Beyond Eighteen (25 page)

Wilson’s face lightened and mine followed. I
wasn’t going to let Nick ruin my time to say good-bye to my
girl.

“
Yeah, this is Joanie
Emerson, Wilson’s best friend,” I answered him in a protective
tone.

“
Well hello, Mrs. Joanie,
I’m Allen, your driver today. It’s my goal to get you ladies over
to the Aspen airport before your plane leaves in about 45 minutes.
I already loaded your bags into the limo, so when you and Miss
Wilson are ready…” he said as he nodded to me and gave my mother a
kiss on the cheek. “I will see you later, Mrs.
Goldstein.”

“
See you later, Allen,” my
mom answered. “Thank you,” she hollered as he made his way down the
stairs.

“
Well, it was a pleasure
meeting you, Joanie,” my mom said without missing a beat before
pulling Wilson’s best friend into a hug.

“
It was so nice meeting
you too,” Joanie answered.

My mom turned to Wilson and I noticed tears
begin to swell in her eyes.

“
Wilson, sweetheart, I
will miss you. If there is anything I can do for you…just ask,
honey. I mean that! You call us when you get into California,
okay?” My mom pulled her into a tight hug. I noticed Wilson’s eyes
moisten at the words my mom so carefully shared with
her.

“
Thank you, Nancy. I
promise to call the minute I land,” Wilson sighed as she tried to
take a deep breath.

“
Alright, I’ll leave you
two to say your good-byes.” And with that, Wilson and I stepped out
onto the porch. Joanie gave me a fast, courtesy hug.

“
Take care of our girl,
Joanie,” I whispered into her ear.

“
I will,” she answered,
and that was it. She pushed away from me and shuffled across the
porch and down into the waiting limo.

I turned to Wilson. Her breath turned to
vapors that floated across her face as she exhaled. She began to
shake, and the time between her swirling, steaming breaths became
almost nonexistent. Her nose red, her cheeks glowing rosy, I
watched her eyes fill with the tears of our good-bye. As I pushed
against her, her body was quivering from her core out.

“
You know I love you more
than anything in this world,” I said as I held back the tears that
tried to force their way into my good-bye.

“
I do,” she
managed.

“
And you know I will call
you every day, and text you as often as I can.” I felt her body
push more heavily against me. The vapors of our steaming breath
mingled and danced together, breaking the ability to determine
whose was whose. “Oh man, you’re shaking, babe. You’re freezing.
You’d better get into the car.”

“
Not until you kiss me,”
she said through her tears.

“
You didn’t think I was
going to let you go without giving you the kiss you deserve, did
you?”

I pulled her chin up so our eyes met. We
both had tears clinging to the edges of our eyelashes. She closed
her eyes; her tears fell across her rosy cheeks. I pushed my hands
across her face, tangling my fingers in the hair behind her neck.
She leaned to one side, I to the other, and we pressed our mouths
together. The cold that once owned my lips disappeared in her kiss.
Our touch was delicate at first until she opened to my good-bye.
Both of us without jackets, the Aspen winter tried to take our
moment as she shook but I wrapped my arms around her back and
pulled her body against mine. No amount of cold, time, or elements
I couldn’t control were going to invade our kiss. I felt the cold
slice and lick at my unprotected arms, but I didn’t care. Wilson
was enough at this moment to keep me alive, keep me wanting to be
the man I was supposed to be. She slipped her mouth down to the
bend of my neck and I felt her vibrating in my arms. I knew it
wasn’t from the cold; she was crying at our good-bye. I pushed my
mouth against the wintry strands of hair across her ear.

“
Wilson, remember, I will
do everything in my power to get to you as soon as I
can.”

“
I know…I am just…I’m
going to miss you so much.”

I pulled her away from my neck. I held her
face in my hands as her tears ran down her cheeks and shattered
against her chest.

“
Wilson, you are my
everything. My heart belongs to you…it always will. I promised you
I would be there as soon as I can. I will not break that
promise.”

She pushed against me and I pressed my lips
to her creased forehead. Delicately, I pulled her arms from around
me and walked her down to the limo. Joanie’s arms reached out of
the door Allen was holding open. I gently pushed Wilson into
Joanie’s arms and he made sure to secure the door. I held my
fingers to my lips before thrusting them forward to the blackened
window.

