Reluctant Guardian (22 page)

“I've been thinking pretty seriously about something. I know I've been weird these past two weeks, but I've been trying to decide what to do.”

“Okay.”

“When you came, something inside me clicked. I didn't want to admit it, and I'm still not sure what it is, but I'd lived without it for a very long time. It's hard to change and I have reflex habits that are difficult to let go of, but I want to try.
Finally,
I want to try, if you can be patient with me.”

His words send a thrill through me, tingling from the inside out. The zing feels undeniably wonderful.

“My life... this life I'm living, seems like a dream, and sometimes a complete waste of time, especially with all the other guardians they've sent, but you are different than any of them. I felt it immediately.” He tries to squeeze my hand, but his fingers pinch together instead.

I squeeze back.

“I have an aunt who lives a half hour away. I'm going to take Heidi and Sophie there. She'll be a great mom to them and will really love them. She has wanted us to come live with her for a long time.”

“Oh, Brecken. That's so great! I'm so happy. The girls need a mother and with your dad gone so much... not that you aren't doing a great job, but, you know.”

“Yeah. That's what I thought, too. They'll love it there. She even has a swimming pool.”

Brecken scoots closer and puts one arm around the back of the couch so I am enclosed in his arms. It feels so right, but a battle rages in my heart. No matter how much I pretend, I can't have this boy. No matter how much I wish it, he can't have me. I'm dead. He's alive. This little play we're enacting will end.

He leans forward, the shadows of the room playing across his face, his eyes appearing like dark, glossy pools of mystery. “Alisa, I want to be with you. I know I was mean when you first told me about killing yourself, and I'm sorry, but it got me thinking. Dying can be fast and over quickly. Families move on in time. I've seen that firsthand. What I'm saying is... well, I have everything planned, and I want you with me the entire time.”

I lean away to better read his expression. “Wait. What?”

He continues in a heated rush. “We'll have to wait until we get back from my aunt's, but tonight's the night.” He smiles, his eyes filled with hope as he watches me.

“Maybe I'm slow,” I say. “But are you telling me you want to kill yourself?”

He sits back, his brows pulled together, the corner of his mouth lifting in question. “You, of all people, should understand.”

His comment stings just a bit. “You can't do this. Why would you? Especially when you were so awful to me about it? You can't really mean to...”

“Why not?” He gets up and walks around the table, his hands gesticulating as he paces. “We would be together. There's nothing here for me anymore. I'm tired of trying to hide who I am. I want—”

“Brecken. Stop. You
can't
kill yourself!” I jump up and hurry over to him. “It doesn't work like that. We'd
never
get to be together. Ever.” I stare hard into his eyes, holding both his hands. “And what about your sisters? They need you.”

He backs away. “No they don't. They don't even like me. They pretty much ignore everything I say. It wouldn't disrupt their lives in any way.”

“Oh, Brecken, it would. You have no idea how much your life impacts theirs. And what about your dad? He needs you. Do you have any idea what this would do to him? First he lost his wife, and then you?” I can't believe these words are coming from my mouth. They sound so mature, so responsible, tumbling from my hypocritical lips.

He plops down onto the La-Z-Boy, his hands cradling his head. “I'm just so tired.”

I kneel before him, wishing more than anything I could take him in my arms and make him forget his misery. I wish so much I could have met him long ago when I was still alive.

So much opportunity wasted.

“I know, Brecken. I felt the same way once. I truly did.” I try to smooth back his hair, but my fingers brush right through the silken strands, impotent.

He gazes at me, wearing an expression of hopelessness. “I need to go.” He stands, walks to the table, and grabs his car keys. “My aunt is expecting the girls by four.”

 

~Determined to Die~

Brecken

 

Brecken can't believe Alisa's reaction to his plan. He thought she'd be excited, that she'd want to be with him too, on a
heavenly
plane. But maybe she's right. Maybe it doesn't work like that. But it doesn't make him feel any better. In fact, he feels stupid and embarrassed about the whole thing. He shouldn't have told her. He should have just gone done it and let it be a surprise.

