Page 21 of Four Simple Rules
“There,” Jesse says with pride, shoving his closed knife back into his pocket. “Now, no one will ever forget we were here.”
“Like they could ever,” Gavin quips. “This is our spot now. Okay?” His eyes dart around, clouding with a haunted look. I don’t know what’s going through his head, but darkness swirls where happiness once showed through.
He’s been like that since he’s been in and out of the hospital. It’s diminishing the shine my twin has always had. He’s the sunshine on a rainy day, parting the clouds. I’m the clouds. The downfall. The one with so much anxiety that my knees knock, and my mind tells me to run.
I swallow the emotions brewing in the back of my throat as I squeeze myself into the darkened hole of the tree, sitting where I once stood. It was the last good day for Gavin before the cancer ate him alive and sent him six feet deep. The last worry-free day we had with him. From then on out, Gavin barely moved. Then, we got the devastating news that there wasn’t anything more the doctors could do. The cancer no longer responded to the treatments. And then, he was gone.
It was the day that forever changed Jesse and me. The three musketeers turned into two, sad and forgotten.
“I wish you were here now,” I murmur, letting the tears fall as I trace Gavin’s name repeatedly.
My heart aches, wishing the boy I shared the womb with was here to hold my hand and tell me I was okay. I’ve navigated so many situations without him that I feel like a lost ship at sea, tussling with the violent waves threatening to take me under.
The darkness of the tree settles over me, sheltering me from the bright sunlight raining down outside. I’d forgotten how deserted this place felt when standing in the darkness and protection of our tree.
“You never would have let me go or let any of this shit happen, Gav. I just want one more day with you.” My heart pounds double time when branches snap in the distance, and my silent reprieve is instantly shattered.
I knew he’d come to find me. I knew he’d come straight to our spot to confront me. But I’m not ready to see him. I’m not prepared to face the devil himself and hear what he has to say.
Footfalls slowly circle the tree I’m cowering inside but never near the entrance where I’m hiding. I hold a breath in my lungs, wishing he’d get bored and wander away without acknowledging me.
But I’m not that lucky. He’s here now, right before my eyes, living in the present, and no longer lingering in my memories.
I’m about to face the man who shattered me.
“You’re predictable, Tulip,” Jesse says in a rough voice, sending goosebumps down my spine. “Are you running from me? Again?”
I retrace Gavin’s name, leaving my aching heart in the tree that belonged to the three of us when we needed to escape. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had gotten cancer instead of him. I begged God to put me in his place. Multiple times. In the cover of night, wrapped in my blankets as I cried into my pillow. My parents would have been happier. Everyone would have been happier without me.
Gavin was the star baseball player, destined for better things. He and Jesse played every game together.
Then there’s me—the girl who took pictures of plants and hung them on her wall for decoration. The same girl who became so fascinated with their structures she wanted to study them until she keeled over. Plants were her life. Her love. The simple creatures who made her heart pitter-patter with excitement.
When Gavin died, I was forgotten. The ghost child silently walking through the house, hoping not to disturb her drunk of a mother or her absent father.
I wince when the front door slams shut. It was the same fight as the night before. She drinks too much. And he cares too little. Their yells had infiltrated the house, infecting the walls with their anger. I’m surprised the house doesn’t blow over.
“Hey. It’s Detective Reynolds. Yeah, be on the lookout, please. She stormed off again. I couldn’t stop her, and she took her blue Camry,” my father’s worried voice pierces through the veil of anger, sounding resigned to the fact his drunk wife took off in her car again.
This isn’t the first time it’s happened this week. It won’t be the last. His only saving grace is his friends on the police force. The place he loses himself in when times get too tough.
My guess is he’s slipping on his uniform to help search for her without ever peeking in on me, the girl sitting on the edge of her bed, with blood on her palms dripping from the crescent-shaped marks where her worried nails are digging in. After listening to their shouting match for the past few hours, I blow out a breath.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
I jolt, jerking my head toward my window. Jesse’s face appears, concern weighing him down. Through the glass, he studies the tears rolling down my cheeks and the anxiety shaking my entire body.
“Tulip,” he whispers, climbing through the now-open window. “Fuck. I just saw her leave. You, okay?”
I startle at the use of his curse word. He never used to curse. Not until Gavin left us. Jesse’s been different. Wild. More interested in chasing girls and drinking beer with his friends. Something no fourteen-year-old should do. But I don’t stop him. I know it’s how he’s healing without his best friend here. So, he’s trying to fit in with other people he goes to school with. But to me, they aren’t any better for him than alcohol.
Grief hits us all differently. Some of us study the nature around us, capturing pictures to outrun the horror of their home life. And some of us turn to the bottle, consuming every bit of alcohol to numb the pain of losing the one they loved. A best friend. A son.
“Fine,” I sniffle, wiping away the tears.
I’m tired of feeling like the wilting tulip he calls me whenever something bad happens. I want to look danger in the face and not shed a tear.
“Liar,” he grumbles, shutting the window behind him.
