Between Loves (The Pendant Series Book 2) (12 page)

It became a habit for Adrian to come over every Saturday and together we walked the three mile trek that I used to run. I missed running, but the new Sidney had been slowed to a walk. The running Sidney had died the night at the bar. The new Sidney would stand and face her challenges head on because running, no matter how fast or how far, always proved to get me nowhere.

I enjoyed the company with Adrian rather than the company in my head that cruelly told me what a terrible mistake I’d made losing Ray.

This morning we were about to turn around and head back home when I noticed him glancing up at the old rusty train trestle above our heads.

“Pretty ugly, huh?” I asked, nodding at the bridge. “The city put up a fight to have the train company repaint it but since then, they’ve been arguing back and forth with each other, unable to decide whose job it was to paint it.”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Adrian answered. “I’d say since it’s the train company’s property, it would be their responsibility.” He continued to stare at the bridge. “Have you ever been up there?”

That stretch of railroad was the exact spot where my mother had stepped out in front of a moving train almost twenty years before.

“Yeah, there’s a hiking trail on the other side of the freeway overpass, then there’s a staircase that leads you to a tunnel the train goes through,” I explained without mentioning my personal history associated with the area.

He looked over at me. “Really?”

“Do you want to check it out?” I offered, even though the place gave me the creeps.

I had been coming to this place every day during my runs, but I had always gone alone. Now I had suddenly put myself in a position to share the most sacred place in my life. I wasn’t sure if I could do it.

Adrian was sure. “Fuck yeah.”

And so we began climbing up the trestle. It took us about fifteen minutes to get up to the tunnel. I sat on the wooden stairs while Adrian walked around exploring.

Stretching my legs, I clutched my gray hoodie tighter. Although it was only September, it was freezing, as if this black cloud of sorrow followed me around and didn’t care about seasonal climate norms. Adrian came back over and sat down next to me on the staircase.

I smiled weakly. “So is it all you imagined it to be?”

He nodded and bumped me with his shoulder. “Of course it was,” he said with a smile as he stared at me. I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. It felt so good just being near him.

I turned to look into those green eyes, and before I could stop myself, the words fumbled out of my mouth, “Why did you have to come here and meet me now?”

I could see the look on Adrian’s face as he tried to piece together the meaning of my question. Instead of answering he pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket.

Great, now I’ve frustrated him.

“I just wish we could have met at a different time, when my mind wasn’t so messed up.”

He lit his cigarette and enjoyed the first few drags before responding, “Maybe we were supposed to meet while you were so messed up.”

I raised my eyebrow in speculation of his theory.

He smiled. “I know you think that soul mates are found based on a person’s musical preferences, but what if soul mates are brought together to fix each other?”

I didn’t know how to answer other than to reply with a joke. “I suppose I had better go search for a heart surgeon then.” I chose to pretend that his subliminal message had flown over my head.

My necklace slipped out from inside my sweatshirt and was dangling in midair. It caught Adrian’s attention and he reached over and picked up the pendant, examining it closer. I watched his face as he did it. It was almost as if a dark shadow was cast over him as I witnessed the pain he so desperately tried to hide from me resurface in his eyes. I couldn’t bear having him handle it, so I took the pendant and tucked it back inside my sweatshirt.

“You still miss her.” It was more of a statement than a question. I said it softly, trying to be sensitive. If he could listen to all of my heartache, it was only fair that I allowed him the same opportunity.

He bit his lower lip as if he was using his teeth to force his lips shut, but the sadness in his eyes told me everything. Instead of responding, he stood up and walked a few steps away, and took another drag of his cigarette.

He always smoked when he was upset. I walked over to him and stood in front of him, inches from his face. His green eyes looked at me in question with a cigarette dangling loosely from his mouth. I reached up and removed the cigarette, never taking my eyes off of him. We stood facing each other, playing a game of chicken, waiting for the other to make the first move. Finally, he took my hand in an attempt to take the cigarette back. I tightened my grip, careful not to burn myself as my eyes never left his.

“Why don’t you ever try to kiss me?” I blurted out.

As soon as I said it I wished I could take it back.

