Change of Heart (4 page)

“And it won’t kill you to give it a rest every once in a while,” he counters. And he’s right. It is our last night together, the least I can do is refrain from lecturing him. It is too late for it to do any good anyway. Isn’t it?

I sigh in acceptance, and he takes it as an invitation, rolling towards me and cupping my face. I look into his deep green eyes, and for a moment, I swear he looks sad. But he can’t possibly be. He doesn’t know what’s really been plaguing me these past couple months.

He closes his eyes and presses his lips against mine. I pull him closer and he moves himself above me. My mouth opens on a soft moan and he takes advantage, pushing his way inside. Our tongues clash and our bodies grind against each other as we rid one another of our clothes, coming together completely one last time.

It’s a night I will never forget. I’m so grateful that the bedroom light is out, and the moon is low so he can’t see the tears I can’t hold back in the dark.

“Decker?” I take some comfort in the heat radiating from his naked body pressed up against my back. It makes me feel bold. Bold enough to speak my heart? My mind? 

“Hmm?”

“Things are going to change.” I close my eyes tight, badly wanting to tell him everything. How much I love him…really, really love him. And that I’m going to Stanford. I want him to assure me that everything will be okay…that we’ll be okay. That he loves me, too, and we’ll make it work despite the distance. I need his strength.

“Nah.” He yawns loudly, the liquor on his breath wafting over my shoulder as he exhales and pulls me tighter against him. “We might not see each other as much…but we’ll always be best friends.”

The small glimmer of hope I had burns out in the night.

“Best friends…right.” A final tear falls from my eye, runs down my cheek and drops to the pillow with an audible plop.

“Forever…” he murmurs.

By morning, Decker is gone.

A few hours later, so am I.

Chapter Five

Decker

One Week Later

It’s been one week since I’d last seen Casey. Her car hasn’t been in the driveway, and she’s not answering any of my calls or texts. Her bedroom window is even locked—it’s never locked. I know I was drunk the last time we’d seen each other, but I don’t think I’d said or done anything stupid. And she wouldn’t be ignoring me if I did, she wouldn’t shut me out. Casey would’ve given me hell for it. That’s just the type of girl she is. She always calls me out on my shit.

I’d been too busy to catch up with her during the week because of training, but I’m not letting this go on any longer.

“Hey, Mrs. Evans,” I say as I approach Casey’s mom. She’s unloading groceries from the trunk of her car. “Let me help you with those.” I grab a few bags.

“Thanks, hon.” She pushes the trunk lid down with her elbow and starts walking to the house. “How are you doing?”

“I’m doing well. Is Casey home? I haven’t seen her car, and she’s not answering my messages. I probably did something to make her mad again.” I give her my best ‘get out of trouble’ smile, but it quickly turns into a frown when I see the expression on her face. She looks upset. “What is it? Is it Casey? Is something wrong?”

“I’m sorry, Decker. I thought Casey would have told you.” She unlocks the front door and ushers me inside.

“Told me what?” Now I’m panicking. Where the hell is Casey? “Where is she?”

“She’s gone, sweetie. She left a week ago. Last Saturday morning.”

Last Saturday morning…the morning after the night I’d last seen her…she hadn’t told me she was going anywhere. Come to think of it, she hadn’t said much that night at all.

“Where did she go?”

“California,” Mrs. Evans says, eying me as if I should already know the answer to my question. And dammit, I should know. She should have told me. What the hell is Casey doing in California? Vacation?

“Why?” I ask, feeling like an even bigger idiot.

Mrs. Evans looks at me curiously. “Didn’t the two of you talk about your future plans at all, Decker?”

I think about it for a moment, did we? We’d talked about me going to South Carolina to play ball. But had we ever talked about what she’d wanted to do? I think back over our summer and even senior year and can’t recall a moment when Casey had mentioned what she’d wanted to do after high school. I can’t think of a moment when I’d asked her, either.

