LIZ
I feel the burning wetness of my tears before I feel the bed shift beneath me, before I feel her arms around me.
I scream.
I cry.
It’s my fault.
“LIZ, WAKE UP, BABY!” my mother says.
She rocks me.
“No! No! No!” I repeat, as I lose control of my breathing.
“Please… I’m sorry!” I cry.
“BABY. IT’S OKAY. YOU’RE OKAY!” she repeats my mantra.
She rocks.
“Just breathe, Liz. BREATHE.”
I can’t breathe.
I curl into her and cry. I cry until my eyes are too swollen to open. Mom cries with me.
“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay,” she repeats holding me tightly.
“It isn’t okay. It will never be okay,” my voice cracks, “if I would have just listened... she—”
“No,” she says sternly.
“You can’t keep blaming yourself for this. A very bad thing happened and that’s it. You had absolutely no control over it!”
“We don’t always understand why things happen the way they do, but you can’t live on ‘what if’s’, Liz.”
“IF I WOULD HAVE LISTENED TO HER IN THE FIRST PLACE WE WOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN THERE! IF I WOULD HAVE NEVER CHOSE GRAYSON…” My words are swallowed again, drowned in my pain.
“Grayson?” she sniffs. “GRAYSON?” she says, louder.
I nod, overcome by tears, unable to speak.
“No, baby, you’ve got it all wrong. It was never about Grayson. Yes, he was misguided, irresponsible, and his actions hurt a lot of people, but we have known him and his family all our lives. He’s not a bad person. It was just a horrible thing that happened, Liz. A HORRIBLE THING,” she breathes and clears her face of tears.
“Della didn’t want you to be with Grayson because of you, not him. She knew that you would never grow and become the amazing person you have become with him. You wanted so badly to fix his problems that you put your entire life on hold, but that was a testament to how amazing you are. It had nothing to do with him. She just wanted you to be with a guy that allowed you to be the best you, that’s all.”
We cry.
She wipes my tears and dries her own.
“You can’t keep carrying this around with you baby. If this is why you…” she clears her throat and sterns her expression, holding my gaze. “If this is why you walked away from your ‘this guy’ then you need to think long and hard about your reasons. If the only reason is Della, then you are making a mistake, because she always wanted you to be happy.”
She continues to hold me while I pour out my soul, my confusion, and make my apologizes in tears until eventually we drift off to sleep.
The next morning, I awake alone. The place where my mother slept is still warm, so she couldn’t have gone far. I feel weak and tired, but surprisingly a little less heavy. It could be that I’ve possibly lost twenty pounds of water weight in tears, but there’s also a sense of completeness. Like this is the end of something, closure perhaps. I have felt so much guilt over my feelings for Chris and that I’ve done nothing to stop them. Up until now I thought it was guilt because my heart was betraying Sean, but it really was never about Sean. I’m so damn thick headed. I did love Sean, I know I did, a large part of me still does, but maybe it really was more about Della. I always pressured myself to be perfect for him, proper, everything he wanted me to be. I defined myself by him but really, I did it because I thought Della would be proud, and I owe her everything. If Mom is right, then the true injustice being made to my sister’s memory is not following my heart.
I hear my mother’s car start in the garage seconds before the screeching muffle of the garage door opening catches my ear. A sudden burst of adrenaline sets in and I sit forward immediately grabbing my phone from the night stand.
ME: Chris. I’m sorry. Can we talk?
I hit send.
My suitcase lies on the floor opened next to my bed, I reach inside grab some clothes and head toward my bathroom. I pray he doesn’t hate me. I can’t believe it’s taken me two weeks so come to my senses. On the bathroom mirror I notice a small yellow sticky note and I can’t help the immediate smile that reaches my lips. After Della and I started high school, my mother started working a little earlier which meant most days she’d be gone by the time we left for school. She use to leave Della and I notes just like this. We never knew what type of note she’d leave so it was something we both always looked forward to. The notes could range from things like “A smile makes any day better.” “Remember to breathe, it’s just a test” or even “Yeah, you’re still grounded so don’t even think about it.”
This morning her note says, “Go make it right.”
After my shower I attempt to call Chris. I was sure to keep my ringer on the loudest possible setting, waiting for him to respond to my text, but he hasn’t. I pace the floor as I listen to the phone ring and eventually go to voicemail. He’s not answering me and my heart sinks further. Letting out a frustrated huff, I hit end before the voicemail begins recording.
Okay, Liz, think.
I sigh, flopping down on my bed.
Fuck it. If he doesn’t want to answer his phone, I’ll just go to him. It’s Friday, he goes to the house to hang out with the guys on Fridays and if he isn’t there then I’ll figure something out when I get there. I know one of the guys has to have his address at the duplex.
