Page 20 of Words I Couldn't Say
“Later, Tod,” he called to my mom.
The sweet nickname he had for my mom was a bullet piercing my heart. Tucker didn’t think he was like my dad, but that was so wrong. He was exactly like him, and that was part of why I loved him. Part of me wondered if I was more like my mom than I wanted to let on, thanks to the sudden ache in my heart from having lost Tucker.
I didn’t know how long I cried into my dad’s T-shirt or how I even made it through the next three weeks. By the time I left for UCLA, I was a zombie. A wreck. Tucker had been a staple in my life, and I’d lost him.
Scratch that. He was right. I hadn’t lost him. I’d let him go.
Watching happy and in-love my parents was almost a curse. It was the evidence of what I’d thrown away. The evidence of what I’d left behind when I’d gone to California. It was the one thing I told myself I’d never wanted, but in the end, it turned out I truly did. Only it was too late.
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to have parents whose love story is the thing fairytales are made of? How was I supposed to live up to that? The bar had been set way too high, and I wondered if I’d ever measure up.
Life wasn’t that simple. It wasn’t that easy. The passing of Tucker’s parents was proof that life was messy. Just when you think everything is perfect, the universe decides you don’t deserve such happiness and then ruins it. My parents were an anomaly. Don’t get me wrong. I loved them and know how fortunate it was they were still blissfully in love after a lifetime together. Grossly in love at times. The amount of PDA I’d seen in my own household would put the kids in my high school to shame. I never thought I’d have a love like theirs though. I never thought I’d want it.
Finding your soul mate in high school? That’s like waiting for lightning to strike in the same spot twice. In other words, it wasn’t going to happen for this girl, even if my life was paralleling theirs a little too closely for comfort.
Tucker, my best friend and the boy next door since childhood, was always a little too close for comfort. Except he wasn’t too close. He was exactly where I wanted him to be. Or well. He had been until I pushed him away.
It’s often said that history is bound to repeat itself—I always shook my head and disagreed. But, sometimes, you can’t fight nature. And the way he’d made—and still made—me feel? It was the most natural feeling in the world. It was like home. Comfortable. Cozy. I’d find myself wanting to wrap myself up in the memory of him and bask in the warmth in my heart.
And then his parting words would seep back in, shattering my heart all over again.
“I’m not your dad, Ava. I’m not chasing you until you realize we’re meant to be together. If you choose to leave, you’re doing so knowing exactly what you’re giving up.”
And then I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.
I’d left.
Tucker was not my dad.
He’d let me.
Tucker hadn’t lied. He didn’t chase me. He didn’t call. He didn’t write. And, when I returned home from college for winter or summer breaks that first year, he was nothing but a ghost. Even though I didn’t like to admit it, I spent long, lonely nights staring at his window, wishing, hoping, praying that the light would turn on, even if it was just a flicker, and I could gather the courage up to go over to see him.
It never did.
So I stopped making any effort to go home.
Unfortunately, that didn’t halt the pain.
They say hindsight’s a bitch, but that’s an understatement. Hindsight is a never-ending agonizing torture that always burns under the surface and recedes until you’re on the brink of healing. Then it flares up to envelop you in the flames all over again.
It was true. Over the course of the next five years, I went through a cycle. Anger—mostly at myself, a little at him. Melancholy riddled with paramount loneliness. Determination, telling myself that I’d get my shit together and get over the guy once and for all. But then something would happen to force the house of cards to crash down all around me. I’d get a hint of his favorite aftershave and I’d burst into tears, wishing the scent had been due to being held in his arms as he told me everything was okay. Or I’d get drunk, go to my Ugly Girl Cry playlist, listen to Clarence Carter’s “Strokin’,” and simultaneously laugh my ass off and cry my eyes out. Sometimes, I’d begin with laughing, but within sixty seconds, I was crying, reminded of how ridiculous Tucker looked the first time he sang the song at karaoke—courtesy of my father, of course.
And then that was when it was the worst. The reminder of how much Tucker was like my dad. How much I wanted to be like my mom. But, unlike her, I was a coward.
So that was my cycle. Pain. Regret. Anger. Melancholy. Determination. Heartache.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat. For five long years. All the while wondering what he was doing but never mustering the courage up to find out.
Yeah, I was a coward, indeed.