They drive in silence to his aunt's house, Sophie, babbling to herself as she plays with little animal toys. Heidi mostly stares out the window—like always—with a bored expression, ear buds in her ears, music blaring.

“You should turn that down,” he says, waving his hand in front of her face to catch her attention.

She glances at him and shrugs, ignoring his suggestion.

It's typical of the way Heidi treats him. She doesn't like him. She'll be glad he's gone and won't care at all. Sophie is the only one who might feel bad, and he'll miss her
and
her cute, childish imagination, her sweetness.

Alisa sits in the back with Sophie, not saying anything. What does she know anyway? She can only judge from her own experiences. She has no idea how he feels, what he is going through, what his outcome will be.

He still hasn't broken up with Jill and if he takes himself out now, he won't have to. That would solve one problem. It just doesn't seem important to continue on. His dad doesn't care—as far as he knows. His mom is the only one who truly loved him, and now she is gone.

She never came back to see him after her death, and he fully expected her to. It's a huge disappointment. She knew of his “gifts” and he'd thought for sure, she of all people, would come back. Maybe she
didn't
love him like he thought. His heart aches with that possibility.

Everything is just too hard. Every morning when he wakes up, it takes monumental effort to get out of bed. His life is falling apart and he's starting to have nightmares again, just like he had as a child.

In these terrifying dreams, he is always on a fiery battlefield, surrounded by hellish fiends, his heart torn with guilt—as though he has betrayed his friends. And the fear...

He doesn't know what he's done to warrant such feelings. He wakes up exhausted and terrified. Brecken hasn't told anyone about the dreams, and he isn't about to. People think he is crazy enough as it is.

No. Suicide is his best option.

His miserable life can end, and Alisa will forgive him just like he forgave her.

 

~Forever Battling~

Alisa

 

Brecken doesn't say one word to me after we drop off the girls. We come straight home, and he jumps out of the car, storming toward the house.

“Brecken, wait!” I stand in front of him. “I thought we decided suicide wasn't an option.” I walk toward him as he fingers his keys. His eyes are wet, red, and horribly sad.

“That was your conclusion. Not mine.”

He barrels through me. The rush of
him
fills me for a split second, but it's long enough to take my breath away, figuratively speaking. Every bit of matter—or whatever souls are made of—melds with him. For a moment, we become one, and that rush consumes my entire being.

I can't help but gasp and fall to one knee. I want to cling to that moment, but before I can even blink, he moves on, and I'm left empty. A vacuum.

Did he feel the same surge? The same emotion? The same... merging? Did he feel anything at all? Dizzy, my mind spins in a million directions.

“Brecken,” I gasp, pulling myself up to face him, feeling like I will hyperventilate at any moment. “I want you to be happy. Of course I'd love to spend forever with you, but the only way to make that happen is for you to live your life and die the right way.”

He searches my face, looking breathless himself. His chest heaves and the pain in his eyes beseeches me to understand. “Maybe this
is
the right way... for me.” He reaches out, but there is nothing for him to hold but thin air. His hands fall to his sides. “Maybe this is my destiny. Maybe it's supposed to happen like this. Just like you dying was meant to happen so we could meet.”

“Brecken. Listen to what you're saying. I wasn't meant to die. I was meant to
live,
to get married, and to have a family. I screwed it all up. One-hundred percent. We weren't meant to meet like this.”

His expression falls and he turns away. “Then maybe
nothing
is meant to be. Maybe there's no purpose and everything's just an accident, and if that's the case, what's the point?”

I don't have an answer. I'm still confused myself. How can I possibly explain life and death when I am just as lost as he is?

Before I have a chance to say anything else, Brecken's cell phone rings. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who it is. I hear her pouty, falsetto voice clear over on the other side of the room.

“Hey, Jill,” Brecken says when he answers. After a pause, he glances over at me. “Uh, I don't know. I'm kind of busy tonight.” He's quiet for a moment. “Yeah, I know. Okay, I guess.”

