A Missing Heart (12 page)

“That’s the real reason you don’t want me to leave, isn’t it?” I joke.

“Yes, it is.” He looks over at me with a raised brow and places his arm around my shoulders. “I just don’t know when this all happened. It seems like yesterday that you were coloring on the wall with a Sharpie.”

“And until you paint that wall, you will always have that memory,” I say, grinning proudly.

“I haven’t painted it for a reason, Son.”

“I’m less than two hours away. I’m going to come home and visit, you know?”

“Of course you will, but I don’t want you to worry about us. I want you to experience everything college has to offer. Live your life as if you almost didn’t get the chance to live this life.” Our eyes are locked in a stare down without words in between. I want to think his words have a different meaning than the way I’m absorbing them, but what else could he mean by that?

“What do you mean? I thought this was my plan all along. Graduate high school and go to college.” I ask, maybe sounding a little uneasy through the words I’m trying to affirm.

“We all make mistakes, AJ. Sometimes our mistakes cause ripples in our paths, sometimes they cause forks in the road, and sometimes they cause delaying detours, but then there are those lucky times when you bypass it all and continue down the planned route.”
He knows
. He knew at graduation. Why wouldn’t he just come out with it?

With the slightest bit of hope that this is a coincidence and he’s simply offering me one of his Dad lectures, I nod and lean forward, mirroring his posture. “I’m going to miss you, Dad.”

He wraps his arm back around me and pulls me in tightly. Dad’s body trembles a little and his grip tightens more. With his hand around my head, he places a kiss on my forehead. “I’m always here for you, kid. Even if you get drunk or do something stupid out there, you call me and I’ll be there in a heartbeat.”

“You always have been,” I tell him, feeling the same amount of anguish I think he might be feeling right now. Anytime I thought about this day, I saw it as an exciting moment in my life. I pictured it as me driving off in my beat-up truck with my hand waving out the window as Mom and Dad wave in the reflection of my rearview mirror. Suddenly, though, it’s like the world just opened up before me, and I’m scared as hell to get into my truck.

“Orientation starts in four hours. You don’t want be late. They might run out of maps or something,” Dad laughs, slapping me on the back a few times. “I’ll give you another minute. Just remember, though, when you walk out of this bedroom, you’re saying goodbye to your childhood and hello to the rest of your life. It’s pretty damn exciting, AJ.”

Hiding his face on the way out, he leaves me alone in my room—alone with my thoughts on what he just said. It’s like I’m hovering between two lives and it’s time to make that jump now.

I take my phone from my pocket and start a text message to Cammy.

Me:
This is it. I’m off to Rhode Island. Thinking of you.

A few seconds pass when a return message comes in.

Cammy:
At the dining hall with my friends. Talk later?

This is how the last dozen or so conversations between us have been.
I know what it means
.

Me:
Whenever you’re ready.

I grab my last bag and fling it over my shoulder. Walking backward toward the door, I silently say goodbye to my childhood, just as Dad said. It’s like this movie playing through my head, and I can see years of my life sitting in this room, from as far back as I can remember. Those days are over now.

With each step down the stairs, I feel the pressure in my chest build, knowing I’m walking away from everything that has ever been comfortable, and toward the unknown. Mom is at the bottom of the stairs with a tissue in her hand and tears dripping from her eyes. “I tried so hard to convince myself to be happy for you, AJ, but I’m going to miss you so much,” she says, choking up. “You know, you spend every day from the moment your child is born telling yourself you have time, nothing but time, and I said that every day since the moment you were born, but now you’re a grown man and my time feels like it’s up.”

Selfishly, all I can think is that she got eighteen whole years. I only got eighteen minutes with my daughter. “It’s been a good eighteen years, Mom, and I’m still your son, always will be.” And my daughter will always be my daughter too, no matter who she’s living with.

When I reach the bottom of the stairs, Mom presses up on her toes and wraps her arms around my neck. “You’re a brave man, AJ. Strong, good…so much good fills your heart.”

“I’m just going to school, Mom,” I remind her.

