Just Like Heaven (21 page)

As he said those words, Demi glanced up and caught Arthur’s eye, who was standing across from her beside his weeping mother and stoic father. She saw something in his eyes as they locked onto hers.

There was a moment between them, when they both contemplated that it was now only the Lord who took things away, sometimes people did it all on their own.

Arthur looked awful. He was ghostly pale and his eyes were deep and sunken. It looked as though he hadn’t slept for many days.

Demi wanted to feel pleased by this sight, that finally Arthur understood the true meaning of grief. But instead, her heart bled for him. She hated to see him in so much pain, so much despair. She realized as she stood there, sheltering from the rain against her Dad, that she still loved Arthur Cooper, and always would.

####

Arthur kept wishing that at some point he would wake up and this would all just be some horrific nightmare. But he didn’t. The service wore on, a cruel, unrelenting march which drummed home the fact that his brother, Jared, was gone. Just a few feet before him, his lifeless body was encased in a casket, soon to be committed to the ground.

It was utterly unbearable to witness. But Arthur tried to be strong; he had to be strong, for his mother. But it felt strange to suddenly act as her rock when for so long he had been running from all responsibility.

“My baby,” his mother sobbed, stretching out a weak hand towards the casket which contained Jared.

“It’s okay Mom,” Arthur wrapped a reassuring arm around her and she fell against him as if her legs had failed her and she could no longer support her own weight. He held her and let her tears soak his black shirt.

He glanced around the sea of faces around him, most of which he recognized. Everyone was looking across at the Coopers which pitying glances. All except Demi. When he caught her eye, he saw that she looked concerned. Concern meant that she cared, and for the first time since he’d received the devastating call about Jared, Arthur felt a flicker of hope enter his life. A last shot at redemption.

“It was a lovely service,” Conrad Cooper said as they walked away from the grave site and back to the awaiting black cars which would take them back home for the wake.

Still clutching her remaining son, Beth Cooper said nothing; she was too lost to her grief to talk.

“Come now, Beth,” Conrad urged his wife to get a grip on her emotions, hating to make a public scene, whatever the context of it.

“Dad, let her cry,” Arthur said tersely.

“It won’t bring him back,” Conrad replied bitterly.

“No, but it will help Mom feel better.”

Conrad watched his eldest son assist his grieving mother in to the car. He noted how gentle and caring he was with her and for a brief moment, it was as if Jared was not gone. The Arthur he had known seemed to be disappearing right before his eyes as he became the sort of man he always should have been.

Glancing back up towards the cemetery Conrad noticed Demi ambling away from the grave site, arm in arm with her father, her head down. Jared had thought so much of her, and of Logan. It pained Conrad to see them both there, knowing that all he’d ever done was cast them aside when despite everything, they had become a part of his family but only Jared had ever had the foresight and kindness to see that.

“Is Demi coming to the wake?” Arthur’s mother suddenly asked as the car slid in to the motion.

Both Arthur and Conrad exchanged surprised glances. It was the first time she had spoken to them coherently that day.

“Urm, I think so,” Arthur mumbled, suddenly blushing.

“Good, I’m glad. Jared always thought so highly of her,” Beth Cooper sniffed. “You should go talk to her,” she added as an afterthought.

“I will.”

####

It felt strange to be standing in the Cooper home once more under such different circumstances. Demi could still remember the first time she had visited, and how nervous she had felt.

Those original nerves were equal to the ones she now felt, but her sorrow for Jared helped numb her own anxieties.

Little had changed in the house, some of the décor and a few new pieces of furniture but it was all very much as she remembered.

“Must be weird being here for you,” her Dad whispered to her as they navigated their way through the sea of mourners decked out in black attire.

“A little,” Demi replied, playing down her nerves.

“We don’t have to stay; you’ve already paid your respects.”

“No, I want to stay,” Demi said firmly, and following her gaze her Dad saw why. Across the room stood Arthur Cooper and he faltered beneath her stare, fumbling like a fish caught on a line.

“I’m going to go say hello to some people,” her Dad said, easing away from his daughter and leaving her alone to speak with the father of her son.

Demi approached Arthur, feeling as anxious as she had done that day when she waited for him in the school library. He seemed so foreign to her, yet at the same time so familiar. It was a strange sensation.

“Hi,” she greeted him awkwardly.

“Hi,” Arthur echoed his voice dull.

“Arthur I’m…I’m so sorry,” she almost choked on the words as she said them.

“It’s okay.”

“But it’s not okay, Jared’s gone and I know how much you loved him.”

“I wasn’t there for him,” Arthur sighed, looking desperately sad. “You were.”

“As part of my job,” Demi quickly replied modestly.

