Текст книги "For All You Have Left"

Автор книги: Laura Miller

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

Chapter Ten
Pizza

I hear a knock at the door, and I make my way over to the peep hole.

After one glance through the tiny window, my heart is racing. It’s Jorgen, and he’s holding a box of pizza.

I kind of figured he’d take me up on my offer. I just didn’t expect it to be the next day. I run my fingers through my hair and look down at my outfit. I’m wearing sweatpants and a tee shirt. At least I have pants on this time. I push my lips to one side. There’s pepper spray in a drawer in the kitchen, but as long as my professional stalking skills are up to par, I shouldn’t be needing it. I count to three, and then I pull open the door.

“Hey,” I say.

My eyes travel to the box in his hands.

“Didn’t you just have pizza last night?” I ask, leaning up against the door.

He shrugs his shoulders. “The event tonight called for pizza.”

I lower my eyes and push out a soft laugh.

“Well, you’re just in time for a new episode of Chopped,” I say, stepping back from the door.

He smiles wide. “Perfect.”

I watch him step into my apartment and then hesitate a little before finally making his way to the couch.

“It looks nice in here,” he says, his gaze sweeping the room. “You want to come over and decorate for me?”

I laugh again as I close the door and walk back into the kitchen. My heart is still racing. I’m praying to God he doesn’t notice. Just play it cool, Ada.

“My sister did most of it. But I’m sure if you ask her, she’d be more than happy to do yours.”

“Speaking of,” he says. “What was it that she called you? Lada?”

I freeze with my hand on the knob of the cabinet door.

“Uh, yeah,” I say.

I feel as if my words kind of clumsily stumble off my lips.

I pull two glasses out of the cabinet and catch him staring at the bookshelf and at a photo of Hannah and me.

“What’s behind it?” he asks.

I swallow hard. The thought still stabs tiny holes into my heart.

“The name?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says, meeting my eyes.

I had hoped he wouldn’t ask.

“Um, after eighteen, I started going by my middle name,” I say and then pause.

He keeps his eyes on me.

“But my sister,” I grudgingly continue, “being the creature of habit she is, had such a hard time dropping my first name that she just gave up and combined them.”

He seems to think about something for a second.

“So, no one calls you by your first name anymore?”

“Uh, no,” I say, shaking my head.

“So, what is it – your first name?” he asks.

My heart almost jumps right out of my chest. I’m not sure why. I’ve said my name a million times before, when I had to – when the law required.

“It’s Logan,” I say. My voice is barely audible.

“Logan,” he repeats. “That’s a pretty name.”

He continues to look at me as if he wants me to explain why I don’t use it.

Instead, I grab two plates, scoop up the glasses and head toward him.

“So, do you have any brothers or sisters?” I ask.

There’s a slight hesitation before he speaks.

“One sister. She lives in Connecticut with her husband. I don’t really see her as much as I’d like.”

“Well, what took her to Connecticut?”

“Her husband’s job,” he says. “He’s an engineer.”

“Oh,” I say, as I take a seat on the other side of the couch.

“You?” he asks.

I look at him with a rascally side-smile.

“My husband’s not an engineer,” I say.

He takes a second to study my face, then laughs.

“No, any brothers or sisters besides Hannah?” he asks.

“No,” I confirm. “Just me and Hannah.”

I hand him a plate, and he picks up a piece of pizza and sets it onto my plate.

I feel like he shouldn’t be that comfortable with me – comfortable enough to touch my food – but strangely, I don’t mind all that much.

“Thanks,” I say.

I feel my face turning bashful all of a sudden.

“The guy with the beard’s going to win.”

My eyes follow a line to the TV and then back to him. “How do you know?”

“I just know,” he says. “It’s all in the way they chop their vegetables. The best vegetable chopper wins – always.”

I laugh. “That’s not true.”

“Just watch,” he says. “You’ll see.”

I surrender and silently agree to play along.

“So what made you move to Columbia?” I ask after a moment.

“The job,” he says. “It was an offer I couldn’t pass up, I guess you’d say.”

I nod my head.

