Only a Breath Apart Read online

  The entire way here I’ve questioned my sanity, but I don’t know how I’d live with myself if I stayed home. Jesse Lachlin used to be my childhood best friend. We were inseparable. We had the type of friendship people strive to have, and then, a few years ago, he cut me so deeply that I still bleed. But ten-year-old me would have never abandoned a hurting Jesse. So today I’m not only honoring the memory of Jesse’s grandmother, but also the memory of our dead friendship.

  On my way to the funeral, the high grass of the field swats at my legs, but I don’t mind the sting. I love walking barefoot in grass, I love the smell of the earth and I love that brief feeling of freedom open spaces can provide.

  It’s the dog days of August. The type of hot that starts when the sun rises and makes you sweat through your clothes within minutes. While my skin and palms are on fire, the pads of my feet are cool against the dirt. The heat is unwelcome, but the sky is deep blue and the sun is bright, and for that, I can be grateful.

  Walking out of the field, I stop short of crossing the one-lane road to slip on the flats that dangle from my fingertips. My mother would be mortified if she knew I was entering a church in a cotton daisy-print sundress. It’s not one of the dresses with stiff fabric and impossible back zippers she would have picked for me at an overpriced department store. It’s the type that’s machine-washable and breathable. The type of dress Jesse’s grandmother would have given her stamp of approval.

  I can practically hear my mother heavily sigh and mumble my name, Scarlett, as if it were her personal, private curse word. Mom believes there’s a certain way to dress and behave, and I’m breaking all sorts of her rules today. Watch out, world. I’m officially rebellious.

  I smile to myself because I’m the opposite of rebellious. For the last few years, I’ve followed every rule. I’m the teacher’s pet and the girl with straight A’s. I’m the poster child of perfection, and have earned every snarky ice princess comment Jesse’s friends whisper about me in the school hallways because he and I no longer speak.

  There are only six cars in the parking lot of the white church, and that makes me frown. I thought more people would have wanted to attend. Jesse’s mud-covered pickup is there, and so is an unnaturally clean black Mercedes that belongs to his uncle. This ought to be interesting. Jesse and his uncle have a mutual hate for each other that runs deeper than any root of any tree.

  Movement to my right and I slowly turn my head. Shivers run down my spine at the sight of Glory Gardner. Even though I’m seventeen and too old for ghost stories, I still can’t shake the ones regarding this woman. Girls would whisper over lunch boxes that Glory was a witch. As I grew older, I understood that witch meant con artist. She claims she can read palms, tarot cards and “sees” spirits from beyond the dead. All for a glorious fee.

  She’s a beautiful woman—long dirty blond hair that’s untamed, even in a bun, and she has an eclectic taste in clothing. Today she wears a white peasant shirt and a flowing skirt made of material that shimmers in the sun.

  Glory watches me like I watch her, with morbid curiosity. I knew her as a child, back when Jesse and I ran wild in the fields near her home, but we haven’t talked in years.

  She stands under the shade of a towering weeping willow. There are lots of those trees around here. Mom says it’s because there is too much water in the ground. I say it’s because the people in this town have cried too many tears. Mom doesn’t like my answer.

  I tilt my head toward the church, an unspoken question if Glory will be joining me. She shakes her head no. I’m not shocked. According to rumors, Glory will go up in flames if she enters the house of God. But who knows? Maybe I will, too.

  The church is one of those picturesque, historical, one-room school buildings squeezed between a cornfield on one side and a hay field on the other. A huge steeple with a bell attempts to reach the heavens, but like anything created by a human, it falls tragically short.

  The foreboding wooden door makes no noise as I open it, and I’m able to slip in without a huge, squeaking announcement. Orange light filters in through the dark stained glass windows, and its struggling beams reveal millions of dancing particles of dust.

  On the altar, there’s no casket, but there is an urn. My heart dips—Suzanne is dead. I used to wish she were my grandmother, and many times, she treated me as if I belonged to her. Suzanne was the epitome of love, and the world feels colder now that she’s gone.

  Choosing a spot in the back, I drop into a pew, and as I scan the church my stomach churns. How is it possible that this place is so barren?

