Exhale (11 page)

I dropped my gaze to my bare feet, staring at the cotton candy pink I had painted my toenails earlier today in memory of Kyle, because he’d always told me pink was his favorite color on me whether it was in the form of nail polish, apparel, or makeup. “I can’t even begin to imagine how hard losing Kyle must be for you.” I held back the words that instantly wanted to follow that sentence, the words that I was sure both of us had heard enough to last a lifetime, and swallowed hard.

“No one will,” Derek sniffled beside me, and from the corner of my eye, I saw him shove his hands deep into the front pockets of his pants. “No one will ever understand how dead a part of me feels now.”

Sadness squeezed my heart like a vice. The pressure from it built in my chest until it became hard to breathe. I was on the verge of bursting into tears again, struggling to hold them back because my reasons to cry seemed insignificant in comparison with Derek’s.

“I’ll see you later,” he whispered just before he lightly kissed me on the cheek and turned to walk away.

I looked out to the churning waters of the sea and touched the spot where the warmth of his kiss still lingered. My eyes flooded with the tears I had fought so hard to hold back, and the flicker of comfort that had lingered within me, the one that seemed to blossom in Derek’s presence and dance at his touch, had once again been drowned by an ocean of darkness the further he walked away.

This was how it should be. I shouldn’t feel comfort from Derek’s touch or his presence. It didn’t feel right anymore. Because of me, they had fought that night. Because of me, Kyle wouldn’t get in Derek’s Jeep and he chose to drive himself. Because of me, Kyle was now gone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

There were moments over the course of the next three months when the cancer that ate away at my insides, named Guilt, had taken over my mind completely, leaving me in a dark and empty place.  Moments when I felt like none of us—Derek, his parents, my parents, not even me—would ever be whole again. It was in those moments that I tried to remember the most famous three words that everyone says in situations involving death and loss, ‘time heals all.’

It was hard to believe though that time could heal the gaping hole that had been eaten away in my heart by guilt—the hole that burned each time I looked at Derek, the hole that flamed straight to my soul each time Kyle’s hurt-filled eyes flashed through my mind again, or I relived the moment of his confession.

Eventually, though, the guilt began to subside, but I would never be the same. None of us would.  Kyle’s death would always remain a tender spot within us. A reminder of how quickly things can change, how quickly a life can end.

* * * *

Senior year had started. A white wooden cross had been pounded into the ground in front of the power pole with the gash taken out where Kyle’s car had wrecked, pictures and flowers and little mementoes had all been scattered around it, forming a shrine made by those who missed him most, and my parents had grown closer to his. Our houses might as well have been shifted as close as they could possibly be and fused together with as much time as our families spent with one another.

The relationship between Derek and me that had slowly begun to bud, now withered and died out before it was ever allowed to blossom, and it was all my fault. Derek had tried to comfort me, to continue with what we were trying to become, but it was like there was a block within me. I wanted to be with him, but it just seemed disrespectful to Kyle if I was. Maybe a part of me was twisted for keeping myself in this inner turmoil, for torturing myself unnecessarily, but that’s what I did. It’s what I felt was right, what I deserved. One thing I had learned out of this entire experience of death was that everyone handles it in his or her own way…and this was mine. So who could say whether it was right or wrong, but me?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Is that eyeliner I’m seeing?” Missy asked in a shocked tone.

I cracked a smile and nodded. Today was the first time I had worn eyeliner since the night of Kyle’s accident. Usually, I left my face bare, pulled my dark blonde strands high up on my head into a messy bun, and slipped on the first thing I saw in my closet, because I didn’t care what I looked like. My messy outside was a reflection of how I felt inside. Today I woke up feeling a tiny smidge like my old self again, hence the eyeliner.

“And your hair is brushed, this is a start.” Missy smiled as we continued up the steps from the parking lot. “My best friend is coming back. Took you long enough.”

There it was—the insensitive slap I had been waiting on since reaching for my eyeliner and applying the first coat. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep in the harsh words that had found their way to the tip of my tongue, because deep down, I knew that she meant well, the same way that I also knew she was right. It had been three long months since Kyle’s death. The temperatures had grown cooler with the season change and my guilt had just as gradually begun to dissipate.

“So, what answer did you get for question number forty-two last night?” I asked in an attempted subject change, because if we continued talking about how I had finally pulled myself back together a tiny bit, then my old friend
Guilt
would hammer against my conscience again, and tell me that it was too soon still and I would be right back where I was yesterday—a mess.

“Let me look,” she said as she stepped to the side and stopped to rifle through her notebook.

I leaned against the red brick of the main building we were standing beside and let out the breath that had been constricted in my chest, relieved for the change of subject. I pulled my notebook out of my messenger bag and tugged out the paper on top so we could compare answers.

“I put it in here. I don’t know why I can’t freaking find it,” Missy griped as she frantically searched through her notebook. “I swear, if I left it on the kitchen counter at home I’m going to be pissed.”

“It’s probably in there.” My voice sounded flat even to my own ears. Missy thankfully didn’t seem to notice or else she undoubtedly would have called me out on it. She had in the past, especially when it was followed by that fake smile that my lips were now trained to twist into. The one that made people leave me alone and stop asking if I was all right; the one that erased the sympathy from their eyes because it seemed somewhat believable.  Not with her, though, Missy always called me on it.