Things between us had been weird over the summer. We hadn’t talked as much as we usually had. She had been keeping something from me. I’d thought she was just working it out in her head and would come to me when she was ready.

Shit.

Mrs. Evans saves me from further humiliation. “College, Decker. Stanford? She left for college.”

“Right, of course,” I nod. “I didn’t realize she was already gone is all.”

Bullshit.
I didn’t realize she was already gone?
How about I hadn’t even known she was leaving? Stanford? That’s news to me!

Whatever rift was between us this summer, it sure as shit doesn’t explain this.

Mrs. Evans isn’t buying my crap, but she graciously doesn’t say anything else about it, just nods in response. “I’ll let her know you were asking for her. Her cell reception might not be all that great in the dorm.” She’d probably added that last part in to make me feel better about her not answering my calls.

I nod. “That would be great. Thanks.”

She smiles sadly. “You’re welcome. Thanks for helping me bring this stuff inside.”

“You’re welcome. Well, I’d better get back home. Have to pack.” I make my way to the front door with Mrs. Evans following behind me.

“Right, you leave next week?”

“Yes, ma’am, next Monday.”

“If I don’t see you before you go, good luck, Decker. You’ll do great at USC.” She smiles.

“Thanks, Mrs. Evans.” I close the door behind me and walk across the street, back to my house, my mind racing at one hundred miles per hour.

It should be Casey sending me off and wishing me good luck, not her mom. I’d thought it would have been. It’s always been me and Case. I can’t believe she left for school and didn’t even tell me. I rack my brain again, trying to remember a moment when she may have brought it up, but there’s nothing. Not once had Casey mentioned Stanford or California. I would have remembered that. It’s the other side of the damn country, for crying out loud. There’s no way that would’ve escaped my notice.

I should have known. Hell, I probably should have asked her. Shit, she was the damn valedictorian of our class, of course she’d go to college. I’ve been so caught up in baseball between my last high school season, scholarship, and summer training. So selfish. Yes, I should have asked Casey what her plans were, but she could have told me, too. She should have told me.

We’re best friends—or were. We’d spent almost every day or night together for the past twelve years for shit’s sake. And she just leaves? I think back to that last night, again, trying to recall something, anything that might suggest to me that she was leaving.

Nothing. There’s nothing. Not even boxes in her room. Everything had been in place. And there is only one reason why that would be. She hadn’t wanted me to know.

What the fuck?

I knew whatever had been going through her mind back at Cade’s party was a bigger deal than she was letting on. I fucking knew it. Now she’s gone! Just like that. And I have no way of finding out why since she won’t answer my calls.

I ball up my fists and try to reign in the desire to punch the live oak tree in my front yard. The tree Casey and I always used to climb. I used to shove the Spanish moss that draped all over it’s branches down her shirt. Our stupid initials are somewhere on this tree.

How can she be with me like that and then just disappear? Twelve years!

I’d thought we were friends. Best friends. But I guess I’d been wrong.

I hadn’t known Casey at all.

She hadn’t wanted me to know her.

Chapter Six

Casey

Three Years Later

I’m on I-40, just outside of Little Rock when I get the call. I pull over to the side of the highway because I can’t catch my breath. The words I’d hoped I would never have to hear play over and over in my mind as the sobs wrack my body.

“He’s gone, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”

He’s supposed to be around forever. He’s never supposed to leave me. This isn’t fair. I should have had more time. I should’ve left days ago. I should’ve flown cross country to see him. I could have
—
no, would have
—
been there days ago. I could have seen him alive, one last time. But I’d always thought he was invincible. Nothing could bring him down.

How wrong I was.

I finally pull myself together enough to get back on the road and find myself a small motel to stop at for the night. I have about one full day left of driving, and that’s pushing it, but there is no way I’m making any more progress tonight. Not if I want to make it back to Charleston alive.

