Remember When 3: The Finale (Remember Trilogy #3) (2 page)

  
The tiny snap isn’t nearly big enough for the madness I’m feeling.

  
I’m feeling bigger. I’m feeling louder.

   I
stomp to the living room and rip a drawer from the side table, discus-throwing it at the television with a roar, where it connects with a spectacular crash, the wood splintering apart on its way to the carpet. It is quickly followed by the TV, which cracks face-first onto the floor, its descent causing the armoire that housed it to pull away from the wall in a
Smooth Criminal
lean, tethered to the studs by a vinyl safety restraint. I shove the remains of the TV out of the way, knocking over one of those fucking
Wilmington Blue
easy chairs. I grab hold of the top of the armoire, using my full weight to unleash the tether in a fantastic rip, pulling the massive thing down where it crashes and flattens almost completely to the ground. Surprisingly, the bulky piece of furniture hasn’t broken apart upon its landing, but the coffee table hasn’t fared as well.

  
I stand with my hands in fists at my hips, chest heaving, the alcohol and adrenaline coursing through me, taking in the whole demolition site. The throbbing in my broken arm has exploded into a sharp, stabbing pain that drowns the ache in my chest. It’s an improvement.

  
The room is trashed. Such a beautiful disaster.

   I head back to the mini fridge and slam down another bottle of whatever just as the knocking starts.
For a second, I pathetically hope it’s
her
, but then I hear the voice of Jeffrey, the hotel manager. “
Mr. Wiley? Is everything okay in there
?”

   Yeah. Sure, buddy. Everything’s peachy.

   Fuck ‘em. I crack open another bottle as Jeffrey pounds on the door again. “
Mr. Wiley!
”

   “Go away!”

   “
Mr. Wiley, I’m sorry, but we’ve received a few phone calls about some excessive noise up here. Are you sure everything’s alright?
”

  
This guy.

   I storm over to the door and whip it open
clumsily, but violently enough that Jeffrey takes a step back. Or maybe I just look like enough of a maniac that I’ve scared him. Good.

   “I told you I’m fine!”

   Jeffrey peeks past me into the room. I know
it
isn’t fine.

   “Mr. Wiley… your room…”

   “Thass right, pal.
My
room. My fugging hotel, actually. So I did a li’l remodeling. So what?”

  
I know I’m slurring, and I sound like a dick. I know I
am
a dick. And Jeffrey’s taken care of every detail for me since the minute I checked into this place. He doesn’t deserve this. He’s not the one who stood me up tonight. I can always count on Jeffrey.

   I lose the smarm and
switch gears, offering casually, “Hey, I’m sorry, Jeffy. You wanna come in an’ have a drink? Come on. Come on in.”

   I open the door fully, inviting him in with a sweep of my damaged arm, coated in white
powder and the few remnants of gauze still sticking to my skin. Jeffrey doesn’t look like he’s in a sociable mood and doesn’t make it past the threshold.

   “Mr. Wiley, thank you, but no.” He gives the mess in the living room another once over and says, “I trust you’ll keep the noise level down for the rest of the night, yes?”

   I’m calm as a cucumber. My tantrum has exhausted me. There will be no more hotel-room-trashing from me.

  
“Yes, Jeffy. I’ll keep it down. You can count on me,” I tell him, giving some sloppy, crazy-eyed, military salute. “G’night. I’ll be quiet. Okay. G’night.”

   And
then I close the door, grab a few more bottles, and head back into the bedroom.

   Alone.

PART THREE

2005

Chapter 1

WINTER PASSING

   Do you ever have psychic premonitions? I’m not talking about foreseeing world events in your crystal ball or being able to read someone’s mind. But do you ever get that little tingle along your skin, that little whisper in a forgotten corner of your brain that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up?

   It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I know it. So, I wasn’t quite as surprised as I should have been when the phone rang one otherwise uneventful afternoon. I was pretty sure I already knew who was calling.

   I grabbed it off its base on the first ring, and I don’t even think I said hello before being met with, “My father died.”

   I gripped the phone in my hand, not quite believing what I was hearing. Not just the startling news being disseminated, but the voice of the person delivering it.

  
It’s strange how there are people in your life that never seem to leave it. Those friends that you may not talk to regularly, but whom you still very much consider a part of your life. You may go months, even years without seeing one another or speaking. But once you wind up together again, it’s as if not a single day has gone by.