Adrian became still as a statue, his eyes unreadable. I wanted to run away and crawl under a rock, but the question had been burning in my mind for so long I had to know. We had spent so much time together these last months and aside from the night at the bar, he had never put a move on me. He had to feel the same connection I felt. I tried to ignore it because of Ray but what was his reason?

“Because you still haven’t figured it out,” he said coldly, removing the cigarette from my fingers and placing it back in his mouth.

I stood there, confused by his answer.

“I don’t understand. Maybe you can just tell me what I’m supposed to figure out.”

“
Maybe
isn’t good enough, Sidney. People need to be sure, and if you can’t figure that out on your own, then I can’t help you. It’s getting late and I have to get back home. We should have never come up here,” he said angrily.

I slowly followed him down the trail, the numbness setting into my body, acting as a shield to protect my frazzled nerves.

What did he mean we never should have come up here?

We walked the entire way home in silence. He was too angry to speak and I was too scared to provoke him. When we got to the bottom of my steps, I turned to go inside when I felt a tug on the back of my sweatshirt.

I turned around and he pulled me into a hug. “I’m sorry, Sidney. I had a great time today. Thank you for taking me up there. I’ll see you later, ’k?”

“I lied to you that day in the cemetery,” I blurted out.

Once again my mouth failed to wait for my mind to catch up to decide if the words I wanted to spill out had been emotionally approved.

Adrian tightened his grip around me as his expression darkened. “Lied to me how?”

“I told you that I didn’t have any relatives buried there. It was a lie. My mother’s buried in that cemetery so I wasn’t trespassing that day.”

Adrian seemed relieved that my lie was a small one. He pulled me closer to him and embraced me in a soothing manner.

“Don’t worry about it, Sidney. We have the rest of our lives to learn everything about each other.”

“She died on that train trestle when I was a baby. She committed suicide by jumping in front of a train.”

I didn’t know why I had felt the need to share this bit of information with Adrian, but I did know that it felt good to get it off of my chest.

Adrian gently took my hand and led me to the stairs to take a seat. He wanted to talk now.

Chapter 16

Flicker, Fade

Today, once again, Adrian proved to be my safety net as I continued my free fall into the abyss of sadness while explaining the absence of my mother. We were both perched on the front steps of Granny’s Craftsman. Adrian graciously provided his open ear.

Just then the postman walked up, carrying a large box, “Sidney Sinclair?”

I nodded and signed for the package. Adrian watched intently as the courier placed the package in my hands and headed back down the stairs.

“I swear this better not be another thing from Ray’s house,” I complained while examining the box.

Even though I wasn’t on speaking terms with Ray’s family since they had expelled me from their presence, they had continued to find it perfectly acceptable to mail some of his old belongings to me, as though I was his off-site storage facility.

Or maybe they were expecting that we’d get back together eventually.
Maybe being the operative word here.

“I can send him a legal letter for removal of personal property if you want. It’d be legit, coming from Triple-A law firm,” Adrian joked, as he used the name change I had suggested.

He was just trying to be helpful but we both knew that I would never send Ray some legal threats from some fancy lawyer’s office. I was too busy fantasizing about his return.

“I’m serious,” he said as he sat two steps below me.

This time he did not turn around to face me as he spoke. I stared at the back of his head waiting for him to continue. Instead, he reached into the front pocket of his denim jeans and began pulling out his damn Marlboro Reds.

Over the past few months of hanging out with him I’d begun to take notice of some of his personality characteristics.

For example, he always smoked when he got either uncomfortable or angry. Currently, I couldn’t tell his present mood with his back turned to me.

“Is that a new shirt?” I asked, attempting to change the subject.

He turned around and looked up at me with the cigarette hanging on his bottom lip. He was wearing an olive green garage shirt. I’d never seen him in that color before. In fact, most of the time he stuck to the depressing color of black.

Thinking of the color black reminded me of yet another question.

“Hey, do you dye your hair?”

It was midnight black with no hint of any other color even as it reflected off the sun. And the color against his pale face made it look washed out and unnatural.

He snatched the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and climbed up the steps to sit next to me. My heart began to pound as it always did when he got too close and invaded my personal space.