“It was more than that and you know it.”

“Well I cared about him. He’s…he was an amazing guy,” she corrected herself as she spoke and felt sick at having to do so.

“He was the best,” Arthur said, on the verge of tears.

“Do you want to talk somewhere more…private?” Demi suggested, knowing how embarrassed Arthur would be to break down and cry in front of a room full of people, even if it was at his little brother’s funeral.

“Okay,” Arthur agreed and led her upstairs to his old room.

As soon as they entered Demi felt overwhelmed by a sea of memories. The waves of shared moments came crashing down upon her and she almost drowned beneath them.

Countless hours had been spent curled together like one being beneath his blue chequered bed quilt.

They’d watched the rain from his bedroom window, and woken early to watch the sunrise. Their love had blossomed in that room. But now all that remained was dust and memories.

“If these walls could talk,” Arthur joked as he sat down on his bed, forcing a smile.

“Luckily for us, they can’t,” Demi said as she sat down next to him.

“I can’t believe he’s gone.” A solitary tear escaped and slid down Arthur’s chiselled cheek as he spoke.

“Me neither,” Demi agreed as she slid a hand across and over his and squeezed it.

“I should have been there for him, I should have done more.”

“You didn’t know how sick he was.”

“I’ve always known! His whole life Jared was on borrowed time! I knew that and yet still I went away and buried my head in the sand!”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“But I let everyone down! Especially you,” Arthur looked over at Demi, his eyes heavy with regret and longing.

“I ruined everything, I left you when you needed me most,” he continued sadly.

Demi tightened her grip on his hand and held his gaze.

“You were young, it’s okay.”

“But I never should have done that.”

“Arthur, it’s okay.”

“I never should have done it and I never should have left because I never stopped loving you. Everywhere I went, every step I took, you were there with me in my heart. I could never move on from you, from us.”

Demi heard the words but didn’t dare believe them.

Then, driven by emotions he could no longer control, Arthur leant forward and let his lips crash against Demi’s.

They began kissing one another passionately, hungrily, as though they had been waiting years for this moment.

As Arthur thrust his tongue in to her mouth he used his hands to unbutton the black dress she wore as Demi fought to unzip his trousers.

Soon they were naked, with their bare flesh touching. Arthur wanted to take a moment to savour what was happening but he was too fuelled by desire. He lifted the blue chequered bed quilt of his youth and they slid beneath it, as they’d done so many times as teenagers.

And beneath the quilt and above the guests at Jared’s wake they made love twice over, with the fervent intensity of those first heady encounters.

“Oh my God,” Demi breathed when they finally parted.

“Yeah,” Arthur agreed breathlessly.

“That was unexpected.”

“Yeah,” Arthur was so exhausted he felt incapable of speech. For a brief, blissful moment all that existed was the two of them in his bed. Everything else, Jared, his life in New York, existed beyond them and didn’t matter.

“I hope no one heard us!” Demi said suddenly, a mischievous glint in her eye, the same mischievous glint which used to drive Arthur wild.

“Me too,” he agreed. Then he propped himself up on one arm and scrutinized Demi as she lay with her bare flesh exposed, curled up beside him, fitting perfectly as though they were two pieces from the same puzzle.

“How have you not changed?” he asked her suddenly.

“I’d like to think I’ve changed a bit,” Demi protested, scrunching her nose up as she did so.

“I mean, you are still this sweet, amazing girl. How does that happen?”

“I don’t know, good DNA?” Demi joked.

“How could I have ever left you?” Arthur asked dreamily as he tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“Must have been a momentary lapse in sanity,” Demi smiled but beneath her smile she was fearful. Fearful that this union was born out of grief and nothing more. That soon, Arthur would get on a plane and leave for New York and be gone from her life once more.

Demi was the one suffering from lapses in sanity. She had been mad to get involved with Arthur once again but she just couldn’t help it. Around him she lost all sense of reason. A haze of lust and desire engulfed her and she was powerless to resist him.

“I should get back downstairs,” Arthur sighed, suddenly remembered all the guests in his house.

“People will wonder where I’ve gone.”

Demi watched him dress and leave, deciding to wait until she headed back downstairs to avoid instigating the town’s gossip mill. When Arthur left she lay there in the silence of his room and wondered if she’d just made a grave mistake.

####

The following day, Demi felt sick with regret as she pushed Logan on the tire swing in her back garden.

“Higher, Mommy, higher!” he ordered, as he struggled to remain seated in it.

“Well make sure you hold on good and tight!” Demi said as she gently pushed the swing just a small fraction higher.

“Higher!” Logan yelled, grumpy at the lack of new height.