Page 77 of Tell Me Softly
And the pain of that memory would come back to me every night for the rest of my life.
I looked up again at Kam, that beautiful girl I had missed every day since I left Carsville, that girl whose smile I dreamed of and whom I tortured myself over because I knew I was supposed to hate her. I had tried––I had cultivated my rage like a garden, but I couldn’t anymore. I couldn’t keep lying to myself about howmuch she’d meant to me.
“Can you forgive me?” I asked.
She blinked. She didn’t seem to understand what I meant.
“What?” she asked, taking a few seconds to absorb my words.
Outside, the rain plunked against the roof and the windshield. “I never should have blamed you,” I admitted. It was hard for me to say that aloud. But my sister had died because of a chain of circumstances of which Kami had been one small part. None of us could have known what was going to happen that afternoon, and if we’d had the chance, every one of us would have done whatever we could to save her.
My father cheated on my mother with her best friend.
I asked a little girl not to tell what she’d seen.
Kam told her father.
Her father lost his cool at a child’s birthday party.
My mother hit the bridge going three times the speed limit.
A deer crossed the road.
I didn’t make sure everyone’s seat belt was unbuckled before I broke the glass.
I could go on. I could keep adding to the list, and it would never end.
I felt Kam’s hand on my cheek, and I shivered.
“I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said quietly.
“Sure, I guess…” I said, still not capable of looking at her. “But that wouldn’t have changed the situation. It was my fault, Kam. I couldn’t get to her in time. I couldn’t hold my breath long enough. She never had a chance…” I heard my voice cracking. “I blamed you because it was easy. Because I thought maybe that way, I wouldn’t have to blame myself.”
“Thiago, it wasn’t anyone’s fault.” I looked over finally and into her big brown eyes. “Sometimes bad things just happen to good people, even though they don’t deserve them. Sometimes life knocksus down and reminds us that it’s the boss, that it can do what it wants with us, that everything can end in a minute. And that’s why we have to live, Thiago. Live to the maximum. You can’t blame yourself or anyone else for what happened to Lucy. You just need to live…”
“Live?” I looked at her damp hair, the lines on her face, the curve of her pink lips. “Why do I deserve to live when she can’t?”
“Because life isn’t fair,” she responded, spilling a single tear. I reached up and stopped it from dripping down her neck. “And you should live. For your sister. Forgive yourself. Forgive everyone else and live.”
I looked at that finger with the tear gleaming on its tip, brought it to my mouth, savored it…and it did give me the desire to live again. It gave me a feeling of possibility I never thought I’d know again.
We sat there in silence, listening to the rain and the thunder overhead…listening to each other’s heartbeats and breathing.
“Tell me something,” I said then. “Did you ever like me more than my brother?”
Kam looked confused, uncomfortable. But I wasn’t going to let her wiggle out of it.
I cupped her cheek and pulled her close to me.
“Tell me,” I said. I needed that response. More than I’d ever needed anything. I needed that response to begin again, to trust people, to believe that maybe, just maybe, life still had some happiness in store for me. “Tell me softly, and I promise that will be reason enough for me to start over again.”
Kam tried to look down, but I wouldn’t let her…
“Tell me, Kam…please. I need you to.”
“It was always you, Thiago,” she said. “It always was, it is, and it always will be.”
And then, without hesitating, I kissed her.