Her lips are pressed against my ear and she whispers, “I know you’ve had a rough few months, and we never have to talk about it. But I’m proud of you for doing all the right things, even if it didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to.” She could be referring to my “friendship” with Cammy or she could know about the pregnancy. It isn’t like them not to pry into my business, especially with something as life-consuming as a baby, but we’ll leave it as is.

With more tears and goodbyes, Mom walks me to the door and squeezes her hand around my wrist. She won’t tell me not to leave, but I feel it within her grip. Dad opens the door and places a hand on my shoulder. “Drive safe, AJ,” he says. I take the step outside, but Mom is still holding my arm, so I look back at her and the anguish in her eyes. I don’t want to ever feel the way she’s feeling, not again, which is why I will never ever put another child on this earth, no matter what. Dad places his hand over Mom’s and gently peels her gripping fingers from my arm and tucks her against his chest as he waves goodbye with a clenched jaw and tears coating his eyes. “Make us proud, Son.”

I walk out, refusing to look back because if I do, I might lose it too. I get into the truck and forget about the rearview mirror, but I wave.

It takes a good hour into the drive before the knot in my chest loosens a little. I turn up the music and focus on what’s ahead of me instead of what I left behind this year. It’s the only plan I have right now. I’ve never felt alone before, but right now I feel like I’m the last person alive. It’s not a great feeling, but I know that’ll change the second I pull into the campus.

Just as I’m passing over the border into Rhode Island, my phone buzzes in the cup holder. With eagerness, I grab it, hoping it might be Cammy, but when I glance down at the display, I see it’s only Hunter.

“Hey,” I say, answering the phone.

“I’m sure you just went through the whole, long goodbye spiel with Mom and Dad, so I’ll spare you of that and give you the other half of what you need to hear. Listen carefully…”

“Ugh,” I groan.

“Wait, put him on speaker phone,” I hear in the background. It’s Ellie—his right arm and fiancé. Who has a fiancé at twenty?
But then,
who has a kid at seventeen?

The two of them are talking at the same time, and I can hardly understand either one of them, but Hunter finally stops talking so Ellie can take over.

“How’s my little brother?” she croons.

“You’re not married yet,” I correct her. She’s been referring to me as her little brother since I was two but lately I’ve had a reason to tease her about it since she’s literally going to be family within the next year now.

“Shut it, AJ,” she says. “Listen…you’re going to have a buffet of ladies to choose from, but wrap it up and stay smart.” I hear her giggle as a rustling noise takes over the call.

“Sorry,” Hunter says. “Be glad you have a brother. Anyway, have fun. Have the best time, and she was right about the buffet of chicks.”

“Hunter!” Ellie scolds

“Chicken, there’s always so much chicken at the dining halls.” The two of them are so annoying sometimes. “She doesn’t like when I call women chicks,” he mutters. “But yeah, take the time to be free and…”

“Oh my God, Hunter. Do you want to be free in college? We can arrange that!” Ellie says through laughter.

“Do you listen to yourselves?” I ask them. Since they’ve basically been married for twenty years already, they act like an old married couple, but they also act like they can’t breathe without each other. For a long time, I couldn’t understand why they acted that way, but I figured it out with Cammy.

“Have you heard from Cammy?” Hunter asks. “Is she settling in to George Washington okay?”

“I guess so,” I tell him.

“Oh,” he says.

“If it’s meant to be—” Ellie shouts over him.

“I know,” I interrupt.

“I know how much she means to you…even if you still won’t admit that you two are together. No guy could just be friends with a girl like Cammy.” I somewhat expect Hunter to get the wind knocked out of him for that comment but he continues, “With that said, the next four years will come and go, and then your life will go in the direction it’s supposed to, so if that means you end up with your ‘best friend’ as we’ll call her, then that’s how it’ll happen.”

“Could take longer,” Ellie said. “Don’t give up hope.”

“Coming from you two, this is so helpful. With all of your lifelong experience in dating and loss, maybe you should write a book,” I tell them.

“Babe, we could totally write a book,” Hunter tells Ellie. “We can title it: ‘
What It’s Like to Find Your Wife at Five
.”

“Aw, that’s so cute! We should do that!” Ellie agrees.

“Yes, it would be an inspiration to all five-year-olds,” I add in. “PS: You guys need to get a life.”

