Instead of You (6 page)

   “I don’t know how, Hayes,” I whispered, “but everything is going to be all right.  Eventually.”  When I pulled away, his eyes found mine, but he looked even sadder than before I’d touched him.

   I walked away and left with my parents.

   When I made it to my bed, I lay down watching the predawn sky through my window lighten with every minute that passed and I listened to my mother sob and my father soothe her from their bedroom.  Only once the house was eerily quiet did my mind finally wander to Cory.  I thought about Cory at five, slinging mud at me from across the yard after one particularly heavy summer rain.  I thought of Cory at ten, letting me sit on the handlebars of his bike as we rode to the grocery store to buy popsicles to sell to all our friends at the park.  I thought of Cory at fifteen, just learning how to drive, his mother practically having a heart attack as he pulled into my driveway, nearly hitting my father’s SUV.

   There were very few memorable events in my life that didn’t involve Cory.  He’d been there since day one.  And had I known our days were numbered, the last two years would have been very different.  I would have made sure of that.

Chapter Five

McKenzie

   The next two weeks passed in a blur.  My parents didn’t make me go back to school immediately; they said I could wait until after the funeral.  Because of the nature of their deaths, a very detailed and thorough autopsy was performed on both Cory and his father, which delayed everything.

   My mom spent a lot of time with Mrs. Wallace but that wasn’t saying much, she was practically catatonic.  She rarely got out of bed, and when she did, she resembled a zombie.

   I didn’t feel like I was faring much better. 

   The night Cory was killed, I don’t think I really comprehended what was happening, or how drastically different my life would become.  I woke up the next morning after a horrible night of dreams.  Dreams of watching Cory being shot, dreams of his face, dreams of him smiling and winking at me just before he left the house.  Each time Dream Cory winked at me, I screamed and yelled at him not to go, to stay with me.  That’s how I woke up, screaming “Please, don’t go!”

   After spending a night dreaming about his death, I reached for my cell phone to see if he’d texted me.  It didn’t occur to me for a few seconds that I’d never get another text from him.  I looked at the very last one he’d sent.

  
I can’t wait for tonight.

   We were supposed to have sex for the first time the night he died. 

   But then he died.

   He was killed.

   So many thoughts were streaming through my mind. 
I should have slept with him months ago so he didn’t die a virgin.
  What a terrible thought.  But for whatever reason, I felt like I’d denied him something.  I never thought I’d feel guilty for waiting, but suddenly, I did.  My reasons for waiting were still valid—I wasn’t in love with him.  But my need to wait until I was in love didn’t seem as important now that he was gone, when weighed against the fact that
he died
.  Besides, I’d agreed to have sex with him anyway, regardless of not being in love.  We’d set a date, we’d paid for a hotel room.  A hotel room we never showed up to.  I was going to go through with it because I felt like he’d waited long enough.  We’d both waited long enough.  I wanted to know, too, what it felt like to be with someone.  I was just as curious as any other girl my age, but I was also just as scared.  There was also a tiny thought in the back of my mind that perhaps, just maybe, having sex with him would send me over the proverbial edge.  I thought maybe if I made love with him, that final switch would flip and I’d finally fall in love with him.

   I’d never known anyone who’d been murdered before, but I could officially attest to the fact that the family left behind by someone who died of natural causes had a very different road than Mrs. Wallace and Hayes.  Not only were they dealing with the deaths, but they were also dealing with worrying about the man who had killed Cory and Mark.

   After he’d shot all three people, the man wearing a mask ran away and the police had no leads on where it was he went or his identity.  They knew what kind of gun was used, based on the bullets pulled from all three bodies, but that was basically the only information they had to go on.

   This not only caused Mrs. Wallace great stress, understandably, it also caused some degree of paranoia.  I’d gone with my mom over to her house a few times and I’d heard her talking about what-ifs.  What if the killer had known Mark?  What if he killed him on purpose?  Targeted him?  What if he wasn’t finished and came back for her and Hayes?