  Besides the Funeral Brigade, or the FB, as I like to refer to them, there aren’t many people here. The FB are the older group of women who attend every funeral in our small town even if they didn’t know the person. Attending funerals isn’t my idea of fun, but who am I to judge?

  The FB sit directly behind the one person the town believes to be the lone sane member of the Lachlin family, probably because he isn’t blood related—Jesse’s uncle.

  On the left side of the church is Jesse. Only Jesse. And that causes a painful pang in my chest. Where are his stinking friends? The anarchists in training who follow Jesse wherever he goes? Where is the rest of the town? Yes, Suzanne was polarizing, but still, where is any respect?

  Quietly, so I don’t draw attention to myself, I slip from the right set of pews to the left. Someone should be on Jesse’s side, and it’s sad it has to be me.

  A door at the front of the church opens, and the pastor walks out from the addition the church built on as a small office ten years ago. I would have thought any pastor assigned to this place would be as ancient as this church. Sort of like an Indiana Jones Knights Templar scenario where he lives forever as long as he stays inside. But no, he’s the youngest pastor from the main, newer church in town. His name is Pastor Hughes, and he’s a thirty-something black man with a fit build who is just cute enough that he should be starring in a movie.

  The pastor looks up, and he flinches as if startled. I peek over my shoulder then sigh. Clearly, he’s surprised to see me. Flipping fantastic.

  His reaction, and the fact he won’t stop staring, causes every person to turn their heads. Lovely. I’ve had dreams like this where I enter a room and become the center of attention. Only in my dreams it’s at school, it’s my classmates and I’m naked, but still, this is disconcerting.

  Eventually, the FB and Jesse’s uncle return their attention to the front, but Jesse doesn’t. He rests his arm on the back of the pew, and it’s hard to ignore that he’s made me his sole focus, but I do my best to act as if I don’t notice.

  To help, I concentrate on what my mom taught me as a child—to make sure the skirt of my dress is tucked appropriately so that my thighs don’t show. I then fold my hands in my lap and straighten to a book-on-head posture. I can be the ice princess people claim me to be.

  Five pews separate me and Jesse, and it’s not nearly enough. My cheeks burn under his continued inspection. Jesse has done this a handful of times since our freshman year. Glance at me as if I’m someone worth looking at, someone worth laughing with a little too loud and smiling with a little too much. Then he remembers who I am and snaps his gaze to someone else.

  But he’s not looking away now. I inhale deeply to act like I don’t care, but I do. Jesse may not be the same person he was before high school, but he has the same beautiful green eyes, and the same mess of red hair that curls out from under his baseball cap—because only Jesse would wear a baseball cap to a funeral.

  I can’t help but notice the scar on his chin from when the branch of a tree we climbed broke and we smacked the ground hard. He took the brunt of the fall, catching me so that I would land on him. I cried when he bled. Being Jesse, he laughed at the adventure.

  While so much has changed since we were friends, there is so much that hasn’t. Jesse is still rebellious, unconventional and lost.

  The preacher welcomes us, starts into some scripture that must mean something to
someone other than me, and Jesse returns his attention to the front.

  As the pastor gives the eulogy, my chest aches. It’s not the pastor’s words that suck the air out of my body, but Jesse. Strong Jesse. Carefree Jesse. Peter Pan in the flesh. But with each excruciating minute that passes, his shoulders buckle and his posture slouches until he’s bent over. Arms on his legs, head down and fingers clasped together as if he’s in prayer.

  Jesse doesn’t pray. At least I’ve never known him to, and if he is now, it must mean he’s dying.

  “… and if Suzanne was known for anything, it was love. She might have been unorthodox, but her love was intense.” The pastor had mainly been preaching on the side with the most people, but he edges his way to stand in front of Jesse. To the person Suzanne had taken care of for most of his life. “And she loved you the most.”

  Jesse’s head drops into his hands, and I wince as if I’ve been punched. He loved his grandmother, and she loved him in return. That was one of the problems with Jesse—there weren’t that many people who ever truly loved him.

