Beckett
December 23rd
I woke with Zelda lying curled next to me. Carefully, to keep the bed still, I rolled to my side, facing her. Her hair fanned out on the pillow, and her face, in sleep, was free of the hard edges that pulled at her mouth, or that furrowed her dark brows. She looked peaceful without the shadows of the past hanging over her. She wasn’t touching me but it would’ve taken me no effort to shift toward her and pull her against my chest. I could wrap my arms around her and feel the heat between us grow stronger against the cold.
And then what? You kiss her? Or more? Then let her leave for Philly tomorrow? Wave as she marches off to face her fears alone?
I got out of bed and gingerly hobbled toward the kitchen. The skin on my lower right leg felt tight. It stung like a bitch when I flexed my ankle, but a quick inspection showed it was already improved from last night. Zelda did a good job. I glanced at her, still asleep in my bed, and it was so easy to imagine it as a permanent arrangement.
Go to Philly. Be brave. I’ll be here when you get back. It’s not much but it’s all I can do.
I had been on a course to make coffee, but I veered to the small desk instead where Zelda worked. I grabbed the first pen I could find and a blank sheet of paper and began to write.
Dec 23rd
Dear Mrs. J,
I dream of the robbery a lot. I’m sure you do too. It gets me at least once a week, almost always the same.
Most of it is blurry, or runs at a crazy speed, like a movie on fast forward. I see myself and three accomplices ransacking a living room, tossing valuables—your family heirlooms?—haphazardly into our bags. I can feel the gun tucked into the waistband of my jeans, pressing against my lower back.
And then the reel slows down, narrows its focus. It’s the moment that will stay with me forever. The key turns in a lock that was already broken, the door opens, you and your husband come home. I reach for the gun just like my buddy Nash—our ringleader—told me to. To scare you.
And I did.
I don’t know why I’m writing this. I’m sure it hurts you more than it does me, and I’m sorry for that. But I wonder, Mrs. J., if you feel as trapped in that moment as I do. Do you relive that instant where Mr. J starts to fall, over and over? Are you stuck there too? Or have you been able to move on?
Move on. People are always telling me to move on and I don’t know what it means. How anyone can really move on from tragedy? I think we just find a way to live with it, because time is going to move on, dragging us through the days like a conveyer belt under our feet, whether we like it or not. Whether we’re ready or not.
My path leads to a future of riding my bike, bussing tables, and wishing like fucking mad I could run the reel backward and stop what happened. Because no matter how much time passes between that moment and now, it will never be far enough. I can always turn my head and see that terrible day behind me. Right there, hanging over my shoulder. But when I look forward, I see nothing but gray.
At least, that’s how it’s been until Zelda.
Do you remember her? I told you about her last month. She became my roommate. She needed a place to live while she worked on a project and I needed the money. Now I feel like her being here is breaking some vow I made to you. The gray future I see in front of me now still isn’t defined. It isn’t concrete. But I swear I can hear a whisper in the fog. A hint of brilliant green light, luring me toward something else.
I’m not asking you to forgive me, Mrs. J. I never have and I never will, no matter how pathetic my letters might seem. No matter how I whine and bitch about my future, because your husband has none.
But I don’t know what to do. I’m lost in this gray haze, and I wonder if maybe you are too.
I’m sorry,
Beckett Copeland
I stared at what I’d written, on Zelda’s art paper with one of her special pens. Quietly, I tore the paper off the pad and folded it several times to get it down to a letter size. My hands were shaking. My thoughts scattered. The peace of waking up with Zelda beside me twined in my heart with that terrible day of the robbery. Her vibrant life and warmth a sharp and unforgiving contrast to the memory of watching a man die.
I tucked the letter in an envelope, and wrote Mrs. J’s name on it. Then I grabbed my phone and shot Roy a text.
I’m not working today. Good time to have our monthly sit-down, if convenient for you.
The reply came a few moments later. Works for me. Ten o’clock good?
Fine. CU then.
I set the phone down and toyed with the letter. A crazy, desperate need to get it into Mrs. J’s hands as fast as possible was making my skin itch.
Zelda stirred, sat up, her eyes going to the envelope in my hand.
“Some early morning correspondence?” she asked with a smile. “Need a stamp?”
“Yeah.” I turned the letter over and over in my hand. “It’s for…Never mind. Listen, I don’t want to sound like a dick, but I asked Roy if he can come over today for our monthly meeting. I’m not going to work, so I figured it would be a good time.”
Zelda smiled a perplexed smile. “Okay. Why does that make you a dick?”
“Because I don’t want you here when he shows up.” She flinched a little. I knew she would. “I’m sorry,” I said, running a hand through my hair. “It’s just fucking humiliating enough as it is.”
Zelda moved to the edge of my bed. “What is? That you meet with Roy? It’s not—”
“Yes it is, Zelda. It’s embarrassing I have a fucking parole officer who will dig around my place—our place—searching for contraband items and asking personal fucking questions about my life.”
Zelda moved off the bed, hugging her elbows. “I already knew that about you, Beckett,” she said, her voice dancing on the edge of hurt and hardness. “This isn’t a big newsflash to me. I know and I…” She shrugged, struggled to meet my eye. “And I don’t care.”
