New Forever (21 page)

Dee picks up her hair in a quick bun and looks at herself in the mirror.

“Are you sure you don’t want a veil?” her attendant asks for the hundredth time.

“No,” both Dee and I respond.

I’ll be doing her hair and make up and what we’ve practiced several times already will look best without a veil.

Although I’ve seen her countless times in this very dress, I feel my eyes well up with tears that I don’t bother holding back. Dee smiles back at me and I know she knows. She is the mirror of perfection. Dee pulls me to her and we embrace in a tight hug that speaks far more than either of us can verbalize.

“I’m so glad you’re here. You make me forget I wish my mom were here.”

“Your mom’s an idiot,” I huff out and roll my eyes with my annoyance brimming to the surface. “Just thinking about her makes my head want to explode.”

Dee wipes the tears that have crept into her eyes and hugs me again. “Me too.”

“So, we’re not thinking about her anymore. We can’t get blood or brain particles all over this pretty dress,” I tell her, forcing my voice to sound cheerful, and she laughs.

“Think I can manage to not gain an ounce in the next two weeks?” she asks as her attendant helps her out of her dress and she is finally able to breathe and move without causing internal damage.

“You look gorgeous, babe,” I reassure her and silently pray she doesn’t gain any more weight.

“Well, yea, obviously.”

A big part of me hopes Dee’s parents will go to her wedding and that her mom will weep dramatically over every missed opportunity she’s had at being a Mom. I don’t say as much because Dee forgave her mom long ago and that day is one that is forever etched in her heart. She not only let go of one of her greatest demons, but also almost lost the man she’ll be sharing her I do’s with.

Both Dee and Adam’s actions that day speak of a courage that lives silently in us until it is awaken. I still don’t understand how Dee could forgive her mom for a lifetime of negligence and emotional abuse, but her doing so only strengthened her resolve to heal completely. Adam’s heroism is a different beast altogether and one that landed him in the hospital, unconscious for days.

That day, horrible as it was, completed a circle of sorts that left Dee feeling as helpless as she did the day she lost Josh. But from the ruins and devastation, came strength and a happiness for a family brought together through tragedy and stuck it out to find their silver lining.

Life is funny like that. Swapping the good with the bad. Interlacing good memories with memories you wish to forget. Making you fight for your happiness and become a survivor every damned step of the way.

Dee joins me on the couch just outside the dressing room where we sip our glasses of wine while we wait for Dee’s dress to be brought to us. From the sounds coming from Dee’s stomach, I know she’s going to suggest we go eat pizza. As her best friend and maid of honor, I feel it’s my responsibility to deter her away from pizza and lead her to a salad, but I doubt that’ll go over well.

Thirty minutes later, I sit across from Dee at a wine and cheese bar in Ft. Lauderdale beach. At least it’s not pizza. We choose a sweet wine both of us like and our waitress pairs us with cheese and fruit that compliments our wine. Being a carb whore, I order a basket of bread and hear my heart sigh in ecstasy when a fresh batch of bread is brought out.

“You can’t eat that in front of me,” Dee complains as I moan after the first hot bite. Screw being a good best friend or maid of honor when freshly baked bread is available. “Hayley, are you listening to me?”

“I’m trying not to.”

She smacks my shoulder but I ignore her and continue to plow into the bread set before us.

“I’m gaining weight just watching you.”

“Right. It has nothing to do with the cheese or wine you’ve been taking in like you’re preparing to go into hibernation.” I contemplate asking about her growing stomach, but bite my tongue. It could just be the stress of the upcoming wedding that has her reaching for an excessive amount of food. And if she is pregnant, she’d still be early in her pregnancy that a bottle of wine shared amongst friends wouldn’t be harmful. Right?

“Bitch.”

“Whore.”

“Tomorrow I’ll start dieting.”

Right, tomorrow. She takes a fresh roll from the basket and, like me, closes her eyes to fully enjoy the taste of fresh bread. Steam evaporates into the air when she bites into it, sending a wave of the most delicious scent in the air.

“Are you and Max still honeymooning since our trip to Nassau?”

