Juliana Stone - Boys Like You

“Actually, I’ve got to go,” Monroe said softly.

My gaze swung from Trevor’s dad back to Monroe. “What? No.”

Dammit. I couldn’t do this without her.

I reached for her but she ducked away, shaking her head, her soft eyes wide, their paleness shimmering beneath the harsh lights overhead.

“This isn’t the place for me. Not right now.” She hunched her shoulders. “Go. See your friend. Be with Trevor.”

But I was shaking my head, suddenly so terrified my legs nearly buckled.

“You need to do this, Nathan, and when it’s done, whatever happens, I’ll be here for you.”

I reached for her and she came, sliding her arms around my waist so that I could hold her for as long as she would let me.

It was enough. Touching her was enough.

In that moment, I felt like I could do anything.

I brushed my lips against her forehead and leaned close to her ear. “I love you.”

Her hands clasped mine. “Ditto.”

And then she was gone.

“She’s special, that one,” Mike said softly.

I nodded and turned, making no effort to hide the pain and remorse and anything else that was inside me.

“Mr. Lewis,” I said, but he interrupted me.

“It’s Mike. It’s always been Mike.”

I had to clear my throat several times before I could speak again. I felt tears pricking the corners of my eyes, and it took everything inside me to keep them away. In the end, it didn’t matter, and I scrubbed at my eyes and exhaled loudly.

I couldn’t remember a time when my body wasn’t tight. Couldn’t remember a time when there wasn’t pain. Sure, I knew it was back there—back before that night—but as I stood in front of Trevor’s dad, I thought that I would never remember what it was like before then, no matter how hard I tried.

“How is he?” I asked carefully, forcing the words out one at a time.

I held my breath, afraid I’d been too late and that my worst nightmare was about to become a reality.

Mike clasped me on the shoulders but I still couldn’t look up at him. I was too afraid. Too much of a coward. I felt his forgiveness. Felt it wrap around me like a spider’s web, and yet…

I still couldn’t shake the feeling that I didn’t deserve it and I wasn’t strong enough to face this reality if Trevor wasn’t going to be in it.

So I stared at my muddied boots and prayed like I’ve never prayed before.

“He’s still with us.”

The air whooshed out of me so quickly that if Mike’s hands hadn’t have been on me, I would have fallen on my ass.

“I brought his guitar, you know. Thought maybe music would help him fight this infection. Maybe music would bring him back, but…” He sucked in a breath and paused.

Slowly I looked up. “But?”

A sad smile touched his mouth. “I suck, remember? I only know a couple of chords, and G and C don’t really cut it.”

His smile widened and then he laughed. He laughed so hard that his body shook and his fingers dug into my shoulders painfully. I wasn’t sure if he was going crazy or if he was just so tired he didn’t know what he was doing.

He stopped abruptly and squared his shoulders. “I’m sorry, for the way I was after the accident. It was wrong to put all the blame on you and I…I have no excuse other than I was in a goddamn black hole and I needed someone to hit. It was you.” He cleared his throat. “There was only you.”

“It’s okay,” I said quietly.

And it was.

“Would you play for him? I mean, I think it might help. Maybe spark something inside him.”

I couldn’t answer. There was no way I was getting any words out. But I nodded. I nodded like a goddamn bobble head and followed Mike Lewis back down the hall.

Monroe

I was dreaming about Malcolm. It was summer. Hot and humid with air so thick you could practically see it.

It was the kind of day when the pavement burned right through your sandals. The kind of day you’d spend hours running through the sprinklers at the water park. It was the kind of day when everything is slow and lethargic.

It was the kind of day when bad things happened.

I’d had this dream before, and it always ended the same. I lost Malcolm, there in the shadows, the deep ones that the sun didn’t seem able to find.

I lost him, and usually I heard him crying for me. For Mom. For Dad.

The sound drove me insane, but this time…this time there was no crying. For a while, there was nothing—I knew he was gone but there was just nothing.

Then I heard his laughter riding the air like bubbles falling over a waterfall. They were light, dancing in the air. Clear, round sparkles that filled my chest until I couldn’t breathe.

