Forever & Always: The Ever Trilogy (Book 1) (19 page)

I guess that was part of what upset me about the letter from Ever. I thought, deep down inside where I didn’t dare admit things even to myself, that I could be better for Ever than Will. I’d know she hadn’t come, and I’d make sure she did. I’d make sure she felt good. That was the point, right? Not just for him, but for both of them to feel good.

That was a truth that I didn’t dare tell Ever. Some secrets are best kept locked deep down in the silent places of one’s soul.
 

As junior year raced away, turned to summer, and from there into senior year, there were three constants in my life: riding, roping, and breaking horses; Luisa; and letters to and from Ever. Miguel knew Luisa and I were together, and seemed okay with it as long as she stayed in school, passed her classes, and didn’t get in any trouble, especially of the out-of-wedlock maternity kind. Against which eventuality we’d been very careful, Luisa with pills and me with protection every time. Ever confided in one letter that she and Will were being careful, too, after I’d directly asked her about it.
 

Our letters, Ever’s and mine, hadn’t changed in terms of personal details, or the strange kind of faux-lover intimacy, but as we got closer and closer to graduation, they’d become less frequent. Once a week became once a month, and then, by the time I’d walked the aisle and gotten my diploma, the letters were sporadic at best. I still told her everything, and she told me everything, too, I think, but we just didn’t have time to write as frequently. I was busy with the ranch and Luisa, and Ever had been just as busy with Will and an apprenticeship program at Cranbrook Academy of Art that was earning her college credits in preparation for attending Cranbrook’s collegiate program after she graduated.
 

I’d not mentioned, to her or anyone else, that I’d decided to stay in Wyoming, working the ranch. Ever had asked more than once what my plan was, but I’d avoided the discussion.
 

Gramps had asked, too, but I’d said I was still thinking.
 

It was a week after graduation, and I was sitting in the pre-dawn darkness sipping coffee. Gramps came in, poured himself a mug, and sat down across from me, taking a long drink of his black, scalding-hot coffee. “So, grandson. Tell me your plans. No more evading, no more bullshit. You’ve graduated. Now what? Where are you going to college?”

I took a sip, and met his steady gaze. “I’m not. I’m staying here.”

Gramps let out a long breath. “No, Cade.” He leaned forward, wrapping one hand around the mug. “Listen, son. It’s true, my heart wants you to stay here, but…you’re too talented an artist for that. You’re a damn fine ranch hand, and I’ve been lucky to have you. But you have to go to college. You have to follow your own dreams.”

I shook my head. “Gramps…I’ve changed. This
is
my dream now.”

“
Bull
shit.” Gramps slammed his palm on the table. “You’ve given up. You’re here because it’s easy. It’s what you know. I accepted that when you were sixteen. I knew you needed family and something familiar to give you a solid footing after you lost Jan and Aidan so close together. But now, you’ve settled. And I won’t have it. You hear me? I won’t fucking have it. You’ve got your mom in you, and Aidan. They were both intelligent, driven, artistic people. You are, too. But losing your parents, it’s taken something from you. You’re responsible, and you’re steady. But…you’ve got more life to live than simply staying here in Casper fucking Wyoming, breaking horses and making babies. There’s more in store for you than that, boy, and I’m not gonna be the one to stand aside and let you wallow in apathy.”

“I’m not apathetic, Gramps. I like it here. I don’t have a plan, not for art. I don’t know what I’d do. Plus…Luisa is here.”

Gramps pinched the bridge of his nose. “Cade, son. Tell me. What do you love about Luisa?”

I hunted for what to say. “She’s beautiful. She’s smart. She gets me.”

He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his words were slow and careful and measured. “Your Grams completes me. Every moment I spend with her makes me a better man. It’s not just because I’m attracted to her that I love her. She was—and is, as much as ever—a knockout, to me. When I met her after the war, she was this sweet, sassy, independent, sexy little thing, and I didn’t have a chance of resisting her. I met her in a café in San Francisco, before I moved back here. I knew from the moment I saw her that I had to make her mine. And I did. She made my world, Cade. She still does. I’ve spent every single moment of my life for the last forty-plus years with her. I’ve not left her side once, not once, since the day we met. And I’m not ever going to. I love her mind, her heart. I love that she takes care of my boys, the hands. She’s taken you in like her own and loved you. She puts up with my cranky, moody ass.” He leveled a sharp gaze at me. “That’s what I love about my wife. Now, what do you love about Luisa?”

