Текст книги "For All You Have Left"
Автор книги: Laura Miller
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For All You Have Left
– A Novel —
by
Laura Miller
To the Restorer of Hope
For all you have given
For all you have taken away
For all you have left
Man…cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
Prologue
Only two things about that afternoon stick out to me – two things that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. One of those things is the smell the tires made after they had laid a jagged line of black rubber across the faded highway and into the ditch. There were tall wild flowers growing up every which way around me, but all I could think about was that bitter smell of burnt rubber. I remember a breath and then a moment where I think my mind was trying to catch up with my body. Then, there were muffled sounds and blurry images and panicked movements. But that smell was so distinct. Even now, just the thought of rubber pressed deep into a surface makes my stomach turn.
That’s one thing I remember about my last ride – about the day that changed my story forever. It’s the dark thing – the memory I wish I had lost, along with most of the others.
The other thing I remember, though, is my light – my little piece of hope when all hope seemed lost. I remember the way it felt in my hand. It was hard, and its edges were just sharp enough that I could almost feel pain again when I squeezed my fingers around it. I wanted that so badly – pain. I wanted to feel pain on my skin and in my bones, anywhere that wasn’t my heart. I was starting to feel numb, and it was almost more terrifying than the thought of a tomorrow – a new day where I would be living someone else’s life.
No one had told me at the time, but I already knew. I already knew my life was going to be different. I knew my life had changed. I remember squeezing my bloody fingers around the metal edges of that shiny figure, pressing the sharpest edge into my thumb – until I felt something. I knew I was leaving my life out there along that quiet highway, among the swaying wild flowers and that bitter smell of burnt rubber. And as the doors shut and the ambulance pulled away, my eyes fell heavy on the hope in my hand. And I remember thinking: If I could still feel, maybe I wouldn’t just wither away – maybe there was still hope for me.
Chapter One
Four Years Earlier
“Why do you need that anyway?”
His chocolate-colored eyes find mine.
“You’ll see.”
I watch him go back to carefully examining the rocks scattered in the dirt and the grass. Out here, there are plenty of rocks, just like there is plenty of black dirt mixed with red clay and tall grass and some trees and nothing much else. Andrew and I are standing under a big, old oak tree on the edge of my grandpa’s farm. Toward the end of one of the tree’s thick branches, there’s a worn-in tire swing. It catches my eye as it sways back and forth now in the soft breeze. I live just up the road. We have a dog named Buster and a cat named Nugget, and there’s an old plow contraption that my mom uses as decoration in her flower garden, but besides my grandpa’s old place, the dog, the cat and the plow are as close as I ever came to growing up on a farm. My grandpa’s farm isn’t much today – just an old barn, some pastureland and a few cows. My dad left the farm in its heyday when he was eighteen. The story goes that he followed my mom to a little college town west of here and never looked back – well, not for at least a decade anyway. My sister and I were born in that little college town, and we called it home until my dad got a promotion and moved us here. Though, I’m pretty sure even without my dad’s new job, we would have eventually made it back here anyway. My mom grew up here too, in a little brick house that’s now a daycare center inside the city limits. They always talked about this place when I was younger – as if it were heaven on earth or something. From what I gather, it’s not as small as it used to be. In fact, it’s larger than the town I was born in, but you would never know it from just a few miles past the last stoplight – where I spent the last nine years of my life. I hated it for a while after we moved here. I hated the mosquitoes and the bees and the smell of cows that drifted our way when the wind blew just right. And most of all, I hated the fact that I couldn’t just ride my bike to the ice cream shop or to the movies. In fact, I hated this place pretty much up until about the time that Andrew Amsel first kissed me.
“I need a sharp one.”
Andrew’s talking to me, but it really sounds as if it’s only to himself. I furrow my eyebrows and shake my head. I’m used to his little breaks from ordinary, everyday life, like his little paper-airplane notes that sometimes fly into the classroom from the hall and land near my desk or the groundhog trap he made in shop class – not to actually catch the groundhog that had been burrowing holes into the school’s lawn since March and not even just to have an excuse to get out of class and check it throughout the day. No, the day he built it, he came up to me at my locker with a proud smile on his face and whispered into my ear: “I found a way to see you every day. Look outside the window during English class.” And sure enough, later that same day, I dropped my English book onto a desk, sat down and looked out the window, and there he was, fiddling with a wooden box and smiling back at me. It was just another ordinary day with Andrew Amsel.