I think back on the last few days and I have to say yep, we’re still honeymooning. Our relationship has been through a lot since our impromptu trip to Tampa so going back to the honeymoon stage is a nice change of pace. But more than that, we’re talking more, getting to really know one another. We’re building a foundation his parents won’t be able to penetrate through when I finally meet them.

“I’ve been thinking about Max and me a lot lately,” I tell her seriously. “And I think he’s the type of guy I’d totally make a sandwich for.”

“You- what?” Dee asks, obviously confused by my analogy.

“The type of guy I’d make a sandwich for.” I shrug my shoulders. I served him Thai food yesterday, so making a sandwich isn’t that different.

“Is that your demented way of saying he’s a keeper?”

“It’s not demented.” I roll my eyes and take another sip of my wine. “It shows a level of commitment. If you’re willing to make him a sandwich, then you’re willing to do just about anything for the guy. Simple science.”

“Science?”

“Don’t question my wisdom, just accept it as fact.”

“Whatever, Yoda.”

Ppfff. Like Yoda would ever talk like that. Far more insight he has.

“I never told you,” I begin after I pop a piece of cheese in my mouth. “While we were in Nassau I kind of saw an email from Max’s parents pop up on his laptop.”

“How did you kind of see it?”

“Doesn’t matter.” I wave her off. Leave it to Dee to focus on a minor unimportant detail like me snooping. I saw it. I can’t unsee it and it’s been driving me crazy. “What you should be asking is what was in the email that has me freaked out.”

Dee inches forward, worry spilling from her expressive eyes. With her avid imagination, anything could be going through her head, but she looks at me ready to defend me and if needed and knock out Max’s parents.

“What’d it say?”

I sigh, because it really didn’t say much but it still managed to speak volumes.

“They want to know why Max hasn’t contacted them in five years and want to put this whole mess behind them, but they said they wouldn’t entertain his nonsense. Is Hannah and her death the mess they want Max to put behind him? Is she nonsense to them?”

“I don’t know, babe.” Dee reaches over and holds my hand that I squeeze back for reassurance. My heart hurts thinking about it, and about what they thought of Hannah and how they treated Max, their estranged son in an email.

“They’re his parents, Dee. What if he wants a relationship with them and I can’t see past what they did to Hannah?”

“You can’t control other people, Hayley. You know that.” I look down at the napkin in my hand, wondering how it got there and why it’s torn into bits on my lap. “But you can control your reaction to them.” I look back at her curiously and wait for her to dispense some of the wisdom she’s gained from simply being around Adam, the philosopher. He missed his true calling when he let his passion for music deter him away from philosophy. “Don’t expect them to apologize to you or even explain themselves. Go in there knowing what you’ve been through because of their decisions and forgive them.”

Forgive them? My body inches away from her when I hear her suggestion, but I roll my tense shoulders to relax them. Max doesn’t understand how I could forgive him so easily over something he played no part in. That was easy, because there was no reason for me to be angry with him to begin with so forgiveness wasn’t necessary. But forgive his parents? They broke Hannah. Or at least played a big role in her demise. They broke my parents and me.

Some wounds don’t heal with time, we simply become accustomed to them. They become a part of who we are and we learn to live with them. I’ve learned to live with the pain of Hannah’s suicide, but I can’t say that particular wound has healed or that it ever will. I simply learned to live in spite of it.

“I don’t think I can,” I whisper.

Dee scoots her chair so that she is sitting next to me and leans her head on my shoulder. I lean my head on hers and take comfort in the solace she is giving me. I let my mind drift elsewhere, somewhere safe where resentment and sorrow don’t exist, but Dee pulls me back to reality.

“You have to try.” I feel her rub my shoulders and I close my eyes as I try to listen to my heart and what it has to say. “Not just for you, but for Max too.”

For Max. I’d do just about anything for him so, for him so I’ll try to forgive them. That way he can finally move past it. I mean, there’s no sense in both of us holding onto Hannah. Although, there is some comfort in knowing that all these years he’s mourned along with me. Even though I never knew it, I’ve never been alone, not really, and she’s never been forgotten.