“Gramps, you’ve had forty years to figure all that out—”

“If you’d asked me that question the day we married, when I asked her to marry me, or while we were dating, after I knew I loved her, I would have said much the same. I get what you’re saying, that I’ve had a lifetime with her to learn how to put it like that. But my point is, you’re not in love with Luisa. And you know what? I think you know it. You’re settling. There’s nothing wrong with Luisa. You’ve been good for her, and her for you. She brought you out of your shell a little, and you settled her down some. But do I think that you should not go to college, not finish your education and find a career worthy of your talent, because she’s here? Hell, no. Have you talked to her about your plans? About hers?” He sighed again, rubbing his face. “I love you, Caden. You’re my only grandchild. I want the best for you, and I’ve said my piece. You’re eighteen and an adult. You make your own decisions. But if you stay here, my forecast is that you’ll end up bitter and lonely. There’s something missing in you. I can see it. I may be nothin’ but an old soldier and a cowboy, but I can see well enough. You’re incomplete. And you ain’t gonna find what you need here.”

I sat in place long after he’d left, ruminating on his words. Luisa found me there and sat across from me, a brooding expression on her face.
 

“You’re leaving, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question, and her eyes seemed resigned, but not exactly sad.

“I haven’t decided yet. I was gonna stay, but Gramps doesn’t think I should.”

“Well, I think you should do what you want. Not me and not your
abuelo
.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know what I want.” I looked up at her, met her eyes directly, searched her. “Do you love me, Luisa?”

She took a deep breath, let it out, ran her fingers through her hair, a nervous gesture of hers. “I…I think—I think no, Caden. I wish I could say I do, but that would be a lie. I care for you, very much. But do I love you, deep and with all of my heart? I cannot say yes without any doubt, so I think it must be no.” She tilted her head to one side. “And you? Do you love me?”

“I…god. I think it’s the same answer. No. I thought I did, but like you said, I care about you, I’ve really enjoyed the time we’ve spent together. But…is that forever love? No.” I reached for her hand, but she pulled hers back and folded them on her lap. I sighed. “What are your plans, Luisa?”

“I think maybe I will go to Mexico City. Attend university there. I have applied and been accepted. I would also like to find
mi
madré
.” She was silent for a long moment, and then she looked at me with an expression I couldn’t decipher. “You know, I’ve always known about your letters to your friend. This Ever Eliot. It was not a secret for you. But what you do not know, is I once, while you were sleeping…after…I read two of these letters. One from you to her, the other hers to you. Here is a truth,
y
tal vez usted no conoce esta
, but you love her, and she loves you.” I’d learned enough Spanish simply being with her and around Miguel that I understood the phrase she’d used. “I am not jealous, though, am not now, and was not then. And that is another reason to know that we are not in love, you and I.”

“She’s got her own life.”

“And so do you. But that does not mean you shouldn’t find her, Caden. You never will know what will be possible if you do not give it a try.” She stood up, circled the table, and took my hands, pulled me to my feet. “Come. Ride with me one more time. As we so often do. I will be leaving for Mexico City next week, I think. So this will be our last time together.”

We rode far, out into the rolling wilds where we’d spent so many long afternoons and starlit nights together. It was slow and delicate, and neither of us cried, although we knew it was goodbye, a forever farewell.

a breath of time

“Hey. You must be Cade.”
 

This was punctuated by the metallic scraping of a transparent yellow plastic Bic lighter, flame spurting, lighting something in a colorful glass pipe, the lit contents crackling as the speaker inhaled deeply. A long moment passed as I watched him hold the smoke in his lungs and then spew it out in a tiny, controlled stream. He coughed, acrid, sickly sweet smoke billowing from his nose and mouth, and then set the pipe down on the scratched wooden coffee table.

“I’m Alex.” He was tall and thin, with just enough muscle to not quite qualify as gangly. He had long brown hair tied back at the nape of his neck, the ponytail thick and bushy and falling between his shoulder blades, and the kind of scruff on his chin, upper lip, and cheeks that comes from someone who can’t really grow a beard.
 

I shook his hand, trying to unobtrusively lean away from the stench of pot smoke, which was a futile endeavor since the whole open-plan living room and kitchen were hazed with smoke. “Yeah, I’m Caden. Nice to meet you.”