Andrew’s house is across the road and two houses down from mine. I first learned this about nine years ago, before I knew anything about mascara or eyeliner and when high school seemed only like some distant dream. It was the same day we moved here actually. It was raining. I remember that because it seemed fitting. My life already sucked because I had no friends; I had just left them all in Independence. I figured: Why shouldn’t the weather suck here too? But it was only a couple hours maybe after the last box had been unloaded from the truck that two little boys showed up at our front door. I remember the clouds were just starting to float away when the taller boy asked if my sister and I wanted to play Wiffle ball. I hated Wiffle ball, and I didn’t so much care for boys, but I would have done anything, I think, to get out of unpacking for a while. Unpacking was right up there with no friends and the sucky weather.
“Found one!”
My thoughts are instantly broken as Andrew takes my hand and gently pulls me to the tree’s trunk and plants his feet right in front of it.
“You put it in a tree, it’s forever,” he says, looking at me with his big, brown eyes.
I feel him squeeze my hand before he puts the sharp edge of the rock to the tree’s bark and starts carving. After a couple moments, he has a big A etched into the surface of the tree. I continue to watch his hand and the rock in it as he draws a plus sign followed by a big L. Then, he traces over the letters a few more times.
“Now it’s forever,” I say.
“Just about.” He sends me a quick glance before going back to his carving.
My eyes follow his movements as he puts the rock to the bark yet again, but this time, I can’t see what he’s etching into the tree. He’s at it for a good while, but I don’t mind just watching him and the way his forearm muscles move with the turn of the rock in his hand. His arms aren’t huge – not like the guys who spend every evening in the school’s weight room, lifting and grunting and trying to outdo each other. Andrew’s arms are just right. They’re strong enough to throw a ball across a baseball diamond, tough enough to lift the heavy things I can’t and sturdy enough to scoop me up into his arms at just the right times.
“There!”
He moves away from his carving and stands beside the tree’s trunk.
I reread the A + L that now has a heart encircling it, and then my eyes travel to the words below it, and I feel the corners of my lips suddenly edging high up my face.
“Forever and a day,” I say out loud, reading the inscription below the letters.
My eyes fall into Andrew’s. I can’t imagine loving someone more. He’s my perfect – one part solid as a rock, one part crazy, one part starry-eyed dreamer. I could listen to him talk about the life we’re going to have in the little house in the country and how happy we’re going to be for hours under this old tree. I don’t know how many hours we’ve spent doing that same thing already.
“I’m gonna marry you someday, Andrew Amsel.”
Even though his face is straight, I watch his wild eyes burn with passion. I know those eyes, and I love those eyes.
“I’m gonna make you so happy,” he eventually says. His voice is raspy and passionate.
He pulls me into him and then kisses me slowly and softly and deeply, almost as if he’s claiming my soul for himself. And when our kiss breaks, he puts his forehead to mine and one hand to my cheek, while the other strokes my hair.
“Marry me tomorrow, Logan.”
I pause, as a word dances on my lips but never leaves them.
“No, really, let’s get married,” he says again.
“Andrew.” I start to laugh. “We’re still in high school. We can’t get married.”
“Why not? We’re both eighteen; there’s no law against it.”
My smile widens. “That has to be a bad idea.” I think I’m more so trying to convince myself just how bad of an idea it really is.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” He recites the lines straight from Shakespeare himself.
I shake my head. For some reason, of all the lines and quotes he’s ever heard or read, that one is the one that stuck. I think I hear it at least every other day.
“I love you, Andrew, but I can’t marry you in high school.”
He pushes his lips out and to one side and narrows one eye. He doesn’t seem satisfied.
“We’d spend our honeymoon grounded, doing chemistry homework,” I say.
He dramatically inhales and then slowly forces the breath out. “Good point.”
I laugh, and then he gently pulls me down to the ground until we’re resting on the grass and our backs are up against the old tree.
“I love you so much, Logan.”
He sets the rock down onto the ground, and I quickly recover it and then let my head fall into his lap – just like I have done nearly a million times before. There are cicadas in the trees around us, and they’re singing their summer song in unison. And pushing over us, trying desperately to warm our shade, is a soft, steady stream of air.
I feel Andrew pick up a strand of my long hair and then gently lay it back down again. He does this over and over again. It makes me feel safe somehow.
“Are you happy, Andrew?”
A silent moment passes between us. Then, I hear his soft, thoughtful voice.
“It’s just another day with you – the best day of my life.”
