To See You Again (27 page)

"You don't have to leave, Beck," I whisper.

"What the hell are you talking about, Rachel? What
am I gonna to do? Stay here and hang out with you?" He laughs humorlessly in a
way that gives me chills. I've never witnessed this much anger from him before.
"What do you want me to do? Pop in a movie and act like this never happened?"
He begins to yell, and I wrap my arms around myself and start to cry harder.
"Do you understand what has taken place here tonight? I asked you to
marry
me
and you tell me you're not in love with me. The end. We're done with the purgatory,
Rachel. I'm not gonna to stick around and continue to waste my days, my
years,
with you just because you're afraid to be alone! We're over!" I sob loudly and
he pauses and then says, "I don't even understand why you're crying! You just
told me that you don't love me!" he shouts.

"I
do
love you!" I shout back. He stops and
looks at me. "I just…I just…" I sink to the floor shaking and sobbing, while he
towers over me.

After what seems like a lifetime, he finally
speaks. "You just don't love me the way I love you," he says, no longer yelling.
"And really, Rach, I have myself to blame too, because on some level I've
always known I loved you more. I just thought…I thought it was enough. I
thought I could be enough for you." He crouches down next to me. I'm still
crying but no longer sobbing. His voice is low and quiet now. "Listen to me,
Rachel." I look up at him. "You're gonna to need to let me go, though. If this
is really how you feel, then I need things to end tonight. Right now. This
can't be like our other fights, where you call me in an hour, or the next day.
This is the end, Rachel. If you don't want me, and you don't want to move
forward, then let me
go
, OK?" He starts to cry and I reach up and cradle
his face in my hands. "I've been hanging on for so long and I just can't do it
anymore." His voice cracks and I feel it reverberate in my heart.

I hate that I'm the cause of his pain. I lift my
face to his and we kiss, light and tender. Then he pulls away, silent tears
still streaming down his face as he stands and walks out. Moments later, I hear
the front door close, and he's gone.

I curl into a ball and continue to cry, and cry,
until my throat is raw and my eyes burn. After some time I finally stand, wipe
my face, and look around my candle-lit room, wondering how I could let someone
so great out of my life, and still feel like I did the right thing. I know in
my heart that I have, in spite of the pain I feel, and the heaviness. I move
about slowly, blowing each and every candle out in my room, like I'm performing
a ceremony. I head to the kitchen, where my purse is, and extract my phone. I
scroll down to Vanessa's name and just before I click, it begins to ring.

I answer without thinking. "Hello?"

"Raven, I'm so glad I caught you. Do you have a
minute?"

It's Reba.

I notice her use of Raven, but I'm too drained to
correct it. I slump down in my kitchen chair and heave out a sigh. "Apparently,
I have all the time in the world."

"Um, OK, you sound weird. Are you still at work?"
she murmurs.

"Why are you whispering?

"Because, I swear, he's like omniscient or
something. I can't get away with anything over here."

"Are you at Collin's?" I whisper back. I have no
idea why
I'm
whispering. I'm sure he can't hear through the phone.

"Yes. I know it's like Friday night, but this is
kind of important. Can you come over?"

I'm stunned. "To Collin's house?"

"Yes. I think he'd listen to you. He's certainly
not listening to me." Her voice is clipped, but she's still whispering so it's
tough for me to tell if she's irritated or concerned.

 "I don't know why you'd think he would. We
haven't talked in a long time, and it isn't because of
my
lack of trying.
He hasn't responded to my texts or the voicemail I left." I pause a moment, I
sound a lot more upset than I want to reveal to Reba. "Besides, isn't this sort
of Leighton's department?"

"Leighton?" She scoffs. "Um,
no
. OK, it's
clear you have some major catching up to do." Now, she definitely sounds
agitated.

"What?" I ask, no longer whispering.

 "He just came downstairs. I better go. Can you
come or not?" I can hear the urgency in her voice.

"This is a bizarre phone call, Reba."

"Just come! Text me when you turn on his street,
OK?"