He leaned over and whispered in my ear. “You notice a lot of things about me, Sidney.” He breathed. “Why?”

I smiled to myself.
Because you’re all I ever think about.

I sat as still as a statue looking straight ahead, too nervous to look at him. He didn’t move his face and I could feel his hot breath on my ear. I gripped the wooden stair next to me with both hands and closed my eyes, waiting for him to go back down to his step.

“Don’t let him come back this time, Sidney. You deserve better.”

Like you, maybe.

I felt a gush of cold wind as he jumped up and galloped down the stairs. I opened my eyes and thought about pursuing him but stopped myself. He was on the sidewalk lighting his cigarette. I sat and stared at him, thinking of ways to prolong his departure. I wasn’t ready for him to leave yet.

“Wait,” I yelled out.

He looked up at me. Those pendant eyes full of hope, as if he was waiting for certain words to fall from my lips. But I hadn’t a clue what words he wanted to hear. What words would make him stay?

“You didn’t answer my questions,” I stalled, trying to buy time.

He took a long drag of the cigarette and exhaled a gray cloud of toxins and began walking, “You didn’t answer mine either,” he shouted over his shoulder.

I turned around and marched into the house with the mysterious package in my hands.

Chapter 17

Resurface

As I entered, Chrissy was seated exactly where I had left her. The empty container of ice cream was now on the coffee table and Chrissy’s eyes were glued to the screen.
The awards show was still on as the familiar song was playing on the television set.

There he was, a miniature Ray on the tube, wearing a white suit with a black tie playing on a matching baby grand piano. He was singing the song that the world was gobbling up at a record pace.

The cameras focused on him as he played and sang with so much emotion as the words passionately exploded from his lips, “I won’t kiss you goodbye.”

After the first few minutes of the song, the black curtain behind him dropped and the remaining band members appeared and began to play. I stood frozen in place, clutching the package as I glanced over at Chrissy.

Finn was now playing a guitar solo and she sat on the couch clutching an accent pillow with the same emotional fierceness I was feeling.
I couldn’t take anymore and I finally forced myself to grab the remote and turn the television set off.

Immediately Chrissy withdrew from her trance and looked up at me. “Hey, Sidney. How was your walk?”

“Good. How’s Granny?”

“She’s well. I just finished giving her a sponge bath.”

I smiled in gratitude and sat down on the couch next to my best friend. She grabbed her cell phone and began pressing some buttons.
I guess she hadn’t gotten her fill of torture because now, she began watching a video interview on her cell phone with Unspoken Words via YouTube.
Ignoring the video, I went across the room and began fumbling with the package the postman had delivered. I had to find a better way to occupy my time.

I could still hear Chrissy’s phone and even though I was trying to block out the voices, I could hear everything.

A reporter was asking Ray about the meaning of the songs on the album. They wanted to confirm if the rumors were true about all of the songs being about his ex-girlfriend back home in Northern California.

“Did he have any contact with her since his arrest…blah, blah, blah.”

I pretended to be opening the box but now I was straining my ears to listen to Ray’s response.

“No, I haven’t had any contact with Sid since that night. It’s actually been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. But staying away from her is best, because honestly she deserves better.”

Bullshit,
I thought,
you stay away because you hate me. You’ll never forgive me for that night.

He continued to stab me with emotional daggers. “The majority of the songs written do stem from our past relationship.”

There was a long pause before he continued, “With the exception of one.”

As soon as he said that, I knew the song he was referring to. There was a song on the album that I couldn’t relate to and I didn’t understand the lyrics Ray was singing about. He was referring to someone else.

The song pointed to a mystery woman claiming she had held him down and made him live in a false world she created for him. It went on to express it had come time for him to break away and find himself on his own because he doesn’t need to be molded into what she had wanted.

The rest of the interview was interrupted with Chrissy’s loud shriek as she dropped her phone and stared at me in horror.

“What?” I asked, dying to know who that song was written for.

“That creep has gone too far this time!” Chrissy yelled as she reached down and scooped her phone off of the floor.

Before I could respond, her ear was pressed against her pink-jeweled phone and it was ringing. I sat back, ready to watch the show, wondering if I should make some popcorn. My mouth flew open when I heard the familiar voice on the other end answer her call.