  I loved him once—the way a six-year-old loves with abandon. I loved him how I once loved myself. Jesse was freedom when so much of my life meant confinement. He was laughter during dark nights, he was the warrior who scared the monsters under my bed away … he was my friend.

  I stand. Abruptly. In such a rush that all eyes are on me again, but I don’t care. I walk up the aisle and refuse to acknowledge a single soul. The pastor pauses, and when I sit next to Jesse, it’s still with some space between us, but I’m closer than anyone else.

  The pastor continues again, for another fifteen minutes, and when he stops there’s silence … as silent as a church can be … awkward and eerie. The Funeral Brigade leaves first, and they’re the type who don’t start chatting until the door to the church is open, but once sunlight drifts in, their voices sound like the buzz of bees.

  Jesse’s uncle rises to his feet, approaches the pastor and whispers in his ear. The pastor nods then says, “Jesse, if you want to talk, I’ll be in my office.”

  Jesse doesn’t respond, doesn’t gesture, doesn’t do a thing. He keeps his head down, his arms on his knees, his hands clasped. I raise an eyebrow at the pastor, an unspoken plea that he do his magical pastoral stuff that makes people better. Maybe Hallelujah him a few times and slap him on the back of the head to declare him saved.

  Instead, the pastor leaves with Jesse’s uncle. Both of them are jerks.

  When the door to the secret back room closes, I wish the pastor and Jesse’s uncle to be “blessed” with a short burst of food poisoning. Of course, wishing doesn’t do anything and wishing won’t help Jesse.

  I lace and unlace my fingers. What do I do? What do I say? I look over at Jesse and try to find the right words, but there are no words. I have absolutely nothing to offer him. Maybe I’m as bad as the others.

  Perching on the edge of the pew, I raise my hand to perform a pat on the back, and I open my mouth for the standby of, “I’m sorry for your loss,” but before I can carry either out, Jesse says, “Stay, Tink.”

  Stay, Tink. It’s like he ripped out my heart, and I’m watching it pump in his hands. Tink was his nickname for me. It’s a reminder of how simpler life was over three years ago.

  The part of me that still hurts from when he ended our friendship wants to tell him where to shove the idea of me staying, but the part that used to look forward to capturing glowing fireflies in a jar slides back into the pew and stays.

  JESSE

  Today feels like the worst day of my life, but the scar on my back is proof it’s not.

  My uncle follows me into the trailer and shakes his head in disgust. It’s what he does. Sticks his nose up when he walks in as if the place stinks like a garbage dump. But like it has for as long as I can remember, the trailer smells of oatmeal cookies.

  This place is home. The furniture filling the trailer is antiques from the farmhouse Gran was born in—the aging and condemned building next to the trailer. On the blue walls of the living room are paintings of moss-covered trees bending over long, straight paths. Being a neat freak, Gran had everything in place, everything right, everything but me.

  Thinking the curse was ridiculous town folklore, poor Uncle Marshall married into the family. He lost his wife, my aunt Julia, two years after they married. Even still, he doesn’t believe. His fancy law degree and shiny practice make him too practical for the reality that there’s something soiled in the blood of my family.

  Gotta admit, I feel sorry for the man. He loved Aunt Julia. She loved him. Just because I pity him doesn’t mean I like him, and it doesn’t mean he likes me. The sole reason the two of us have stayed civil died two days ago.

  “How are you?” Marshall asks, and from his tone, he’s sincere, but the question is stupid. I lost my grandmother. He knows how I’m doing.

  “Okay.” I rest Gran’s urn on the mantel of the heater that was built to look like a fireplace then place a hand on the side of the urn as if I’m touching her.

  God, I miss her already. Holes in hearts hurt, and I have too many holes for me to be breathing. Gran poured her love into me, so much, I should have been fixed, but maybe that’s the problem with having too many holes. All the love that’s poured in falls out.

  A year ago, Gran dragged my ass out of bed to help her pull weeds. She wore that old floppy sunhat with a foot-long brim, wearing overalls like she was the one who would be getting dirty. She didn’t get dirty, though. She sat in her lawn chair as I dug in the earth and bossed me around. That’s not a weed, Jesse, that’s an onion. I raised you to know the difference.