“
I’ll take care of her,
Mr. Goldstein,” he said.

“
You have my entire life
in the back of that car, Allen,” I answered him before he reached
over, shook my hand, got into the car, and drove out of the
driveway with the main reason I was living again.

~ Wilson ~

Again, J had the arduous task of holding me
in the limo as I cried in her lap. But this time I wasn’t crying
because I lost Max. This time I was crying because life got into
the way while Max and I were trying to live it.

I hated the fact that we had to be
separated. I was angry because Max had to choose a company he grew
up despising his whole life, over me. I was hurt that nobody
stepped up to fight for me. Hell, I was really mad at my
grandparents for dying, my mom for abandoning me, and the fact that
my best friend in the whole wide world had fallen for the one guy
that almost destroyed everything I had with Max. What the hell was
that, anyway? Why did Nick drop
my
best friend off at
my
boyfriend’s house? I couldn’t believe he did that. And I
couldn’t believe J even thought that was okay.

I turned over and looked up at her, her
maple brown eyes filled with tears for me.

“I’m sorry, Wilson,” Joanie said, dragging
her hand across my forehead, combing my hair out of my eyes.

“I am so tired of being hurt,” I whispered
as tears filled the corners of my eyes. J pressed her hands to
either side of my cheeks. I felt her warm hands thaw the stinging
cold that struggled to keep my skin numb.

“Why Nick?” The words flew past my lips like
a bullet blasted from a gun. I stared at her, waiting for her to
tell me what made him so important to her. Why she would choose to
be with someone who basically hurt her best friend through his
lies.

Joanie’s hands dragged down past my hair and
I felt her legs tighten under my head as her body shifted. I sat up
off her lap and turned to look at her. I watched as she adjusted
the way she was sitting. Almost as if she was cornered, I watched
her lips curl and her eyes shift from her hands, to my face and
back to her hands.

“I’m really sorry, Wil, he was supposed to
drive away when I reached the steps,” she explained as she pushed
her hair back from her eyes.

“No, I mean, of all the guys...why Nick?” I
pushed.

“I don’t know, Wilson, it certainly wasn’t
intentional. We just…connected. He needed someone to talk to, and
he seemed so devastated by what he’d done. He made it so easy for
me to feel for him.”

Unfortunately, I totally understood what she
was saying. Nick was easy to talk to. He had this touching side
that made you fall for him. But still, she should have kept her
distance.

“Yeah, but Joanie, you know he lied to me
about Max. He kept me from Frank’s funeral. He kissed me, even when
he knew I loved—”

“Wilson, I know the whole story. I know
everything that happened between you and Nick. He didn’t spare me
any details, trust me. But you don’t know
his
whole story,
Wilson. He’s more broken than you know. So yes, I’ve begun to feel
for him. I’m not going to apologize for wanting to spend time with
him. Come on, Wilson, it isn’t
you
or
him
. He isn’t
going to take me away from you.” Joanie was seething. Her eyes were
narrow and her lips were moving faster than the words could escape
her mouth. I’d seen that side of her before. I’d known her almost
my whole life, and when it came to protecting someone or something
she loved or wanted, she would fight tooth and nail.

I felt every inch of my body react to her
words. She was in deep with him. Yeah, that was J. All it took was
one night of deep conversations and seeing that he was broken and
she would hop on board as if he was sailing her to paradise. If he
needed fixing she would sign up to be his first mate. Let’s face
it, it’s written all over her track record with everyone in her
life. Look at me. Broken, missing a family…and voila, J finds me.
Then there was Messed-up Mike in the seventh grade, whose father
was the DA for San Ramon and got away with beating the shit out of
his kid until J helped him escape to his grandmother’s house. Once
he had his life back, he wanted nothing to do with her; she began
to lose interest anyway. Oh, and there were those abandoned kittens
and broken winged birds she’d stay up all night nursing back to
health, or to their deaths. Yeah, that was my best friend. The
person who would bring back lost dogs so they wouldn’t be picked up
by the pound. What made her so giving? What made her care so much?
And why would she need to fix the one guy who should have been off
limits? He kissed me, so that makes him automatically
unapproachable. Where’s the code of conduct about best friends not
sharing sloppy seconds?