Oh Christ, she was too beautiful. I don’t think she’d ever looked more beautiful, having just climbed out of my bed, telling me in a soft voice that she could look beyond what I was.
Because she can’t see what I see when I look backward.
The anger and frustration drained out of me, leaving me with nothing but that sick feeling of regret. “I do,” I said in a low voice. “I care. And I don’t want you to see it.”
She held my eye a moment more, then gave her head a shake. “It’s not an issue, anyway,” she said. “I’m at Annabelle’s all day until two, at least.” She grabbed her work clothes in a pile and headed for the bathroom. “Going to shower. Tell the coffee fairy to get going, would you?”
The false levity in her voice was almost worse than if she’d cursed me out.
After coffee and some painfully stilted talk, Zelda left for work and I limped a nervous circuit around the apartment until Roy arrived. Before he’d even finished saying good morning, I flapped the letter in the air between us.
“Tell me the truth,” I said. “Do you give these to her?”
Roy’s surprised expression melted down to a sad smile. “Yes, I do. Every one.”
“But you mail them, right? You don’t put them in her hand?”
“I mail them.”
I nodded, continued my limp-pacing. I had my pant leg rolled up to my knee to keep it off the wound.
“My God, Beckett, what happened?”
I ignored that, my thoughts were speeding along their own train. “So you have no idea if she reads them? You mail them off and that’s it. She could be throwing them out, every month, right?”
“Well, I…”
“She probably does. She probably sees who they’re from and files them right in the circular bin, right?”
“You don’t know that.”
“What I don’t know is why I even fucking bother.” I limped to the trashcan in the kitchen and tossed the letter in it. Roy stared at me as I moved to sit on the couch. “Go ahead,” I said. “Start your search. Let’s get this over with.”
Roy was silent for a moment, then sat on the chair next to me. He set his clipboard on the table.
“Tell me what happened,” he said.
“Asshole turned in front of me. I skidded out. I’m fine.”
He leaned over his knees, inspecting my leg. “It looks clean.”
“Zelda took care of it.”
Roy caught my eye and I tried to turn away. My chest tightened and I crossed my arms over it, swallowed the jagged lump in my throat but it wouldn’t go down.
“I’m a fucking idiot,” I said, my voice a croak. “I never should have let her stay. I knew that from the second she asked. No, from before that. When I first met her. I knew it would be a mistake.”
“Why a mistake?” Roy asked gently. “Did something happen?”
“No,” I said. “And nothing will, because I’m fucking trapped by a stupid fucking decision I made three years ago.”
“You’re not—”
“No?” I snapped at Roy. The anger was boiling out of me and I was going to explode if I didn’t direct it somewhere else. “I need to go to Philadelphia, Roy,” I said with sarcasm dripping form every word. “I’m putting in my request to go out of state from the twenty-fourth to the twenty-sixth. Maybe longer. Sound good? Can you sign off on that?”
Roy’s lips pressed into a thin line. “You need a thirty-day advance—”
“Yeah, I know. Thirty days’ advance notice for an out-of-state travel request. But life doesn’t work like that. Zelda needs me now, not in thirty days. So tell me again how I’m not fucking trapped.”
Roy didn’t deserve this tirade. It wasn’t his fault I’d fucked up my life. But I didn’t have the will to acknowledge that just then. Instead I sat like a stone, unmovable and seething.
Roy tucked his clipboard under his arm, quietly got up, went to the trashcan in the kitchen and pulled out my letter. He dusted off a few damp coffee grounds that had stained one corner, and tucked it into his jacket. At the front door, he stopped.
“I can’t get you to Philly tomorrow, and as your parole officer, I strongly urge you not to do anything that would jeopardize your standing with the DOC.” His expression softened. “But the invitation is still open if you want to spend Christmas with Mary and me. Both you and Zelda are welcome.”
My hands clenched into fists so they wouldn’t reach for him, so I wouldn’t break down like a goddamn baby. He went out and I realized he hadn’t read the letter to Mrs. J in front of me.
So what? He’ll read it before he mails it. A waste of fucking postage, anyway.
I sat for a long while, letting my emotions drain out of me. I felt like shit for treating Roy like that. I’d text him an apology later. Right now I wallowed, feeling more scraped, raw and stinging than my leg. My eyes landed on a cluster of orange, red and yellow flowers on the desk. A houseplant I hadn’t even noticed until then.
I hobbled over to the desk and sat at the chair, staring at the riot of color against the city’s winter gray. Zelda had brought the plant in. And the Christmas lights. And the rug. Filling this crappy apartment with color and light.
My gaze fell to her work. A drawing of Ryder, bursting from the space-time ether to stop Kira from killing.
I blinked. “Ryder,” I said.
Ryder.
Rider.
I looked at the speech bubble above Ryder’s head. There is another way.
I’d made a silent promise to Zelda: to help her find a better way to carry the incredible pain of losing her sister. I couldn’t go to Philadelphia with her…
…to keep her safe…
But maybe I could do something for her anyway. I had to try. I had no Butterfly Project to send me back in time. I’d be trapped in New York for two more years.
Still, maybe there was another way.