My eyes trailed around absently; taking in all of the unfamiliar faces I had seen here every day, but never paid much attention to, until they came to one so incredibly familiar, my breath hitched. I had seen him yesterday. We actually shared a class together every day, but it didn’t matter. I could share every class with him and still feel the same each time I saw him—jostled.

Derek walked up the concrete walkway that led into the main building, the building I was leaning against, without noticing me…without noticing anything besides the concrete he was stepping on. His shoulders were slightly hunched forward and his hands were shoved deeply into his front pockets.

“How’s it going, Derek? We still on for tonight?” Brody asked as he high fived him while walking in the opposite direction.

Derek looked up, a large grin making an appearance on his face, and answered Brody. “Yeah, sure man. Seven o’clock, I haven’t forgotten.”

I could see through his grin the same way Missy could see through mine. I could see how much he hurt and I wondered if I was the only one it was visible to.

“All right, later,” Brody nodded and continued on the way he’d been going.

Derek’s smile faded from his face. His eyes dropped back to the concrete and his hands crammed themselves deeper into his pockets than before. I fought the urge to catch up to him, to comfort him, and to make a genuine smile appear on his face once more. But I knew that if I gave in, then the feelings I had managed to stuff inside a tiny bottle and tuck away on a dusty shelf inside of me would come forward and open. So would the guilt I held that had forced us apart, that I still hadn’t managed to release entirely. I couldn’t deal with that again. I wasn’t nearly ready.

“Finally, there it is,” Missy said just as Derek walked out of my view. “I knew I’d put it in here somewhere.”

I tore my eyes from the double doors he had stepped through and took in a breath, as I forced my mind to clear of all things Derek.

“Number forty-two…” Missy said as she scanned the paper in her hand. “I got sixty-four, how about you?”

I glanced down at the forgotten paper in my hand and scanned for number forty-two. “Sixty-four.”

“Oh, good.  Maybe we both did it right then.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said as we started walking again, making our way toward homeroom.

After the last class of the day, instead of booking it as quickly as possible out of this hellhole like everyone else, I headed to the library with a gargantuan book I had borrowed from Mr. Deetz involving European history, my fingers marking the pages I needed to copy for research on a project due next week. I spotted Derek through the plate-glass window and I paused mid-step. He sat hunched over a table intently reading a textbook, his right hand firmly gripping his pen as it hovered above his notebook. I stood there staring at him, comparing him to the Derek I remembered, the Derek from before Kyle’s death. They were two very different people.

The old Derek would have been tapping a tune with his pen against his notebook while biting his bottom lip as he focused hard. He would have had some form of emotion on his face; he was never expressionless. This Derek was always expressionless, unless he was faking it for someone. This Derek didn’t tap his pen or bite his bottom lip like the old Derek. He merely just sat there, staring blankly at the white pages with black lettering in his textbook, unmoving.

I waited for him to notice me, but he never did. I didn’t know why this disappointed me so much.  Hugging the extremely large European history book against my chest as though it were a shield, I took the few remaining steps toward the library door and pushed it open. Without even a glance in Derek’s direction, I crossed the room and headed straight toward Mrs. Meeks’ desk to ask permission to use the student copier.

“Hi, Mrs. Meeks, could I use the copier machine, please?” I asked in a soft voice, my heart hammering against my chest and my palms growing sweaty from the thought of Derek noticing me. “I need to make a few copies of some things for research since Mr. Deetz won’t allow me to take this book home.”

“Sure, that would be fine. I need to run these papers down to the principal’s office; do you know how to use the machine?” she asked with a friendly smile as she pushed her round glasses up a little higher on the bridge of her nose.

“Yes.” There was only one button, right? It couldn’t be that hard.

Mrs. Meeks nodded and walked away carrying a stack of papers. I turned and made a straight shot from the front desk to the only copy machine available for students that stood just outside the computer lab. I glanced at Derek only once along the way. His head was still turned down toward his textbook, his face still emotionless, and his pen still hovering above his notebook paper. The disappointment I’d felt when staring at him through the plate glass and him not noticing me intensified, because I knew that he had heard me talking to Mrs. Meeks, my voice hadn’t been
that
low, and yet he still refused to even look my way.

I wondered for the first time if Derek felt exactly as I did—that we were better off apart, because together we reminded each other too much of Kyle and that night.

I opened the copier and attempted to line up the first page that I needed with the lines on the machine, while keeping my fingers as markers for the others. When I finally got everything situated, I closed the lid with my other hand and reached for the copy button. The book shifted as my arms stretched out, falling out from under the lid. I caught it in midair, but lost the page I had been attempting to copy.

“Crap,” I muttered under my breath as I struggled with the heavy book in my arms to retrieve the paper I had printed, hoping at least the page number was visible.

The entire page was crooked, but at least the page number was clear—236. Flipping until I found it again, I lined the book back up and attempted round two. This time, I carefully reached out and pressed the button. Success. Or so I had thought, until I looked at what I’d copied. The edges of the page you could see fine, but it was the middle that was a gray blur.

“Seriously?” I grumbled as I realized I was going to need to press down on the lid while the page was being printed in order to get the book flush so the entire page could be printed readably.

I pressed the lid down to flatten the book and was contemplating pressing the button with the heel of my shoe when a familiar chuckle erupted from behind me.

“Need some help?”

Goose bumps prickled across my skin. I shifted on my feet to hide the involuntary shiver that ran along my spine due to Derek’s sudden nearness. “Uh, yeah, actually I do.”

He reached around me for the book. “Let me see it, I’ll show you the correct way to make a copy with a book this size.”