  Are you sure? It looks like a weed.

  I had held up the onion and fought the smile on my face. I knew what I was pulling, and I knew it would piss her off. Seeing the onion in my hand, Gran had gone into an eloquent swearing rant that could make a sailor blush and me smile even in my darkest moments. At the end of her rant, at the end of most every rant, she laughed. Good and long.

  From her lawn chair throne, she readjusted the hat on her head and ordered me back to work. She was the queen of our sad sod of land.

  “You were wise to not scatter her ashes in the cemetery.” My uncle tries again for cordial. This is why Gran liked him, why she kept him tied to the Lachlins even though he moved on, remarried and started a family with someone new. “She would have wanted to be spread on her land.”

  Scattering her ashes … my eyes burn, and I turn my back to Marshall to open the living room curtains. Scarlett’s massive home comes into view. It’s towering, made of stone, and when I was a kid, I used to think it was a castle.

  The Copelands’ mini-mansion and my trailer are the only homes on our long gravel road. We’re a mile from a paved road, and even farther from a decent subdivision. We’re literally the edge of nowhere with no other signs of life besides birds and the occasional lost deer.

  Across the road, Scarlett walks barefoot to the mailbox. She holds her shoes in her hand and her sundress swishes with her stride, occasionally showing more leg than she typically allows. Her hair is tied in a knot at the base of her neck. When we were kids, she was all knees and elbows with a tomboy attitude, but now she’s grown-up and gorgeous.

  Long black hair, blue eyes, Scarlett.… my Tink.

  The service. Shoes in hand. She walked. I lower my head and silently curse. I should have noticed she didn’t have a ride, should have offered her a way back instead of leaving her alone. I should have done a lot of things differently, but I didn’t. Story of my life.

  Oblivious to me watching, Scarlett flips through the letters. Too many times, in the dark moments of night, I think of her and lazy, hot days under the willow tree. I think of the endless summer nights chasing fireflies in the long blades of grass. I think of her tinkling laughter, her obsession with bright stars in the black sky, and of her daring smile.

  Cobwebs of the past have overtaken my brain, and if I continue to linger, I’ll suffocate in the web. T
he past isn’t a place I like to play, as most of my memories are too brutal to visit.

  Here and now. Stay in the present and stay focused on the goal—my land.

  I take off my baseball cap and run a hand through my hair as I cross over the invisible line of the living room to the kitchen. I open the fridge and there’s not much there. Sliced ham, two individual prepackaged slices of cheese, leftover pizza and beer.

  “The church property was one of the first pieces of Lachlin land sold off,” Marshall says as he sits on the love seat. It’s not a comfortable piece of furniture, but it’s probably worth more than my life. That is if I could find someone stupid enough to drive to the middle of nowhere to appraise it as an antique. “Did you know that?”

  Yeah, I did. Gran told me every bit of information on the Lachlins. My own personal bedtime stories in the vein of the Brothers Grimm. My family lineage is so messed up there are days I would have preferred being told I was three-quarters troll.

  Over half this county used to belong to the Lachlins, but slowly the land has been sold off. Generation after generation, year by year, parcel by parcel, in order to keep the Lachlins from going under in debt. Now, the six hundred acres and me are all that’s left. I’m land rich but cash poor. Not a good combination.

  I keep staring at the fridge because my mind is running slow. In the sink is Gran’s empty china teacup. I can’t bring myself to wash it. It’s as if I do, I’m admitting she’s gone. A tightness in my chest and I suck in a shaky breath. God, I’m dying.

  The refrigerator motor kicks on and draws me back to the near-empty shelves. I shouldn’t do it. Won’t help Marshall’s opinion of me, but I lost the only person in my life I allowed myself to love. A beer buzz sounds good.

  I pull out a beer, and because Gran loved southern hospitality, I tilt the bottle in his direction. “Want one?”

  “You’re not old enough to drink.”

  I’m not, but Gran never cared. Marshall’s answer wasn’t a firm no so I grab another and slide it to him across the coffee table Gran said was imported from England by her great-great grandfather. I sit on the only piece of comfortable furniture in the room—Gran’s recliner.