Vibrations

Always under my feet. Always itching to hang out with me...

Then, one day, it finally hit me. I had a little sister...

For the first time in my life, I wasn't alone. I found myself starting to love her and Adrianna and I grew closer and closer. It wasn't easy, not with eight years' difference in age, but just being there with her. Being a part of her life. Helping to raise her. Teaching her things. Watching her grow, and learn, and take on some of my mannerism, some of my dad's mannerisms made me start to really like her.

I was patient as she followed me around like a puppy dog. Unlike most kids, I just one day stopped minding. It always filled me with wonder to see how happy she was, how filled with curiosity.

Leaving Adrianna was one of the toughest parts of leaving home. She was my little sister... and I loved her and missed her every day.

I thought of my dad.

That made me think of the disapproval on his face each time he looked at me.

I thought back to how it wasn't always that way. I felt like he loved me, or at least like he had loved me once. Like he at least liked me at some point. Growing up I felt like he cared about me, but he desperately didn't want to have to take care of me. I think in his mind he was just terrified of the responsibility of being completely responsible of this little moldable human being, and how much damage he could to by fucking up...

I never really held it against him. Hell, the more I thought about it, the more terrified I was of having my own children and having to worry about how badly I would fuck them up...

Most of my dad's attitude got better once Deb came around. She took care of most of my needs and my dad only really stepped in when he absolutely had to. He never really actively ignored me, he was always involved in my life, and it was obvious with the interest he had in me that he cared, and that he loved me, but the day to day responsibilities he faced were greatly reduced... Deb took care of Jakey issues, or at least she did for the most part. It was an arrangement that everyone seemed happy with. Dad got to worry less about messing up his kid, Jake got to have a mom in his life that was constantly hovering nearby when he needed her, and Deb got to be the thing she was always best in the world at, being a mother.

Things got worse between me and my dad as I got more and more rebellious as I got older. We threw sparks off of each other continuously. As I got closer and closer to graduating high school things got better, and we finally started to see eye to eye more often, even, I felt, finally started to get along. Really finally started to see eye to eye. He was thrilled when I told him I wanted to be a lawyer...

He was even happier when I got into a good school...

I thought we were in a good place. I thought we understood each other...

About a year after I left things turned really sour.

That old disapproval came back, stronger than ever. Now, well now, he barely spoke to me...

He never really told me why. I had wondered, but the truth was, I was just so used to being a disappointment I could never work up the energy or caring that would be needed to ask him. I'm sure he had his reasons, and I had decided, I didn't really care to hear them. Didn't really care to learn what there was about me that he saw that had led him to cut me out of his life...

I had about half an hour left on the drive when my phone rang, interrupting my musings.

Dread poured through me as I looked at it on the seat next to me...

Casey's picture was lit up on the display...

At least it isn't dad... I reminded myself. If she had died... I think dad would have at least called me then...

I picked up the phone. My heart turning cold. "Jake here."

Casey's voice was somber, "It's okay Jake. She woke up. She's still in the hospital, still in the ICU, but she woke up. The doctor's think she's going to be okay. At least for now."

I tried to slow my breathing. "What does that mean? For now?"

She stayed quiet for too long...

"They think she has a tumor, or at least some kind of growth in her throat. Something cut off her breathing, but just for a little while. She's going to be okay for right now. They'll know more in the morning."

Tumor. Cancer. Mom...

The thoughts wouldn't untangle themselves in my mind.

I thought back to my birth mother, Vanessa... her light had been cut off by breast cancer... and now Deb...

Back to your responsibilities. Your family needs you right now. Focus on that. Dad is going to be a mess, Mom's in the hospital. Audrey needs you right now. Focus on that. The thought smashed into me.

"Where's my sister?" I asked, my voice a little too harsh...

"She's here with me. She's worried out of her mind." Casey answered.