“So, how long have you been a paramedic then?”

He finds my eyes.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were some kind of reporter for some big magazine or something.”

I lower my eyes and feel a shy smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.

“Sorry,” I say. “I can’t help it.”

He laughs. “It’s fine. I’ll answer anything you ask.”

My gaze eventually finds his again.

“I’ve been a paramedic for about four years now,” he says. “I started here in Columbia.”

I pause for a second to quickly add up the years. I guess he’s a couple years older than me – maybe twenty-four or twenty-five.

“Did you always want to be one?”

“A paramedic?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I confirm.

He lowers his head and chuckles.

“No. I wanted to be a chef. But I learned early on that I wasn’t very good at it. Plus, it’s not really a real career where I come from.”

Now, it’s my turn to study his face.

“You don’t sound too broken up about not starring on this show,” I say, at last, pointing at the TV.

He laughs again. “I’m not. I love what I do. I meet a lot of interesting people. Kind of like yourself, I guess.”

This time, a smile instinctively finds my face.

“Yeah, kind of like me,” I agree.

“What about you?” he asks. “When did you know you wanted to be a famous writer?”

I glance up at him, and I know I have that bashful look on my face again. It’s a side effect of being around him, I’m starting to believe. I try to play it off nonetheless.

“Famous?” I say. “Not sure I know what that’s like yet. But a writer – that would have been at twenty, I think. I decided somewhere in my second year of college. It just kind of came to me while I was staring at a Shakespeare quote one day. I had never really written much of anything before that.”

He cocks his head in my direction.

“So, I’d never dig up any childhood memoirs or deep philosophical poems you wrote when you were seven?” he asks.

I laugh and shake my head.

“Not a one,” I confirm.

A silent moment passes as our laughter fades.

“I never really thought about careers when I was younger,” I say.

I notice his eyes stumble onto mine again.

“Well, what did you think about?”

“I don’t know.” I hesitate a little. “Being happy, I guess.”

I stop at that. I don’t say happy with whom. I don’t mention the house in the country. I don’t mention the three kids we would never have together or the fifty years we would never see.

“Sounds like a pretty good thing to think about,” he says.

A broken smile finds my lips.

“See,” he suddenly says.

His eyes are planted on the TV now. There’s one guy left standing on the show. It’s the guy with the beard.

I flash him a suspicious grin. “How did you know that?”

“It’s all in the chop,” he says, casually. “You want another piece?”

I think about it, then lower my eyes. “Sure.”

He slides another piece of pizza onto my plate.

“So, do you make it home much?” I ask.

“Uh, yeah.” I watch him grab another slice for himself. “About once a month or so. My buddy plays on a softball league, and I play the fill-in sometimes when I can.”

I nod my head as my eyes travel back to the television.

“The girl with the tattoos.”

“What?” I ask.

“She wins,” he says.

He takes another bite of pizza and then arches one eyebrow at me. “Watch her chop.”

And I do just that. I watch the girl covered in tattoos meticulously for a minute. She’s fast, and she seems efficient, but I still don’t believe him. And soon, I find my attention wandering away from the television and back onto the man beside me. He seems too good to be true. And blame it on my odd curiosity, my past experiences or my job, for that matter, but I just can’t stop wondering what his weird thing is. It probably would have been better to find that out before I invited him to sit next to me on my couch in my apartment, but I guess it’s better late than never.

“What’s your strangest habit?” I blurt out.

He stops and fixes his eyes on me – long enough for me to start to feel a little uncomfortable.

“I see dead people,” he whispers low and mysteriously.

His expression is as straight as it can be. Mine, on the other hand, goes completely blank, and it stays like that until I see his lips start to crack across his face.

“Jorgen,” I exclaim. “You can’t joke about things like that with me. I’ve met people who really do believe they see dead people.”

He starts to laugh.

“Really?” he manages to get out.

“Yes, and people who believe that people come back as cats and…”

“As cats?” he interjects.

The way he sounds so honestly surprised makes me laugh too. “Yes, cats.”

“Like in an afterlife?” he asks.

I nod my head in confirmation.

