“I don’t think you can keep calling me celebrity names if I don’t live in California anymore.”
“So you’re staying in Texas for good?”
“You’re all I have,” I say with sarcasm, although it’s the truth.
“That’s pretty sad.” Ashley smiles and gets up, offering me her hand. “Come on, let’s get down from this depressing place.
Chapter 41
Nikki—
Four days later
“You’ve looked at the phone sixty three times in the last hour,” Ashley plops down on the couch next to me. Her tone lets me know she has just slightly less patience about my obsessive phone checking than when I got here.
“You’ve been counting the times I check my phone?” I use sarcasm to gloss over the fact that I really am consumed with checking it lately.
“So, let me get this straight. You want him to call so you can not pick up the phone? I just want to get inside your head and figure out what the hell is going on in there.”
“He hasn’t even called once in the last two days,” I say despondently. Ashley is a great friend but nobody could take the mood I’ve been in for the last few days.
“Maybe it’s because you didn’t answer his 987 calls the first two days you were here. Did you ever think of that? Maybe he got the message and gets that you don’t want to talk to him. Or do you?”
Ashley means well. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I don’t want to talk to Zack and yet I don’t want him to stop calling either. Rather than explain, I change the subject. “I’m going to Kroger’s this week to see if I can get my old job back.”
“Do you really intend to drop out of school and get a GED? You were the best student at Brookside before you left,” Ashley chides. We seem to have switched roles lately. It hasn’t taken her long to get comfortable in her new motherly lecturing tone.
“I need to save for my own place, Ash.” I’ve been back in Texas four days and Ashley’s mom has mentioned how cramped the trailer is a few times already. Pawning the sapphire ring my aunt gave me paid for the bus tickets, and I still have some money left over, but it’s definitely not enough to move on my own.
I don’t think I’ll ever get over the guilt of selling a ring that was once my grandmother’s. I have so few memories of Mom smiling. The ring had given me visions of a young Mom and Aunt Claire laughing together as they played dress up, pretending to be princesses.
I need to clear my head. “I’m going to go for a run. Wanna come?”
“Run?” She looks me at me like I’m crazy. “I wouldn’t even walk if I had a choice.”
***
I didn’t tell Ashley my run was going to lead to the cemetery, I’ve been depressing enough the last few days. Since I arrived back in Texas, all I’ve wanted to do was go see Mom. I only wish it wasn’t a headstone I was going to see.
The only indication of Mom’s plot is a simple slate gravesite marker, so different than the ornate headstone that marks my sister’s grave. It’s been a long time since I’ve been here, the dirt I left behind has turned to green grass. Her site looks just like everyone else’s around here now. It sort of makes me feel bad that there’s nothing to make her spot stand out.
I sit for a while, thinking about how much my life has changed since the last time I was here. I was sad that day too. “I miss you, Mom,” I whisper. “At least Emily has you.” A tear runs down my cheek. “How come I’m the one that got left behind?
Chapter 42
Zack—
Two days later
“My ass is numb,” Keller shifts in his seat in the front of the Charger.
“It matches your brain then,” I retort quickly.
“How much longer we have to go?” he asks.
“You’re worse than a five year old.”
He shrugs and begins to entertain himself by tossing jellybeans in the air and trying to catch them in his mouth. My floor is covered with all his misses.
“So what’s the chick’s name we’re meeting again?”
Seriously? I just said her name ten minutes ago. “Ashley. Her name is Ashley.”
“Is she hot?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never met her. You know all this already, bonehead.”
“I forgot. How’s her voice at least?”
“I don’t know. Fine I guess.” I concentrate on the never-ending road in front of me. We’ve been on the road for eighteen hours, not counting the six hours we stopped at some flea bag motel to crash for a while last night.
“She better be hot since I agreed to come all this way with you,” he warns, tossing a purple jellybean in the air that hits him in the nose before bouncing to the floor.
“You didn’t agree to come. Because I didn’t invite you.”
“I’m here aren’t I?”
“Because you showed up at my house at the time you knew I was leaving and yelled road trip.”
“Yeah, so I agreed to come.”
“Whatever.” I shake my head. There’s no point in trying to explain the difference to Keller. I’m actually grateful to have the company. The trip has been long and boring, my eyes getting heavy behind the wheel on more than one occasion.
My heart rate speeds up as we pass a sign that reads Welcome to Texas. I can’t wait to see her. It’s been torture for the past week. I was climbing the walls when Ashley finally called me yesterday.
“Did you know Emily was Nikki’s sister?” she asked the minute I picked up the phone.
“No!” I exclaimed. “And who the hell is this?”
“It’s Ashley. I’m …”
“I know who you are.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Nikki talked about you all the time. Are you with her?”
“Yes. Well, not right this minute. She’s out running. Again.”
“Is she okay?”
“No. She’s a puddle.”
“A puddle?” I inquired, not understating the term.
“You know. Cries all the time. I don’t have long. She’s like my shadow lately…I’m sure she’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re back at my house. She’s decided she’s dropping out of school and starting a supermarket career at Kroger’s since you’ve stopped calling her because you only really loved her sister. She thinks you were trying to replace Emily with the closest copy you could find. Are you?”
My heart squeezes in my chest. “Of course not. I love her, Ashley.”
“Well, when you stopped calling nineteen times a day she kind of assumed you didn’t. Know what I mean?”
“Her Aunt and my mother told me to give her space. They said she needed to process it all and that I was just pushing her too fast.” Damn I’ll never listen to anyone again. My gut told me they were wrong, that I needed to keep after her. I thought giving her space would only make her fill in the missing pieces with things that didn’t exist. I wasn’t wrong.
“Well her Aunt and your Mother got it ass backwards. She’s gone from depressed to angry. You may want to be prepared if you come. She’s probably going to unload on you,” Ashley warns.
“Thanks, but I can handle it. I’m leaving in the morning,” I told Ashley— no thinking about it and no waiting. I’m done following every else’s stupid advice.
“I told her we would go back to the depressing water tower she likes so much tomorrow. She thinks it heals her or some stupid crap like that,” Ashley snapped and I understood why Nikki likes her so much— straight shooter. Not much of a filter.
“Where’s the depressing water tower. That’s where I’ll head,” I said, not giving her an option.
“It’s in Brookside.”
“Give me the address.”
I’m still shocked that she did. My parents weren’t exactly happy I was skipping out of school and driving a quarter of the way across the country, but they really didn’t object too strenuously. My guess is they knew I was going no matter what they threatened.
***
We arrive right on time at the water tower where Ashley told us to meet her.
Keller gets out of the car with me. “You’re staying down here,” I say. “Wait a little bit to see if her friend Ashley is with her, I’ll send her down to you if she is. Either way, take the car and go find us a hotel for tonight.”
“I can drive the Charger?” Keller’s eyes light up like a kid on Christmas morning.
“Be careful with her.” I toss him the keys.
“I will.” He grins widely. There’s no way he’s not opening it up full throttle the minute he gets out of the parking lot, but I could care less. There’s one thing on my mind and that’s getting to Nikki.
***
I’m not even slightly winded when I make it to the top of the fifty-three-stair climb. My entire body is fueled with adrenaline; I could run up Mt. Kilimanjaro if it meant getting to see Nikki at the top.
I walk the narrow catwalk to the other side of the wide tower. Not surprisingly, they’re the only two up here. Ashley stands, clearing the view to Nikki who looks up to see where her friend is going at the same minute I catch sight of her. It knocks the wind right out of me.