Vibrations

I knelt in front of her and put my hand on her hip. "Kiddo. Your mom would kill me if she knew I told you this, but she put in a lot of sacrifices to make sure you had the money for that camp. If you don't go, she's going to feel like she let you down. Like she took something from you. It would be important to her that you go."

Tears started in her eyes. "I know. It's just I sit here and all I can think about is how worried I am that she's going to get sicker..."

She didn't want to say it. She didn't even want to open the door to the possibility that her mom might die.

I licked my lips and tried to focus my thoughts. I didn't want to think about mom dying any more than Re did, but I needed to. I needed to think out ahead of this. I needed to be the one that kept their shit together so if this went sideways I could help keep everyone else centered in the road. I needed to be strong for Re, and for my dad. It would be tough, and I knew I would be hurting just as much as they were if the unthinkable happened, but someone needed to do the job, and I was best equipped.

I looked into her eyes and smiled. "Kiddo, things are going to work out. They have to, because I won't let it go down any other way. Right now, sitting here, hell, tomorrow, sitting here, and worrying your head off, isn't going to do a goddamn bit of good. You should go to your camp tomorrow, and you should try to have fun. You should try to learn, and you should live your life like everything is going to be okay, right up until life shows you it isn't going to be. Don't tempt fate. We all just need to go on with some hope, and pray things turn out for the best. Okay?"

She gave me a hopeless look. "And what if she gets sicker? What if she gets bad news from the doctor tomorrow?"

I smiled at her, trying to put her at ease, "Then I can come right down to the school and get you. You'll be my first stop, and we'll all face this together as a family. Right now, what I need you to do is be a kid. I need you to let me do the adult thing, and you do the kid thing. If you're running circles around your mom's bed at the hospital all she's going to do is worry about how she's worrying you. You going on like you're not worried is the best thing for her. You want to be strong for her, that's the way you do it, okay?"

She gave me a pained smile, and I knew I had said just the right thing, in just the right way.

She nodded, and with tears rolling down her face she sat up and gave me a big hug. I held her tight, pretending I was the one giving her strength when I knew the truth was that she was supporting me.

She pushed back from me and blew out a deep breath, waving a hand at her face to dry her tears. I could see her driving the pain, and the worry down. Could see her exerting iron-willed control over it.

"You go for your walk. If I'm going to be at camp tomorrow, I need to get some sleep."

I smiled at her. "You go on to bed. I'll hang out here. I don't need to go for a walk. If you can be tough, so can I."

She crawled off the couch and walked around behind it, heading back towards her bedroom. She stopped at the door between the living room and the kitchen and turned back to me. "Go ahead and go for your walk." She smiled, and I felt my heart lift a little. "And say hi to Casey for me."

I smiled at her. "Casey is in bed I'm sure. I'm not going to run off and bother her. I really just wanted to get out and burn off some energy."

She nodded, frowning at me, not believing a word I said... "Tell yourself what you have to..."

With that, she turned and walked from the room.

I stayed until I heard her finish in the bathroom and head into her bedroom and shut the door.

I lied to myself as I pulled the kangaroos I had bought for Casey and Roo out of my truck and told myself that I was just bringing them in case I happened to walk by and Casey happened to be awake.

My traitorous feet gave truth to the lie as they headed me straight towards her place. She had bought the trailer right behind my mom and dad's. In truth, my mom, who had managed the park for the past few years, had arranged for her to be able to get the place. Things had gotten tense between her and her mom while she was pregnant. Her mom had apparently taken the attitude that her daughter, who was a million times better of a person than her mother could ever hope to be, was a whore for getting pregnant at seventeen. The last couple months of the pregnancy Casey had ended up staying at my parent's place...

She busted her butt and got through school early, in fact, just in time to have Roo. She always joked that at least she hadn't had to walk to get her diploma while still big as a whale...

After she had Roo, she got her job at the local supermarket. They hired her as a checker, and that was what she had done for the past three years. She used her paltry pay to help pay for her little trailer, and she worked hard every single day to make her life, and her daughter's life, just a little bit better than it had been the day before.