“Malcolm,” I whispered, afraid that the sound would go away. God, I didn’t ever want it to go away.

But it did.

His giggles faded until I couldn’t hear them anymore, and no matter how much I tried to find them…to find that slice of time where he existed, I lost him.

I lost him in the sunlight and the water and the endless heat.

I woke abruptly and lay in my bed for a good ten minutes, just remembering how he sounded. How he smelled. How he felt.

My skin was drenched in sweat, and I was still in the clothes I’d worn the day before. My hair looked like it hadn’t been combed for days, and I groaned. Ugh. I needed a shower.

Sunlight poured into my room, and the clock on the dresser across from me told me that it was nearly noon. I grabbed my cell but there were no messages from Nathan. I guess that was a good thing. In this case, no news was good news.

The hot water felt like heaven, but the restlessness in me had me showering as if I was running a race, and less than ten minutes later, I was trudging down the stairs, wet hair leaving streaks down my green sundress as I took them two at a time.

Eager to get back to the hospital and Nathan, I rounded the bottom step but froze when I heard voices from Gram’s kitchen.

For a second, I wanted to run back upstairs and turn back the clock, because I knew that, for me, summer was almost over.

And that meant no more Nathan.

Pain twisted inside my chest at the thought of what Labor Day weekend meant, but I forced myself to take those steps until I leaned against the doorframe and watched Gram chatting with my mother.

Instead of her usual business clothes—Mom was a lawyer in Manhattan—she was dressed in a simple white T-shirt and a pair of blue-and-white plaid shorts. Her golden hair, normally kept in a sleek, straight cut to her jaw, touched the tops of her shoulders. She’d left it natural, and the waves looked incredible on her.

She was still too skinny, but it was nice to see her looking relaxed. Kind of normal. I suppose it was all we could hope for.

Kind of normal.

Dad leaned against the counter by the sink, watching his mother—Gram—as she talked up Mom. He was casual too, wearing an old pair of jeans and a Rolling Stones T-shirt. There was a lot more gray in his hair, and he had lost weight as well, but he looked good.

They both looked good, all things considered.

Just then, my dad glanced up and my heart turned over as he stared at me in silence, Gram and Mom still talked softly, unaware that I was there.

In that moment, I saw the love, the pain, the anguish, and the question…was I better?

Was I?

Were they?

For so long, he’d acted as if our small, battered family had already moved on. As if the tragedy that had happened to Malcolm had been dealt with—wrapped up in an ugly box and put into storage. It used to piss me off so much. How could he not wallow in the pain? Pain is what made us remember.

But I think I kind of got it now. It was how he’d been trying to deal with the fact that his son was gone, and even though his daughter was still around, she’d pretty much taken a vacation. I had been nothing after Malcolm died.

Just skin over a bunch of bones with no heart and no soul.

I’d been so wrapped up in my own pain that I hadn’t once considered my parents didn’t know how to deal with theirs.

I’d thought that Dad’s apathy and Mom’s need to overcompensate in everything was their way of dealing with me. But it wasn’t. God, it wasn’t at all. It was them falling away and trying to deal with their own pain.

The thing was?

We were still here. My mom. My dad. My gram.

Me.

I was still here.

I thought of the dream I’d had less than an hour ago, and I realized something. Even though Malcolm was dead, he wasn’t gone. Not really.

He existed inside each and every one of us, in that one place where he’d never left. That one piece of my soul that hadn’t faded to black like the rest of me.

Malcolm had never really left us; it was me who had gone away. Me who had crawled deep inside myself because I wasn’t strong enough to deal with everything. But Malcolm? He was still here with us.

I saw his hazel eyes reflected in my dad’s. I saw his gentle, curious smile appear on my mom’s face as she nodded at something Gram was saying.

Malcolm would always be here.

My feet started moving before I even knew what I was going to do and I didn’t stop until his arms encircled me. Until I was breathing in that scent that was all Dad—part soap and musky cologne and just…just Dad.

When was the last time I’d let him touch me? The last time I’d given him a hug or a kiss? I couldn’t remember, and I thought that, that alone was tragic. He used to be my king, back when I was little, and when had all of that fallen away?