Anger flashed through my mind at that. Dad should have come and got her, or manned up and asked for help in bringing her to him and mom, from Casey. Adrianna should be with her mother right now. She was just a kid. She needed her mom. It wasn't right for dad to have kept her away... if Deb had died he would have robbed her of the right to say goodbye to her mother...

I decided then and there he and I were going to have a talk about that. A rather terse one...

Stop. Getting angry isn't going to help anyone. Stay focused on what is important. I reminded myself

I sighed...

Casey's voice was subdued, "Are you going straight to the hospital when you get to town?"

I shook my head, even though she couldn't see it. "No. If you don't mind, I'm going to come get Audrey. She needs to be with her mom right now, or at least be able to see her. Would that be alright?"

Casey chuckled and for just a moment, I thought of her... her shock of red hair. Her pixie nose. Her quick laugh, and quicker smile.

Hell, it made me smile just thinking about it.

"I'd love to see you Jakey... you are always welcome here."

I sighed, my eyes drifting half closed, dangerous on the road, I knew, but I couldn't help it. I had finally found some hope. It was like I had found I was holding my breath and not even realizing it... like I finally got a breath of air after being trapped under water...

"I'll see you soon." She continued.

I knew she was going to hang up, so I talked fast... "Casey... hold up." Again, my mind spun, looking for the right thing to say, the right thing to do. Casey had always done that to me... she had always confused me, like I couldn't even think when I was with her, when I was talking to her...

"Look, kiddo." I shook my head, amazed at how lucky I was to have a friend like her. "Thank you for today. I don't know what we'd have done without you. Thank you for that."

She chuckled, and in my mind I could see her beautiful face. Could see her easy smile...

"Come home soon Jakey..."

Again, I nodded, feeling better, "I'll see you soon. I'm about half an hour out. Okay?"

"Yeah..."

We broke off the conversation.

I put the phone back on the seat and thought about my friend...

I had met Casey when I was eleven years old, right before Deb and her husband had moved in next door. My dad and I had just moved from a tiny one bedroom house and into the trailer he had bought. My mom's death was expensive, and the weight of all of that had fallen squarely on my dad's shoulders. Instantly, we had to downgrade from a proper family home to some shitty little hovel in the shittiest part of town. Looking back, and knowing the kind of proud man my dad was, I realized that must have been an amazingly difficult choice for him to have had to make...

Being eleven, I wasn't thrilled about the move. I had to change schools, had to move away from my friends, and at the time I was pissed about it. Adding the benefit of hindsight, I could see now my dad had made the right choice. We both needed some space, we both needed our own bedroom, our own private places. Our old place didn't allow that. The new one did.

I was an awkward kid. I had very few friends and the type of personality that made it very difficult for me to make new ones. Moving into a rundown trailer park in the better part of town didn't make things easier...

I was instantly a pariah. My awkward personality made it even more difficult. Add to that the fact that I was still, most likely, and quietly, trying to get over the loss of my mom...

And then I met Casey. Beautiful, amazing, funny, lovely Casey...

I knew that normally hanging out with a girl a year younger than me would be considered weird, but at the time I was so lonely and so in need of a friend that I didn't care, or at least, at the time, I made myself not care.

I thought back to the day I had met her...

Our trailer park had a little playground on it. One day I was sitting there on one of the swings and feeling sorry for myself when Casey came up to me. She was smaller than me, and painfully shy. She just walked in through the gate and came over and sat down on the swing furthest from me. She didn't say anything to me, I didn't say anything to her. I caught her looking at me occasionally, wary of me as a bigger kid, obviously worried that I might chase her off just for the sin of being smaller and more vulnerable. For having the audacity of daring to use one of my swings!

The truth of the matter was, I was just as intimidated of her as she was of me...

She was an instant mystery to me. Other kids in general confused me, but girls in particular really confused the shit of me. They were so soft. So delicate. So full of this weird energy that I never could define...

So, I kept my distance.

Each day, we would meet there after school and we would give each other space and we would both play quietly.