   I have lots of friends like that. I don’t know what the formula is, but I’m like Fry’s dog. Once I bond with someone, even someone new, it’s for life. Most of the people in my inner circle are the ones who have steadily been a part of it, however. My father has always been there for me, and my best friend Lisa is my rock. Even my little brother Bruce and I managed to form a decent friendship during our twenties.

   But what is it about high school? Is it just the fact that you spend every single day with those people? Every single day over the course of four very formative years that bonds you forever? At the age of thirty-one, I had friends through work and around the neighborhood. I had lots of buddies from college. But for some reason, it wasn’t the same. Sure, I kept in touch. But I always found myself coming back to my center, my core. The tightest bond I ever maintained was with the group from St. Norman’s graduating class of ’91.

   Lisa was my go-to, my partner-in-crime, my touchstone. Her husband Pickford was like the big brother I never had. Cooper Benedict was a childhood friend, and even though he lived down in Maryland, we still talked occasionally and made a point to get together at least once a year. Even Greg
Rymer still lived right in town, and I managed to toss him some work every now and again.

 
Fourteen years after high school, and I was still surrounded by the people from my youth. Hell, it was like I was still
living
my youth. Years ago, I’d moved back to the town I’d grown up in. Not only that, but I was living in my childhood home as well. I was sitting in my old bedroom, staring at the same white-painted furniture that lined the walls, the same pink princess phone in my hand.

  
I twirled the cord around my finger as my eyes landed on the back of my bedroom door. I noticed the tiny drawing near the bottom, saw the small heart sketched in red Sharpie years before, registered the initials lovingly drawn inside. I’d scribbled it there a lifetime ago and had completely forgotten about it in all the years since… until the phone rang.

  
Because at that moment, I found my eyes zeroing in on the silly little spot as I spoke to my high school sweetheart.

   “Oh, Trip. I’m so sorry.”

Chapter 2

AN UNFINISHED LIFE

   Fighting down my nausea, I pulled my car into the driveway of the Malachi Bros. Funeral Home and parked near the back of the lot. I figured there was every chance that I’d be there for the entire day. I took a deep breath, checked the clock on my dashboard, and found that it was 1:05. The wake started at one, but I wanted to allow a little time for Trip and his family to have a few private moments before the mourners arrived. It would be the only peace they’d have for a while, once the steady stream of friends and family started running roughshod through their lives. My plan was to sit and wait it out for a few minutes in my car.

   B
ut then I saw the van.

  
Parked around the corner of the building was a white truck with a satellite jobby on top, so there was no mistaking the fact that it was a news van. I should have expected it, but I couldn’t believe the press was staking out the place on such a personal day. I was busy shooting scathing death-looks in its general direction, so I didn’t notice the photographer approaching my car until he was already at my window with a clacking camera poised between us.

  
Seriously, dude?

   I open
ed the car door into his hip, but he continued snapping away, asking a barrage of stupid, nosy questions. “Are you family? Are you Trip Wiley’s girlfriend? Hey, over here! C’mon, lemme just get one shot! Who are you?”

   I
put my pocketbook in front of my face and shuffled toward the front door to the funeral home. I stopped with my fingers on the handle, just long enough to shoot back from behind my purse, “You should be ashamed of yourself! His father just died, asshole! Get a real job.”

   Okay, not necessarily graceful, but my God. What a bunch of bloodsuckers.

   Since my plan to wait it out had been thwarted, I had no choice but to head inside. The overwhelming smell of funeral flowers immediately smacked me in the face. It was too fragrant, and it made me feel even more nauseated than before. The lobby was quiet, save for some soft music playing. It was not new age or classical. It was doo-wop. I smiled to myself, quite sure that Trip had been the one to arrange for the unconventional selection of fifties tunes to be played in honor of his father. Very nice.

   The director made
his way out of a door located just off the lobby. He had mastered the sympathetic smile after so many years, and aimed one at me now. “Wilmington?” he asked unnecessarily. Malachi’s is a large home, but there would be no other deceased laid out that day. Terrence Chester Wilmington II was a very successful hotelier, with a chain of establishments dotted across the country. Aside from family and friends, there would be many business associates coming to pay their respects. But right then, I knew I would probably only find his immediate family and the occasional straggler like me.

   Before I could make my way into t
he viewing room, I encountered Sandy Carron, Trip’s publicist, whom I had met briefly four-and-a-half years prior. It seemed like a lifetime ago when I’d interviewed Trip for my job at the time. I also registered that the last time Sandy and I spoke, she’d basically told me to go fornicate myself. But we both put that aside for the time being. There were more important things to deal with at the moment.