My feet crunched in the gravel that was set between the trailers as I thought about how low I had felt when I had talked to Casey right after Roo had been born. I had run home to try to be there for Roo's birth, and I had come up short. I sat down with her, and I begged her to come back with me. To bring little Roo, and come stay with me. She could start a new life there. She could go to school with me, and she could live with me until she got her own place. Looking back on it now, I realized, I hadn't been trying to convince her to start a new life, I had been trying to convince her to come and start a life with me.

In my own fantasy world, I had gotten it into my head that she'd come up and she'd live with me for a little while. She'd start to realize that she maybe, maybe she loved me as much as I loved her...

We'd just pretend Roo was mine.

We'd be a family.

I swallowed a lump in my throat as I tried to make my mind jump away from remembering how she had told me no with tears in her eyes. How she told me she couldn't leave her mother behind, how she needed to find her own place in the world.

I remembered thinking how hollow all of those excuses had sounded. I remember thinking that what she was trying to politely tell me was that she wasn't interested in starting a life with me...

I looked up and my heart leapt to see that the lights in her place were still on.

I gripped my stupid little kangaroo tighter as I tried to summon up the courage to keep walking...

You have to be either stupid, or crazy to do what you are thinking about doing... I warned myself. You already laid your heart bare for her once... how many times are you going to do this to yourself before you realize that she doesn't feel the way about you that you do about her? Are you seriously going to let the pie in the sky ramblings of a fourteen-year-old kid tear you open like this again? How many more times do you think she's going to put up with this shit from you before she tells you to get lost forever?

...How many more times do you think you can hear her say no before you start to hate her?

I came around the front of her trailer and started up the three steps to her porch. My eyes were so focused on the front door and my mind so focused on screwing up my courage that I didn't see her sitting there on the beat up, ancient, little couch she had on the front porch.

My only warning she was there was when I heard her sniffle, when I saw her move in the darkness. She had the porch light out. She was sitting there in the darkness...

Just enough light poured in from the streetlights around the park for me to make out her wiping at her face.

She had been crying.

My heart crashed into my stomach...

You stupid motherfucker. Her friend is in the hospital and she's probably worried sick about her, and here you are thinking about how you can get into her pants? What is wrong with you! I thought in disgust.

I wanted to apologize for bothering her...

All I managed to say was, "Hey."

She sat up a little straighter and sniffled, wiping at her face harder. "I'm sorry."

I smiled, even though I knew in the darkness, she couldn't see it. I shook my head at her, "Don't be sorry. You that worried about her?"

She jerked her head, nodding...

"Yeah."

I pointed to the couch next to her. "Can I sit for a while?"

She was facing into the streetlight, so I could see her smile at me, "Please. You can always come sit with me."

I sat down next to her, close to her. Close enough that I could put my arm around her if I dared...

I didn't dare.

She leaned over and put her head on my shoulder.

I figured, What the fuck? And put my arm around her, pulling her close.

She didn't complain.

She held up the bottle she had in her lap. "Beer?"

I shook my head, "No thanks. I remember your taste in beer sucks..."

A sob seemed to wrack through her... one she barely caught... and she folded into me like the life had just been drained out of her.

I dropped the kangaroo I had still been holding in my right hand to the floor and pulled her in tighter, hugging her. I put my lips to her head and squeezed her tight, trying to will my strength into her. My heart was breaking into a million pieces just to hear her crying. To feel the sobs, she held back as they wracked her body.

I kissed her forehead, daring... hoping...

"It's okay. Everything's going to be okay..." I whispered, rocking her.

She shook her head and I pulled her in closer. "I got you. I'm here... I'm sorry it took me so long..."

I tried to let her cry herself out, but I also wanted to comfort her... "Kiddo, it's okay. She's going to be okay."

Like that, she took a deep breath and I could feel her shove a glut of emotions down into some deep, dark place. Like water smoothing as the wind died, she went calm...