I guess, after about a week Casey decided that I was trustable, that I was no longer a danger.

I guess that was a good thing, because I would have never worked up the courage to ever walk up to her, would have never introduced myself to her, would have never found the best friend I had ever found in my entire life...

She walked up to me, smiling at me shyly, "Hello. I'm Casey." She said, holding her hand out to me.

I can still remember staring at her pale, freckled hand, looking at it like it was a snake, out to bite me...

I took her hand, "Jake."

She smiled again, this time happier, prouder that she had made the first move. "Do you want to be friends? There aren't a lot of other kids around here... and the ones that are around are mean."

I felt myself begin to light up... I needed a friend, girl or not, weird or not...

"Sure." I had told her.

"I like you. You're nice to me." She told me, a quiet confidence in her voice.

I wasn't sure how nice to her I had been. Really, all I had ever done was simply not try to bully her... I guess sometimes the only thing you need to do to be nice, was to not be an asshole.

From that day on we were inseparable. I picked her up from her house every morning and we walked to school together. We met up and walked home together. We hung out after school at her place, and at my place on the weekends. It was a little weird to have a friend that was a girl, and even weirder to have one that was a year younger than me, but we made it work.

We both loved video games, and we'd spend hours sitting in front of the television, or at least every minute we could until one of our parents chased us outside to play...

We grew up together. We both made other friends as we got older, but we never lost sight of the fact that there was a time in our life when all we had was each other. We never walked away and we always found a way to make our friendship work, no matter how awkward it got for either of us...

I graduated a year ahead of her. I went off to college, and she stayed behind. There was a part of me that knew separating from her was inevitable. Knowing that didn't make it any less hard...

There was a part of me that missed her so much those first few months of school, I considered quitting and going home. Giving up the dream of becoming a lawyer and heading back to our small-town college, just so I could be close to her. So, I could see her smiling face when we talked...

Then she got pregnant, and things changed...

It happened the summer between her Junior and Senior years of high school, not too long after I had left. She kept it from me for the first four months she was pregnant. I could tell, talking to her she was ashamed of herself...

That year was hell for her. There was a girl my Senior year of high school that got pregnant. She had a steady boyfriend and he was in school with her and still it was a brutal experience for her. I could only imagine what it had been like for Casey. She got pregnant from some random guy at some random party, which surprised the fuck out of me, as it was completely out of her character to just have a random one night stand...

It was something she didn't like to talk about and the more I pressed her for the details the more evasive she got.

I left it be, and just tried to support her the best I knew how. She pulled away from me. We talked less and less. I watched as she isolated herself. I felt so helpless then. I blamed myself for not being around. I knew that had I been there, that random hook up would have never happened.

Had I been a good friend and watched out for her she would have never gotten pregnant in the first place, and now, I couldn't even be there to support her while she went through the hell of having everyone look down on her because she got pregnant at seventeen...

For a while, I gave her space. A part of me hoped she'd find a way to make things work with whoever got her pregnant. I had hoped she was lying to me about it being a random hook up and that she was really involved with someone and just hiding the fact from me. I figured it was someone she was ashamed about. I figured me being around constantly would be a distraction. Maybe the guy felt threatened. Maybe she was too focused on our friendship to make her relationship work...

She said little, and I gave her space to try to put her life straight.

That ended with a call from my mom...

Deb called me up one day and asked how long it had been since I had talked with Casey.

I told her it had been a few weeks, and desperately hoped that Deb had news about her. Casey, even pregnant, supposedly irresponsible Casey, watched my sister Audrey, and I knew that Deb got to talk to her even when I didn't...

I dared to ask how she was doing...

I still remember that conversation....

"Not good..." Deb told me, her voice filled with anguish.

I sat, the line filled with silence between us. "Mom, I don't know what to do..." I finally confessed.

"What do you mean?"