“Who believes that?”

He asks it as if he still doesn’t believe me.

“I had a neighbor in college. All four of her cats were on their second lives.”

He stops laughing, and it almost looks as if he’s going to be successful at regaining at least some composure, until he cracks, and the laughter just starts pouring from his lips again. His laugh is raspy, deep, kind of sexy and also kind of contagious.

“One was even a TV meteorologist,” I say, holding up a finger.

He rubs tears from his eyes. I, on the other hand, manage to gain control of myself and take another bite of pizza.

“It’s true,” I say.

He eventually calms down and takes a drink. Then, he slowly sets the glass back down onto the coffee table.

“M&M’s,” he says.

I look up. “What?”

“Every Sunday, I go to the same gas station down the street and buy a pack of M&M’s, and I eat all of them except for the green ones.”

I feel my eyebrows instinctively furrowing.

“Why?” I ask.

“It goes back to when I was a kid,” he says. “When my sister and I were little and my parents would stop at the gas station, they’d always let us get a bag of candy to share. And we’d always get M&M’s. Then, once we got in the car, we’d divvy them up. She got the green ones. I got the rest.”

“That doesn’t sound very fair.”

“That’s all she wanted,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “They were the best, evidently.”

“Okay,” I say. “So what do you do with the green ones now? Do you just…throw them away?”

He stops and shakes his head.

“No, I mail them to my sister the next day.”

I start to laugh but then notice his face is completely sober.

“Wait.” I cover my mouth. “You’re serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he says.

“So, your sister gets a bag of green M&M’s every week?”

“Yeah,” he says, chuckling. “Pretty much.”

“That’s kind of cute,” I say. “Strange, but cute.”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“Your turn.”

I feel my chest rise as I take a breath and think about it for a second.

“I don’t know,” I say.

His eyes find mine, and one side of his mouth turns into a crooked grin. It’s kind of endearing. “You do everything backwards.”

I feel my eyes narrowing and my eyebrows slowly making their way toward each other again, but I don’t say anything.

“You eat your pizza crust-first,” he continues, eyeing my half-eaten piece of pizza.

I look down at my plate. Sure enough, there’s a little triangle left – with no crust.

“You read your newspaper backwards,” he goes on.

I cock my head to the side.

“When I first met you, you turned to the back page first. Even your name is backwards,” he points out.

I bite the side of my bottom lip. “Those aren’t so strange, are they?” I ask, timidly.

He laughs.

“Nah. Now, when you start walking backwards, I’m taking you straight to live with that cat lady.”

I laugh, and at the same time, try to keep myself from blushing as I force my eyes back to the television screen. We both watch the show on it for a little while longer then until his voice breaks my concentration.

“Look,” he says, pointing at the TV. “What did I tell you?”

On the screen, there’s one woman left standing in front of the judges, and her arms are covered in tattoos.

My smile starts small and eventually stretches across my face. I’m starting to believe he might be on to something.

* * *

“Thanks for letting me come over.”

He’s standing on the other side of my door now, three steps from his own.

“Pizza’s a lot better when it’s not so quiet,” he adds.

I push out a laugh. “I agree.”

And just then, he brings his face so close to mine that his lips are nearly touching my ear. My heart starts racing, and for the first time around him, my stomach seems to do a somersault. It feels like butterflies, and it’s terrifying and a little sad, I think. But I can smell the soft, sweet scent of his cologne, and it seems to calm me somehow. I know I should be weirded out right now – I have no idea what he’s doing – but this feels good, and I can’t stop smiling this nervous, happy, strange smile.

“They were reruns,” he whispers, his breaths trailing over my skin.

I freeze as my mouth falls open and surprise quickly devours my face. “I didn’t believe you for one second,” I say, shaking my head.

He shoots me a suspicious look. “Not one second?” he asks, backing slowly away from me.

I try my hardest to scold him with my eyes, even though every other feature is betraying me.

“Good-night, Miss Cross,” he says, sliding a key into his lock and pushing open his door.

I lower my eyes and softly laugh to myself. “Good-night,” I say.