"Reba, what the hell is going on?" I demand. She
says nothing in response. I pull the phone away and see she's hung up. Reba is
the most completely random person ever. I head to my bathroom and splash water
on my face. No matter what, I'm not going anywhere looking like this.

Thirty minutes later, looking only marginally
better, I'm pulling out of my garage and en route to Collin's house. This is
nuts. It's taking every last drop of my willpower not to call Vanessa right
now. If I do, we won't get off the phone for at least an hour and I'm already
on my way to Collin's place for some unknown reason. I rationalize that in two
hours, or however long this takes, I'll still be broken up with Beckett and I
can call her then. I text Reba as I turn down Collin's street.

Me: I'm here. You better be too!

Reba: Thank God! What took you so long?

Reba: Park. I'll meet you outside.

I've barely shut my engine off and Reba is already
pacing outside my car.

"You need to tell me what the hell is going on,
Reba." I slam my door.

"I will. C'mon." I follow her down the sidewalk to
Collin's townhouse. She walks up two stairs and sits down, patting the cement
next to her.

"We're not going
in
his house?" I shoot
Reba an irritated look of confusion as I sit down beside her.

"Not yet. First I need to brief you. So, did you know
Collin's mom had cancer?"

My stomach plummets at the word cancer. A long
history of distrust of Reba, coupled with being wrapped up in my own crap, has
prevented me from considering that something truly awful could be happening to
Collin tonight.  A hazy memory comes floating back to me from when I was sick.
"Um, yeah. He did tell me, but just in passing. We didn't really get a chance
to talk about it." A combination of guilt and worry takes ahold of me, as I fear
I know what she's about to say next.

"Well, it was pretty bad. She suffered for a long
time and a little over a month ago she died." Her tone is matter of fact, but
her somber expression instantly gives me goose bumps.

"Oh, my God, Reba. I'm so sorry." I place my hand
on my chest and feel my heart pound. I can't believe Collin's mom is gone.

She looks away from me and says almost
robotically, "It's OK. In some ways it was a relief, she was in a lot of pain."

I place my hand near hers, but think better of
touching her.  I'm not sure what to say or do. For as much time as we spent
together via Collin, we've never been independently close.

A small smile rises on her face. "Collin was so
great with her, Rachel. I wish you could've seen them like that. He was
amazing. It was the best they'd ever been with each other, but I guess the last
time he visited they had a fight." She turns to look at me and her eyes are
serious, her expression solemn, the tiny smile has vanished.

"A fight?" I shiver from the cold and hug my legs
to my chest. "About what?"

"I'm not sure exactly what was said, but she gave
him these papers, or letters—I don't know what they are, from his dad."

"Oh, God," I interject.

"I know, right? Anyway, she had them all along. He
never knew about it. Words were exchanged. It wasn't good. I guess he'd planned
to come back the next day, but then she died that night." She bites her lower
lip.

"Poor Collin." I cover my mouth with my hands.

"Yes, poor Collin. But he is, of course,
completely blaming himself. What's even worse is he thinks he's all alone now,
because she was really the last of his family. I keep telling him
we're
family, but he's like, dismissed me, twice."

"Dismissed you?" I give her an incredulous look.
"What do you mean? What did he say?"

"He's all, ‘you can go now, Reba', like as though
I was hanging around all of these years just because she was my stepmother!"
She does a deep voice when she imitates Collin that very nearly sounds like
him. It's eerie, and I would tell her as much, if we weren't talking about such
a somber topic. "Does he seriously not get by this point that I love him, too?
He's my brother, blood or not."

It's clear she's hurt, but she seems determined
too. "Where's Leighton?"

"Ah, yes, Leighton." She sighs. "I guess they
broke up a while ago. He won't give me the exact details." I shoot her a
knowing smile. "I know, shocking, right? But what I
do
know is she got
really mad at him and told him they needed to take a break. I guess she kept
thinking he'd call, come running back, or something." She rolls her eyes.  "Of
course he didn't, and then one day he comes home and all her crap was gone, and
her key was on the counter. That was it, I guess." She shrugs.