“I am so goddamn tired of stories about lost
kittens, broken boys, and bloody puppies, Joanie,” I spat as I
slammed my hand down between us. Rarely did I actually call her
Joanie, so when I said her full name she knew I was upset or
serious. “I need you to back me up here, without thinking about
Nick.”

“Jesus Christ, Wilson, what the
fuck
is going on in your head? Wake the hell up. I’ve always been there
for
you
. I will always be there for
you
. That’s what
family is about. What was
I
supposed to do, leave Nick there
to
bleed
to death? Max beat the shit out of him!”

“I didn’t realize Nick was
that
bad…where was Cindy?” I snapped.

“She left him! He had a concussion, and his
own sister decided to bail on him. What was I supposed to do? He
had to have someone there to wake him up, check on him, and make
sure he didn’t freakin’ die. So I’m sorry, Wilson, but I wasn’t
going to leave him alone.”

J’s chest was heaving up and down, almost as
fast as mine. I could feel the pendulum shift in her favor. The
story I’d built in my head started to crumble and crack under the
pressure brought down by the timeline of J’s unselfish acts. She’d
certainly earned her share of the brownie points one needed for
heaven. And here I was, tossing mine away to the fishes.

I watched her as she slid her hands across
her eyes and vigorously pulled her dark brown hair into a tight
ponytail, magically tying it up. That’s when I totally snapped.

“What do you mean what the
fuck
is
wrong with me? Let me see, in less than a week I’ve turned 18, had
sex for the first time, watched my boyfriend’s dad
die
, got
a call from my grandparents’ lawyers telling me I have to hurry
back to sign papers, I
lost
my boyfriend, made out with
Nick, got my boyfriend
back
only to have to go home without
him, I could be knocked up, who knows, my best friend has fallen
for the off-limits guy, and when I get back home I will return to a
vacant house that my grandparents used to live in….let me see, did
I forget anything? Oh, yeah, I got a call from my ‘
birth
mom
,’” I spewed without taking a breath while pushing air
quotes as I spat the words. I’d lost it. Yeah, I was at a breaking
point, looking into the eyes of my best friend and vomiting my hell
week all over her in spite of the fact that she unselfishly decided
to leave Nick come back to California with me.

There was a sizable moment of silence
between us just as the limo came to a stop. I looked out the window
behind J and noticed we were at the Aspen Airport.

“Okay, you’re right, you’ve had a pretty
fucked-up week. But let’s see…
finally
you’re an adult, you
waited
forrreeevvvverrrr
to have sex, you haven’t
lost
the guy, you can’t be pregnant because we have the same
cycle and our periods just came right before winter break, Nick is
a good kisser, the papers aren’t lost and you aren’t going back to
your grandparents’ house alone, and yeah, it really sucks that your
mom called you. And if you are that worried about being knocked up,
just pee on a stick! My question is this…what are you going to do
about it? You can cave to the bullshit, or you can rise to the
occasion. It’s your choice,” Joanie’s long response ended as the
door to my side of the limo sprang open and Allen was waiting to
help me out. She pointed toward the door. “Make a choice,” she
said.

“Well, I chose to rise to the occasion. It
would be stupid not to,” I answered J as I grabbed Allen’s
hand.

“Then it’s settled. Don’t play stupid. Put
on your big-girl panties and keep your eyes on the important
things,” Joanie said as she started out of the car. “Thank you,”
she hummed to Allen as he helped her out of the limo after me. The
wind kicked up and gave me an opportunity for his Old Spice cologne
to fill my nose. The scent pulled me back to summers in Mendocino
with my grandpa. It was the same aroma that would fill the car when
he’d pick me up from school every June. It reminded me of the times
he’d splash it on before he and grandma would go ballroom dancing
at the Mendocino Community Center every Wednesday night. Every
time, Grams would start sneezing and complain that he smelled fine
without putting that crap on. Gramps would smile and tease that
it’s what won her over. Standing there on the tarmac, I became that
little girl who danced on his toes and drove the car while sitting
in his lap. I was that same scared little girl who clung to his arm
as he and Grandma dropped me off at Bethany’s School for Girls when
I was 8 years old. It was the same aroma that reminded me my
grandpa was gone.