I take a head clearing breath and call Tank for a ride.
Tank pulls up to my parents’ house an hour later, allowing me enough time to do my makeup, pace the floor, talk myself out of acting like a crazy stalker, talk myself back in to acting like a crazy stalker, and pace some more.
“Hey,” Tank says.
“Wow. Don’t you look like hell, is everything okay?” I ask, noticing the light that’s usually so present in his eyes gone.
“Yeah. Just a shit day, Zee,” he says, blowing out a long breath.
“What’s going on?” I click my seatbelt.
“Well, you ever have a moment where you have to make a big ass decision, but you’re stuck?”
“Yeah, but why are you stuck?”
His brows knit and he huffs, “Okay, let me put it this way. I really want chocolate ice cream, but I love vanilla too. Vanilla is amazing and if I only could have vanilla that’s okay, but I want that chocolate so fucking bad.”
“So just get chocolate.”
“The problem is, if I get chocolate, I could lose both options.” He takes his eyes from mine and sighs.
“If I were you, I would choose the one that you would regret more for not choosing.” I smile.
His eyebrows crease as he considers my words then he starts the car and backs out of the driveway.
“So where am I taking you? Home?”
“No, I need to see Chris.”
“Chris?”
“Yes. I’ve made my own big ass decision.”
Tank grins. “Okay.”
I punch the address to Chris’ house into his GPS.
“This sounds big, Zee. So, no more dumbass?”
“Not after today.” I smile, feeling confident in my decision. “I haven’t heard from him since he freaked out anyway.”
“Freaked out?”
“Yeah. Some crap about trying to tell me something.”
“Hold up. So he never told you?!”
“No.”
The tires screech, and my body weight shifts forward as Tank stops the car suddenly.
“Fuck that! He doesn’t get off so easily.”
“What?!”
“All this time I thought you knew. I thought that was why you haven’t been talking about Sean as much. I assumed you didn’t bring it up because you didn’t want to talk about it, not because you didn’t know.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?!”
“He needs to be the one that tells you, Zee. The stupid fuck! He’s bought his time, but this shit ends now!”
“Tank,” I huff, “he’s probably gone to work already. Wait, what do you mean it ends now? What in the hell is going on?”
Without another word, Tank sets his jaw and turns the car in the direction of Sean’s house.
Fuck. I really don’t want to do this now. My cell vibrates, and I pull it from my pocket.
ROS: In the Uber, on the way.
Shit, I forgot about Ros.
ME: Meet me at Sean’s
Ten minutes later, we pull up to Sean’s house. Sean’s car is parked in its usual spot. Tank is out of the car and to the door before I can even get my seatbelt off.
“OPEN THE DOOR YOU STUPID FUCK!” he shouts as he bangs against the door.
“Tank, seriously, it doesn’t matter,” I say as I fumble my way out of the car.
“NO, Zee! You need to hear this,” he says then turns back to the house. “Fucking pussy! OPEN THE DOOR!”
Sean opens the door with wide eyes, a half-buttoned shirt and a loose tie.
“What the fuck?!” he says.
In a blink, Tank is inches from Sean face as he pushes into the house, causing Sean to walk backward.
“You better tell her the truth right now or I swear to FUCK, with the week I’ve had you’re going to—”
“Okay, calm down!” I say, pushing my way between them.
Sean stares at Tank hard. I’ve never seen Tank so angry, and I’m starting to get worried. Sean’s nerve begins to break, as his eyes move from me to Tank. I swallow hard.
Tank continues to stare daggers at Sean, then he turns and enters the kitchen, giving us privacy.
I’m frozen in place. Sean is centering himself with deep breathes. What in the FUCK is going on?
“I’m so sorry, Liz,” he says, walking toward me.
“Sorry for what?”
His eyes cut to the doorway Tank disappeared through, and then back to me.
“I—I didn’t know the whole time. I swear. When I finally put all the pieces together…” he sighs. “I’m so sorry.”
“What?! What are you talking about?”
“I knew Grayson.” He drops his gaze. “I was the reason he was at the party.”
My eyes, my heart, something is bugging out and I swear I can hear the blood rushing through my body.
He shifts uncomfortably.
“How—how could you have known him?” My voice sounds small.
“I was his manager at F.R. Sales Corp. He was such a cocky little bastard and we did not get along, but Grayson was great in sales. He caught on quickly and began outperforming the other members of the team. After six months, he was carrying our department. His numbers were astronomical. My bosses started talking about promoting him after he reached his one year mark with us, but they wouldn’t tell me which position. It was my first management position, and I started to panic. There was nowhere for him to go but above me or take my position.”
He stops speaking when Tank reenters the room with wide eyes.
My eyes drag from Tank to Sean, and I begin to feel sick.