“We have one,” Ellie says. “Together, forever. Awwwwww.”

“Before I puke, I need to get off the phone,” I say. They do this on purpose. They’ve been doing this on purpose for years ever since the very first time I pretended to gag when they kissed in front of me. I know they don’t act like this when they’re not in my presence, but they don’t give it up when they are. Right now, I just feel jealous that their relationship survived the odds, and here they are, planning their lifelong road to happiness until
death do they part
and all that crap. It’s not fair.

“Have a good time, bro. Call if you need anything,” Hunter tells me.

“And call me if you need girl advice; I’m good at that,” Ellie says.

“Yeah, find your wife when you’re five years old. I think that’s all the advice I’ll ever need from you, Ell.”

“Love you, AJ,” she says.

“Yeah, yeah, love you too, sis.”

“Peace, bro! Live it up. It’s your time!” Hunter shouts before the call ends.

Now that I got
all
of the goodbyes out of the way, there’s no reason for anyone else to ask me about Cammy because no one at school knows her. So it’s time to move forward and if she wants to move with me, she can; otherwise, I’ll set her free and all that crap I always hear about.

Hunter and Ellie’s call took up the rest of my trip, and I’m pulling into the campus full of thousands of lost looks—mine being one of them.

I park the truck and hop out, feeling my phone buzz again. Who the hell is it this time? Everyone has said good luck and goodbye. I take it out and see Cammy’s name light up the screen. My fingers can’t move fast enough to press accept.

“Hey,” I say eagerly.

“I’m so sorry I’ve been so hard to talk to this past week,” she says. “It’s been crazy here with orientation and meeting so many people, but I wanted to tell you good luck. Speaking from my week’s worth of experience, I know you’re going to have a blast.”

“I miss you, Cam.”

“AJ, I miss you so, so, so much that it hurts to see your name pop up on my phone.”

“It hurts to not see your name pop up on my phone,” I tell her.

“I know. I’m sorry. You know I love you. I know you love me. Let’s keep that and enjoy this time we decided to give ourselves.” I think she’s referring to us not running off together, rather than giving our daughter up for adoption. “No one knows our secrets now, and it’s kind of nice.”

“Yeah,” I agree out loud, but silently, I disagree. I know all of our secrets, and they will forever hurt me.

“Call me tonight and let me know how orientation went. But if you end up going to a freshman welcoming party or something, you don’t have to worry about calling me. I want you to have fun.”

“You got it,” I say, taking my first load of bags out of the truck’s bed.

“Love you, AJ.”

“Love you, Cam.”

With the bags slung over my shoulders, I make my way to the dorm I was assigned to and head up the five floors to room 5-0-5 where I should meet some dude named Brink.

The second I walk into my new ridiculously empty room complete with four white ceramic walls and two prison-looking beds, I see…Brink, and I’m foreseeing exactly how the next eight months of my life are going to play out. I place my bags down on the emptier of the two beds, and he tosses a beer into my hands before he even introduces himself. “Thank the fucking holy college grail, you look like a normal son-of-a-bitch. Please tell me you’re a normal son-of-a-bitch?”

“We can go with normal,” I say with a raised brow. “You?”

“Normal here too.”

“Then, I guess neither of us has a thing to worry about.” I crack open the beer and plop down onto my mattress, downing the thing faster than necessary, but using it as an ice breaker. “One thing, though…”

“Yeah?” he says, slugging his beer.

“We gotta work on your taste in beers.”

He laughs and shoves me in the shoulder. “Hells to the yeah, you’re a fucking normal son-of-a-bitch. That was a test, just so you know. No one really drinks this shit. Oh man, this is gonna be a good fucking year.”

As I’m getting settled in, I watch the people pass in the hallway since Brink has our door propped open with a shoe wedged under the door. For some reason, I didn’t think the dorm was co-ed, but I’m seeing that is, in fact, the case. Unless, I’m wrong and we’re in the wrong hall because I see a whole lot of chicks straggling by, and most of them stop to say hi. It’s like the friendliest place on earth here.

“Like I said, it’s going to be a good fucking year,” Brink says as he slips out into the hall to watch the passing blondes with short skirts find their rooms.