Chapter Eleven
The Photo

“Coming,” I call out from across my apartment.

I don’t even bother looking at the peep hole this time. I figure its either Hannah or possibly Jorgen. For all I know I left my keys in the door again. But when I pull open the door and look up, I freeze.

“Amsel,” I manage to get out.

I don’t know when I started calling him by his last name to his face. Somewhere along the line, it just kind of happened. I step back to let him inside.

“I can’t stay long,” he immediately says, taking a step forward. “I really have to run. I just, um, found something I thought you might want.”

He holds out a photograph.

“You know I love you, Logan – Ada,” he quickly corrects.

My heart stings in my chest. There are two hands in the photo, each wearing a ring.

“I know,” I say, taking the photo and lowering my eyes to it.

We stand there for a while. I don’t even know how much time passes. We’re both so still. My eyes are on the photo. His eyes are most likely on me, watching for my reaction. I try not to react – for his sake and mine.

After a moment, he breaks the silence.

“Well, I’ve got to go.”

He reaches out and touches my hand.

“Take care, Ada.”

I look into his eyes. I love those eyes. I miss those eyes.

“You sure you don’t want something to drink or anything?” I ask, as he takes a step back toward the door.

“No, I’m sorry, I really am running late. I just found that yesterday and wanted you to have it.”

I look down at the photo again and sigh. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it.

“Okay,” I say, nodding my head. “Thank you,” I add.

I follow him to the door, and when he opens it, Jorgen is just opening his door across the hall.

I watch as Jorgen eyes Amsel up and down once, then steps outside and closes his door behind him. He waits there, facing us. He looks as if he’s not trying to make it obvious that he’s watching the two of us, but somehow, I know he is. Amsel too takes a good look at Jorgen. Then, he turns and glances at me.

I try to conjure up a faint smile to let him know it’s okay.

He glances back at Jorgen. There’s a look on Amsel’s face. I can’t tell if it’s simply a greeting or more like a warning. Either way, Amsel nods his head once and makes his way to the stairs.

I follow Amsel’s figure down the stairwell until he’s out of sight. And when I look back up at Jorgen, I realize he was doing the same thing – following Amsel. His eyes are still planted on the stairs. I take the opportunity to steal another glance at the photo, and then I quickly slide it into the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt.

“Who was that?” Jorgen asks, curiously.

It takes me a second to answer him. I have to retrieve my mind from a different time first.

“A friend,” I say, as I toss my gaze to the ground.

I look back up a second later, and Jorgen’s eyes are still on me. He looks at me like he wants to believe me. I think I look at him like I want him to believe me too.

It wasn’t completely a lie. Amsel is my friend, but he’s also a whole lot more than that.

Jorgen seems as though he wants to say something, but he doesn’t, until I turn to go back inside my apartment.

“Hey,” he says, stopping me. “I have this work barbeque tomorrow night. You maybe wanna come with me?”

I rotate around and catch his pleading blue eyes – the same pleading blue eyes that have no idea that at twenty-two, I’ve already lived one life and am now on my second. I feel my heart beating a hard, fast rhythm against my chest, but I think it’s his pleading, clueless blue eyes that make me nod my head yes in spite of my heart.

“Sure,” I say.

He slowly bobs his head up and down a couple times.

“Good,” he says, through what seems like a happy grin. “I’ll pick you up at six.”

I force my lips up and then push through my door and close it behind me. And before I know it, my back, minus any thought, is pressing against the back of the door. I feel my body slide down until I’m kneeling on my heels. And just like that, a familiar, warm liquid pushes past my eyelids and streams down my cheeks. I can’t stop it. I have no reason to stop it – alone and inside my apartment, tucked away from the world. I feel my heart growing heavy as I pull out the photo from my sweatshirt’s pocket and let my eyes search every detail – the little diamond, the two wedding bands, the scar on his middle finger from a run-in with a barbed wire fence when he was eleven. And I let my mind drift away until I feel breakable – like I could shatter into a million, tiny pieces right where I’m kneeling.