I nuzzle my cheek against his leg and press against my heart the rock that just penned our love into the wood of eternity.
“And someday,” he goes on, “we’re gonna get married, and I’m gonna make sure you know I love you every day – whether I’m by your side or not, you’re gonna know I love you. I’ll probably drive ya crazy making sure you know, but at least you’ll be a loved crazy person.”
He pauses, and I snicker a little.
“We’ll fight, probably,” he continues, in a way that seems as if he’s just now come to that conclusion. “And you’re gonna pout in your corner, and I’m gonna pout in mine. And we’re gonna pout until we just can’t hide how much we love each other anymore, and then I’m gonna kiss you so hard. And then we’re gonna promise each other that we’ll never fight again. And then we’re gonna grow old together, and I’m still gonna love you.”
He stops then, but he keeps stroking my hair.
“I’m gonna love you, Logan, forever and a day,” he whispers.
I don’t say anything because I know he’s in his own, little world now, dreaming about our future. He breathes evenly, peacefully now. I can picture the little smile hanging on his lips – the little grin he saves only for times like this. It’s not the same smile he wears at school. In the halls of Truman High, he wears a poker face – a perfect, little smirk that’s one-part sexy and one-part mysterious. He hides his crazy there. He hides the dreams that I know are constantly in his head. He hides them so well that sometimes he even fools me into believing that lunch and the next baseball game are the only future he’s ever thought about. But I guess that way no one bothers Andrew Amsel. His brother tries but to no avail. The girls love him; the guys respect him. He’s cute, and he’s a natural athlete, which helps a little with his tough-guy façade, I guess. But if you know Andrew Amsel like I do, you know his real strength isn’t in anything you can see.
“Babe.” His soft whisper instantly halts my thoughts.
“Hmm?” I angle my face up toward his.
“Two or three?”
I think about it for a second.
“Three,” I say.
He pauses.
“Dog or cat?”
“Dog,” I say.
He nods in satisfaction. And I rest my head in his lap again as he goes back to his dreams and to picking up the pieces of my hair and then laying them back down again.
“Three scraggly kids and a dog,” he confirms.
I can hear the smile in his voice – even over the cicadas’ song, and it makes my heart dance because I see what he sees too. I see the little house in the country – the row of apple trees, the purple and orange wildflowers swaying in the breeze, even the dog. I see it all, all from the view of some old porch swing somewhere. I know it sounds crazy, but minus one detail – one pesky, little detail that’s still a little blurry – I see it all so clearly – almost as if it were a snapshot right out of our future.
I nuzzle my cheek against Andrew’s leg again and let go of a happy sigh. Crazy or not, somehow I just know that from that old porch swing, I can see the stuff my dreams are made of.
Chapter Two
Last Day
“This is the last kiss that I’m ever gonna give you – at this locker,” Andrew announces.
I look up at him. He’s wearing a wide grin.
“Well, you better make it a good one then,” I say.
His grin quickly turns mischievous, and he doesn’t even bother looking around to see who’s watching. He just touches one hand to the back of my neck and the other to the small of my back, and he leans in. I close my eyes and instantly feel his shallow breaths on my lips. It feels raw and unscripted as he moves his tender lips over mine. And then he slips his tongue into my mouth, leans farther into me and kisses me harder. He plays with my tongue, and I kiss him back as my stomach does a somersault. And after a few more exhilarating moments of his breaths and his lips and his tongue, his kiss breaks from my lips, and he presses his forehead against mine.
“How was that?” he whispers.
I feel my lips start to edge up my face and into a wide smile. It’s his answer, and he knows it.
“I love you so much, Logan,” he whispers into my ear.
Then, before I can say anything, he slaps my butt and walks away.
“Get a room,” I hear a boy from across the hall yell out to Andrew.
Andrew doesn’t even bother to look back. “That’s a great idea,” he says, right before he disappears down another hallway. “Maybe I can use yours.”
Andrew’s voice trails off, and my attention goes to the boy. He looks defeated, but when he finds my gaze, his face brightens.
“Hi, Logan.”
“Hi, James.”
“You still coming to our house before graduation?” he asks.
I nod my head. “Mm hmm.”
He flashes me a content smile and then continues his trek down the hallway. “I’ll see you later then,” he says.
I laugh quietly to myself and turn back toward my locker. There’s only one textbook and a notebook on the shelf. I grab them both and go to close the locker before I stop and spot a note taped to the inside of the door.