“You too, bro. Have a seat. That all you brought with you?” He gestured at the duffel bag I’d dropped at my feet when I closed the door behind me.

I shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much. I’ve got some other shit in the truck, but this is it, basically.” I sat down uneasily on the edge of the couch, at the opposite end from Alex.

“Cool.” He took another long, hard hit from the pipe, then handed it along with the lighter to me. I took it, held it, stared at it. “You cool?”

“Am I cool?” I knew I was missing something, some subtext or meaning in the way he asked the question.

He jerked his chin at me. “The bowl. You cool? You smoke?”

“Do I smoke?”

Alex laughed. “Yeah, bro. Do you partake in the sweet embrace of Lady Mary Jane? Do you, in a word, get high?”

“That’s more of phrase than a word, actually.”

Alex laughed again, pulling his hair free from the ponytail, smoothing it back, and retying it. “Shit, yeah, you’re right. But whatever, man. So. Are you cool? I mean, it’s kinda late now, if you’re not, since you’ve already, like, moved in and shit.”

I’d rented a room sight-unseen in a high-rise apartment in downtown Detroit. The ad on the board in the registration office of the College for Creative Studies had merely read, “Looking for a roommate. Pay your half of the bills and don’t steal my stuff. For more information call 313-555-2468.” I’d called, spoken to Alex for about ten minutes, agreed to take the room, and that was that. Of course, he wouldn’t mention the pot smoking over the phone, I supposed, but still, it would have been nice to know.
 

I held the blue-red-orange-purple glass pipe, which Alex had called a bowl, in my hand, thinking. I’d never known anyone who did pot. It was an unknown variable. It was illegal, but so was underage drinking, and I’d done my share of that, usually under the watchful tutelage of the other ranch hands, late at night around a campfire, passing around a bottle of whiskey. Did I have a problem with the pot? The smell, now that I was getting used to it, wasn’t so bad. I was catching a bit of a contact high, I was pretty sure, and it wasn’t unpleasant. Loose, floating. Worry and sadness eased their grip. Missing Luisa faded. Missing Grams and Gramps and Wyoming seemed a bit further away.

I stared down at the bowl, at the charred bits and clumps of green. “I guess I’m cool. Never tried it before.”

“Well, then, give it a hit. See what you think.”
 

I toyed with the wheel of the lighter. “Will I get addicted? Like cocaine or whatever?”

Alex laughed, shaking his head. “No, man. Technically, realistically, honestly speaking, you can get, like, psychologically addicted. Emotionally addicted, too, in a way. Your body won’t
need
it, not like you get with coke or meth. It’s…it’s hard to explain. I’ve been smoking for a long time, since I was thirteen, and I suppose I probably am mentally addicted to the lifestyle, but I’m okay with that. I accept it as a part of who I am. I’m Alex Hines, charcoal artist extraordinaire, professional bassist, and stoner. Will you turn into a stoner from one hit? No, man. You won’t. Guaranteed.”

I’d been in Detroit for two days. The first day I’d spent at the college, sorting out my schedule and getting a map and all that. I’d stayed at a hotel, spent $14.99 on an in-room viewing of
Man of Steel
. I’d met three people aside from the office staff. A girl with purple dreadlocks smoking a cigarette in the parking garage, who had asked me if I had any cigarettes, since clearly the one she was smoking wasn’t going to be enough. Then I’d met a homeless man after eating dinner at Lafeyette Coney Island. His name was Jimmy, and he was a Vietnam vet, disabled, homeless for twenty years, and he stank of equal parts cheap beer and body odor. Now there was Alex, and he was offering me marijuana.

I put the mouthpiece to my lips, flicked the lighter so the flame cracked into life, turned the yellow plastic sideways until the flame touched the pot, and inhaled. Acidic heat blasted my throat, hit my lungs, and I doubled over, hacking until I was lightheaded. Alex laughed until he was crying, wiping his eyes.
 

“Classic, man! Classic!” Alex took the pipe from me. “You’re doing it like a newb, dude. Don’t inhale directly into your lungs. You gotta pull it into your mouth, and then inhale it slowly.” He put the bowl to his mouth, lit it, and pulled so his cheeks hollowed, and then lowered the bowl and inhaled deeply. “See? Like this. Then you hold it in. Get a better buzz that way.” He said this last part in a strange voice, strained from talking while still holding the smoke in.