We spend so much of our passion on our first love. I’m not convinced that it – passion – is one of those things that you have an endless amount of – like happiness or sadness. I could be happy all day. I could be sad all day. But I’m not so sure I’ll ever love like that again.

I quickly wipe a tear off the photo with my sleeve and then let my head fall into my bended knees.

I think I used all my passion up on the boy who stole my first I love you…

A thunderous bang crashes in the heavens and then rumbles over the earth. We all look up at the sky. Huge, dark clouds are gathering right above us.

“Tut-tut, it looks like rain,” Hannah shouts from the outfield.

Andrew turns the baseball over in his hand and then rests it in his glove.

“Come on. We’ve got at least ten more minutes,” he shouts. “James, you’re up to bat.”

James looks terrified as he stares up at the dark sky and twists the barrel of his wooden bat into the dirt.

“Come on, James. Don’t be a little squirt. Get in the box,” Hannah shouts.

James’s chest rises and then falls before he slowly shuffles to the batter’s box and positions himself in front of me.

“It’s all right, James,” I say to him from behind my catcher’s mask. “Just hit the ball, and then we’ll all go inside.”

James nods his head and then slowly faces Andrew on the pitcher’s mound. Andrew winds up and releases the ball. It comes fast and whizzes right through the strike zone.

James swings, but the ball misses his bat and lands in my mitt instead. I stand up and throw the ball back to Andrew, and at the same time, feel a drop on my hand. I glance up at the sky and then down at James.

“Okay, James, you’ll get this next one,” I say.

I kneel down again and wait for the second pitch.

“I felt a drop,” Hannah yells from the outfield. “I’m outta here. I’m not letting this mess up my beachy waves.”

And just like that, we’re all watching Hannah sprint across the field and toward the house like a crazy person.

I catch Andrew through the bars in my mask a second later. He’s already facing the batter’s box again, paying no attention to his outfielder who just left him. I watch his windup and then, for the second time, he releases the ball. And once again, James swings, but the ball flies unscathed right into my mitt.

“It’s all right, James,” I say. “That’s why we get three tries. Just try to keep your eye on the ball.”

I stand up and throw the ball back to Andrew. Then, all of a sudden, another crash of thunder rumbles through the sky, but this time, it seems to shake the earth around us.

James flashes me a frightened glance, then looks up at the sky. “I’m outta here too!” he yells, throwing the bat to the ground.

He takes off running toward the house. I slide the catcher’s mask off and look up. There’s nothing but big, dark, ominous clouds above us now.

“Play catch with me,” Andrew says, trying to win me over with his puppy-dog-pleading eyes.

I just stare at him. I know it’s about to pour.

“Come on,” he begs.

I let out a sigh, but somehow, there’s a smile attached as I set the mask and the catcher’s mitt onto the ground, slide a glove over my hand and open it toward him.

“Yes,” he exclaims, pumping his fist.

He throws the ball, and it lands hard inside my glove. But before I can even get the ball into my opposite hand, the sky opens up, and a flood of water traps us in its wake.

I can’t help but squeal. The big drops washing over my skin are ice-cold.

Andrew runs over to me and scoops up the mask, the mitt and the bat and throws them into a five-gallon bucket. Then, he slides the glove off my hand and throws it into the bucket as well right before he grabs my hand.

“Come on,” he says, pulling me along.

We run to a little shed next to the dirt field and take shelter under it. Inside, I wipe my eyes and unglue the hair stuck to the sides of my face, then cross my arms around my chest to ward off the goose bumps.

Andrew sets the bucket in the corner, then comes over to me and puts his arms around my shoulders and starts rubbing the parts of my bare skin that aren’t covered by my tee shirt.

I feel a shiver run up my back right before I look up at him. “Thanks,” I say.

For a second, it’s as if his eyes are stuck in mine. Then, slowly, a smile zigzags across his face.

“Jeez, Little Logan, you look like a wet, little kitten. What happened to you?”

I roll my eyes and wrap my arms tighter around my chest. “You happened, Andrew.”

He laughs.

“You know what?”

“What?” I ask.

I grab the bottom of my tee shirt and twist it until water starts to come out.