   I didn’t see her in hysterics, but I heard her.  She’d been in her room with my mom and Hayes and I’d sat on their couch, eyes wide, pulse racing.

   It hadn’t occurred to me that this might not have been an accident.

   Hayes wandered out and I must have looked like a deer in headlights because he diverted from whatever path he was on and came straight to me.  “What’s wrong, Kenz?”

   “Is what she’s saying true?  Will they come back for you?”  I hadn’t felt fear in the days since they’d died, but I was feeling it then.

   He didn’t answer right away, but he looked at me, seeming to just take my face in.  “No, Kenz.  No one’s coming back for us.  Mom’s just not thinking straight.  Her mind’s not right.”

   “But how do you know?”  The thought was terrifying.

   “Because it doesn’t make any sense.  That guy was just hard up for money.  He probably didn’t go in there intending to shoot anyone.  He didn’t know who my dad was, or even what his name was.”

   “But he does now!  This has been all over the news all week.  He’s out there and he knows the man he killed has a wife and another son.  What’s stopping him from finding you and—ˮ

   I never finished that sentence because Hayes pulled me into his arms, running a hand down my hair, whispering that everything was okay, that he wasn’t going anywhere.

   When the day finally came for the funeral, it felt surreal.  I had never, not in a million years, thought I’d ever be attending Cory’s funeral.  Even if we’d grown up and gotten married just like everyone had planned, I’d never thought that far ahead.  I thought it would be years before I ever even had to
go
to a funeral.  And even though eighteen was too young, in my opinion, to be going to your best friend’s funeral, it was most definitely too young to be dead.

   Everything about Cory’s funeral felt wrong.

   Mrs. Wallace insisted we sit in the front pew, even though I’d wanted to be as far away from the caskets as possible.  Hayes sat on the end, his hand wrapped around his mother’s, resting in her lap.  I was sure everyone in the church could hear Mrs. Wallace weeping throughout the funeral, and there was no denying it was heartbreaking. 

   Sometimes, people refer to funerals as celebrations of life.  But not that funeral. 

   No. 

   No one was there to remember the good times, or think about how much light Cory had brought his parents, or how lucky Mrs. Wallace had been to spend her life with her husband.

   No.

   Everyone was painfully aware that we were in mourning, that these deaths were a tragedy, and there was no way to lighten the mood.  Mrs. Wallace was crying, and she wasn’t the only one.

   When the pastor of the church neither Cory nor I had ever attended finished talking about life and what a gift it was, and how we can’t always understand what was in store for us or our loved ones, he took a step back and I startled as Hayes stood and started walking toward the pulpit.  The instant he was absent from his mother’s side, Mrs. Wallace slumped toward my mother and I realized she was incapable of even holding herself upright.

   Hayes walked past me and our eyes met for just one second and even though I’d never found him to be particularly easy to read, the emotion held in just that one second of contact left me reeling.  It was almost as if every emotion he’d been feeling in the last two weeks was stored in his eyes, creating a storm of feelings that was about to erupt right in front of me.  I wanted to jump off my seat, take his hand, and just be next to him.  I wanted for him to let me help carry some of the weight I could see grasping his shoulders with invisible hands.

   But before I could even blink, he pulled his eyes away from mine and continued on his way.

   He made it to the little podium, pulled a piece of paper out of his front jacket pocket, and unfolded it, placing it on the wooden platform.  He took a deep breath, releasing it audibly as the crowd in the church, which was so full there were people standing in the back, waited with bated breath to hear his broken words.

   He finally looked up and the urge to run to him only grew.  I didn’t want him doing it alone.