"Whoa. When was this?"

"I guess the fight was quite a while back, but the
key on the counter thing was literally the day after his mom passed."

"What a bitch!" I exclaim.

"No," she shakes her head, "as much as I wasn't
Leighton's biggest fan, I know she wasn't cruel like that. There's no way she
knew."

"Did you guys have a service?"

"Yup." She closes her eyes for a minute, and I can
tell her emotions have taken her by surprise. She exhales a moment later and
seems to have collected herself. "For all of my stepmother's bravado she wanted
a really quiet ceremony. Cancer changed her a lot. She didn't want a big to-do
in the end. That, I suppose, made it a little easier on Collin. He couldn't
have handled a big thing, I don't think." She shakes her head.

This is all so crazy and so awful. My heart aches
for Collin and Reba, and even for his mom who passed away amidst a conflict
with her only son. "I'm so sorry. I wish I'd known.  I would've liked to have
been there, to have helped somehow."

"I know you would've, and maybe I should've called
you. Believe me, I almost did several times, but Collin didn't want me to." She
glances at me, evaluating my reaction. My hurt must be obvious. "Try not to
take it personally. He didn't want me to call anyone. I had to twist his arm
just to contact some extended relatives, who in the end, didn't show up
anyway." She huffs out an irritated sigh that's reminiscent of the Reba I knew
a decade ago, but that sure isn't who is sitting next to me tonight. She's all
grown up and asking me for help. Part of me rises to this, but what about
Collin? My worries have been confirmed. He doesn't want me in his life. I hate
the selfishness of this thought, but there it is.

I give her a weak smile. "Reba, forgive me, but if
that's the case, why am I here? What are you hoping I can do now?" I ask,
feeling panicked and helpless.

"He needs a friend. He thinks I'm just here out of
obligation, and for some reason he can't see beyond that. I'm so terrified that
he's going to get real bad again." She stares at me earnestly.

"Is he getting bad again?" I ask, fearing the
answer.

"No, not exactly, but I feel like he's teetering
on the edge of bad. He's told me he's taking his meds, and I want to believe
him, because Collin isn't one to lie about anything, but I guess I can't say
for sure." Her forehead crinkles with worry. "I know he's been working from
home this entire week, and apparently that seems to involve a lot of lying in
bed all day, which by the way, is not like him at all." She turns toward me. "You
know, he was fine right afterward. There was a lot to do, and he handled almost
all of it. He'd hardly let me do anything." She puts her head in her hands,
clearly distressed. "But now that the dust has settled, he just seems…lost, and
I'm so scared."

"Wow, Reba. I'm sorry. I don't know what to say. I
can't even imagine what it's like to have a parent die and here you and Collin
have gone through it over and over again. And Collin? I can't even guess at how
he must be feeling. Losing someone you love is always painful, but I'm sure his
tough relationship with her complicates his feelings even more. I'm just…so
sorry."
And useless.

This sensation of helplessness is suffocating. I
feel like I can barely breathe let alone find the words to comfort either of
them. Reba called me tonight to be a friend to Collin. I used to know exactly
how to be that, but now? I have no clue how to handle this and I am terrified
of doing anything to make it worse, especially if he's as fragile as Reba
claims. I'm not sure I can do this.

"The thing is…" I trace a narrow crack on the
concrete steps where we sit, watching as my finger dips lightly into the dirt
trapped within it. "I'm not sure how to help you or Collin. If he doesn't want
me around I feel like maybe I should respect that." I nervously glance up at
her expecting to be met with the Reba-scowl I know all to well, but that isn't
what I see at all. Silent tears begin slinking down her cheeks collecting in a
larger drop at her jaw before giving way to plop onto her shirt. She shakes her
head slowly and then wipes her eyes roughly with the back of her hands, as
though she's giving warning to any other tears that might threaten to break
loose. She stares off into the distance.