worried about Rian holding her prisoner in the house or anything.”

Mitchell laughs. “Yeah, I have to say that about Bray; she always was mean.”

I laugh lightly, thinking about it. “Yeah, I guess she was.”

“Well, you want my advice?” Mitchell asks.

I don’t really want the advice of a former meth-head-slash-asshole, but he is a good friend on the mend, so I accept it anyway.

“Tell that warped sister of hers to go fuck herself and you drag Bray’s ass home with you. That’s my opinion.” He nods sharply and takes a big gulp of soda.

Yeah, thanks for the advice, Mitch, but as much as I’d love to take it, I think I’ll go the adult route.
I don’t respond to him out loud.

“So, when did you say she’s getting out?” Mitchell asks.

“Two more days,” I answer. “They pushed the date back four days, or she’d already be out.”

Mitchell purses his lips contemplatively. “That’s weird they’d do that.”

“Not really,” I say, but I don’t know my reasoning for believing that.

“Well, sure,” Mitchell says, “they might extend someone’s sentence for fuckin’ up in there or something, but usually it’s longer than four days for something like that. It just seems odd to me.”

I think about what he said, and, I admit, I agree with him for the most part. But over the years I’ve learned not to put too much stock in what Mitchell says.

I leave Mitchell’s house and head home just before dark, and all I can think about is Bray. I park my car in the front of my apartment and turn off the engine. It’s a hot July night, so I turn the key and slide the windows down. The lights in the dashboard fade after I pull the key out and drop it on my lap. The back of my head falls against the headrest, and I close my eyes and let the warm breeze filter through the opened windows and brush against my face. The crickets and frogs start to come alive as the night falls, their song all around me is clamorous yet relaxing. Nothing can beat a Southern summer. Bray and I grew up in them together, loving the heat and humidity, the noisy nature at night and the birds that always woke up before the sun in the morning. We loved fishing and wading in the creeks catching crawdads and chasing the fireflies in the pasture.