   “The first thing I’d like to say is that, on behalf of my mother and myself, we’d like to thank everyone for their support.  The past two weeks have been trying, to say the least, and things would only be worse if it weren’t for the love and support coming to us from our friends and family.  You see,” he continued, his eyes darting down to his paper, “my mother and I have found ourselves to be in somewhat new territory.”  His hand came up, running absently through his hair, eyes still downward.  “When faced with unimaginable circumstances, there are only a few choices to be made.  Among the terrible choices, one has been our mode of operation: cling to those around you.  I’ve been away at college for a few years and even though I think it’s normal, I hadn’t been talking to my parents as often as I should have, and I definitely wasn’t talking to Cory as much as I should have, and that’s something I regret.

   “My mom called me a few weeks before Cory’s birthday and invited me home for his birthday dinner.  I wasn’t far, just a two-hour drive, but I was too busy.  Too involved in my own life.  Too cool, maybe?  I was a lot of things, but I didn’t bother coming home.”  He let out a loud, swooshing breath, swaying back and forth like he were moving his weight from one foot to another.  “I have no idea what would have happened had I come home.  There’s no way to tell.  I like to think I would have gone with them, would have been with them in that convenience store, would have done something to prevent us all from having to be here today, but I’ll never know.

   “What I
do
know, what I’ve learned in the last two weeks, is that nothing is guaranteed.  Things you think you are owed, you just can’t count on.  You think you’ll never have to bury your brother and your father on the same day?  Think again.  You think you’ll be old and gray before someone close to you passes away?  Nope.” 

   I could see his hands shaking, his body growing restless.  I knew he was a ticking time bomb, and knowing that, I felt the same.  I was antsy, wanting to run to him, pull him away, tell him he didn’t owe anyone any more of his words or thoughts.  Enough had been taken from him.

   “If Cory were here he’d tell you all, I’m sure, to live as if tomorrow weren’t a given, as though you’ve only got this one chance to take what you want from life.  And if you can’t take his word for it, take mine.”

   My breath caught as Hayes’s eyes met mine.  My chest ached as he spoke directly to me, even though the entire church was full of people holding back cries and wiping their eyes.

   “If you let that one moment pass you by where you could have grabbed what you wanted, there will come a day when it’s out of your grasp, and regret will haunt you, just like a ghost.”

   My heart sputtered in my chest, my fingers clenched into a tight fist.  I was suppressing every natural instinct I had, forcing myself to stay seated.  If I stood, I was either going directly to Hayes, or straight out the door.

   “My mother wants everyone to know how much she loved my father.”  Hayes’s voice cracked with his words.  The sound pierced my chest and cut my heart right in half.  “They had a good life together, and maybe one day she’ll be strong enough to tell you all how he earned her love every day.  Maybe one day soon she’ll be strong enough to tell you how much she loved Cory, how from the day he was born until the day he was taken from us he was her baby.  In fact,” he said with a sudden short laugh, “he’ll always be her baby and I’ve given up trying to compete with him anymore.  The competition is now eternally unfair.”  He laughed again as a single tear streamed down his cheek, and light laughter came from a few more people in the church.

   After a few moments he took another deep breath, then let his gaze sweep the church, seeming to take in the sight before him.

   “Again, we’re really thankful for everyone’s support.  We hope the death of Cory and my father isn’t in vain, though.  If anything, we hope you all will live your life a little fuller, a little more aggressively, and remember that tomorrow is never promised.  Nothing is promised to us.  The only thing we’ve really got is the here and the now, and if you let it pass you by, if you sit by and let it go, there’s no guarantee you’ll get those moments, or those people, back.”

   He folded his piece of paper up as he walked back down the stairs toward the pews.  He came closer and closer to me, and it was almost as if the magnetic force between us grew stronger with each step because the instant he was right in front of me, I stood and opened my arms to him.

   I was sure to everyone in the church it looked like one person offering a lifelong friend support during, arguably, the hardest day of his life.  I was sure everyone watched us embrace and was happy that Hayes had a friend like me in his life to help him deal with his staggering loss.  They all thought my motivations for wrapping my arms around him, for spreading my fingers wide over his back to feel as much of him as I possibly could, was innocent.

   I would spend the next few days trying to convince myself of that too.

Chapter Six

Hayes

   Funerals were exhausting.