The front desk clerk at the hotel checks me in very quickly, probably unsure of what to do with the borderline hysterical girl in front of her. I’m sure I look very attractive and sane with my red eyes and wet, puffy cheeks. And there’s a good chance that something is running from my nose.

He’s gone.

I sniffle as I thank the clerk and grab my key, then hightail it to my car to retrieve my overnight bag. Pausing at my car door, I glare at the offending backpack on the backseat—a reminder that not too long ago things were good. Things were normal. One of the most important people in my life hadn’t been dead.

I had packed casual, assuming I’d be hanging out at the house and maybe the hospital if he hadn’t been discharged by the time I’d completed the drive home. I don’t have a dress in my bag. I don’t have anything appropriate for a funeral. I hadn’t planned on attending one. I’ll have to go shopping when I get home. Right. Like I’m going to want to do that.

I unlock my car door the old-fashioned way—with a key—since my 90s era Civic doesn’t have a fancy key fob. I grab the bag and slam the door, leaning against it for a moment to catch my breath.
How did everything get so messed up?
Shaking my head, I push off the car, hugging my backpack to my chest as I make my way to my motel room.

After three tries, the magnetic door latch finally gives and I stumble inside. I briefly look around the small, dark room. The bed looks clean enough, with its retro, multi-colored quilt. The shag carpet has definitely seen better days, but I don’t plan on frolicking around barefoot, so I don’t really care about that. The dresser is home to a small, tube-style TV and single-serve coffee pot. And there is a tiny bathroom with a walk-in shower. That’ll do. It’ll all do.

***

After taking a much-needed shower to rinse the road off of me, I flop down, face-first, onto the bed. I know I should find a restaurant nearby where I can get some take-out, but I don’t have the energy. I lift up on my elbows and place my head in my hands.

I thought I had more time. Why didn’t I leave after the first phone call? Why didn’t I get in the stupid car and start driving right away? Because he wasn’t going anywhere, that’s why. He was always there. Always. He would never leave me. Why him?

Only he did. He did leave me.

The tears begin again, and soon I’m a hiccupping, sobbing mess on the horribly colored bedspread. I’m not sure how much time has gone by, but the room is dark and there’s a faint buzzing sound coming from my cell phone on the dresser.

I stumble my way over. A text from my mom asking me to call her when I stop for the night. I can’t call her now. If I speak to her I’ll completely break. And I need to make it the rest of the way home before I do that. Before I dissolve into nothingness.

I send her a quick text saying I’ve stopped for the night and am already in bed. I do a screenshot of my location on the map app and add that I’ll see her tomorrow. I strip the bedspread off the bed and lay above the crisp white sheets, curling my knees up to my chest.

When I finally close my eyes, all I see are the bright green eyes I’ve spent the past three years trying to forget.

***

After a terrible night of sleep, or lack thereof, I hit the road around four in the morning. My old school GPS indicates I have about thirteen hours to go, so I assume I’ll be home by six if I keep my stops to a minimum.

The rest of Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia fly by in a blur of trees and pavement, with only a handful of pit stops for gas and bathroom breaks. My car is littered with empty water and Gatorade bottles, as well as an assortment of chip and candy bags. I make a mental note to stop and clean it out before I get home. My mother will freak out at my junk food diet, and now is clearly not the time to concern her with my health.

As I drive down I-26, nearing home, I wonder just how different everything will be. Will his truck still be in the driveway? His boots on the front porch? Or will everything already be void of his memory? Kind of like how my heart feels right this moment. Empty.

I shake off the negative thoughts, I have thirty minutes left to drive. Thirty minutes until I can truly let loose the emotions I’ve bottled up inside since leaving the motel in Arkansas. Thirty minutes until I’m home, forced to face reality. To face him. To face the lack of him.

Once I’m in the service area, I turn on one of the local radio stations and advertisements for businesses that used to be familiar to me start playing through the speakers. I try to sing along to some of the rock songs that play in an attempt to distract myself, but as each mile marker goes by, I get more and more tense.