  
I wondered if I should reintroduce myself to her, but she came right over and hugged me hello. “Layla. Thank God you’re here. Trip’s been waiting for you.”

  
Trip’s been waiting for me?

   I t
ried not to sound too startled, and asked, “Is he okay?”

   It truly wa
s the only thing I wanted to know. The only thing I could allow myself to care about right then.

   Sandy pulled
back, swiping a tear from her eye. “I wish I could tell you yes, but….”

   Shit
. The poor guy was a mess. He always had a tumultuous relationship with his father; a lifelong love/hate situation going on. I couldn’t even imagine what he must have been feeling.

   “
Hey, umm… am I intruding? I wasn’t planning on getting here so early, but I was accosted by a damned photographer.” Sandy rolled her eyes in understanding as I added, “I feel kind of awkward about being here right now. Maybe I should come back later.”

  
I started to hitch my purse higher onto my shoulder, but hadn’t even turned on my heel before Sandy grabbed my wrist. “No. Please stay. It would mean so much to him.”

   I
tried not to read too deeply into her statement. Surely, she was just trying to make me feel comfortable.

   Sandy led
me to a set of doors at the back of the nearly empty room. It was unnaturally quiet, save for the non-sequitur doo-wop playing softly in the background. My eyes grazed the rows of empty chairs until they landed on the two women sitting in the front. Even from the back of her head, I was pretty sure I recognized Trip’s sister Claudia, and next to her was Mrs. Wilmington, whom I would have known anywhere.

  
And kneeling in front of his father’s casket, shoulders slumped and defeated, I saw Trip.

  
My heart wrenched at his beaten posture, the pain evident in his grieving form. This was not the invincible hero people saw on the movie screens. This was a fragmented human being. This was my old friend Trip; the boy I had loved and the man who had broken my heart.

   He stood and swiped
a hand through his hair as he turned away from his father’s body. His eyes made contact with mine, and there was about one split second of hesitation before something insane just… happened.

  
Understanding passed between us in an instant, the destiny that had been mapped out years ago finally coming to light. Suddenly, in that one flash of time, everything had become excruciatingly obvious.   

   Every choice we’d ever made, every road we’d ever travelled brought us to this place.  

   Every bad decision, every stupid screwup, every bit of drama.

   E
very beautiful second together, every miserable hour apart… led us here.

  
All the tumblers had unexpectedly fallen into place, unlocking our fate
with an almost audible
click!
and we didn’t realize how much our lives had been on hold until that moment.

  
We loved each other.

  
We belonged together.

  
And we were finally,
finally
ready to acknowledge it.

  
We hadn’t seen each other in over four years, but that didn’t mean a goddamned thing right then. The time apart almost visibly shed as we stood there, looking into each other’s eyes. For all our heartache and yearning and our many, many mistakes… it was simply the past. We were bound by it, but what we were really seeing was our future.

  
It was there, in that spot, in the middle of the Malachi Bros. Funeral Parlor on Colfax Avenue in Norman, New Jersey, that we finally recognized our forever.

   Trip closed the gap between us in five long strides, and there we were, falling into each other all over again. He grabbed me, his arms like a vice around my middle, gathering me to his crumpled form, just bawling into my neck. My arms clamped around his shoulders, holding him to me, the tears streaming down my face as well.

  
Trip cried like he did everything else:
completely
. His body racked with trembling sobs, and I joined him, crying so hard I thought I’d never stop.

  
There were no words that needed to be spoken, but I whispered, “I’m so sorry, Trip. I’m so sorry,” and I was apologizing as much for his father’s death as I was about ever letting him go.

   H
e pulled back, not even trying to hide his pain, peering at me through a haze of tears. “Oh, God, Layla. Oh, God, how I’ve missed you.”

   My heart positively stopped,
but even still, I tried to explain. “I didn’t even know… I never really thought…”

   He shook his head, cutting off my words, trying to pull himself together. “No.
We’re not doing this here. We’ll talk later, but right now, I just want to hold you.”

   So I let him.

   We held each other and we cried and there was no one outside the two of us, there, in that moment.

   It did not matter that we hadn’
t been in the same room together for almost five years. It did not matter that we both almost married other people. It did not matter that he was an insanely famous actor and known the world over. It did not matter that I was not.

   He wa
s simply Chester and I was Lay-Lay.

   We we
re
us
again.