More jabbering from Jill.

“All right. But only for an hour. Yeah. I think so too.” He holds the phone to his ear with a pained expression, and then glances at me. The conversation continues to drag on.

“No, everything's fine,” he says. “Yeah, okay. Six o'clock. I'll be there. Bye.”

I try not to glare, to not feel jealous or hurt, but if he thinks he can just leave me behind and hang out with his girlfriend...

“So,” he says, glancing at me. “Jill wants me to come over for a little while.” He takes in my expression and hurries to add, “I think it would be a good time to tell her my feelings have changed, and to... break up.”

I cross my arms over my chest, and continue glaring. I agree it's time for him and Jill to break up, and it has to happen sometime, just not tonight. After our conversation earlier, I want to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. And if he is with Jill, only stupid is possible.

“Come on, Alisa. It will only be an hour at the most. Don't be mad. I'm tired of fighting.”

“I'm not mad.”

“Right.”

Sighing, I turn to him. “Fine. You're right.” I lean my head against the back of the couch, closing my eyes. So tired. So drained.

“After I come home, we'll have the whole evening to talk.”

“After
you
come home? You honestly think I'm going to let you go alone?” I watch him incredulously. He really thinks I'll just sit here and wait?

“Well, it's kind of a private conversation. No one wants to get dumped in front of an audience.” He walks back out to his car and gets in. I stand beside his window—having followed him like a lost puppy, ready to jump inside too.

“I promise to come home as soon as I can, and I'll tell you all about it. Please let me do this alone.”

A storm rages inside me. All the reasons I should say no are forefront in my mind. I don't trust Jill, and I can't trust Brecken not to be sucked in by her lies. How can I let him go alone? Yet I want him to trust me. There can never be a relationship between us if I don't start showing him that I trust
his
judgment too.

With a sigh, I agree. I'll let him dump his doofus girlfriend in private, but then he is all mine.

 

~Beginning to Heal~

Alisa

 

I sit alone, staring at the white, pictureless wall in Brecken's living room. With the girls and Brecken gone, the quiet soon becomes tedious and lonely. Rather than waste time, and since I haven't seen her in a few days, I decide to visit my mom.

A moment later, I'm at her side. She's content, in her bed, her blankets fluffed around her, looking through a photo album. Dark hair hangs lustrously about her shoulders and she wears my red-plaid pajama bottoms with a white tank top.

My clothes.

She robbed my closet, and a warmth I haven't felt in a long time gratifies me. I sit cross-legged next to her on the bed and lean near to see the pictures she's focused on. They are from the last campout we went on the summer before I died. Stately pines make the perfect backdrop to the mountain lake scene. I can almost smell the scent of wild flowers on the remembered breeze.

Most of the photos are of my brothers and me. In one, I hold a trout I caught. It dangles from my fingers, its gills spread wide in death. There are a couple shots of us laughing in a canoe. Two seconds after that picture was taken, Derek tipped us over. An unforgettable water fight had ensued. Such happy memories. Had I been depressed then? I'm not sure, but it doesn't look like it.

My mother probably wonders the same thing. She doesn't look sad though, and she isn't crying. Her clear eyes shine, and her skin glows a healthy pink. She runs her fingers over our faces and smiles.

“I'm here, Mom,” I whisper, touching her shoulder. I want so badly for her to know I'm with her, that I understand, that I don't blame her for anything.

Hearing the sound of feet on the stairs, I turn. Mom's bedroom door bursts open. Tyler lopes to the bed and jumps on, rolling right over me so he can sit next to Mom.

“Hi!” He hugs her waist. “Whatcha lookin' at?”

I pull back, staring at him in surprise. He seems a completely different kid than he was just a few weeks ago.

Mom wraps her arms around him and kisses the top of his head. “Just some pictures. Remember this one?” She points to us in our sleeping bags. “It was such a fun trip.”

A sad expression comes over his face, and his smile turns into a frown. “Yeah, that was fun.” He grabs the remote from the nightstand and flips on the TV. “Want to watch a movie?”