I quickly peel the folded piece of paper off and fall back against the locker door. It latches shut with a click as I press the books against my chest and open the note with both hands. And instantly, my eyes go to reading the familiar handwriting:
Logan,
I can’t believe we walk down that aisle in a cap and gown together tonight. I really wish it was a church and you were in a different kind of white dress, but I can wait, I guess. But not too long, okay?
Logan, if I haven’t told you today yet that I love you, find me and kick my ass. Because Logan, I’ve loved you ever since that rainy afternoon I showed up at your door. And I loved you that Monday too when you were that scared, little new girl in the third grade. I wanted to take your hand then and tell you that I’d walk with you for the rest of my life – that I’d hold your hand, so you’d never have to walk alone, so you’d never have to be scared. And the only reason I didn’t is because Doug Sorenson said you had some kind of reptile (yeah, reptile) disease and that if I even went near you that I’d die in three seconds flat.
Reptile disease? I laugh to myself, then continue reading:
And, yeah, I believed him until he made you that dumb Valentine’s card the next year and stuck all those lame hearts all over it. Damn Sorenson. Anyway, Logan, the point here is that I love you. I love you forever and a day. Happy graduation day!
P.S. You’re still coming with me to Jenson slab afterward, right?
P.P.S. You look as sexy as hell in those shorts. I’m really happy that no one gives a shit about dress code today!
Love,
Andrew
I take in a deep breath and let out a happy grin as I refold the note and slide it into the back pocket of my jean shorts. The ring of the first bell makes me jump, but before I can start my hike to my last class, I catch the number on the locker right next to mine. It’s his locker. The number on the little, metal door is 92—our anniversary. We don’t really have a real date – a date when we first started going out or dating or whatever. I guess because we just kind of always were. Andrew picked the day we would use though. It’s the first day we ever had lunch together – September 2—in a little cafeteria at Cedar Elementary. He says I traded him my milk for his cookie. I don’t remember the trade, and I have no idea how he remembers the exact date – I barely remember it was even September when I moved here – but he swears he does.
I pull my books closer to my chest. God, sometimes I still can’t believe I fell for that messy-haired little boy with the plastic Wiffle ball bat slung across his shoulders. But more so, I guess, I can’t believe just how much I love him because in the end, I absolutely love that crazy boy with everything I am.
Chapter Three
Graduation Night
“Marry me,” he whispers.
His hat and tassel are long gone, but his black gown is still draped around his body.
“What?”
I keep my eyes planted in the black sky and the sea of stars as I lace my fingers in his and make myself comfortable against the metal grooves of the truck bed.
“Marry me,” he says again.
I don’t say anything. I just smile. And out of the corner of my eye, I watch him turn over onto his side and play with the quilt beneath us.
“Logan, remember when we were kids, and I always used to say that even if you were the last girl in the world, I’d never marry you?”
I laugh softly.
“Yeah,” I say, meeting his eyes.
“Logan, I said it, but…”
He pauses, then reaches behind him and pulls out from the darkness a little journal and holds it out to me.
I stare at it for a second before I slowly reach for it. The journal is small, and its edges are worn away, and down the front of its soft, leather cover in big, block letters are the words: KEEP OUT OR DIE!
My eyes dart to his. “Andrew, I don’t have a death wish.”
He rolls his eyes and sighs playfully.
“It was for the little brother. It worked…I think.”
I watch his gaze wander off as he seems to get stuck on a thought. Then, all of a sudden, his eyes snap back to me.
“Go ahead,” he says, gesturing toward the book.
He’s wearing a boyish grin. I keep my stare in his for a second or two longer. Then, I slowly pull back the journal’s faded cover and look back up at him for further instruction.
“Read.” He holds his phone’s light to the book.
I turn the first, blank page and then stop. I stop at the big, sloppy handwriting that scrolls crooked down the next page. There’s a date at the top. It reads September 2, 2000. I take a second to add up the years. He was nine. We were nine.
“Andrew, is this really yours?”
I just can’t bring myself to believe that Andrew Amsel kept a journal. I mean, he had his moments – those moments when I could maybe find it believable that the spirited, little boy I knew when we were nine wrote his thoughts down. But a journal?
I watch his eyelids fall over his eyes as he lowers his head.
“My mom made me keep it. Believe me, I protested. I even tried to flush the first one she gave me down the toilet.”
He stops and laughs.
“I flushed it six times without it going anywhere before she caught me. And in the end, Mom won, and I remember her telling me that someday it would be fun to read it. I didn’t give a shit about that back then, but now that I think about it, I guess she was talking about today – that maybe today, it would be fun to read it.”
