Page 11 of Grip Me Tight
But I do.
6
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The party is in full swing by the time I decide to head out to the garden. I shouldn’t have said anything to Ajax, or Sterling for that matter, but just the thought of her wanting him, turning those big, blue eyes in his direction sends a flood of jealousy through me.
I thought I was past this. I thought five years would be enough but instead of distancing myself from how much I want Sterling, it only reminds me of all I’d missed in that time. Oh sure, I know all about the college dates, at least the ones she’d mentioned to her brother or her parents, and when things got serious with Jake the Jerk, I went a few rounds in the ring with the coach at my boxing gym, hating how much it affected me to hear about some douchbag who had managed to go beyond a few coffees and was now being invited home to meet the parents.
I tried to reconcile it in my head. If Sterling was in love with this guy and Emma and Don were happy with this guy, I’d just have to accept it. And maybe one day I’d be able to sit at the table at Christmas dinner and look at their beautiful children and not wish to God they were mine.
But right now I don’t have to accept it. Sterling is here, and she’s single and despite my best efforts to ignore her, I can’t.
I want her as much as I ever did.
She is a sickness I can’t shake no matter how many punches I throw or how many times I open my veins and bleed through my music the desperate yearning I have for her smile, her laughter, to simply breathe the same air as her.
I’m not a religious man. My mother never darkened the doorstep of a church, except for that one time, let alone teach me how to pray, but when I started going to Noah’s house and saw having lots of money and cool sneakers and a beautiful mom who baked cookies and made sure you wore clean clothes, and a dad who picked you up from practice didn’t mean that life was perfect, I learned how to pray.
After meeting his sister, a pale, tiny child who reminded me of a fairy princess I’d once seen in a book of beautiful illustrations in art class, I learned how to pray. I hated how much Noah hurt for his sister; how, no matter how much love there is in a family, it couldn’t save their princess.
She needed a kidney and none of them were a match.
To this day Noah doesn’t know about the day I used my lunch money to take a bus to a donor event at the university hospital to see if I was a match for Sterling. I wasn’t, but I prayed every night for one to be found. I prayed I’d never see Emma quietly cry when she thought no one was looking. I prayed that Don would lose the shadows in his eyes when he carried Sterling up to her room when she was too weak to sit up, let alone walk. I prayed whenever I heard Noah play Sterling her favorite song on his guitar that he’d never have to play it in her memory.
And then one day it happened. My mother dragged me into the emergency room to sit with her after she’d burned her hand badly heating spoons on our stove. While we were there, chaos erupted. A terrible accident as a result of a tractor trailer jack-knifing across the highway. Multiple casualties. Codes were being called, and ambulance lights flickered outside the windows. People were streaming in, tears and shock on their faces. A couple of hours later, mom was pissed because the accident meant she had to wait longer. Tired of hearing her complain when it was obvious some people were having a way worse night than her, I went to the cafeteria. There I saw a man, sitting by the window, staring blankly. He kept clenching and unclenching his fist, the only movement he made.
I didn’t have much money; I bought a coffee for me, picked up a granola bar and an iced tea for mom, because she needed it even if I knew she’d probably throw the granola bar in her purse and forget about it, and at the last second, I added a second coffee. Tucking the bottle of iced tea under my arm, I picked up the two cups and slowly made my way over to the man by the window. It was late, the cafeteria was quiet, and he didn’t look at me, just kept his gaze on the darkness outside.
I clear my throat. “Um, I don’t mean to bother you, but you look like you could use this.”
He never looks in my direction, so I shift my weight from one foot to another and then decide to just put the coffee on the table and leave. I turn away.
“Thanks.”
The hoarseness of his voice cuts through the hum of the vending machines and I look back. His face is drawn, deep lines bracketing his mouth and his reddened eyes looked bleak, like the dark holes left when water drips into snow. I nod at him and turn away again.
“I have a decision to make.”
His words stop me. I don’t really want to get involved in whatever this guy has going on, but I did bring him the coffee. “I didn’t mean to intrude,” I say.
“You didn’t. I’ve just been sitting here trying to wrap my brain around… things.” His shoulders sag and he reaches for the paper cup like a drowning man reaching for a lifeline. His fingers curl around the cardboard, sliding the sleeve down. The coffee is black, and the heat must be scalding, but he doesn’t flinch, just tightens his mouth. “How old are you?”
I hesitate for a minute. “Almost nineteen.”
The man nods. “My son is sixteen. There’s been an accident.”
My heart sinks. The emergency earlier. I grip my cup. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” He looks down. “Why are you here?”
I hold up my coffee. “Just grabbing some coffee.”
“No, I mean at the hospital.”
Oh. “I came with my mom. She burned her hand.” I look down at his hand, wrapped around the hot cup.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