But the way she died shouldn’t be the legacy that she left behind. There was so much more to her than just her depression or her suicide, even though at times that seems to be the one thing that sticks out the most.

I can’t change the past. I can’t promise that I’ll forgive Max’s parents so that we can all come together holding hands and sing Kumbaya around a campfire. But I can no longer let her death be her legacy. I have to right my own frame of mind in order to change Max’s and help him leave a hurt behind him that he should never have taken on as his own.

***

With Janus grunting beside me, I open up the scrapbook I was gifted years ago but never intended to actually use. It’s too feminine, too mundane with its white and blue flowers on the cover and manila pages inside. There’s no flurry of colors or excitement, but it’s all I have at the moment so it’ll have to do.

After a long sigh and some mental preparations, I open up the shoe box full of Hannah’s pictures. I let a tear roll down my cheek when I find the one of us dressed as matching clowns for Halloween. We were four years old and she was my hero. There had been a time when Hannah’s happiness knew no boundaries. When she was the mischievous one getting us into trouble. When her chatter would echo off the walls of the bedroom we shared long into the morning hours.

Janus walks over to me and not-so-gently plops his head on my lap with a loud moan, letting me know the short three-step journey to get on top of me was torturous. I kiss the top of his head, grateful for his support and then hug him to me when he looks up at me with his soulful chocolate brown eyes.

I set the picture aside and lie down next to Janus with our heads touching while I put an arm around him. When he leans into me, I lean my face further into his coat and sob. Being a typical male, my tears eventually make him uncomfortable and he lets me know by letting out a loud sigh and moan before inching his body away from mine.

I laugh and scratch the top of his head, knowing it’ll make the grumpy man grumble louder. He looks back at me with disdain so I sit back up, feeling better about the project set before me.

“No more tears,” I promise him, but his eyes tell me he doesn’t trust me.

I stroke the picture before taping it to the page and as promised, hold back my tears. I wait for my hand to stop trembling so that I can write a small snippet of what made this picture special and then move on to the next picture.

Each picture is special though, simply because it is impossible to ever take another picture of her or with her. But also there is a memory attached to every picture I choose. When looking at our identical faces painted as clowns, one might only see two four year old girls enjoying Halloween, but I see my sister smiling without any inhibitions. I see a happy little girl who loved the world because she trusted that the world still loved her.

Going through the pictures, reminds me of the countless hours we spent in our not-so-secret hideout beside our house. It was nothing more than a few trees alongside the canal and it didn’t really hide us from anyone, but it was ours and we spent every free hour there just talking in what we pretended was seclusion. As we got older, our talks turned to everything from movies, to our favorite crush, to booby trapping our rooms from our parents. Conversations about nothing of great significance that wound up meaning more than anything in the world. Conversations that I’ve replayed in my head countless times just to remind myself of Hannah and the bond we once shared was real. That we hadn’t always been strangers. That I had once loved her with the same unwavering love she showed me.

I finish up just as Max comes home and I stretch my back when I stand up. With my scrap book in hand and Janus beside me, I walk to him and give him a hug. He kisses my forehead then tilts my head upward to kiss my lips. He tastes like beer and cigars, a combination that lets me know his outing with Adam was a success.

“Did you girls have fun today?” he asks, petting the top of Janus’ head and I nod.

“Dee looks amazing.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head in mock sadness. “Everyone will still be staring at you.”

I snort at his statement and smack his shoulder lightly.

“Okay, but I doubt I’ll be the only one staring at you.”

“It’ll just be you, but that’s because you’re a perv for me.” I laugh and he joins me.

Janus nudges my hand that is holding the scrapbook, reminding me of my mission so I lead Max to the couch and leave him sitting there with my scrapbook on his lap while I get us both a couple beers.

“What are you up to now?” he asks, lifting an eyebrow and then lets his eyes wander over my body slowly. I feel myself blush when I realize where his thoughts have led him. The man thinks I’ve made a scrapbook of us. Of us naked!

“Perv,” I whisper, hiding my blushing cheeks behind my hair.