I can’t help my eyes from turning suspicious.
“Go on.” He gestures toward the little journal again. “Read it.”
Again, I force my eyes to his little-boy words barely hanging on the page:
There’s this new girl in my class. She lives down the road. Her name is Logan. It’s a funny name. Anyway, she can’t hit a ball. Her hair stinks like flowers, and she’s too tall.
I finish reading over the words and look back up at him with pretend narrowed eyes.
“My hair stinks…like flowers?” I ask.
He laughs.
“And apparently, you could be too tall,” he says.
“There’s still more.” He gestures with his eyes toward the bottom of the page.
I look closer. I wouldn’t have noticed the tiny letters scribbled upside down along the bottom of the page if he wouldn’t have pointed them out.
I turn the journal upside down and squint my eyes to see the writing:
She can hit a ball. Flowers don’t smell that bad, and I wish I was as tall as her.
I peek at him through my eyelashes. I’m pretty sure there’s a questioning look plastered to my face.
“I never wanted to find out what my mom would do to me if she caught me being ugly or worst yet, in a lie,” he explains. “She promised she wouldn’t read it, but you know my mom.”
I shrug my shoulders and then nod my head in agreement. Over the years, Mrs. Amsel has become like a second mom to me, so I do know her. And I know she loves her boys, but I also know she could never resist the temptation to learn more about them if an opportunity in the form of, say, a discarded, open journal presented itself.
“Go on, keep reading,” he says.
I laugh and turn the page. It’s dated the next day, September 3, 2000:
I told Logan today that I wouldn’t marry her even if she was the last girl in the world. She’s annoying, and I hate her.
I suck in a big breath but then notice the tiny letters again at the bottom of the page and quickly train my eyes to them:
I would marry her. She’s not so bad, and I don’t hate her. I don’t hate her at all.
I look up at him again.
“It kind of goes on like that for another hundred pages or so,” he says. “Every once in a while there’s a rant about how much I hate the lunch ladies’ beef stroganoff or how much I wish my brother was a puppy, but for the most part, it’s all about you.”
He stops and chuckles to himself.
“And there are no disclaimers about the stroganoff or the puppy brother either,” he adds. “I wasn’t lying about those things.”
I shake my head and laugh before I catch his stare again. And in that short moment, his eyes seem to have turned serious all of a sudden.
“But there’s one more I want you to see.”
He pulls out another journal. And from what I can tell, this one isn’t so tattered. Its edges aren’t really worn, and it still has a bright-colored cover.
“Yeah, so it’s kind of addicting,” he says. “I’m still a hard-ass. Don’t be fooled.”
I give him a sarcastic look and then carefully take the journal from his hands.
“The last entry,” he says.
I fall into his soft, brown eyes then, and my heart melts a little. I really do love this boy – even more than I did a moment ago. How is it possible to love someone so much and then to love them even more? And it’s not just any love either. It’s that kind of love where you know you would do anything for him, go anywhere, even take on his pain if you could – that kind of love.
I return my attention to the journal and flip to the last page with words on it. It’s dated June 5, 2009.
My eyes quickly venture back to his.
“That’s today,” I say.
I watch him slowly nod his head before I find the words on the page again and follow over them:
I’ve known this girl Logan for nine, miserable years now. Her eyes are too green. Her smile is all wrong. I wouldn’t marry her if she were the last girl in the world. And she still can’t hit a ball.
I playfully narrow my eyes at him before I catch the tiny letters again at the bottom of the page:
I’ve known this girl Logan for nine, happy years now. Her eyes are beautiful. Her smile is perfect. I would marry her every day of my life if I could. And she can still hit a ball – better than I can.
I can feel my heart breaking into a million, little pieces as I follow over his tiny words at the bottom of the page one more time. And I think it’s those same, tiny words that remind me that he’s no longer the little boy I shared a childhood with.
“I know in my heart that you’re the one,” Andrew whispers low and near my ear.
His words are breathy and passionate. And instead of seeing his perfect, boyish grin when I look up, I catch a box. And inside the box is a ring. And above the ring are two longing eyes.
“I know I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you. Please, marry me, Logan Ada Cross.”
I search his eyes for a moment, but only for a moment. That’s all the time I need.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Wednesday,” he adds, with a hopeful plea in his dark brown eyes.
I press my lips together, until I just can’t hold back a smile any longer.
“Okay,” I whisper.