I took a deep breath. "I just feel so helpless. I see her spiraling down and feel like I'm losing my friend. I want to be there for her, I want her to know I'm there for her, but every time I reach out to her, she pulls away... I try to talk to her about what she's doing, what she's experiencing, how she's dealing with the dad, how she's managing school, and every time I do... she pulls a little further away..."

Deb sighed... "Jakey. Is Casey your friend?"

With conviction, "She's the best friend I have ever had."

I felt tears in my eyes... I missed her so much... so I confessed, "I just don't know what to do. I want to help her fix this... but she won't let me."

My mom was quiet for a really long time... to this day, I still don't know why...

Finally, she started talking, "Jakey, she's embarrassed. Everyone in her life is looking down on her. She's having a really tough time with her mom right now. She's having trouble at school. Her whole life is coming apart at the seams. Every plan she has ever made in her entire life just got flushed and went swirling, and she's completely alone..."

I took a deep breath... "I know mom, but she won't let me in... she won't let me help her fix this."

"Jakey... she doesn't need to fix this. She doesn't need you to help her fix this. She needs to know you are there for her. She needs to know that you are only a phone call away. You need to stop trying to put things back together for her and you need to start letting her know that you're not judging her. That you're going to cheer her on as she figures out how to put things back together for herself. Right now, everyone in her life is looking down on her and you're her best friend. She can take it from everyone else, but from you... from you that is heart breaking... when you start trying to jump in and offer her solutions it feels like you're not only telling her she's not smart enough to fix it on her own, but that you're also telling her she's stupid for being there in the first place..."

I sat and thought about that for a long time. That was the last night I let her isolate herself from me.

I called her every night. I stopped trying to solve her problems. I stopped judging her. I just sat there with her. It was one of the weirdest and most awkward times in my entire life. Some nights we talked for hours. Some nights we just sat there on the phone. Some nights she begged me to stop, to just leave her alone...

I always refused her.

I never left her alone.

I never missed a call.

After a few months, she started calling me with her problems. I spent a lot of time listening. It took me a long time, but finally I realized how right Deb was. I learned the value of just showing up, just one of the many invaluable lessons my friend Casey had taught me...

Our calls kept up even after she had her little girl. Casey named her Aubrey, a fact that Adrianna, my little sister, was immensely proud of. Casey and Deb grew closer, became friends. After a while, Casey became like a member of my little family...

My ruminations came to an end as I pulled up in front of Casey's little trailer. I thought of how alone she must have felt there... to end up just a few hundred yards from where she had grown up...

Her mom was a drinker and she passed away about a year after Aubrey was born, leaving Casey really and truly alone...

I felt a stab of guilt as I remembered yet another challenge my friend had needed to face without me...

I sat in my truck for a minute, staring at her home... feeling like a really bad friend...

Chapter 4

Casey opened the door and I was struck with the deepest sense of wonder I had felt in a very long time... the highest sense of happiness that I had managed to find in such a long time...

It had been almost a year since I had been home... so long since I had seen her smiling face.

My face, bad day or no, split open on seeing her. I couldn't help but smile in her presence.

She wrapped her arms tightly about her body and leaned against the door frame, her brown eyes reaching into my soul, the same way they always did. I stepped forward as she stepped back, letting me into her home, no invitation extended and none needed...

My left hand reached out and took the back of her neck as I pulled her head to mine.

I almost kissed her...

The desire to do it was stronger than I had ever felt, and considering that I had undergone the entirety of my teenage years with her as the closest friend I had ever known... I had thought about kissing her pretty fucking often.

I would never do that though... I had no right. I had to admit to myself... I really wanted to. I had wanted to since as long as I could remember.

I contented myself with laying my forehead to hers, my nose against hers, little sparks of pain shooting through it as our noses brushed. I didn't care about the pain. Just her presence against me was enough to drive all of my concerns away.

Her hand came up into the crook of my elbow and pulled me closer to her. We both closed our eyes and savored the moment.