That's not good... I thought as I realized that she had just pushed the emotion away from her.

She sat up straight and looked at the bottle in her hand. I figured she'd drain it...

Instead, she set it on the little table she had next to the couch.

I gave her a weak smile, "Figured you'd down that bitch..."

She gave me a chuckle, "No. I don't need to be that person."

The realization of how dumb that comment was slammed into me at full force. Her mom had been that person. The one that had turned to a bottle every time things got tough. The one the drowned themselves in liquor every time there was a problem...

I put the palm of my hand to the side of her face, her cheek beneath my thumb, her elven ear underneath my fingers. I could feel the heat of her ear on my fingers and the wetness of her tears on my thumb. She covered my hand in her own and leaned into it, closing her eyes like she was savoring the contact, like she was sucking up the love and storing it for some later date.

We twisted so we could face each other on the couch, one leg draped over the edge, the knees of our opposite leg touching. Once again, I let my hand drift behind her neck and I pulled her forehead to mine. We sat that way for a few minutes, our foreheads pressed together. Our noses touching. Both of us quietly, gently, moving our heads just enough to rub our noses together...

Eskimo kisses...

That was what my mom, my birth mom, had called them. She used to give them to me every night before we went to bed...

Finally, I could take no more. I pulled away, reaching for the kangaroos... "Here. I got you this."

It was dark, and I'm sure she had no way to see them, at least not well.

She sat the momma in her lap, her big feet facing her. She grabbed each foot. She ran her fingers over the face of both momma and baby...

She shook her head, in truth she shook her whole body...

She was starting to lose her composure again...

"Thank you... Roo's going to love it."

I moved closer to her, my breath shallowed as I felt an icy wave break loose in my chest...

That feeling I had told Re about? The one, the obsession? That thought where the only thing that existed in the world was Casey? How I had told her I didn't remember how it felt anymore?

I remembered it.

I shook my head as I took the kangaroo back from her. "No." I pulled the joey out of his momma's pouch and held it up for her. "This one is for Roo." The momma, I took my left hand and holding the neck between my fingers I moved the kangaroos head up and down, making it nod... "This one is for you."

Her face crumpled as she looked at me...

My god... how can she be so beautiful even when she cries... I thought in wonder...

She pulled the kangaroo out of my hand, hugging it tight. She cried, and all I could do was sit there, my hand on her knee, and be with her.

"Thank you." She finally managed.

I smiled as I felt the last of my will sap away...

"I'm sorry..." I whispered as my hand found its way back to the back of her neck.

Her eyes opened and the tears stopped... her breathing slowed... I felt her hand just start from the kangaroo and onto my leg...

"For what?" She whispered back to me.

"I can't pretend anymore..."

I pulled her in and kissed her on the lips.

It was a stupid move.

It was a disrespectful move.

I had no right.

As soon as our lips met I expected her to pull away. I expected her to push me away. I expected her to scream.

Hell, I wouldn't have been surprised if she had punched me in the face...

Wouldn't have been the first time a woman had punched me in the face...

It wouldn't be the first time a woman had punched me in the face today...

What I didn't expect was for her lips to melt beneath mine as they did. I didn't expect her mouth to open for me. I didn't expect her tongue to slip between my lips. I didn't expect to feel her arms come up and wrap themselves around my head.

I sure as fuck didn't expect her to surge up and spread her legs over my body...

I got all of those things.

I wrapped my arms around her as she kissed me aggressively, her fingers dancing lightly across my face.

A better man than me might have been able to keep track of the world. He might have worried about the time wasted in the relationship that had just ended. He might have worried about the job he had just lost. He might have even worried about his sick mom in the hospital...

I was happy for the first time in my entire life to not be a good man...

She became my entire world. I felt the shell I had put around my feelings for her smash away and the entirety of it all boiled up from within me. My hands found their way beneath her shirt, working their way across the smooth muscle of her back.

Her body worked against mine, our bodies finding time with one another. Her breathing was fast and hard, matching mine in rhythm and tempo. I felt her physical need for me grow to match mine...