“I love you.”

I immediately drop my shirt and jerk my head up.

“What did you say?”

“I…I love you.”

I bore two holes straight through his head, but his expression doesn’t waver. “No, you don’t.” I look away and laugh nervously. Then, I decide quickly that battling the rain just might be less awkward than the conversation we’re apparently having right now, and I take a step out into it.

“Wait,” Andrew says, grabbing my arm and pulling me back. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” I say.

He’s somehow successful at getting me back inside the shed.

“Just wait a second. What do you mean I ‘don’t’?”

“I mean, you don’t know what love is. You’re twelve, Andrew.”

“Twelve and half,” he corrects me.

“Fine,” I say. “It still doesn’t matter. I’m twelve and a half too, and I don’t even know what it means.”

I pull my hand back and start out of the shed again.

“Wait,” he says, grabbing my arm and pulling me back yet again.

He looks at me with that little devilish grin he gets sometimes, and for the first time, I notice that the little gap that used to be between his two front teeth is gone.

“What makes you think that just because we’re twelve, we don’t know what love is?”

I try to show him how annoyed I am by forcing my free arm to my hip. “We’re just kids.”

Andrew laughs once.

“Speak for yourself. I’m a man.”

Without even thinking, I bust out laughing.

Andrew just stands there – straight-faced. “Well, at least I got you to laugh.”

I smile and shake my head back and forth.

“I love you, Logan,” he says again.

He releases my arm, and immediately, I cross it with my other arm over my chest.

“And you wanna know how I know I love you?” he asks.

I stare at him for a second and then playfully roll my eyes. Butterflies have somehow gotten into my stomach, but there’s no way I’m letting him know that.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says, flashing me a wink.

I really try hard not to blush.

“I know because when I see you, I smile. I know because when I’m not with you, you’re all I can think about. I know because when I hear good news, you’re the first person I want to tell. And I know because when I hear bad news, you’re the first person I want to talk to.”

He’s quiet for a few moments then. I am too. I feel stunned – as if for the first time in my life, I just have no words. And I just can’t seem to take my eyes off the packed dirt that makes up the shed floor at my feet either. I’m too nervous to look up at him. Just a year ago, I think I would have rather died than admit this, but I kind of liked what he said, and I’m scared he might take it all back.

“You’re right, though,” he says.

His words grab my attention, and I slowly turn my eyes up to his again. Please don’t take it all back.

“I’ve never been in love before, but if this isn’t love, what else could it be?” he asks.

I’m quiet until I realize that all the things he said he feels, I feel too. It’s not really a revelation. I think I knew it all along. I just never dared say it out loud.

“Andrew.” I can barely hear myself talk – maybe it’s the rain or maybe it’s because I can’t believe what I’m about to say.

He meets my gaze.

“I think I’m in love too,” I whisper.

I hold my breath for a whole long, agonizing second before a cheesy grin stretches wide across his face.

“Come on,” he says, pulling me out into the rain.

“What? No, Andrew, what are you doing?”

The rain looked pretty good a minute ago – when I just wanted to get away. Now, not so much.

We get a few steps away from the shed before he stops, and the downpour instantly engulfs us. I can barely see him through the big, icy drops sliding down my face and hanging on my eyelashes. But I feel him squeeze my hand, and then he turns toward the field and I notice his chest rise as he inhales a big breath of air and then shouts at the top of his lungs: “I love Logan Cross.”

He looks at me when he’s finished. That big, silly grin hasn’t left his face. His hair is pressed down and dripping. There are raindrops on his eyelashes. His clothes are drenched and hanging off of him. It makes me laugh, and all of a sudden, I’m tasting the salty raindrops in my mouth. I swallow and laugh some more, then take a deep breath and shout as loud as I can: “I love Andrew Amsel.”

And just like that, I don’t feel the chill in the raindrops anymore. I don’t feel the weight of my rain-soaked clothes, and I’m no longer blinded by the big, salty drops clouding my vision. Because somehow, I can still see Andrew’s big brown eyes smiling back at me, and right now, that’s all that seems to matter.