“The company had a huge no drug and alcohol policy. I swear. I only wanted to get him fired. I didn’t know it would happen the way it did, Liz.”
Tears well up in my eyes.
“What did you do?!” I choke.
He sighs, “There was a girl who worked in the mailroom named Kelly who I’ve known since childhood. She and Grayson would flirt sometimes at work, but I knew Kelly had a problem with taking pills, ecstasy. I told her that if she got him to go out and get shit faced the night before a ‘random’ urine test that I’d get her out of the mailroom. She agreed. They started hanging out more and…”
Bam!
That’s all he was able to say before Tank hit him.
Bam!
Tank punches Sean again as blood pours from his nose.
“You ruined his life… got Della killed over fucking a job!”
Bam! Sean flails backward, falling into his couch.
“I DIDN’T MAKE HIM DO ANYTHING!” he yells, holding his nose. “IT WAS HIS CHOICE!”
Tank hits him again.
Sean tries to defend himself, but he’s powerless against Tanks rage.
My heart hammers in my chest as I search for words. I need to stop Tank but at the same time, I don’t want to. I’m sinking… freefalling and I can’t move.
Sean falls to the floor clutching his stomach as Tank crouches to one knee and punches him again.
“HE WAS MY BEST FRIEND, YOU FUCKING…”
BAM!
When Sean yells out again it startles me out of my trance.
“TANK, STOP!” I yell through tears. “You’ll kill him!”
I hate him. Sean was right, I fucking hate him.
Tank continues to hit Sean, who is barely able to defend himself.
“TANK!” I yell, and he finally stops and looks at me with so much pain that I think he may cry. Tank stands and walks out the front door.
Sean clutches his ribs as he sits forward and spits blood.
“YOU ARE THE WORST TYPE OF PERSON!” I yell, shaking my head and trying to make the words come.
“HOW COULD YOU BE SO GRIMY… SO SPITEFUL?!”
“I’m sorry,” he says, weakly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I cry.
“You let me blame myself for our breakup for months. All the while the real reason was you were just too pussy, TOO SPINELESS, to tell me the truth?!”
“Liz… you didn’t tell me much right away. You didn’t even say Della’s name until we were together over a month. You were just so wrecked about it at first that…”
He sighs, “I didn’t want to hurt you. I was thinking about you, I didn’t want you to become depressed again.”
“NO! YOU WERE THINKING ABOUT YOU!” I yell.
“If you were thinking about ME, you would have told me the truth, you wouldn’t have hid behind lies and deceit to cover your own ass. You really are a fucking pussy and you were right, I do hate you!”
“Liz, I’m sorry,” he says, reaching out to me.
Fire burns my eyes as I crouch down to his eye level. He swallows hard and sets his jaw.
“From this moment on you are nothing to me, I will never think of you again. I hope you have nightmares of what you caused that plague you the rest of your miserable fucking life. Remember my face Sean because this is the last time you’ll ever see it,” I say, venom dripping from my lips. I stand and push my way out of the house.
My hands land on the hood of Tanks car as try hard to breathe. Tank appears behind me, “I’m sorry Zee. I thought you deserved to hear it from him.”
“I had only found out he knew Grayson, I didn’t know the rest.”
Without looking up I ask.
“Tank, how did you find out?”
“I went to visit Grayson right after school started. He asked about you, your family. I told him you had been dating a decent guy, Sean Thomas, and seemed happy. He asked more about Sean, so I told him what I knew. He seemed convinced he knew him, and at first, I thought he was crazy. Sean Thomas is a pretty common name, but Grayson made me promise to find out. I messaged Sean on Facebook and he admitted to knowing Grayson and told me he was trying to find a way to tell you. A few weeks later, he ended things with you and I started threatening him. I told him I’d beat him blind if he didn’t do the right thing. He asked for more time and he started coming around more. I’m so sorry Zee. I thought he owed you the respect to tell you himself, especially after the way he ended things…but maybe I should have told you. I don’t know.”
I shake my head.
“No, thank you. I mean, it sucks you knew this whole time, but I can understand why you did it.”
Tank pulls me to him and I hug him tightly.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what that miserable piece of shit did,” he says.
“Yeah,” I sniff and wipe a tear away.
The sound of a car grabs our attention and we both look up.
“Ros,” I sigh. I had forgotten I texted her.
Ros’ car door slams and her heels knock against the asphalt as she approaches. Tank pulls in a deep breath and meets her gaze. She doesn’t come right up to us; she stops short a few feet away. My brow creases as I begin to register the look on her face. Her eyes are glassy, as she bites at her bottom lip holding back tears.
Right as I’m about to ask what’s wrong, I’m nearly knocked over as Tank rushes away from me.
“Fuck it,” he says as he grabs her and crashes his mouth to hers.