“Your cousin has pushed me too far this time, Finn. He had no right to write a song about you and me!”

I stood there gaping with a look of total shock on my face. It was as if I was seated to watch a PG film and an adult movie began to play. I was so flabbergasted by the events unfolding that I just stood there, staring at Chrissy in disbelief.

First, I couldn’t believe she was actually on the phone with Finn, and second, I really couldn’t believe that the song Ray wrote was about Finn and Chrissy. It was even more incomprehensible that Ray would let the entire world know how he felt about Chrissy breaking his cousin’s heart.

I heard Finn as he chuckled on the other end of the line. “Babe, if I knew that Ray writing a song about us would get you to call me, I would have had Ray write a whole album about you.”

Chrissy’s face turned a bright shade of pink as Finn still referred to her as babe. He said it so casually, as if no time apart could change that.

“I don’t want Ray putting my business out there. You got that Finn Aldman? Otherwise, I’m going to fly down to L.A. and kick his pansy ass!”

More chuckles from Finn. “Why go all the way to L.A.? You can do it tonight in San Francisco. By the way, Ray wanted to know if Sidney got his package.”

As soon as he said it, I dropped the box like a hand grenade and jumped back, afraid that it might blow me up.

I met Chrissy’s eyes, shrugged my shoulders, and mumbled to her, “I had no idea that package was from Ray.’

She cut off her sort of boyfriend, “I have to go. Goodbye, Finn.”

He subtly pleaded with her, “Maybe I’ll see you tonight, huh?”

“Doubtful.”

She tossed the phone on the couch, held her hands in the air, and jumped up and down, squealing as if she’d just won the lottery.

“He still called me babe. He still loves me, I know he does!”

Chrissy made no sense at all. She had spent the entire year sure that she didn’t want to be with Finn. But then, she constantly complained she was miserable without him, and now when she’s presented with a second chance, she gave him the cold shoulder.

And she’s happy about it?

He had asked to see her. He practically begged her on the phone and she had responded with a negative.

Chrissy was now playing hard to get. Was she crazy?

She ran across the living room and snatched up the package. “What are you waiting for, Sidney? Open it.”

I tried my best to steady my shaking hands as I began to open the big brown box, but they wouldn’t stop trembling.

Finally, impatience got the better of Chrissy and she pushed me aside and began tearing into the box as if she were a child ravaging her Christmas presents.

Inside there was a gorgeous navy blue cocktail dress. I lifted it up to examine it more closely. It was a simple short-sleeved number that looked to be about knee length. It would have been ordinary if not for the thousands of sequins stitched to the dress, making it as heavy as a sack of potatoes. This dress screamed dollar bills and I knew there was only one person that could have sent it. My hand shook as I reached in the box, searching for a note. At the bottom of the box lay a pale blue envelope.

I picked it up with my still shaking hands and removed the card from the envelope. The front side read:

I miss being us.

I opened it up and immediately recognized Ray’s handwriting.

The memory of that night haunts me. I lied when I said I was never holding on. The truth is that I’ve been holding on for dear life ever since I met you. I’ll never let you go. Meet me tonight for dinner. The address is below. I’ll be waiting. If you don’t come, I will understand. I know I messed up big time. Ray.

The address was in San Francisco. Finn must have known that Ray was going to ask me to meet him tonight. And he had asked Chrissy to come along. I stared into Chrissy’s big hazel eyes, silently asking her to give me some sort of guidance.
She didn’t let me down.

“You have to go.”

I countered, “I’ll only go if you come with me. Either we both go or neither one of us goes.”

As I said this, I had to push Adrian’s face out of my head. Moments before he was breathing in my ear not to give Ray another chance and now I was considering the exact thing he had warned me against.

I began to get angry because I had boldly asked Adrian to kiss me and he had turned me away without a second thought. Maybe if Adrian had kissed me, I wouldn’t be considering meeting Ray tonight. In my mind, Adrian had his chance and he blew it. He was always speaking in those silly riddles and telling me that I hadn’t figured them out. As if my love was somehow shallow and dispassionate. I was done playing mind games.

I was headed for San Francisco.