The Space Between Us(41)

Charles was a hard man to persuade. I'd done it a few times in my life,  when I was younger, trying to convince him to let me date his daughter,  to take her away for a weekend, to sleep in her bed when we were home  for breaks from college. But I couldn't convince him to tell his  daughter he was dying. He knew what I knew. That she would be at his  bedside, crying and remembering her mother, crying and mourning her  father, and breaking on the inside. He didn't want that for her. I  understood.

"I love her, Mr. McBride." I hadn't called him that in years, but it  felt right at that moment. I felt like I was fifteen again, asking him  in his living room if I could please be his daughter's boyfriend. That  was the first time I admitted, out loud, that I loved her. And it  remained true since then. "I love her and I always will. I will do  everything to make sure she is taken care of. You don't have to worry  and you don't have to hang on."                       
       
           



       

I felt the slightest pressure on my hand as his fingers gripped mine in  the faintest way, the way you would imagine a man on death's door would  squeeze your hand.

"I promise. I will take care of her."

I saw his chest rise, then fall, and then rest. The beeping of the  machine slowed, his heart rate dropped, crawled, stilled. Rachel came in  to make the machine stop its slowing, dragging beeping, and I watched  as the monitors went blank.

I found myself, an hour later, sitting in my car outside of a house I  never thought I'd visit again, not until a couple months ago anyway.  This was one place I avoided, one person I avoided. I knew, from the  beginning, when I stood by Charles as his only ally in death, that this  was the next step. I knew it was coming, but it didn't make it any  easier. I walked slowly to the red wooden door of the house. I gathered  my courage and finally knocked. I heard footsteps from inside the house  quickening, like my heart rate, as they neared. It pulled open and I was  face to face with a piece of my past.





Chapter Two

Asher

"Hello, Reeve." I watched as her face moved from the pleasant look you  plaster on your face when you answer your door, to the anger and  annoyance that came naturally to Reeve when she encountered me. It had  been quite a long time since we'd seen each other, since she told me  frankly to "Fuck off" back in college. She was a loyal friend and that  was what I was counting on when I showed up on her doorstep.

"What are you doing here, Asher? How did you find out where I live?"

"It's a matter of public record. And it's a small town, Reeve."

"What do you want?" She was just as icy as she was before and with good reason.

"Can I come in?" I asked, hopefully, not wanting to have this conversation on the porch.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Mom, who is that man?" A little girl had poked her head between the  door and Reeve's hip. She had short blonde hair and bright blue eyes.  Reeve bent down and put herself at eye level with her daughter.

"He's just someone trying to sell something, Baby. Go back in the living  room and keep an eye on your brother, ok?" The little girl skipped away  and I felt the clenching in my chest that I was accustomed to feeling  when put face-to-face with children. Reeve stood and turned back to me.  "I think you should leave. I have nothing to say to you." She moved to  close the door and I put my foot in the way.

"It's about Charlie," I said, knowing that will catch her attention. I  saw her face, clearly contemplating what to do next, and as I expected,  her loyalty won out. She creaked the door open and stood back, silently  and regretfully inviting me in.

"You have five minutes." I nodded, knowing I'd need more than that, but  I'd take the five to begin with. She led me into her kitchen and  motioned for me to take a seat at the table. She didn't offer me  something to eat. She didn't ask me if I wanted some water. She just sat  and stared at me expectantly.

"Mr. McBride passed away about an hour ago." Immediately her frosty demeanor melted away as her hand came to cover her mouth.

"What?" She whispered.

"Yes. He died at Willow Falls Memorial Hospital about an hour ago due to  complications of bone cancer." I watched as a tear fell from her left  eye as I coldly told her about the death of a man we all regarded as one  of the best on the planet. Inside, I was just as upset about his  passing as she was, but I couldn't show it. Right now, I wasn't Asher,  childhood friend of Reeve. I was Mr. Carmichael, lawyer and  representative of Charles McBride.

"Does Charlie know?" She asked through a broken sob.

I nodded. "Someone from my office should be calling her shortly.

"Calling her? She wasn't there?"

"She didn't know. Mr. McBride had very specific wishes and Ms. McBride wasn't informed of his condition."

"Ms. McBride? What the hell is wrong with you Asher? Her name is Charlie."

I ignored her comment. I knew it seemed like I was being an ass, but I  didn't know how else to act in the moment. I didn't know how to be all  the people I was at the same time. I couldn't be friend, enemy,  ex-boyfriend, lawyer and man completely torn apart all at once. I had to  pick one and stick with it, so I chose lawyer.

"Mr. McBride wanted to make sure that Ms. McBride wasn't alone, so I am  here to make sure that you will make yourself available to her at his  service, but most importantly at the reading of his will. Mr. McBride  was afraid that she wouldn't contact you, so I am here to make sure that  if you don't receive a call from her that you are aware of the times of  the service and the reading." I paused and looked down at my hands. "He  thought she might not reach out to anyone. That she might close up  again and he wanted me to make sure you were there for her, that someone  was there for her."                       
       
           



       

"Close up again? Damn it, Asher, she hasn't opened up from the last time."

That tiny piece of information was like salt in a wound, but also like a  sip of water in a desert. I was thirsty for information about her,  desperate to know any tiny bit of information I could gather and I had  been since the last time I saw her that day. But hearing that she was  closed up, like a flower refusing to bloom, burned going down  –  stung  like guilt.

"Someone from my office will contact you with the exact date and times  of the service and the reading. Can you agree to be at both?"

"Yes. Of course I will be there. Will you be there too?" I looked her in  the eyes for a moment, willing myself to be honest with her, to tell  her that I would be there in an instant if I thought it was what Charlie  wanted, but I knew better.

"It was nice seeing you again, Reeve. You have a beautiful daughter." I  stood and walked through her door and out to my car without looking  back. I started my car and drove to my place, purposefully avoiding the  neighborhood that held all the memories burned into my mind. I prepared  myself for an agonizing evening, and thought I might as well get some  bourbon to ease the ache growing in my heart. My throat already burned  from hearing her name on someone else's lips, from hearing about how  still, after all these years, she was still not the same person she had  been before I had ruined everything. If I was going to burn from the  inside out, I might as well get drunk while it happened.





Chapter Three

Charlie

I routinely tried not to study myself in the mirror. I never liked what I  saw. Unfortunately, I found myself to be less in control than I would  wish. So, here I sat, at my expensive vanity, in my expensive bedroom,  of my expensive New York City apartment that overlooked Central Park,  and all I could see was emptiness. But I didn't want to see anything  else anyway. I didn't want to feel anything. Because, when I felt  something, it was usually pain.

I'm sure to everyone else I looked normal, maybe even happy. But I knew better.

I picked up the big brush from the table top and used it to paint color  on my cheeks, to fool everyone around me into thinking that my heart  worked well enough to pump blood throughout my body, to make my cheeks  this color. It didn't though. My heart hadn't worked in a long time. It  was a miracle I was even here, breathing this air, existing in this  world.

"You ready to go, Bit?"

My lungs stopped working, the air in them froze like blocks of ice. My  throat closed up, the lights in the room dimmed. The brush in my hand  fell with a loud bang onto the vanity again.

He must have noticed my distress, because he came running into the room, his hands cupping my face.