Chapter Twenty-Four
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO open it now,” she had said before leaving, “and it’s not a big deal. Just a little thing.” The present had been left on the counter as she stood on her toes to kiss my cheek. “Happy birthday, Blake.”
I could still hear her voice now, hours later. I could still feel the soft touch of her lips against my skin. I stared at the present, still lying on the counter where she’d left it. The last time she had left something at my house, it had felt like a curse, but this gift felt like a shred of hope I wasn’t yet sure I deserved. I wanted to feel worthy, though. I wanted to race toward it with open arms, but dammit, I was too old. There’d been too many years of having something beaten into my head, and a couple years of therapy and one good woman wasn’t enough to wipe the slate clean. Not so soon.
Now alone, I had the freedom to mull it over. I paced the kitchen and eyed the gift with lingering glances. “You’re being fucking stupid,” I muttered aloud, shaking my head with disgust and embarrassment over my own hesitation. “Just open the fucking thing,” and with that last bit of encouragement, I rushed toward it and tore the paper off before I had the chance to talk myself out of it.
In my hand, I held a notebook. Not a cheap spiral-bound thing or a composition book, like I’d had in school. This was nice, with sturdy binding and thick paper. The kind you might buy at a bookstore. A lifelike skull was emblazoned on the front cover, white on black, and beneath the skull was a quote, scrawled in metallic silver:
To elevate the soul, poetry is necessary. – Edgar Allan Poe
With the book in my hands, I had forgotten my breath, that I needed it to survive, and when I finally had no choice but to breathe, I shuddered distressingly with emotion. I don’t know what I’d expected to find inside all that paper, but it wasn’t this. This was thoughtful and chosen specifically for me, with my tastes in mind, and fuck if it didn’t feel like the most precious thing I’d ever held.
When my bearings had been collected and my heart had settled to a reasonable rate, I flipped the cover open and there, in a bubbly, girly scrawl, was a poem:
What’s written here,
Is meant to keep.
When you’ve crawled,
Into your shadows deep,
When the time you have,
Seems like too much,
When you shudder at,
A lover’s touch.
Don’t be scared,
To let pain drown,
Just always remember,
To write it down.
And one day,
When that pain is done,
Open this book,
To see how far you’ve come.
—a.w.
I swallowed at the unrelenting emotional clot in my throat, blinking my eyes and chewing at the inside of my lip, as I stared at the thick, black ink. All of the dots above her I’s, all of the T’s she crossed. And I knew, without so much as a splinter of doubt, that this was undoubtedly the most precious gift I’d ever received.
***
Me: You shouldn’t have gotten me anything.
Audrey: Did you open it?
Me: I did.
Audrey: Do you hate it? I really hope you don’t hate it.
Me: Have you been worrying about this all night?
Audrey: Ugh. That question is loaded, and I don’t like it.
Me: How do you figure?
Audrey: If I say yes, I sound like one of those clingy, annoying girls. But if I say no, I sound like I don’t care, and I definitely do.
Me: I’d say clingy but not too annoying.
Audrey: Oh, gee. That makes me feel SO much better, thanks.
Audrey: So … do you hate it?
Me: No.
Audrey: Are you just saying that?
Me: No.
Audrey: You can tell me if you don’t like it, you know.
Me: You’re heading dangerously close to annoying territory now.
Audrey: Sorry. Can’t help it. I try not to be one of those girls, but I’m still a girl, you know?
Me: I get it.
Me: Anyway, I just wanted to text you to say thanks.
Audrey: You’re welcome.
Me: Not just for the present, but for everything today. You helped to make Jake’s birthday a really good one and I just wanted to tell you I’m really grateful.
Me: Especially that shit at dinner. I’m particularly grateful for that.
Me: It’s not easy for me to say this shit in person. Easier to write it out, I guess. So, yeah. There you go.
Me: Audrey?
Audrey: Yeah, sorry. I’m here.
Audrey: You’re welcome, Blake. And you can text me whenever you want.
Me: Cool. Anyway, I’m going to bed. Night.
Audrey: Goodnight.
Audrey: And by the way, next year, Freddy and I are totally singing happy birthday to you. Just so you know.
Chapter Twenty-Five
AS LUCK WOULD have it, Audrey was a horrible singer. Absolutely horrendous. Yet, she didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about the fact she sounded like a dying cat in heat, as she ironically sang along to Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” from the passenger seat of my car. And that’s what I enjoyed the most, how she didn’t care. That even when she couldn’t hit the high notes, she still exuded confidence.
“I love that song,” she gushed with a sigh.
“I don’t,” I snorted.
“Okay,” she drawled. “Then, why don’t you put on something you wanna listen to?”
“You don’t wanna listen to what I wanna listen to, so don’t worry about it.”
“You shouldn’t assume something like that. You have no idea what kind of music I like.”
For a second, I stole my eyes from the road to glare at her. “You won’t like my music.”
“Try me!”
Freddy groaned irritably from the backseat and Audrey turned to look at him. “Oh, does the peanut gallery have something to say?”
“Yeah,” he muttered, “pipe down.”
“Yo,” I said, glancing at him in the rearview mirror, “nobody tells me to pipe down in my car, got it?”
“Mommy, I want headphones, too.”
Audrey laughed, taking a quick glance at Jake, bopping his head to music none of us could hear. “You have them at home, honey. Remember? Daddy got you some for your birthday.”
“I want them now.”
“Well, you don’t have them right—”
I reached across her lap to the glove compartment, opening it up to reveal a spare set of headphones. “He can use those. Let him use my phone. I have all of Jake’s music uploaded on there, too,” I offered, and she gawked at me. I narrowed my glare on the road. “What?”
“You’re like, prepared for anything.”
“Yeah, have you met Jake? I kinda have to be.”
She nodded, plugging the headphones into my phone and setting it up for Freddy. “I’m just remembering when you told me your parents wanted to, um, put him somewhere, and I’m failing to understand why they don’t think you’re the best option for him. Why wouldn’t they just let him live with you?”
I grunted a reply as she handed Freddy the phone and headphones, then she asked, “You disagree?”