And then it hit me I was doing this all wrong...

I wanted her. I wanted to just pick her up and carry her inside. To crawl into bed with her and make love to her. I wanted to forget the world with her. I wanted to make her forget the world with me...

But more than anything, I wanted her to understand just how much I loved her. I needed her to understand that it wasn't just a physical love that drove me. She was beautiful. She had an amazing body. I loved the graceful curve of her neck, and the soft lines of her face, but more than anything... I loved her soul.

I pulled my mouth away from hers, "I love you." I managed to whisper between kisses.

Her mouth moved down the side of my face, across my neck, "Stop talking..." she begged.

I shook my head... I needed her to understand...

I needed her to understand I didn't just want to get in her pants. I didn't want to have tonight. I wanted to have tonight and every night from now on. I needed her to understand I couldn't do this unless I could have that. There was no way I was going to be able to look back at tonight and know that was all I was ever going to have with her...

My hands found their way from her back to her side. My lips found her neck as the fire in my chest spread through my body...

"I love you, and I want to be with you..." I whispered, "Not just tonight..."

She stopped kissing me and closed her eyes, a look of pain and something like intense concentration warring on her face. Her arms wrapped around my head and she kept my pulled close, her forehead against mine.

"Please stop talking..." She begged. "I just want you to make love to me..."

Her body shuddered, like she was about to start sobbing again...

I kissed her lips again, trying to make her understand that I was going to make things okay again.

"I don't understand..." my head shook, "what's wrong?" I whispered. "What did I do wrong?"

Her head shook, "I can't. I'm sorry... I can't."

I tried to kiss her again and she pushed me away this time...

And there it is... she doesn't love you. She'll let you have sex with her, but she'll never love you. I thought to myself, my heart starting to bleed.

She slid away from me. "You should go."

My heart crashed into my stomach...

She slid out of my lap and turned her back to me. I slid forward on the couch, desperate to explain myself...

I had ruined everything. I had gambled our entire friendship and I had lost. How could I be so stupid?

"I'm sorry..." I whispered...

She shook her head at me, "Please just stop." She turned her face back to me. "I'm sorry. This is my fault..."

"Just let me explain..." I begged.

She opened the front door. Turning back to me one last time, "I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore..."

She went inside...

Chapter 7

I carried my sorry ass out of there and went home. I'll admit, I laid there on the couch for a long time, feeling sorry for myself. How had one day gone so badly? How had I managed to take literally everything I had and destroy it?

After a few hours, I finally managed to fall asleep. It was a restless, exhausting sleep filled with bad dreams. It was one of the longest nights of my entire life. I knew, on one level, I should be worried about my mom. I should be worried about my future. The only thing I was worried about though, was whether or not Casey was ever going to talk to me again.

Never again would I get to see her smile in the sun as she lay next to a swimming hole. Never again would I get to see the raw joy in her eyes as she dove into a plate of bar-be-que ribs I had made for her. I would never again get a two-in-the-morning phone call that woke me up just because she felt alone. I would never see her grow old. I'd never get to make her soup when she was sick...

I felt adrift and lost...

I woke to a knock on the door, snapping awake and jumping up from the couch. I wanted to get the door open as fast as possible as I didn't want the knocking to wake Adrianna up. I felt bad for the poor kid. Sleep and an adult schedule was hard enough on a kid. I knew it had taken her forever to fall asleep last night.

Some asshole banging on the door first thing in the morning was the last thing she needed.

I rubbed my face as I ripped the door open.

My heart leapt into my throat when I saw Casey standing there in the morning light. I tried to swallow...

Fuck me in the ass with a wooden spoon! I thought, panicking.

This was so not fair! She didn't even give me a chance to come up with some sort of explanation? Some chance to come up with some sort of semi-believable lie we could tell each other to try to find some way through this? Just an early morning ambush?

Her face was puffy and I could tell she had been crying. What was worse was I knew she had been crying because of me. Because of the raw stupidity that bounced around inside my brain.